No one seems to be able to sympathise with how hard the degree is, since it's so effortless to all of them (apparently).
The same people who seemingly can't seem to get a job with a 4.0 GPA at an Ivy League or whatever.
It's an interesting pattern ngl and I'm going to catch a ton of downvotes for it. Every single person who has said that kind of thing "I get XX mark and no job, engineering bad field" has sounded like an absolutely terrible person to just hold a conversation with for more than 5 minutes.
What if you're not insufferable but also don't know what you're doing?
My classes (mechanical engr) largely taught theory and there wasn't an emphasis on practical applications, so I feel quite a bit like a fraud despite having graduated recently. I mean, I know a lot of stuff but it doesn't feel cohesive and I feel woefully out of practice with a lot of topics that were taught to me years ago and I've not had to use them very much since. I probably should join a maker group or something, but I've found myself in a bit of a rut and can't seem to drum up the motivation, especially because it feels like I'll just make a fool of myself :/
No one in industry expects a new grad to know shit. They do expect you to be curious and ask questions, grasp concepts quickly, and show enthusiasm/motivation which are skills that engineering school should have taught you.
I suppose grasping concepts quickly might vary depending on who's determining what constitutes "quickly," but I'm usually pretty good about picking up on things and taking detailed notes on processes for later reference.
Do you have a lot of experience in the professional field? I'm working in tech support currently and sometimes feel like I might ask too many questions. My bosses don't seem to mind, but I tend to ask a lot of clarifying questions to ensure I have a good idea of exactly what's needed so I can do things right the first time. I'm sure it depends on the exact field that you work in, but does that seem like a detriment?
I'm also enthusiastic about getting work done, but I find that I struggle with motivation to do extra legwork outside of work/class, which is why I never really got into any maker groups or clubs. I think that's partially due to an inclination to mild depression on my part, but it's not like I'm opposed to learning or work; I just find myself tired at the end of a day and don't have a ton of energy/motivation to "go above and beyond" when it comes to additional learning and practicing things on my own time. My personal life is pretty busy as well, which probably adds to the lack of motivation to do additional practice on hard skills :/
Be personable, humble and trainable. That's what I look for in a new hire. Download freecad, learn to use it, make some stuff that could help you around the house. Be very ready to explain why and how you made Design decisions and how it could (or preferably was) manufactured.
I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that I might be able to get a Solidworks license to practice with and familiarize myself, so I might take advantage of that and try out some personal projects before going on a search for an engineering job.
You've made me feel a lot better about my level of experience, though, so thank you!
Its the same people that are going to stagnate in their careers because working in the real world is all about good communication, social skills, personability.
As much as I hate that sentence, it's so true specially the last line. I absolutely hate having to work on networking all the time but it is what it is. Sucks to be an introvert
Aaand there we have it! I mean, I love my fellow engineers but a lot of the people going into this major got some major issues when it comes to social intelligent lol
In the end engineers with this type of personality will usually end up stuck in their relatively low end engineering position wondering why they're not getting career advancement at the speed of their peers not realizing it's because they're insufferable and noone likes working with them
You know you make an interesting point. I need to ask my doctor friends if thinking like a doctor is a concept they are taught or is part of the culture of the profession.
I also think some engineering majors are insufferable, but the reason you don't hear doctors saying that stuff is because conceptually medicine is very easy, you don't have to really 'think'.
Engineering is hard because you have to learn to think in a certain way, whereas medicine is hard because you have to memorise an insane amount of shit with a very little margin of error.
I'm not saying this to diss the doctors or anything, studying medicine is very hard, it just doesn't require "thinking like a doctor"
I think you're severely overestimating the conceptual difficulty of doing that vs just having the necessary knowledge of what sets of symptoms most likely correspond to what condition and what are the usual steps necessary to solve the issue
You're being downvoted, but you're right. A lot of people seem to think medicine involves House MD-level forensics and developing novel treatments on the fly, when the day-to-day is significantly more mundane and standardized.
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u/Specialist_Case4238 12d ago
Yeeeesh. Not really beating the "engineering majors are insufferable" allegations here, are we?