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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Feb 27, 2011 19:56
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good luck finding an engineering job with no engineering degree and no experience. I have a loving EE degree and can't get one.
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Feb 27, 2011 22:26
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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. Do your homework in pencil and take it to kinkos to make copies.
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Feb 28, 2011 01:15
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2011 01:51
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JamesWatt posted:How can I make my plan for becoming an engineer better? If your goal is to get a job as an engineer this might work. There are people who get engineering positions without an engineering degree. But, that usually comes about by working for a company in a non-engineering position that works closely with engineering (technician, materials management, etc) and demonstrating a competency in whatever technical knowledge that company specializes in. Quite a few engineering jobs would be better described as project management. But, if your ultimate goal is to "invent something new in the energy industry"...I find it seriously unlikely that you will ever land a job where you'll be in a position to "invent" something as a part of your work without at least a BS. Or even a job where you'll be learning anything that will help you invent something. Which means you'll be doing your inventing in your garage, which is fine, but then why go through all this trouble of getting an engineering job? Not trying to crush your dreams, just offering some perspective.
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Feb 28, 2011 02:10
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AngryFeet posted:My company is thinking of sending me to the Washington DC area to do embedded software engineering, can someone give me an idea of how much they should be paying me? I have 3 years experience. Somewhere around 60-70 would seem reasonable to me. (I'm in Baltimore and work between Baltimore an DC) so that's my basis.
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Feb 28, 2011 02:50
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Plinkey posted:Somewhere around 60-70 would seem reasonable to me. (I'm in Baltimore and work between Baltimore an DC) so that's my basis. A high entry level salary for the area is between 60-70, so peg that as your low point.
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Feb 28, 2011 02:54
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I don't want to smash your dreams but let me provide some perspective:JamesWatt posted:I did three semesters of calculus quote:• I am studying for the relevant parts of the Fundamentals of Engineering (engineering mechanics: statics & dynamics, electricity & magnetism, thermodynamics). quote:I am planning to self-test, because they won’t let me take the official test without a BS in engineering. quote:• I read about the history of science and technology. For example, the biography of Tesla was awesome. quote:As my next step, I need to choose a particular class of technologies that seem promising (e.g., nuclear). Then, I would try to get a job at a company working in that area. Ultimately, I would want to work in an engineering role, but don’t think that is realistic to do that immediately given my background (though if you have a non-school suggestion of how, I would love to hear it). So, I might shoot for middle management in a non-engineering function and then try to show that I can doing the engineering work As posted above, the clear and easiest path ahead is to take a position at a company (or Lab) that does work in the field you are interested in and use their education services to complete a course of study. Following that it is certainly possible to move from engineering management to engineering but it's not likely. Typically once an engineer has moved to management for more than a few years they are considered 'out of touch' with current state of the art and have difficulty moving back into a primary engineering role. Having never had the engineering background you would have to shine brightly indeed to be given a contributors role in an advanced project.
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Feb 28, 2011 14:06
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Murgos posted:There is a reason for this, believe it or not ABET accredited engineering schools are pretty rigorous at teaching a certain broad minimum of skills that are very difficult to acquire without directed study. Agreed. Maybe it's just me, but a few months after I left school and was working happily at my job, it just hit me one day - those bastards taught me well and snuck knowledge and engineering skills into my brain. Almost unconsciously, in fact...without thinking, I'll find myself taking typical engineering approaches to problems and drawing on facts I learned back in school. It's kinda creepy 
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Feb 28, 2011 16:06
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movax posted:Agreed. Maybe it's just me, but a few months after I left school and was working happily at my job, it just hit me one day - those bastards taught me well and snuck knowledge and engineering skills into my brain. Almost unconsciously, in fact...without thinking, I'll find myself taking typical engineering approaches to problems and drawing on facts I learned back in school. I'm still in school and have noticed myself doing this. Brainwashed, man
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Feb 28, 2011 16:11
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Feb 28, 2011 18:05
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Thoguh posted:I agree with everything in your post except the last part. In my experience, non-engineering people, especially lab techs and secretaries, complete engineering degrees and move into engineering roles on a fairly regularly basis. They aren't moving right into senior positions or anything, but moving into engineering upon completion of a paid for by the company degree is pretty standard. Yes, I said just that immediately before the section you quoted. Murgos posted:...the clear and easiest path ahead is to take a position at a company (or Lab) that does work in the field you are interested in and use their education services to complete a course of study. The section you quoted was more of a rebuttal to the OP's statement of: JamesWatt posted:So, I might shoot for middle management in a non-engineering function and then try to show that I can doing the engineering work
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Feb 28, 2011 21:57
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I've got an internship at General Motors this summer, but I really have no idea what I'll be doing or what to expect. I'm supposed to receive more details about 6 weeks before I start (I'll be starting mid-May), but as of now all I know is what I got in my acceptance e-mail, which said: "We are offering you the position of Student Intern with Manufacturing in (city), (state)." Anyone have any insight or advice for me? I'm a sophomore studying ME at a top university, currently taking 300-level classes. Also, on a different note, I'm decent at programming (got an A in freshman intro to C++ and Matlab, currently taking a 200-level EECS course in programming and data structures), but I don't really know a whole lot about using Matlab or Maple. We don't really have classes specifically for learning either of those, but I know they're both super-important. What's the best way to pick them up? p.s. really loving this thread. I'm up to page 12, so sorry if my questions have already been answered somewhere earlier in the thread.
