I have mentored a number of engineers, interns, and co-ops throughout my engineering career. Using this experience, I thought it would be helpful to compile a list of 10 things aspiring engineers should know how to do. These are things that should be taught in college, but are not emphasized enough. I wish someone had let me know about these things! My hope is that these help you have a successful internship, co-op or first engineering job and that you avoid the challenges some of my mentees ran into.
For example, one morning, I had given my co-op a task that should’ve only taken a few hours to complete. It was getting towards the end of the day, and I still had not heard back from him on how the testing went. I walked over to his desk and to my dismay he was sitting there surfing the web!
Come to find out he had completed the testing. But then just went back to his desk and waited for me to come find him to give him something else to do.
If you are a co-op, intern, or just starting out as an engineer, please do not do this! This is a sure-fire way to get on your boss’ bad side. Engineers are busy. They do not want to babysit you.
You need to be a self starter and seek work out on your own.
Do not sit around waiting for someone to come find you with a task. If someone gives you something to do it is your job to follow up with them on the next steps.
If the person who gave you the assignment is not around, then you should find something else to work on. There is always more work. If you cannot find anything, then you can do tutorials in SOLIDWORKS or Minitab or another software available at the company.
In addition to being a self starter, here are nine other things engineers wish you knew.
1. Statistics
Engineers use statistics on a daily basis to drive decisions. Below are some examples in which statistics are used:
- Validate a test method
- Comparing two or more data sets to determine if a change you made, made a difference
- Assessing the capability of a data set to determine if it is capable of meeting the specification
Unfortunately, my undergraduate education did not include a statistics course. Therefore, I was behind in this area when I first started as an engineer. I had to learn on the job.
If you can take a statistics class during college, then definitely do it! If it is not part of your curriculum, then try to take it as an elective. I wish someone would have told me this when I was in college.
2. Receive Constructive Criticism
As an engineer, your work is constantly under review of others. These people could include your peers, your boss, more senior engineers or other functions, such as quality or regulatory. You want your work to be thoroughly reviewed to ensure nothing is missed.
Because your work will be reviewed often, you need to be able to handle feedback or constructive criticism.
I have seen this be a challenge for some engineers just starting out. They feel their work is being attacked or they feel bad because they need to make changes.
Know that the feedback is not personal and welcome it. The constructive criticism will make you a better engineer because you will know what to do the next time you have that task and be glad someone in your work caught the issue before the product launches.
3. Be Resourceful
If you are a new engineer, just starting out, chances are the first tasks you are asked to do, you will not know how to solve and that is okay! No one expects you to know the answer or the steps to find the answer to all the problems.
However, what is expected of you is that you are resourceful. You need to know what information you need to help you find the answer. It is also helpful to know the right people to ask. Sometimes, these people are called subject matter experts. These are engineers that are highly knowledgeable in a subject.
For example, if I had a question about statistics, I went to the statistician at the company. If I had a question regarding metals, I went to the engineer that had 20 plus years of experience working with metals.
College exposes you to a lot of different theories and subjects. No one expects you to memorize all of it, but just know that it is there. Also, know what to look up.
4. Persevere
Perseverance comes after resourcefulness because these two go together. Again, no one expects you to know the answer to every problem, but engineers are expected to have perseverance.
You need to be able to continue trying to solve the problem no matter how many issues or failures you run into. Each time the path you were going down fails, you learn something that gets you one step closer to a solution.
You need to be willing to keep pushing forward and coming up with new plans to get you to a solution.
5. Justify Everything
Why did you choose +/- 0.005″ as the tolerance? Is +/- 0.010” acceptable?
Why is the handle blue?
How did you determine the handle to catheter joint must be able to withstand 5 lb of force?
Every decision you make as an engineer will need to be justified. Some of the reasons you need to be able to defend each choice you make are below:
- Another engineer should be able to reproduce your work
- Your decisions will impact cost of the product. For example, the tighter the tolerance, the more expensive the part will be.
