What comes to your mind when you think of Mechanical Engineering? A speedster bike or car revving its way up a highway to race-track, a gigantic airplane taking-off from a runway, or even better, a combat aircraft doing its dodge maneuvers, OR may be just a spring loaded with a block mass from our good old physics/mechanics textbook problems! This particular field of engineering encompasses a plethora of domains/sub-domains evident from the sheer number of the places where one can find its applicability; its arguable one of the vastest spanning engineering realm. I need not go on rambling at length to describe the magnificence associated with this field! From the enigmatic sketches of flying machine by Leonardo da Vinci to the current sensation of SpaceX and Tesla created by Mr. Musk, they have done more than enough to glorify, not only mechanical engineering but also engineering in general.
After all these praising words for this field, I do not want you get fooled into believing that there is no darker side. Well, "darker" is too extreme of a trait for describing what I have in mind, so I will go with "less shiny" instead. So the less shiny side of this field exists too! A huge number of students get enticed into studying mechanical engineering. Many of them end up making a good career by getting recruited to the numerous industries or to the various research institutes out there. But at same time there are so many others, who feel their career opportunities have become limited by opting for pursuing mechanical engineering or find that they are always on an unsatisfactory position in terms of salaries earned or the benefits bestowed upon them by the companies or institutions hiring them as Mechanical Engineers.
I myself have been in not a very different situation at a particular phase of my life. In 2012, I was about to graduate from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur with a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering and there were two companies that had given me a placement-offer to work with them; one was 3D-PLM, a Dassult System subsidiary, that worked in development of CAD tools especially Catia, the other was Vizag Steel plant, one of the Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) of India that has been the only sea-shore based steel smelting plant of our country. While 3D-PLM seemed to be offering a very competitive work environment and challenging projects but with a dismal salary, the Steel Plant was offering a manually strenuous job that seemed to involve mostly routine (mundane) tasks/duties but at a plush salary (by my standards for those times) along with the well known comforts of a "sarkari naukri" (government job). I had completed projects in robotic vehicles design and control in a research-institute next to NIT DGP and was at time waiting for a acceptance of my three conference papers in distributed autonomous systems. I also was waiting for results regarding my applications to the direct PhD programs of National University of Singapore (NUS), Carnegie Mellon University, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and Pennsylvania State University. Those of you who do not know me might have made a guess already for a seemingly obvious career choice I might have made! Anyway, to many peoples' dismay I opted to go for the "sarkari naukri". Also I got rejected by all the above mentioned universities.
Fast forwarding to 2013, first week of January, I was doing a 12 hour shift at the Argon-rinsing station in one of the Steel Smelting Shops (SMS) of VSP. the labour union had called for a strike and it was upon the engineers to take charge of all the tasks involved in the steel production process, from the coal transportation in railway bogies to the final extrusion of rebars from the ladles of molten steel. I met a senior officer that night who encouraged me for keeping up with my pace of changing the argon-feeder ducts to the ladles as new batches of molten metal were brought in them from the blast-furnace. I am tempted to give a brief description of the atmosphere there at that moment! One could find the optimum distance from for dealing with the ladles was by ensuring that he/she is not closer than where the sweat gets evaporated by the molten metal's heat and not farther than where he/she may lose the argon-feeder-duct's grip and risk toppling down from the elevated operators-station platform. Somehow I finished my 12 hours and then met the aforementioned officer at the resting-room. We got into usual office conversation, but I got to know he was an alumnus from my alma mater and he was wondering why I chose VSP and not went ahead to go join some research-institute or university. The very next day was the day of haste. I got my applications ready for three universities that I had some knowledge about and whom I considered not too much ambitious for my profile. Emails were sent rapidly to my NIT DGP professors and well-wishers and in a week's time couriers were dispatched to the foreign lands carrying my recommendation-letters, transcripts and statements-of-purpose. With some luck I finally did receive admission from two universities and with even bigger luck (and some mysterious miracle) my parents with their usual Indian hesitations, agreed to let me accept/acknowledge one of these admission-letters.
Now comes the time to give-up my (pathetic) dramatic story-telling tone and simply roll out whatever my Linkedin profile says. I completed my Master of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. My academic research was focused on spherical-cam-design with application in haptic-feedback capable control-joystick development. I continued working in one of the research lab's at McGill called Center of Intelligent Machines (CIM) helping researchers with the development and testing of a underwater hexapod robot. I got my first job as a Mechanical designer in a start-up company located in Montreal. Though I was hired just of my CAD design skills I ended yup being part of the team that modeled, simulated, developed and sold a water-producing machine in a span of more than two years. I then got hired by my current company named CAE that manufactures Flight simulators and train pilots for civil and military aircraft of almost all the categories. I mostly now look into codes that simulate the aircraft mechanisms like landing gears, pressurization-controllers, air-data-computer etc. and integrate the avionic-interface that handles the communication between these various systems.
Now what is it that I would like you readers to take away from this self-boasting/story/job-application-resume/cover-letter? For those who are not seeking any career guidance can just think of it as one of my usual story-telling episodes and I am thankful to you since you made it this far, till this second last paragraph of this long tirade of my past experiences.
