Reflection Paper On Engineering Course Internship
There is a saying that an expert is nothing but once a time was a beginner. A personbecome expert only after it has gained some knowledge over a year and it always starts froman internship. Also, once dreams job lands with the help of the internship. So, during this fallquarter I had privilege to take an engineering course that deal with the internship and thatwas Co-Op education where we were giving knowledge about various topic like how tooptimize and developed our professional, having successful career with the help of flexing ourculture style, engineering ethics, gender equality and also working in multiculturalenvironment.
Starting with we had our first lecture on topic how to optimize as well as developedour professional by Professor Amy Peterson in which she told us how to use various toolsavailable online as well as in university. In which first she introduces about what is internshipand also, we were given the perspective of how many international students are present rightnow in the US and how much visa petition is filed and how many are successful. Also, we talkabout the pros and cons of being an international student. Next, we discuss the process ofhow to get a job being an international student in the United States.
Furthermore, Professorposted a different type of question that we can target at employers during each job searchand listed various tools that can be useful to find an employer. Tools such as LinkedIn,Glassdoor, Vault, myvisajob. com, and many more helps to find jobs. Also, we talk about theresume, how to build it, the difference between U. S. resume and international resume, whatare the skill that employer looks up in resume, how to make a cover letter and its uses. There were many hidden points that can be used to find jobs such as handshake whicha Santa Clara University own job search portal where we can find the only employer that arelooking to hire SCU students. The is an iceberg kind of situation in the job market in whichonly 20% job is advertised rest are hidden job market. Next, we talk about how to use LinkedInvarious profile elements such as recommendation, summery, etc. and also in developing anetwork. Lastly, we talk about the different type of helps available inside the SCU that helpsa student in job preparations such as resume guide, cover letter writing, interviewing practiceand job interview as well as salary negotiating.
The second lecture was on how to make a successful career through cultural flexingby Professor Octave Baker. In which we talk about various things like time management, challenges face by the foreign-born student at their work area and in their lifestyle, variousskill set required at work. Let me first talk about time management. There is a differentconcept of time in the united states as compared to other countries. In the US people valuetime, there come to work before their actual time and also tried to work even after the officetime. While in other country people doesn’t consider time as specious. It's saying that a manthat doesn’t care about time, time will not take care of him. Next, we discuss theMultilanguage environment at the workplace and their challenges. In the recent study onSilicon Valley shows that 60% of people working are foreign-born people. Also, it is found thatthe majority of people at the top position like CEO’s, CTO’s, Directories, etc. in the companyare US-born people. There is misconception the foreign-born people might not able to handlethe topmost position in the company. Also due to cultural difference, many people are notable to take a stance. In Asia, it is considered bad manners to speak against the elder or to amanager even he/she is wrong while in the US this is totally opposite.
Moreover, due tocultural influence we are told to be humble and soft-spoken but due to this sometimeshindered our progress at our work. There a discussion on over time. Through survey it has come to know that managertend to ask often a foreign-born person to do overtime over US-born person. The main threatof doing over time is dangerous health. Diseases such as eye problem, hearth misfunctioning,etc. Also, we talk about the type of management at work and type of people at work. Somepeople tend to stick to old belief while some are eager to accept new change. There is a sayingthat a nail that stick out get hammered that’s totally apply to the above sentence. Lastly, wewere introduced to Small talk i. e. how and what to talk and what not to talk with the differentpeople at workplace. We had the third lecture on engineering ethics by Dr. Brian Green where he talksabout different aspect and issues of ethics. Starting with the first talked about what universitycare about and talk about different type of disasters that have taken place all around theworld due to failure to follow ethics. Then he talked about what ethics is and what is not. Then he talks about why the ethics are so hard to follow. Moreover, ethics are always to dogood and avoid to do evil. We also talk about professional and personal ethics.
Furthermore,we discuss what is law and why it is different with compare to ethics. Later we wereintroduced about the whistleblower, good business practices, intellectual property and plagiarism. Lastly, we discuss the six-part of ethics like in Intentions, consequences, rules,virtues and vices, institutions and policy and culture and education. Ending the lecture wetook some case studies on ethics like tesla self-driving car accident, trolley problem, computerand many more.
