>> So I would definitely say power system's concentration that's offered
by the school of engineering is smart.
I didn't start down that road early enough to get absolutely all the boxes checked;
I basically have that concentration but I think I missed a course maybe to be able
to say I have that concentration.
So the power system's piece is the biggest piece, I mean you can get into a lot
of the electromagnetics of the equipment, the grid, transmission distribution,
they touch on all those things so it gives you a good background.
Soft skills are the biggest thing; I know that's kind of a played term, if you will.
I don't want to be cliche or anything but that's any role; any job you're in you need to be able
to deal with people, have good written and verbal skills, be able to communicate clearly;
very important in the field that I'm in because a lot of times you're coming up with an idea
that maybe is a little different, maybe it's a little outside of the box, maybe it's something
that makes some people uncomfortable because well I hadn't really thought
about doing it that way, you know.
So you have to be able to really communicate everything well.
And then make sure you're familiar with all of the non-technical computer software,
I mean everybody that comes out of an electrical engineering course is going to know, you know,
some level of MATLAB and they're going to know some level of AutoCAD and some level
of all these other technical software, but make sure that you have all
of the skills you need for something like Excel.
I can't tell you how often I use Excel and I'm not, you know--
I'm not a book keeper, I'm not doing finances, stuff like that, but you can do so much
in the engineering realm with, you know, formulas and coding in Excel.
So those types of skills are good to hone as well.