In the working world of an engineer—a world of technical terminology and complexity —UH engineering alumnus Kevin Self (1991 BSEE) works diligently to keep things simple. Self, who works with 8 and 16-bit microprocessors at Dallas Semiconductor, teaches a myriad of companies how to incorporate those “brain” devices into their products, which range from thermometers to televisions.
“It’s hard to describe what microprocessors do because they do everything,” Self said. “You use microprocessors as the brains in lots of appliances and things you use everyday like cash registers, thermostats, modems, medical devices, and DVD players.”
The diversity in the companies that he works with is a highlight of his job, Self said, a Senior Applications Engineer.
“We make simple generic brains that you can put in everything, and that’s one of those things that makes my job so cool,” Self said. “My chip is used in so many different things. Because my job as an applications engineer is to help people put our chips in their applications, I’m talking to people and helping them design player pianos, temperature controllers for emu coops, urine analyzers, or even radar systems.”
Self’s knowledge of microcontrollers and experience in technical support led him to write one of Dallas Semiconductor's technical manuals, The High-Speed Microcontroller Data Book.
“The manual has helped hundreds of people design our microprocessors into their products,” Self said. “My job as an engineer is to help people take technology and make life better, and this book, while it’s not going to change the world, did a really good job of helping people use our chips.”
The 400-page manual took Self more than six months to create and is one of his self-proclaimed professional highlights.
“One of the obstacles was trying to anticipate the technical questions the customers would come up with because it’s supposed to be a book that has everything they need to know,” Self said. “The idea is that if I wrote this book perfectly, no one would have to call me for technical support. I think I came up a little short but we’re always coming up with new chips, so there’s always new stuff for me to learn as well.”
Working with other engineers helped Self determine the contents of the guidebook, as did his previous experience with processors.
“Because of my cooperative education experience, I had a chance to work with microprocessors a number of years before I started here,” Self said. “I also looked at some competitors’ technical manuals and asked a lot of people in the company. You don’t want to give too much information otherwise you’ll end up losing the customer, and they’ll never find what they need.”
Communication plays an important role in Self’s work, and he stresses communication in engineering, amongst other engineers and with the outside community.
“As an engineer, everyone does technical things, but at some point, unless you can share that with other engineers, it’s not going to go very far,” Self said. “Every engineer has got to be able to write and speak clearly and share their ideas with other people.”
Learning these skills in the classroom is important, Self said.
“I had an electrical engineering class where the professors required formal lab reports, and I thought that was one of the most valuable classes I took,” Self said. “The professors who taught it were really good because they required good engineering documentation in everything you did. You had to put the information in a report that had a beginning, middle and end, and everything was in complete sentences and read well. That is exactly what the real world requires of you, and those communication skills are absolutely vital.”
It was his appreciation for technical writing that led Self to eventually serve as a contributing editor and correspondent for Spectrum magazine, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). After a summer internship in New York City with IEEE, Self stayed on as a columnist for more than 10 years.
“When I was at Texas Instruments, I wrote technical manuals, and when I was a member of Eta Kappa Nu, an EE honor society, we put together a guide for incoming freshman, as our service project, that was funny and had lots of useful information,” Self said. “So I took a couple of things I wrote for both of those, submitted them, and won the internship. After that summer, I did some other work for them and had a column in their magazine, Technically Speaking, which covered a lighter look at technical language and culture.”
While Self said communication skills in engineering are to be taught in the classroom, the detailed workings of engineering are learned on the job. Before working for Dallas Semiconductor, Self developed his engineering skills through his co-op job with TI.
“When you’re in school, you learn the basics, the math and science of how things work,” Self said. “I learned all the basics because UH had a very good general EE program. They taught me a lot about how the physics of how computer chips work, so once I got out of school and someone would say ‘I want to use your chip to control a motor,’ I understood the basics of how that worked. But, the most useful, real-world stuff I learned was on my co-op job.”
After his own experience with the co-op program, Self is a strong advocate of the program that brought him from Cincinnati, Ohio to Texas and the University of Houston.
“At the University of Cincinnati, all engineering majors are required to enroll in the co-op program,” Self said. “I spent every other semester at TI in Houston and I got tired of traveling 1,200 miles twice a year, so I asked to remain in the program but change schools to UH. The idea of the co-op program is the greatest thing to happen to education. Any school can graduate engineering students, but if you want to graduate an engineer, you have to get them some work experience. All other things being equal, our company, and most companies, will prefer entry-level employees with co-op experience every time.”