Work is very important for sure! But in the end we should not forget we are humans, and too much work will burn you out. Actually, an excess of anything is not healthy in our lives (think about too much sport, too much eating, too much sleep etc.), and we need balance in our lives. I firmly believe that working SMART will bring way more benefits than just work HARD, especially in our industry. In fact engineers do not chose the semiconductor industry for the ease, but at Micron I am able to achieve what I could not in my previous company: work effectively AND a balanced life.

Although passion to the work you doing is important, do not forget that there is a lot of other things around you. Spending time with you friends and family is also important for your mental health and increases the total quality of your life. For me sometimes it is quite boring to talk to people who only can talk about their work and rumors inside the company. I believe that finding a hobby, reading books or watching movies not only makes you less stressed but also makes you more interesting person to talk with. Life is full of interesting people and opportunities, do not miss them!

For new graduates many fields of engineering are new concepts. For example Design for test can never be conceived in a graduates mind. Before joining design for test my thinking was restricted to only traditional design. This is in all accounts great to be a designer that you concentrate on the deeper circuit concepts. However unlike design limited to only a few circuits where one becomes a professional, in Design for test you get to experience how the whole design comes together. This gives a design for test engineer an edge in understanding design implications to things like yield, testability cost. Especially the cost of testing is the back-bone of production in pursuit of quality and affordability. But DFT sits at the sweet spot that enables an engineer to enjoy the best of both worlds of actual design and production. As an entrant, one would be looking for those positions where they can learn the most from to build their career. And DFT can be one of those positions.