@alobfadii,
Nice to read from you.
You can start by trying to move into a more vibrant stream of the industry. GSM is growing faster, developing faster, and is much more globalized and standardized than fixed-line. Lots of places to find your niche in GSM.

alobfadii:

i want your advice concerning what you think about being an expert in a field or knowing several different things

It depends on your overall career objective. From my experience, in the corporate track, you start by learning some parts of everything, then you move to develop competency (not expertise) in a particular area, then you now move into Management, which again means that management becomes your strong competency or expertise, while the various other areas, especially outside engineering, you need to develop and gain basic competency in.

Like me. I joined a telco as a software engineer in 2001, worked with the value-added services team for a while developing VAS applications, later became a programmer/business analyst working with Finance, then my scope got expanded and I worked with the billing team as a business analyst & project lead. Then I moved to Marketing and became a product manager. I've been a product manager for 5 years now, and I am looking at a business planning role next, after which I should be ready for executive level.

Your comment about doing 'uncommon' stuff: Not sure exactly what you mean. Is it about developing expertise in a niche area that'll fetch you enough money and exposure to enjoy life? That's called 'consulting' in the real world. People paying for your time. That's what I want to do after I retire from paid employment, at age 40 hopefully.

Peace.

, Ajanlekoko. I m very glad to come across this thread.I love all your advice.Please I am a EE grad(Electronics and Telecom option).I served 2005 and started my first work with an ISP company that are into giving internet Access to Clients using Radio.Later i Joined another company,that will install VSAT to their clients and will send you to manage those companies network.(Its just like contract because the company i m sent to(Small Oil company) are not d one paying my salary,rather its my company(IT company) that sent me there that pays it).However,I am very confused.Why?1.My career goal is to work in a Pure Telecom Company like GSM companies or telecom Vendors where i can be into real Telecom and not IT,but i have been searching for it,till now,nothing yet.2.The so called IT i m into,no experience,no Money,d work is so boring.Could you imagine doing the same thing all the time.It sounds so boring.Atimes i will be sitting idle in the office just to dey monitor network,if anybody is not browsing,i will attend to the person,one cant print i will attend to the person,U cant send mail or not receiving mails,i will attend to you etc.Such work is not challenging atall.My question is:How can i enter into pure telecom because the more i continue with the so called IT,the more my years of experience will be more of IT in my CV,which i dont like,and is there anyhow you can assist me to enter into any of the pure telecom companies or telecom vendors or direct me to some Telecom vendors you know where i can have joy to practise what i like,i m not thinking of the salary,all i need is to gain the experience and build my career in telecom as thats have been my heart desire.Because i m considering going into another line of Job if i m not getting d Telecom job,than sitting down one place in office doing these kind everyday repeatative boring job in d name of IT.Please advise me.My email is:jin_farous@yahoo.com

farous:

, Ajanlekoko. I m very glad to come across this thread.I love all your advice.Please I am a EE grad(Electronics and Telecom option).I served 2005 and started my first work with an ISP company that are into giving internet Access to Clients using Radio.Later i Joined another company,that will install VSAT to their clients and will send you to manage those companies network.(Its just like contract because the company i m sent to(Small Oil company) are not d one paying my salary,rather its my company(IT company) that sent me there that pays it).However,I am very confused.Why?1.My career goal is to work in a Pure Telecom Company like GSM companies or telecom Vendors where i can be into real Telecom and not IT,but i have been searching for it,till now,nothing yet.2.The so called IT i m into,no experience,no Money,d work is so boring.Could you imagine doing the same thing all the time.It sounds so boring.Atimes i will be sitting idle in the office just to dey monitor network,if anybody is not browsing,i will attend to the person,one cant print i will attend to the person,U cant send mail or not receiving mails,i will attend to you etc.Such work is not challenging atall.My question is:How can i enter into pure telecom because the more i continue with the so called IT,the more my years of experience will be more of IT in my CV,which i dont like,and is there anyhow you can assist me to enter into any of the pure telecom companies or telecom vendors or direct me to some Telecom vendors you know where i can have joy to practise what i like,i m not thinking of the salary,all i need is to gain the experience and build my career in telecom as thats have been my heart desire.Because i m considering going into another line of Job if i m not getting d Telecom job,than sitting down one place in office doing these kind everyday repeatative boring job in d name of IT.Please advise me.My email is:jin_farous@yahoo.com

Well, thank God at least you have a job. Some people no even get.
If your current job is boring, why don't you utilize your time by getting certified in the area of telecom you're interested in, or somewhere close to that. You can take courses in telecom engineering (so many of them around these days), and then scout round for opportunities in or around the type of job you're looking for. That would be my suggestion for you.

