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7 things that an engineering graduate must know!

Before landing any kind of job, you must know the progressive role of the job and its hierarchy.

Hira Zulfiqar Ali June 05, 2011

In the quest for tightening screws for four years; engineers sometimes lose their own screws. They’re sometimes rather absent-minded and somewhat self-absorbed; a rare species in their own right. My analysis is not technical. It’s about those things that engineers might miss or ignore while struggling to be technically sound. So when you are about to step out of the nutshell of your engineering college, there are a few things you must know:

1) SWOT without the T*

After four years of studying, an engineering graduate must know his strengths and the exact nature of the work he/she is looking for. Because there are some who can’t really figure out what they want to do even at the end of four years. Following are the four types of engineers that usually exist. (If you belong to the fifth type, kindly write back to me.)

Tech guy

If you are confident enough of your technical skills, then apply at an engineering-oriented organisation where practical work is required. Simple and trouble free!

Crammers with good grades

Not any good in the lab? But you can cram things easily and were lucky enough to pass your exams with flying colours? Then you can go for teaching and the academic side of engineering.

Researchers

If you love to write, then the best thing you can do is to fuse your professional studies with your passion. You can go for technical report writings, research paper writings and also end user manuals writings.

Communicator

A rare breed but they still exist. If you are good at communication and your convincing power is strong, then you can opt to be a sales engineer (highest paid are the ones who bring business for the organisation) and also go for the technical support side.

*T — without the ‘T’ because I think at the start of our professional lives, we shouldn’t consider anything as a threat.

2. Switching careers

Honestly speaking, after the third year, some of us are completely sure that this is not what we actually wanted to do, but at this stage completing the degree is the only option left. So yes complete your degree and then do a self-analysis. If not engineering, then what exactly is your cup of tea? It’s high time to muddle through the outside pressure.

3. Job role

Before landing any kind of job, you must know the progressive role of the job and its hierarchy. You just can’t let anyone take advantage of your skills and degree. In the current situation, organisations are hiring engineers where they used to hire laymen. So keep your ears and eyes open!

4. Trust me, I am an engineer

Act like an engineer. As you have the most influential bachelors degree. Your body language, dressing, confidence and attitude should articulate before you speak. No ‘Harry Potter’ specs and no baggy jeans. Look tough and smart. Do you know that on August 18, 2010 the Guinness Book of World Records chose ‘ENGINEERING’ as the TOUGHEST course among all other courses! And you nailed it.

5. Human resource

Engineers must know the role of HR, so that their rights are not oppressed. If you can’t afford to do a Professional Practices or HR course, then at least Google it.

6. Sexual harassment

Engineers are too busy making circuits work all four years. When they step in to practical life and see the behaviour of people around, they are completely shattered. They actually know nothing about how to survive in such situations. So understand that flirting, dirty jokes and abuses (text, call and verbal) are sexual harassment. This is a serious threat for a naïve engineer and affects his/her professional and personal life.

7. Social responsibility

Not only engineers but every graduate in this country should understand his/her social responsibility. Student life was fun but it’s OVER. Now it’s time to pay back in any way you can but more important is to realise that. Don’t try to implement any logical approach here. Think positive because sometimes… the most useless circuits work!

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2011.

COMMENTS (44)

Noman | 12 years ago | Reply Assalam walaykum, Nice article Hira. Just a few things to point out. "Tough" is a relative term in the pure sense of the word "Difficult". We all have our strengths and weaknesses. If everyone could do anything, there would be little meaning to ourselves as regards all that is around is. What maybe tough for you maybe a piece of cake for someone else. Take for example the place where we come from. Almost every student in the Computer Science department found it quite difficult to learn computer programming. Me(including two more guys) did it without breaking a sweat. I am still very puzzled what is so tough about it. Secondly, there could be a blend of the types of engineers you have described, would be nice to just put it in there. Other than that, what are you planning to write next on ?

Shamoo | 12 years ago | Reply I like the part about becoming a teacher..if u are a good crammer///

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Faizan Badar | 12 years ago | Reply Thank you for such a nice article.

Nimra Kazmi | 12 years ago | Reply Thumbs up! Great article, Hira!