- Quality and regulatory will need to see justification.
- Your decisions will impact the timeline. Maybe the product is cable of meeting a specification of 2 lbs but not 5 lbs. Therefore, the timeline will be delayed in order to meet a specification of 5 lbs. This is why you will need to be able to justify why the product needs meet 5 lbs.
- Things will change when you move on to a different project or product. For example, after the product launches the process to make the product may change to decrease costs. Specifications may be impacted, therefore, the engineers looking to make the change will need to understand where the specification came from.
6. Label Everything
When you are developing a product you will be conducting a lot of testing. You will probably have different iterations of a design. Therefore, it is critical to label all of the prototypes so you can keep track of how they perform during testing.
You will also need to label them so you know how they were manufactured. Each time a group of products are built on the manufacturing line they are given a lot number, so that the product can be traced back to the specific manufacturing run. This way, you will know exactly how the prototype was built. Therefore, when you get a prototype that performs well in testing, you will know how it was built and you will be able to rebuild it again.7. Be Detail Oriented
As an engineer you need to be detail oriented. Here are some examples of why you will need to be detail oriented:
- Writing test methods- An operator will need to be able to follow the instructions you laid out to execute the test properly. Therefore, you need to include all details, even things that someone might take for granted, such as how do you place the part on the microscope slide. It might be obvious to you the orientation, but not to an operator.
- Experimentation- Most engineers will need to keep a lab notebook to detail experiments they run. You will need to document what you did so that someone else down the road can reproduce the experiment and results that you obtained.
- Reviewing documents- You will need to review and approve other engineers’ work. Therefore, being detail oriented will help you catch any issues they may have missed.
- Inspecting parts- As an engineer you will inspect a lot of parts throughout the development process. You will need to be able to pick up on any abnormalities, to ensure the design meets the drawing requirements.
8. Follow Directions
There are a lot of procedures you will need to follow as an engineer. Some of the procedures include test methods and standard operating procedures for building product or operating in a lab.
Not following directions can be detrimental to the timeline and cost of the project you are working on.
I had a co-op one time that did not follow directions. He was executing a few different tests and we had limited parts. Therefore, the order the tests were run in was very important.
He had to complete the non-destructive tests (ones that did not destroy the parts) and then complete the one destructive test (one that breaks the parts so they cannot be used for another test).
Unfortunately, he did not follow directions and did the destructive test first. This caused a six week delay in the timeline because we had to wait for more parts to be built to perform the non-destructive tests that he missed.
So please, follow directions!
9. Problem Solve
This is probably one of the more obvious ones on the list, however, I put it on because it cannot be stressed enough. Being an engineer is like being a professional problem solver.
The one constant of engineering is there are always problems to solve! College lets you know about the theory and tools out there so that you can use them to solve real world problems.
The most important assignments in your undergrad career will be the project based assignments. Here you will get exposure to solving problems other than just word problems and equations. When you are looking for a college to attend for engineering, choose one that has a lot of project work in its curriculum. This will best prepare you for the real world.
These are the 10 things I wish someone told me about before I started my first internship! Engineers are expecting you to not only have the technical acumen, but these ten skills as well:
- Be A Self Starter
- Statistics
- Receive Constructive Criticism
- Be Resourceful
- Persevere
- Justify Everything
- Label Everything
- Be Detail Oriented
- Follow Directions
- Problem Solve
Do you need some motivation to help you keep moving towards your goal? The good news is that we’ve built a Genius List Template so that you can track everything you have accomplished or overcome that makes you proud. Then, you can refer to it whenever you are feeling stuck and need some inspiration. This will definitely pay off! For a limited time, get your FREE template now!
Did any of these surprise you? Let me know in the comments!
Want more? Don’t miss these helpful posts!
- What Do Engineers Do?
- Why Effective Communication Is A Vital Skill For Engineers
- Welcome To The Role Of An Engineer Series!
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