@fireman
it is not residual magnetism that exist in the tv, rather it is residual static electricity which is of several thousand of voltage.
@alobfadii
i will advice you to stick to what you have got. i made the same mistake many years ago. i was undergoing my industrial educational training with a multinational company. at this place, i was exposed to what engineering is all about, but disatisfied with the way things are done because many projects were not really designed based on engineering calculations i.e stress of the materials, factor of safety e.t.c. rather it is sad to even know that many of the people working in their engineering dept are not engineers. even, only few have technical certificates which is what we obtain after our trainning. rather, they employ anybody into their dept of engineering and requires him to services their plants which are not even covered up with working drawings. this makes repair and maintanance very difficult and unless you are familiar with that particular plants, you cannot do anything to it. this is what they see as thier working experience. the sectional head of the a/c and refrigiration dept then when i was there does not even have a pry 6 cert talkless of interpreting the carnot cycles and the rest which are occurring in such reversible heat engines. even the so called foreign expertrates which is the overall head of the engineering sections in the factory had just a technical cert. i was caugth between taking a desion on whether to stay or proceed to have my university education. i decided to move on. today, i am regretting this action because financially, i would have been better than i am now. i discovered that it is money that matters in this country rather than what you have to offer intelectually. this is one reason why i had said that do we really need to produce engineers in this country when they are of little or no relevants to our economy. engineers working in the banking sectors are much more better than practising engineers like us. so bro, do not leave what you have now unless there is an offer which is greater than present salary you are receiving.

@kaceei
i want you to know that no course been offered in engineering is of any irrelevance. those who designed the courses knew why they did. they are what is expected of you to know as an engineer. engineering goes beyond the basic working principles which is what the polytechnic schemes and syllabus are expected to address. egineering involves knowing natural phenonenoms in your fields and advances mathematical solutions to problems. you are bored with those courses because that is not what your mind is prepared for and really, they may not be any relevance in our society because we do not involve ourselfs with designs of systems from the scracth. if you do, then you will applied all the laplace, bessel functions and forier series of this world. then you will apreciate courses that you had offered in school. this is the reason why i have said that do we really need engineers in our society? what many engineers practice are what is meant for technicians and your certificate only add to your cv which garantee you other irrelevant jobs such as your current banking jobs. even in the computer and IT fields, you do not really need to be an eng to take them, but you eng cet garantee you the job.

@lekside44,
I think you have a point, though maybe slightly misplaced in my view.
The issues you have raised is the very reason why I have beef for NSE and COREN, because the same university profs and government engineers who founded these bodies are the ones that stifled the growth of engineering knowledge in Nigeria, and created the cronyism approach to engineering projects. That, and the fact that our multinationals indirectly discourage the growth and development of technology in Nigeria by importing both technology and resources, guaranteeing capital flight to their respective countries.

However, that does not stop each and every one of us from going ahead to acquire the skills we need to be relevant. School doesn't stop you from acquiring the skills you want, or making the kind of mark you want to make in the industry.

That you didn't stay on in this multinational doesn't mean you won't get a chance to prove yourself. One thing I would want to encourage us younger generation to develop is the culture of collaboration, rather than competition. Let's start to share information freely with each other, let's stop the craze for money, as in trying to rip off the next guy, and focus on jointly developing each other, rather than trying to impress or intimidate each other. That's the way out of all these issues lekside is raising.

Let me bare mind on this interesting topic. I graduated from a polytechnic (IMT Enugu).  There was a huge discrimination of HND holders. I was determined to succeed though. After NYSC, I commenced with a work in a consulting firm, moved to multinational communication company and finally to the Banking with their irresistible money offers. With a personal 4x4 ride, house, foreign vacation and a happy family, what else can a man ask? I 'm currently applying for higher degrees with a foreign university. I hope to consult upon retirement. Lesson for the upcoming: Always do your best and rely on God. Dont spend all your useful years writing uni jamb. Get into the poly, if that's God's wish for you. He will surely bless you. In my first job, I ended up supervising 3 uni grads in my department. Though i have not practiced the Telecom aspect contrary to my aspiration, but I am happy with what I am doing. With enough cash, the world is within reach.

