I've discovered that I really like picking up these projects from the college of engineering. Not that I'm surprised. I would've expected things to go this way, but it's nice when things actually do go more smoothly. From this long-term thing we've been doing with the industrial engineering dept., trying to implement a database work-around, to this market analysis I'm tasked with for civil engineering, just to name a few lately.....they always write me up a multi-page report outlining their requests and requirements in a very logical, organized manner.
There's always things they don't understand from my side, and when there are occasionally things I need to understand about their side, obviously I count on them to inform me. But they're pretty good at that. Sometimes I work with people who just can't explain their way out of a paper bag. It's like, the more questions I ask and they more they try to answer, the more confused I get. In other cases, they don't even always know what they want (believe it or not), and I have to kind of guide them through a Socratic process to help them arrive at a place where they can even put their finger on what they tangibly want to happen. It can be extraordinarily vague and directionless sometimes.
But engineering professors aren't like that. They may load me down with 20 pages of notes, but at least I know what the task is. When I need to communicate with them that something won't work, and why, they get it and adjust. When I have questions about how something works on their end so I can handle my end better, they answer them in a way I understand.
I don't know if I could've been an engineer of any sort, but they do seem like my people.
