What I've been up to

So I have 3 months till I go serve my country. I spent 3 months twiddling my thumbs at home before I got a temporary job at my cousin's firm. I'm not doing much but I'm learning a lot.

• For one, I got two mentors through IEEE mentoring programme.

And so, I have a sort of development plan and timetable to tide me over till after I complete my Master's degree.

• Secondly, I get to watch my cousins operate in a world that is completely alien to me (business world). One valuable lesson I've learnt: Networking is everything. It doesn't matter how well you do whatever it is you do. It doesn't matter which schools you went to and what degree you graduated with. If you don't network, no one knows and no one cares. And you can't succeed.

That is however, not an excuse to Facebook 24/7. A better social networking site (insofar as careers are concerned) is LinkedIn. You want to be on LinkedIn, trust me. Check out this article for reasons why

• Thirdly, because I'm free a lot, I'm taking advantage of online tutorials to learn stuff like French, C++ and Autocad. I know, uber-geeky. But I need to beef up my CV and get an edge in this post-recession era. And so do you.
• Fourthly, I'm reading my old notes and textbooks. I half-dozed through my last year at University of Lagos and I really need to catch up. One of my goals is to be an authority on energy matters but seeing as I missed all but two of Dr. Akinbuilere's classes on ... (I don't even remember the name of the course, but it was on different power plants and load profiles), I have to read! I'm currently reading Power Plant Engineering by Raja et al. and Energy Management and Conservation Handbook by Krarti et. al. The latter is from Dr. (now Prof.) Okafor's 2nd semester course.
• Fifthly, I'm President of the Leadership Development Programme Alumni Association and I'm half-scared I'm gonna mess it up big time, if the others don't pull their weight. You guys I need you to work with me, please!!! But I'm also a happy for the opportunity of a platform to push for reforms in society, hopefully we'll be able to bring about concrete changes.