Young Engineers Activities
ASME Region VI
Kambiz Farhang
Young Engineers Chair
February 23, 2001
Activities
Work on Young Engineers effort began in August 1999. Initially the goal was to learn about the issues facing young engineers and develop means of addressing those issues in order to increase interests in young engineers to become involved in professional society activities, specifically ASME.
The learning process included attending the Young Engineers Forum held during the IMECE 1999. During the RSC/RAC 2000 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a workshop was held by YE chair (of Region VI). The purpose of the workshop was to establish a number of definitions and guidelines that included: 1. Who is a Young Engineer? What constitutes such classification in our region?
Specifically, the following definition of a Young Engineer and goal of a YE effort in our region was proposed in the workshop.
Definition of a Young Engineer
The term young engineer shall encompass
engineers employed within five (5) years of their graduation, and senior
undergraduate and graduate students who expect to receive their degrees within
one year.
Goal: YE committee shall seek to identify issues of
importance to young engineers and devise plans to address them.
There are several issues that have been
identified as relevant to the young engineers' interests. These include:
-
Financial planning
-
Career choices and
planning
-
Getting along in the
workplace
-
Professional society
involvement and its short- and long-term benefits
The workshop was in the form of an interactive exchange between the participants. It was concluded that we must not restrict our definition of Young Engineers to include only a certain age group. In other words, any person, young or old, that enters engineering profession within the first five years of his/her return will be classified as a Young Engineer. So the definition, in addition to the above, will also include any returning engineer to the profession following an added period of career-enhancement education, i.e. obtaining an advance degree, an educational program to develop new skills , etc.
It was agreed that the above-stated list of goals are consistent with the interests of Young Engineers. In addition, it was concluded that effort be made to inform YEs about the importance of continuing education and professional growth to maintain one’s competitiveness in an evolving market. As a result the YE chair proposes an “outreach” to contact Young Engineers in our region. A summary of the objectives of the proposed outreach effort is given below.
Objectives:
- To inform Young Engineers of the YE effort in Region VI
- To create awareness of issues that face Young Engineers
- Importance of financial planning
- Importance of Career planning
- Importance of professional development
- Challenges in the workplace
- Importance of professional society involvement
- Awareness of ASME resources
- To individuals
- To their company, i.e. PD and SLT series
It is proposed that a list of Young Engineers in our region be developed. The above list be formatted in an attractive package such as a brochure or send through e-mail. The package should be enhanced using attention-grabbing graphics and periodically sent to Young Engineers in the region.
Ideally such an effort should be in the form of a graphically-enhanced e-mail with appropriate displays and or animations. The advantages of using e-mail as an outreach medium include: the speed of transfer, low or no cost, capability of animation and other enhancements, facility for including links to appropriate ASME web pages.
It is also proposed to enhance our access to the ASME home page. This can be done by creating special web pages on the Region VI server (if any) to simplify access to ASME resources that specifically target Young Engineers.
In order to achieve the outreach objectives we must follow the reach-inform-persuade approach:
- Reach young engineers in Region VI
- Inform the young engineers of the resources provided by ASME
- Demonstrate the value provided by ASME membership and active involvement in the organization
The above goals can be attained if we succeed in the three tasks. The resources are available to accomplish each task in the region.
Based on the agreed upon Region VI definition of YE, young engineers fall within either those that are employed engineers within the last five years of their graduation or the senior undergrad/ graduate students who are at the thirty two universities within the region. In order to reach the YE in Region VI, names, e-mail, work address and phone number of YE should be compiled on a periodic basis – once every year. The list can be compiled as follows:
- Senior sections provide the information about those employed in companies within the companies in their section
- Student sections obtain list of their Alumni. It is possible for student sections to obtain the list from their ME department and Alumni Association in their university.
- Student sections also provide the list of their senior undergraduate and graduate students.
- The list of names of YE from various senior sections and student sections are compiled by a member of the YE committee of Region VI, or the regional staff.
The list will allow sending periodic messages (once every three months or less) containing brief information about YE activities in the region and YE events at the national level. URL links will be supplied to the Regional web sites that are targeted for young engineers in the region.
Success in the outreach depends also on the information provided by e-mail (or other means of) contact. The information must address or clearly indicate the value of membership and active involvement in ASME. It must include topics of interest and benefit to the young engineers which include:
- Professional growth
• Technical
• Leadership
- Career planning
- Financial planning
The many resources and services provided by ASME, the opportunities exist for volunteered activities and benefits gained from such involvement must be communicated to the young engineers in the region. This can be done as follows:
- Prepare advertisement style e-mail or brochures
- Demonstrate benefits by compiling biographies of senior engineers to show the role of ASME in their professional growth and successful careers