5 Things Engineers Should Do In College

This was the first post I published, and it’s been one of the more popular posts on the blog ever since.  This is a great post for freshmen and sophomore engineering students to read, to help you plan the experiences you want to have while you’re still in school.  At some schools, you may have to look carefully for good opportunities.  This post can help you decide where to look and which opportunities to go for.

Give a Better Technical Presentation

This post doesn’t get a ton of hits, which is unfortunate, because giving presentations is a critical skill for any engineer.   The ability to communicate technical concepts and ideas to a variety of audiences is necessary for engineers in academia and in industry.  Engineering students should make all the opportunities they can to practice their presentation and speaking skills.

Pick a Good Project Topic

This post also gets far less love than it should.  Project-based courses are excellent opportunities for students to build valuable experience in the classroom.  Picking the right project topic, one you can do original work on, or one that relates closely to job openings in your field, can give you something great to bring up in a job interview, even if you have few other experiences.

The point of a resume is to get you an interview.  Everything you put on your resume should demonstrate your value to a future employer in some way.  As I’ve said before, it’s a good idea to keep a watch on entry level job postings in your industry.  This gives you an idea of what employers are looking for, and helps you pick out the things that are going to help sell you to a potential employer.  Feature things that make you look good prominently.  If it doesn’t really contribute, leave it out.  This means that many of the things you wrote down on your brainstorm last week are not going to make it into your final resume.  This is fine.  It’s actually a good thing.

The Basics

In most resumes, the name and contact information of the candidate go right at the top of the page. On my resume, I put my engineering discipline under my name as well, materials engineering. Even if you’re all for open source software such as open office or web-based clients like google docs, you should write your resume in the industry standard software, Microsoft Word.  There’s no reason for any student resume to be longer than one page.  Avoid tiny fonts, and use white space to help make your resume more readable.  A resume is also not the place to use tons of different fonts, or fonts that are difficult to read.  Career Hub has some advice for naming your resume file.   They also have an excellent post about using keywords effectively to get interviews when applying to jobs online.

Education

Title the section education, and put the name of your school on the next line down.  The line after that, list your major, GPA, and expected date of graduation.  If you’re an upperclassman and you’ve taken lots of classes that are relevant to your major, make a list of relevant classes.  You can change what you include on this list based on which job posting you’re applying to, or reorder the classes based on the job posting.  For example, if I was applying for a job in which I would be doing failure analysis, I would put failure analysis at the top of my Relevant Coursework subsection, so it would be the first thing the employer or hiring manager saw.  Remember that list of projects you made?  Those don’t go in the education section.  Instead, put those under experiences.  First list the project title, then the class in which you completed it.  E.g. Frog Toy, Intro Mechancial Design

Experiences

The experience section is where engineering student resumes really need to shine.  Many students all over the country in your major have taken the same classes that you are taking.  Your experiences are what set you apart from other students.  On a traditional resume, experiences are listed like this:

Company

Job Title, date 1 – date 2

• Responsibility 1
• Responsibility 2

Instead of responsibilities, it’s better to list your experiences in the form of results, or what you achieved.  For each responsibility you wrote down in the brainstorm, think some result or final product you accomplished.  Numbers are a good way to communicate this, because everyone can understand them easily and they don’t take up as much space as explaining with sentences would. E.g. Raised $4000 for breast cancer research, or reduced processing time by 30%.  It’s okay to ballpark numbers you don’t know exactly, but it’s best to be conservative if you do this.   For ideas on what experiences you might have, or for ideas on where to get more experience, check out this post or this post.

Skills

Feature your skills in the top half of the page.  If specific skills are requested in a job posting, put them at the front of your list.  It’s not necessary to use whole sentences to describe your skills.  Instead of: “I can program in Java, C++, Python, and Perl.”  Use: Programming languages: Java, C++, Python, Perl.

