Samin Jahan

Professor Mark Jamison

FIQWS 10108

9 December 2018

 Exploring Mechanical and Electrical Engineering

Introduction and Framing of the Problem:

After learning that deciding a major for me could be solved through complex designing skills, I started to apply them to different majors I had in mind. As a beginner I first started to apply these skills when investigating physics and electrical engineering (EE) majors in my previous paper. After collecting data on the knowledge, skills, and jobs offered for both majors, I ruled out physics as a potential major for me. Quickly after ruling out physics I started to become convinced that mechanical engineering (ME) might be an even better option. In this paper I plan to go further with the work I had done on EE and start investigating ME. I also plan to focus on a vocational career by doing a functional job analysis on a vocational career and performing a prototype interview on a job holder. Both of which are smaller steps needed in order to design my way through college.

The Designing process is a complex web made up of many smaller decisions that are linked to one another. That means each small decision I make should be connected, eventually leading to the big decision. Either way, I can’t go wrong with choosing either ME or EE because they’re both greatly related to physics and mathematics. However, I will take advantage of the time I have, to decide among the majors which I will perform better in. I will do this by prototyping both college majors, mechanical engineering (ME) and electrical engineering (EE) and providing evidence of it in this paper.

Reflecting Upon Myself:

The good times journal is an early design tool that logs activities in order to find activities that engage and energize you. Looking through my good times journal I noticed my life is involved in mainly work instead of play. Play would show the things I do on my free time that could reflect what I enjoy. Instead I am going to school, doing homework, shopping or any other necessities. When I noticed this trend, I asked myself “why am I spending so much time on small single tasks?”. My possible explanation for this would be the transition from high school to college. College has given me the responsibility of managing my time by spending less time in class and more time by myself. That’s why I spend a lot more time doing the necessities than I should.

            The obvious solution would be to become better at managing my time, which I am working on. However, I also started to think back in time during my high school years and thought about what I would do on my free time. Not only did I search through my brain, but I also searched through old documents, emails, downloads, YouTube history, applications, binders. Interestingly I was exploring many different activities back in my high school years. What I found was that I explored coding, 3D rendering, replacing electronics and phone parts to sell for profit, fixing old non-working technology to start them up, troubleshooting software issues on phones and computers, science research, networking with other science students and scientists, prototyping and building robots, school chess tournaments.

Among the variety of engaging and energizing activities I had I done in high school I decided to do a life story on my little business on buying and selling smartphones. When I observed my life story exercise, I thought about why I decided to do this life story. What I could think of was that this task felt like a job to me. Because I had to consider money, skills, and enjoyment on a personal level. I performed a physical task that required thinking and planning before acting. Since I had a budget, I had to keep an eye out on the market to notice the trends on the latest devices, before I bought anything. I also had to research which device best fit the ideal one which was a device that had cheap spare parts, not too expensive to buy, and is easy to sell. The job required some knowledge of the hardware. For example, the physical teardown of the device so I know which steps to take first before I strip it down to replace its parts. You must also understand how each limb of the device (motherboard, LCD screen, digitizer, camera, speaker) were connected and fit within the chassis. One thing I really enjoyed was the things I learned from working on each different phone. Another big enjoyment I had was just being able to fix it regardless of the profit. Because prior to buying the broken the phone I don’t know specifically what needs to be replaced. I decide what needs to be fixed based on how it was damaged, the physical appearance, and the behavior. A couple of times, my first prediction was wrong, and I’d lose money because I already bought the parts.

This life story was a good picture of how a variety of different elements were brought together to perform the task efficiently. This is also known as a transferrable skill called coordination from Bolles’ exercise of transferable skills. When I did Bolles’ exercise and ranked my transferable skills, coordination was right under “solve problems”. They’re both common qualities in successful engineers today. I was not very surprised by the rest of the skills that reflected me because I knew myself enough for that. However, I never ranked these skills before and this is what surprised me. I thought visualize, construct, and repair would be towards the top. Instead, visualize was in the middle and construct and repair was towards the very bottom. These skills show slightly that I may be more suited for mechanical engineering rather than electrical, but not significantly. However, they do remind me that I am heading in the right direction which is engineering. The good times journal and Bolles’ transferrable skill are personal insights that can be used to connect with the skills and knowledge needed for a major.

