Graduate Engineers

Fromvert

Im a third year building services student (ordinary degree) going to do the honours degree. But was just wondering how are graduate engineers seen when starting in a company because in my class the number of idiots is crazy. They dont seem to know much at all. So when they gets jobs how are they received by the rest of the staff because if I cant stand talking to them about simple stuff related to our course how are they going to do this as a living.

Buffman

Your final year project should knock the thickness out of them, cause if you don't know your stuff, ya won't pass. Your tutors will only be so helpful, and in the crits you will get torn apart if you don't know anything. And don't rely on IES or Hevacomp for everything either, you'll have to know where the figures came from.

O ye, and to awnser your question, you won't last pis sing time in a company if you don't know the basics, especially these days.

Fromvert

Thats good to know anyway.
Quick question about IES, I know the very basics to get me through my final year project but one of our lecturers pushes it pretty hard and says that graduates need to be pretty advanced with it. So is it worth my while buying it and putting some serious time in to become advanced at it or are the basics enough to have when coming out of college. The student version is only €75.

godtabh

Buffman wrote: »

O ye, and to awnser your question, you won't last pis sing time in a company if you don't know the basics, especially these days.

You would think that but being able if you can manage the first couple of months and still havent picked things up you would be amazed at how far some bull****ting can get you

Buffman

kearnsr wrote: »

You would think that but being able if you can manage the first couple of months and still havent picked things up you would be amazed at how far some bull****ting can get you

Yep, that can be true in some places alright, usually if no-one else has a clue either:) Or you could do a Homer Simpson all the time, 'it's my first day'....:D

Fromvert wrote: »

Thats good to know anyway.
Quick question about IES, I know the very basics to get me through my final year project but one of our lecturers pushes it pretty hard and says that graduates need to be pretty advanced with it. So is it worth my while buying it and putting some serious time in to become advanced at it or are the basics enough to have when coming out of college. The student version is only €75.

Ye, the problem with IES is that some companies love it ,some loth it, so you could be wasting your time getting to know it too well. Couple of lads in my class bought it for their laptops, but I think a good few of the lab pc's have it and thats what I used. Like I said above though, ya can't just show up to the crits and say 'Well IES worked out all my heat gains... bla bla'. I picked 1 room in my building and worked everything out manually.
I'll assume it's a certain KB thats pushing IES on ye, he thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread:) I would say if your from the country and want it on your laptop for going home or whatever, buy it. If your knockin around Dub the whole time, just use the lab pcs for IES. You'll can say in your CV that you can use IES either way.

sleazycreep

does a certain KB work for IES?

Fromvert

I was thinking a certain KB worked for IES or maybe has something to do with it. Iv heard a quote 'If you cant use software your not an engineer your a technician'. Dont know if you've heard that one.

'I picked 1 room in my building and worked everything out manually.'

I was thinking of doing that for a few rooms just to show I can do the manual workings. Fair enough IES will speed it up the process. I am from Dublin so il probably not buy it and just use colleges software.
Cheers for the info so far but here is a question that is probably stupid but here goes:
What is the 'crits'?

Fromvert

Just another quick question did any of yous do the ordinary degree and go on to the honours degree and how did you find it?
Some of the lecturers say that students who go on to the honours degree find the practical side fine but the physics side of it a little more difficult then there used to.

A Primal Nut

Ordinary degree graduates are really just technicians - I don't know what exactly happens in Building Services but in Electrical that means installing stuff, etc. You can work your way up to Engineering level within industry, if your good enough. Also, you learn a lot in the Final Year Project. But yeah, anyone can get into the ordinary degree and its not too hard to pass.

The honours degree is difficult and takes a lot of hard work, but its still no reflection of how good they will be as engineers. You only use certain small isolated bits of what you learn in college anyway. My first three years of the honours degree I didn't learn a thing. In fact pretty much everything I know about Electrical Engineering is from outside reading (and the final year project). In college i just did what I needed to pass the exams.

sleazycreep

i did the full honors degree, guys from the ordinary degree were better at practical aspects such as producing drawings as they had more experience doin CAD and from their final yr project for the ordinary degree but struggled with the more scietific subjects. it seems to balance itself out in final year.

the project is a motherf*cker but it really helps bring it all together.

regarding IES, a certain sarcastic lecturer, a mr PS, told us he'd do a buildings heat loss calculation on the back of fag packet in the time it would take to open IES, he's not far off

Fromvert

Cheers again lads for the info. PS is a great lecturer though id always listen to what he says wish i still had him as a lecturer. Hes a top bloke aswell. Hes hilarious in that straight faced kind of way, thought I seen him smile once:D

Buffman

sleazycreep wrote: »

does a certain KB work for IES?

Yep, he is very involved with them and runs classes for it outside of college. (Some consultancies were sending their enginners for training in it.)

Fromvert wrote: »

What is the 'crits'?

