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Josh’s Quotes #9

(230; 501-502; 506) So I still don’t have a co-op. I actually have an interview today at 1:30, a phone interview at 1:30. I didn’t include it on the journey map, I forgot to. But part of that last up curve I’d say was procuring the phone interview I have today. Slightly nervous, very confident.

(259-262; 264-267) So with this one, this company that I am interviewing with today, they design and manufacture pipe fittings. And my dad was a sprinkler fitter for 35 years. And when I told him that I applied at this company, that they want to interview me, he said that he worked with their products. So that’s one thing that I will plan to be using as an “in” into the company, to say hey, I know your products are good, I have primary source knowledge of this, and I want to be a part of that process.

(106-111) I definitely am not ready to go into the workforce as an engineer. I would say I’m getting closer. This summer I’ll be going through my first co-op internship. So I think once that happens I’ll feel a lot closer because I’ll start to get work experience in. I feel very confident in my problem solving skills and my ability to work on a team. So in that sense of an engineer, I feel very confident.

(476-480) I was not very involved before I came to college. I never considered myself a leader. I considered myself a follower. But since I’ve come to school I think I’ve developed the leadership and communication skills necessary, not only to succeed in my field, but also to move forward in life and be able to interact with the people I meet in my daily life and in my professional life in a way that we can collaborate efficiently and cohesively.

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Josh’s Quotes #10

[75-132] I was off for five days after I came home from school. I started working at my internship. It’s two credits for the internship. I was very excited. It was very fulfilling experience. The company was very good. I was able to achieve a lot of personal goals and spend time with friends on the weekends. I went dinner with my team. My boss was not very good at communication. A lot of times I wouldn’t hear back from her for two months at a time, which is kind of hard to work with when things are time sensitive.

[137-236] I worked at a hundred years old and big company where they make couplings for piping systems. I worked in the regulatory compliance department that only have ten people. Two main projects that I was given was to evaluate a mechanical T, which is a coupling that you can put on an existing pipe to add at a branch. My job was to test them against competitors to prove that ours are superior. The second project was to evaluate some gaskets that are not traditionally used because we want to move into more diverse markets.

A lot of my internship at the beginning was understanding codes and doing research. I was able to plan the tests myself, choose the size and number of products I wanted to use. I confirmed with my supervisor, order, and wait for them. While I was waiting, another project was brought to me. It’s called CE Mark which is almost all electronics. We have these marks on our products since we are a global company. My job was to prepare and organize for an audit. I was there to help ensure that we fix gaps and got to see how the audit works. I continue to replace missing files and waiting for my other parts to come in. Once those parts came in, I was in the shop every day to cut pipe rolling to attach the couplings to pipe and assembling. Over the course of two weeks, I tested 21 assemblies and 15 gasket grains.

I think the internship prepared me to manage time and figure out what’s the best solution. I was not prepared for independence but adapting it. In school, I’m given assignments and was told what to do. Here, I was given problems to figure out how to test by myself. Neither my team leader nor my director of regulatory were there on my first day. I met with the team and started a week early. I met with one person who introduced me to everybody. Most of my interactions were with the team leader. Most days I contacted with him while I need his help. I also work with another person during the audits to go over files. I was trying to learn as we went along. The interactions were limited to my team leader, director of regulatory, and my team. Everyone always interacted with me on a personal level.

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Josh’s Quotes #11

[75-132] Then classes started. I was feeling little down because I missed the experience over the summer. The second week of school, I found out there is the sophomore year award. It’s awarded by highest GPA. Over the summer, they have allocated $500 to me. After that it was a pretty even point for two weeks. Then everything started to get harder. Because of all the stress, my first exam was on the down curve. However, I did well on the exam. I had so much work to do. It was hard to stay motivated. I have to give up my leisure activities. Two weeks ago. I was supposed to be taking an exam, but I didn’t understand the material. I was overwhelmed. There was one day I spent 12 hours working on lab reports. I was trying to find new habits and working with friends to find new ways to achieve goal. I had the second machine design exam during fall break, and I did very well. Hopefully I can maintain it for the rest of the semester.

