Speaker 3: And welcome to the next episode of

Speaker 1: after hours is New York rear after hours online got to run out there. And then how you doing

Speaker 2: buddy light up? Cuz it's it's June Snow Summit ear

Speaker 1: feels good feels good feels good to be

Speaker 3: bring it up the next after hours

Speaker 1: topic man. That's what I want to talk about for a little while. But basically the idea of what you wished you learned while you were in in college size undergrad. Mostly, I guess mostly undergrad. There's definitely things about college that is not structured while to actually actually do well and you know, you can't can't think about while I hate it when they're playing versus a car they both travel, but an airplane is just Based on its nature better suited for longer travel with a bunch of people as opposed to a car which is better for your travel just say no by the nature of it. It's better at certain things. And so it's in that same way and that same analogy apply to education in Graham school and University is also true though. We kind of wanted to talk about this idea cuz it comes up and you know that besides talk with people love, you know, well what what is undergrad not do well for you in this case? So what did not help set you up with and really the main point being to help those listening acknowledge them so that they know that they need to work on them or that they are not going to realistically and

Speaker 3: universities like this is not like it's just because of its nature like you

Speaker 1: can't knock a plane for being bad at Short Term short distance travel it knows that is that that's just part of it is still just going to do it for long distance travel thing in the same is true for it for universities that he needs to do what it does best, but it's still important to acknowledge what Not particularly good at doing

Speaker 2: definitely and I think it like we spent four years usually some of us have to take a longer in undergrad and bass by Fender like you got to do it. Right? We we expect that's over Paris for the next 30-40 years of life. And now we're working like you're not going to look impress all that into it aside from things as changing constantly like you're there cuz you got an engineering degree. You didn't have time to cover everything else or the energy to do it and and because universities have a little bit of a split goal there to prepare you for a job. But since they're also depending on University can be heavily invested research. They're also kind of teaching more to that side prepare you for graduate school or something further. And so when you end up an industry that you what you have a mix of skills and things you've learned but it's not always everything you need and I think we're going to talk about here is a lot of these things are not necessarily technical cuz you can get a great. Do I get University? That's what they're built for my textbooks equation school, we can do that but it's a lot of other things that that you don't get winter in school

Speaker 3: and really kind of a mean this at the idea of

Speaker 1: like, you know, you go through undergrad and I sit down at your job and okay what didn't I get from undergrad that I really wish I would have got them know like what it what I feel like I'm now lagging and even even in I guess part of that transition, I think that's where I feel like I felt at the most and I think people feel at the most is this process of oh, I'm a senior and having to start to transition to the next stage of life. I don't have some of these tools that I need to do this and so I guess maybe the star we can start kind of a few things that we talked about. Well, I guess maybe the name of that start like during school, like what are some of the things that happened during school that that are good to acknowledge and then we'll work our way towards the transmission out and I want it's what you realize you needed to learn while you're actually working. Until I think one of the first things that I want to talk about is this idea of having to teach to the middle in people talk about this in even K through 12 and in such things like that, but this idea of your trying to do trying to train a huge group of people sometimes thousands of students that hundreds of students and students and big lectures and make you can't necessarily following but you can't you can't follow individual people and give them exactly what they needed at any given time, right if you're learning a subject from a textbook you be like, okay, well chapter one was easy for me chapter 2 tartar. So what's been more runtime of chapter one in my stomach after 2. I'm testing individual front, but you can't do that. You have to just shoot for the middle. You know, we're in the same time on chapter 1 and chapter 2, but if you struggle with one or two like you was going to have to figure it out in that that can make it hard for a for the outliers on both sides, you know, whether whether you're constantly struggling you feel like they're going too fast or whether you're always bored me feel like they're going too slow. And that's just kind of the nature of it until part of that is self-reflection and understanding where you sit in that in realizing. Okay. Hey, I'm struggling with this they're going to keep moving. So I need to either go to a Learning Center or I talked to some people and really focus cuz I'm falling behind or was also on the other side for me. It's like if you're struggling and if you're struggling to stay focused and you want to learn more that's where like undergrad research comes into play or self-learning outside where you can do these other things to help supplement and make it more exciting for you swing both ways, you know in chemistry classes. I always struggle for me. I just didn't get it. You know, I would read the text books never talk and I just I just wasn't coming together for me. I do you know how I like to have a systems approach thinker like I learn things by understanding the system so that when you asked me a question, I can think about my understanding of the system and then give you a response back as opposed to like memorization. Like okay. I memorize these things when they ask me the question. Amber. Cuz I memorized it but I just couldn't understand the system of chemistry or at least I didn't have the time until I had to go to Learning Center and like every week I'm ever had appointment and I just kept asking probably what sounds like dumb questions but that's I just knew I needed to otherwise I was going to fall behind. So yeah, that would be an example of how I work it when I felt like I was in the lower lower tier of success of class

