Career Development

Pagi tadi aku gi kelas CH E 464, senior design class aku. Itu pun lepas dapat email dari Prof. Nedwick kat mailing list, dia suruh reramai budak mai kelas ari tu sebab dia nak cakap pasal career development. Aku pun datang ajer la kan..dah dia suruh datang. Lagi pun, dah dekat nak masuk 2 minggu lebih aku tak gi kelas tu.

Takde menda pun kelas tu, just cakap pasal apa yang dah ada dalam buku teks yang dia sediakan. Plus dia bagi a few examples untuk bantu kitorang buat senior design project tu. The rest, kalau tak tahu, either kitorang jumpa dia waktu office hours dia atau pun email ajer kitorang nyer so-calleh stupid-question-buddy yang now kerja kat industry. So, no sweat pun kalau tak datang.

Anyway, Nedwick citer pasal dia nyer experience and relate it to the real world.

Real world is very ugly - that's what he said. You can do anything that you want to do but when you work with a company, you need to understand the organizational need and your personal need. Indeed, the term personal needs seem a bit trivial to the company because it represent your individualistic values instead or a collective values shared in the company. Company requires profit in order to stay in the industry and it invests on you in order to drive through the competition. Some of the companies made a kind of coalition with its staffs so that both can come up with optimal needs - you're happy working with them, they're happy with the profit you make for them.

Another thing which he said in the class was about getting promotion. You need to realize that the promotion usually only for the best, but even the best is not only criteria they're looking for. For instance, if you're the best personnel in the department to work on the heat exchanger, your supervisor would'nt let you go easily because you're the best guy he has in the department. He might call other department and negotiate with them not to take you or, made a strong recommendation that you should not get promotion.

Vertical promotion is not only the best thing. Yes, monetary value and power come with the territory. However, Nedwick stressed that money won't make you happy because from his personal experience, that's ot the case. People get more miserable when they have a lot of money (I totally agree with him on this but hey, we still need money though!).

Compromise has to be made between you and your company if you get the promotion. You need to trade-off with some of the things you have, let say quality time with family or mobility. Those need to go off if you want to accept the promotion because the company may send you off to Timbaktu to do the company's business over there and you can't bring your family. So what? What are you gonna do? It's totally your call.

Promotion can come not only in vertical way, but maybe in lateral or in any means available. Don't restrict yourself to vertical promotion. Remember, if that's the case you will end up in misery because the higher it goes up the rank, the smaller the number of opening will be. Besides, no company has 140 CEO position as what Nedwick mentioned in the class. So be flexible, explore the opportunities lie in front of you.

What make you really happy when you are out there in working force? Is it the position, is it the money you earn from your job or is it the work itself? Nedwick asked us to write down what we have thought about being in Chemical Engineering, especially when we are close to graduation. This is what I wrote down.

I clearly believe Chemical Engineering is not for me. I dont have much such intensity to be in this major because it doesn't fit my personality. I view myself 15 years from now as a politician, working for people instead of working for machines and designing new plant or heat exchanger or compressor.

Nedwick claimed he actually turned down the offer to climb up higher rank because he wanted to be at home by 5 pm and coached his son's baseball team. And that kind of thing made him happy. His management was so pissed at him and demoted him to 2 level below. Woww..I can't imagine me doing that kinda thing. But Nedwick said it was okay with him because he became much happier - he could do the things he wanted to do even though he had to pay the consequence.

Well actually there were so much things to tell here because he talked a pretty good deal on career development. Well, considering his high-rank position in ARCO Chemical Company, I can imagine how experience he is now. All in all, he said, for whatever it is, it's you who are in charge of your own career. You can't get the company to decide of what you will be and can be. You need to push yourself to where you want yourself to be. The end result would be yours not the others.