[239-373; 430-439; 467-489; 526-539] This semester has been the hardest I have ever had in my life. I never had a mentally challenging experience. I wouldn’t be here without my professors. I get enough amount individualized of help that allows me to be successful. I have five lectures and two labs. I have a thermodynamics lab or a fluids lab which builds on the thermo class last semester. I also have a microprocessors lab for my degree. Machine design is the longest class. Professor has a notepad. Everyone in the room knows each other fairly well because it’s not a huge program. He keeps us engaged by making jokes.

For system modeling and analysis, we’re modeling a system, predicting its performance and optimize it. It’s been a difficult class because the professor is new. It was a big transition for her. She was just out of grad school. She was expecting us to know a lot of things that we didn’t learn before. There’s homework that’s due every week. With the thermo lab, the first week we do a demo with machine we’re working with. Then we have supplemental activity to do with the data on our own. The lab report is on an A3 size piece of paper. It’s printed out as poster. It definitely teaches me have to simplify after getting complicated results. We had a class learning how to use programs. It’s a supplemental. The memo format is a one-page summary report which most people had anywhere from eight to 12 pages.

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Josh’s Quotes #12

[377-415; 496-510; 656-673] Our fluids professor can be a bit hard on us. It does get annoying since I’m coming here to learn, not get chastised for asking questions. He definitely knows what he’s talking about and good at explaining. He called on random people in lectures. One time, I was working on a homework. I’m trying to be efficient by making a table, I asked him if it’s acceptable, and his response threw me off guard. He said, “Yes, but you should ask what’s the maximum I can do instead of minimum.” In my mind, I’m just trying to be efficient and make it easier to read.

For micro lab, I asked my professor a lot of questions. She would explain it until I understood. Knowing when you have a problem and seeking out the help before it becomes an issue that you can’t solve. I have a lot of interactions with faculties in school. The new professor has become a very good person to talk to because usually after I asked her a question about a lab report, we discus about how things goes for 40 minutes.

During an event orientation, a professor I had last semester pat my shoulder to say hello, so later I walked to his office. Even though we are both busy, we still talked for 20 minutes about my co-op and how I’m doing in school. The machine design professor sat down with me before this exam because I feel like I’m going to fail. He made me answer the questions to prove that I knew enough to what I was talking about to do decent on the exam. It’s also finding the time to relax in situations where it feels like I have none. I feel like it’s evident that I talked to my professors. I am very open about things going on in my life.

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Josh’s Quotes #13

[545-702] I know a lot of the people in engineering program. I tend to interact with four to six people on a regular day because I’ve gotten to know them over the past three years. We have classes together and see each other in other extracurriculars. I have general interaction with everyone in the program. I’ve always been the student who answers questions. A lot of people in the program have been reluctant to talk to me because I acted like a teacher’s pet. As I’ve been put into classes with more people, they started to realize I’m also having the same struggles as they are. My interaction with my peers has increased a lot this past few weeks. A lot of the interaction is during the day in classes.

To navigating through low points, it was a lot of self-reflecting on other people. When I was in the fall, I was getting extremely overwhelmed by my math class. For about two weeks, I was struggling to stay positive and get my work done. It was my past experiences to convince myself that the struggles are only temporary. Another point was brought to my attention that my classmates and I talk about a lot. I won’t take any classes in the spring. My peers and I agree that we had to go through this fall because we were coming back in the spring. We are so busy that we don’t have time to realize how fast is fast. I know pretty much everyone in the program, but a majority of people have different methodology than me.

Sometimes, students gather in the civil engineering building, and I don’t even know when they get there. Tuesday afternoon they stay there till 4:00 in the morning doing work. While working with my peers, we have same methods. That’s reflected in the people that I do spend most of my time with. We start ahead of time so that we not only don’t have to work at hard-last minute but also we can ask questions. It’s picking and choosing which peers I know are going to help me, and I do sometimes go to sessions with other people. We study and work with each other.

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Josh’s Quotes #14

[628-648; 729-742] There’s only so much self-repair you can do when you get knocked back down. It’s just the general feeling of anxiety in academics. If I don’t get this done, I’m going to work much harder later. The best way I can describe it is notice change and recognizing the change in behavior was how I get through difficulties.