Speaker 2: or two. I think you can start off. I mean when you go into college, obviously you come in with some sort of body of knowledge based on the high school you went to where you were at you may start off a different level. But as you go through your level they change like you said and I think sometimes that's going to be because the material is hard or maybe it's because you're taking class outside of your normal domain and you don't know about it as well where I I had like a senior members may be scratched. So I don't know math class that I had to take and it was like me one of their engineer and a bunch of like math majors and I'm like, I haven't touch math that much at all. Like I'm on I'm on the bottom here, but obviously The professors teaching a middle cuz they're full of math Majors like they're going to do this. I'm going to put an extra work so understanding where you're at and really getting the help you need and this kind of leads into one thing that I kind of identify this something. I wish I'd learned better was really actually how to learn going to college because when you're at college, everything is very well laid out there. Are you go to these set Define classes that have a syllabus for them have the professor is going to present the material to you. Usually electroformed. You're going to have a notebook. Here's desired outcome. Here's where I need to be at the end of semester test along the way which is nice tats all laid out, but when you get into the real real world that what you're trying to learn a new skill and that similar way or he something on the job like, it's not as laid out. It's not as clear. It's a lot fuzzier in this. There's no clear definition of success or failure in that or learning outcomes along the way, so you'll have to learn how to teach yourself in a lot of ways and that comes down to figuring out and thank you. Learning style in college because usually you're you are going to use learning style that is presented to you but usually lecture and book and maybe that doesn't always work. Maybe that is you need one-on-one instruction. So it's getting ta help presser help from like a learning coaching Center type help or something. Some people like watching lectures watching a video lectures. That's that helps them a lot stop and then I'll rewind and watch the video again, but you don't always

Speaker 3: get what

Speaker 1: I'm thinking about other things. So I do it now wait a whole paragraph and if you remember any of that and of course, I don't know cuz I was thinking about something else while I read the paragraph so like and he's going to kind of go back and tell you I think it's important. That you work on how how you learn right? Cuz it's I mean, it seems kind of some kind of like a weird like you need to learn how to learn like that's what I'm doing. I'm really not you're not really being taught how to learn, you know, when you're in a math class and you chapter 1 in your on derivatives, like you're learning how to take derivatives. You're not learning how to learn how to take the redness

Speaker 2: metal learning figure out how to learn through Stephanie books. You can read on this Penny was interested but

Speaker 1: bring back the summer like self-reflection of where you are cuz you know, the professor's got how many students plus all kinds of stuff going on and unfortunately, I think it happens where students are to struggle and professors just have to be like while they're there just struggling like if they come to me like a professor if a student comes to them and it is honest and self-reflection thing. Hey, I'm struggling. Here's what I'm struggling with. Like, I think they would go help them. Best I can but they're not going to actively go out and say hey this person looks like he or she struggling I'm going to reach out to them and pull them in. I mean that's that's a rare case just cuz it's just again, it's a house designs. If you don't mean to sound design work, it's not how the airplane flies in this case. And so that's just something you need to acknowledge when you're in the classes like you need to acknowledge where you sit and that you need to ask her a question and then you're going to have to learn how to learn in that learn how to learn skill is definitely good definitely cannot be applied. Like I think one of the things that's interesting for me about reflecting on being an engineer getting out of undergrad is realizing what I came to a problem and Industry that I knew I had learned before but I had to relearn but I didn't know how to do that cuz I you know, it's different when you're taking the class you just after the lecture and you got the text book and you know that the questions presented like okay. It's a it's a static trust problem. We know what's the Loden in member see like, okay. I like you just saw that you just how the lecture Set a textbook but if you yourself 10 years from there, where you remember at one point you knew it we have to learn again and then maybe a silly example cuz you could probably Google like how do you solve a cross problem

