Ten Tips for Engineering Exams

Read the entire paper at least 3 times-You need to be able to explain the details in the paper (even the ugly tricky notation)
You need to be able to provide a critical analysis of the paper
Check out references in the related work section of the paper. (this will help you put the paper in context of a larger body of work and will help you critique the paper's results/contributions)

Find the important ideas- A paper has many details but only one or two main ideas; structure your talk around these main ideas.

Create a Talk Outline- Your talk should be organized in a top-down manner.
You should have the following main sections in your talk:

·         Introduction, The Big Picture: what, why, how, and why we should care (motivation). Be sure to include:

·         a statement of the problem being solved (what)

·         motivation and putting the work in context (why and why should we care)

·         a high-level view of the author's solution (how)

·         Details of solution

·         Results demonstrating/proving their solution

·         Critic of Work (possibly compare to related work)

·         Conclusions & Future Directions for this work

The talk should be organized as the important ideas first, the details second, conclusions last. Each section of your talk should be organized in a similar manor: high-level important points first, details second, summarize high-level points last. If the paper is well written, you can use the paper's organization as a guide.

B. Design your slides

Slide Organization- Your slides should be organized like an outline--a few main points, with sub points under each one.
Your slides are a guide for your talk not a word-for-word copy of your talk. List specific points that you want to talk about as sub-topics of each main topic. If there are particular details that you want to discuss, outline them on the slide and keep written notes for you to refer to in your talk rather than writing all the details on the slide.

Summarize Main Points- You should have a summary slide of the main ideas at the end.
If applicable, Include a list of open questions from the paper

It is okay to waste space- Add just enough prose prose to present the main points and highlight the main parts of each point. Use phrases rather than complete sentences and use large fonts. You can use acronyms and abbreviations sparingly, however you should say the complete name when you talk about about them. For example, if you abbreviate processes to procs on a slide, say "processes" when you talk about the point not "procs". Similarly, if your create an acronym for your super fast multi-cast implementation SFMC and refer to the old slow multi-cast implementation as OSMC, then say "our super fast multi-cast" and "the old slow multi-cast" rather than "SFMC" and "OSMC". The exception is for well-known acronyms such as PVM, MPI, API, JVM, etc.

A picture is worth a thousand words- Use figures and graphs to explain implementation and results. It is very hard to describe a system implementation without having a picture of the components of the system. I once attended a talk about Intel's I64 architecture where the speaker tried to discuss the details of the layout of the chip and the interactions between the components without having any figures. It made for a very bad talk and a very hostile audience.

Number of Slides- As a general rule, it should take 2-3 minutes to talk through the material on one slide, so for a 45 minute talk you should have about 20 slides. If there is too much material in a paper to present completely in 45 minutes, then pick one part (the most interesting/important part) that you will discuss in detail, and present the other parts at a higher level. You can create back-up slides for specific details that you don't plan to talk about, but may get questions about.

C. Preparing your presentation

Provide a talk road-map- Tell audience where you are going with your talk.

·         Give audience a road-map of your talk at the beginning by using outline slides
Immediately after the title slide, put up an outline slide and tell the audience the main organization of your talk. Another alternative is to first have a few slides motivating the paper's general topic, then put up an outline slide giving the audience a road-map of your talk.

·         It should be clear when you start a new high-level part of your talk
Use good transitions from one slide to the next, and from one main topic to the next..."We just talked about the implementation of foo now we will look at how well foo performs for synthetic and real workloads.
You may want to use the outline slide at other points in your talk to provide a visual transition between parts.

Repeat Your Point- There is a rule that says you have to tell your audience something three times before the really hear it:

Tell them what you are going to say.

Say it.

Summarize what you said.

This is particularly important for figures and graphs. For example:

This graph show how the A algorithm performs better than the B and C algorithms as the number of nodes increase

The X axis is number of nodes, the Y axis is execution time in seconds The red curve shows the execution time of A as the number of nodes increases The blue curve shows ...

Thus you can see that as the number of nodes increases above N, the A algorithm performs better. This is because of increased message traffic in algorithms B and C as shown on the next slide...

Explain concepts in your own words It is certainly okay to lift key phrases from the paper to use in your talk. However, you should also try to summarize the main ideas of the paper in your own words.

Talk to the Audience Don't read your slide off the screen, nor directly off the projector. It is okay to stop for a second and refer to your notes if you need to.

