This is a guest post by Jacob Valentien, PE
As I reflect and think about the various blog topics that I could write about for the Civil Engineering Collective, I wanted to start off by summarizing one of the biggest concepts that I see young engineers struggle with in their first few years after graduating college and starting their career. The issue is that your engineering career is quite the long game, and it has only truly started. Engineering school is step one and obtaining your professional engineering license should be the step where everything accelerates (and not slows down).
Establishing a challenging and rewarding engineering career is very important to me, and I hope to break down some foundational concepts so that you can set off on your own challenging and rewarding engineering career. I think the following four major components are most critical to take into consideration for your career development:
- Mindset
- Experience
- Continual learning
- Goal setting
You can find tons of content on each of these topics from all kinds of sources, both internally focused on the engineering field and externally. I think there is value in immersing yourself in these topics early and often to continually remind yourself of the value of each.
[Read more…] about Understanding and Optimizing the Long Game That Is Your Engineering Career
So you want to start your own engineering practice? Becoming an independent engineering consultant can be very lucrative. It also gives you freedom over the work you do. But it is a very different lifestyle than working for an engineering firm. There are several important items to consider before taking the plunge.
I’ve had the honor of speaking to thousands of engineers across the world over the years, which has helped me to understand why public speaking is so important to any professional. It gives you the ability to reach and impact a lot of people.
