DAY 10: WHERE DID THIS NOISE COME FROM? (part one)

I am Bengain, and this is not my real name. I haven't found anyone to talk about my journey in the world of business with, so here I am. and the story is [here]..

Good evening.. how was your day?.. Today is the end of the week, and that's good news! I believe it's the same for everyone, right!.. Even those who have their own business.. work never ends.. That's something I learned while working on my project. I always felt the pressure of time running out, and that I had to accomplish everything faster. Until one day, I watched a program that featured second-generation businessmen from family-owned companies. In one of their stories, during a difficult time for their company, the father asked his son (the young man narrating the story) to go home and continue working the next day. The son was surprised that his father wanted to go home in such circumstances. His father told him that work never ends, and they would try to solve the problem tomorrow.. This wasn't the first time I heard this phrase, and I think we all have, but it was the first time I truly felt it. It was said by an experienced person.. who had likely put in a great effort to reach this conclusion. He realized that work truly never ends.. Now, their company is one of the largest in the country they operate in!

On Thursdays, I leave work earlier than other days, around five o'clock, and do what I love to do. Sometimes I watch a movie, go out with friends, or stay up late with my family. But most of the time, I love going to the nearby park, having coffee, and watching the elderly and children happily playing.. Somehow, it feels like all the noise in your head gets emptied.. That's what I plan to do today!

But where does this noise come from?.. That's what I want to talk to you about tonight,

The story began when I was studying for a diploma in civil engineering, and the references we studied from were written in 1986, while we were in 2012!.. They were not in English, but in our language, as technical specialties are the link between higher job positions and workers at the construction site, Therefore, they study it in the language of the people of the country.. Here, I noticed something else, that books in closely related fields were usually written by the same authors.. This sparked an idea in my head that there are very few books and publications in civil engineering written in our language!

Then I began studying for a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering.. The references in this stage were in English. However, I encountered a problem: most of the students, including myself, were not proficient in English, so we needed to translate the references during our studies. Here, I noticed another problem. When you deal with information in your native language or a language you are fluent in, your mind directly processes the information and tries to understand it. But when it is in another language, your mind first thinks about translating the words and then later tries to understand them. This takes more time, in addition to the challenges that often accompany translation. For example, a translated word may have multiple closely related meanings or specific technical connotations. Which one is correct? Additionally, it is not necessary for every word in one language to have an exact equivalent in the other language, a fact that translators are well aware of. The bottom line is that translating materials before studying them prolongs the time needed to study the materials. Furthermore, engineering subjects, being an applied science built upon other sciences, require additional time, so a large portion of students focused more on exams and grades rather than truly understanding and studying the materials. I was surprised to find that some students with high grades (excellent) sometimes lacked a basic understanding of fundamental concepts in the field!.. The danger in this is that we, as students, will be responsible for designing and implementing structures after graduation, which could have serious consequences!

In the last two years of my Bachelor's degree, the idea of providing scientific materials in our native language became more important in my mind. I discussed this idea with my friends, but no one seemed interested.

At the end of the Bachelor's degree, before graduation, we students were required to undergo a four-month internship at an engineering company. I interned at a prestigious company (rated as top-tier, which is the highest rating in engineering practice). My job was a "site engineer," responsible for implementing engineering works. The project I worked on was the construction of a school.

In the training, I noticed that no one teaches anyone how things work. You can consult them if you need to, but the rule is: these are the plans and documents related to the project, and you have to learn everything yourself!.. Here, I want to point out something, which is that in engineering studies, we do not learn things exactly as they are in the job market, but we learn the concepts and key elements on which we can build what we want in the job market. How? For example, in design, we learn to design the most common key elements in a building, such as the most common types of columns, the most common types of beams,... etc., but we do not learn how to assemble them and design a complete project (unless it is a graduation project, and the number of students who can do this is limited due to the limited number of faculty members available to supervise in each field), and we do not learn how to design other elements.. This applies to all fields of civil engineering. We only learn the basics and concepts, and it is up to the student/engineer to learn the rest to be good in their field. By the way, for those who don't know, the civil engineering specialization has many areas. I studied road design and construction, traffic and systems engineering, structural design of buildings, bridge engineering, soil engineering, project and contract management, general safety and occupational health, quantity and cost estimation for projects, water resources engineering, design of water and sanitation systems, environmental engineering, materials engineering, geotechnical engineering, and finally, surveying engineering. Each of these fields is a vast discipline in itself.

Out of context comment: You may have heard before that companies and businesses often prefer to recruit and distinguish engineers from others, and the reason is what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, which is that engineering, being an applied science, aims to utilize other sciences and benefit from them in building applications that serve societies. Therefore, it is more a way of thinking and problem-solving than a pure science. This explains the difference in mindset between engineers and others, as engineers think about utilizing the data they have to achieve a specific result and build a system accordingly. That's why you might find their way of thinking slightly different.. and sometimes causing trouble for others! (smiles)

Continuing.. another thing I noticed during the training is that working hours in engineering projects are longer than in other jobs, especially for those working on-site. There are many reasons for this that I don't want to go into detail about, but the most important one is that these projects must be delivered on specific dates, otherwise construction companies will have to pay fines for each day of delay. And this is very likely to happen.. I don't know if you've heard of it, for example, the Turkish company “Limak”, responsible for building the new Camp Nou stadium (FC Barcelona's stadium), must deliver the first phase of the project by November 29, 2024, and if they fail to do so, they will pay a delay penalty of one million euros for each day of delay.. Also, if the companies deliver the project before the deadline, they will make profits by saving labor costs and other expenses, and they may receive bonuses if that is included in the contract. That's why engineers often have to work longer hours.

So, if we summarize the data we have from the bachelor's degree and the training:


Most students do not have English language proficiency.

Most students did not have enough time to learn and understand the subjects properly!

Engineers are forced to continue learning to be good at their work.

Engineers, especially those on-site, do not have enough time to balance work and learning.

Most engineers do not have English language proficiency.


What do you think if we stop here for the night and continue tomorrow?.. I'm starting to feel very sleepy (smiles),

Until we meet again tomorrow, I hope you all stay in good health,

Goodnight,