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DeathByDoubleDip posted:Jaded undergrad physics senior here considering CS/EE/M.E. for an M.S. degree and possibly a Ph.D. Can anyone tell me about the kind of catch-up or remedial work I'd be expected to complete? I'm barely taking my first EE course this year (a Signals/Systems elective) and I'm still looking at some other options as well. I have a friend with a physics degree working on an AE masters. He was looking at 1.5 years of catch up. My guess is you will have A LOT of catch up with CS unless you have great experience with programming and algorithms, and less catch up with EE or ME
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Sep 7, 2010 16:19
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seo posted:I have a friend with a physics degree working on an AE masters. He was looking at 1.5 years of catch up. My guess is you will have A LOT of catch up with CS unless you have great experience with programming and algorithms, and less catch up with EE or ME There was surprisingly little catch-up and prerequisites for my MS Comp Sci program. (after having a BS). 1. Intro to programming in Java. 2. Data Structures. 3. Comp. Organization 4. Discrete Math (I think, I didn't have to take this one). So I really don't think there is a ton of catch up, which was pretty surprising me too. You'll also need 1 full year of Calc (up to Calc two) and one other math course (usually statistics I think). But if you're a physics undergrad you've probably got that covered. The intro classes could be done either 1 per semesters or two if you've got some programing/coding experience. These are also night classes, working engineer program so I have no idea what full blown grad school would be like to switch.
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Sep 8, 2010 00:33
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I'm planning on going into engineering. This year, I have a choice between going into AP Physics C:Mechanics or doing an independent research project in which I design and build something awesome over the coarse of the year. Some projects I might do are designing pulse oxidizers, looking over the acceleration system on the recalled toyota cars from a few months ao and correcting it, making small robots, making speakers, etc. Would I stand a better chance for getting into a good college if I took AP Physics or the independent research class?
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Sep 8, 2010 03:53
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hobbesmaster posted:"Sorry, we have a hiring freeze." You can add me to that list too. I got my BS in CE with a 3.5 and can't seem to find that awesome job I was promised (in South Jersey). Starting grad school in a couple weeks..
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Sep 8, 2010 04:04
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Globofglob posted:I'm planning on going into engineering. This year, I have a choice between going into AP Physics C:Mechanics or doing an independent research project in which I design and build something awesome over the coarse of the year. Some projects I might do are designing pulse oxidizers, looking over the acceleration system on the recalled toyota cars from a few months ao and correcting it, making small robots, making speakers, etc. Take the independent research project, that sounds fun as hell. Plus you'll know if you actually WANT to be an engineer before you even take the first weed-out course. I didn't take AP Physics or AP Calculus and I got a full ride to Maryland. Beer4TheBeerGod fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Dec 24, 2019 |
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Sep 8, 2010 04:10
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FearIt posted:You can add me to that list too. A graduate degree really seems to help. I got my BS in Aerospace back in May 09, never heard a peep from 50-60 jobs I applied to so I went back for my MS in Systems Eng. I just started applying for jobs again two weeks ago (I'm graduating next spring) and already got Lockheed Martin asking for a phone interview. Of course, that interview was supposed to be this morning, and they never showed up in the conference call. I've been trying to get in contact with the hiring rep all day to set up a new appointment, hopefully I'll get an email tomorrow 
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Sep 8, 2010 05:47
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Terrifying Effigies posted:A graduate degree really seems to help. I got my BS in Aerospace back in May 09, never heard a peep from 50-60 jobs I applied to so I went back for my MS in Systems Eng. I just started applying for jobs again two weeks ago (I'm graduating next spring) and already got Lockheed Martin asking for a phone interview. My personal strategy for avoiding this has been to go into a (hopefully) emerging field with my MS, renewable energy. But committing to a specialty has it's downsides as well, and I've only got one more year of hiding from the job market left.
