16 Tips I’d Give Myself Before Studying Engineering

as i'm about to graduate from engineering next month i look back at the last five years and i realized there's so much that i learned and there's so much i wish i could tell myself when i was first starting out back in 2016 so i decided to share it with you tip number one have a portfolio of all your work it doesn't matter what kind of vagina you're in whether it's mechanical or software take your best projects and compile them into one document and then add that to your resume when you're applying to jobs doing so will help you get way more job interviews than you normally would if you didn't attach your portfolio but i know what you're thinking what if i don't have any projects to add on my resume or to add in this portfolio and i got you here's what you could do find a job posting that you want look at the skills that they require for you to have go online and look up online tutorials on that skill once you learn that skill work on a project that requires you to use that new skill or software that you just learned and finally put those projects on your resume and your portfolio and watch the job interview start rolling in i started my portfolio when i was in like third year of engineering and when i started it was when i realized i was getting more job interviews and better internships than i was when i didn't have the portfolio in the past tip number two engineering is a lot harder and more stressful when you're doing it alone that's why i recommend finding a strong group of people or trustworthy group of people to study with now i know it can be hard to find a trustworthy group be able to study with but you should definitely make it a priority in your engineering studies and that's because in engineering you're going to face a lot of confusing concepts and you're going to be put under a lot of stress because you're going to be given so much work that you have to do and so having other people that can relate to that kind of stress goes a long way in helping you feel less stressed and making your experience more fun also you're going to face a lot of confusing engineering concepts that make absolutely no sense to you but having a strong group of people that you can ask for help is so important because you wouldn't feel lost or confused when you know there's someone else that you can ask tip number three never buy textbooks brand new when your class requires you to buy a textbook you can almost always find a textbook online for free and if you can't find it you should contact upper year students who took the course that you're taking right now and see if they can help you find the online textbook but worst case scenario if you can't find it online then buy it use instead of buying a brand new because buying you is always always so much cheaper tip number four make a cheat sheet for your exams if you don't know what a cheat sheet is it's basically a piece of paper that contains all the information from your course all compiled and summarized into one single sided or double-sided piece of paper now the reason i think this is so important is because some courses in engineering will actually allow you to bring that cheat sheet with you to the exam and you know you can use that to able to solve questions on the exam but for the courses that don't allow you to take a cheat sheet with you to the exam making one will help you understand everything that's going on in the course help you see the bigger picture of the concepts that you're learning and because engineering requires you to remember and understand how to use so many equations this cheat sheet will help you condense and understand things that you wouldn't be able to understand if you didn't make a chi chi tip number five save your notes in engineering courses build up on top of each other so in your third year you're going to be learning things that build onto stuff you learn first and second year so that's why i always recommend saving your notes because you're going to need to refer back to them in your later years of engineering tip number six your grades in engineering don't matter you seen high school your goals probably get the highest possible grade in order to get accepted into your engineering program at your university but you see once you get in your grades don't matter nearly as much anymore instead of focusing on your grades you should be focusing on your internships and getting work experience and you should be focusing on making friends that's because when you're applying to jobs after you graduate employers don't care about your grade what they do care about what work experience you have so spend your time in university in engineering focusing more on getting work experience working on personal projects and making friends and meeting new people tip number seven travel abroad so i personally never did any study terms abroad mainly because in engineering when you do study terms abroad you end up having to face many complications and your engineering program was only supposed to last you five years and taking you six years so instead of what i did is i did internships abroad literally go on linkedin type the job you want the country or city you want to work in and start applying to those internships the experience of working and living in your country will be incredible and you learn so much about yourself especially if it's the first time you're ever living alone tip number eight take photos and videos of everything whether you're in class hanging out with friends doing a lab this university experience only happens once so take your phone and film everything it may feel like an inconvenience at the moment but you'll thank yourself 5 10 15 years down the line when you have these incredible memories to look back on tip number nine ignore the anxiety i know this is probably easier said than done but in your first year of engineering everyone around you will be feeling the same kind of anxiety that you're feeling everyone will be worried about what other people think of them everyone will be worried if they even belong or if they deserve to be here so realize that everyone has the same anxiety that you have will help relieve your anxiety a little bit tip number 10 everyone in your class is more similar to you than you think when i was in my first year of engineering i somehow thought that everyone around me is smarter than me they're better at building things they're better at calculus and so they already had past work experience but it wasn't until my second year when i realized that we're all a lot more similar than we think we are i realized that we all have very similar insecurities we all chose to get into engineering for the exact same reasons and we all have very similar goals that we want to achieve this is primarily because university is like a funnel you see ever since you start school when you're four years old you just go to your elementary middle and high school just because it's close to your house and most of the people you meet there only go there because they happen to live near you so the only thing you have in common with them is the city you live in but once high school comes in and you start picking what courses you want to take the funnel narrows down then finally in university everyone interested in the same program as you from all over the world meet in one place and that's sort of the tip of the funnel this is honestly the last time in your life where you're going to be surrounded by people your own age so use this time to make as many genuine friends as possible tip number 11 don't be competitive or toxic you see engineering students are some of the most competitive students out there and they will try to belittle you and make you feel like you're worth nothing just because your grades aren't as high or your internship doesn't pay as much so ignore those people and don't be like them instead make a solid group of friends and work together and help each other achieve your goals so that it's you guys versus the world instead of you guys competing against each other tip number 12 there's nothing wrong with skipping lectures let's say you have a job interview coming up or you have an exam that you need to study for and skipping that lecture will help give you more time do it there's absolutely nothing wrong with it you can always message your friends and ask them for the notes that you missed or the professor will most likely post their notes online and you can refer back to them later also if you have a professor that you don't understand or that can't teach you're going to end up teaching yourself anyways so don't feel bad skipping those lectures just skip and use that time to do something else tip number 13 it's totally normal to fall behind in your university work during the term when you don't have midterms or exams professors teach at a very fast straight and you're going to find yourself falling behind and not being able to catch up and that's totally normal because before your midterms are exams usually in engineering you have study breaks and in those study breaks you can use them to catch up on your schoolwork and study for your midterms and exams also you may think that everyone else has their stuff figured out and everyone else is caught up and not behind but many of them are just pretending everyone is really as behind and are falling behind just as much as you are so don't stress tip number 14 use linkedin more than you already do cold messaging people on linkedin can go a long way and don't just cold message them asking for a job but cold message them getting to know them asking what they look for when hiring engineers and what their job is like and then those can be connected so you can leverage later on for other things like maybe if you're looking for a job in the future tip number 15 invest your money when you start working as an engineer and getting those internships you're gonna be making you know a decent amount of money don't just keep it in your bank and watch it go down in value because of inflation instead take that money invested in stocks or index funds so you could you know grow in value from year to year tip number 16 learn everything online so for every type of engineering there are a few skills and software that you need to really master and be extremely good at to stand out when you're applying to jobs for example in mechanical design engineering jobs they ask you mechanical design questions gd t questions material selection questions and manufacturing questions so become really good and understand those concepts really really well so you can stand out in your job interviews and eventually get the job that's it these are 16 things that i wish i knew before starting engineering at the university of waterloo i hope this video brought you value if it did please make sure to like and subscribe and i'll see the next one peace

Channel: Tamer Shaheen

Views: 33,436

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Id: SU5tjB11QlI

Length: 8min 41sec (521 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021