Trial By Fire - Surviving the Workplace After College
If you are about to graduate college, or you have recently graduated, and are getting ready to enter the engineering workforce, I first of all want to congratulate you, and second I want to ask you to be prepared for your world to be turned upside down.
Right about now, you are probably feeling like you're on top of the world, right? You've studied for 4 or more years, you've amassed a huge wealth of knowledge, you can solve problems and take tests like a champ, and you've got a piece of paper with your name and degree on it to prove it. So you're ready for the real world, right?
Wrong.
You are currently standing on what I like to call the "knowledge cliff." Allow me to illustrate what I mean using a handy dandy paint graph:
Note that I'm not the first one to think of this, but I couldn't find the original source, so I drew my own.
Anyway, I feel the diagram is self-explanatory, but just in case: what you think you know after college is an illusion. A lot of college graduates tend to believe that what they know is sufficient and exceptional for conquering the real world. This couldn't be further from the truth, and if you're not prepared for what's to come, it could potentially hurt your career. Seeing as how you either haven't started or have barely started at this point, that can't be a good prospect.
I'm writing this for my fellow new engineers just entering the workforce. I was once on that cliff, and I had to fall pretty hard before I started really learning how to be a successful problem-solver. Here's hoping your "fall" is a little softer.
DISCLAIMER: This post is directed to new engineering graduates, and specifically electrical engineering graduates. However, I believe this knowledge cliff holds at least some truth for everyone graduating college, so if you don't fall into the above category, hopefully you find this post helpful.
I've been out of college for a little more than 5 years now. Can you estimate about how much of my 5-years worth of college-level education I've used since then at my job?
I'd estimate about 5-10%.
It's astounding how little I use, and how much I've forgotten, from my college days in just 5 years away. Almost as if all those long nights finishing papers, completing design projects, and cramming for exams, were utterly pointless.
And maybe some of it was, to an extent. Academia is structured around a philosophy of teaching people how to solve problems and overcome obstacles in a step-by-step, proceduralized, process. In an ordinary, American university, your exams are typically designed to test how well you understand the procedure for solving a specific problem, and not so much how well you understand the concepts.
Not only this, but American university programs tend to provide very little hands-on, real-world, down-and-dirty experience. Sure, you probably do a few design projects here and there, or a few labs for some of your courses, but are you really learning how to solve problems in the real world?
The problem with the engineering profession is that it requires its practitioners to solve problems using out-of-the-box, ingenious, and sometimes unknown methods. It also sometimes requires its practitioners to figure out what the problem is in the first place!
You can't expect a few years of proceduralized education in and of itself to produce successful engineers. And you can't expect that you are the exception to that rule, even if you do graduate magna- or summa-cum-laude.
What's worse, some workplaces have structured their career paths in such a way that accommodates this proceduralized mentality. Sure, the fall will probably be softer, and you might get paid well, but the people who decide to take that path slowly lose the ability to think for themselves over time. If that's the path you want to go down, well...you can stop reading here, if you want. I won't judge.
I, for one, prefer to succeed on my own merit and my own mind. If you are like me, keep reading.
My workplace happens to be one of many who prefer a "sink or swim," or "trial by fire," training style. The company I work for is small, and the short amount of experienced people makes it difficult to guarantee that one will be mentored by a more experienced person. As such, the typical orientation is, "Here's something I need help with. Go do it, by such and such a date and time, and good luck." Apparently, most private-sector workplaces operate this way, so chances are, you will experience this mentality in your future.
For a brand new electrical or control systems engineer, this can be incredibly daunting, especially if your first task is to go out to a job site and troubleshoot electrical equipment. How do you know what to look for? Once you even know what equipment is causing the problem (good luck finding it), how do you know whether the issue is hardware- or software-related? If software-related, how do you know which line of code is the problem? If hardware-related, how do you know which wire or particular component is causing the issue? If it's a wire, how do you use a multimeter to test it?
I am fortunate that this was not the very first thing I was sent off to do, but I do have colleagues who have had this experience, and have succeeded. Each one of the people I work with has had at least one of experience like this, and everyone who's still at the company has succeeded to some degree.
