Professional Development
Related News Archive: 2010
Time Management
In the January 2010 Newsletter, I talked about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 3 describes prioritizing tasks that we need to do. In our increasingly fast-paced world, effective prioritizing is crucial. One of the hallmarks of successful people is that they do this exceedingly well. You may have heard of the conventional wisdom of assigning an urgent task to a busy person, they are the most likely individuals to effectively fit it in their schedule. More »
ASCE Workshop for Section and Branch Leaders
I attended the ASCE Regions 8 and 9 Workshop for Section and Branch Leaders (WSBL) held in San Diego on February 26 and 27, 2010. ASCE also held the Western Regional Younger Members Council (YMC) and a Workshop for Student Chapter Leaders (WSCL) concurrently at the same location. There were several joint sessions where two or all three of these ASCE groups participated. More »
Public Speaking and Civil Engineers
When I was a graduate student, I was not one of the students who would frequently ask questions in class. I would rather meet the professor before or after class and have him answer my queries. I did well in one-on-one conversations but I was terrified of public speaking. I was not alone. Numerous studies have revealed that speaking in front of a group of people ranks high in the list of fears many people had, ahead of fear of death! When I started to work on my thesis, imagine my horror when my faculty advisor announced to his students that each graduate student of our research laboratory would take turns each week to give a presentation on the status of their work. Worse, these meetings would have invited guests from other departments. I had mistakenly allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security that in order to be a successful civil engineer, you had to be good only at engineering. After all, I had not signed up to be a lawyer, journalist or a talk show host. More »
The 7 Habits
Dr. Stephen Covey, a management consultant, published his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” in 1990. Althoigh the book was a great success; it can be a hard read. Franklin Covey provides three- day and one- day seminars based on the book. This article is based on a one- day seminar that I attended some years ago. More »
