Sample First Year Engineering Reflections

Reflection on the Senior Panel Presentation

The senior panel presentation provided me with an insight into the actual nature
of the engineering job and where it can take you. The idea stressed most in the
presentation was Effective Communication and its importance to an Engineer.
One example that highlighted the importance of communication was in the
presentation by Frederic Renaud - he was posted to a job in a French speaking
area of the Pacific islands, where he accidently insulted a fellow engineer due to
differences in the dialect of French being spoken by both men. This issue was
linked to the workplace due to the negative consequences that such
miscommunication can cause, including loss of money or even personal harm to
a person down the track. An engineering qualification can take you anywhere in
the world but it is good communication that can make you successful in your
job. I can relate this lesson to my own experience. I have learnt the importance
of communication from dealings with international students over the course of
the semester. As most have only recently learnt English and are not yet very
confident with the language, I have learnt the importance of patience and also
the value of assisting them with communication by providing pictorial examples
and explaining the meaning of words.
(EA competency 3.2)
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Reflection on the Engineers Australia Presentation, Senior Panel and
Graduate Panel Presentations
EFPC100 provides three different approaches to expose first year students to the
lives of professional engineers. They are the EA presentation, senior panel and
graduate panel discussions. After attending these sessions, I would reflect on the
three lessons learnt which are: networking in securing a job, communication as
the key to good teamwork and utilising the life at university leading towards
being a professional engineer.
Firstly, networking with people in the engineering field is essential in securing a
job. I obtained this lesson by attending the Young Engineers WA Summit 2015
through the words of John Smith who is the Managing Director of X. This is
significant for me because according to him, networking provides the ability to
be curious and proactive to source out information pertaining to careers that are
offered in engineering by various companies. This relates to the EA Graduate
Competency 3.6d - to recognise the value of alternative and diverse viewpoints;
scholarly advice and the importance of professional networking. It enables me to
get along with people which is vital as engineers deal with people on a daily
basis. In addition, it gives me a better understanding of the status-quo and the
job prospects in engineering. Furthermore, I realised the importance of not just
interacting but also maintaining an open line of communication with the people
from industry in order to earn the trust and confidence of colleagues. This
effective networking is essential in developing your engineering identity.

Secondly, effective communication is the key towards having good teamwork.

This lesson has not only come from the senior panel, but also from the industry
people that I met during the EA presentation. To begin with, I learnt about the
challenge of having to learn and communicate effectively with team members in
another language. Juan Rodrigues, one of the senior engineers, took a year off to
learn the English language as he is of Spanish descent. I admire the effort he has
made in order to communicate effectively as mastering a foreign language is not
easy. This relates to EA Graduate Competency 3.2a that is to be proficient in
listening, speaking, reading and writing English. He also added that the
engineering job takes you around the world. Hence, I realised that I must be able
to communicate well enough in order to function as an effective member of
diverse engineering teams, including those with multilevel, multi-disciplinary and
multi-cultural dimensions (EA Graduate Competency 3.6b). Furthermore, I must
develop the habit of asking questions when in doubt, as highlighted by Morris
Johns from Y. This is because it involves communication and it will give me the
confidence to pursue and discern professional advice (EA Competency 3.6e).
These are the reasons why I think effective communication is the key to good
teamwork.
Thirdly, utilising the time of my life as a university student to acquire knowledge
and technical skills is essential before stepping into the workforce as an
engineer. According to one of the graduate panel speakers, I should get involved
in project management or volunteering to develop my engineering skills. I
believe this is true because these are the things you can only get by practice
outside of the classroom. Furthermore, employers are searching for graduates
that are well-rounded engineers, as highlighted by Jim Smith from AB. Hence, it is
important for me to utilise every opportunity to develop my character. This
relates to the EA Graduate Competency 1.6 that is to understand the
fundamental principles of engineering project management as a basis for
planning, organising and managing resources. Therefore, utilising the university
life to develop my technical and application skills is important before working as
an engineer.
(Addresses EA competency 3.2 and 3.6 but does not use the Gibbs Model)