So what's the secret? Intrinsic genius? Insanity? Top-notch education? Sheer experience?
Well, maybe a little of all those things, but there are deeper qualities that make the person such a valuable asset.
I observe from my own personal experiences and observations that there are 4 qualities of every successful engineer in my type of work environment:
1) They do things outside their comfort zone.
At university, you probably developed some sort of specialization in your field; each engineering discipline has a number of different specializations or focuses of study that a prospective student can choose from, and it allows them to hone their skills in a specific area. This is great and arguably necessary, but has a downside: it has the potential to prevent students from doing things that are not in their field of study.
This becomes a limiting factor in many aspects of your career. If you studied only electronics engineering, you probably will not apply for jobs that require skills in power engineering, for example. But this goes deeper than just job applications, and can have bigger consequences: on the job, for example, if you refuse to do a task your boss asks you to do because it is not in your specific field of study or your skill set (for example, troubleshooting a wiring problem when you are good at calculations), you're going to look quite unhelpful, and I've seen cases where this has actually cost people their employment with the firm I work for.
If you run a business, consider how it appears to a customer when you tell them that you won't do something that they ask for, because it's "just not what we do" or "just not how we do things." I would think great opportunities are squandered by taking this attitude; customers will keep looking until they eventually get what they want, and some other company will win their business by trying something they haven't done before to make that customer happy.
All successful inventions had in common that some brave person (or company) was willing to step out into the unknown and try new things. We as a race would not be where we are today, with all our technology and all of our innovations, if we stayed in our comfort zone and only stuck to what we already knew. This is true on both the macro and micro scales; you will not develop as a person by doing only what you know how to do. Employers, customers, and others are able to spot people who aren't willing to try something different, and they will avoid or dismiss them.
2) They keep an open mind.
When I graduated, I was atop the "perceived knowledge" line (see my diagram above). I thought I knew everything. I thought I could solve any problem thrown at me. So when I got to the workplace and was presented with problems, my first knee-jerk reaction to them was to solve them using pencil and paper and show people what I knew. But then, the unthinkable happened: someone told me that my design wasn't going to work.
How could they? I was a college graduate, for crying out loud! I was educated and fully equipped to solve the problems I was given! Upon showing this attitude to my co-workers, I was given a stern talking to by my management.
Perhaps my problem was that I was defensive, but I think my defensiveness pointed to a deeper problem: I had the gall to believe that I knew the perfect solution to everything. Thus started my long journey of trying to recover from my "fall" to the "actual knowledge" line.
Sorry to break this to you, but your solutions are not always the right ones, or the best ones. There are many people who know how to do things better than you do, and they may be working right next to you. This leads me right into my next point.
3) They glean from the experience of others.
Chances are, your coworkers have years and years worth of valuable experience and practical knowledge concerning your job description. This is why it's very important to learn as much from them as you possibly can. And don't just learn from them; actually take to heart their suggestions, corrections, and/or concerns.
As it turns out, on-paper solutions rarely stack up to reality; you may be able to design a perfect system on paper, but be hindered by practical restrictions, such as cost, physical space, the law, contracts, intellectual property, or industry standards. Unfortunately, universities do not teach students how to work around these restrictions in most cases, and people who have been performing in this mindset know how to best work around them, or even leverage them to their advantage. As such, it is important that fresh university students (and anyone new to a field) accept constructive criticism from more seasoned veterans.
This will require you to swallow your pride and accept that you may look foolish for not knowing everything, but it will be a valuable investment for your future and for how you'll be perceived. People who are willing to soak up knowledge from others with experience will be infinitely more valuable in the workplace than a person who has learned theories and academic applications. And the earlier you start soaking in what others know, the better; it's a lot harder to break habits the longer you hold on to them, and the same is true of your attitude about how much you know. You can't grow in a vacuum.
This extends beyond simply being corrected by your more experienced colleagues; this also means taking the initiative to seek out experienced advice before making decisions or taking action. Ask questions, and don't get defensive; chances are, your colleagues will see you as a valuable asset simply for being willing to learn from them, and will probably be very interested in helping you succeed; that in and of itself is a great long-term career move.