Speaker 3: and there be probably reasonable videos but I'm going to tell you that there's going to be things that you think that you would Google and it would be great resources for and there's going to be nothing like NADA like it's going to be uncomfortable the results you see back from Google I get it happen to me multiple times when I call I learn this before Google Google enter. Not none of this is relevant to what I'm looking for and you go crap. What the hell

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean engineering is is Google able to some degree when you're learning. What's the equation for this but like once you get out into a job, obviously if everything was Google about you, they wouldn't need you to do it. You're you're faced with new situations and learning yet. The technical level is is way above basic things to figure out how to how to find a resource within us a person or a book or something. How do you digest that? How you learn and I go for that because you can't if you stop learning and your career, you are not going to go anywhere. I think I will try seeing people around you stuff in those people who curly stop learning Hurley stagnated and somebody's been by choice, but some of that is also to spend the natural flow of I'm comfortable here why you know, I don't need to learn anything new and then there's they're

Speaker 1: together listening you might want to question of should I save my college textbooks? This is kind of irrelevant pointed this and so I mean pretty much right where I've got to like I've used it. Books in my domains like I took a vibrations class. I dunno raising vibration. Like that's my area I go back to my vibration book. I have in my noise control in the Acoustics books. I haven't gone back to like my base chemistry or Bass physics book, but So I would say like if you know the general area you want to go into like if it's like fluid or thermal or like that like that. You have that known I would keep those books for sure

Speaker 2: have a book order. I have I have more textbooks than I really should have held onto but when they're they're not worth anything

Speaker 3: to keep

Speaker 2: that's the app to get point. I don't I don't know. I have to I have to take more about that when I say no and the reason I say that is because you might jump around in your career what you're doing the domain you're in might move and for me, I'm a cat. I'm a guy likes to keep all my options open. I don't know when to shut the door. It's bad. I need I need to shut the door, but that's if

Speaker 1: you're a mental learning hoarder or a physical book order.

Speaker 3: You'll be in good company. Okay. Alright. Well, okay. So

Speaker 1: learning how to learn. Let me see what else I made some notes trying to remember they know. Okay. So the other

Speaker 3: thing when you're in undergrad from my perspective, I felt like professors were in a tough spot to give hard honest feedback in them. Like and I mean, I don't mean like your homework like writing like hey, you didn't do this like you need to learn this better. But I mean also like I mean so some of that night, so I guess there's two things here. The first thing is a great perspective. I think professors are incentivized to get better grades cuz he keeps more students off their back and I think unfortunately a lot

Speaker 1: of professors are incentivized by

Speaker 3: student surveys now, like it becomes a big part of their there no package weather at

Speaker 1: salary or 10 years or whatever

Speaker 3: until they're super incentivize to just give students better grades. I mean it really the only only thing that I know is it seems like it's just like their ethics on whether they want to keep going and that's it. Huge concern to me until you are thinking about that. I think like you just yeah, like if you really trying to get on his

Speaker 1: feedback, you probably got to go talk to in person and see

Speaker 3: if it gets it just seems like yeah, I don't know. It seems like a message. I sent a message to be easier. I'm kind of with you. I'm I'm I'm

Speaker 2: in the middle on this one. I think that I think the point about student surveys is definitely huge. I feel like every time does come around and semester you could see the professor from their perspective by being like that. Why do good because funny how my compensation package is this really liked it and I may be part of it. But I also on the other hand don't necessarily think that their feedback was always great oreillys positive and maybe it's just as middle of the road kind of lukewarm here is your grade type thing and the other part of that is made some prices are in times more generous of hey, you know, I know you tried and we in in Los X engineering it's it's going fast or you'll get points for did you show your work did you You know, what? Did you try whether they're the outcome on the answer was wrong or not you or did you show how you got there and said I can be another way, you know, maybe their feedback was good on that. And what was more important was informed to get the right answer was important to the process. That's of course not paid athlete changes once you are you going to the street, but if you were coming about this, I don't know

