Four (Engineering) Things for Which I am Thankful

Hands-on experience in my first engineering job – Who wants to be stuck behind a desk all day? Certainly not me! However, getting out into the field is not just about breaking up the day and getting some fresh air. Having a chance to crawl through mechanical rooms, watch equipment get installed, and speak with the maintenance teams profoundly improved my engineering work. While engineering school provides a great foundation, it takes hands-on experience to really make the concepts come to life.

Case in point . . . Have you ever designed a piece of equipment that didn’t fit properly? I remember one of my co-workers accidentally specified a 500 gallon water heater that couldn’t fit through the door of the mechanical room and we only found out because we were working with the construction team. After that, I always checked the doorway whenever I specified equipment replacement. It’s the small things like this that you learn from hands-on experience that simply can’t be taught in the classroom.

AutoCAD and other computer design programs – I don’t care how many straight edge and shape tools you have, drafting by hand is something I am thankful I never had to do. Earlier in my career, one of the senior engineers was an AutoCAD wiz. He taught me so many keyboard shortcuts and little tricks to really create magic. If I had to do all of those edits by hand, I likely would have gone insane. My blueprints would have looked similar to a kindergarten kid's drawing of a building.

However, I will concede, that one of the skills lost in this transfer away from hand-drawing was the extra care and effort on details and accuracy. Additionally, there was a certain efficiency of the old school drawing to make things as concise as possible that simply doesn’t exist these days. Still, I'm happy to have avoided that era of hand drawing blueprints.

Mentors that cared and mentees that let me pay it forward – Honestly, I never realized how good I had it until I heard some horror stories from some engineering connections. Stories about them being thrown into a project with little guidance and then demonized for not producing superior results seemed to run abound. In contrast, I had so many mentors in the first 5-10 years of my career that really helped me develop my skills. 

There is no doubt in my mind that I would not have had the success I have seen thus far in my career without their guidance. As a way to pay their kindness forward, I started to mentor younger engineers and this is what led me to develop my website, www.TheEngineeringMentor.com, and other materials in an effort to reach younger engineers across the globe.

Ability to network & connect electronically – I love networking on LinkedIn and keeping my connections active. Occasionally, I’ll still send a handwritten thank you note or give a contact a call, but those are becoming more of a rarity as I primarily reach out to new people and foster my connections through online platforms.

Whenever I find an article that I think one of my connections will find useful, I send the link along with a little note of why I think they'll appreciate it. Sure, you could have clipped that article and mailed it to a friend in the past, but that is a pain and what happens when you want to send the article to 5 people? 

Aside from this ease of contact, it has also literally opened up the entire world as potential connections. Among my newsletter subscribers, I have a large chunk from both the US and India. However, I also regularly have readers check in from Australia, Brazil, Spain, Nigeria, Singapore, and many other countries. In many senses, these platforms have really made the world much smaller and that is pretty amazing. 

As we approach Thanksgiving, take some time to think about the things in your life for which you are thankful. Sure, we all go through rough patches and not everything is perfect, but taking some time to realize the things that are going well can really lift your spirits and help you face your next challenge.

Want to read more? Are you a younger engineer who can use some mentoring? Check out my website, www.TheEngineeringMentor.com, for more of my articles aimed at helping younger engineers gain the skills for a successful career.

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