Interviews

Both my interviews were conducted a bit late and through email. My academic interviewee was
Dr. Akihiko Kumagai, an associate professor at Sacramento State University. I chose him because he is also the advisor for the Formula SAE race car team. His work and knowledge most likely are the closest to what career I'm investigating. My other interviewee, Eric Ingraham, is the logistics manager/engineer at the race team I work for, Flying Lizard Motorsports. While not exactly the position I would choose, he is an engineer that has moved outside of design onto other engineering related areas, which is what I would like to do.

As I said before, both interviews were conducted via email. Dr. Kumagai's was a bit short, but I think that has a lot to do with the language barrier. English is definitely not his first language, but he does do a lot of reading and writing on the job. He is a professor, so that involves a lot anyway. Somewhere between 60 and 70% of his time is what he said he spent either reading or writing. Eric's answers were very similar in that respect. As far what they do read and write, Eric's time is mostly spent dealing with rules, checking the validity of press releases before the go out, budget issues, and a ton of other emails throughout the day. Dr. Kumagai said he spent most of his time working on technical papers, preparing for classes, or answering school related emails. It seems that no matter what you do now-a-days, you must be writing or responding to emails during your work day.

Career Center Visit

My visit to the career center was a nice easy going venture. I learned there are a quite a few opportunities for those in the mechanical engineering field. I found a lady by the name of Julie Collier who's there specifically to help ECS students. She's the career counselor and co-op coordinator for the department.

There was actually an ECS career day that they hosted on March 6th to provide an opportunity for current students to meet with industry members about possible employment. When I get closer to graduating, it will definitely be an event I'll look into for job opportunities. I'm sure the nice people at the career center would give me a list of the companies attending so I could prepare myself in advance.

More interesting was that they directed me to the ECS career center website. It gave a good rundown of all the things they could do for me. There is a lot. Everything from co-op and intern positions to setting up a practice interview to brush up on interview skills.

All in all, it was a very pleasureable and reassuring experience.