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Mar 1, 2011 01:19
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I love this thread, because I'm going back to get a degree in engineering. My background is: I dropped out of high school, did my undergrad in philosophy, went through law school, worked at a firm on wall street and later with federal prosecutors, got a little money, came home, worked as a community organizer and fundraiser for nonprofits, ran two successful political campaigns, and then founded a charity. Welcome to my insane life! I think the varied background I bring to the table might be too varied and be to my disadvantage with potential employers. Don't know which sub-discipline I want to go into yet - I'll need help with that. I'm leaning towards mechanical, as that offers the most hands-on, but I kind of want to work with nuclear plants, because that will be a huge part of the future of humanity. I also think robots are neat, especially the kind that make other robots, or which can autonomously mine for ore. Does anyone have book recommendations or other reading to help me get an idea of what the various fields are like and get me really juiced up about my new career path? I want to be inspired. My secret desire is to live to 150 and become a colonist on Mars - I've already read the Mars trilogy and Zubrin's stuff. Don't mean to sound like a braggart - I just decided to finally make the jump and do a career 180, and I'm pretty jazzed about it, especially because of how crazy my life is.
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Mar 1, 2011 03:11
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BSchlang posted:I've got an internship at General Motors this summer, but I really have no idea what I'll be doing or what to expect. I'm supposed to receive more details about 6 weeks before I start (I'll be starting mid-May), but as of now all I know is what I got in my acceptance e-mail, which said: As an EE I've never personally done a Manufacturing internship but my buddies who have did a lot of work with timing factory lines, six sigma, monitoring quality, etc. Doesn't mean that's what you'll do with GM though. pro tip: when timing factory lines; hide. Factory workers will move in slow motion when you're timing them because they don't want to be expected to produce as much as they can. They'd rather over-produce than under-produce. SB35 fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 03:49
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JamesWatt posted:My goal, in the long-run, is to come up with a new invention in the energy industry... Please just go to school. You need to understand efficiency and losses and just how big a problem energy really is. It's a field we don't need any more half educated quacks in. Your post kind of scares me. It reminds me of our engineering tech at work. He's a great guy, very much a go-getter, hands on and very great with customers and competent. He reads non stop and always has great ideas for the next big thing. But he has just enough training to be easily suckered without the critical thinking and foundation to see where an idea fails at its core. He'll come up with some great ideas that need some magic material or bend the laws of physics to be possible. We have to rein him in all the time. And he believes those youtube videos that show magnetic perpetual motion motors. Please tell me your master plan does not involve unlocking the hidden power of magnets, please? Here is a play in one act based on a true story at my work with my tech. MAGNETS DO NOT CONTAIN HIDDEN POWER. "Oh you have to plug it in to get it started." "Okay, but once it's running why don't they unplug it?" "Well, they need to... um... I don't know" "If it was really self powering they could plug it in to itself right?" "Um... it keeps going because of the magnets and takes forever to spin down." "So it spins down? I thought it kept going?" "Well, the magnets are at just the right angle to keep it going for a long time..." "Congratulations, you found a video of guys who stuck magnets to a flywheel and think they invented something." FIN. LloydDobler fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 04:59
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Mar 1, 2011 04:59
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How proficient should you be in a programming language to list it on a resume or during an interview? I know a few languages well and have a smattering of experience with others. C, C++, Java, ANSI Common Lisp, ARM assembly, other crap (think I mentioned this last month or something). I also have a bit of experience with MATLAB and Mathematica. I've done some minor programming projects and within the next year or so will hopefully be involved in a non-academic project involving hardware and software design of an embedded system (assuming it doesn't fall through several roofs and into the basement). What I'm asking is, do employers give a poo poo if you know the basics and intermediate aspects of some languages but aren't really a master in any of them?
