Second Year-in Review
Second Year-in Review
After two semesters of Co-op in Cleveland, I was back to UC for two academic semesters. In contrast to the first year when I was trying to adapt to college and the environment, I was able to enjoy the process of studying Electrical Engineering during this third year in UC, not only because there were a lot more major-targeted courses, but also because I have experienced how Electrical Engineering was needed in the actual industry during Co-op. In this year-in review, I will mainly discuss around Co-op and EE classes I have taken over the last year.
Co-op
What? So what?
My first Co-op was at Jergens in Cleveland. Jergens is a manufacturing company that makes mechanical lifting materials, work-holding fixtures and fasteners for special uses. As a Co-op, I spent half of my time working as a machine supervisor, who oversaw daily job operations on a laser engraving machine and an automatic assembly machine. On the other hand, I was also a project manager for an automatic safety system on a grinder machine.
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As a student who had never been to a manufacturing shop before, I have had a special experience. I got to see the operational structure the company has maintained to keep thousands of parts manufactured every day, and as an electrical engineer who worked in that context, there are aspects that I have never considered, but is critical to the industry. For example, a hardware emergency-stop device such as a button that literally cut the electric line, is preferred than a software E-stop button that resets a logical variable to 0 in the program. I also learned safety regulations like OSCIA rules, electrical standards on drawing and color coding, as well as project management skills. Apart from that, my programming skill helped me create some useful software tool that increases the efficiency in the job transferring process.
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You can also read more technical details of my Co-op in the [About me]-[Professional Experience] page.
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Now what?
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Though I enjoyed the project I was given, I have concluded that I was not suitable to manufacturing environments, due to the fact that I did not enjoy the machine supervising very much. The main reason was that I got tired easily watching the machine doing the same thing all the time. Therefore, I also found myself project-orientated, as I had tried hard to push the progress of the project even to overtime.
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This lesson was also valuable, though, as it helped me identify my desired working positions in the future, and thus pushed me to find a Co-op in another industry. Currently I am Co-oping in Ethicon, which is a company that prototypes medical surgery devices. After this semester of Co-op, I believe I will have another type of experience of electrical engineering.
Classes
What? So what?
Back to UC, during the last two semesters, I have learned a lot more about electronics and signal processing. Electronics had taught me different implementations of hardware designs, which is the very foundation of all silicon-based devices. Signal processing, however, is a field where engineers cares more about the data incorporated inside the electronics devices. Electrical engineering is incomplete without either of them.
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Semiconductor devices is another interesting class I had taken. The class focuses to a level even lower than electronics, and upon how the devices are made in a physics aspect, for example, how the electrons passes through the device under a specific voltage threshold. On the other hand, I also learned Python from a class, which later was found is the most useful programming language to me.
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Now what?
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Electronics and signal processing introduced me to two different levels of electrical engineering. I have things to love and hate for both classes. Hopefully after this current Co-op, I am able to identify an area that I am most interested in, so that I can initiate my senior project to that area.
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Moreover, I have found that learning Python was extremely useful to my programming learning path. My interest in programming was also increased greatly since I learned the language. With this simple and powerful language, I was able to go through different projects given by classes and myself. In my [PROJECT] tab, I have showcased some projects over the last semester. I wish I could keep update this blog of project showcases, as it motivates me and recorded my progress in learning electrical engineering as well.