The 'Student' Engineer

Cirruculum Vitae

2009-05-04T10:17:00.000+01:00

Ok, so how many of you actually have an up to date CV? One that you could send off to a potential employer right now?

Ok, so suppose that you haven't got one, how would you go about writing one?

So the main points that you need to think about are:

What is it for?
Who is going to read it?
What are the expectations of the recipient?
First Impressions!!
General Tone.

Ok, so your thinking about all of these things and you have answers to all the questions above, now you need a structure. Take this one as an example, their all pretty much the same anyway...

Personal Details - Address, contact information, and a personal profile (A posh way of saying a paragraph about yourself),

Education details - Breakdown of your modules, and just a list of your A-levels and grades, don't forget your GCSE's! Also you have to say where you got them from, (Just the name of the school/college)

Work Experience - I personally like to put this in a table, as I think it looks a little bit neater, and it saves a bit of space, just include where you worked, a time range of when you worked there, and the skills gained from working there.

Skills - Now this is the tricky part, try not to repeat yourself here, as you will have just talked about your skills in the previous section. Its important that for every skill that you mention you are able to back it up with a little bit of evidence. Sort of like; I gained this skill from my 30 million years of playing this. (Oh and don't exaggerate)

Leisure Interests - Don't be afraid to put down everything that you do in your spare time here, employers like to see that you take part in the social aspect of life, remember all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! If you mention that you do some sort of activity in the last section, don't forget to mention that you actually do it here.

References - Here is where you include the addresses of your references. Pick two people, any more and your just wasting space, If you haven't got enough room, you could always say that 'References are available on request', that's what I do!

Other Relevant Information - Things like 'Full clean driving license', and 'Qualified Football Referee'

Right there's your structure, now for some constraints to your beautifully crafted piece of work:

It CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT be over TWO pages long, your potential employer will just not read past two pages, and may even throw it in the bin without even looking at it!

Don't lie, remember employers sometimes go to extreme lengths to find out about you, they even ring up previous employers to find out about you, even if you didn't put them as references! They will find out, so just don't do it!

Use your spell checker, It's there for a reason, however don't over do it, a little common sense is required at the end of the day. Don't forget to read your CV through after you've written it, just to make sure that its perfect in every way possible!

So there we are, now you have your CV written perfectly, and looking good. Now you need to send it off to employers, so off you go!

Oh and one more thing; If your not applying for a job, but some sort of work experience, or something like that (think Year in industry scheme) include a covering letter, explaining what your after and so on.

If you want a more in depth guide to writing a good CV, then please follow this link;

Click Here

Happy CV'ing

The Student

More Experimenting

2009-03-06T11:59:00.004Z

Now then, you saw the engine experiment last week, but this week, I have a different one for you.

Investigate the velocity at different points through a venturi meter.

You just put about 5 or 6 manometers on a venturi meter, and take the values of it, then measure the flow rate. Do some calculations, think bernoulli's, and plot the points on a graph. I think the results would suprise thouse that haven't done this experiment before.

Anyway, I appologise for the lack of posting this week, I've just been a little busy...

The student

Single Cylinder 4-stoke Engine

2009-02-26T16:51:00.002Z

An experiment... 5 Horsepower engine connected to a dynamo meter with a fuel supply and all the whistles and bells. The engine was throttled at differing rpm and readings of Torque, Exhaust temperature, Air Flow, and Fuel Consumption were taken. Its amazing how interesting this experiment actually is, if you haven't done it, I'd strongly recommend you find the means to do it.

Many things can be found out from engines, espically if you do not normally work with engines.

Anyway, back to work

The Student...

Dynamics

2009-02-20T17:55:00.003Z

So then here's a technical question for those in the know,

Have you ever really thought about the Harmonic Motion of a under damped system? Honestly?

I mean it doesn't look hard, however it does look a bit pointless...

Any thoughts?

The Student

p.s. Sorry about the shortness of my post, but I really haven't much to rant about today...

Just as a little post filler, here's one of the Scottish National Anthems... Well Scotland doesn't actually have an official National Anthem, but here's Flower of Scotland:

O Flower of Scotland
When will we see
Your like again,
That fought and died for
Your wee bit Hill and Glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward's Army,
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.