Other Stuff

If you can craft all ‘the other’ stuff you do into a cohesive whole, go ahead and include it.  It’s likely you won’t be able to make everything fit.  This is fine.  A resume is not the history of your life.  Choose to emphasize what your employer should most know about you.  For me, it’s entrepreneurship, but since I’m co-founder of one startup and I managed another, it also demonstrates my leadership potential.  Good things to emphasize with this other stuff are leadership activities, service activities, or entrepreneurial activities.  Unless you’re world class, it’s probably best to leave off athletic achievements.  Volunteering for policital or religious organizations is a descision you should make for yourself.  Keep in mind that your affiliations could be a turn-off to some employers.  This section should be smaller in importance on your resume relative to the skills and experiences.  Remember in this section you can also put your experiences in terms of results.  For example, in a sales job, estimate how much you increased sales, or improved custsomer satisfaction.  Or, as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, how many homes did you help build or repair?

Awards

Fit awards in wherever, or make their own section, at your discretion. If you’re only going to highlight one or two, fit them in with the other sections.  If you’re listing four or more, you can make a bulleted list.  Scholarships go under education.  If you have many small scholarships, total them up, i.e. recipient of $55,000 in scholarship funds.

Free Resume Reviews!

I will review your resume for free if you send it along to me by email, e (dot) lorax (at) gmail (dot) com.  I’ll review resumes for up to two months after the date this post was published.  Use “Engineering Resume for [Your Name] as the subject line.

Area One: Education

This is the section every engineering student should have on their resume.  In this section, you should have things like your GPA, major or degree program, expected date of graduation, and information about your courses.  Use the GPA that makes you look best, either your overall GPA or your engineering GPA, from major-specific courses.

Your Assignment: Make a list of all the classes you’ve taken so far at your college or university.  Which of them are relevant to your specific industry?  Leave out classes like calculus, physics, and chemistry which are more general in nature.  For the relevant classes, jot down a few notes about what you did in the class.  Make note of any projects or papers you wrote, focusing on cumulative, long-scale assignments or projects that relate to your field.

Area Two: Work Experience

This section tells prospective employers about previous places you’ve worked.  Hopefully it’s going to include things like research experience, either during the summer or during the school year, working as a teaching assistant or course assistant, or projects you’ve done with other students or for courses.  It can also include things like the summer job you worked last summer, but if you have other experience, it’s better to leave it off.   Finally, don’t forget volunteer or unpaid work you’ve done!  Even if you didn’t get paid, if it relates to your field or helped you develop a skill it’s still experience.

Your Assignment: Make a list of all the work experiences you’ve had, and for each, write down a list of responsibilities you had in that position.  For example, when I was a sailing instructor, my responsibilities were safety of the children I was teaching, maintenance of the boats, and instruction of the campers.  Many resumes list responsibilities for a position and stop there.  However, next week we’ll use those responsibilities to write compelling statements about your experiences in the form of results.

Area Three: Awards

This section is pretty self explanatory.  Brag a little bit about yourself.  Tell your future employer what a star you are.

Your assignment: Make a list of awards you’ve won.  Don’t leave anything out, even awards for things that are not related to engineering, like sports awards or music awards.  The point is to highlight any ways in which you are exceptional.

Area Four: Other Stuff

This ‘other stuff’ may go in a differently titled section depending on what sort of ‘other stuff’ you do.  Mine is called entrepreneurial, but yours may better described by leadership activities or community service.  The point of this is to capture non-school related things you do that demonstrate character traits, like leadership or independence, that are desirable to employers.

Your assignment: Make a list of other things you do.  If you were applying to college, I might call this section extracurriculars.  In this section, you’re brainstorming experiences and activities in which you demonstrate leadership or management skills.  Were you captain of a sports team?  Have you planned an event for a large number of people?  Do you do community service, or fundraise for a charitable cause?   Do you work for you family’s business, or have you ever started a business of your own?  For each ‘extracurricular,’ jot down a few comments about what you did, what your responsibilities were, or what the biggest challenge in the activity is.

Area Five: Skills

This is an area of great interest to most employers.  Read over things you’ve made notes about in education, experience, awards, and other stuff, and start coming up with a skills list.  Skills can be very obvious, like CAD designing in Solidworks or Pro/E, or programming in Java or C.  These are the types of skills you typically find listed in example resumes for engineers on the internet.  However, there are many other skills, like prototyping, synthesis, or technical writing that could also belong in this area.

Your assignment: Make a comprehensive list of skills.  Try to confine the list to skills that can be described in a single word or phrase, preferably a short one.

