I agree with smk45 — technical skills, for a student, are a bit more important than they are for the average professional. As a student, its hard to get your foot in the door because you need to show that you have technical skills for companies to hire you. We cannot just get hired via word-of-mouth or our previous experiences, as most of ours, including mine, are close to non-existent. Therefore, its important to realize that yes, technical skills become less important once you are in the industry itself, but beforehand, it is more important to gain those skills as a student.

In addition, a great way to build these skills would be stepping outside of one’s comfort zone and engaging in people outside of our industry. Most of the connections we create even within the field are not based on engineering or medical devices, but rather, they are dependent on things that set us apart, such as having a common fraternity or home town.