It's only sustainable as long as the supply of fresh recruits keeps coming and they have a reputation of doing greater things then other aerospace companies but at some point their work policy may have to change to something sustainable in the long run.
I saw that SpaceX wants interns to have familiarity with Unigraphics. Does anyone know how different this is from AutoCAD? Do you think an AutoCAD class would help me learn Unigraphics?Thank you for the help!
This reminds me of a great movie - The Astronaut Farmer, about a person working hard, sacrificing a lot just to get to space. He did it with the support of his family.
The meaning of "internship" seems to have morphed over my lifetime. When I was going to the University of Michigan in Dearborn in the late 1970s......By contrast, I keep hearing about internships being unpaid positions nowadays. Is this a universal change? And when did it happen?
Quote from: rpapo on 01/28/2016 06:01 pmThe meaning of "internship" seems to have morphed over my lifetime. When I was going to the University of Michigan in Dearborn in the late 1970s......By contrast, I keep hearing about internships being unpaid positions nowadays. Is this a universal change? And when did it happen?I'm no expert but one of the worlds I hang out in has a lot of art majors and other far from technical degrees. It appears to me that they have some tendency to do unpaid internships or anything to get a a job vs. the engineering students (some from UMD, arguably walking distance from here) who get paid for their learning experience in industry. But the term typically used (or the program) is "co-op" in that case. Reasonable money, probably approximating the 3x minimum wage you experienced.
We've got a number of Michiganders on NSF, it seems.
Great Lake State, REPRESENT! (off topic, off topic...)
Da Tech
Our son is matriculating at U. of Cincinnati this fall as an Aero Engineering major, and their co-op program is integrated with the curriculum. Beginning sophomore year, all the engineering students spend every other semester off campus on paid internships. It takes an additional year to graduate but they've racked up a year and a half of paid work experience.Besides figuring out where they may want (or *not* want) to work, they're paying for a substantial chunk of school this way. We've been told we essentially only have to finance the first 3 semesters, after that most kids pay as they go.We'll see how that works out in reality but one can dream...
Quote from: inventodoc on 06/22/2015 09:13 pmThe sounds like a great experience. I do worry about the employees. An organization cannot sustain that mode forever because they will grind their employees down. At some point people need a personal and family life.I just love this. Elon has five kids that he sees regularly, while working two jobs that most of us couldn't even imagine how to do. I'm pretty sure the interns have it easy, in comparison.
The sounds like a great experience. I do worry about the employees. An organization cannot sustain that mode forever because they will grind their employees down. At some point people need a personal and family life.
Elon is a workaholic and it's probable that he's ineffective unless he's working his tail off. I think it's quite likely that interns have it easier than Elon, but that's hardly a fair comparison since almost no one is capable of sustaining the working hours that Elon does.And I don't think that lessons that apply to Elon necessarily apply elsewhere. There are few people capable of working like Elon, few CEOs included (I can't think of any, in fact).
People certainly do gripe about Google and other companies that foster an unhealthy work/life balance. People don't last long in a workplace that demands all of their energy, so lots of employees are burned out and leave after a couple of years. In the IT world, this is unfortunately not uncommon. It's helped along by the lack of worker organization in the field. Google can (sort of) get away with treating people as disposable because there's always another programmer to take the place of the last one, but it's a lousy way to build institutional knowledge. Google et al have a constant brain drain going, and frankly, it shows in the quality of their products. For SpaceX the talent pool is much smaller and the cost of losing knowledge is higher. Their advantage is people really want to work there, it's rare to see such enthusiasm for a commercial venture.
In the IT world, this is unfortunately not uncommon. It's helped along by the lack of worker organization in the field. Google can (sort of) get away with treating people as disposable because there's always another programmer to take the place of the last one, but it's a lousy way to build institutional knowledge.
Google/Alphabet is the No. 1 place to work for the seventh time in 10 years.