Engineering is a fascinating and highly skilled profession with so many interesting aspects. Various skills and attributes make a successful engineer and there are always ways to improve and hone your skills to become better in your role or to get that perfect job.
Solve problems
One of the most important skills in engineering is problem solving. When starting a new engineering project, you will come across many different issues and your problem solving skills must be up to the task. Planning is key and all of the problems must be ironed out before any materials are utilised.
In order to become a better engineer it is a good idea to improve your problem solving skills. There are many ways to do this including courses and reading up on examples of projects and their problems to see how you would deal with them. You could even try practicing lateral thinking puzzles to see things from different angles.
Study further
There are many qualifications and courses to choose from to gain experience and certificates in engineering, so it is well worth looking into courses that provide you with the education and skills you want and need to learn. Several courses can be done while working so you can gain your qualifications while doing your job. In some cases your employer can even help provide financial help to complete the course so it is well worth enquiring to see if any financial support would be available.
Understand the mechanics
Understanding how items fit together and operate is another essential part of engineering and whether or not you will be working with a particular item, taking things apart to see how they work is a great way to learn. Breaking items down into their component parts and understanding how and why things are built the way they are can help immensely in many different projects.
This curiosity and experience in taking things apart can be incredibly useful in the role of an engineer, so perhaps purchase some old items like computers or mobile phones and take them apart for a better understanding of the technology.
Seek advice before opening highly sensitive equipment. Once you have taken a few things apart you will find that you may start to think differently about many everyday items and this creative thought will lead to better results in engineering jobs.
Gain practical experience
If you are looking to get experience in particular areas then get involved as much as you can and speak to your manager about your interests. Ask if there is a chance that you can shadow someone in a specific role or give a few of your lunch breaks or time after work to learn new skills with some of the other engineers.
You can learn so much from just getting stuck in and getting your hands dirty, so instead of using equations and trying to learn from books all the time supplement your education with valuable hands on experience.
Pass the test
Improving your testing skills is another way to become a better engineer. This way, when it comes to the final build of your project you will be more confident there won’t be any problems. Testing is a useful skill as it can help highlight problems in the design before even considering construction.
Further advice can be found on other pages of our website here at Randstad CPE.