Category: Early Career (Page 3 of 4)

When one is asked a question, the first reaction is to jump immediately and authoritatively to “The Answer is X.”

However, a preferable response is to first consider whether it is the right question; that is to say, if you might serve the client better by rephrasing the question for them, and then answering that.

A question that often comes up from engineering students in Spring is, in various forms, something like “do you know of firms that have opportunities that I can apply to?”

It’s not a bad question, and fair enough, finding out what people know about firms in the industry is useful data collection. However, instead of providing a simple answer, it seems first one might want to ask the question “What are considerations in finding the right firm for me?”, so that one reviews the process for lining up one’s career following a useful trajectory.

Hopefully you are more to the right side of this (Wikimedia)

When one is looking for those initial positions, and perhaps looking a few steps beyond that, what are some considerations if one wants to work in, say, the renewable energy field?

Let’s discuss several basic characteristics of firms and after itemizing those, we can consider how they can serve you differently throughout your career:

1. Firm Size
2. Firm Role
3. Job Intensity
4. Vision Match

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MSc students at the Iceland School of Energy where I’ve taught often ask for suggestions about appropriate thesis topics. Sometimes we find challenges in research or industry that we stockpile and could in theory parcel out for purposes such as these. Yet instead of individual suggestions, let’s discuss an overall process to gather, winnow and select topics in a way best suited for the candidate.

This will make more sense later – thanks JLB

There are four general principles one can consider when choosing a topic that requires investment of months or years of effort, and will have a bearing on life later. These principles are:

1. Motivation
2. Specificity
3. Fit
4. Flexibility

Let’s discuss.

This is probably one of the most ambivalent posts in this collection, and there are many of those, since simple choices/perspectives are not as interesting. It will also be a topic that is a bit difficult at least for Americans to get their minds around.

Imagine you own a vehicle. If someone asks you what type of vehicle it is, you say “1967 Pontiac GTO”. Then you drive it to a country where people that see it from the right side call it a “1967 Pontiac GTO Right Side” and those who see it from the left call it a “1967 Pontiac GTO Left Side”. You can’t figure out why people would call what is essentially the same vehicle two different names. More so, the people in that country insist there are significant differences, even extending to their understanding they are two different vehicles! There may be better analogies but that’s my attempt to draw a parallel between how Americans view engineering career paths, and how some European countries (including Iceland, that I am more familiar with), view them.

Any pretext to show a GTO (Photo: Flickr)

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Let us start with the premise that Istanbul is the greatest city in the world. For those not already familiar with its history, it spans millennia. Originally settled by the Greeks, strategically on the strait that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean/Mediterranean, it has had many incarnations; known by various names such as Constantinople and Byzantium over the years. These days there may be some press about the occasional and unfortunate attack, but historically that region always been familiar with conflict, whether the latest menace came from the Scythians, Hellenes, Romans, Persians, Crusaders, Ottomans, or Allied forces.

Spooky Subterranean Istanbul – nice and cool in summer though

The astute reader will raise objections – why not Rome, Paris, Shanghai, or New York? They might all stake their claims, but for me Istanbul is far more powerful as a metaphor for engineering career principles. So let’s situate ourselves there, at least psychologically. Here’s why.

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