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Sep 9, 2010 22:32
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bawfuls posted:I'm worried we'll get some over-saturation though. There's tons of graduating engineers now going to grad school in hopes of "waiting out the economy" and improving their marketability. At some point, doesn't an MS just become the new BS? This... but 8 years of school just to get entry level means we should be paid like doctors right? Anyways I'm just hoping for a nice job that will shell out for grad school
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Sep 13, 2010 00:50
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seo posted:This... but 8 years of school just to get entry level means we should be paid like doctors right? Actually, 4 years of undergrad and 4 years of med school qualifies you to work 60+ hours a week for $40k a year. Now, the question is how to get out of residency!
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Sep 13, 2010 01:05
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bawfuls posted:I'm worried we'll get some over-saturation though. There's tons of graduating engineers now going to grad school in hopes of "waiting out the economy" and improving their marketability. At some point, doesn't an MS just become the new BS? I don't think there's going to be much saturation with MS degrees - the 'normal' process was for a BS to get hired, work for 3-5 years at their job, and then have their company help pay to get an MS through night classes. The current economic environment has allowed companies to shift that burden of supporting employees in school to unemployed recent grads who have no other choice. It's a win-win on their part, they still get graduate-level employees but don't have to shell out an extra 10k to 30k in tuition support.
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Sep 13, 2010 02:57
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Our provincial association does a salary survey every two years and it tends to show that doing a masters doesn't really help the earning potential all that much on average. In 2008 in BC the mean total compensation for an Engineer was $105,078. The median total compensation was $90,246 For someone with a Masters in Engineering or Applied Science the mean was $111,684 and the median was $94,500. MBAs have a mean of $109,528 and a median of $100,300 PhD/DSc have a mean of $119,945 and a median of $101,915 For some reason an MA gets you a median of $140,113 and a mean of $117,500. I'm not quite sure what's going on there. There were 98 of them, so it's not just one or two guys pulling up the numbers. But yeah, the average between someone with a masters and the overall average isn't that much, and it's even less when you realize that you're less likely to have an inexperienced engineer getting a masters or an MBA, so you don't have the entry level salaries bringing it down.
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Sep 13, 2010 03:50
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Sep 13, 2010 14:26
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Thoguh posted:The overwhelming majority of engineers stop at a B.S. There just isn't a need for more than that for most work and while a lot of people plan on going back at some point, if you wait for a few years life (spouse, kids, house, etc...) get in the way and it becomes very tough. This is pretty much true. I think at my company if you come in with a MS as opposed to a BS you get 6 months 'seniority' for pay, benefits...etc. So you basically go to school for an extra 2-3 years and when you do get hired you're 2 1/2 years behind some dude you went to undergrad with that was hired right out of school. Although you forgot about the bragging rights of getting a masters degree or two. Engineers are selfish assholes that like the feel better than everyone they work with.
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Sep 13, 2010 15:32
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Plinkey posted:This is pretty much true. I think at my company if you come in with a MS as opposed to a BS you get 6 months 'seniority' for pay, benefits...etc. So you basically go to school for an extra 2-3 years and when you do get hired you're 2 1/2 years behind some dude you went to undergrad with that was hired right out of school. Yeah, an MBA seems to be a lot more valuable than an MS for engineers. Any PhDs at your company?
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Sep 13, 2010 16:05
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Pfirti86 posted:Yeah, an MBA seems to be a lot more valuable than an MS for engineers. Any PhDs at your company? Ill agree that the mba will get you better pay, but you'll be doing fairly little engineering work, but if you're into that, go for it. We have a few PhDs from what I hear, the company won't pay for it unless you can show that some new project needs you+phd to get it done. It goes to VP or higher for approval, masters you just need your manager approval. And you can get as many as you want if its business related.
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Sep 13, 2010 16:17
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Plinkey posted:Ill agree that the mba will get you better pay, but you'll be doing fairly little engineering work, but if you're into that, go for it. We have a few PhDs from what I hear, the company won't pay for it unless you can show that some new project needs you+phd to get it done. It goes to VP or higher for approval, masters you just need your manager approval. And you can get as many as you want if its business related. Well, most people who earn PhDs in engineering do so without the benefit of a company. We are paid by our advisers or fellowships, and then seek jobs after graduation. I guess I knew one or two people who had outside support from companies, but it was far from the norm (at least at the universities I attended).