Speaker 1: where they're not really going to help people. Learn it and I see a lot of this, you know a lot more towards like the upper tier like the emperor percentile of the distribution if you're a really well performing student like I don't think you get a lot of good feedback because professors are so busy dealing with you know, something I guess kind of a teaching to the middle point so busy dealing with like I've been a great man like when you're going through and you're spending an entire day or more grating an assignment like to have to write and contribute more like that gets hard when in so you get to these these like ones that need a lot of content. Living the life you get exhausted by those and then you get one that's like home and they got it hears our grade. No, it's like good job like in so,

Speaker 3: you know what? I mean? Like, I feel like they like it's

Speaker 1: systemic in in the institution that then like. Yeah, like, I don't know. It's just a struggle

Speaker 2: and maybe maybe we're saying they're definitely because graders grade grade papers and they're not responsible for your teaching or learning. Maybe it is a like just in general a lack of feedback because of how the systems designed. If you don't you got a hundred kids in the class, you got to get up the room. I can't give individual feedback to every single one and help him succeed. If they want to they can come talk to me, but it's kind of you know, no one's the silly reaching out to you to give you that extra feedback. You really have to go searching it and I'm sure if you're in college listing that you've experienced that hopefully figure that out. But for me, another thing is understanding what work as an engineer is actually like so learning in the classroom is no way looks like what you're going to be doing at your job most the time. You're not

Speaker 3: help people realize that

Speaker 1: you know, you don't really you don't really know what your day today is going to be like there's like there's a solid chance unless you have internships like I thought you didn't have any chance. I would take it a real good chance when you're graduating and you're looking at job description that you have absolutely no idea what those people do every single day.

Speaker 2: Exactly know and I think that's not how I see importance of getting internship. Like I did not start doing internships until late in my time at college. So I had like to which which isn't bad but people who have more of them earlier on are going to have a little bit of damage because there's one you're going to know what some of that works looks like of what is actually doing in this specific job. I'm working in and attacked the other interns have the people around you just don't know what it's like working in an office setting where the goal of that institution is not to teach you and bring you knowledge is to produce an outcome to sell a product or provide a service to a customer and those are those are very different than what what you're doing in class. You know, you're not just solving problems or studying learning facts and things are actually out there making on that's not something you do. I think curriculum is changing a little bit now. It seems like an call just to do a little more Hands-On type things

Speaker 3: to be more like people that gives different ways you learn

Speaker 1: If you learned visually you like it on my reading you learn audibly by people talking you learn, you know by like touching and feel like I don't know what but I know that there's like different ways and what you learned that I think the labs are part of that but I think we just need to let you know. I like knowledge that are playing in the room like

Speaker 3: it like it just is what it is. Like it's not

Speaker 1: it's not designed to make a product is designed to help you learn and it's going to you know, do that the best of canvas going to have some pitfalls and one of those pitfalls is going to be you're not going to know how to work in a large team environment and you know, everything has been through a senior design experience knows that like, it's just garbage for working Mission groups like it mean it's something it is something but the dynamic is like totally weird like you don't have a boss. You don't have like cost stop. I mean, yeah, you have like a bill of materials. You have to follow but it's it's it is something I'm not I'm not trying to act like Knoxville or something and it's good that you have it. I'm not saying that but it's just totally different than what it's like to actually work in the engineering world. Okay. Yeah, my building materials for senior design project was to Grand but like you're talking hundreds of millions of dollars in an industry. Like it's just different like it's just it's just different. It's important to acknowledge that and so I think for me helping take a bath that is to try to work on like bigger teams. So like if you can work on Enterprise team or if you can work on you know, tens tens of person team somehow in your University extracurricular Lily. Like that's where you're going to start to get some of that better experience and I mean, even the dynamic of working with a boss like you don't

Speaker 3: like is that your teeth are the teacher-student

Speaker 1: relationship is nothing like the boss employee relationship. And I mean, you might think it is cuz you're not getting feedback. And yeah, it's it's really really different and it's different for everyone cuz you look you have different Boston a Mexico summer more like friends and summer more like no like it's more professional and it's Totally different and so like you can but you can get some of that experience for extracurriculars. I guess what I'm trying to say like you can help offset that by doing our extracurriculars and large teams by even just getting an on-campus job where you're working as a barista in the cafe are working somewhere like to get that gives you some understanding of or even understanding of what the dynamic is like where you realize. Okay. I have a person above me who is responsible for achieving X. I'm here to help support them like that. You know, you got that blows my mind that that you get from those just doing this extra extra. Seuss also still

