How to become a good engineer? 1

[arishoda]

Most of graduates in my country really want to work in product development technology center only after 6 months of intership in Fab. shop.But in effect, they dont have enough practical experience in manufaturing shop in such short period,which is very helpful to their future career development.But most of them always feel bored after a period of intership,because the job they do in shop is very laborious and they think it make no sense to do such boring and repeating work.In my view,it is no good fo you to be hairbrained.before you become a engineer,you should become a excellent worker.

 

[zdas04]

I worked as a plant operator for 4 years prior to college. I think that my operator time makes me a better engineer because I think about how someone would operate and/or maintain the stuff I design.

In my industry (Oil & Gas), there used to be a rule that new engineers had to spend 6 months doing field maintenance on a roustabout truck prior to starting their internship. Without fail, the people who went through that process were better engineers than they would have been without it (the program was cancelled in 1985 and new engineers moved right into engineering jobs without either field or internship experience, that generation by and large is the least able generation of engineers I've ever worked with).

Time spent as a worker gives you perspective and experience that classroom and desk work simply don't. The people that are fighting it are foolish.

David

 

[lisa247]

Are you suggesting that it's advantageous for an Engineer to have had "hands on" practical shop floor experience before moving into a more technical role? If so then I totally agree.

Lisa

 

[btrueblood]

I'd suggest that having continuous "hands on" experience makes you a better engineer. I walk our shop floor on a daily, if not hourly basis.

 

[SNORGY]

It's true.

As a young engineer, I had an assignment to prepare hydrostatic test turnover packages for a field crew. There was a 30" 300# riser going up to the top of a reformer furnace. I told the field crew to crack the blind rather than weld in a high point vent.

They sent me up the scaffold with a wrench.

I came back down moments later and told them it was OK to put in the vent.



Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[ash9144]

One plant I worked at had a philosophy that whatever process an engineer wanted to put in place (procedure, equipment, whatever) the engineer would be the first to operate it before turning it over to operations. I believe this made me a much better engineer because you see the practical side of the design.

I spent two weeks trying to commission a sampling system that was designed to the hilt and built with all the bells and whistles. The second week ended with me bashing the sample system against a tank farm containment wall until I was sure it could never ever be used again.

 

[GregLocock]

Although I am very much in favour of doing a fair bit of workshop and assembly line work, I think to be fair on them it needs to be a bit better structured than just using the new recruits to do one particular job on an assembly line, or running one machine, for 6 months, for example.

In my opinion they should rotate around different jobs, and spend a fair bit of time in maintenance and TI. Secretly I'd be expecting them to get a bit bored and start suggesting or even implementing improvements, if they are going to be much good as engineers.



Cheers

Greg Locock


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