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Sep 13, 2010 16:53
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Yeah, I guess that's how it usually works, but I'm coming from a company side of it...so at this point if I ever wanted to get a PhD and keep my paycheck I'd have to go the company route.
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Sep 13, 2010 17:00
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Sep 13, 2010 17:04
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I was talking to a psychology friend the other day about the fact that I have a good deal of trouble remembering stuff like actors from movies, quotes from movies, and random other things like this and he said that the way my brain is geared(towards engineering) that my other part of the brain geared towards remembering this stuff isn't as developed. Anyone else feel the same way?
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Sep 15, 2010 20:37
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I have the same trouble but I've never heard this explanation. I've had trouble with this type of stuff since I was a kid though so I don't think it's a product of training.
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Sep 15, 2010 21:02
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I have the same problem but I figured it was all the pot I smoked in college.
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Sep 15, 2010 21:04
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huhu posted:I was talking to a psychology friend the other day about the fact that I have a good deal of trouble remembering stuff like actors from movies, quotes from movies, and random other things like this and he said that the way my brain is geared(towards engineering) that my other part of the brain geared towards remembering this stuff isn't as developed. Anyone else feel the same way? Just today I couldn't remember Edward Norton's name even though I've seen him in numerous movies. Anyway, I started up my Sophomore year in August, and I was wondering how applied Co-op'ing is. I swapped my major over from Chemistry to ChemE just this semester, so I haven't taken any of our ChemE specific classes yet - would I be at a disadvantage going into some Co-op job because of this? I know I won't be doing it next semester, so I'll have a chance to take some of my ChemE courses, but I wasn't sure if being behind on those would be a problem.
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Sep 20, 2010 21:39
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Half the engineers at my school do their first co-op after a single term (4 months) of classes so uh a literal child could do it.
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Sep 20, 2010 21:58
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Anyone have experience working internationally? I'm in the midst of my junior year in the US and really, really want to get a job that lets me practice engineering while requiring significant time abroad. How tough is it to get into a position like this? Will companies even bother sending their entry level engineers abroad for long term projects? What about jobs that are based outside the states? Will foreign companies bother to hire an American right out of college? Basically tell me everything you know about engineering work abroad, cool personal anecdotes welcome 
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Sep 20, 2010 23:26
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kid indies posted:Anyone have experience working internationally? How's Iraq/Afghanistan sound to you? We send people there alllll the time, and sometimes Europe if you're lucky.
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Sep 20, 2010 23:35
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kid indies posted:Anyone have experience working internationally? Lots of US engineering firms do work in China. Look for the big ones that have US based customers that operate there.
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Sep 20, 2010 23:44
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huhu posted:I was talking to a psychology friend the other day about the fact that I have a good deal of trouble remembering stuff like actors from movies, quotes from movies, and random other things like this and he said that the way my brain is geared(towards engineering) that my other part of the brain geared towards remembering this stuff isn't as developed. Anyone else feel the same way? I don't know if I would agree with this, most of my engineering friends are nerds who love trivia of all kinds.
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Sep 21, 2010 00:46
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huhu posted:I was talking to a psychology friend the other day about the fact that I have a good deal of trouble remembering stuff like actors from movies, quotes from movies, and random other things like this and he said that the way my brain is geared(towards engineering) that my other part of the brain geared towards remembering this stuff isn't as developed. Anyone else feel the same way? My wife is constantly amazed at how much useless trivia (especially movie quotes) I remember.
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Sep 21, 2010 00:51
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NativeAlien posted:I don't know if I would agree with this, most of my engineering friends are nerds who love trivia of all kinds. Fuckin aye. I'm referred to as "thrillipaedia" by friends for the breadth of useless crap I know. I wonder what other brain functions I'm lacking because of it sometimes...
