How to negotiate your first salary?

Don't do it. The advice is simple. Don't negotiate.

Being a fresher, you are in a poor position to negotiate and so don't
try.

Do your research and ask around to people who are doing similar kind
of and get an estimate and based on this estimate decide a sum you
think you are happy to live with for now. And state that price to the
firm. If the company is willing to give you that, well and good. Or
else give a straight no to the offer that is less than your estimated
offer, but don't negotiate.

So this is it. Don't go into any negotiation.

It should seem like a foolish advice but I have seen this technique
succeed countless number of times. How saying no and waiting bring
back people on the table? How being firm on your resonanle estimate
fetches you the job?

Stick to it and you will realize how much more worth you are.

Salary negotition is tricky business and HR people are trained in
getting the most juice out of any job offer, so if you enter in
negotiation for a job offer you are set to fail. So don't even try!!

One powerful Lesson from learning solidworks for learning your fav CAE tool

Learning any CAE software like catia, UG, hypermesh, solidworks, ansys
etc is lot like learning a foreign language. The more you practice it
in real-life situations, the better you become at it.

So what are you doing about it?

What is your strategy of learning your favourite cae program?

I will illustrate mine. In NAL I became fasinated with solidworks. It
was the primary cad tool in my lab and glancing at the cad operators
from my desk, I was always drawn to the fasinating tool.

So first thing I did was I asked for a demo from the cad folks and
asked them to point me to the tutorials. Once I had a look at those
tutorials and I began practising them. I began to venture out.

In my quest to learn the software, this tutorials were roads and
tracks laid down for me. As long I travelled on them I was doing good
and feeling confident but I was not confident to take a new design. So
along the way I began deviating from my path, I began exploring the
sideways. I delayed replaying the tutorials and began making household
utentils. Cups, plates stoves, replaced the bar coils and nuts and
bolts of the tutorials.

To cut the story short, my decision to do real life articles and stuff
enabled me to learn the software much more quickly.

So the whole point of this post is this. Don't be just a fan of the
tutorials. Walk on them, they are generally the best source of
learning but don't always keep to the roads and venture out to the
side walks and explore.

Keep aside the tutorials and try things from your world. Create cad
model of your study table, analyze the load of your bike etc.

Its truly like learning a new language, unless you practise it out
with the world, you won't be learning it enough!!

Seminar on Advances In Indian Aeronautics

Aeronautical Society of India Alumni association is organising a seminar on advances in Indian Aeronautics in Bangalore around late July.

See this space for more updates.

Fundamentals

Like just about everything in your life - you have to learn the
fundamentals before you know when you can break the rules.

You have to know what flavors work together and against each other
before you cook a feast fit for a king. You have to learn grammar and
spelling before you can write a book that others will actually enjoy.

Just the same way you have to learn how to create squares and boxes in
catia/solidworks before you create a gas turbine engine in it. You
have to create a simple truss in ansys, before you can mesh and
analyze the fuselage of an aircraft.

Fundamentals are must and this is where you should spend maximum of
your initial time. Even if you consider yourself as an expert, devote
30 mins daily on exploring the fundamentals.

How to prepare for technical interviews?

Do it like question answer session? Hand over your resume to your friend or collegue and ask him to ask you question based on that. Then explain the answers.

Continue till you have covered all tue projects, skills and u have exhausted the questions. This is the best way. Just reading books and papers and your project is not enough. I will suggest do the question and answer session first and then get to the bookss

This softens the soil. This makes your mind receptive of the things you want to project.

For a good interview preparation. Follow the question answer pattern. You will learn more than just reading books and different topics.

Good luck!

Relaxed Minds Remember Better

Lifehacker just mentioned a post titled Relaxed Minds Remembers Better at http://bit.ly/aKVeKS

It says

"If you're serious about getting the most mileage from that brain of yours, a new study points out that people form stronger, more lasting memories when they're relaxed."

This is exactly what i point out in this blog. Set a minimum hour and study only in that hour and after that relax.

Let your brain wonder on things apart from studies.

This not only applies to studies but to training and in your work life, do all the challenging mental stuff with a relax mind!!

Study with pen and paper

One simple tip to increase your productivity in studying is use pen and paper.

Don't just study with a book. Take a pen and paper and doddle along with your studies.

Try it for the next seven days and see the difference.

Cheers

61st ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of AeSI in Bangalore

Check AeSI website www.aerosocietyindia.in

Consistency

A couple of days back I read the following text somewhere and I
collected it as text file for my quotes log that I am keeping.

It has a great point and if we can understand this we can greatly
improve our performance in study and job.

"The key to getting better is consistency of effort…not consistency
of results. Consistency of effort leads to growth which leads to
consistency of results."

Yes be consistent in your efforts. Not consistent in your results.
That will follow. But aim to be consistent in efforts.

Consistent in studying for two hours per day, consistent in doing
catia, ansys tutorial one hour per day, consistent in learning fortran
or VBA, one hour per day.

This is the consistency of effort. Putting in the time. Tearing
yourself from an IPL match to put in that agreed hour. Gluing yourself
to the hypermesh tool for that extra out of work time.

Endevour to be consistent in your efforts.

My biggest mistakes in AeSI as a student

We all make mistakes. Some small, some big, some significant, some
trivial, but if we learning something from them then they are all worth.

Here In this series of post I will present some of my biggest mistakes
of my AeSI days!

1. Once I skipped exams thinking I am not prepared well. It was
flights paper and I thought I was not ready and I skipped the exam on
last moment and then paid the punishment for it for two more semester.

2. Not studying by the syllabus book. Again in flight I studied
everything that was taught in class, I had all the notes, I studied
from Anderson, kermode, and all other books and when I went to the
exam hall, I saw 30 percentage of question coming out of syllabus. I
cursed aesi.

And when I come home and tried verify any claim of outside of syllabus
question paper I saw how untrue that was. Those questions came from
the topics that were listed in the syllabus book. I was shocked that
some of the questions came from topics that were listed in the very
first line of syllabus.

3. Another big mistake that i did was I stopped following a teacher. I
thought he is not teaching well and I stopped attending his clases.
This didn't improve my studies but it nose dived the discipline of the
tutor.

As the tutor rolled over, I deterioted in that subject.

This were my biggest mistakes as an aesi student. I will keep this
theme alive and will post more on my other mistakes.

Well this were mine,now tell me about your biggest mistake in society?