4) They embrace failure.
Another hard truth that you're going to have to accept is that, in an environment where you are uncomfortable or not knowledgeable about how you should perform your tasks, you are going to fail, and you are going to fail often. Some failures are more expensive and harder than others.
Yeah, I know. This point has been driven hard enough by Disney movies and by other motivational speakers, but it's still important, so allow me to continue.
We as human beings are afraid of failure for a number of reasons. One reason is that failure in certain situations can cost lives, including our own. Another reason is that failure can cost money. These are legitimate fears, and I would argue that our innate fear of failure in these regards is one thing that keeps us alive. In these situations, it is important to approach any risky task using careful planning and strategy. This isn't really the focus of my point, however; I believe more commonly people are afraid of occupational failure because of how they will be perceived for failing.
Yes, failure can hurt your pride, and sometimes your reputation. Sometimes this extends to your company or further. Failure is probably a major reason that people are unwilling to go outside of their comfort zone (I know this is the case for me). Unfortunately, failure is unavoidable. If you haven't failed yet, you'd be unwise to think that you never will. So, what do you do when you finally experience failure? You have two choices: wallow in your misery, or learn from it.
Either way, you're taking failure to heart. But in one way, you are going to harm your career, and in the other, you are going to grow. No one ever learned anything by succeeding, but many have grown and done great things by learning from their failures. When you fail, reflect and assess what you could have done differently, and remember this failure so that, when you walk in to another similar situation, you act differently.
One thing that each of these traits have in common is that they are not inherent abilities that a person is simply born with; they are learned skills. I truly believe anyone can develop them. Unfortunately, however, these are skills not taught (at least, taught well) at an engineering program at your University; they must be learned from the school of hard knocks, a.k.a. life. Fortunately, learning them does not require you to be a genius; you only need to have the humility and willingness to learn them.
In your post-university life, you will be given opportunities to develop these skills. The question is, will you be looking for them, and will you embrace them, or run from them?
It's awfully large, that knowledge cliff. Please don't fall too far.
Cheers,
-EE
Right about now, you are probably feeling like you're on top of the world, right? You've studied for 4 or more years, you've amassed a huge wealth of knowledge, you can solve problems and take tests like a champ, and you've got a piece of paper with your name and degree on it to prove it. So you're ready for the real world, right?
Wrong.
You are currently standing on what I like to call the "knowledge cliff." Allow me to illustrate what I mean using a handy dandy paint graph:
Note that I'm not the first one to think of this, but I couldn't find the original source, so I drew my own.
Anyway, I feel the diagram is self-explanatory, but just in case: what you think you know after college is an illusion. A lot of college graduates tend to believe that what they know is sufficient and exceptional for conquering the real world. This couldn't be further from the truth, and if you're not prepared for what's to come, it could potentially hurt your career. Seeing as how you either haven't started or have barely started at this point, that can't be a good prospect.
I'm writing this for my fellow new engineers just entering the workforce. I was once on that cliff, and I had to fall pretty hard before I started really learning how to be a successful problem-solver. Here's hoping your "fall" is a little softer.
DISCLAIMER: This post is directed to new engineering graduates, and specifically electrical engineering graduates. However, I believe this knowledge cliff holds at least some truth for everyone graduating college, so if you don't fall into the above category, hopefully you find this post helpful.
I've been out of college for a little more than 5 years now. Can you estimate about how much of my 5-years worth of college-level education I've used since then at my job?
I'd estimate about 5-10%.
It's astounding how little I use, and how much I've forgotten, from my college days in just 5 years away. Almost as if all those long nights finishing papers, completing design projects, and cramming for exams, were utterly pointless.
And maybe some of it was, to an extent. Academia is structured around a philosophy of teaching people how to solve problems and overcome obstacles in a step-by-step, proceduralized, process. In an ordinary, American university, your exams are typically designed to test how well you understand the procedure for solving a specific problem, and not so much how well you understand the concepts.
