Why learn a programming language?

1. It will make you more productive.
2. It will sharpen your analytical skills.
3. Knowing how to program will increase your ability to understand how
different software work.
4. Programming will unlock another field of opportunity if you found
your passion in it.
5. You can better exploit the machine called the PC.
6. Your mundane and repeatative tasks will happen in jiffy.

These are my top 6 reasons, not necessarily in order, for learning a
programming language!!

Does anyone of them rings true for you then start doing something
about it!!

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=programming

Tranfereable skills and core knowledge

Often aesi student ask which subject is important or should I do a
particular job though it isn't directly related to my core knowledge
that I studied.

Sometimes they mull over having the correct answer but honestly there
is no correct answer. It depends on you, on what you like and where
you see yourself to be in the next couple of years.

What I can tell and assure you is that whatever you do, keep
developing your transferrable skills. In the long run they are the
ones which will enable you to work effeciently in whatever work you
choose to do.

Core or no core work, transferable skills like communication, making a
presentation, report writing, giving a talk, small programming skills
will always come in handy in your day to day work life so keep adding
them to your skill set.

Unlike the core knowledge, trasferable skills are always important,
whatever be the nature of your work. They are the little nuts and
bolts that will keep your work engine going.

Keep learning with curiosity!!

In my last post I talked about setting up some exploration time to
continue learning in office.

Now if you think more about it, it just means that we need to be more
curious and apply curiosity to unearth new things.

Today while playing with my daughter I realized how she always uses
her curiosity to learn about the world around her. She is 18 month
old. Her actions are curiosity driven. And it's a stark contrast to
what we have as adults. We do actions with an eye on getting some
results. We do it to get to a desired result. But when you are
curiosity driven, you are not certain about the results and you are
just scanning to discover something new.

I aknowledge purpose driven actions are what makes the business run,
and gets the work done. Purpose driven action is essential but it's
always wise to spend half an hour of time for curiosity driven pursuits.

Uncovering the new features of a software, than only using the known
features should be a part of our work life. Known features of catia or
solidworks will help you get the work done, but uncovering new one
might help you in long term. So keep exploring.

Invest a few minutes of your time in this pursuit, be it catia or be
it solidworks or ansys or nastran or any other CAE software!!

Set aside the time and stick to the task. Explore. Remember it's a
curiosity driven exercise and you don't have to create something, just
learn. Be a child!!

3 things to do when you feel dull

Lay down give yourself a full rest, this might be a signal from your
body to take rest.

Visit back. Get back to the drawing board and study your goals, read
and remember why you began them in the first place. See the big
picture behind all the tasks that you do.

Crank. Decide on a task and begin cranking. It's like the old rusty
handpump you see in some movies set in a village. Crank, at the
begining all you will get is junk but after a while of doing the task
you will find that the rusty water is leading the way fresh water to
come out.

This article is the result of such cranking that I did just to shake
of the inertia I was trapped for last two days.

Hope this help in case you find yourself in such a condition.

Indian Aerospace News – 13/6/2009

From this post, every Sunday, I will carry a small round of Indian aerospace news.  I read a lot of Indian aerospace news and share them at www.friendsfeed.com/aerogeek but with this weekly post I will summarie and highlight some of them.

Times of India reports

Chandrayaan-1 has become the only space craft orbiting the moon after the mission by Japan ended on Wednesday night. India attained the unique status at 11.55 pm when Japanese mooncraft Kaguya crashed on the southern side of the moon. Isro officials said on Thursday that India rocketed into this ununsual position following the crash of Kaguya. "With the Chinese and Japanese moon missions having ended, Chandrayaan—1 is now the only operational spacecraft orbiting the moon,'' said a senior Isro official.

Another report about ISRO

Japan and India plan to launch their first joint space research project this year, an experiment in growing plants in zero gravity, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency researcher said Friday. The two Asian powers are set to launch a small and unmanned Indian-made satellite in October, carrying Japanese laboratory equipment, that is set to orbit for about one week at a height of around 600 kilometres (370 mile

Yet another proof of ISRO’s growing reputation.

PRNEWS

The Tata Group and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. today completed an agreement for Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) to manufacture Sikorsky S-92(R) helicopter cabins in India.The first cabin is scheduled for delivery in late 2010 from a new greenfield facility that TASL will construct at Hyderabad in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Domain B reports

Airbus officials have spoken about the need to open new production lines in the United States and India. While the Airbus move to establish facilities in the US would be an attempt to tap into the lucrative defence market, the move towards India would certainly serve the commercial aerospace manufacturing sector and come as a massive fillip for local companies already engaged in aerospace outsourcing work

And what does this mean, more jobs opportunities for aerospace professionals.

