This is a group for the staff and students of Civil Engineering students of 2015 at Sharda University. The blog is meant for communication between the students and the faculty. Although it is one way (faculty to students) now, but we may extend the same to two-way communication. For any comments, write to me at satya.prakash@sharda.ac.in
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
What are the biggest career mistakes made by engineers?
Dhinesh Dharman, Software Engineer
I want to share some mistakes made by engineers in their careers. Having
made all these mistakes myself, I believe it is never too late to correct them
and being aware is a good first step.
1. Being a long-term domain expert (to the exclusion of other skills)
Everybody loves a domain expert. These are the folks who have
built/worked with a piece of technology for years and are the go-to person for
that area of work in the team/company. They may be able to give you instant
answers to your questions that may take days to research. They receive public
recognition for their unique knowledge and are respected for the value they add
to the team/company. Most engineers aspire to be known for that one-thing that
would make them stand out from their peers. But this is by far the
biggest and most common mistake made by good engineers.
Becoming a domain expert is a double-edged sword. The value that you can
potentially create by being a domain expert can be unparalleled at the company.
So, if you measure your success purely as a function of the impact you can
create for the company, this sounds like a win-win and a complete no-brainer.
But there is a hidden cost to it. By specializing in one area, you are losing
out on opportunities to develop skills in other areas. (If your goal is to
actually specialize in a particular area like security, then this advice
doesn’t apply to you directly. But even in that case, I would recommend
expanding your area of expertise to be as broad as possible within that area.)
This also presents a strange dilemma for the engineer since what may be good
for the company may not align with what may be good for their career growth. If
not handled carefully, this can lead to career stagnation and frustration down
the line.
To clarify, engineers should always dive deep and build a good
understanding of the domain that they are working with. But once they develop
the sufficient mastery, they should document their learnings/teach that to
others (potentially a great learning opportunity for someone else) and move on
to other things. In other words, they should strive to make themselves
dispensable.
Finally, the good news is that once you are aware of this problem, it
can be fixed easily by having a conversation with your manager. Given the value
that you have created for the company, your manager should be supportive of
changing projects/teams/roles as appropriate to help you grow in new areas.
2. Not optimizing for growth
Here is an exercise. Ask yourself the following question:
“What have I learned at work in the last six months?”
I am sure that you can list several things. Does that mean that you are
growing? Not necessarily.
Let’s take an example. Today I learned a keyboard shortcut for my IDE
which will definitely make me more productive in writing code. But does that
mean I should spend the next six months learning new keyboard shortcuts? Or is
my time better spent reading a book about software design patterns to be able
to build good software? Clearly, they are both very useful activities but I
need to decide how much time I am willing to invest in them. The main takeaway
here is that not all learning is equal and we need to think about which of them
lead to growth.
So, what is growth? I define growth as a step-change increase in ability
along a particular dimension. In my opinion, such growth happens only when rate
of learning is high. So, focus on activities where you can get such a high rate
of learning i.e. optimizing for value per unit time. In other words, a day
spent discussing ideas with a senior engineer can potentially help you learn
more than reading a book for a month (can always do both, just a question of
priority). But why should engineers care about growth? The reason why this is
important is that it helps build confidence to continue taking on bigger
challenges. You can read more about how having a growth mindset improves
motivation and productivity in all spheres of life.
Now that we have decided we want to focus on growth, how do we identify
ways to do that?
Here is a question that you can ask to assess your recent growth:
“What have I done in the last six months that seemed hard/impossible to
achieve six months ago?”
or looking forward:
“What would I like to do in the
next six months that I am not capable of doing today?
The answers to the questions about learning and growth should give you
all the information you need to figure out how you should be spending your time
going forward.
3. Focus on titles/levels
Here is a typical path for a new grad engineer. They finish school, join
a company and start growing at the company taking on new responsibilities. With
their motivation and hard work, they are able to have a lot of impact and they
get promoted to the next level without having to think too much. This is fairly
typical and there is very little variance in how this plays out at different
companies. Now that they are at this level, they are now forced to make more
conscious choices depending on how the company views career growth. This may
constrain their thinking since not all companies offer flexibility in
roles/opportunities. For example, if the company does not have a technical
track for engineers beyond a certain level, the engineer may be forced to
consider management even if they do not have an interest in it. A more common
example is that the company’s expectations of breadth v depth may not align
well with how an individual engineer wants to grow in their career. So,
engineers may feel forced to do certain things just to get promoted.