Selection of Major and Design of my College Career:

Weighing and comparing options is an important part of designing towards anything. When it comes to majors, an easy and effective way to compare them is by reading through their curriculums. Looking through the curriculum for mechanical and electrical engineering gave me some insights about what classes I would be expecting for each major. It also gave me an idea that if I were to major in mechanical engineering then possibly, I would minor in electrical engineering. This is because the mechanical engineering curriculum doesn’t offer classes such as Quantum Mechanics for Engineers or Electromagnetism. These are topics that have always interested me, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on.

On the other hand, every course on the electrical engineering curriculum sounds interesting to me. But, for mechanical there are some classes such as fluid mechanics, thermal system, heat transfer, that don’t sound so interesting. My judgment may be bias because I don’t know much about these topics as much as I do with the electricity topics. Both curriculums offer a wide variety of design electives that I am satisfied with. I can pick at least 5 top design elective class favorites from each side but, that is just one or two courses out of the whole 4 years.

This investigation about the respective curriculums strongly supports the electrical engineering side. I always enjoyed reading about theoretical physics, sub atomic particles, and fields. But I’m afraid I can’t say the same when it comes to my skills and abilities. I don’t think I would be better off visualizing without a geometric/spatial picture to refer to. Because most of the activities that I’m good at and enjoy, involved a picture I can refer to in order to develop or solve a problem. The field study of electricity is mainly based on models that cannot be visualized physically but more through mathematics. So, my set of skills are more useful to mechanical engineering even though I enjoy reading about the imaginary nature of theoretical physics.

Another way I weighed my two options (mechanical and electrical engineering) is through the choose chart. It’s compares two different variables using the criteria’s that you assign. Looking at my chooser chart, whether you eyeball it or add up the dots and divide by the triangles, it is clear that mechanical engineering is a more sensible approach given the criteria’s. However, the chooser chart doesn’t clarify the value magnitude of each criteria. Although electrical was lower in most categories, it had a better score for topics of interest. To me this criterion is greatly valued because it is one of the fundamentals of any satisfying major and career. However, I give the most weight to the first two vertical columns.

I learned that even though I enjoy reading or watching something, it doesn’t necessarily mean I will be good at it. What I am good at matters more than something I enjoy hearing about but not good at acting on it. This can also be vice versa in many situations where people are good at something, but they don’t enjoy it.  So, the conclusion from this chooser chart is that they’re both very close, but mechanical engineering gets a higher overall score because of the weighted columns.

The odyssey plan is another design tool that maps out the next 4-5 years of your life using pictures, words, and numbers. Since my focus is on college, internships are common for students to get experience during and after studying. Internships where I can get an experience of what working on a team feels like would be useful for me and my resume. A particular one that caught my eye was ARUP. It’s an engineering and design company that is involved in many different fields of engineering. They do provide summer internships for majors in mechanical and electrical engineering. Many of their projects are also involved in cities like New York City. Their requirements include a bachelors in an engineering degree and course work of specific topics depending on the major. The internship does not require much hands-on experience but according to them it is preferred. So, I believe I can get those hands-on experience by playing around with mechanical or electrical systems at home and participating in extracurricular clubs/activities. If I see opportunities in my earlier years, I will try not to be picky and take them to explore many different career trajectories.

I also plan to explore more career trajectories through networking. If I participate in competitions such as the robotics, then in addition to the hands-on skills I will develop, travelling over states will help me develop more connections. Developing connections with others I believe would be a big part of how I will be able to explore other career opportunities. The City College of New York also provides a lot of events where job holders in companies come to speak to us. Even though I am a beginner designer, I already had the chance to speak to an electrical engineer at MTA that graduated from The City College of New York.

