Friday August 20th

Well I officially finished my first week of work. My initially thought process when first entertaining the idea of doing a co-op term over seas was I really wanted to find something totally different, on my own, get to travel to a different part of the world and where I could really get a feel for what engineering is all about. In a city where I could maybe play basketball along with that sounded like the ideal and maybe a bit unrealistic but nonetheless ambitious haha. Other than that anything was game… Well I'm doing something different, I'm in the field - not my specific field exactly, I'm getting a good chance to learn about engineering, and I'm definitely in a different part of the world.
I'm quickly learning that it's really hard to do anything without knowing someone, or know someone who speaks English haha. Aka the saying "its not what you know, it's who you know" is all too relevant at the moment. But to be perfectly honest what can't it be both? What and who you know together can make for a good combo and I have definitely learned over the past few years that you can't always have one without the other. Well that's my take on it and its working for me. I didn't want the latter (who you know) to over rule my experience here but it is what it is. Yes I'm working with my Dad for a Canadian Engineering Consulting firm at an American Steel Plant (USS) in Smedervoo Serbia, but it has already been way more than I expected. So yes I did end up using my Dad's situation for a placement, but is that such a bad thing? I think I would be stupid not to - I don't think I could have found a better situation given my lack of experience in travel and in work and my wavering decision to do this. So I took advantage of the situation and I'm going to make the most of it.
In the first week I have already had to pull out some stuff that I thankfully already learned in school to help me get some of the work done. Although the tasks I'm doing are tedious and at times mundane, I quickly realized that all levels of engineering have these types of tasks to complete at some point and it's part of the project process. Luckily I finished workplace and gas safety training so now I'm just waiting for my safety equipment so I can mix up the work day with some jobs in the plant - which I'm pretty excited about. But for now I put in a solid week of AutoCad drawing cataloguing for the upcoming project we are working on. Not only did I have to enter every one of the 1395 drawing's details into an excel spread sheet, I got to translate them into English from Serbian! Let me tell you I was pumped when I finished the last one - definitely did a little dance and fist pumping in my head, while I calmly walked over and ask for my next task haha. My reward was getting to help with a drawing in progress for the project - screen shot below.

(Lets play 'I Spy': find the 6 small boxes that are very faint and you win!)


You see those tiny insignificant red boxes that you can hardly make out, within all the important stuff around it I didn't do, I did those boxes! Drawing one complete! hahaha - pathetic I know but when you see 1395 complicated drawings that you think you will never be able to do and start to panic because as usual "school taught us nothing about the real world" this was very rewarding :).
While trying to wrap my head around the fact that I now have a 9-5 job (here it's more like 6am to 5pm) I get to enjoy a nice relaxing weekend. Hopefully get into some fun!
Until next time ….

"Learning is not a spectator sport" DB
Mich