Up Time Magazine- February/March 2008

precision maintenance upload Start Early & Stick With a Plan Developing Marketable Engineering Skills by Heinz P. Bloch, PE F or the foreseeable future, the “job of the future” will exist in a world that wrestles with issues of outsourcing, offshore design and manufacturing, and generally uncertain employment prospects. Among the job seekers, aspiring engineers need to develop effective ways of finding and keeping employment in this murky environment. Guidance is helpful as you ponder the question of where you should be headed in this sea of instability. Today we live at a time when professed experts expound diametrically opposite views and often have the audacity of serving up their views with an air of infallibility. The answer as to where you should head is multi-faceted, but being balanced and learning a marketable skill instead of going after an ill-defined “education” is certainly a good start. Reading Skills and Quoting from Mark Twain The relatively few retired engineers that are willing to pass down their experience to other generations are unanimous in at least one recommendation: The learning process of an engineer starts with acquiring reading skills. Today, people with what passes for “education” will often have to accept jobs that require little or no education. In contrast, and with far fewer exceptions, people with marketable skills are likely to find gainful employment. By inference, there will always be a demand for marketable skills but there may not be a demand for “education.” As a corollary, there are – and will be – people with engineering degrees that are in control of their lives. There will also exist other engineers who will have little or no such control. Over the past four decades we have met with, and spoken to, many engineers in all age groups who claimed that matters are out of their hands. They told us they are unable to influence decisions that have significant future impact on either them or their respective employers. Why should that be the case? Can we not choose to do (or not do) all kinds of things that affect our future? For instance, we can choose to watch worthless TV programs aimed at the least common viewer denominator. Violent video games and 95% of the available TV programs will not benefit us at all. As of 2007, the average American watches over eight hours of TV each day. Suppose you were free to choose between “Seconds from Disaster” and “The Three Stooges”. One of these programs would at least tend to groom you to be a better engineer; the other is simply a big waste of your time. Alternatively, we can decide to read a good book or rel- evant technical text to upgrade our language skills and increase our knowledge base. Reading is essential to the development of language skills. To communicate their ideas and add value to an enterprise, engineers must have a better vocabulary than many other crafts or professions. A widely read publication thus stated, quite correctly, that “many people lose their jobs not because of lack of technical skill, but because they lack the ability to communicate effectively”. This observation is of great importance, since one obviously cannot communicate or express oneself effectively with flawed grammar. A person with true marketable skills will not treat language with contempt and risk being refused a potential job offer or jeopardizing a job presently held. When you write, avoid spelling mistakes. Make sound and proper communication one of your most important learning objectives. Good communicators will always enjoy a far better probability of finding and maintaining employment than the non-caring rest of the bunch. So, pay close attention to Mark Twain, who said: “A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.” Know the Definition of “Engineer” If you are young and wish to acquire engineering skills, start by knowing the definition of “engineer.” In some countries of Continental Europe and Latin America, the mere title “engineer” is limited by law to people with an engineering degree, and the use of the title by others (even persons with much work experience) is illegal. In Italy, the title is limited to people who, besides holding an engineering degree, have passed a professional proficiency exam. 62 february/march 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Up Time Magazine- February/March 2008

Up Time Magazine- February/March 2008 Contents Upfront Upclose: Lessons Learned from the Walter Reed Story Information Technology: Parenting and Asset Performance Infrared: It's Alive! Lubrication: A Sense of Change Maintenance Management: PdM, Standardized Motor Testing: Being Well Connected Precision Maintenance: How to be Marketable Reliability: The Voyage of Wells Dairy Ultrasound: Two is Better Than One Vibration: Diagnosing a Cracked Shaft Upgrade: A Different Kind of Journey

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