Finish Up

Read back over your brainstorm, making extra notes or filling in anything you may have forgotten.  Leave it alone for a day or two, and then look over it again to see if anything new occurs to you.  Next week, we’ll shape the list of accomplishments and experiences you just brain-dumped onto paper into an effective engineering resume.

Industry, Job Postings

Postings generally start appearing in the fall, and continue into December and January. Look on general job boards, boards specific to engineering, and job boards that are specific to your industry. Remember though, statistically, only 3-5% of jobs are filled by online ads. Identify several internships if you plan to make job postings the only way you apply for internships.  Set up alerts at job boards where you’ve had good luck–many offer delivery of jobs by email or by RSS.

Industry, Referral

If you know someone who works at an engineering company, see if you can use that connection to get an internship. If you can get someone to vouch for you by providing a referral, do it. This is especially true for competitive internship programs like Google’s or Microsoft’s.

REUs

Research Experiences for Undergraduates, or REUs, is a government-funded summer research program. Typically, a student is paid a stipend of between $3500 and $5000 to go work on a research project with a professor for a period of 10 weeks. Free housing on the university campus is part of the bargain. You can find a listing of REU programs by field here. If you plan on doing an REU start prepping early—each program has its own application, and most require letters of recommendation.

Government Jobs

Check usajobs.gov for listings starting in the early fall. Many government agencies and laboratories have internship programs specifically for undergraduates. The websites of individual laboratories and agencies often have additional information about these programs.

University Jobs

Many students overlook their own college or university in their internship search. Many professors and research groups have funding for summer students. Search the department page for information about the research faculty members are doing, and contact faculty you are interested in working for. It can be helpful to work part-time for the lab in the fall or spring semester, to get familiarized with the work and your adviser.

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With all these options and a full engineering courseload, you could easily spread yourself way too thin trying to apply to too many internships. So who should look where?

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a tacky way to make some whitespace

Rising First Years – working for your college or university is an excellent option for first year students, since they typically don’t have the experience required to get competitive internships in industry or the technical background to be accepted to most REUs.  Depending on your school and program, you may not have even done any actual engineering yet!  It’s a good idea to apply to a few internships to practice going through the process, but be realistic about your prospects.

Rising Sophomores – Rising sophomores can apply to pretty much any of the internships on the list above. If you don’t have any other work experience, you may need to work for someone at your university for a year to build up some necessary experience. REUs are a great option for sophomores, as are industry internships. Well-qualified sophomores should be able to get an internship in industry, if they find a position that matches their qualifications.  Use the internship after your sophomore year to try out something you think you may enjoy doing as a career, or to get specific experience in a certain area of your field.

Rising Juniors– In the internship after your junior year, you want to be making the connections to people in your industry and your field that will help you land a job after graduation. If your plan is to go to graduate school, try doing an REU with one of the universities you are considering for graduate school. This will help you get a feel for the culture of the department.
Next week: Writing an engineering resume!

So what makes a good project topic?  How do you find one?

Pick a Topic You Love

It doesn’t happen all the time, but occasionally something you’re really interested in is related to your assignment.  It may be something you’ve always been interested in, something you just found out about recently, but whatever it is, you’re really excited to have such a great topic.  I do my best work when I’m passionate about my topic—you probably do too.

Important considerations when you pick a project based on interest …

• Relevant: Is the topic clearly related to the class, or do you have to stretch it? Ask your professor.  If he or she has reservations, you may want to consider another topic.
• Feasible I: Can you accomplish everything you need to do in the time allotted?  If it’s a project, do you have everything you need for design and fabrication, or for experimentation?  If it’s a paper, will you have to get some resources on loan?  How long will it take to get those sources?
• Feasible II: Is the project within your capabilities?  If you’re going to have to do a lot of extra learning to understand the background, or to do your project, do you have time to do it?  Are there knowledgeable people who can help you?  Do they have time?

Pick a Topic for Your Career

So, maybe there’s nothing you’re excited about in the assigned area.  At this point, most people flounder around for a topic, sometimes doing something the professor suggested, or picking something out of desperation the day a topic is due.  Instead of picking something random, pick a topic that will do something for your career.  By your second or third year of your undergrad experience, you know your major or engineering subspecialty, and you probably have a decent idea about where you want to work when you get out of school.  Use this information to search for entry-level job postings, and read the job descriptions to find out what experiences and skills employers in your desired location and field are looking for.  Pick a project related to the qualifications employers want, and you’ll give yourself an advantage when it comes to looking for jobs.