Shah Khan | 12 years ago | Reply Well drafted, comprehensive & eloquent. However, Engineers are niether absent minded nor self absorbed. Engineering is a very broad field in its essence. Categorising it in only 4 areas, seems like an under estimated approach. Hiring bit in the article indicates your personal, rather than a general experience. Impatience is an another virtue, on display in the core of this draft. Desire to quickly get to the top of the ladder, from the very begining is an admirable ambition, but not too realistic & is a prescription for failure & hence frustration. Career counselling is an aspect that is lacking in our education system. This applies to each & every field. Having said that, each field of education has become so specialised into numerous minute areas that one is bound to feel lost at the end. Looks on the other hand might play a role in securing positions in our society that has still not found freedom from the clutches of colonial mind set, but in the rest of the world, its not how you are dressed, or what is your sexual orientation that makes you eligible for a post, but your skills & usefullness for an organisation in generating revenues. Toughest course??? What module, if i may ask? The authors naievity, background & perhaps gender is also some what evident, when it is assumed that every graduate who steps in to the practical world for employment or for any other reason is ignorant of the harsh realities that it entails. Sexual Harrassment is uniformly spread in every department & hence recently a bill was passed against it by the Govt for WOMEN (only & irrespective of their professions). A good effort all in all, i must admit. When you step into a public domain with your views, you lay yourself open for any kind of criticism, so keep up the good work & learn from the feedback. Don't forget that you are not writing to be appreciated & liked by your readers, but to be acknowledged for your inherent quality, which is that " you are a good writer".

Sarmad | 12 years ago | Reply My regards Hira I received your reply. However I beg to differ as i personally know people who have gone directly to managerial posts. Besides some of us including myself are good managers even during our bachelors. For example we manage events, both national and international within and outside our universities. And the latest trend being followed by many fresh engineering graduates is MBA or the new Engineering Management Masters degree being offered in a growing number of universities abroad. Sarmad

Overprotected | 12 years ago | Reply @Gilbert Cell: You've made my day. Simply excellent piece of review with practical approach.

maham khan | 12 years ago | Reply Very well written.. pretty much covered all bases :)

ashfaqueshah | 12 years ago | Reply THANKS FOR INFO

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @Gilbert Cell: I really respect you for writing such a wonderful response. Firstly Thank you! I mentioned in first place that my analysis is not technical AT ALL and i am just touching the lighter side of engineering graduate not engineering. I am definitely not in a stage to technically reply you but i will again emphasis on my points that engineer should be a complete package. Somebody followed me from ET paper T2extra(where it was published) and wrote me that fifth type of engineer is Manager. But i believe that no engineer will jump to managerial level all of a sudden. So managements skill are important for the career growth. And i have wrote research papers but in Pakistan there is no research taking place. Literally. I Interned in the best Engineering organization of Pakistan in Karachi. You know what they call research there? Translating German manuals in to English.

Gilbert Cell | 12 years ago | Reply Hira The concept of engineering that you have given here is quite flawed to be honest. Dont mind me saying that but it seems like you are luring the new engineers out there to focus the management side of engineering which should never have been any side related to engineering to begin with. An engineer is basically a unique professional in the sense that he tries to transform a society through his innovation, ideas, creativity and passion to come up with solutions of complex problems faced by the mankind. Look at the map of the world and you will notice that only those societies have flourished that have excelled in the fields of engineering. What you are writing down here is basically encouraging students or the new engineers to the business aspect of the engineering. While this can be more beneficial to them in terms of money, they certainly don't nurture their abilities by making use of the 4-5 years of rigorous education they go through in the engineering colleges. Almost 99% of the graduates are interested in that communication or business side while nobody seems to really develop or come up with innovative technical idea of say a certain product. And in a way this is actually a waste of education, resources and creativity. I tell it from my own experience that MOST of the work these 99% of the guys end up doing could easily be done by a technician or in some cases a BBA guy. For example when I did my internship in one of the top most cellular company in Pakistan, I came to know that that the work that I was trained for or doing could have been done by a diploma holder and in fact there were some diploma holders who were doing a great deal more than what I was doing there. If the problem arises, you take a schematic provided to you by the vendor, you try to play with a couple of resistors or switches without having any knowledge of what exactly is there on the chip. If the luck favors you, you get succeeded in this monkey approach. Otherwise you generate a request or sheet asking the high command to replace the equipment from say China or France. This is not Engineering or if anyone is hell bent on saying it engineering, it should be called as 'a blot on the face of engineering'. Similarly I dont think you know what a researcher is ( again no offense meant) and the disdain with which you have categorized 'teachers' is frustrating to say the least. You think that good GPA guys are 'Rattofy tota's' and the only thing they are good at is doing the useless teaching job? If educated people of the society like you have these notions, then only God can save this nation which it has been doing until now.

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @Saad: Thank you Saad . Pleasure!

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @Gilbert Cell: I dont have any authority to publish or to not publish your comments . Even my comments need moderation :) And yes its my observation and somewhat experience behind the article. Moreover i welcome the genuine Cheers and Flames only if you want to add.

Gilbert Cell | 12 years ago | Reply I don't know why didn't the writer published my comments. This proves that this article is just for fun and nothing substantial,let alone the criticism.