The past four months have definitely been some of the biggest areas of growth that I’ve personally had in my life. I gained a lot of experience from the real world. I’ve had 12 jobs since 14, but none of them were engineering jobs. Having an engineering job allowed me to be used to professional. That taught me even if the concepts don’t apply, there is a baser reasoning to what I’m doing. I can look at a problem now and solve it without any help. If zero is not an engineer and 10 is an engineer, I put myself at six or seven. Purely because I don’t think getting out of school and getting an engineer job makes me an engineer. There’s an additional component that can only be found with experience and time. Getting the degree put me up from six or seven to an eight.

This afternoon, I’m updating my resume and choose where I want to go. As long as it fits their requirements that they lay out before me with time. My professor had to come visit the company I worked out for over the summer to see that I’m doing meaningful work and they’re taking care of me. I am still looking for an internship. Because my school is so involved in community, I can find a position that get me experiences that I need to achieve before I graduate.

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Josh’s Quotes #15

[317-335] During winter break, I went home for Christmas, and was able to see my family. I felt happy with that. Then I was starting in a new job. The interesting thing about this job, last summer when I got my internship, I had applied to probably 20 or so places. That was the one place that gave me an offer. It wasn’t like my last choice. It ended up being really the perfect choice for me, it just fell into place. But this time around I knew I wanted to stay on campus. That limited my search to somewhere within 20 miles so that I didn’t want to commute very long every day from campus. I waited probably almost halfway through the semester just looking at places, thinking, “Would this be a good match? What do I want to do?” Then an opportunity opened up at a company that I knew about, but I forget what I thought they did. But it didn’t sound interesting. Then I was like, “Well, now I’m interested.”

I kind of put all my eggs in one basket. If at any point there’s a disclaimer you can put in, I would say, I don’t recommend that people do that. It’s very risky and I probably wouldn’t do it again. But I reached out to the company, I had contacts who were alumni. I went the extra mile and I wrote a cover letter, I got letters of recommendation if I needed them. I applied for only that job because it was the only job I wanted and it’s the job I got. I got really lucky there. Well, I guess not lucky, I guess, I earned what I got in my opinion. But that’s I think important as well.

[339-361] A professor that just retired from our school was actually an employee at the company at one point. I reached out to her and she gave me some tips and tricks, and she was happy for me. I had the people in the alumni department that hooked me up with someone in the company that would put in a good word for me. Those connections were good too. I think those resources were crucial in getting me in, getting my interview, and securing the position that I really wanted.

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Josh’s Quotes #16

[5-62] As a result, this semester I’m working for a company and it has five major divisions. There’s paper, lumber, hydro, and then I forget what the other two are. One might be petroleum. But I worked in the Hydro division. The Hydro division designs, manufacturers, and rehabilitates turbines and other components for hydro-power. I worked in the turbine team. I was a turbine engineering intern. Like most internships, I did pretty much what was needed of me. But it definitely was not like, “Go get us coffee, go file this meaningless paperwork so that you have something to do.” It was actual work that applies to the things I’m learning in school and it gives me experience that I’ll be able to take moving forward. Actually, there were some Excel spreadsheet things they wanted me to fill. Then there are also a lot of situations they would hand me a technical drawing and they would say, “We need you to remodel this and make a new drawing because this one is out of date.” I would do that. There were a few design projects I was actually in on where I was able to come up with the design that would be used for various things in the field. If there’s anything else I can say about that, but that’s pretty much the general overview of my experience at my internship.

[112-128] Interestingly, the onboarding process was different at this company in comparison to last summer. When I started at the company, at my internship last summer, it was a lot of interns. They put us in a room and gave us a presentation. But at this company, I was the only intern at the beginning. Since then, there’s only been one or two others that I’ve seen. It’s a different type of thing. They didn’t have an orientation day set up for me, but what they had, it’s called an eight by eight by eight. It goes eight hours, eight days, eight weeks. You have a list of things that you need to do, and you have a contact for doing that. Then you have a place for them to sign once you complete it. Some of the stuff was read the code of conduct, go on our website. There was a PowerPoint they wanted me to go through that kind of talks about what’s in a powerhouse, so I understand what I’m doing. But there was also the Solid Edge tutorials. I got a tour of the machine shop that’s there. There’s also a hydraulics laboratory and getting tours of those was part of my orientation. That was, eight hours it was the first day, get your ID, do the basic stuff.

