Name of host: Keith Shaw Relationship: Father
The Interview:
1. What is your job title?
His job title is associate technical fellow.
2. What is your job description?
An architect that assists in designing new products. Architect as in prototyping, defining requirements, and discussing products with customers.
3. What are the duties and/or tasks you perform at your Job?
At his job, my father helps create products to sell to other companies. These products are silicon chips that connect compute to storage and contain lots of embedded CPU’s.
4. What qualifications do you have for this job in the following areas
- Training?
My father gained a lot of training for his job while actively doing the job. He gained a lot of knowledge about computers and programming which allowed him to adapt into the critical thinking work environment.
- Education?
My father has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of Victoria.
- Experience?
My father had 6 co-op terms where he worked for 6 different companies, four months working at each individual job. He worked for 8 years at New-bridge Networks as a firmware engineer. He has worked for 15 years at his current job, at what started out as PMC-Sierra, which then transitioned to Microsemi, and then to Microchip, which it is currently. At PMC-Sierra, my father worked in firmware design and architecture positions, where at Microsemi and Microchip he was and is still an associate technical fellow.
- Skills and attributes?
Skills and attributes that my father has is mathematical skills, programming competence, experience with computer architecture, communication adroitness, and observation skills. Other key skills he acquired were critical thinking and analyzing expertise, as well as being patient and being able to learn new skills quickly.
5. What are some of the things you like about this job?
My dad enjoys many aspects of working at Microchip, one of them being that he continuously learns new skills and information everyday, such as industry trends and new technologies. He appreciates the fact that he gets to be part of a team that works together and makes actual products that other companies purchase, and being in an environment where everyone has similar interests to him. In addition, my father enjoys working at a place that involves working hands-on with something that has interested him from a very young age, which is technology and electronics.
6. What are some of the things you dislike about this job?
There are only a few aspects of this job that my father dislikes, such as the presentation portion of his job. Along with being an associate technical fellow, a major part of his job is speaking with others, whether they are other employees or even clients. When public speaking is such an important part of the job it can be very stressful. In addition, his job involves quite a few meetings. Since all people have really diverse schedules, people scheduling the meetings often make them during lunchtime. He understands that it’s the only time available, however it is rather tiresome when you have to almost constantly go without lunch.
7. How do you anticipate this job changing in the next 5 years or so?
My father anticipates that in the next 5 years or so, the technology they are currently using will change and become more advanced. New products will be made and more companies will start to get interested in purchasing them. New companies will appear that require different sets of technology. Within his company, diverse teams create different products at the same time, so he himself will be broadening the scope and working across more teams and products.
8. Other questions:
- When did you first know you liked programming and working with computers?
When he got his first computer in grade 8, and he enjoyed learning how use it and how it worked.
- When you wanted a job in the field of electrical engineering, is this the job you were expecting/wanting?
He wasn’t expecting this certain job since there is a wide variety of jobs that are also based on electrical engineering. The experience he got from working at his first engineering based jobs guided him down a path that led him to the job he currently has.
Student Reflection
1. Give three reasons why you would like this job:
- One reason why I would like this job is because I like working as a team, and contributing ideas while seeing how someone else can bounce off of my idea, or come up with new ideas that I had never thought about. My dad’s job includes people working together in teams to achieve different products, which seem like a really good chance to meet new people who have alike interests to me. This job is very social and I would get a chance to meet and work with numerous diverse people.
- Another reason why I would like this job is because I really enjoy working with math and technology. Although I am not quite that good at coding yet, I find that I really like working with computers and trying to write proper code. Math is one of my favourite subjects since I really like working with numbers, and after my experience at my father’s work, I have found that I would get the chance to work with numbers often.
- In addition, I would like this job since I really like problem solving, analyzing information, and decoding a problem that no one else can seem to find. I enjoy the satisfaction of beating the difficult problem in the end after I put in a ton of effort and thinking to solve it. After careful observation, I found that part of my dad’s job was to analyze certain products that had particular problems or slight errors to it, and try to decipher what was causing the problem so they could actually use the product. This is something that I would enjoy since I always love a good challenge.
2. Give three reasons why you would not like this job:
- One reason why I would not like this job is because it involves a lot of meetings. I attended four meetings in one day during take your kid to work day. Although time seemed to fly fast during each meeting, I still didn’t really like the amount of sitting and listening that was involved, and if I had to do that everyday I can sense that it would get very boring. In addition, sometimes there are meetings during lunch break, and that restricts the amount of time you have to eat, and may even leave you with no time at all. I like to take my time to eat, and I wouldn’t be able to focus properly if I didn’t get a good lunch.
- Another reason why I would not want this job is because you have to work in cubicles for the majority of the time. I like to work by a window and be able to look outside whenever I am working on projects since it’s very calming and stress relieving. I don’t think I would be able to work surrounded by walls for the majority of the day since I wouldn’t be able to focus. You wouldn’t be able to get any fresh air, which would consistently give my headaches and I wouldn’t be able to get anything done.
- Also, I have other job interests that are very diverse from this job, like writing and one day I would really like to write a book. I would want a job that I would make good money doing but I wouldn’t have to work all the time so I could spend time writing my novels. This job requires a lot of time and dedication, and I don’t think I would contribute enough to the team. In addition, I most likely wouldn’t have time to fulfill my dream of being a successful novelist.
3. Is this job for you?
I am not quite sure yet if this job is right for me. If I want to pursue a career in computer programming than this seems like the perfect job for me since I had a great deal of fun when coming to work with my father. However, if I find that I would rather go after a novelist profession, I might have to find another job. It all depends on what I am interested at the end and after high school.
4. Explain the value of the Take Our Kid To Work experience in relation to your ideas about your post secondary (after high school) plans (education?, training?, travel?, work?)
The value of the Take Our Kid To Work experience is tremendously important in relation to your ideas about your plans after high school. If thought you found your dream job, and then went there for TOKTW Day and you realized it wasn’t as glamorous as you thought it was, you still have time to rethink you plans for a future career. However, if you were still debating which career path you wanted to take, on TOKTW Day, you might realize that you really enjoyed going to work at a certain place, which can help you make up your mind for what profession you want to take. It can provide you with an opportunity to learn about the education and experience that you need for a certain job you would like, so you can get a head start and know what needs to be done in order for you to be on the right path.
Overall, I found Take Your Kid To Work Day a very beneficial experience that gave me an insight on what it was like to work at a real, professional workplace and live a day in the life of my father.