Speaker 2: beneficial you're going to have different team Dynamic Discs different Dynamics with your boss in the three and a half years of my job. I'm not changed you I was but I've had three different bosses and I said different Dynamic with each one. And so things can always be changing what that's different team members were killing a part of your team or people going to acting with people change jobs in the real world all the time people are coming and going and it's really is understanding that because Maybe you work on a four-person project team for a class in college. But you know that has a Define start dated find end date and you just kind of like okay I can I mean if team is working, well you like this is awesome. If it's not like I can just get through this and the end of semester. I could be done doing something else that doesn't always happen in the real world

Speaker 1: reacts to solar different. I mean so like Dan Dan herscovici. I think you made a post on my LinkedIn about this but I think of the idea of in the real world cost is a huge player at the table, right? So you sit down at the problem table at school and you have a generic problem and you have your your tools to your you know, your technical tools to solve it maybe some money if you don't like a senior design thing and that like those are those are the players the stakeholders at the table, but you get into the industry and there's this huge money player at the table this person that like is this product in a Cell. Can we meet cost requirement is it manufacture books like these things that play a role in the success of the business that are in a girl? To all of engineering decisions that you just don't experience when you're trying to solve problems in school, but you just you know it like we talked like you mentioned to me was what you said was like it has an end date like

Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of it's true and they're in business like they're these Milestones

Speaker 1: but like there's so there's so many important factors that can move that and didn't think in business things get moved all the time because there's important things that cause things to move where is in Academia. I felt like it was like well

Speaker 3: if a man semester we're done.

Speaker 1: So I think an important aspect of that is realizing they like this idea of How money enters the engineering decision and

Speaker 3: this is it's a really

Speaker 1: good point to on the idea of yeah, you don't really learn that. I mean I don't you might take a finance class near undergrad or something like that, but it might be like personal finance and it's not if you can't really understand it, but like there is c a r I guess I don't even know how to say that

Speaker 2: money is a huge Factor because you don't really deal with budgets in your college classes that much at least not real world budget, but when you get out and you're working on a project and all of a sudden, I mean, let's say right now. A global pandemic its budgets are going to get flashed and you might expect to do the same amount of work, but they do not have any more money to support you in that and you get caught in these situations of like, how do I get my work done? But they don't be spending any more money. They're spending time to buy resources like those are real things you have to deal with

Speaker 3: and it's a great example cuz it's his idea of like, I as an engineer, I

Speaker 1: have a technical technical goal-line. I need to cross I know how to get there. Now you're saying I don't have the resources to get there. So then a different engineering hat comes on your head cuz it's how can I get closest to this goal line with the resources that I have available? That is a different engineering question. Then what you get in your exam where it's presented in there is an answer like you can always work to the goal line when you're presented to engineering challenge in that way, but in Industry, like the gold ones are constantly moving and there's things that could that cause you to have to make the best decision possible and that's that's just a different question than anything you learn in Academia.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so this leads into another point I have is that in in real engineering? There are very few problems with clean answers. We kind of get trained in college to be like look at the answer in the back of the book. That's what the answer is that what you should get that is just it's just not the case when you're go out there and you're working on Real World Systems of parts and components in designs and everything else. There's so many unknowns

Speaker 1: James and episode 1. I think it said essentially that he's like if you get a clean problem is a softball like it's a it's a yay. Thanks good day cuz like they just don't happen.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have this happen lots of times where it's all like, well, you know, what? Can we use engineering judgment to figure out how we should be doing this because getting you know, the quote unquote real clean answer would require tons of money in an hour cysts in physical testing at all these things to get there. It's like it's just not it's just not there. So you're not just learning how to apply equations. You're learning. How do I understand systems engineering is a hole to come up with What I believe based on my knowledge and experience with what I learned so far will be a good enough answer that will get me there to make something. That's usable.

