The Character of Collaboration in Engineering:
A Conversation with Mechanical Engineer Charles Shim
“Legos were my childhood. While other kids liked to played outside, I liked to take things apart with my hands and learn how they worked,” Shim Charles, a mechanical engineering trainee at Lincoln Electric, tells me. We had a fruitful discussion about life as an engineer over the phone. Engineering is all about collaboration. As an engineering student, you work with fellow classmates on group projects, and since engineering incoporates difficult math and science subjects, one must look to their peers for support or sometimes just understanding. A kind student from the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) was able to introduce me to Shim, who is also a recent CCNY graduate.
Before coming to CCNY, Shim went to Queensborough Community College, where he acquired an Associate’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology. Shim is a passionate and optimistic engineer, and his interest in engineering design derives from a young age. As a child, he played with Legos and liked to take apart clocks and other apparatuses. He liked to see how they functioned. While his passion, like all engineers, is his own, it is shared and understood by others. So, he is able to collaborate and work with other engineers fluidly. At QBCC, he learned to work with machines, but for Shim that was not enough. He transferred to CCNY to learn the math and science behind the machines and obtain his Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
Furthermore, he was able to find internships through his friends and organizations. He was introduced to his first internship at IAASR, where they built custom electronic cases for an engineer who designed them himself, through a friend. Shim worked hard and soon took over the designing as the engineer was busy with other projects. Shim also had another internship at a chemical engineering lab on campus, which he also found through a friend. Another interesting thing about engineering is that there are many different fields, but one rarely witnesses a project where only one type of engineer is needed. Since engineering incorporates various sciences and maths, it also takes different kinds of engineers to finish a project. He and his friend were the only mechanical engineering students and they worked on the machines that the chemical students didn’t understand.
Additionally, he found his first official job at a National Society of Black Engineers career fair, where he talked to an engineer and an HR agent and filled out an application. He got an interview and since they liked him, they flew him out to Ohio and even paid for his hotel room, until he found his own place. Shim says, “There is a lot that they don’t teach at school but I did have to do a calculation the other day. I had to find the stress for an I-beam. I would have never known that if it wasn’t for my education.” At Lincoln Electric, his first and current work, they trained him in Methods Engineering and then in Manufacturing Engineering. His company designs and builds welding equipment.
Collaboration is key at his workplace, he must interact daily with other engineers for counsel on his projects.Work time is usually set by the company. Shim’s department works from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon. Shim is assigned few projects as a trainee and while he does not have specific deadlines, he pushes himself to finish his projects. As most jobs do, a large part of his job consists of writing. When he can’t find certain coworkers at the office, he messages them. Every day, he emails about five people back and forth. Moreover, he writes documents about his designs, which usually consist of work instructions, general directions, and provisions related to safety. If they change the room or something else, he has to adjust the instructions, and sometimes he must alter the whole document. They also have meetings about once a week to discuss current projects and the like.
Collaboration is important in all kinds of work but it is especially important in engineering because one cannot build a bridge or design complex equipment on their own. Shim advised me to seek out other engineering students and encouraged us to be helpful to each other. Engineers are able to work well together because they have a shared passion and goal, the goal being to make life easier and work more efficient.
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