One way to tackle this is to set goals for your career and identify a
path forward without being constrained by the rubric/leveling guide at your
current company. One possible conclusion of this exercise could be that you
need to change your role or company. Every six months, keep re-evaluating
whether things are moving in the right direction. You should constantly keep
looking for reasons to stay at a company rather than looking for reasons to
leave. In effect, you are looking for leading indicators of a need for change
rather than lagging indicators. (In hindsight, I probably stayed one year
longer than I should have at my previous job.)
To summarize, engineers should be more proactive about their careers and
be very intentional about setting personal goals and figuring out how to
achieve them. Otherwise, your career will just happen to you
and it may not be the one that you wished for. Good luck!
Monday, February 19, 2018
Workshop on ABAQUS - 20.02.18
Dear all
you all are requested to attend this session .
Agenda of Presentation Synopsis :- Realistic simulation for Architecture & Construction
Demonstration on application of Simulia(ABAQUS) in Civil & Geotechnical Domain. Speaker will talk about FEA Software ABAQUS and its relevance in Civil Industry and Academic Purposes. SIMULIA offers Abaqus Unified FEA solutions for predicting the strength and deformations in structures in the linear and nonlinear regime. Agenda of Presentation is mentioned below.
Agenda
|
Duration
|
EDS Technologies Overview
|
10 Minutes
|
Presentation on Abaqus for Civil
|
60 Minutes
|
Presentation will be done by Mr. Sahil Sood , Application Specialist (CAE) at EDS Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Dassault Systemes).
Date - 20.02.18 (Tomorrow)Venue - Audi 014, Block -IIITiming - 2:00 pm- 4:00 pm
Posted by :Shikha Saini
Sunday, February 18, 2018
attendance in lieu of Marathon participation
Dear students,
In order to ensure that you are awarded the additional attendance in lieu of participation in the Sharda Marathon, kindly show the selfies taken at flag-off and ending point to the year coordinator (as listed below):
2nd year: Pinaki
3rd year: Afreen
4th year: Megha
M Tech (Structure): Nishant
(Env): Dr. Gaurav
(CM): Pinaki
(Geotech): Sarmistha
The same needs to be completed by Tuesday, Feb 20.
In order to ensure that you are awarded the additional attendance in lieu of participation in the Sharda Marathon, kindly show the selfies taken at flag-off and ending point to the year coordinator (as listed below):
2nd year: Pinaki
3rd year: Afreen
4th year: Megha
M Tech (Structure): Nishant
(Env): Dr. Gaurav
(CM): Pinaki
(Geotech): Sarmistha
The same needs to be completed by Tuesday, Feb 20.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Attendance for participating in Sharda Marathon
SHARDA
MARATHON
Feb
18, 2018 (http://shardamarathon.com/index.php/registration)
All the students registering and taking part in
Sharda Marathon Event on 18th February, 2018 shall be given TWO Full day attendance in all subjects. They
will have to show their selfie at the Flag off point and at the Ending point to
their respective teachers while participating in the race to claim this
attendance.
Transport:
Bus Service shall be available to all students and their family members
free of cost on the routes given at the following link. All the buses will
reach Sharda University Campus at 5:30 am.The buses will also
go back on the same routes after the Prize Distribution is over.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Friday, February 9, 2018
Additional CA consideration for completion of a MOOC course
Dear students,
You are encouraged strongly to undergo and successfully complete MOOC courses available on NPTEL, EdX, Coursera or Swayam.
On successful completion of the course and production of the certificate (before April 20, 2018), you may be considered for additional CA (the quantum is to be decided by the work load requirements of the course).
Pls. note that the course needs to be approved by Dr. Gaurav Saini, prior to enrollment, for any CA consideration.
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Monday Time table on Feb 12
Dear all,
On Feb 12, 2018, Monday's time table will be followed as usual.
The original change to Friday's time table stands cancelled.
So kindly follow Monday's timetable on Feb 12.
On Feb 12, 2018, Monday's time table will be followed as usual.
The original change to Friday's time table stands cancelled.
So kindly follow Monday's timetable on Feb 12.
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