Investigation of a Job:

A good way to explore career trajectories at an early point is by investigating a job title that can be achieved through my major. When searching for job titles related to someone with a mechanical engineering degree, the one that most interested me was nuclear engineering. Earlier when I mentioned that I looked back into the past to find what I did on my free time I remembered one of the most fascinating labs I have been inside. A lab in Columbia University that had a nuclear fusion reactor that was powerful enough to supply electricity for the whole New York City. I immediately searched through my email to find an email I sent him years ago, hoping he would let me interview him. He replied to me and said he would be willing to let me interview him even though he doesn’t remember me. I thought this field would be a good idea to explore because when I last entered the lab, I noticed there was a lot of combinations between mechanical and electrical systems at the lab and on the nuclear reactors.

Nuclear engineers apply the principles of nuclear science and are concerned with the use of nuclear energy and waste. If nuclear engineering did involve mechanical and electrical knowledge, I wanted to know specifically what. So, searching through O*Net Online I found, “Design or develop nuclear equipment, such as reactor cores, radiation shielding, or associated instrumentation or control mechanisms” is one of the tasks. Creating a shield could involve both the technology of mechanical and electrical system because a physical material must be made as the shield and these shields are mainly magnetic in order confine the radiation within the reactor. “Conduct tests of nuclear fuel behavior and cycles or performance of nuclear machinery and equipment to optimize performance of existing plants”, is another task that could involve both fields because a nuclear reactor is an electro-mechanical system.

These tasks usually require a team to accomplish because of time constraint and its complexity. They require a relatively high level of knowledge and interactions in all three categories of data, people, and things. These tasks fall within level 4 and 5A (Analyze & Innovating) for data because, of lots of mathematical applications and testing their real-world applications on physical forms. A level 2 (Exchanging Information) for people because, it is a teamwork to improve the whole nuclear system. It is not likely for one person to hold all the knowledge and skills for this big task. A level 3A and 3B (Precision Working & Setting Up) for data because, the nuclear reactor needs the math and science physically applied to it. Although robots and mechanics do a lot, some small objects need to be assembled or maintained by the engineers. They spend most of their time with data and computers to monitor the system without being close to it, 30% people, 50% data, 20% things.

The knowledge sub-category at O*Net did include knowledge of mechanics, computers & electronics, physics, and engineering & technology, is required. Almost all engineers have a bachelors in this degree which is good for me because I plan to go up to a doctoral degree.

Nuclear engineering compared to aerospace or automotive engineering, is better because it isn’t dominated by mechanical engineering only. However, the con is I would most likely have to take higher level chemistry classes for the study of chemicals used and the nuclear waste. This job field could possibly be a solution to me because mechanical and electrical degrees are widely accepted into the nuclear field.

Above is some data of the research I had done on nuclear engineering using O*Net Online. I had the chance to speak to Jimmy who is a nuclear engineer technician on a tokamak fusion reactor over at Columbia University. One important question I asked was “What are the biggest challenges in your field?”. His response to this was “always failing on the first step.”. Thus, him and his team end up spending around half the time troubleshooting. They take systematic steps towards troubleshooting and diagnosing is one big first step. They attempt the diagnosing by asking questions like “How should I test each component by itself to find where the fault lies?” and “which subcomponents are related to the problem?”

Another important question I asked was “How often is knowledge from mechanics and electricity used?”. My assumption before asking him the question was 50 percent of each field as a technician. However, he said that more knowledge from electricity is more useful for his work. O*Net online did mention both mechanics and electricity but did not mention how much of each field is used. The main things I learned from this interview was troubleshooting is an important skill one must have in order to tolerate the work in this field. Also, my assumption that mechanical engineering would be as useful as electrical engineering in this field, was wrong. Jimmy provided me several instances where concepts of electromagnetism are very useful in his work. I’m glad I received this information because it played an important role in researching for my design process.

Design Thinking Process:

Another instance where I had a wrong assumption was when I assumed that most people get a decent professional degree after four years of college. I’ve always wondered how some people major in physics and end up getting a job as an engineer after their undergrad since they technically haven’t taken any engineering courses. I believed in the dysfunctional belief “Your degree determines your career” (Burnet & Evans x). Later I learned that “Three-quarters of all college grads don’t end up working in a career related to their majors” (Burnet & Evans x). I learned that college majors are broad and after 4 years you narrow it down. You will most likely need more years of studying and more years of experience to get a professional job in what the major is.