Speaker 3: Yeah,

Speaker 1: that's how you know, the equation is x + y = e and you're trying to understand Z and you sit down at your table with your team member and you like okay, we need to we need to find Z you like? Okay. Well, how do I get acts like well getting X's going to cost too much money. Okay. Well what based on what we know about the system and what we know about the other engineering equations, we know how can we get as close as possible to ask given these time constraint? It's our money constraints. Okay. Well, we think we can get we think we can get our best guess is that you know, what 90% accurate estimate of X. Okay with everything is okay. Great. Now what about why well given you all this and that make it and we have these constraints. We probably can get why to 50% Okay. Well, that's what we're going to get. So we were poured out. Hey everyone. Here's the key to this reasonable expectation of accuracy. And that's what we had in the in the time in the money in the labor resources we could get to and that's where we're going. That's that's more real-world engineering then giving giving the test question of X is equal to 5 Y is equal to 6. What is he is he is 11, you know, okay. Yeah, they in the test. They have to be able to have you solved it in an hour but in a different and you can't like I've had some exams in in grad school, where is like, hey, if you let's say someone asks you to collect this test day. How would you do it and you have to write out why like I would put these transducers here and I would have this data acquisition system and I would use this in this in this and like I don't I think in that case I like I spect out probably a $300,000 a day tacos ocean system. And you know, I test plan that would take two weeks in Elk I can write that on the piece of paper and good. Okay

Speaker 3: that sufficient. Obviously it's like it act perfectly but that's not what happened in any of my actual testing in real life. It's like, okay. Four-channel data acquisition system. What can you get me to 50% Okay, go bad words words become that's

Speaker 1: what real world becomes. It's your application of engineering to the best of your knowledge given the resource

Speaker 2: constraints we expecting to get me one day. It's going to be good enough that we can put in customers hands like those are real world things that happened because

Speaker 3: you're giving me one day and a four-channel there a position that extra 50% That's my best. Guess. Well, we need at 80% Will you need to give me more time? Are you need to give me like that that you can you start to do this? Bargain to write like you have to be solid on your feet, right? You're estimating like the future. Like I think I can get X to 50% boss and Ike while what if I give you two days. What can you do then? I think 80% like You jerked on the Fly trying to come up with this stuff. That's all bait. That's that confidence. And that ability to do that comes with your your undergrad education of the equations and understand your system, but also a lot of experience and that's why I like experience really matters is because people get a lot better at estimating how close they can get to x given the resources in like all of this like thinking through this process is just not it's just not what you learn in undergrad and then that's not important. I'm just saying like that. I guess just how the real world Endo end up working and that's this is how you used the knowledge from undergrad right? You use these equations take to give you an idea. But yeah, it's not if you're never going to get a clean question like you say, I totally agree

Speaker 2: to the point. I don't necessarily think that this is always something that that an undergrad program is supposed to teach you really nice. If it could it be really nice if you did more,

Speaker 1: you know more real-world problems

Speaker 2: or some Here's a hundred bucks hours and

Speaker 1: things were it's like, okay. Well you have these weight requirements you at least cost requirements you have this sound level

Speaker 3: requirement reasonably specify thing so that you had your forced into making those decisions. You know, they're not saying okay. These are your resource problems that you like. They essentially get you the point where it's like, okay, we're a team of 10 people in a boc are we only have this much time to get

Speaker 1: this done. So what are we going to focus? I love this year. We're going to redesign the

Speaker 3: chassis because that's all we got time for everything else going to use will use from the year before like it has been a great like they're forced into it. That's how

Speaker 1: we don't have time to redo everything while I got time to redo the chassis on

Speaker 3: the on the model year this year. So we'll do that. He's going to help you learn some of that helps you helps you out you get you can you expose not clean problems that you see are legitimate right at me? Cuz this is actually the problem right? It's like if you if you are asked in an exam like hey, here's an unclean question. Like you don't see that legitimate. You don't feel it seems like a joke until you don't care and so just like whatever but like when you're in a few more project for you, like this is a thing that has happened. It's like a legitimate problem. If not clean. I got to figure out a solution like that's industry engineering space like you going to feel uncomfortable or get comfortable cuz that's where your that's where you're sitting for. You paid well relative to other things. It's because they're sitting in uncomfortable. It's a lot having to make decisions that are uncomfortable like If you if you want to make a lot of money like it's going to be here. It's just how it how it is, you know, all the jobs that are making money. Like if you look at him it's cuz they're dealing in the gray if there's any job that it's like, okay black or white black or white like it's an easy job. It's the gray jobs that make money. That's why I really went with it. All right. So now I guess the things that I had a kind of more transitioning so I once you finish up undergrad right you're going to be looking for that first job and I don't think a hundred head really does a great job of teaching you how to find that job and how

