I am writing about 5 things that and AeSI engineer, graduate and student must do so that they do not miss the aerospace boom. The first two posts can be found here, and here.Pride in your degree, in your education, and having the right knowledge will take you half way but having the right skills will push the door open for you. So build your skills,
Ideally one should begin building his or her skills in the AeSI. If you are in the last leg of AeSI and 2 semesters away from graduating then it’s high time. To begin with make a beginner’s resume and post it on the jobs website. Along with that begin looking at the skill set that the companies are looking for. Decide the category which is more aligned to your passion or interest.
let me illustrate this with an example from my days in AeSI, when I first registered myself, I began to notice that most of the jobs in aerospace had this three broad categories, design, analysis and programming/performance. At that time all 3 looked promising and I couldn’t decide which one was close to my heart, but then in designing they needed cad tools of which I had no experience and honestly I haven't even seen a catia screen by that time, so I was just still there, in analysis side they called for nastran, ansys but here I noticed mostly they looked for M Techs so i saw little chance for myself here.
The only thing that left was performance tools that require programming. I liked computers and had a little programming experience. So i decided to get myself skilled in this part of the aerospace field. This involved seeing which programming languages were in demand and what companies were looking for and what code and on what they were developing this codes. So i choose c to begin my aerospace study language and made an aim to write two small aerospace related programs per week from then onwards. This way i not only learned c more easily but also enhanced my propulsion knowledge. Pressure and height at certain attitude was one of my first programs.
This technique has helped me when I joined NAL and these skills increased my value and though I joined as project trainee, I was given some good performance programs that I need to debug and update. This not only enhanced my knowledge but also laid the foundation of my love in programming in aerospace.
So one can do the same things, if design is what you have access to then begin now and start delving. By the time you are out you will have the required confidence that one needs? You might begin with catia, solidworks or what ever that fancies you and you can see what’s in demand. But the important thing is begin now. However small you start but begin today and work on your skills. I have lot of materials on beginning solidworks and catia. I hope they will be helpful to you guys and gals to jump start your career.