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Mar 1, 2011 05:13
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A Jew in Manhattan posted:How proficient should you be in a programming language to list it on a resume or during an interview? I break them into two tiers - "regular use" and "some experience". It shows that you've been exposed to a language, and therefore could use it, but don't have the in-depth knowledge that comes with daily use.
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Mar 1, 2011 05:25
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Martin Random posted:Don't know which sub-discipline I want to go into yet - I'll need help with that. I'm leaning towards mechanical, as that offers the most hands-on, but I kind of want to work with nuclear plants, because that will be a huge part of the future of humanity. I also think robots are neat, especially the kind that make other robots, or which can autonomously mine for ore. All of the jobs you listed will involve mechanical and electrical engineers. I am a senior cooping at a utility company right now and we use EEs and MEs in roughly equal numbers, plus some CEs and a very few ChemEs. If you don't mind my asking, why are you leaving an apparently successful career to go back to take a very time consuming course load for at least a few years? To know what you should go into you should really know where you want to end up. The types of work that engineers do is so very broad that it is impossible to say what a typical day would be like unless you have a pretty good idea of what industry and region of the country you want to work in. I have never come across a book that even kind of sounds like what I do on a daily basis, most focus on advanced, research type jobs that don't exist in the area of the country I am in. Not that there isn't interesting, fulfilling and challenging work, just not the type that gets the press.
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Mar 1, 2011 05:40
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Martin Random posted:I love this thread, because I'm going back to get a degree in engineering. I would caution that engineering is not all building crazy contraptions and designing novel systems. About 80% of undergrad is doing soul crushing thermo problem sets and learning a couple hundred empirical heat and mass equations. And then, once you do get a job it is extremely unlikely you'll be doing anything ground breaking unless your a comp E or have a PhD. Honestly your career sounds very interesting and switching to engineering sounds like a significant step down, especially at the expense of four years of eng undergrad.
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Mar 1, 2011 16:08
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OctaviusBeaver posted:If you don't mind my asking, why are you leaving an apparently successful career to go back to take a very time consuming course load for at least a few years? While I'm an excellent lawyer and the degree has taken me to some amazing places, the simple fact of the matter is that I hate doing what lawyers do. I don't enjoy the work. The nature of the profession is parasitic. It doesn't involve making anything, or really contributing anything. I hate having to work with lawyers, they are generally either repugnant, insane, insectoid creatures who gleefully immerse themselves in bureaucratic rules and minutia, or they are lying, aggressive, delusional sociopaths. I hate hearing lawyers talk about their work. When I see them talk excitedly with each other over the trivial minutiae of some motion in a case, I want to gouge my eyes out. I hate doing legal research, and I hate researching legal principles, because they are all arbitrary. I hate putting together deals for corporations, because the work is largely derivative, boiler plate copying of documents from other corporations, mixed in with an insane pessimism and unquenchable paranoia about missing details or pitfalls. The paranoia is unquenchable because there is no way to sit down and establish anything with absolute certainty - the nature of the profession is one of uncertainty and insecurity, based upon nothing but arbitrary and changing rulings, regulations, and so forth. The profession is going downhill - any fool can see that. There will be no job security for any positions other than the most entrenched, indisposable, soulless masters of obscure regulatory schemes cocooned inside ossified, dying bureaucratic nightmares reminiscent of the Byzantine empire. The job market for lawyers will get worse and worse - I'm well set with a successful career, yes, but I am looking 5-10 years down the road, when poo poo really starts to get bad in this country, and the law is not the place to be. You can do three things as a lawyer. Seriously, the profession boils down to three things. You can fight with people. You can become an expert in something complicated and arbitrary (yet essential) that very few people care about. You can be a professional pessimist, researching and obsessing over pitfalls and traps. Those three basic tasks circumscribe the ENTIRE legal profession, for the most part, with very few exceptions. At this point, I don't give a gently caress. I have the money to live well for a long time. Now it's time to step back and actually start doing something I enjoy. gently caress the law! quote:To know what you should go into you should really know where you want to end up. quote:I have never come across a book that even kind of sounds like what I do on a daily basis, See, here's the problem with what you're saying: Know where you want to end up, by the way, there's no place to read about the places where you could end up, because the jobs are so varied and are often unreported. I just want books, things to read, anything. Inspirational - things that make engineering sound cool, things that tell me WHY people become engineers. Informational - things that tell me what it's like to actually BE an engineer, what engineers in some occupations do with their day to day work. I understand that no single account will be representative given the variety of work, but something's better than nothing. quote:I would caution that engineering