Commentary
Professional Advancement Through
Off-Hours Research or Teaching
by Jonna
M. Tarpoff, PE, Principal, Tarpoff Moore Engineering, Inc.
jtarpoff@tarpoffmoore.com 513-932-9777
The Problem
On an individual level,
engineers of all disciplines are focused on career and professional
advancement. It dominates their thoughts
nearly every day: How can I get a
promotion? How can I gain authority and
prestige? How can I become more
knowledgeable than my colleagues? How
can I improve my daily job satisfaction?
And what’s more, these concerns dominate engineers at all levels of
experience, from the entry level engineer to the senior technology leader.
There are many factors influencing
career advancement--technical factors such as how well you perform your job and
“soft” factors such as how well you get along with or influence people. However, there is only one factor with enough
power to propel you past your competition—being a 100% full-time engineer.
The Proposal
We work 40-50 hours a week on
company assigned tasks. This doesn’t
leave much time to other activities, not to mention reducing the risk of career
burn-out. However, the bottom line is
each of us must improve our knowledge and hence our job performance to keep on
top of our job AND to move ahead of our colleagues in prestige and authority. Therefore, we MUST work on engineering
related tasks far more than 40-50 hours per week. An additional 10-15 hours per week on
research activities will be necessary to increase our engineering knowledge and
abilities in order to move ahead professionally. ALL successful engineers know this and are
conducting their careers in this manner.
The best and easiest approach
for each of us is to become involved ON ANY LEVEL with a technical division
within our technical society. This
division should be chosen to represent your technical interests as dictated by
your present job OR by personal technical interests for future career
growth. For example, if you are in a
design related position, contact and offer your present knowledge to the Design
Division of your technical society. ASME
has technical divisions to suit every mechanical engineer. So does AIAA for those in the aerospace
industry…as well as IEEE for engineers knowledgeable in and working with
electrical/electronics technology.
A second approach is to teach
a technical course at a local technical college as an adjunct instructor OR to
offer tutoring services on the college level within your area of expertise. This will help teach YOU what you don’t know
about your area of expertise and to enable you to grow professionally. It also returns your knowledge to the
community and leverages the existing technical “smarts” of the community. Most adjunct teaching positions require a PE
license or MS degree. Get to know the
department heads in charge of recruiting instructors and bone up on the
proposed teaching subjects. If you want
to know more, call me; I’ll be happy to help.
The Plan for Technical Division Research Work
Technical Divisions offer
participating members an avenue to exchange information with others within that
specialty. They sponsor annual week-long
technical conferences in which research papers are exchanged between people
working in that specialty. Numerous
technical committees exist within the Division to cover many different aspects
of engineering. These committees meet in
break-out sessions which are organized during the week to stimulate discussion
on new and future areas of focus. Leaders
in your specialty are points of focus and offer understudy opportunities to
those less knowledgeable. Codes and
Standards Committees discuss problems and discuss proposals from committee
members for improvements to the Codes and Standards. If you are less familiar with the Codes than
the “experts”, not a problem, your industry perspective is added to the process
of improvement and your offer of review help will be accepted.
Participation in the
technical committees is not limited to only the top echelon of the field. You do not need to be a PhD or even have any
post graduate training. In some cases
membership in the technical society is not a prerequisite. Technical Division Committee members at all
levels are needed and your participation will allow you to get to know the
experts in the field, to tap into a broad base of knowledge, and thus increase
your own knowledge and your standing in your job and in the field. Participation in a committee may require you
to conduct some relevant research at your particular knowledge and experience
level, write a review paper with or without original research, or research Code
or Standards short-comings and write a report.
Here’s how to get
started. Plan to attend and participate
in a Technical Division conference this year.
Most companies will pay to send you, HOWEVER, about 25-35% of attendees
take personal vacation and finance it with personal funds often taking family
members. If you become part of a
committee before attending the conference, then the conference admission fees
are waived. Find out about the committees
existing within the Division and offer your services to the committee chair or
vice-chair. You can’t loose. It’s the best way to enhance your career and
increase your job satisfaction. Call me
for help locating a local member active in the Technical Division of
interest. Good luck and Q.E.D.