Unsolicited Advice
In recent years I have found myself collecting tidbits of unsolicited advice to my fellow graduates, and the thought occurred to me that organizing these suggestions may be quite useful to you, the reader. Some of this advice is being regurgitated to you by many of your peers, and some of it originates with your past professors and managers, but on average the advice that makes my short list of suggestions below is nice to keep in the back of your mind.
My short list of advice is the following: have fun, take risks, always learn new things, move out of your comfort zone, spend some time in industry, collaborate often, be nice to secretaries, always keep your resume updated, learn to argue, learn to write, and do not take yourself too seriously.
And so let us begin first with some obvious advice: have fun. If you are not having fun, then you are doing something wrong, or you are in the wrong job. Engineering can be the most enjoyable pursuit in the world, as long as you can keep from getting jaded, and maintain your childlike wonder with the world around you. If you love what you do, then you know what I mean.
Take risks. In your career and in your entrepreneurial pursuits, risk taking will teach you much, and give you a wisdom that the crowd following shy path will not provide. Always learn new things, like a new programming language, a new hardware platform, a new type of modeling tool, etc. You will grow more than just your resume. It may be the 11th hour for a project when your unexpected understanding of integer linear programming saves the day. That can lead to anything from a slap on the back to a nice promotion.
Move out of your comfort zone. Learn to interact with chemical and civil engineers, database administrators, scientists, and others. As engineers we are tasked with making many things, few of which involve pure engineering within our own tiny field. I recommend that you read “Startup Nation”, where they explain the value of moving beyond your comfort zone. It also helps to spend some time in industry. Besides for the fact that we all like making money, you will really enrich your resume and your understanding of the working world by working in a company. You will start to understand terms like dev, prod, QA, int, scrum, and even meeting in a new and useful context.
Another good tidbit of advice is to collaborate often. Every time you work with a team, you will broaden your horizons. There is a special type of knowledge transfer that takes place within a group of collaborators, and an economy of scale that stretches you beyond the limited world of your desk, or pair programming. The bigger a network of coauthors and collaborators you can amass, the more easily you will hear about jobs, find projects in common, and find helpful advice when you get stuck on a problem.
Be nice to secretaries. We often forget that secretaries are the gatekeepers to the organization. They are the filter between job application and hiring manager; employee and organization. On that note, I highly suggest that you always keep your resume and web profile updated. Every time you complete a training session, article or project, write it into your resume and online profile.
Learn to argue. I suggest “The back of the napkin” to learn more about idea sharing. It is key to realize that your colleagues are not “against” you, they just need to be convinced with data and/or logic. Learning to command a presentation, and to write a clear technical paper are the big guns of getting your way at work and in research. I also suggest reading “The best method for presentation of research results in theses and papers” by Ivan Stojmenovic, and learning LaTeX helps too. Finally, try and remember that you are a limited human being that does not know everything. It is way better to say that you do not know than to make something up. Just try and do not take yourself too seriously, since the whole point of this life thing is to take risks and have fun on your path to success.