Saad | 12 years ago | Reply @Overprotected i totally don't agree with u, i am a good communicator, i am creative and i am a tec guy and u am doing my engineering, i don't score too good most of the times but i know i am the best at labs and practical work, my group of friends and i love making projects and v love to attend MUNs as a delegate as well. I was quite glad to read this article knowing that taking good grades is not the only thing required. Thank you Ma'am!

Zubair | 12 years ago | Reply @Hira There's a fine line between cramming and engineering concepts, one cannot pass Calculus or Programming while cramming, let alone teach.

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @Overprotected: The old and rusted concept (that you mentioned) of an Engineer no more exists. Think Out of the box and accept the Change ! I take criticism seriously but only the one that is SAID SENSIBLY. @Zubair Those who get things easily , can spread thing easily. @zunaira Noted!

Uzair Javaid | 12 years ago | Reply Great piece by an engineer for other engineers. Though undergoing my engineering, but would taking your experience and points along. Thanx =) APPLAUD for you LADY

Zain Maqsood | 12 years ago | Reply Well...... An excellent job by the writer,,,,, I just want to add that to be an Engineer in a real sense is far more difficult as compared with a guy who had just completes his engineering degree and walks away having no influence on his life........ In fact i would recommend these guys not to blame engineering discipline if they didn't feel like an Engineer..........

Muhammad Adeel | 12 years ago | Reply @ Overprotected Dude, you are making no sense when you claim that engineers need not to be good communicators. Do you know that?

Zubair | 12 years ago | Reply Crammers with good grades Crammers don't make good teachers @Overprotected All engineers can be good communicators, but not all good communicators can be engineers, keep that in mind.

Zunaira Asif | 12 years ago | Reply @Hira Zulfiqar Ali: I am sorry Hira but your claim that you read it in Guinness Book of World records 2008 doesn't make any sense and it is well pointed out by Mr. Zeeshan & Mr. Sohaib and now your saying that you read in 2010 edition which still doesn't make any sense, because I am regular subscriber of Guinness Book Of Records and I know each year the book comes out in Sept/Oct of the coming year. So if you claim that you read it in 2010 edition this means the book was published in Sept 2009 so it cannot have your alleged record. My request to you and all other writers is that please please do some research before making any alleged claims because we as a nation has been prone to this disease of forwarding messages and information without checking its credibility.

Overprotected | 12 years ago | Reply For God's sake please stop misleading students! Engineers are not supposed to be a good communicator, they shouldn't even pursue career in engineering in the first place if they think they're good communicator. Business management and/or mass communication is their cup of tea. What do you think about the role and responsibilities of a researcher? One who writes essays, term papers and research reports for students/websites/companies just as you see job openings for content writers? Hell no!

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @sohaib siddiqui: Well i wrote this statement just to motivate the Engineers. Ops my fault in the above comment i wrote 2008 by mistake instead of 2010. Thanks for the response . Highly appreciated.

Gilbert Cell | 12 years ago | Reply Can I ask you on what basis did you write this article and specially how did you categorize those 4 types - Just your observation?

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @Shabaz Awara: No one will survive without skills, no matter how reliable the source is! Good luck.

sohaib siddiqui | 12 years ago | Reply @hira zulfiqar ali: i have tried alot to search this over the net, as it was immensely being observed as a status updates over the social networking sites..thats why i have asked you to provide with some supporting evidence in this regard..moreover you have written that the said information was published on 18th aug 2010, and you're now saying that this record was published/ recorded officially in 2008 in GB..so that does not make sense for publishing a record after 2 years..i myself is a Civil Engineer with a Masters degree too in the said field, and have no intentions of criticizing you at any point..i was just soo curious about this statement being said all over the internet..

Zeeshan Ahmed | 12 years ago | Reply @Hira Zulfiqar Ali: You said in your article that Engineering was declared as toughest course on 18th August 2010, so how come you read it in Guinness Book Of World Records 2008. I am not trying to undermine your effort of writing this article and no where I believe Engineering is easy course but claiming things without any authority and reference puts the credibility of writer in question.

M. Uzair Sukhera | 12 years ago | Reply Appreciate your candid piece. It does give meaningful advice to engineering graduates. However as someone mentioned on facebook comments the article misses out the essence of what an engineer should be! I think engineers should be keeping eyes open, by realizing their social responsibilities (as your last point states) they should involved themselves into extra-curricular and social service along with their studies. An engineer must be resourceful and should be open and flexible to use his/her skills to analyze data, find out patterns, derive meaningful information, build and propose solutions for it. Therefore the nice linear distribution of the job functions stated in this article do not truly apply to Pakistani tech industry. Most of the jobs are management roles, communication roles or analyst roles. Implementation and services role are the closest as you can get to research and development for there is no cutting edge tech industry (with active patenting and technology revolution). What Pakistani industry has so far asked for are generalists. So your advice of diversifying the skillet is the most important one here. SWOT is missing out because of lack of counseling and support structure which exists. Most universities never consider it important to promote career counseling, alumni relations and peer advising - the primary reason for this being that they only think of students as customers and not as their products.

