The Interview, Part 1: College Career Fairs

Sorry for the delay in writing this last post, between final exams, going to Europe, starting a new semester and other responsibilities, my writing time kinda got pushed out of the picture. But fear not! I have returned with a vengeance. So let’s get going.

As most engineering students are aware, the job market of today is very friendly to the engineering profession. Getting a job when you graduate shouldn’t be too terribly difficult if you succeed in your classes and have hands-on experience(Though finding a great job is very competitive). Classes and mandatory labs don’t count as experience, what does are outside projects (like my SuperMileage involvement), and internships. 

You’re in Control

“You will never become in the future what you are not becoming today.”
Dr. William E. Brown
Cedarville University Chancellor

So now that it’s the busiest part of the semester, I suppose I will set aside some time to write this next post. With final exams coming next week, I often hear fellow students (and myself) make comments like “If only my professor wasn’t so boring,” “I can’t pay attention in class,” “I don’t have enough time to do ____,” “If only the project wasn’t so tough,” and so on. The problems we have are often much more than just struggles in our classes, whether it be work related issues, strained relationships, physical challenges, SuperMileage deadlines, planning a multi-school engineering conference, or finding an internship. We all have busy lives, but we all have only one life, so we better make it count.

As you are reading this sentence, project in your mind what a person watching you would see. Now stop, think about what you thinking right now, your feelings, mood, thoughts. Now stop, and think about what you just did, it is something that is very interesting and unique to humans, called self-awareness. We have the ability to act how we decide to, unlike animals who act out of blind instinct. This aspect of our existence means that we take external input (say an upcoming test, or disagreement with a friend), and based upon our thoughts, imagination, conscience, values, and self-awareness, we are able to formulate our own response. We don’t go straight from input to output, like animals instinctively do.

So what does this have to do with being a more productive person? Well, the concept I’m trying to lead into is the concept of being proactive. The Webster’s dictionary defines proactive as