The crits are when you go into a room with 2/3 of the lecturers and they proceed to rip your project apart!:eek: Ok, maybe I'm making it sound worse than it is. Basically, your tutor will mark your project, then the crits will double check that mark to confirm if it's ok and fair. Just don't try to BS them and you should be ok.

I did the honours degree and about 10 diploma lads came into us in 3rd year. They were great with the practical side of things like cad, and had the benefit of having done a final year project already. We had basically not learned much at that stage with our common 1st year of waffle & 2nd year of little enough practical. O ye, and my class never actually got taught any autocad at all, still one thing which really annoys me. We had to teach ourselves more or less. But anyway, I would say having done the ordinary degree is very helpful when going onto honours, in Bld Serv anyway.

PS, what a legend, I've had a few dealings with him on jobs and he's exactly the same as in class. His fire classes were my favourite of the lot,
'Congratulations, ya just killed Joe'

motherfunker

I'm a 3rd year BS student in a different college, we dont have an honours degree option, we would have to join 3rd year in DIT to go to the honours course. My problem is that I am a mature student with 3 kids so I cant really do this. Are there employment opportunities out there for people holding an ordinary degree. I would like to do a 4th year part time, but in the mean time I need to work, the family finances wont stretch for another year.
We use Hevacomp which in my humble opinion is the biggest heap of horse **** I have ever used. I has caused us so many problems in our project so far, it looks crap, is totally unforgiving of the slightest mistake, crashes like a smackhead in charge of an airplane... I could go on. Is it worth using, I have heard IES is even worse. I might be just spoiled, I used to use a lot of graphics software in my previous career and they are a plesure to use, the look great and are very responsive, CAD even drives me mad at times.

ze4400

motherfunker wrote: »

I'm a 3rd year BS student in a different college, we dont have an honours degree option, we would have to join 3rd year in DIT to go to the honours course. My problem is that I am a mature student with 3 kids so I cant really do this. Are there employment opportunities out there for people holding an ordinary degree. I would like to do a 4th year part time, but in the mean time I need to work, the family finances wont stretch for another year.
We use Hevacomp which in my humble opinion is the biggest heap of horse **** I have ever used. I has caused us so many problems in our project so far, it looks crap, is totally unforgiving of the slightest mistake, crashes like a smackhead in charge of an airplane... I could go on. Is it worth using, I have heard IES is even worse. I might be just spoiled, I used to use a lot of graphics software in my previous career and they are a plesure to use, the look great and are very responsive, CAD even drives me mad at times.

To answer your first question employment opportunities are very slim, most consultancies are laying off people at the moment, 2 out of 10 in my place last week. 2009 is looking very bleak, the work is just not there, same for all in the industry. Things might pick up in 2010 so maybe doing the degree part time might be your best option, not an easy option all be it.

And yes Hevacomp is a piece if sh*t! Its unintuitive, has no undo, has f*ck all help files and the list goes on... but once you get over all that it can be quite handy. IES suffers from some of the same usability issues but its a lot more advanced. I completed a mickey mouse course run by DIT in it and have been using it for about 6 months - still learning. Main problem is the lack of literature, you have to contact IES support to literally ask them to explain the maths behind many of the inputs your'e prompted for. To be fair though they are very helpful so if you are stuck just email them. Aside from that its a very useful tool. I'd advise every graduate to become as literate as possible in the use of these type of programs. Sustainable design is basically the future of BS and without software like IES its very difficult to implement these designs with confidence.

smooth operater

ze4400 wrote: »

To answer your first question employment opportunities are very slim, most consultancies are laying off people at the moment, 2 out of 10 in my place last week. 2009 is looking very bleak, the work is just not there, same for all in the industry. Things might pick up in 2010 so maybe doing the degree part time might be your best option, not an easy option all be it.

And yes Hevacomp is a piece if sh*t! Its unintuitive, has no undo, has f*ck all help files and the list goes on... but once you get over all that it can be quite handy. IES suffers from some of the same usability issues but its a lot more advanced. I completed a mickey mouse course run by DIT in it and have been using it for about 6 months - still learning. Main problem is the lack of literature, you have to contact IES support to literally ask them to explain the maths behind many of the inputs your'e prompted for. To be fair though they are very helpful so if you are stuck just email them. Aside from that its a very useful tool. I'd advise every graduate to become as literate as possible in the use of these type of programs. Sustainable design is basically the future of BS and without software like IES its very difficult to implement these designs with confidence.

This man speaks the truth,

I've recently had to use I.E.S. in work, great programme if its needed, eg, the DoES require a daylight analysis carried out on schools, draw the school up on IES and it'll do it for ye, while its built up on IES it'll do the heat loss calcs in a few mins.
And ye, KB has his finger dipped in many pies!! some man for one man
PS is a legend, "Easy isnt it"

Just bumping this since I noticed ARUP are looking for graduates:

http://irishjobs.ie/jobdesc.asp?ID=5783528&MID=1683

Closing date is the 31st January 2009.