Practice Give a practice run-through of your talk. Stand in a room for 1 hour and talk through all your slides (out loud). This should be a timed dress rehearsal (don't stop and fix slides as you go). Members of your reading group should provide a practice audience for you.

Nervousness: How to fight back

·         A well organized, practiced talk will almost always go well. If you draw a blank, then looking at your slides will help you get back on track.

·         Taking a deep breath will clam you down. One trick is to try to remember to take a deep breath between each slide.

·         Slow down. Take a few seconds to think about a question that is being asked before you answer it. It is okay to pause for a few seconds between points and between slides; a second or two of silence between points is noticeable only to you, but if you are talking a mile a minute everyone will notice.

·         Bring notes. if you are afraid that you will forget a point or will forget your elegant transition between slides 11 and 12, write these down on a piece of paper and bring it with you. However, you don't want to have a verbatim copy of your talk, instead write down key phrases that you want to remember to say.

·         Give at least one practice talk to an audience.

·         Be prepared to answer questions. You don't have to know the answer to every question, however you should be prepared to answer questions and able to answer most questions about the paper. Before you give the talk, think about what questions you are likely to get, and how you would answer them. You may want to have back-up slides ready for answering certain questions.

·         It is okay to say "I don't know" or better yet "gee, I hadn't thought about that, but one possible approach would be to..." or to refer to your notes to answer questions.

COMPETITIVE EXAMS AFTER GRADUATIONS

HIGHER STUDIES IN ENGINEERING

GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering)

To join post graduation with scholarship in Indian universities for all Engg. Science and life science.
With the post graduation in M.SC students can join M.TECH with the valid GATE score.

TANCET – MCA, M.E, M.TECH, M.ARCH, M.PLAN, M.L.ARCH

TO JOIN MANAGEMENT STUDIES.

CAT – COMMON ADMISSION TEST

MAT – Management Aptitude Test

ICAR (Indian council of agriculture research) to PG in agricultural related studies in Indian universities..

ETS (Educational Testing Service) conducts GRE, TOEFL examinations. students can register online. Exams would be conducted throughout the year.

GRE (Graduate Record Examination) – subject and general test
TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language)
IELTS (International Language Testing System) – Academic and General Training, Exams would be conducted throughout the year
GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) - Is a standardized test conducted by the Pearson VUE on behalf of the Graduate Management Admission Council of the US.
For GRE, TOELFE, IELTS, GMAT have to register online prescribed fee in dollars
European universities accept IELTS score.
American universities accepts GRE, TOEFLE

STUDY ABROAD AFTER 12TH STANDARD

SAT – scholastic aptitude test or scholastic reasoning test
SAT is a compulsory test to secure admission in any undergraduate program of any college of USA

Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Newton's third law of motion was discovered and formulated, during the investigation of the fact that in all experiments it appeared that "whenever a body exerts a force on a second appeared that "whenever a body exerts a force on a second body, the second body always exerts a force on the first one".         Let us visualize and understand this phenomena with an experiment:         Suppose, we throw a stone on a surface of good strength; and the surface is made of glass, one finds it broken (the surface). From here one concludes that a force was exerted by stone on the surface and consequently it was broken.         Now, the question is, did that surface also exert a force on the stone. Just to know about it let us change our throwing object from stone to an egg of almost equal mass. Now, one throws this egg on the same surface of good strength with the same throwing force which he used for the stone. What happens? Obviously with your daily experience you know that the egg will be broken (And the damage to the surface will not be visible due to egg's spoiling the observation).         This is only possible if there was a force acting on the egg at the time it hit the surface. In fact we can now conclude that there is mutual force acting on the contact point of the surface and the object thrown. The breaking of either one (or may be both) depends on their ability to absorb forces without getting damaged (that is their strength) so in precise words:-         To every action there is always opposite and equal reaction, it is equivalent to say that mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and directed to contrary parts. Note: The most important fact to notice here is that these oppositely directed equal action and reaction can never balance or cancel each other because they always act, on two different point (broadly on two different objects) For balancing any two forces the first requirement is that they should act one one and the same object. (or point, if object can be treated as a point mass, which is a common practice).   Illustration of Newton's Third Law: Some of the examples of Newton's third law of motion are given below:  1.      Book kept on a table: A book lying on a table exerts a force on the table which is equal to the weight of the book. This is the force of action. The table supports the book, by exerting an equal force on the book. This is the force of reaction, as shown in the figure. As the system is at rest, net force on it is zero. Therefore, forces of action and reaction must be equal and opposite.