Final Reflection on the design, tendering, construction and testing

stages of an engineering project
One of the most important lessons I have learnt throughout my time in EFPC 100
is how essential good communication skills are in order to succeed in an
engineering field. Throughout the stages of the group project it became clear
that the most successful groups were those who could communicate clearly and
efficiently. The necessity for good communication skills became apparent
throughout the four stages of designing and building the mousetrap powered car.
In order to make the best final product changes needed to be made to the
designs of the vehicle. The only way I as a contractor could do this was through
conversing with the design team and persuading them why my change would be
beneficial to the project. This persuading was done during one of the many
meetings we had during the course of the project. I personally found that to
convey the full benefits of the suggested design changes to the designers,

evidence and research was essential but only of value if you could explain your
findings and outline the effects this design change would have on the
performance and construction process of the vehicle.
Personally, having the opportunity to discover this knowledge this early in the
course is incredibly beneficial. From listening to the graduates and senior
engineers panels as well as talking to the third and fourth year engineering
students, communication seems to be one of the most important skills to have as
an engineer. Hopefully by finding how effective this skill can be early on in my
degree I can work at making my communication skills as effective as possible.
(Addresses EA competency 3.2 but does not use the Gibbs Model)

Reflection on the Project Testing Stage

The most valuable lesson I learnt in EFPC 100 was taking responsibility and
having control over situations no matter how difficult they are.
The experience that taught me this lesson was the failure of the car in testing,
just before handover to the designers (in stage 3). As I was responsible for
handing the final product to the designers, this put a lot of pressure on me,
because I felt that it was my responsibility to make sure that the car was built
correctly and performed to the standards of both the designing company and the
client. Due to the cars poor performance, I had to take the initiative of finding
someone on campus with tools suitable for the cars reconstruction; and
contacting the other contractors to help me out. It was very important to me that
I solve this problem and honour my contract. Reconstructing the car took a lot of
time and work, however, we finally managed to produce a car that met the set
standards. What I learned from this experience is that it is important to remain
calm while faced with an issue concerning something I am responsible of; and
thinking of a solution is more beneficial to the situation than worrying what the
outcome might be. Having control over ones self is a skill required by EA as
mentioned in the competencies list Orderly management of self and
professional conduct. I am sure that I will be faced with bigger issues than this,
when I am a professional engineer, and to be able to deal with stressful
situations is one of the skills required from a professional engineer. It is also
important to know the right people to contact when such difficult situations arise.
Without good colleagues and good relationships, I could not have faced this
incident on my own.
(EA Competency 3.5 and follows Gibbs model of reflection)
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Reflection on the Importance of Effective Communication during the
Tendering Stage
When evaluating tender applications for the tender evaluation in stage 2, I found
myself increasingly frustrated by the quality of the writing in the applications. We
received two poorly written tender submissions which were at times
incomprehensible. They required many requests to the tendering company for

clarification and careful rereading in order to understand them to a point where

they could be evaluated. This took a frustratingly large amount of time out of the
already short deadline we had for the evaluation. The frustration I felt when
trying to understand what was supposedly being communicated to me resulted
in the realisation of how crucially important communication skills are in cooperating with others. Your communication skills strongly determine how others
perceive you and how willing they are to work with you. Poor communication in
the applications resulted in a bad impression of the tendering companies.
Consulting with my fellow designers, I found they too were reluctant to work with
these companies. I now feel that our communication criteria should have been
more heavily weighted than the others. Initially we had considered construction
skills the most important, but by the end of this unit we learnt rather the hard
way that without adequate communication skills, the instructions and design
cannot be sufficiently understood and the construction skills will no longer
matter. I am now much more aware of how the quality of my communications
with others affects both their judgement of me and the efficiency of our cooperation. This will encourage me to take greater care and effort when
communicating with others, and change my priorities when evaluating or
assessing them. This will be especially crucial in an engineering career, when
projects will require team members from very different fields and backgrounds.
(Addresses EA competency 3.2 and follows Gibbs Model of reflection)