assignment 1(topic reflection)

There is an adage in Chinese: preparedness ensures success, unpreparedness spells failure（凡事预则立不预则废）. As a junior student major in MET (Mechanical Engineering Technology), inevitably, I’m becoming more and more curious about the demands of the society for MET students and how can I get my career preparation better done. I decided to choose this topic for my first assignment.


I used to be a puerility girl, never worried about my future, I thought life is already there waiting for me, graduate from university, find a job, get retired and live a happy life. This stupid thought has accompanied me about 19 years. Not until I came here, my parents and I are on the different sides of the earth, did I realize that I’m the person who should be responsible to myself. Once, when I was hanging out with someone working in the business office, he told me that “it’s becoming harder and harder to find a job for a MET student now. The demand of society is reaching saturation point. And the economic crisis makes the problem even worse.” Is that true? Do we MET students really standing on a nonplus? What can I do to accelerate my career preparation and engineer my future? In order to give answers to the questions above, I guess I really need to do some research.

About my resource, I think since I’m in university, I have many advantages.

Firstly, the library. our library holds more than 110,000 catalogued volumes, 1,500 periodicals and serial titles, microforms, U.S. geological survey maps for the state of Georgia, and circulating reserve collections of texts and tests. And we can use GALILEO, a system that provides access to all college and university libraries throughout the state [1].

Secondary, the Internet. I can simply find useful data through Internet. Here, I’d like to recommend my favorite web site in searching for some resource: http://www.delicious.com. This web site provides a stage where people can share the web site which they think is useful. All the web sites been recommend are classified in different fields by their tags. And we can easily tell which one is probably more useful from the number which shows how many people think this web site is nice and have shared it. Till now, I find a nice place for my research from “delicious”: http://www.asme.org. And I believe I will achieve more useful resource here.

Third, the people here. In university, I guess the most direct and effective way to get information is ask. Professors are always there waiting for kinds of questions loyally. And the staff working in the students’ business office is the ones who know the information of the graduated students most. Also, I can talk with my peers about their plans for future, I believe some of them, especially the senior students, have already done some research about the job-hunting thing.

Anyway, I hope I can not only finish an assignment, but also do learn something about my major and get myself better prepared for my future through the process.


[1]The data of the libary come from SPSU web site.