BHEL, SAIL , ONGC, ECIL Syllabus

These PSUs contains 50% technical + 50% (Aptitude, General Knowledge & English)

APPLIED MECHANICS AND DESIGN

Engineering Mechanics: Free body diagrams and equilibrium; trusses and frames; virtual work; kinematics and dynamics of particles and of rigid bodies in plane motion, including impulse and momentum (linear and angular) and energy formulations; impact.

Strength of Materials: Stress and strain, stress-strain relationship and elastic constants, Mohr’s circle for plane stress and plane strain, thin cylinders; shear force and bending moment diagrams; bending and shear stresses; deflection of beams; torsion of circular shafts; Euler’s theory of columns; strain energy methods; thermal stresses.

Theory of Machines: Displacement, velocity and acceleration analysis of plane mechanisms; dynamic analysis of slider-crank mechanism; gear trains; flywheels.

Vibrations: Free and forced vibration of single degree of freedom systems; effect of damping; vibration isolation; resonance, critical speeds of shafts.

Design: Design for static and dynamic loading; failure theories; fatigue strength and the S-N diagram; principles of the design of machine elements such as bolted, riveted and welded joints, shafts, spur gears, rolling and sliding contact bearings, brakes and clutches.

FLUID MECHANICS AND THERMAL SCIENCES

Fluid Mechanics: Fluid properties; fluid statics, manometer, buoyancy; control-volume analysis of mass, momentum and energy; fluid acceleration; differential equations of continuity and momentum; Bernoulli’s equation; viscous flow of incompressible fluids; boundary layer; elementary turbulent flow; flow through pipes, head losses in pipes, bends etc.

Heat-Transfer: Modes of heat transfer; one dimensional heat conduction, resistance concept, electrical analogy, unsteady heat conduction, fins; dimensionless parameters in free and forced convective heat transfer, various correlations for heat transfer in flow over flat plates and through pipes; thermal boundary layer; effect of turbulence; radiative heat transfer, black and grey surfaces, shape factors, network analysis; heat exchanger performance, LMTD and NTU methods.

Thermodynamics: Zeroth, First and Second laws of thermodynamics; thermodynamic system and processes; Carnot cycle. irreversibility and availability; behavior of ideal and real gases, properties of pure substances, calculation of work and heat in ideal processes; analysis of thermodynamic cycles related to energy conversion.

Applications: Power Engineering: Steam Tables, Rankine, Brayton cycles with regeneration and reheat. I.C Engines: air-standard Otto, Diesel cycles. Refrigeration and air-conditioning: Vapour refrigeration cycle, heat pumps, gas refrigeration, Reverse Brayton cycle; moist air: psychometric chart, basic psychometric processes. Turbo machinery: Pelton-wheel, Francis and Kaplan turbines — impulse and reaction principles, velocity diagrams.

MANUFACTURING AND INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Engineering Materials: Structure and properties of engineering materials, heat treatment, stress-strain diagrams for engineering materials.

Metal Casting: Design of patterns, moulds and cores; solidification and cooling; riser and gating design, design considerations.

Forming: Plastic deformation and yield criteria; fundamentals of hot and cold working processes; load estimation for bulk (forging, rolling, extrusion, drawing) and sheet (shearing, deep drawing, bending) metal forming processes; principles of powder metallurgy.

Joining: Physics of welding, brazing and soldering; adhesive bonding; design considerations in welding.

Machining and Machine Tool Operations: Mechanics of machining, single and multi-point cutting tools, tool geometry and materials, tool life and wear; economics of machining; principles of non-traditional machining processes; principles of work holding, principles of design of jigs and fixtures

Metrology and Inspection: Limits, fits and tolerances; linear and angular measurements; comparators; gauge design; interferometry; form and finish measurement; alignment and testing methods; tolerance analysis in manufacturing and assembly.

Computer Integrated Manufacturing: Basic concepts of CAD/CAM and their integration tools.

Production Planning and Control: Forecasting models, aggregate production planning, scheduling, materials requirement planning.

Inventory Control: Deterministic and probabilistic models; safety stock inventory control systems.

Operations Research: Linear programming, simplex and duplex method, transportation, assignment, network flow models, simple queuing models, PERT and CPM.

GREATEST STRENGTH & WEAKNESS

GREATEST WEAKNESS

Disguise a strength as a weakness. 

Examples of Weaknesses:

I sometimes push my people too hard. I like to work with a sense of urgency and everyone is not on the same wavelength.

