Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Mr. Yasser Matbouli, one of my former engineering management students came for submitting his Summer Training report. When I received his report, I was shocked because it was not following any format in our university. It was written by a blog writer. He carefully noted all his activities as blog entries in his report with the dates and subjects. It was very interesting idea and I suggested him to rearrange everything according to our Engineering College format but also put what he had at the end of his report.

I congratulate him and give him a link as my vote for his site. You can visit him from http://www.ymatbouli.com/

I think it would be very difficult to setup a company or business for car insurance in Saudi Arabia since the accident rates are very high. I don’t know the policies of existing insurance compaines. I was insuring my car with full insurance in Turkey before coming to Saudi Arabia. I did it for the first year here but not anymore. It is very strange feeling and a question that must be answered by decision analyzers. Usually when the accident rates are becoming more, there are more insurance papers sold by insurance companies. But in Saudi Arabia, it is reverse. When there is more probability of having accidents, people become more reluctant to insure their cars. How would you explain this?

For the accident rates, please refer to article Are the worst drivers in the world in Saudi Arabia?

The question of whether Ladies can drive cars is very hot discussion in Saudi Arabia. It is another issue to discuss.

This topic is about the car accidents and other important problem when driving a car in Saudi Arabia.

I have seen some statistics about the accident rates in Saudi Arabia. According to stats:- Saudi Arabia has the highest rate of car accidents per capita in the world. As known, Saudi Arabia not only in the whole world but also in Islamic world, is one of the unique countries where women, who are proven to be more careful drivers anywhere in the world, are in the car but never behind the wheel.

Car accident reports litter the Saudi dailies, and every day dozens of innocent people die at the hands of reckless drivers in Saudi Arabia (not only Saudi drivers but also foreigners). Listen to one foreigner who drives in Saudi Arabia: I am a very careful driver obeying all the traffic rules in my country. But when I drive herein I become one of the traffic monsters on the road.’

In Engineering Management classes, in the topic of decision making under risk, I always ask the probability of having an accident to decide whether we should insure our car, there is always smiling on the faces of engineering students. Some students always answer this as 100%.

I never saw or heard a place that a 9-year-old boy (of course not girl) is allowed to drive a car on the road. The traffic policeman sees the boy driving the car but acts as if he has not seen him. Since driving becomes a habit like driving a bike or playing footbal from the early childhood, you cannot teach someone to drive his car to go on the right direction and obey the rules. When you drive on a one-way road, you should always expect a boy or an old person (they do the same thing) coming from the opposite wrong direction. You wait for the green light to be on to pass the road but the driver behind you keeps horning and shouting at you questioning why you don’t pass the road. This is very clear evidence that he does not know anything about the traffic rules.

So before discussing whether ladies can drive or not, this is a major problem to be solved..

The soft skills required from engineers in the work places are:-

• Communicational (or interpersonal skills) including reading, listening and writing in an effective and efficient manner,
• speaking in public,
• negotiation skills,
• change management skills,
• soft decision making skills,
• organizing and running effective meetings (SMART meetings).

You can also check the related topic from Soft skills: The stuff that you don’t learn in engineering schools

Did you graduate from your engineering college and find a good job? Congratulations! But are you really prepared to work as a good engineer? Many newbie engineers will be shocked when they first start their careers. Many of these new engineers will see that a lot of skills required from them are not available and they had no courses in their engineering college to learn those skills. These skills are called soft skills. Even in courses such as engineering management, the curriculum cannot cover all these subjects due to time constraint. Therefore, there are many courses outside the university for career development purposes for engineers.

So what are these important soft skills? Actualy each of these soft skills is a different topic for a seminar. I will just give the names of these soft skills and talk later about each in detail. These soft skills are namely communicational (or interpersonal skills) including reading, listening and writing in an effective and efficient manner, speaking in public, negotiation skills, change management skills, soft decision making skills, organizing and having effective meetings (SMART meetings).

As engineers, you will start your career as a first level manager, you must be well prepared for technical skills required for engineering jobs usually different than what you learnt in engineering school. You must be also equipped with time management and stress management skills.

Bad thing about the workplace is that in school, your teachers give their feedbacks as grades for your activities but who will give useful feedbacks in your career?

As engineering students, you must be well-prepared for these requirements and think about how to acquire them from now.