And quote the week…

Sikorsky Aircraft Corp President Jeffrey P. Pino.

"India's aerospace market is poised for significant growth, and we are thrilled to have the opportunities to support that growth and to tap into the capabilities of India's highly skilled aerospace workforce."

A Look Ahead.

The Paris Air Show will open on Monday under an uneasy pall, with plenty of reasons for gloom. Visit Paris Air Show 2009

Catia and solidwork

These are two cad software that i have extensivled covered in this
blog. I became aware of them only when I was in my last semester of
aesi and only saw solidworks for the first time when I joined NAL and
actually used catia 6 months latter.

I have worked with solidworks to design and cad model India's first
mixed flow compresor!

At present, I don't use any of this software. And I am doing fine in
life, in my career. So what the point in all this

The point is do whatever software that comes your way, because
ultimately many more software will flow in to your life. It doesn't
matter what software you get in training or what project you work on.
The point of software is they are just tools to an end. They are good
to have but they only work when you can apply them.

So whatever you are doing don't be bothered about these tools, there
are many and you don't have to learn all of them. Just carry on the
ones you enjoy and work on.

In the end it's your knowledge, wisdom and judgement that will matter
not the tools.

Few catia solidworks tutorial related po

In my last tutorial related post, I wanted to add some links to some
of the vedio tutorials of catia and solidworks that are sprinkled
across this blog. So this is a post to find those few posts.

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=catia+vedio

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=solidworks+tutorial

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=solidworks+vedio

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=catia+book

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=catia+solidworks

3 things after exams

1. Learn a foreign language
2. Teach yourself programming a language preferebly c and fortran.
3. Read a book per week.

These are the three things that I will answer to any aesi student who
asks me what can he do for his professinal development during the
summer vacations.

And all of these are possible if one commits to put one hour daily on
them.

Try it.

Last semester I made a similar post regarding what to do after exams,
find it by clicking the following link

Http://my-aesi.blogspot.com/search?q=after+exam

A quick update on the ebook that I promised

A quick update on the ebook that I promised I will bring out. The
project is still on and daily I am chipping at it.

The ebook is tentatively titled "After AeSI - career guide for AeSI
folks"

Basically it's 100+ page long and will include selected collection of
tips that this blog has to offer. It's a compilation. It includes tips
from section b to training to resumes cover letters and jobs. I hope
you guys will like it and it will be useful to aesi graduates and
students.

As the chipping continues you can browse my-aesi.blogspot.com and read
all the aspect if things happening with AeSI!!

The tentative date for the release of the ebook is with the mext 30
days!! Hope I can make this deadline.

Explore- a simple and effective way to continue learning while working

From the days of my training in NAL after my last AMAeSI and to this
day I am doing this ritual.

Everyday in office I set 30 mins in which I just explore. That is my
exploration time. In my exploration time I just take up any software,
topic or something of interest related to office work and just tinker
with it.

Sometimes the tinkering is based on the previous thing I saw someone
do in the software or it might be a general excel dummy plots or just
eyeing the online helps of different softwares. But everyday, without
fail, I do my exploration.

What has it done for me?

It has taught me catia, ansys, solidworks, unigraphics, excel, vba,
macros, sco3, javascript, vbscript and many more software and languages.

This exploration has polished my excel, powerpoint and word skills.

While in NAL, this exploration was deliberate and consumed more time
but the habit formed in that phase stuck and I am still reaping
rewards of it.

So if you are doing training, or just joined work. Set up a daily
ritual for your workdesk and devote 15 to 20 minutes to explore
whatever fancies you on that day.

Here are some basic tips that you need to keep in mind.

1. Setup a time that is it can be first thing in the morning or just
before lunch or just before tea but set a time.

2. Now since this will not be an urgent thing, and office environment
throws so many unexpecterd tasks, you will forget it easily so set up
some reminders. Have your desktop wallpaper remind you. Or configure
your outlook to remind you to explore. Post a note underneath your
lunch box to remind yourself. Whatever you do the main idea is to
remember to do your exploration.

3. Thirly do something that is relevent to your work now or in future.
Don't just get on net and surf. Try a new excel trick you learnt
recently or try a new command in catia or simply browse through the
ansys manual. If you do it with a learning attitude you will always
take something valuable out of this experience.

Well that's it from my side and if you impliment it in your work life,
do share your experience here. I would love to hear from you.