Furthermore, before I started this course, I thought the solution to deciding my major was one step. After starting to read the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & David Evans, I saw my solution was also a dysfunctional belief, “I should already know where I’m going” (Burnett & Evans 17). I never stopped to look at where I am at and was trying to jump straight to a single solution. This is the first step for designers and it’s also where I performed like a beginning designer. By treating my problem as a well-defined problem and believing that understanding the problem is easy and straightforward. Later in the course I started to act like an informed designer by understanding the problem and figuring out key issues related to my problem. Instead trying to figure out solutions to it I would investigate why the problem is occurring in the first place.

What I learned from this is that I need to constantly design my way through college and life. Designing is much more complex than a decision. That’s how it should be treated because deciding on majors can have a big impact and is not an easy task. One way I plan to delay making a decision is by networking to understand the reality of a major more before choosing a major.

The second designing step is researching to learn about problem and understand the system. My research skill level was in between beginning and informed. I performed a couple of functional job analysis, read many online articles, and watched YouTube videos on advice. However, I need to do more of them or different types of research such as physically seeing these tasks. I will try to watch different mechanical and electrical engineers in action as my next step for researching. From designing so far and other aspects in life, what is learned from research is that when I do desperate research, I quickly gain a lot of knowledge about the topic. This is very important when it comes to making the best decisions.

Generating ideas is the third step where one practices to produces several ideas, so the person has a lot to work with and become unstuck. I did perform like an informed designer when it comes to generating ideas. I attended a couple of events to speak with engineering job holders. I did a couple of odyssey plans to come up with possible plans for the next 5 years in college. After my first odyssey plan, I created different ones to see if I can combine the pros of each previous one. I did mind mapping to pour out any ideas from brain to find any leads for myself. I will constantly be generating different ideas to my problem using what I learned from my researches. I find the best way to generate ideas would be to talk to someone who knows my situation well. Or someone who will sit down and listen to me. Because often it’s hard to develop different ideas when you’ve been thinking the same way repeatedly. I also learned that generating too many ideas can be harmful because there are just so many options it is hard to pick as each one is unique. There is a technique to narrow down to a few from many choices which I

One step I took towards weighing my option is creating the career chooser chart and assigning a value to each criterion in the chooser chart. The odyssey plan was also a weighing technique.

So far, I have received a lot of information from researching that I need to analyze. Some of my research has yielded some question that need to be answered through more research. An online article I read about mechanical engineering gave me a more detailed explanation of the different important tasks mechanical engineer are held accountable for. “Mechanical engineering technology programs focus less on theory and more on the practical application of engineering principles”, this is my initial thought of what a mechanical engineer would do versus a mechanical researcher. “Mechanical engineering degree programs may emphasize internships and co-ops to prepare students for work in industry.”, tells me that hands-on experience is greatly valued. This would mean I need to participate in as many internships as I can related to my major to continue designing my life. I also learned that after four-years you can begin working as an assistant in some engineering companies. Which is exciting to me because I plan to study my master and work at the same time post undergraduate.

From my senior student interview, I got a bit discouraged about electrical engineering because according to him this department in this school isn’t very helpful. He said I would be struggling if I entered electrical engineering without experience or a lot of self-study. Also, that I would be better off majoring in computer or mechanical engineering. I didn’t get much of a lead from this interview because his experience as an EE major in this school hasn’t been great. However, I am considering computer engineering now because it is similar to electrical engineering but more visualization.

My next steps would be to perform more prototype interviews on senior electrical engineering students at CCNY to confirm my interviewee’s statement. Also try to perform more interviews on job holders who majored in mechanical engineering and diverged off to a more specific branch. I am also considering heading to the career & professional development institute office at CCNY to figure out more how I can connect with engineers. I am sure they will also have advice on how to ask better questions.

 

 

Appendix

Bibliography:

[1] Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. “Designing Your Life”. 2016 ed

[2] Truity. “Mechanical Engineer”. 2017 ed

https://www.truity.com/career-profile/mechanical-engineer