For my weakness, I always say that some people say I'm over-friendly. You can't go wrong with that one. Usually, the person interviewing is like "Oh, that's not a bad thing at all."

I'm a little egoistic when it comes to winning things and get a little ruthless too.

I lose patience sometimes when I am not in a position to complete the assigned job in time.

I have to work on having more patience and giving myself a break, because I always want everything done at once.

Tend to go to any limits while helping my friends.

I am too focused on my work and I need to find more time to relax.

I'm too focused on work and need to develop some after-hours hobbies.

 GREATEST STRENGTH

Prior to any interview, you should have a list mentally prepared of your greatest strengths. You should also have, a specific example or two, which illustrates each strength, an example chosen from your most recent and most impressive achievements.

Examples of Strengths:

1.      One of my biggest strengths is my communication skills. I work very well with all kinds of people, and understand that everyone has different perspectives about projects and work tasks - so when I work with others I realize that everyone comes to the table with different priorities and objectives. I keep this in mind when I communicate tasks that need to be accomplished with positive reinforcement and awareness of what others are working on.

2.      A positive attitude will not differentiate you from the crowd. A good attitude is expected of every employee. Also you should back up what you say with an example. For example, don't just say you have good customer service skills prove it by also telling them how you won a company award or received positive customer comment letters for your good service.

3.      My strength is my flexibility to handle change. As customer service manager at my last job, I was able to turn around a negative working environment and develop a very supportive team.

4.      Hard worker

5.      Punctual

6.      Determined

7.      Able to prioritize

8.      Believe in myself; self-confidence

9.      I have the ability to cope with failures and try to learn from my mistakes.

10.  I like to work in team and have been an active participant and organizer at several places.

11.  One of my greatest strengths I've acquired during my education is good analytical and planning skills. This has always benefited me to set goals and try to achieve them. But at the same time, I'm driven by the thoughts of success.

12.  Full commitment to my work

13.  Highly energetic

14.  Love to learn new things.

15.  Having good interpersonal skills

16.  Well organized and like to be neat with all of my work

17.  A good helper towards those who need it

18.  I am a team player and work well with others.

19.  Optimistic approach towards life..

20.  I am a quick learner. I have great problem-solving skills and am willing to learn new things to get the job done. 

21.  Focus on your strengths, but have an answer regarding a challenge you have met and overcome... Weaknesses do not exist, just challenges and solutions... 

22.  Think of any trait or skill you have that pertains to the job you are applying for. Think of instances when you have shown a lot of skill in that area.

Mechanical Engineers - Overview

Mechanical Engineers - Overview

Mechanical Engineering is an engineering specialty that involves many different science principles for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. In order to be successful, it requires a solid understanding of key concepts including mechanics, kinematics, thermodynamics and energy. Mechanical Engineers use these principles and others in the design and analysis of things like machinery, aircraft, automobiles, medical devices and much more.

Mechanical Engineers – Education

The first level of education that is obtained for a Mechanical Engineer is a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Mechanical Engineering , which is offered at many Universities throughout the United States (as well as many other industrialized countries). Mechanical Engineering programs typically take 4+ years and result in a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (BSc). Within the US, most Mechanical Engineering programs are accredited through the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) to ensure standardization of course requirements between universities.

Becoming a Mechanical Engineer

After obtaining a degree in Mechanical Engineering, many will begin to focus on an area of specialization and will pursue a secondary degree or will enter the workforce full time within that area of specialization. There are also several tools that Mechanical Engineers use that require hands on use to become experts. These tools are usually involved in CAD (Computer Aided Design), CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing), Failure Models and Effect Analysis (FMEA). These tools allow for models and analysis to take place before a product is prototyped.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is a popular membership associate for Mechnical Engineering professionals.

Career Paths for Mechanical Engineers

Some Mechanical Engineers go on to get a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Science or Master of Engineering Management (MEng.Mgt, MEM). The Master's and Engineer's degrees may consist of either research, coursework or a mixture of the two. There is also a Doctor of Philosophy program that consists of a significant research and is usually an entry point to an academic career.

Companies Hiring Mechanical Engineers

Some of the popular companies hiring Mechanical Engineers:

• Parsons
• Trane
• Aerotek Staffing
• General Electric

Tell me About Yourself

About 90% of the interviews start with this question.
Start with the present and tell why you are well qualified for the position. Remember that the key to all successful interviewing is to match your qualifications to what the interviewer is looking for. In other words you must sell what the buyer is buying. This is the single most important strategy in job hunting.