On NSE and COREN -they are just stiffing the growth of the profession for selfish gain. Certificate discrimination is clearly mindless and senseless. Developed lands give regards to more what you are able to deliver and not paper qualification. Nigeria should borrow a leaf from that. You need the tech schools for development.

sylink1:

Let me bare mind on this interesting topic. I graduated from a polytechnic (IMT Enugu). There was a huge discrimination of HND holders. I was determined to succeed though. After NYSC, I commenced with a work in a consulting firm, moved to multinational communication company and finally to the Banking with their irresistible money offers. With a personal 4x4 ride, house, foreign vacation and a happy family, what else can a man ask? I 'm currently applying for higher degrees with a foreign university. I hope to consult upon retirement. Lesson for the upcoming: Always do your best and rely on God. Dont spend all your useful years writing uni jamb. Get into the poly, if that's God's wish for you. He will surely bless you. In my first job, I ended up supervising 3 uni grads in my department. Though i have not practiced the Telecom aspect contrary to my aspiration, but I am happy with what I am doing. With enough cash, the world is within reach.

On NSE and COREN -they are just stiffing the growth of the profession for selfish gain. Certificate discrimination is clearly mindless and senseless. Developed lands give regards to more what you are able to deliver and not paper qualification. Nigeria should borrow a leaf from that. You need the tech schools for development.

Good one bro! That's the spirit. Something for all to learn here.

i totally agree with what Ajanlekoko said about collaboration and not competition o. . . its time we start making each other better instead of casting ppl down. . . thats my main beef with lekside44 its next to impossible for you to get anything positive out of his yarns. . . to him no me that i'm trying to improve myself along the lines of what i did in school is wasting my time abi?

netotse,
Don't knock lekside. He just needs to see the half-full glass. And I believe he has a point, no matter how misplaced.

The truth is, as he rightly said, many times, we engineers in Nigeria end up doing the job of technicians, as a result of our educational orientation and also the mediocrity of senior engineers who feel threatened by young bright guys just fresh out of school. Even though the zeal and desire to learn is there, most of the time the opportunities are not just there. In between ASUU strikes and student unrests, we don't even have the facilities to support quality engineering education the way it should be done. Lecturers are not up to date, labs are decrepit, even industrial training is just another trauma. NSE and COREN are just the icing on the cake in the value chain of mediocrity.

In a way we are also victims of multinationals, who want to use our natural resources to create jobs for foreigners here in Nigeria, as opposed to in their own countries where they create endowments in universities and tech schools, and they support innovation by maintaining that tight symbiosis with the ivory towers. Take a look at Silicon Valley, and schools like Stanford and UC Berkeley. The top dogs at Sun Microsystems (Scott McNealy and Bill Joy), SGI and Netscape (Jim Clark, Marc Andreesen), and even the Intel pioneers (Gordon Moore) were all tapped from these schools. In Nigeria I think I know only of Schlumberger's support for UI's Pet Engineering department and the Ericsson lab they were setting up in Unilag. I don't know if they ever got that to work sef.

The thing is, this thing lekside is saying, you have to be aware of it, aware of all the drawbacks, and arm yourself accordingly. As an IT student in a factory environment in 1995 (Smurfit Print), I came into contact with a freelance engineer who was basically ripping off the company doing little things like replacing relays, contactors and other components of printing machines (Roland Parva and Heidelberg SpeedMaster 4 and 6 color offset machines) for an unbelievable fee. Can you believe this guy would charge as much as 50k to remove the overload contactor if the thing heated up and tripped, just to clean the contactor and replace it? When I started to point out all these things, the ogas started to squeeze face, and I realised that water pass gari o, na to stand down!

My take away from all that is that you need to be hands on in this environment, or else you won't be able to marry the difference between theory and practical. You need to be able to adapt to various environments, and more importantly show leadership. As an engineer leading technicians, you must understand the technicalities of what they are doing, and must be able to provide them direction. This direction you should be able to decipher as a result of your training as an engineer. There are various other job skills separate from the technical know-how that you must develop in very short time (managerial ability and emotional intelligence for example) or else you won't be effective as an engineer. In fact, the basics of your profession (electricity and electronics) must be mastered by you, by the time you leave school, not after, else those technicians will continue to show you up as an engineer without substance. My charge to young people is this, get yourself armed while still in school, don't just go with the flow and have the feeling of 'dem go train me for job'. That more than anything makes you a more attractive hire.

Enough of all the long story. Peace and have a splendid week.

