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5 Things I’ve Learned At My First Engineering Job

On May 14, 2018

College is a crazy time filled with a lot of memories being made, a lot of late nights, and hopefully a lot of learning. This was certainly the case in my four years. I just hit my one-year college graduation anniversary, and with it was able to spend some time reflecting on what I’ve been able to learn over the past year of beginning to work in an engineering company. While it is true that I learned a lot in college, there has been an unbelievable amount that I’ve been able to learn since starting at Ball Systems.

  1. Time management has been key to every single project I’ve been assigned. This is especially true as a project engineer, where I can be balancing multiple project at one time. While I did learn some of this in college, its importance has been emphasized to an even great degree since starting at Ball Systems. Whether it’s an internal or external job, there are people relying on timely delivery for these projects, and it’s up to me and my time management skills to get that done.
  2. There is also a huge team dynamic here at Ball Systems. Staying focused on the good of the team – including the technicians, design engineers, upper management, suppliers, and customers – has become incredibly important. Sometimes there’s a task that I just really want to get done, but I have to lower it on the list because I know that our team needs something prioritized above it. Throughout college there were group projects that required working as a team, but I think the main difference here is how big the team can be and how long term the project is. You must take a lot of things into consideration when you’re working with three times the people for five times as long.
  3. Even though I studied Electrical Engineering and am now working as a Project Engineer, it has been fascinating to see classroom learning translate directly to on the job knowledge. While there has been a lot to learn, the foundation that I got through my college degree has been unbelievably helpful. Even the non-engineering classes like technical writing and public speaking have directly helped me in my current roll.
  4. On a bit of a lighter note, using a phone system has definitely been something I’ve had to learn. While I did work in admissions during school and was probably supposed to use the phone system there, I avoided it as best as I could. Now that I have customers and my co-workers calling me, I’ve had to learn to master paging and transferring various calls. Hopefully it speaks to a deeper learning of communication.
  5. Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned since starting at Ball Systems is that I have to keep learning. I hope to never reach a point that I feel as though I know fully how to do my job. Being challenged in the workplace is a huge component of growing as an employee and an individual. I’ve definitely learned from both mistakes and successes since graduating and I’m hoping to continue that for years to come.

While learning does bring its own challenges and it certainly would be nice to just be a master of everything, I’ve appreciated all the opportunities I’ve been given for growth since entering the work force. I’m looking forward to continuing that process and with that to be able to offer more to our customers.

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