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Sep 21, 2010 02:28
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Sorry if this question has been asked before (I only got to the first 13 pages), but here goes: I'm a freshman at a top 15 engineering school in Electrical Engineering (thinking I want to specialize in hardware), and I'm not to sure what kind of job my degree would be able to get me (if I make it, Jesus this is hard  ). I'm actually pretty interested in the entertainment side of engineering (if that exists), like specialized hardware and things of that nature. Is this a gimmick kind of field, though? If I had to imagine my "dream job" it'd be working for somebody like Nvidia or what have you designing really neat consumer geared electronics/other tiny things and the like. Is this a pipe dream?Also intro to computing (binary  ) and calculus are terrifying me, I've never had calc before and my academic advisor recommended I go ahead and take calc since I tested into it  (you can take an intro calc course) It is fascinating stuff, though. I'm one of those "BUT HOW DOES THIS WORKKKKK" people.
Scionix fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Sep 21, 2010 |
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Sep 21, 2010 07:54
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Scionix posted:Sorry if this question has been asked before (I only got to the first 13 pages), but here goes: You'll have a EE degree, you can do anything that has electron (almost everything). I don't know much/anything about hardware design like that, but I have a feeling that the people that do the actual product design and requirements aren't really the 'grunt' engineering types. If you got into a company that does that you'd probably be designing circuit boards schematics...etc. That fix in x sized box and uses x or less power with these chips, stuff like that. I always assumed it was the marketing/business/'Advisory' engineering people that came up with stuff like that and did the Reqs for it, then it went to design teams after it was all ironed out. Someone can probably answer this better than me though. Scionix posted:Also intro to computing (binary ) and calculus are terrifying me, I've never had calc before and my academic advisor recommended I go ahead and take calc since I tested into it (you can take an intro calc course) It is fascinating stuff, though. I'm one of those "BUT HOW DOES THIS WORKKKKK" people. What is intro to computing? Binary logic, gates, Kmaps, look ahead adders...etc? Don't gently caress up with calc, you'll need a lot of it later for you EE classes when you get into Diff-Eqs and especially electromagnetic classes and other stuff depending what you specialize in. They'll be much easier and make a lot more sense if you can concentrate on what the concept is and not get hung up on the math to get right answers (I got hung up on this a lot). After calc the math is basically a tool to explain the concepts. Also get used to calc, you probably have to take 2 full years (4 semesters worth) and calc based statistics. Where are you going? There might be some other EE people that went through the program in this thread. Plinkey fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Sep 21, 2010 |
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Sep 21, 2010 08:16
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Plinkey posted:You'll have a EE degree, you can do anything that has electron (almost everything). You are correct on the Intro to computing. I'm trying not to screw up calc, I've been studying/tutoring as much as I can I go to UT (texas), btw
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Sep 21, 2010 15:39
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Plinkey posted:You'll have a EE degree, you can do anything that has electron (almost everything). No, I work at a small company and I write the specifications and everything for the clients after discussing it with them. Then I prototype it, demo it, write up another more detailed specs doc, then design it - including schematic, pcb layout, hardware CAD drawings, etc (this may be split between several engineers but everyone's involved), then oversee the production and testing. After that, new revisions. An engineer should know how to do all of that. Granted I've only worked at small to medium sized companies, with anywhere from 4 to 15 engineers, but these jobs are far more common than the mass engineer corporate type jobs. Plinkey posted:Don't gently caress up with calc, you'll need a lot of it later for you EE classes when you get into Diff-Eqs and especially electromagnetic classes and other stuff depending what you specialize in. They'll be much easier and make a lot more sense if you can concentrate on what the concept is and not get hung up on the math to get right answers (I got hung up on this a lot). After calc the math is basically a tool to explain the concepts. Also get used to calc, you probably have to take 2 full years (4 semesters worth) and calc based statistics. I think it's the opposite. There's a reason why calculus for engineers gloss over the theory and proofs. Nobody gives a poo poo about how the math works, just get the right answers - you do have to know what kind of answer to expect though (ballpark range), but that has nothing to do with math theory. Zo fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Sep 21, 2010 |
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Sep 21, 2010 15:50
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What does it typically take to get promoted to some type of engineering management? Anyone think I could go for an engineering management position at a manufacturing company out of college at a manufacturing company with this background: -BSME with ~3.5 GPA -A.S Degree in Industrial Management -3 years in prototype machining -1 year engineering internship
