Refresher courses

[jtherm]

Hello...I am a CHEME with 7 years of experience in the industrial heating industry from the sales and application engineering side. I have not used a whole lot of what I learned in college for this position other than some basic thermo and fluid dynamics which is mostly mechanical. I have learned quite a bit about process instrumentation and such, but anyway, I am thinking of making a move and would like to enter into the environmental industry. However I am worried that I have lost a good deal of the knowledge I learned in college. Does anybody have any good ideas on where and how to beef up and relearn some of the skills I have forgotten about? I want to have a bit more confidence in my skill set before I set out on a job search.

Thanks a lot for this website, it is very helpful.

 

[ctopher]

I always keep my school book. If you still have yours, a good refresher is to back over what you had studied. Read your notes if you still have them. Otherwise, a Google search may turn up something.

Chris
SolidWorks 08 0.0/PDMWorks 08
AutoCAD 06
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[jtherm]

Mmmm....that is a good idea and one I thought of, but right now my technical library is in the US and I am in China. In any case, I guess my biggest fear is that I am outdated with the knowledge I have within the field of my studies, and I guess I am not sure if even reviewing my previous work would be entirely helpful.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm considering a slight change in career direction before I get stuck in the industry that I am currently working in. And it would be helpful to at least have some idea of the practices and technology being employed in the industry I am interested in...namely, environmental protection/remediation.

Yes a google search is a good idea too, but I guess I am looking for something a little more interactive.

Thanks!

 

[zdas04]

You have to ask "what is the goal?" If it is to get back to the point you were at when you graduated, then you're wasting your time. A very large percenatge of any undergraduate engineering course is directed at teaching you the existance of a concept, not the mastery of it. You need to be able to find a solution to a problem not to be able to solve it off the top of your head.

Given that, there are hundreds of companies that provide online courses on a very wide range of technical subjects. Taking a couple of these a year to improve the depth of your knowledge on specific topics is a really good way to improve your confidence and sometimes your usefullness.

David

 

[Comcokid]

This is an issue I've encountered the past several years. First, you've got to ask yourself "How Do I Learn?" Do you learn best in a classroom environment, by reading, or by doing?

For myself, I've realized I learn the best in the give-&-take of a classroom environment. This fall, I've audited a graduate-level engineering course at the local university. I've actually been quite supprised how much I comprehend after 27 years out of college.

For the grade-earning students of the class, the focus is on how fast they can use various calculus and trig identities to reduce a math expression to a simpler form (something I've almost completely forgotten). But by auditing the class, I've regained some of the broad overview of the subject, and how it relates to my real-world experience.