Discipline Investigation Essay

DISCIPLINE INVESTIGATION ASSIGNMENT

INTRODUCTION

Choosing a field of study is a major life decision. The pursuit of a college education is an immense investment of both time and money. For this reason it is important to be as informed as possible about the potential prospects. First one should develop a general idea of what field to go into. Almost as important, one should think about why that career seems attractive. Once this has been done more information should be found to see if that is really what is wanted and if so, how to be successful in that field. A great way to find out if this type of work is well suited to a person’s personality and get advice on how to do well is to interview somebody who is already in working in the industry.

I am interested in electrical engineering. I like mathematics and the physical sciences and I am fascinated by electronics. My attention to detail and passion for using physical laws to solve problems in creative new ways makes me think I will do well in electrical engineering. In order to find out what type of job I could possibly be doing someday and maybe get some tips I decided to interview an acquaintance of mine.

I had a chance to interview an extremely energetic, goal oriented, and friendly woman who works in the field that I am interested in. I promised her that the provided information would be kept confidential and that her real name would not be used in my Discipline Investigation Assignment; therefore, I will call my interviewed subject Mrs. Harrison. Besides, Mrs. Harrison didn’t give me any particular writing that related to her job and duty at this company. However, she described the type of writing and reading she did in the job in details…..

The interview questions and references are attached in the Appendix section of this essay.

INTERVIEW REPORT

Background and Career Path

Mrs. Harrison, the person that I interviewed, has been an applications engineer for about 10 years at Integral Solution Int’l (ISI). She said that ISI is a small corporation that for over 25 years has sought new technology applications, and provided support, for the magnetic recording industry.

To give me an idea of what made her pursue a career in engineering she gave me an anecdote from her childhood. She told me that she had always been interested in engineering, even in grade school. Her favorite subjects were always ones that focused on problem solving and creativity, such as math and physics. As a little girl she wasn’t interested in playing with dolls like most of the girls she knew; instead she carried around a bag of disassembled electronic devices! At home whenever something broke she would bring it into her room and place it on her shelves and spend hours tinkering with them. When her parents asked her why she was collecting these trifles she explained that when she grew up she would be an engineer and fix everything. This desire to fix things and find out how things worked never went away and she did become an engineer afterall.

Roles and Responsibilities

Mrs. Harrison is an applications engineer whose responsibility it is to write preamp drivers (the chips that control reading and writing on a hard drive), final QS testing, and debugging. Because the company is small, sometimes her responsibilities are to test each particular board and then the whole system. Also, on big projects she supervises technicians. The biggest challenge she faces in her job is when new chips arrive and she has to start writing to them. This essentially means sending inputs to the chip and ensuring that the hardware and software are syncing. Sometimes, they have various problems with the chips including issues with the assembly programming so Mrs. Harrison is an expert in debugging.

In my opinion other important challenge of Mrs. Harrison is that she is only woman among her colleagues engineers at this company. As a woman, I am particularly interested in how my gender is underrepresented in my field, and I am fascinated by how she deals with this strange work environment.

According to the article “Woman in Electrical Engineering: One Mentor can Have a Big Impact,” by Ruth Schechter, 10% of Electrical Engineering students at Stanford University are women, and only 5% of the professors in Electrical Engineering Department are female. Robert Gray, who is the Stanford professor of electrical engineering and also a member of the Institute for Gender Research, tries to help his female students to succeed in this traditionally male field, and also encourages his colleagues to do the same….

I was also curious about the qualifications and skills required for somebody to be eligible to work in her position. Mrs. Harrison said that at least a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering is required, but a Master’s degree is preferred (Mrs. Harrison has both). Before being accepted to work in this position as an Application Engineer at ISI she had a long interview, and then was trained at different parts of the company for about one month by qualified engineers at the firm. Aside from the required university degrees there are other skills requirements. Strong computer and technical skills that include understanding computer hardware and software, familiarity with C++ and Visual Basic programming are necessary. Even though she is very well educated and knowledgeable she considers her education to be ongoing and continuous because the technology sector is always changing. Constant innovations in the field require new skills.

