Presentation of Transitioning from College to Engineering for Chabot College

1. Presentation of Transitioningfrom College to Engineering for Chabot College Presenter: Mr. Bernhard Stonas

2. Group Dynamics at Work as well as School • Groups fail because of the 3 issues Ego Laziness/Priorities Miscommunication. • Ego putting your ideas before the groups, but also subtitle that you can get away with it. • Laziness/Priorities Knowing when to work on what and with what intensity • Miscommunication simple as not keeping track who is doing what all the way to telling people the wrong dimensions.

3. Groups at School • Chose people who you can work with they do not have to be friends. • Chose people who will do what they say and not butter you up. • Good grades are not an indicator of how hard people work and will work on the projects. • Talk is cheap actions are expensive.

4. Groups at Work • You most likely cannot choose who you work with. • Be professional with your communication. Keep the tone neutral and do not push people emotionally around. • Try to communicate issues as soon as they arise. • Everyone makes mistakes make sure you have a backup solution for mistakes. • Do not let yourself get so emotionally wrapped up in the work that you will have problems if it does not work out.

5. College to Work Transition • Started at Chabot in fall 1991. • Went to SJSU from Chabot in 1994. • Finished my undergraduate degree at SJSU 1997 • Finished my graduate degree at SJSU 2000.

6. What College Taught Me. • Physics and Calculus. The better you understand the details the more of an understanding about problems and their solutions. • Understand the fundamentals of engineering • Circuits, Logic, Dynamics, Structure of Materials • And be able to play with them. • Thinking through problems backwards and forwards. Translating logic into equations. • Note taking is for tests and homework.

7. Jobs that I had During College • Apprenticed as a bicycle welder summer 1994 (unpaid). • Worked for Voodoo Titec in summer 1995. • Worked for Wheelsmith in summer 1996. • Worked for SJSU semiconductor lab from 1996 through2000, on and off. • 2 internships at BMW summer 1997 and 1999

8. What the Jobs Taught Me. • There is no partial credit. You get paid only if the job is done to the customers satisfaction. • That everyone will have a different opinion of you the middle ground matters, not the extremes. • No one care where you came from or your disabilities. It is just can you perform your job and how good are you at it. • The customer does not care if you are having a bad day, also do not take your issues out on customers or coworkers. • Note taking is for legal as well as to figure out why an experiment had unexpected results.

9. What Jobs Taught me Engineering- Wise • Production equipment does not have to be designed to look pretty; it has to never break down. • The engineering (design ) cost in a product is much higher than that of its production equipment.

10. Work after College • Applied Materials (Semiconductor Capital Equipment) • Immersion (Virtual Reality Equipment) • Stihl (Production equipment) • Aero Union (Aircraft) • Wolfe Engineering (Biomedical) (Solar cells) • Runco (high end TVs) • Invenx (Ozone Equipment) • Natus Medical (Medical Devices) • Hantel (Medical Devices) • Superbulbs (LED) • Redwood Systems (LED) • Wafergen (Biomedical) • Exclara (LED) • Intellilight (LED)

11. 4 Biggest Skills sets out of College to Learn • ECO’s Engineering Change Order. • BOM Bill of Material • Understanding other people’s designs. • Communication through drawings, documentation, and presentations the organization of parts.

12. The Most Helpful things I WISHsomeone would have taught me. • Change management • Know what you can negotiate and what you cannot negotiate with. • Understanding the difference between the contracting and permanent mind set. • Know what you are willing to lose to win and what you are not willing to risk.

13. Know what you can Negotiate with • Know the scope and issues of the project/job. • Know what engineering issues will cause the system that you are designing to fail. • Know the key people around you who can help you achieve what you need. • Work with people to build consensus and do not let politics alienate the people you need.

14. Permanent Placement • Stability of job. • Stability of people. • Benefits. • Longer time between jobs. • More reliant on certain industries. • Much more repetitive of a job.

15. Contract Engineering • Get a breadth of exposure to a lot of different problems. • If you get a bad client the job will be over soon. • Get to understand many different industries. • High turn over of jobs but because of breadth easy to get a new job.

16. Know what you are willing to Give Up • Know yourself. Habits Issues. • Every employment will ask you to sacrifice something different. • Know what you can give up and cannot give up. • You will have to give up something know how much you are willing to give up.

17. Tips and Hints • Do not stay seated. Expose yourself to new ideas and work. • Help people both those above and below. You may never know when you need the people below you. • Judge people on how they deal under stress, because the work place is stressful. • Judge people with how they treat people below them.

18. Looking for Jobs • While at Chabot have a least 1 low level technicians job. For EE; Soldering, Rework, For ME; Machining, Technicians, Assembly. • While at the next 4 year college have a Jr. engineering position. Low level design; Trouble Shooting, Testing and such under an engineer that you trust. • Biggest tip in Indeed.com coalesces all jobs in a certain area very much like google.