You can follow the following procedure:

1. Tell your name first, only if the interviewer doesn't called you by your name.
2. Location from where you belong.
3. Higher education and college name.
4. Strengths
5. Hobbies
6. Achievements- in brief
7. Any course you have done regarding the post required
8. Project Work
9. Work experience if any

 DO's & DON't:

1. The answer must not exceed 2-3 minutes.
2. Don't mention your weaknesses.
3. Don't mention your parents name and school name.
4. End the answer with your strong point because there are more chances that your next question rises related to that point.
5. No need to tell them about your percentage, i.e. mentioned in your resume.
6. Whatever you say must be true, they can easily figure out if you are fake.
7. Don't look like you memorized the answer.
8. Be optimist
9. Short is sweet, they don't want to hear a long story form you.
10. They can interrupt you in between and cross question you. Be prepared for that.

Motivation and Highlights for Heat and Mass Transfer [HMT]

Motivation:

In the subject of heat transfer, we are primarily interested in heat, which is the form of energy than can be transferred from one system to another (or one part of a body to another) as a result of temperature difference. The subject of heat transfer deals with the rates of such energy transfers.

Using the principles of thermodynamic analysis alone, we can determine the amount of heat transfer for any system undergoing any process. What is, then, the fundamental difference between heat  transfer and thermodynamics? Thermodynamics is concerned with the amount of heat transfer as a system undergoes a process from one equilibrium state to another, and it gives no indication about the rate of heat transfer, how long the process should take, or what is the mode of heat transfer. But engineers are as much concerned with the rate of heat transfer as with the amount. Both parameters are equally important in the design of thermal systems.

Relevance of heat transfer:

Heat transfer is not only an extremely relevant subject in engineering industries, but also an inherently fascinating part of engineering and physical sciences. The main focus of this course will be to acquire an understanding of heat transfer effects and to developing the skills needed to predict heat transfer rates. Let us have a look at the value of this knowledge and what the applications are.

Heat transfer phenomenon plays an important role in many industrial and environmental problems. First and foremost, in the applications of energy production and conversion, there is not a single application in this area that does not involve heat transfer effects in some way or other. In the generation of power from conventional fossil fuels, nuclear sources, magneto hydrodynamic processes, or the use of geothermal energy sources, heat transfer forms the key to the technology concerned. All modes of heat transfer are important, as conduction, convection, and radiation processes determine the design of systems such as boilers, condensers, and turbines. Quite often, the challenge is to maximize heat transfer rates (such as in heat exchangers) or to minimize (as in insulations).

In renewable energy generation, there are many heat transfer problems related to the development of solar energy conversion systems for space heating, as well as for power production. Heat transfer processes are also involved in propulsion systems, such as the IC engines, gas turbine, and rocket engines. Heat transfer problem arise in the design of conventional space and water heating systems, in the cooling of electronic equipment, in the design of refrigeration and air conditioning systems, in many manufacturing processes, and in biological systems. Heat transfer issues also occur in air and water pollution problems and strongly influences climate at the local and global scale.

Highlights:

Classification of heat transfer problems: In the engineering design of any heat transfer equipment or system, the activities can be classified in to main items: (1) rating and (2) sizing.
“Rating” deals with the determination of heat transfer rate for a given system for a specified set of conditions, while “sizing” deals with the determination of the size of a system for a specified heat transfer performance.

Experimental vs. theoretical studies: A heat transfer process or equipment can be studied either experimentally or theoretically. The experimental approach has the advantage that we deal with the actual physical system (or an equivalent scaled down model), and the desired quantity is obtained by measurement as accurately as possible within the limits of the measurement technique. However, this approach can be time consuming, expensive and often impossible. For example, the system under consideration may not be existing at the design stage, or may deal with hazardous substances and hence measurement approach will not be practical at all. The theoretical approach includes analytical approach (for simple and linear problems) and computational modeling (for more complex and nonlinear problems).

Computational modeling has the advantage that it is fast and inexpensive, but the results obtained must be examined for numerical accuracy and the validity of the assumptions made in the analysis. The development of advanced computational tools in heat transfer and the increase in computing power has contributed immensely to the feasibility of solving realistic engineering problems. With modeling, the lead time in design and development of equipment can be considerably reduced. Experiments still need to be performed for validating the model outputs, but the number of experiments to be performed can be considerably reduced.