All fields require specific personality traits and electrical engineering is no exception. Mrs. Harrison told me that it does not matter if you are a doctor, engineer, teacher, or an accountant; you need to love what you do to be successful. If you want to do well you need to work very hard, but if you enjoy your work it you won’t mind the difficulty, and completing your work gives you an immense feeling of satisfaction.

The traits Mrs. Harrison feels are most important include responsibility, persistence, organization, accuracy, self-confidence, and above all a positive attitude. Mrs. Harrison also told me that it is important to show that you are motivated and truly interested in the job. Another aspect of a good engineer is being able to work well with others. Many engineers have strong technical skills and are passionate about what they do, but they have weak social skills so developing these attributes can set me apart.

Her work hours vary. She always works fulltime, but sometimes she is required to work overtime. This depends largely on the complexity of the project and the time frame for the project’s required completion.

Communication Skills

When I asked her how much money she makes she answered that it depends on the level of Electrical Engineer. Engineers are rated into categories based on experience with the least experienced being level 1 and more experienced being level 3. To get more detailed information about what this really meant I browsed online and found on the salary.com website that there are four levels of electrical engineering that perform different tasks.

The entry level or Engineer I is a level with the lowest salary (this typically means recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree and little to no experience). The highest-level engineer is engineer IV. This level requires the most experience and education therefore it merits the highest salary. A typical engineering salary varies in the range $48,000 to $118,000.

When I asked her if she had any samples of writing she had done that I could use to analyze for my Discipline Investigation Assignment she said that it is all confidential information. Since they provide the same final product to different companies and a lot of this information is intellectual property she could get into legal problems if she shared it with an outsider. She only agreed to describe the types reading and writing that she does in her job.

Mrs. Harrison explained that there were particular writing conventions and manuals for new products or updated ones. There are also writing conventions for engineering reports that are based on testing procedures. Another form of writing she encounters includes consultations with customers through emails.

She said that manuals for new products are collaborative with a range from 20 to 200 pages, and the reports that they write are usually just a few pages and are typically done individually. There is also a specific format used for citing references in the industry. She also mentioned that rhetorical strategies and genres reflect your professional writing skills. Since engineers tend to be notoriously bad writers, developing these skills as well can help me stand out.

I was a little disappointed that writing skills are important for this field because I struggle a lot with it. When I chose engineering I was hoping I would not have to do any writing because it takes me a long time to proof read and make corrections to achieve a final product. For a moment I lost any hope of being offered a job in the future because my writing is not good enough, but then I realized that I just have to improve consistently and work very hard and not let this stop me. I have a long way to go but my choice to enroll in LLDA was a wise choice and I am sure it will be of great benefit in the end.

When I asked her if her company offers internships for undergraduate students she said that it depended on production volume. If they are very busy sometimes positions open up but a lot of time they prefer only to hire full-time employees since a lot of the work they do is information sensitive and they do not want to subject themselves to possible industrial espionage. They feel that interns are too risky because they may accidently discuss trade secrets and other intellectual property.

Conclusion

After completing my Discipline Investigation Assignment I felt more confident about the type of skills I would need to develop to be successful in electrical engineering. Also, I realized how important writing is for an entry-level engineering job. Even though I used to think engineers do not write, it is an important part of their skill set. The interview with Mrs. Harrison got me even more interested in electrical engineering than I had previously been. She perfectly introduced me to the types of responsibilities and duties an engineer encounters in the field and the types of exiting tasks I can look forward to.

Moreover, I founded similar traits in myself, and memories of my childhood, that point to my love of electronic devices. I believe that engineering affects everyone and everywhere in our planet and it is exiting to think about how I will be able to solve problems creatively using my technical knowledge.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics the demand for electrical engineers will grow by 6% over the next 5 years. Electronic devices such as cellphones, navigation devices, and computers are in high demand and are a permanent part of human society. I am exited to one day be a part of the development of such indispensible and powerful tools. So, to prepare for this career, I need to prove my writing skills and maintain honorable engineering background during my next year at San Jose State University.

References