Thinking to become an engineer These are the essential things to consider

Wherever you are sitting, look around, the fruits of the engineering geniuses will surround you. Be it light in your room, or the air-conditioner which is saving you from intense heat outside, or the roof above your head which you have built with hard work and pride, or the phone on which you are reading the article lying peacefully in the advanced recliner right now! Almost everything which surrounds you is a marvel of engineering. In short, we are encircled by the brilliant feats of engineering in every single aspect of our lives. 

And if you have actually seen around, leaving your laziness behind and would have observed your surroundings, you must have known that Engineering and Engineers both are the most crucial part of our day-to-day lives. Apart from being an essential block in building and enhancing our lives, engineering is also the vital developmental block of the economy. If it is such a necessary field, then it is evident that the field will require well-versed professionals. And this demand has eventually, increased the number of institutes which offer engineering degree to prepare the potent engineers who can keep working and adding to the wonders in the field of engineering. 

There are a plethora of good engineering colleges in Dehradun (known as the school capital of India) as well as around the world which offers different engineering degrees. The academic course curriculum which they follow is no doubt well-researched and competent enough to give-in dept. knowledge and skills to the students, with the help of which they can not only get prepared to get lucrative job opportunities but can also prove themselves as a vigorous participator in the field. But, like every other thing, there is a 'but' in this situation as well as. Unquestionably the best institutes can give you an engineering degree with thorough engineering knowledge. But still, there are many things which any top-class engineering institute cannot teach you. These are the things which act as a catalyst for success both in your professional and personal life. The list of those golden things goes as follows-

Learn to communicate-: It's high time to understand that communication is the key, and it is a key which can open doors to the places which you would have never even imagined (just a few good orators are powerful enough to run our country. Imagine!). Therefore, excellent communication skills are really important for an individual to learn and especially for an engineer who has to be capable enough to make people understand what they have to offer. Communication includes both oral presentation skills as well as writing skills. No matter how wonderful your work is, it will be dissipated if other people will not be able to understand it. Imagine having an idea about the transformative software but not being able to explain it to the authorities to get sponsorship for its execution, then what will be the use of that plan? Right! Communication goes both ways as it is an essential skill of getting ideas and thoughts to be "common" in both your as well as their brain. Thus it is necessary to learn to communicate effectively. And the first and foremost lesson in the class of communication which people generally ignore is that communication includes both talking and listening.

Be creative- Must be wondering that earlier I have boosted about the engineers being the innovators and now I am saying that the one needs to learn to be creative? Then let me clear your confusion hereabouts. No doubt engineers typically develop new ways of doing things. And engineering as a job is fundamentally a creative process. But, what I am saying is that creativity is not always promising. There is already so much in the market, and almost every other thing which is not is in the process getting something new and unique can be a problem. And therefore, it is essential to constantly keep looking for stuff that you do not understand and ask why it is the way it is. And if there is any other thing which can enhance or better the particular process? As you start to see patterns in the form of things, you will be fueling your brain with a lot of notions, and it will automatically start making associations among disparate elements. This inquisitive nature of yours will become a big part of enhancing your creativity. 

Learn to give and take constructive feedback- According to John Donne, the 16th Century English poet, “No one is an island, especially in the field of engineering.” You can be one-person army in many fields possible, but engineers have to work as part of a team, so it’s essential to be able to give and receive feedback without seeing red. Engineers must know their team just as well as they know their projects. As honest, kind, and actionable feedback is a vital step towards the development of the individual as well as the project and giving such feedback when working in a team is only possible if you have empathy.  And believe it or not, the skill of giving and receiving constructive feedback is more often than not, the critical difference between successful and unsuccessful projects.

Get additional licenses and educations degrees - No doubt having engineering degree open doors to many lucrative job opportunities. Still, once you enter the field you will realize that there are people who have seen and done more things than you and are even people will get projects just because they have an additional license or a degree. Therefore, it's essential to know what is new in the market and what is needed to be updated in your resume. Now the question arises how to know that? With such advanced technology, it is no rocket science you can get to know every new update in the field on the internet. However, do not always trust the internet as they will give you a lot of options and will confuse you with it. At that time, you should look at the people in the higher positions which you want to attain and comprehend what licenses/degrees they have achieved. The ones that keep continually showing up are the ones you should strive to get. This license/degrees will help you open up further doors or will qualify you for specific projects.

Concentrate on the basic skills- This is one thing which most engineering courses instruct, the basic knowledge of the skills needed to be a successful engineer. But students often take it for granted and focus on the complex things which they think is important to become successful in the field. Even if you don't practice complex equations daily, it is vital to maintain working knowledge. In the phase of their careers, engineers are often challenged with several tasks that are out of their comfort zone. Unfortunately, most of them flunk in it as they are helpless to go back and recall the basic formulas. Always remember that almost every engineering stream has a basis in mathematics and physics. Therefore it is important to keep refreshing the basics from time to time as they are the key to doing your job effectively. Favourably nowadays there are a lot of web resources you can read or download at any time to revise your basics. 

Leadership and management- Taking on responsibility and preparing a team to lead is, without any doubt, a valuable skill for engineers to have. As mentioned above as well, engineering is the field which requires adequate and productive teamwork. Therefore, leadership and management skills are crucial if you want to succeed in team management. Any institution can't teach these skills as such one can learn leadership and management skills via training, observation, and practice. In order to be a good team lead and become to reap the fruits which your team seeps one needs to learn the basic skills like when and how to discipline, when to give space and when to mentor,  how to use a team member's strengths, and acquiring other people skills should be a goal for every engineer.  

Give attention to details- Engineering projects are often complicated, and engineers have to consider a myriad of details, right from the conceptualizing to the problem-solving phases and from modelling to the testing phases. Everything needs to be focused and paid close attention in order to ensure nothing critical gets lost in the process. In fact, the success or failure of any project is usually related to the serious attention to detail. And this skill will not be developed with the blink of the eye; it will take its valid slice of time and effort. To build such skill develop few habits in your daily life, such as watch out for stuff that are unusual or interesting in some way and try to decode what all makes it distinctive. Even when reading makes sure to point out the small differences which if seen, do not make much difference but if pointed out, can gather a lot of eyeballs.

Develop critical thinking and problem-solving- Engineering is popular about having situations that require diligent problem-solving. And therefore, it is essential that engineers must be able to address every task and problem with a calm, unemotional, analytical mindset. They need to solve all aspects of a problem while taking merest risks possible. Problem-solving is an engineering process in which each solution is tested and modified. It is often important to check several solutions before deciding which is best. And this process can definitely be tedious and time-consuming and requires an analytical mindset to succeed. Thus, it is necessary for engineers to develop an analytical mindset along with having the basic conceptual knowledge and skills. 

Build your network- Making contacts is really important to sustain in the field. Be it for the long term support or the short term favour making contacts is a key to succeed in the professional and personal life. How to make contacts, start from the college itself by connecting with professors and keep building up your network with every new post you hold. As much as possible, put efforts in maintaining these connections by reaching out to your contacts on a semi-regular basis. You never know when you will need someone to walk you down the road, so it is essential to have the network clan ready.

These are the few things which neither an IIT nor any other college will teach as they will be busy nurturing you with the basic required bookish knowledge. No doubt that knowledge is also an essential element in building your career, but these pointers will act as the cherry on the cake and will help you reach the acme of the field. If you are sure that you can work on these things and want a little guidance on the same then you must join Dev Bhoomi Group of Institutions (DBGI) one among the top engineering colleges in Uttarakhand which along with providing the fundamental knowledge will also help you in your holistic development for your better future.