Not only this, but American university programs tend to provide very little hands-on, real-world, down-and-dirty experience. Sure, you probably do a few design projects here and there, or a few labs for some of your courses, but are you really learning how to solve problems in the real world?
The problem with the engineering profession is that it requires its practitioners to solve problems using out-of-the-box, ingenious, and sometimes unknown methods. It also sometimes requires its practitioners to figure out what the problem is in the first place!
You can't expect a few years of proceduralized education in and of itself to produce successful engineers. And you can't expect that you are the exception to that rule, even if you do graduate magna- or summa-cum-laude.
What's worse, some workplaces have structured their career paths in such a way that accommodates this proceduralized mentality. Sure, the fall will probably be softer, and you might get paid well, but the people who decide to take that path slowly lose the ability to think for themselves over time. If that's the path you want to go down, well...you can stop reading here, if you want. I won't judge.
I, for one, prefer to succeed on my own merit and my own mind. If you are like me, keep reading.
My workplace happens to be one of many who prefer a "sink or swim," or "trial by fire," training style. The company I work for is small, and the short amount of experienced people makes it difficult to guarantee that one will be mentored by a more experienced person. As such, the typical orientation is, "Here's something I need help with. Go do it, by such and such a date and time, and good luck." Apparently, most private-sector workplaces operate this way, so chances are, you will experience this mentality in your future.
For a brand new electrical or control systems engineer, this can be incredibly daunting, especially if your first task is to go out to a job site and troubleshoot electrical equipment. How do you know what to look for? Once you even know what equipment is causing the problem (good luck finding it), how do you know whether the issue is hardware- or software-related? If software-related, how do you know which line of code is the problem? If hardware-related, how do you know which wire or particular component is causing the issue? If it's a wire, how do you use a multimeter to test it?
I am fortunate that this was not the very first thing I was sent off to do, but I do have colleagues who have had this experience, and have succeeded. Each one of the people I work with has had at least one of experience like this, and everyone who's still at the company has succeeded to some degree.
So what's the secret? Intrinsic genius? Insanity? Top-notch education? Sheer experience?
Well, maybe a little of all those things, but there are deeper qualities that make the person such a valuable asset.
I observe from my own personal experiences and observations that there are 4 qualities of every successful engineer in my type of work environment:
1) They do things outside their comfort zone.
At university, you probably developed some sort of specialization in your field; each engineering discipline has a number of different specializations or focuses of study that a prospective student can choose from, and it allows them to hone their skills in a specific area. This is great and arguably necessary, but has a downside: it has the potential to prevent students from doing things that are not in their field of study.
This becomes a limiting factor in many aspects of your career. If you studied only electronics engineering, you probably will not apply for jobs that require skills in power engineering, for example. But this goes deeper than just job applications, and can have bigger consequences: on the job, for example, if you refuse to do a task your boss asks you to do because it is not in your specific field of study or your skill set (for example, troubleshooting a wiring problem when you are good at calculations), you're going to look quite unhelpful, and I've seen cases where this has actually cost people their employment with the firm I work for.
If you run a business, consider how it appears to a customer when you tell them that you won't do something that they ask for, because it's "just not what we do" or "just not how we do things." I would think great opportunities are squandered by taking this attitude; customers will keep looking until they eventually get what they want, and some other company will win their business by trying something they haven't done before to make that customer happy.
All successful inventions had in common that some brave person (or company) was willing to step out into the unknown and try new things. We as a race would not be where we are today, with all our technology and all of our innovations, if we stayed in our comfort zone and only stuck to what we already knew. This is true on both the macro and micro scales; you will not develop as a person by doing only what you know how to do. Employers, customers, and others are able to spot people who aren't willing to try something different, and they will avoid or dismiss them.
2) They keep an open mind.
When I graduated, I was atop the "perceived knowledge" line (see my diagram above). I thought I knew everything. I thought I could solve any problem thrown at me. So when I got to the workplace and was presented with problems, my first knee-jerk reaction to them was to solve them using pencil and paper and show people what I knew. But then, the unthinkable happened: someone told me that my design wasn't going to work.