Some tips…

• Finding Job Postings: I like indeed.com, but you can use any job site you want to.  Setting up a daily alert for a week or so is a good way to get a handle on trends.  I get mine from indeed as an RSS feed, but google alerts would probably work well too.
• Relevant and Feasible: The considerations from above also apply to career-driven topics
• Reach out to Industry: Contact one of the companies that published a job opening. Tell them what you’re doing, and ask for advice.  Can they recommend resources, or put you in touch with someone who might be able to help you out?  The contact may not be critical to getting the project done, but it’s good networking for the future.

Pick Something Innovative

Like topics that really excite you, innovative topics can be hard to find and discover.  However, you don’t have to discover the next carbon nanotube to do something innovative.  Consider new ways to solve old problems.  Impose limitations on resources or materials that force you to get creative.  Can you make a something that uses 50% less power, or that is made from only renewable materials?  Can you combine old solutions to problems for a more efficient product?  Here are some tips for coming up with innovative project topics.

• Ideate: Use your favorite method for coming up with good ideas, be it brainstorming, mind mapping, or something else. I prefer a stack of post-it notes, a sharpie, and a friendly wall.  Challenge yourself to see how many ideas you can come up with.
• Get Inspired: Check out the latest research in the field, or flip through your textbook.  Try to find connections between the subject your project will be in and your experiences.  Wikipedia can also be a great place to explore topics, because of all the links in the articles.
• Find a Friend: Bouncing ideas off of other people is a great way to get yourself out of a brain rut.

What projects have you done?  How do you come up with topics?  Let us know in the comments!

• Don’t use each slide to test out a different powerpoint animation scheme
• Speak clearly, try to avoid using “like,” “um,” and “err”
• Don’t make slides that are walls of text
• If your talk is longer than 10 minutes or so, bring water
• Make sure labels on graphs and figures are big enough for everyone to read

And so on.

However, there is one thing you can do to make a decent presentation great, and it’s one that’s often overlooked.  Tell your audience a story.  This is especially important for technical presentations.  I’ve been to talks in fields that I knew nothing about that I still remember, because the presenter did such a great job of making me interested in their research.  There are likely people in your audience who know very little about your research area—much less than you do—and you want to give them a reason to stay with you.

Your introduction is where you’re going to start telling your audience a story.   Give some background on the general field, explain where your research is situated within the field, and explain the particular problem you’re trying to solve.  Try thinking of your research project as a character in a novel–readers want to know who they are, where they came from, what motivates their actions.  Tell the audience why your research is important.  Tell us, your audience, why we need to care about what you’re saying.  What’s the application of your research, five years down the road, and why is it important?  What big problem in science does your research help solve?  What big questions are you posing an answer to?

In most presentations, the introduction is followed by a transition to methodology and results of the project.  At this point, you’re moving away from the story you just built up to more concrete, factual, information. This is where you’re going to start losing people who don’t know much about your field, but came because your talk sounded interesting. Your audience doesn’t know as much about your work as you do, and it’s easy to lose them in the technical details.   When explaining results, make sure you connect back to the story of your research.

For example, if your result is a 5% increase in the thermal conductivity of a fluid, explain what that means for cooling applications.  Is it enough of an increase to justify the increased cost of using the fluid?  If not, how much of an increase would you need to see?   Try to think of a connection to your big story with each plot you show, with each result you discuss.  You need to situate your results in context for your audience.  If the result doesn’t connect back at all, what is it really contributing to your presentation?  Could you change the plot, or the information it contains, to communicate your results in a better way?  Remember–your presentation is just the tip of the iceberg that is your research project.  You don’t have time to tell the audience everything, and you shouldn’t do it anyway.

Finally, don’t forget to re-remind readers of the story behind your work in your conclusions.  Remind them of the most significant results, or explain in a more detailed way how you have solved the problem you introduced to the audience in the introduction.  Telling stories makes your presentations more memorable and more engaging.

For a great post with good info about giving technical presentations, check out Presentation Zen.

Did I miss anything?  Disagree with me?  What else should engineers do while in college?  Have your say in the comments!