Presentation of transitioning from College to Engineering for Chabot College

1. Presentation of transitioningfrom College to Engineering for Chabot College Presenter 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 rapped 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 the 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.