My take away from all that is that you need to be hands on in this environment, or else you won't be able to marry the difference between theory and practical. You need to be able to adapt to various environments, and more importantly show leadership. As an engineer leading technicians, you must understand the technicalities of what they are doing, and must be able to provide them direction. This direction you should be able to decipher as a result of your training as an engineer. There are various other job skills separate from the technical know-how that you must develop in very short time (managerial ability and emotional intelligence for example) or else you won't be effective as an engineer. In fact, the basics of your profession (electricity and electronics) must be mastered by you, by the time you leave school, not after, else those technicians will continue to show you up as an engineer without substance. My charge to young people is this, get yourself armed while still in school, don't just go with the flow and have the feeling of 'dem go train me for job'. That more than anything makes you a more attractive hire.

this is very true within the nigerian environment where technicians consider themselves to be the equals or betters of engineers. in an logical society, an engineer is not expected to be proficent in hands on, but naija is not an ordinary society. you have to know your stuff.

decided to discuss the stuff i do these days

recently management became bothered about safety in our building - so i came up with a fire alarm design for our five floors

in a typical design office, i would have done the design on a hardcopy drawing of the architectural layouts of the building floors, reviewed it with my supervisor, handed it over to a drafter to draft, review a hard copy of the finished drawing, lift quantities from the drawing and prepare a bill of quantities and other tender documents

where i am, i am the resident AutoCAD guru, so i just do my design directly from within AutoCAD.

fire alarm design is fairly straightforward

smoke detectors have coverage of 100 sq metres, heat detectors 50 sq metres, provide call points at all exits, provide repeater panels at all exits, sounders' range is determined by their db output and the surrounding walls etal

if u know your autocad, you can streamline a lot of stuff. too bad most of us use it as a drafting rather than a design tool

a closer look. . .

stuff from a design for one of our retail outlets

external lighting layout of the station

security and canopy lighting

earthing layout. . .

power layout - external

lighting layout (uncircuited) 2nd floor of a hotel(PP)

acad mep 2010 - bles the internet

external lighting for one of our terminals two years ago

did the initial design with dialux to get an idea of the illumination achieved with a distribution of 400w floodlights

lux plot

site plan lighting layout

the red floodlights are explosion proof/ exx/ip67 models

3d models of proposed lighting poles and lighting masts

I just finished my exams. I've not visited this thread for some time now. @ajanlekoko I'm always inspired with your words. Your willingness to share your experience is truly amazing. Thanks for making this thread a success.

@Oyb
You've really been around the block. I was never really a fan of auto cad. I used to think it was just for other engineering fields. But seeing your work has given me a re think. Thanks for the sharing. I think i speak for the house.

some work pics

Nice one, oyb.
What's that rig thingy? Looks like a radio mast, no?
Oh, okay, lighting mast. Posted before I saw the other graphic.

@ajanlekoko
the ericsson lab is there (at least the building) but i've never seen any ativity there from the day i entered to the very day i finished o

@oyb
whats the diff btw design and drafting? (as relates to autocad) did u do all the work urself? (abt alarms my coursemates did similar stuff when they were in netco on I.T. but i think they were on a team sha!)

@all
been thinking abt learning autocad but how does it tie in with power?

@netsose,
I think it ties into everything that has to do with design, not just power. Even outside electricity.
I haven't ever worked in an AutoCAD environment myself. In school then, i had the erroneous impression that it was more of a tool used by draughtsmen, or people doing real life product design, machine design or physical component design (like if you were designing the form factor for the iPOD for example). Kind of like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant. Besides,I had an innate hatred for Engineering Drawing, which explains why elect was appealing to me.
As a student I had some brief interaction with pSPICE to do circuit design and simulation for electronics in 400 and final year. That one I considered to be an overkill as well, since I wasn't designing ICs.
When I started working and doing masters, I took to MS Visio (network engineers use that for their design). Been using Visio ever since, cos the scope of Visio as a business tool is much wider, and for me, it can do just about anything.
Come to think of it, oyb, why una no dey use Visio? Just out of curiosity.

@Ajanlekoko
i use visio, but mostly for organograms

its guys in IT/networking that typically go into visio as a drafting/design tool - the MS factor (imho) so much of the environment is based off microsoft apps, so its a natural transition

@neototse,

the fundamental diff btw designing and drafting would be something like this

where i worked (CA) the drafters would print xrefed architectural drawings(these are drawings with all info not relevant to the design process removed) and pass these to us.
one would markup the design on the hard copies, hand these back to the drafters, and they would draft the drawings ie simply draw what they saw

in the event that a person with design knowledge is doing the work directly, without first marking up on paper, that is designing

sort of like typing - you write something on a sheet and hand it over to a typist to type - thats copy typing - you do it yourself, thats er . . .don't know what they call it

what happened is that our resident architectural drafter did the building drawings. i took these, xrefed them, and did the electrical designs

Autocad is a truly fantastic tool, but most of us use it as a substitute for a drawing board. for instance , i have cad routines that can generate schedules of items in my drawing.

autocad ties in with practically any engineering discipline, but yur use of it would depend on what you do. an architect is unlikely to use/customize autocad the way a mechanical engineer would.

if you were involved in designing power protection schemes, you might use autocad to prepare these. there's something i remember from my days at jiyoda. part of the power calculations involve a mohrs circle

this used to be done with a protractor , compass , pencil and paper, but one day i realized that it could be done in cad. and it would be much faster once a template had been created. they're still doing that now.

the real problem with learning autocad is that if you don't learn it in a professional environment, you will have a lousy foundation, and do so many things wrong - and you won't realize this. the architectural drafter in my office is a prime example. the man considers himself to be an autocad guru, but he is unable to do more than use autocad as an electronic drawing board. as i said, if you understand and really utilize autocad, there is no limit to how much you can speed up your work process. try to understand the use of layers, blocks and attributes. these are essential to competent/professional use of autocad.

if you hit up rapidlibrary or filestube with 'autocad for dummies' or 'autocad bible' you will get links to autocad ebooks on rapidshare. type in autocad 2010, and you'll get links to autocad 2010, and so on.

so great website

google lynn allen, melanie perry, cadtutor, www.theswamp.org, ellenfinkentsen ; these are blogs/ cad forums

nice drawings

bawomolo:

nice drawings

thanks

i have read of contractors refering to drawings as pretty pictures/comic strips because of The notorious difficulty of transforming the architect's intentions into reality.

preparation of construction documents etla is all well and good, but its not until the project is completed that we can all beat our chests

so, i'll discuss the challenges

note that challenges will differ and depend on so many things, location, company culture, resources available, politics

okay, so lets begin.

the issue with indigenous nigerian technical companies is that the people running the company have no engineering background. the implication of this is that stating a project that is projected to cost n23 million, for instance, will meet opposition. there will be pressure to do it at 17, 15 million, or less.

sometimes, one even has to contend with management producing some roadside contractors who have absolutely no idea what they are doing claiming that they can execute the same job at under 10m. there are also ridiculous deadlines set for completing projects, or insistence that alot of standards be compromised.

having to work with non technical people, especially if they read engineering in school, can be very aggravating, as they may waste valuable time demanding that you explain what are very straightforward concepts. i remeber once, i had created a design that used cassete unit airconditioners. these are air conditioners that can be installed in a celing. during a meeting, some jerkoff spent close to 15 minutes demanding that i explain how an air conditioner could be installed in a ceiling.

the true problem with non technical people always boils down to money. where i work, a department is tasked with negotiating with contractors over contract sums. none of the people in the department has worked in a professional engineering capacity. there was this day, i was invited to one of their negotiations. i said fat out that i wasn't going, but my boss insisted. upon getting to the meeting, i met the team, members basically trying tyo force the contractor into accepting to execute the contract ata cost that would almost certainly put him at a loss. this was why i had not wanted to go for the meeting. i challenged them for being unfair, and it degenerated into OYB is sidng with the contractor. what the negotitors fil to understand is a peopluar slogan - the sweetness of low price does not outlast the bitternes of poor quality.

this is how it works. because of the resources available to us. one cannot be on site 24/7. a vendor who has been shortchanged will simply cut corners to break even. as i cannot be on site 24/7, i cannot catch him, and it may be after he has finished the issues will start to arise. some peole argue that onec can still sanction the contractor, but the wahala involved in resolving issues is simply not worth it, . . .end user wahala, unplanned expenditure. . . all because some neophytes think they can save money .


politics

once its a nigerian company, its inevitable, some contracts will be awarded to the relatives of company management. these people have no engineering background, but are a phonecall away from the head honchos. typically, they will first lick 25% of teh contract sum, before sub contracting it out to a third party at a price that is not realistic. its left to the engineers to salvage the mess or get sanctioned

will be back with more

ouch! that hurts. . . hate hearing stuff like that but its true(thats what is happening here onthe dam o!)a lot of nigerians put the job last!