CO-OP position...
So I decided since I am going to be a manufacturing engineer, what better way to prepare myself for a job and see if I still want to go to graduate school than to work for a semester. Well, I decided to take a position that one of my professors got me in contact with Flow Controls of Emerson Climate Technologies, a buisness partner of Emerson. Emerson is a large company with many buisness partners, but is best known around St. Louis as Emerson Electric.
Well, I've already started my job on Monday (December 18th) and I think it's great, so far. They have a very good system for CO-OP's. They employ two a year and they make sure to have them overlap by a week each time, so as to have the old co-op train the new one. The guy I am replacing, Tyler, helped me out a TON this week. I already have two very large projects to work on, and when we return from Christmas vacation, I will have a lot on my plate.
At Flow Controls, they place a lot of responsibility on their CO-Ops. They treat us like regular employees and they allow us to use our brains, all the while helping us along so we don't fail. The way it was described to me of a typical day from my boss, Evren: "I will come into your office, give you a problem. I will not know the solution, I will not know who does. That's your job. You are to figure it out, report it, and if it looks good, we'll go with that." The first project I am working on is scoping, purchasing, and implementing 4 brand new machines for our plant in Mexico. These are $15,000 machines a piece, and they are trusting me to make a decision. That's awesome!
Since I was only there for a week, I don't have much more to report than that. I should say that taking the CO-OP was a very hard choice, because it will delay my graduation by another semester. However, I feel that the experience I gain will completely outweight the drawbacks of being in school one more semester. I will continue to update...
Joe
posted by Joe Calmese @ 3:53 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Hey John - thanks for the blog. I would like to be an electrical engineer. I'm interested in attending IC but have heard different things about a 3-2 program compared to being accepted directly into an engineering school.
What's your opinion?
I'm not exactly sure what you've heard, but there are a few things out there that I know of. First, you gain nothing by going to IC. Second, it's a huge problem to get into the engineering school. And one more thing I've heard is that you'll be pretty far behind when you switch.
All three couldn't be further from the truth!
First, and foremost: The experience you gain is probably the most valuable assest in attending IC. You gain such an appreciation for all the finer things that college offers, not just what engineering school beats into you.
Next is the switching schools thing. I honestly believe it is a very smooth process IF (and that's a huge if) you make up your mind on where you want to go, and have some idea of what you want to do before your last year (and certainly your last semester) at IC. Giving yourself as much time to plan for classes and such is the #1 thing a student can do to ease transition.
The final problem is one that I was concerned with. As it turns out, there was no need. As you go through the IC program, they are very much aware of the stringency of an engineering program. For this reason, the "Physics with Engineering" program is evaluated on an outside scale, and it is one that they keep up with admirably. The professors make sure to use the same pace as engineering schools, to ensure the integrity of the program and the future success of their students.
Look at it this way: Going to IC you get all the benifits of going to an engineering school (as you will be in 3 short years), but you get the added pleasure of learning in an enviorment designed to teach every student as much as possible, not in an enviornment designed to "weed out" the poor students. IC's program is perfect for students who need a little bit more support and instruction early on, but can learn to excel individually. I think this can apply to just about every 1st year engineering student. If that is not the case, MIT is probably where you are headed.
I hope my point is not mistaken to mean that people who can't "hack it" at an engineering school go to IC first. That is completely incorrect. What I mean is that IC allows students to be blessed with the opportunity to taught on an individual level, which makes a huge difference in the quality of education. It has been my opinion that the students who have come from IC have been equal to, and in most cases, ahead of the students from the engineering schools. We have a better focus and understanding on ideas and solutions beyond the text book formulas and cheat sheets, and we have mastered the art of doing a lot of different, interdisciplinary tasks (Liberal Arts!) while still being able to solve problems quickly and systemically.
And if that's not your view on how an engineer works, then maybe IC is not the best option.
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