SWE - Fall 2008 - (Page 87)

CAREER TOOLBOX Steps you can take By volunteering your budding engineering aptitude to a charitable organization or student project, you can exert real influence over project direction, decisions, and implementation. This is a truly gratifying position to be in, and it can fuel your passion for engineering and develop a direction for your career. Being able to demonstrate instances where you tackled a real-world problem and worked within a team for something more than a grade can help you to land a great co-op position. Unless you absolutely must have a paying summer job, a volunteer engineering experience is going to pay much higher dividends to your future hireability than the majority of summer jobs. Developing innovative solutions and implementing your ideas is both thrilling and highly educational. There are many options for technical projects. Numerous student organizations compete to build innovative solutions to existing problems in the field, and it is likely there are several at your school that relate to your major. SWE offers Team Tech, which is flexible in that it allows you to work on a current industry problem with a diverse team. If your school doesn’t have a team you are interested in joining, you can take the initiative to start one yourself, which is also a great experience. Alternatively, you can work on a service project, in partnership with local community organizations. If you are up for international travel, one of the best opportunities available is Engineers Without Borders (http://www.ewb-usa.org/). It offers the added bonus of giving you insight into working with cultures different from your own. When you are deciding what opportunity to pursue, do some research into the companies you envision yourself working for someday and consider how the project you are interested in relates to what you may be doing in the future. The candidates who stand out are those who passionately tell the story of the technical challenges they’ve faced, innovative solutions they’ve attempted, and issues they’ve worked through on a diverse team. Volunteering your technical know-how is a great way to enrich your engineering education and give yourself that great story to tell. Employers value those who take the initiative to go above and beyond the standard curriculum, and the experience is often intrinsically rewarding. I Bianca McCartt is a turbine airfoil cooling design engineer at GE-Aviation, where she is responsible for the design and analysis of cooling architecture in stage-one, high-pressure turbine blades. She graduated with a B.S.M.E. in 2003 and is completing her M.S.M.E. thesis, both from the University of Kentucky. A member of the SWE Magazine Editorial Board, she is the FY09 membership chair of the South Ohio Section and served as the section’s president in FY08. SWE FALL 2008 87 http://www.ewb-usa.org/ http://www.lppusa.com http://www.lppusa.com http://www.lppusa.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of SWE - Fall 2008

SWE - Fall 2008 Heritage Club Contents Farewell Message from FY08 President Michelle Tortolani Congratulations SWE Magazine A Conversation with FY09 President Virginia Connolly, P.E. Introducing the FY09 Board of Directors View from the Executive Suite Editor's Page Public Policy Update SWE Retention Study, Part 6 Membership Information & Calendar A&B SWE Member Kristina Johnson First Woman to Receive John Fritz Medal University Labs Fuel a New Era in Energy Women Engineering Leaders in Academe 2008 Opening the Gateways to Engineering Your Collegiate Section History is Waiting to Be Discovered Honoring the Legacy of Ada Pressman, P.E. Report from WEPAN Engineering World Proposed Bylaws Amendments Point of View Correction Career Toolbox Corporate Partnership Council Book Review SWE Smiles In Memory Opportunity Index SWE Scrapbook

SWE - Fall 2008

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