The Hills are bare now
And Autumn leaves lie thick and still
O'er land that is lost now
Which those so dearly held
That stood against him
Proud Edward's Army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.

Those days are past now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
That stood against him
Proud Edward's Army
And sent him homeward,
Tae think again.

Anyway, just a little randomness... Of by the way, I'm not actually Scottish...

University

2009-02-19T14:52:00.004Z

I'm telling you, being a student is awesome. Today I'm supposed to have 6 hours of contact time, both lectures and labs. But, everything got canceled and now, I've got a day off!!!

Anyway, for all those that are thinking about going to uni or not, then go, trust me it'll be the best few years of your life! Especially if you choose a good university, you have to research it first!

Oh and with regards to yesterdays post, im sorry for all the swearing, even if it is all blanked out, I just get really worked up when people don't think things through and expect everything to work out fine in the end! We still haven't sorted out our problems yet, but when we do I'll let you know how we did it!

Just a short post today, I've got to get back to doing nothing, lazy day see!

The Student

Formula Student

2009-02-18T17:55:00.005Z

For those of you that don't know, formula student is a scheme operated by IMECHE, and basically involves a university team building a car and racing it.

Now we hit a problem today, in an effort to make our car smaller and therefore lighter, we forgot to leave a place for the radiator...

So our solution? Hang it off the side and hope for the best... Probably not the best idea but there we are... But the biggest problem? Is getting people to actually get off their a**s and design the thing. I mean the radiator company has cut off all contact with everyone, (Not the best buisness plan), no-one has thought how to attach the radiator to the car, and I seem to be the only one worrying about it!!!!

But thats not the half of our worries, even if we manage to get the radiator to stay on the car, at the moment we don't know how we're going to attach it to the f*****g engine! I mean obviously pipes, but we have no sensible place to put them, they all pass to close to the engine!

Oh well, random rant over...

If anyone wants their say just leave a comment

(Oh by the way, clicking on the title will take you to the Formula Student website)

The Student

Make money easily

2009-01-14T17:04:00.002Z

I've found it, the perfect way to make extra cash whilst in University!

Its simple, just complete some projects for cash, ok its paid in dollars, but any money is good money!

Its just simple things like, write 500 words about certain topics, or create an excel spreadsheet. The project owners are paying anywhere between $30 and $250! Just for simple tasks! There are even Engineering related tasks on there, such as draw this in CAD!

Interested? Click Here for a direct sign up link!

Im doing it and at the moment I've got two projects on the go for $30 and $45! Their just simple re-writing tasks! Check it out, best of all you dont spend a penny!

The Student...

Exams are Over!!!

2008-06-02T12:10:00.001+01:00

Well my exams are through, finished... Now I have nothing to do untill October!

Im sorry about the randomicity of the posting times, but I had to fit them into my exam timetable, from now on, i'll be posting weekly every thursday!

Have a good one...

Exams

2008-05-18T12:03:00.000+01:00

Exams around the corner, literally next week!!!!

Grrr...

Well I've been hard at work preparing for these exams, don't want to fail!

I've come to hate exams over the years that I've been taking them, I mean aren't exams the lazy mans way of assessing? Surely a true representation of a students understanding of something can't come from two hours of hell. Can the letter your given really show someone how well you understand a particular subject?

I think that if exams are going to be given they should all be open book, I mean we don't actually need to remember this stuff when we're out in industry do we? If we don't know something, then surely we just go and look it up in a text book or on the internet? Wouldn't this type of exam show that we are capable of conducting research to get to the correct answer? Then wouldn't this would prove a more valuable demonstration of skill than basic memory recall?

If I was an employer I know what type of exam I would prefer to see on someone's cv

Let me know what you think...

My blog

2008-05-15T09:30:00.000+01:00

Here it is...

The final step in my dream, actually owning a blog...

I wasn't sure what I could blog about, so I decided that I would write about my life as an Engineering Student! Yeah some of you readers won't be interested, but I don't care...

"Just keep blogging, just keep blogging, just keep blogging-blogging-blogging..."