Speaker 1: to do your negotiation for that first job

Speaker 3: and universities have Career Centers in stuff that I think you an excellent job and help you if you go and ask but it's not part of the experience. It's like a service rights Career Services. It's a service to the to the student if they choose though in the same way that Counseling Services is like service that you go to it if you walk in the door and do it and so this is really just a plug for that. Like if you're going to go and find a job for your first job like and you don't ever really thought through the process I go talk to

Speaker 1: someone in Career Services Mentor something

Speaker 3: about like how you going search for a job and especially how you negotiate for your first job in what like You do things like this like you don't even think about like when they're when they were when the initial

Speaker 1: HR person's on the phone for you and they

Speaker 3: like hate what's your salary range when they ask you a question? You should had know what your salary ranges and what's reasonable for you to expect before they asked that because otherwise whatever you say they're going to write down like in that could eat that can hurt you or help you unless you like strategic about it. It's likely going to hurt you and they can order both ways. You can say too low of a number and they're going to take that and that's

Speaker 1: going to be your offer and you're going to

Speaker 3: undervalue yourself or you going to say too high of a number in the hiring manager is going to get that form back from HR. They can

Speaker 1: be like they want too much money. Let him

Speaker 3: go and you and you know, what you no longer going to move in. So Lake sings like that, there's elements to the job search that are critical that you need to understand the process when you start it. And so for those listening make sure you do that

Speaker 2: when you're on campus you probably have the best resources for getting a job whether that is a career services or what that is a job fair job fair is probably your best opportunity to getting a job for me like my first job. Directions from Masters. I it was it was basically like a career day for automotive on campus and it was they were people there that they could see me they can talk to me. It wasn't just them looking at my resume and I think you also have a plan here which it which I want to hear thunder but like the networking aspect of it. I I recognize someone who is a recruiting Hood been working at the gym for a while. I'd like how you know, I kind of know him I can make a connection I can do this networking. I ended up the job. I did I I work with him directly like he took my resume to the to his boss and then I got to write in so like you are going to have the best opportunities when you're on campus and it's it's I guess it is it's designed to be like that. But once you're outside of what you had a first job may be looking for another job or doing something else those Services they just they're not they're they're not their lease Israeli easily available any of the put a lot more work and sometimes

Speaker 1: The more last whenever they want to make is that

Speaker 3: undergrad. It seems like if you like at times like it was training you to say that being smart is the best way to go like you think like okay being smart gives me 100% on a test. Like that's that's the ultimate objective. It's not the case. I guess, you know if the goal is advancement and moving up in your job. I would argue that networking and fitting well and culture and doing other things are better at

Speaker 1: advancing you through an organization in your technical knowledge. There are

Speaker 3: plenty of organizations out there that have people who are incredibly smart, but you're not able to go anywhere because they don't fit well in the culture and they just rub people the wrong way and they're just there the person you have to go to if you're stuck on a problem, but they're really difficult to work with and it's not going to be fun like that happens all the time and organization and so being technically competent is good. It's a good skill to have but you really want a pair that with The soft skills and part of that becomes like good networking and good cultural fit and learning how to have empathy empathy and realizing that people are people and their job is their job, but they have a family back home and when they leave work at 5 right in the middle of a project to stop because they hate their job or they hate you is because their families more important to them and that's totally fine and you should support that they get so there's there's a so much more about the job than being technically smart and unfortunate take undergrad like you you get built up on those who are successful are successful by being technically competent.