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @Nadeem Ahmed: Thank you so much! You made my day :)

Hira Zulfiqar Ali | 12 years ago | Reply @sohaib siddiqui: Credibility of that postulate is that i happened to be in a old book shop where i read it.I didn't brought that Guinness Book of World Records 2008 home , so i cant take a picture and post it here.Beside Google will also give you satisfactory result if you will search it. Thanks!

Shabaz Awara | 12 years ago | Reply The only thing a new engineer needs are references. WIthout that, good luck finding a job. Engineering jobs require zero engineering skills ansd 100% political skills.

Zeeshan Ahmed | 12 years ago | Reply Please do some research before writing that Engineering is chosen to be toughest course. There is no source of this information and the writer has copied this from any of the latest status update which people are using these days on facebook. I am myself BEng Electrical Engineer and currently doing MSc Power System Engineering. The writer has failed to identify which engineer she is referring to, engineering is not very general feild especially now a days when it is more and more specialized. And I do believe engineering is a great course but I will not try to boast as it being the most difficult one, there are other courses which are equally or more difficult than it. And all the subjects have their own strengths and merits.

Muhammad Nazim Khan | 12 years ago | Reply Very nice work , thought provoking stuff , writer put light on those things , which we engineers neglects many time , this piece of work gives the reader something to think about themselves , to analyze own personality. Very helpful, specially for the fresh graduated who are just going to enter in the main stream , this will help them to decide what they are capable of and what they should be up-to .....great work , carry own , we expect more. Regards

Saad | 12 years ago | Reply an excellent article, truly calms the nerves of an engineer, every engineer can find a couple of future in this article strongly recommending my class mates to read it, and now i am sure what will i do after 2 years of my engineering MBA in HR INSHALLAH!

Nadeem Ahmed | 12 years ago | Reply Truth is, this is one of the best articles I have read in ET. Great work..

Iffo | 12 years ago | Reply Nice..great article. Thanks..the good articles comes aftr very long

sarah tahir | 12 years ago | Reply though this article is very sensible the new comers should have a look at this before getting into this field.. this will surely help them to take the better decision...

sohaib siddiqui | 12 years ago | Reply there's alot been said that engineering is chosen as the toughest course/ degree by guiness book of world records..can someone or the writer please let us know about the potential source of this information..thanks..

Muhamma Sagheer | 12 years ago | Reply Being a senior engineer I can say with full confidence that "going (engg) is tough and tougher gets going". Your article is a nice advice to fresh graduates. This is the age of specialization and a simple engineering degree doesn't suffice. A fresh graduate must diversify his basic engineering qualification with some other degree like business, HR and PMP. Best of luck to all new entrants.

Aamir Khan | 12 years ago | Reply hmmm... a gr8 article by u Hira, focusing on main thngs that an engineer have to work on!! It will be very helpful to newly graduates Engineers, How to survive in Practical world!!

Ali | 12 years ago | Reply As a middle aged medical professional, I would like to remind novice graduates that equation has changed dramatically in the last decade. Having a degree today is only the entry ticket, the first meal is probably free but you will have to fight every meal after that. Nursing today is as long and tough a degree as engineering---much to your disgust if not outright denial. Likewise, never underestimate timing and supply demand curve of skills-- what usually could get you a job in Cisco in mid nineties, that degree would barely get you a year old contract job at a third party provider now. That's supply and demand. Likewise in medicine, the nerdest have failed to find any lightvat the end of the tunnel. After a decade of slave labor they found themselves in a market owned, and manipulated by insurance providers. Never underestimate the underdogs--- I see a disturbing or a refreshing ( as you look at it) trend of finding high achievers who had very humble backgrounds.

Hani Imran | 12 years ago | Reply A true engineer can write this sort of a thing, it is so near to reality, emphasizng on little things which can lead to a great profeesional life, Very well done Miss. Zulfiqar, hope to read your columns more often , Regards Hani Imran

Muhammad Adeel | 12 years ago | Reply An excellent piece hitting the crucial points, usuall going neglected, very appropriately. There is a lesson for young and mid-career professionals alongwith specific scenarios and targeted examples. I particularly like the second point which invites every individual to build upon his/her strengths and explore diversified frontiers w.r.t career. We have doctors being great chefs and anchor persons.

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