For those who are indeed reading it for finding some kind of career guidance, for them I have couple of more things to say. First, passion! Passion does matter! But, the choices you make, need not always be passion-driven. I believe that passion manifests itself in more than one way and also in a span of time rather than being a single unique well-defined entity. When I was working in VSP, I still did not give up on my projects and kept working on them (without sacrificing my routine weekend excursions of the beautiful city of Visakhapatnam); so that, at least this one ongoing project from my final year of undergrad was was largely in some presentable form. This made sure that if somebody gets interested (some student or some potential project-partner or may be even some potential professor/supervisor) then he/she could read my work and find it not too difficult to grasp. So this helped in quickly preparing for my applications when decided to apply again in that fateful night of January. Second, do your homework! Do rigorous search on the web and figure out the programs and the opportunities out there! Do not hesitate to seek counsel! I do not mean going around paying huge sums of money to whoever claims to be a counselor. Even discussing with friends and acquaintance who are involved in the field/s of your interest, contacting/emailing people who seem to be knowledgeable of the matters of your interest, all these count. And do not hesitate to ask! Keep asking! The hesitation of annoying others can make you miss opportunities and sometimes worse, put you in jeopardy. Bothering people with your questions will not do as much harm as taking a wrong decision with lack of enough knowledge! When I was about to finish my master's at McGill, I was confused between continuing reteach into a doctoral-studies program (PhD) or start looking for jobs and get into the industry. I talked to as many people as I could. I talked to my supervisor, other professors, my colleagues, alumni, parents, and many more. That made finally realize what I want. I personally feel that in general, there is a lack of push in academia. I have seen so many PhD students and researches complaining that they many times feel lost in their second or third year. For so many researches, on multiple occasions, it comes solely on their own shoulder to individually steer their research and further course of actions so that they can produce experiment-results and finally complete their PhD/research program in a timely manner. I knew I was more like the "stick" kind of person, not the "carrot" type. And private firms have always been well known for drawing out their sticks in favor of making their workers/employees "more productive". So I started applying for jobs while in the mean time kept meeting various professor in robotics research at McGill university, in the hope of convincing them to include me in their work so that I can keep honing my programming skills. Third, think wholly! I think that is something many people ignore or do not consider well. One need to think about all the aspects of making a decision. I chose Canada over the options of Europe and US, because of the cost-effective university programs, friendly and less uncertain government policies for immigration and finally the prevalent student-friendliness of the Canadian cities especially Montreal. Many of my classmates from McGill have moved to the near-by city of Toronto after graduation, which is one of the major financial and technological hubs, not only in Canada but also in North America (and with that I can extrapolate) and in the world! This vicinity to Toronto is also an advantage of studying in an Anglophone university like McGill while being in this Francophone province of Quebec. (Though Montreal is pretty much a bilingual city).
So that's enough of advising and now I thank Nimish Gopal, my buddy from school days, to encourage me to pen-down my experiences and put forward some suggestions/opinions. I also wish luck to the team of Career-Naksha for their initiatives.
For those who are indeed reading it for finding some kind of career guidance, for them I have couple of more things to say. First, passion! Passion does matter! But, the choices you make, need not always be passion-driven. I believe that passion manifests itself in more than one way and also in a span of time rather than being a single unique well-defined entity. When I was working in VSP, I still did not give up on my projects and kept working on them (without sacrificing my routine weekend excursions of the beautiful city of Visakhapatnam); so that, at least this one ongoing project from my final year of undergrad was was largely in some presentable form. This made sure that if somebody gets interested (some student or some potential project-partner or may be even some potential professor/supervisor) then he/she could read my work and find it not too difficult to grasp. So this helped in quickly preparing for my applications when decided to apply again in that fateful night of January. Second, do your homework! Do rigorous search on the web and figure out the programs and the opportunities out there! Do not hesitate to seek counsel! I do not mean going around paying huge sums of money to whoever claims to be a counselor. Even discussing with friends and acquaintance who are involved in the field/s of your interest, contacting/emailing people who seem to be knowledgeable of the matters of your interest, all these count. And do not hesitate to ask! Keep asking! The hesitation of annoying others can make you miss opportunities and sometimes worse, put you in jeopardy. Bothering people with your questions will not do as much harm as taking a wrong decision with lack of enough knowledge! When I was about to finish my master's at McGill, I was confused between continuing reteach into a doctoral-studies program (PhD) or start looking for jobs and get into the industry. I talked to as many people as I could. I talked to my supervisor, other professors, my colleagues, alumni, parents, and many more. That made finally realize what I want. I personally feel that in general, there is a lack of push in academia. I have seen so many PhD students and researches complaining that they many times feel lost in their second or third year. For so many researches, on multiple occasions, it comes solely on their own shoulder to individually steer their research and further course of actions so that they can produce experiment-results and finally complete their PhD/research program in a timely manner. I knew I was more like the "stick" kind of person, not the "carrot" type. And private firms have always been well known for drawing out their sticks in favor of making their workers/employees "more productive". So I started applying for jobs while in the mean time kept meeting various professor in robotics research at McGill university, in the hope of convincing them to include me in their work so that I can keep honing my programming skills. Third, think wholly! I think that is something many people ignore or do not consider well. One need to think about all the aspects of making a decision. I chose Canada over the options of Europe and US, because of the cost-effective university programs, friendly and less uncertain government policies for immigration and finally the prevalent student-friendliness of the Canadian cities especially Montreal. Many of my classmates from McGill have moved to the near-by city of Toronto after graduation, which is one of the major financial and technological hubs, not only in Canada but also in North America (and with that I can extrapolate) and in the world! This vicinity to Toronto is also an advantage of studying in an Anglophone university like McGill while being in this Francophone province of Quebec. (Though Montreal is pretty much a bilingual city).
So that's enough of advising and now I thank Nimish Gopal, my buddy from school days, to encourage me to pen-down my experiences and put forward some suggestions/opinions. I also wish luck to the team of Career-Naksha for their initiatives.
