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ABSTRACT: Junior engineers often enter their careers thinking that they have learned
all the academic concepts they need to be successful in their field. However, once they
begin working, they are asked to perform tasks that they only vaguely remember
from class, to use computer programs that they have never heard of, and to perform
calculations that they have no idea how to begin. The truth is that undergraduate and
even graduate coursework provides engineers with only the basic structure for knowledge
that they will develop during the course of their careers. Well-rounded and successful
engineers need to approach their careers with an open mind and expect to learn new
skills on the job, often under the pressure of impending deadlines and demanding clients.
The willingness to learn, be flexible, and perform tasks that one is not familiar with is
invaluable in the workplace, and it can open doors that take a career in new and
exciting directions. The knowledge associated with experience and perseverance is far
greater than that gleaned from textbooks, although developing that knowledge requires
two characteristics that are not taught in engineering curriculum: patience and
flexibility.
INTRODUCTION
In a practical field such as engineering, education is
tailored to a students future occupation. Graduates
may therefore enter the workforce with the expectation that they have the technical skills they need and
that the time has come to execute those skills. These
young engineers may not fully understand how much
they still have to learn in their field, how different a
problem will seem when it occurs in the real world,
and the potential unexpected turns their career may
take as it develops. In this paper, we present our perspective and advice to young engineers regarding what
to expect as they enter their career, and we emphasize
the importance of maintaining a patient and flexible
mind-set as they encounter inevitable challenges.
We have each worked at GEI Consultants for nearly
seven years, but we focused our education choices on
Leadership and Management in Engineering
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like she did not know anything about soil, she did not
have the basic understanding that her peers had, and
she needed too much help. In addition, she had to do
more fieldwork than she had anticipated, and she did
not immediately appreciate the knowledge she was
gaining through those field projects and her exposure
to different types of construction. She quickly became discouraged, as she was often working in the
cold, rain, or heat and returning home muddy and exhausted after long days spent arguing with drillers and
contractors. She felt as if all her hard work in college
was for naught. Still, she muddled through. She took
on tasks she did not want and did not have any idea
how to complete. She worked hard, worked late, and
never said no. She did not know where her career was
headed, and at times she had no idea whether she was
doing a good job or whether someone had to clean up
everything she didbut she kept trying. She also kept
records of things she had learned, so that she could
refer to them in the future, and made notes about mistakes she made and how to avoid them in the future.
Slowly, after much frustration and discouragement,
Sonia began to realize that even though it had taken a
while, she could now answer many questions without
struggling. She was starting to figure out the solutions
to problems on her own. She realized that geotechnical
engineering was founded on many of the same basic
principles she had learned in school and that she already knew how to think critically, solve a problem,
and work collaboratively to reach a goal. During
graduate school she had learned two skills that were,
and still are, critical to her development: admitting
when she did not know something and having confidence in her own abilities. Both skills are invaluable
at any point in a career. However, she found that she
had forgotten the importance of having confidence in
her own abilities during her first few years as an engineer. Development of confidence is often a turning
point in a young engineers career because confidence
is obvious to others. The more you respect yourself,
the easier it is for others to respect you too.
REAPING THE BENEFITS
When you demonstrate patience and flexibility early
in your career, you will reap the benefits in your technical skills and in your professional development.
Concepts learned in a practical setting rather than late
at night cramming for an exam are much easier to recall the next time they will be useful. Learning in context also teaches you not only what is correct and
works on paper, but what is practical. It did not take
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Mary too many calls from a contractor midconstruction to learn to draw concrete details clearly and to
learn that varying both the rebar size and spacing
within the same slab is a bad idea.
Experiencing the direct consequences of your actions will also put you well on your way to developing
engineering judgment. Determining a factor of safety
for a homework problem will not give you the ability
to estimate the stability of a slope knowing only its
soil properties and angle of repose. Only after contemplating, analyzing, and designing one slope after another will you develop a sense of the answer before
picking up a pencil or a calculator. Good judgment
not only helps you to make an educated guess at the
answer to a problem, but perhaps more important,
it helps you to know whether a carefully calculated
answer is in the ballpark or completely off base.
Apart from the direct technical benefits, entering
your field with a great willingness to learn will make
you extremely valuable to your colleagues. Managers
are more likely to delegate tasks to you if you are interested in taking them on, regardless of your experience, rather than if you are hesitant and limit yourself
to what you are already comfortable with. The enthusiasm to learn new things is a self-fulfilling prophesy,
because as you gain a reputation as a willing and able
engineer regardless of the task, the more skills and
concepts you learn and the more valuable you will be
in the workplace. Becoming a go-to person also helps
you to build a network of colleagues who become excellent resources in the quest for continued learning
and development.
Being open-minded as a young engineer can also
have the benefit of opening doors to unexpected experiences, which can ultimately take your career in a new
direction. Learning on the job is different from learning in a classroom, and you may find that types of
projects and specialties you thought you wouldnt be
interested in are more intriguing in real lifeand vice
versa. When Mary completed her undergraduate degree, she swore off structural engineering. Based on
her problem sets, she felt that the field was dry and
had too many rules, and she wanted to do only geotechnical engineering going forward. Seven years later
she began designing excavation support and started
to accept that structural engineering was essential if
she wanted to understand and design complete earthretention systems. She learned this lesson with reluctance, but as she gained momentum, she discovered
that the structural aspects of these systems were not
so boring when she understood the purpose of beam
sizes and weld specifications in the bigger picture.
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Currently, the two of us are struggling with business development, learning to take ownership of selling our companys services, and competing with other
firms. We are faced with the daunting task of bringing in work for us to manage and for others to do.
We need to start passing the technical skills we have
learned on to others. Our focus has shifted from doing
calculations to thinking about the bigger picture and
bringing all the pieces of a project together effectively
and efficiently. Slowly, our focus must continue to
shift from being known within the company to becoming known within the industry and knowing
others within the industry.
So the cycle begins again. We feel as if we are out
of our league, we do not know exactly what to do or
how to connect with others, and we wonder whether
we are doing the right thing. We are lucky because
we have been here before, in a different setting,
Sonia Swift is a project manager at GEI Consultants, Inc., 400 Unicorn Park Dr., Woburn,
MA 01801. She can be reached at sswift@
geiconsultants.com.
Mary Nodine is a project manager at GEI Consultants, Inc., 400 Unicorn Park Dr., Woburn,
MA 01801. She can be reached at mnodine@
LME
geiconsultants.com.
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