There is a saying that an expert is nothing but once a time was a beginner. A person become expert only after it has gained some knowledge over a year and it always starts from an internship. Also, once dreams job lands with the help of the internship. So, during this fall quarter I had privilege to take an engineering course that deal with the internship and that was Co-Op education where we were giving knowledge about various topic like how to optimize and developed our professional, having successful career with the help of flexing our culture style, engineering ethics, gender equality and working in multicultural environment.
Starting with we had our first lecture on topic how to optimize as well as developed our professional by Professor Amy Peterson in which she told us how to use various tools available online as well as in university. In which first she introduces about what is internship and also, we were given the perspective of how many international students are present right now in the US and how much visa petition is filed and how many are successful. Also, we talk about the pros and cons of being an international student. Next, we discuss the process of how to get a job being an international student in the United States. Furthermore, Professor posted a different type of question that we can target at employers during each job search and listed various tools that can be useful to find an employer. Tools such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Vault, myvisajob.com, and much more help to find jobs. Also, we talk about the resume, how to build it, the difference between U.S. resume and international resume, what are the skill that employer looks up in a resume, how to make a cover letter and its uses.
There were many hidden points that can be used to find jobs such as handshake which a Santa Clara University own job search portal where we can find the only employer that are looking to hire SCU students. There is an iceberg kind of situation in the job market in which only 20% job is advertised rest are hidden job market. Next, we talk about how to use LinkedIn various profile elements such as recommendation, summery, etc. and also in developing a network. Lastly, we talk about the different type of helps available inside the SCU that helps a student in job preparations such as resume guide, cover letter writing, interviewing practice and job interview as well as salary negotiating.
The second lecture was on how to make a successful career through cultural flexing by Professor Octave Baker. In which we talk about various things like time management, challenges face by the foreign-born student at their work area and in their lifestyle, the various skill set required at work and many more. Let me first talk about time management. There is huge conceptual different related to time in the united states as compared to other countries. In the US people value time, there come to work before their actual time and also tried to work even after office time. While in other country people doesn’t consider time as specious. It’s saying that a man that doesn’t care about time, time will not take care of him. Next, we discuss the Multilanguage environment at the workplace and their challenges. In the recent study on Silicon Valley shows that 60% of people working are foreign-born people. Also, it is found that the majority of people at the top position like CEO’s, CTO’s, Directories, etc. in the company are US-born people.
There is a misconception about the foreign-born people might that they are not capable to handle the topmost position in the company. Also due to cultural difference, many people are not able to take a stance. In Asia, it is considered bad manners to speak against the elder or to a manager even he/she is wrong while in the US this is totally opposite.
Moreover, due to cultural influence, we are told to be humble and soft-spoken but due to this sometimes hindered our progress at our work.
There was a discussion on over time. Through a survey, it has come to know that manager tend to ask often a foreign-born person to do overtime over the US-born person.
The main threat of doing over time is dangerous health. Diseases such as eye problem, heart misfunctioning, etc. Also, we talk about the type of management at work and type of people at work. Some people tend to stick to old belief while some are eager to accept new change. There is a saying that a nail that sticks out get hammered that totally applies to the above sentence. Also, we talk about the micromanagement. Lastly, we were introduced to Small talk i.e. how and what to talk and what not to talk with the different people at the workplace.
We had the third lecture on engineering ethics by Dr. Brian Green where he talks about different aspect and issues of ethics. Starting with the first talked about what university care about and talk about different type of disasters that have taken place all around the world due to failure to follow ethics. Then he talked about what ethics is and what is not. Then he talks about why the ethics are so hard to follow. Moreover, ethics are always to do good and avoid doing evil. We also talk about professional and personal ethics. Furthermore, we discuss what is law and why it is different with compare to ethics.
Later we were introduced about the whistleblower, good business practices, intellectual property, and plagiarism. Lastly, we discuss the six-part of ethics like Intentions, consequences, rules, virtues and vices, institutions and policy and culture and education.
Ending the lecture, we took some case studies on ethics like tesla self-driving car accident, trolley problem, computer and many more.
The fourth lecture was on Building Effective Teams at Work between Men and Women where we discuss the work environment of men and women. How the men and woman interact with each other at work. Next, we talk about the view of competencies and skills to adapt and adopt the thing of different cultures. Also, we watch a documentary about how male and female interact with other male and female in their workplace. We were introduced to 17 different accepts of fundamental of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Closing our lecture, we gave a little demonstration on building gender competence where we were to act as Devil’s advocate and Angel’s advocate for a particular idea presented by the fellow student.
Our final lecture was on Working on Multicultural Teams by Prof. Marian StetsonRodriquez where we discuss how multicultural environment works and how to be satisfied with it. First, we discuss Cross-Cultural Insights and Team Life Cycle. Then about the myths of multicultural teams. Next, we discuss the types of roles in a multicultural environment such as solo vs group and stereotypes vs generalizations. With this, we define what a culture is and what are the relationship of it with respect to time, communications roles, risk-taking values, beliefs, and norms. We also find out the different type of Fruit Model of Culture – Relationships such as coconut for French and Japan, mango for India, cactus for Israel, peach for the United States. We also tried to find the answer for questions like What challenges could different “fruits” find, relating in a multicultural team, What challenges Monochronic and Polychronic find in a multicultural team, and many more. Next, we compare different countries with their respect to time.
For example, Japan and Singapore are monochronic while countries like India, Spain, Israel, etc. are more towards polychronic. Also, we talk about high communications context vs low communications context. Lastly, we talk about topics like Team Life Cycle, Forming Team Relationships, Storming, Ground Rules in Multicultural Teams.
In conclusion, I can say that I have learned many things that can be helpful in my work environment. Things like how to optimize and developed our professional, how to find jobs while still studying, make a successful career through flexing culture, and many more. that can help me in my practical training at my working company. And I am grateful that I took this course and have gain knowledge that can help in my practical training.