Eight weeks or eight days was the tutorials that really get you started. Then the eight weeks was the go online and look at these supplemental materials. It was up to me to do that. My supervisor, I don’t really talk to my supervisor that much. He’s very helpful. He sets me up, if I have questions, he tells me where to go. But the internship is very self-driven. I set up my trainings, I set up my projects, and I talk to the people I need to talk to. Unless I need him for something or he needs me for something, which is not a lot, I just kind of go on and do what I’m doing how I want to do it.

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Josh’s Quotes #17

[16-24] Early on in the internship, I ended up getting sick and I had to go home. I ended up being out for a week with flu like symptoms. Then, I came back to work and I started to pick up and it was easier to do what I needed to do. Then, my grandmother passed away, which was a minor setback in the work place. I had to leave for a day to come home and take care of that. Then once I got back to work, I didn’t really have anything else going on. That learning curve was also starting to, like I said, level out. Work started to get easier and I started to enjoy it a lot more of the time. Not to say I didn’t enjoy it before, but it definitely, like I said, at points was frustrating. Then as the job got easier, I enjoyed it more.

[191-207] The learning curve began to level out because I kind of figuring out little tips and tricks. Just doing it, taught me how to do it. I don’t want to say I was very quick to go ask for help. Because I would look at a problem and I would try to fix it myself before I would ask and bother someone else and waste their time. But my mentors and co-workers were always there to help me when I needed it. If not right away, within 15, 20 minutes. I leaned on them, they came and helped me. Every time something went wrong, I’d fix it and then maybe a few days later I’d get the same problem and I’d be like, “I remember how to fix this now.” Everything started coming together.

It came together for me in two ways. The first way is that, obviously you have a powerhouse. I’m sure you can imagine there’re hundreds, thousands if not millions of components in that structure. There are a lot of parts to learn. As I’m learning more parts of the powerhouse, and I’m understanding the parts, it makes it easier for me to design it because I know what I’m looking for at the end. That came together, but also learning how to use the systems where we store drawings. Learning how to make a bill of materials. As I started to see how the systems integrated into each other, I was like, “Okay, because I’m putting this in this system, then it can show up here so that this department can know that they have to do X, Y, and Z.” It was all of those things kind of together and not one really outweighed the other. They all kind of just kind of worked at the same pace to get me to the point where I was.

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Josh’s Quotes #18

[67-77] Another aspect where I had to adjust to while working at the company was the 3D modeling software. At school, for reference, the 3D modeling software that we use is called SolidWorks. This company uses Solid Edge. It’s the same concept, different application, different buttons, pretty much how everything else is on a computer. But at first I had to learn that, which was not that difficult. But as I had mentioned before, the difficulty kind of came when I had to learn all of their specific systems. In the sense that, they have a system where they store all of their finalized drawings. I had to learn how to go in there, how to make a drawing and there are certain steps. You have to have certain things set right when you create the document. It has to be a certain type of document. Once you’re done with it, you have to make sure it has a certain name based on what it is for what project. Then you have to promote it to somebody. Then once they approve it, then someone else has to approve it. Then you have to, I think, release it one more time. There was a lot there.

[78-87] Then there was another program called SAP, which is kind of where all the intricate things came in. If you have a drawing with something that you build, you have all of these individual components that go into it. SAP is where you store all of the bill of materials for these components. Again, you have to make a bill of materials, you have to fill in certain things. They have certain call-outs for specific parts. Whether it’s because it’s like a bolt or a nut, or it’s because it’s in a certain part of the powerhouse. Learning all those short names, learning the process so I don’t mess it up or so that there’s less to fix later. Then the same as the other thing, someone else has to check it. I have to update it and then release it and go through all those steps. Learning those systems I think was the most difficult aspect of the internship. I did end up having difficulties with Solid Edge. But it wasn’t necessarily with learning Solid Edge itself, I think it was more so the specific project I was working on.

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