ut his hunches, for the reason that he can
always swing over into any one of the other branches whenever he sees
fit to do so. The thing is done every day, and will continue to be done
throughout all time. Merely, it would be well for the young man, of
course, to select in the beginning that branch which most appeals to
him, and to stick to it like glue. Success is certain to be his. For in
no other walk of life are the rewards so sure and so ample and so
immediately responsive as in the engineering professions. These--like
the matter of his selection from among the four major branches--are
solely a matter up to the individual.

VI

QUALIFYING FOR PROMOTION

Immediately upon graduating--indeed, often several months before
graduating--the engineering student finds his first job awaiting him.
Frequently he finds a number of first jobs awaiting him and must make a
selection. For it is the custom with large manufacturing concerns to
send out scouts in the early spring of each year to address the
engineering student bodies, with the idea in mind of securing the
services of as many graduates as the scouts can win over for their
respective organizations through direct appeal. What is usually offered
the coming graduate is a brief apprenticeship in the shop, at a living
wage, with promise of as early and rapid promotion in the organization
as the work of the apprentice himself will permit, or improves.

These offers are generally splendid opportunities. The graduate may
learn much of a practical commercial nature which perforce has been
denied him in his student days, and also, having entered upon this
apprenticeship, he not only gets acquainted with production on a large
scale, but he is brought into touch with what constitutes most recent
acceptable practice as well. This, provided he be a mechanical or an
electrical engineer. Graduates in civil and mining engineering, while
offered positions from executives in these particular branches also,
have no such large opportunities offered them. The work itself does not
permit it. Yet in any of the branches there is never a scarcity of jobs
open to graduates upon their leaving college.

To qualify for promotion in any work, but more especially in the
professions, one must know one's business. That is a trite statement,
but it will bear repeating. The young graduate at first will not know
his business. His mind will be a chaos of theories based upon myriads of
formulae