Speaker 2: That's one of their grab rewards you that's what gets you extra honors at graduation and I know things like

Speaker 3: that's just how it is. That's how it's built and that's that's fine. But I'm just trying to bring up the point in Industry like it to look into the bands like realize that that's not the marker of success ultimately in Industry. It helps it definitely helps but there are other things that can help. More like your point about networking. So cute. Like I mean finding a job networking is I don't know if it's the best but it's I think it's probably in the top like, you know, like I mean how I got my first job talking to professors in my in my fiance. Hey, do you know any companies are hiring so then they email hiring managers, you know who are probably their students at some point and say hey I got I got a candidate, you know is whatever. He's you if you don't think of an email that says hey, I got a good candidate for you and they have an opening like that. So that's going to be so much better. Imagine you're hiring manager. You're so busy every single day. You're all the stuff going on. You don't have time to review a million resumes and you're looking for someone you like

Speaker 1: in front of your hiring someone right? If you're hiring someone that means you have a resource in your

Speaker 3: group. You're busy if you're hiring someone and you get an email from someone you don't trust it says hey, I got a candidate it's going to be it's going to be good for your organization technically and they can help maybe also say that you have a good personality to like, I'm good. I mean like you're not Iraq emotionally,

Speaker 2: you have a yellow personality talk to people

Speaker 3: who becomes just do it like while we got to make the money thing work or whatever and they got to make sure that they're going to be happier. If you think about it from the hiring manager perspective networking. It just makes so much sense. Imagine. Someone was like Hey you listening. We need you to hire a person for this position your ten thousand resumes or here's two emails from people that you know that have one person that they think is good. Which route are you going to go down? You're not going to look

Speaker 1: through ten thousand resumes

Speaker 3: cuz you don't have time again this costing if you you you only have so much time and resources yourself. And so it just it makes

Speaker 1: sense. Obviously that

Speaker 3: networking is important but it doesn't

Speaker 1: happen again cuz it's just not working

Speaker 3: but it's important thing to acknowledge

Speaker 2: definitely agree with all that. I think that's the end of our list. Listen, here are not are not really technical in a lot of sense. It's it's bigger picture than that. It's it's person personal skills. It's broadening your range and looking at things different. It's not just x + y = E-Type things and then there is some of that if I could try to come with some example though. I wish I'd spent more time, you know learning this technically a lot of things to a lot of stuff. You don't know until you're already out there. It's it's it's hard to know hedge your bets on that but funny ones listening like I think for me that the sum is is like the earlier you can get an internship the earlier you are going to have some sort of idea of what it actually like working out there which is going to help you get a job for the down the road and in a situation it might help you figure out if you actually want to go in NJ or not because maybe you find out something in your like, you know what this is not what I thought I'm going to try something else. I think it happens for some people and then that's good. You should find what what fits you well because learning and being college is not working. We doing sex for 2 years. Going to be out of business somewhere doing something. That doesn't look like like sitting in classroom

Speaker 3: Cafe Bahar, you know those

Speaker 1: Enterprises all those are I'm sure willing

Speaker 3: to take students to you can also even just experienced it doing self projects like I mean, like I loved your work if you want to work on coding you want to work on

Speaker 1: like a I get help repository or something that you don't want to share with the world or something or the projects in that way

Speaker 3: or if you're not you can make some you know, that's right. You don't work on cat work on some cat project for them up on YouTube or something, you

Speaker 1: know, so you can start to build your portfolio other ways

Speaker 3: in ways that may still help you realize you know, this this thing of like why I only have so much time and I'm trying to work on a

Speaker 1: project but I got to do my homework and I got all these other things and

Speaker 3: I don't give people listening some other Alternatives if your response. Is work here some other things that you can do is try

Speaker 2: definitely know. I totally agree

Speaker 3: that we are we have no like universities like they do a great job at what they do. We're just trying to acknowledge that there are some things that they just aren't set up to do and that's fine. And so

Speaker 1: it just you know, where you where you need to learn more just but I'm sure we're also probably missing some things to so if you're listening, you know, if you're not

Speaker 3: let it snow, let us know and then on the next after hours will bring it up for sure.

Speaker 2: If you have any feedback on this or anything else, especially if you want to hear us talk about in a few hours if you have something else we haven't talked about that. You want to share something on let us know we can either include your info or we can we can have you on an episode by itself. So we love to hear from you guys was out there listening.

Speaker 3: Bye, bye. Bye.

Speaker 2: Thanks for listening this episode of engineer your career with Troy Bauman and Brennan tymrak. For more information about the show visit our website at byc podcast.com there you can find show notes for each episode and get in touch with Troy and I if you or someone, you know are an engineer with an interesting or even not so interesting career journey, I would like to be on the show go on the website send us a short bio and we made it to invite you to come and share your story. And finally if you want to show your support, please rate review like or subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice.