Hi all fellow AIChE Conference attendees,
I’m an aspiring Controls / DCS / Automation Engineer looking to develop contacts within the field. At the moment, I’m unemployed in the Engineering space, and am looking to rejoin after being 4+ years removed from work in an industrial plant.
I have been attending all of the sessions sponsored by 10B, the Systems and Process Control group. The presented work has been impressive as far as I can understand, pushing the bounds of current approaches from many different angles to achieve better and ultimately more profitable results.
However, my primary purpose when I came here was to develop relationships with one or several mentors, and have felt that my efforts to do so have been lackluster. I suppose networking has always been a weakness of mine, and I’m never quite sure how to introduce myself. It also feels quite rude to go up to someone, and after exchanging a some brief pleasantries for a few minutes, request that they become a mentor of mine in some capacity. I feel like I would be asking a bit much without being able to give much back in return.
If anyone familiar with what is necessary to successfully begin a new career in Automation Engineering has time to sit down over coffee, lunch, or dinner at some point this week, I would be excited to sit down and speak with you. Or, if anyone else is in the same shoes as I am (here on his/her own, feeling a little bit lost and without direction), and wants to sit and talk about the week and his/her experience thus far, I would be excited to meet with you as well. I feel a bit strange posting my phone number in a public forum, so if anyone is interested in meeting with me, send me a PM and I will send you my phone number. We can then coordinate via text / phone call.
Thank you all so much for reading this rather long post, and I hope all of you are having a wonderful conference to this point.
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Joel Oragwu EIT
Long Beach CA
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