After watching the Missing Basics video, I found that I am actually missing many of the basics and want to work on obtaining the skills to become a well-rounded engineer. As stated on many occasions including our first iEFX class, college prepares engineers for the math, science, and technical aspects of engineering when in fact the majority of an engineer's daily work schedule is composed of completely unrelated tasks. So students just out of college are not ready for the working world, and they lack skills required by them on a daily basis. Engineers generally push these tasks to the side calling them "busy work" or "common sense." I believe that it is extremely beneficial to be exposed to these absent essentials. If we realize this as freshmen and work to improve these skills it will make the transition from college into the working world much smoother. Most students lack these skills because they are simply not exposed to them in their college career. With this valuable knowledge I feel like I can use this to choose courses more wisely and create a more balanced course load and skill set.
In general I find public speaking very intimidating, thus asking questions in large classes can be very difficult. I also think it is important to be able to phrase questions appropriately so that people with technical background, as well as those without, can understand and interact in a productive discussion. I wish to develop my public speaking and questioning ability. Through interactions in the class I would like to be able express my opinion in an open and proactive discussion. I hope to improve my questioning ability so that I am not intimidated to ask professors challenging, thought provoking questions in a large lecture hall setting. Each week I hope to monitor my improvements by challenging myself to speak more openly in each class. I hope to improve my confidence so that by the end of this course and next semester I will not be embarrassed to speak up in any class.
Another skill set I wish to develop is seeing a project through by picturing the outcome and developing creative ideas to effectively reach an end product. Sometimes I get caught up in the details of project so much so that I cannot see the end result. By losing sight of this, the project becomes derailed and time and effort is wasted. I hope to test myself in the iEFX lab project and improve upon it for the next project. While completing the steam car project my goal is to analyze my sucess as well as the areas I need to work on . With this knowledge, I hope to improve upon it so that the next project I encounter will have a more efficient game plan. By the end of this program I would like to approach projects with an open mind full of ideas but with a clear goal in mind.
My final skill I want to address is effective communication. I have thought and analyzed problems the same way my whole life. I hope now to greatly improve my forms of communication so that I can clearly write and speak to any individual. I will achieve this goal by introducing myself to many students on campus. Instead of reverting to the way I always communicate, I hope to develop a more scholarly yet friendly form of communication. By doing this I hope to face future presentations and meetings with an eloquent manner of speech and writing.
