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What Got You Started in Your Career in Engineering?

tariq.ahmad

In the Comments Below:  Let Us Know How You Got Started in Your Career!

 

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” - Steve Jobs

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs

One of my favorite speeches of all time was the Stanford commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave toward the end of his life.  Many of you have careers in engineering, and you come to the element14 community, the first online community for engineers, because you have a passion for engineering and technology.  During my first year working on the element14 community, one of the most exciting things that I have been a part of was the Bit by the Bug campaign where you shared what made you fall in love with engineering & technology:

 

     How Were You 'Bit by the Bug' of Engineering & Technology?

 

Your love for engineering and technology is what helps make this community special.  Hopefully, we all are doing something that we enjoy doing, even if everything is not perfect, but we've all had to start from somewhere.   Sometimes, we can go down many paths during the course of our lives and this could involve having to start over.   We're currently working on a webinar that is geared to those people that are just getting started, or perhaps starting over (or again?) down a path that may lead to a new (or different?) career in engineering.image

 

You're Invited to Be a Presenter!

In the past we've focused our career webinars in the past on IoT.   They're still very relevant and worth checking out if you haven't already:

 

 

This time around we would like to do something that speaks about engineering as career.   recently reached out to the top members to see if any of the Top Members  were interested in joining us as a panelist for a webinar on engineering.   I would like to extend this invitation to the rest of the community at large.   During the Project14 livestreams, I found that having members come on as hosts led to a very interesting discussion.  We'd like to do something similar with the upcoming webinar!

 

You don't have to prepare slides, prepare a speech, or prepare statements or anything like that.  Every career path is unique and we want to hear from a number of different perspectives and have a casual conversation on engineering as a career.   You'll have an opportunity to voice your opinion or tell us about your experiences.

 

In the Comments Below:  Let Us Know How You Got Started in Your Career!

 

 

If you are interested in being a presenter for this webinar contact me directly at or comment below to let me know you are interested.

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  • I pretty much always knew that I wanted to be an engineer.  Early on, I would take everything apart in an effort to understand how things worked (some things I actually was able to put back together).  My super hero was my Grandfather, who was an electrical/mechanical/petrochemical engineer.  He had an amazing shop and he was always tinkering with tools and building better tools.  I absolutely love visiting him and watching him work.

     

    I also loved tinkering with electronics.  In my early teens, any money that I was gifted or earned went to buying electronic kits from Radio Shack. When I started High School, my two greatest interests were math and electronics and I was very fortunate to get great teachers in these two fields.  In math, I was in an accelerated track, where we would take five years worth of math in four year (algebra, geometry, calculus I & II and differential equations).  In electronics, I had an excellent teacher that taught not only electronics but also a radio electronics class.  I ended up taking both classes (radio was after school). By the end of my Junior year, I had accumulated enough credits to graduate, if I attended summer school and took the two senior requirements (U.S, government and history).  I am not sure what the hurry was, but I did just that.

     

    Because of my early departure from High School, I need to find a college level program in somewhat of a hurry.  Near the end of my Junior year, I representative from DeVry Institute of Technology was on campus.  I attended the presentation, and decided that their Bachelors of Engineering Technology program looked very interesting.  This was a three year program (12 quarters), and about the first year looked like it was almost a total review of the education that I received in High School.  I signed up, moved to Phoenix Arizona and never looked back.  The program worked out very well for me and I was ready to go when I finished.  I interviewed and accepted a position as a Senior Technician that started within days of my graduation.

     

    While working, I continued my education, taking a lot of programming and system design classes.  My career was long and very successful, and while I was very happy with my choices, I do wish from time to time that I might have attended a more typical college, or continued for a higher degree.

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  • I pretty much always knew that I wanted to be an engineer.  Early on, I would take everything apart in an effort to understand how things worked (some things I actually was able to put back together).  My super hero was my Grandfather, who was an electrical/mechanical/petrochemical engineer.  He had an amazing shop and he was always tinkering with tools and building better tools.  I absolutely love visiting him and watching him work.

     

    I also loved tinkering with electronics.  In my early teens, any money that I was gifted or earned went to buying electronic kits from Radio Shack. When I started High School, my two greatest interests were math and electronics and I was very fortunate to get great teachers in these two fields.  In math, I was in an accelerated track, where we would take five years worth of math in four year (algebra, geometry, calculus I & II and differential equations).  In electronics, I had an excellent teacher that taught not only electronics but also a radio electronics class.  I ended up taking both classes (radio was after school). By the end of my Junior year, I had accumulated enough credits to graduate, if I attended summer school and took the two senior requirements (U.S, government and history).  I am not sure what the hurry was, but I did just that.

     

    Because of my early departure from High School, I need to find a college level program in somewhat of a hurry.  Near the end of my Junior year, I representative from DeVry Institute of Technology was on campus.  I attended the presentation, and decided that their Bachelors of Engineering Technology program looked very interesting.  This was a three year program (12 quarters), and about the first year looked like it was almost a total review of the education that I received in High School.  I signed up, moved to Phoenix Arizona and never looked back.  The program worked out very well for me and I was ready to go when I finished.  I interviewed and accepted a position as a Senior Technician that started within days of my graduation.

     

    While working, I continued my education, taking a lot of programming and system design classes.  My career was long and very successful, and while I was very happy with my choices, I do wish from time to time that I might have attended a more typical college, or continued for a higher degree.

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