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Sep 21, 2010 16:52
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I'm in my second year of a Mechanical Engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institute), and I figured I might as well ask some questions I have after skimming the thread a bit. I guess the first thing I should ask about is transferring. I was thinking about trying to transfer to UT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ut_austin) for the Fall 2010 semester, but I didn't get my application together before the deadline. Now I'm looking at transferring for my Spring 2011 semester. What are the odds that all of my credits would transfer? At this point, if they didn't want to take even one of my 4-credit classes it would be unpleasant to deal with. Among other things, one of the reasons I'm looking at transferring is that I don't feel like I'd be getting a different education. This probably is very applicable to undergrad coursework, but it feels like Professors are mainly just teaching out of the textbook, and I can do that anywhere. I've done fairly well, though not amazing, academically. I've got 34 credits, with some AP credit from high school, as well as taking 17 credits now, and my GPA is ~3.49, I believe. I guess I could go on about this, but I don't feel like I'm conveying a lot, as it is. Any comments on the subject would be cool. From what I've seen in the thread, the consensus on getting internships is just going to career fairs and talking to people / giving them my resume. I, like many others, have no technical experience, and don't really know what any type of internship would entail. How can I make myself a little less bland and unattractive? Also, are there any other decent places to find / apply for internships outside of career fairs? Feeling like this is getting a little long-winded, so maybe I'll think up a bit more if people feel like replying.
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Sep 21, 2010 20:14
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Sgt. Slaughter posted:I'm in my second year of a Mechanical Engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institute), and I figured I might as well ask some questions I have after skimming the thread a bit. I'm only a freshman in EE at Texas, but this site should help (http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/ate/). It's pretty much a giant database with all the classes UT will take transfer credits for. Also, as for the career fair business, I'm in the same boat (no technical experience, no super awesome high school background). Me and a group of people are going to the career fair tomorrow in Austin (biggest in the country), and the major thing that the people in engineering have told us is to just be confident, and be able to sell yourself. They told us having a "30 second commercial" is a good thing to have. I'm not really expecting to get a job or anything, I'm only going for the experience/to talk to recruiters, but I hope this helps anyway.
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Sep 21, 2010 20:54
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Waterloo co-op is extremely competitive since everyone starts them from freshman year, and you need co-op jobs to graduate, so we've learned a lot about standing out amongst equally worthless candidates. The only thing that really helped was clubs/contests related to engineering. In first year I did a solar car race thing where you get a solar cell kit and try to build the fastest racer, the entire thing took about a day, and it came up in like half the interviews I had that year. In second year I joined the robotics club and entered a sumo-robot contest where you populate a pre-designed board, build your own chasis and program it. It came up in every single interview I had that year (~20). After that I had enough work experience but really, do that stuff. Telling then how you flipped burgers or volunteered at your local church isn't going to impress anybody.
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Sep 21, 2010 20:56
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Would anyone happen to have any idea why a professor would require only pen for homework? My mechanical properties of materials professor is doing this and it sucks.
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Sep 21, 2010 21:04
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huhu posted:Would anyone happen to have any idea why a professor would require only pen for homework? My mechanical properties of materials professor is doing this and it sucks. A lot of my professors did this and they said it was because they could see the mistakes you make along the way. I personally like the idea behind that, and just generally enjoy using pens more than pencils.
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Sep 21, 2010 21:09
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huhu posted:Would anyone happen to have any idea why a professor would require only pen for homework? My mechanical properties of materials professor is doing this and it sucks. Excuse I've heard is so that students can't get their work back, erase it, and go to the prof asking for full marks because they had it right. Realistically though, thats a stupid reason. Just say only work done in pen will be able to have marking corrections made. I had a prof who wanted stuff done like this as well, I just wound up doing most of my work on whiteboards, and once it was done I'd copy it out all nicely.
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Sep 21, 2010 21:11
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