The Writing Regarding
Each article is written with the intent of providing you, the reader, with answers, perspectives, insights into the job that is mechanical engineering.
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Graduate Engineer Unemployment: Why Shame Is Universal and How to Reframe It
There is a version of this article that opens with statistics about graduate unemployment rates in South Africa. I’m not going to write that version, because I don’t think statistics are what you need right now. What I think you need is for someone to say clearly: the shame you’re carrying is not evidence that…
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Working in Industry vs University: What Mechanical Engineers Need to Know About the Transition
The transition from university to industry is harder than most engineering graduates expect — and for a specific reason that has nothing to do with technical knowledge. It’s the shift from a world with correct answers to a world with defensible decisions. How University Trains You to Think For four years, your cognitive environment had…
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Transferable Skills Mechanical Engineering Graduates Have (That You Might Not Recognise)
One of the most consistent patterns I see when working with engineering graduates is this: they dramatically underestimate what they bring to the table. Not because they lack self-awareness. Because the skills their degree built don’t look like skills from the inside. They look like survival. Here’s a more accurate picture. The Ability to Work…
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No Response to Engineering Job Applications? Here’s What’s Really Happening
You’ve sent out application after application. You’ve tailored your CV (at least, you think you have). You’ve written cover letters. You’ve hit submit and then — nothing. No rejection. No interview request. Just silence. If this is where you are right now, the first thing I want to say is: the silence is not necessarily…
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Why Your Engineering Degree Didn’t Prepare You for Industry (And Why That’s Not Your Fault)
If you’ve recently graduated with a mechanical engineering degree and you’re staring at job applications wondering why everything feels harder than it should — this is for you. The short answer: your degree was never designed to prepare you for industry. And that’s not a flaw in you. It’s a flaw in the system. Universities…
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Subjects in Context
Listen, we’ve all (those of us that study(ied) mechanical engineering) Googled “What do mechanical engineers do?” and gotten an answer that infers quite a lot of common knowledge. I found the answer to be confusing and not helpful. So, I’m endeavouring to answer the question that we actually mean to ask: “What are the subjects…