Here’s what’s on deck for the next year and a third.
I’ve got but three more semesters until I can walk with my BS in Mechanical Engineering. They will be filled with such topics as Heat Transfer, Finite Element Analysis, Instrumentation, Control Systems Design, Energy Systems and the two semester ME Design Project. Along the way I’ll have to study up and pass the EIT (Engineer In Training) exam to get myself properly titled as a young engineer-to-be.
Besides getting myself fit for graduation, there are three other things I’d like to accomplish in the next 16 months.
I’ve got to replace myself at Paul Component Engineering. They’ll need someone who can handle the role of print design, marketing, and web design that I’ve built around myself over the last four years. Hopefully I can find someone who has more experience in those areas then I did before I started self-teaching, and oh will there be company idiosyncrasies and methods to pass on to the new hire.
I’d also like to learn as much as I can of frame building. In what feels to me like some gift floated down from on high, Mitch of MAP Bicycles has asked me to start helping out in his shop. I’ll be starting this Saturday actually, building wheels and soaking in as much of his experience as a young builder and business owner as I can. If the timing works out, I’d like to be able to spend a few months putting in some solid hours at his shop. I feel like this is a precious opportunity to get a taste of a job I’ve dreamed of.
The third goal is to find a summer internship from which I can gain a bit more perspective on a career as an engineer. There are a few places I’m looking at in Connecticut including Sargent: a lock manufacturer, Sikorsky: maker of fine helicopters, and if I can find one close enough to New Haven, maybe a firm that does prosthetics design or manufacturing.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about prosthetics lately. That could be a pretty noble career.
Internships, job fairs and meetings with recruiters are all parts of being an engineering student that I haven’t paid much attention to yet, but it’s dawning on me now how critical they can be when facing the howling expanse that looms after graduation.
Then of course, once I’ve graduated it will be the end of my time in California. I’ll pack up and move to Connecticut to live with Xue, where we will end our long engagement with a nice little wedding. We’ve decided late Summer / early Fall of 2014 would be nice time to tie that knot.
So here’s to the coming months, I’ll try to let you know how all these plans fare.