How could they? I was a college graduate, for crying out loud! I was educated and fully equipped to solve the problems I was given! Upon showing this attitude to my co-workers, I was given a stern talking to by my management.
Perhaps my problem was that I was defensive, but I think my defensiveness pointed to a deeper problem: I had the gall to believe that I knew the perfect solution to everything. Thus started my long journey of trying to recover from my "fall" to the "actual knowledge" line.
Sorry to break this to you, but your solutions are not always the right ones, or the best ones. There are many people who know how to do things better than you do, and they may be working right next to you. This leads me right into my next point.
3) They glean from the experience of others.
Chances are, your coworkers have years and years worth of valuable experience and practical knowledge concerning your job description. This is why it's very important to learn as much from them as you possibly can. And don't just learn from them; actually take to heart their suggestions, corrections, and/or concerns.
As it turns out, on-paper solutions rarely stack up to reality; you may be able to design a perfect system on paper, but be hindered by practical restrictions, such as cost, physical space, the law, contracts, intellectual property, or industry standards. Unfortunately, universities do not teach students how to work around these restrictions in most cases, and people who have been performing in this mindset know how to best work around them, or even leverage them to their advantage. As such, it is important that fresh university students (and anyone new to a field) accept constructive criticism from more seasoned veterans.
This will require you to swallow your pride and accept that you may look foolish for not knowing everything, but it will be a valuable investment for your future and for how you'll be perceived. People who are willing to soak up knowledge from others with experience will be infinitely more valuable in the workplace than a person who has learned theories and academic applications. And the earlier you start soaking in what others know, the better; it's a lot harder to break habits the longer you hold on to them, and the same is true of your attitude about how much you know. You can't grow in a vacuum.
This extends beyond simply being corrected by your more experienced colleagues; this also means taking the initiative to seek out experienced advice before making decisions or taking action. Ask questions, and don't get defensive; chances are, your colleagues will see you as a valuable asset simply for being willing to learn from them, and will probably be very interested in helping you succeed; that in and of itself is a great long-term career move.
4) They embrace failure.
Another hard truth that you're going to have to accept is that, in an environment where you are uncomfortable or not knowledgeable about how you should perform your tasks, you are going to fail, and you are going to fail often. Some failures are more expensive and harder than others.
Yeah, I know. This point has been driven hard enough by Disney movies and by other motivational speakers, but it's still important, so allow me to continue.
We as human beings are afraid of failure for a number of reasons. One reason is that failure in certain situations can cost lives, including our own. Another reason is that failure can cost money. These are legitimate fears, and I would argue that our innate fear of failure in these regards is one thing that keeps us alive. In these situations, it is important to approach any risky task using careful planning and strategy. This isn't really the focus of my point, however; I believe more commonly people are afraid of occupational failure because of how they will be perceived for failing.
Yes, failure can hurt your pride, and sometimes your reputation. Sometimes this extends to your company or further. Failure is probably a major reason that people are unwilling to go outside of their comfort zone (I know this is the case for me). Unfortunately, failure is unavoidable. If you haven't failed yet, you'd be unwise to think that you never will. So, what do you do when you finally experience failure? You have two choices: wallow in your misery, or learn from it.
Either way, you're taking failure to heart. But in one way, you are going to harm your career, and in the other, you are going to grow. No one ever learned anything by succeeding, but many have grown and done great things by learning from their failures. When you fail, reflect and assess what you could have done differently, and remember this failure so that, when you walk in to another similar situation, you act differently.
One thing that each of these traits have in common is that they are not inherent abilities that a person is simply born with; they are learned skills. I truly believe anyone can develop them. Unfortunately, however, these are skills not taught (at least, taught well) at an engineering program at your University; they must be learned from the school of hard knocks, a.k.a. life. Fortunately, learning them does not require you to be a genius; you only need to have the humility and willingness to learn them.
In your post-university life, you will be given opportunities to develop these skills. The question is, will you be looking for them, and will you embrace them, or run from them?
It's awfully large, that knowledge cliff. Please don't fall too far.
Cheers,
-EE
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