is not all building crazy contraptions and designing novel systems. About 80% of undergrad is doing soul crushing thermo problem sets and learning a couple hundred empirical heat and mass equations. I'm cool with that. I'm not attracted to the "I want to make a plasma gun" side of engineering. I want to solve problems and design and build things. And I want the problems I solve to be actual problems, not some political bullshit or arbitrary crap decided by a judge or fuckshit brief submitted by some sociopathic, psychopathic, desperate, kleptomaniac weasel in a suit. And I don't want to assign people to read seven boxes of documents when I know that there is nothing in them of interest, only for the purpose of telling my client I had the best attorneys in the country spend two weeks of their lives reading all the meaningless poo poo contained in seven boxes of documents to guarantee that there is nothing in them of interest. Holy gently caress. quote:Honestly your career sounds very interesting and switching to engineering sounds like a significant step down, especially at the expense of four years of eng undergrad. Here's what this all boils down to. Yes, I have what looks like a successful career. But I hate it. It doesn't make me happy. And, big secret, I've never met a lawyer who I think is truly made happy by what they do. I have the opportunity to take a step back, and choose a pursuit, any pursuit, that I think will make me happiest. I don't care about money. I don't care about how old I am, or how much time it takes. I don't care that the work is hard - I can do hard work. I just want to do something that makes me happy. I think I will actually enjoy doing the work of an engineer, because it involves building things and solving actual problems. I can't be sure, but I'm willing to research it a lot before jumping and then give it a try. Martin Random fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 16:23
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Well, if you do get an engineering degree and don't like it you can always fall back to being a patent lawyer. Figure out what engineering interests you and start reading some tech journals. It might be pretty rough reading and you'll probably have to look a lot of stuff up, but it'll give you an idea of what is going on in any particular field.
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Mar 1, 2011 17:16
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One thing being a lawyer has probably prepared you for is insane amounts of work. The best engineering schools are no joke and many programs and professors actively weed students out during freshman and sophomore years. I second the suggestion for reading journals. Pick up a copy of the ASME, IEEE, AIChE, etc, journals and see what new things are being developed and talked about.
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Mar 1, 2011 17:27
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Here's a question for Martin Random: do you already build anything as a hobby? Do you like working on cars or computers or guns or model rockets or anything else tangentially related to engineering? Most of the successful engineers I know were interested in their subject before they ever went to school for it.
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Mar 1, 2011 18:47
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plester1 posted:Here's a question for Martin Random: do you already build anything as a hobby? Do you like working on cars or computers or guns or model rockets or anything else tangentially related to engineering? I'm digging through my memory banks. I never got that mentor guy, you know, with the tools, or the know-how, to really help me as a kid. I don't really build stuff with my hands, but I think about building stuff. As a kid, any appliances with a motor were fair game in my house for disassembly, and, usually, successful reassembly. When I walk into a building where there's something interesting going on, I'm not staring at it. I'm staring at the ceiling, looking at the light fixtures, at the piping, at the beams, and basically peeling away the layers of the construction in my head, and following the beams with my mind down into the foundation. I was obsessed with ratios when I was very young. When I was four, I used some rocks and some rope to figure out the force multiplying effect of a pully, actually built one, and lifted some heavy poo poo. I figured out how to make electricity with a tiny AC motor when I was in 1st grade, all on my own, then built a really lovely fan run off of the power of a little crank motor I'd crank like crazy. I got in trouble at my last job because I climbed into an open elevator shaft with an elevator technician and checked out the machinery. One of the partners caught me crawling out of the open shaft and flipped his poo poo. Lawyers aren't supposed to do that! All in all, though, I'm not a gear head. I never spent a lot of time building complex things, working on hobby projects, or anything like that. I do spend a lot of time thinking about how to design things, random things, stupid things, like floorboards with hot water pipes running under them to heat them without using a pump, an unanchored, spherical, inline turbine that transfers energy from flowing water to the outside of the pipe via magnets, showerheads that can change settings with minimal pressure changes or disruption to flow, a car bumper that transfers collision energy into the road instead of backwards through the car, yet without launching the car off the ground by doing something crazy like launching the engine block into the air by a few feet (yes I know this would totally kill people), just... stupid, retarded poo poo like that. Just dumb poo poo. For hours. I always wanted to be an engineer, really. It was my first major in college. But I had one bad semester, a horrible math teacher from korea, and an advisor who looked at my C+ and said, "Yes, you were good at honors math in high school, but the are math people, and there are people who can't go further - calculus is a brick wall for those people. You should do something in the liberal arts." And I, being an idiot, went that route instead. You know what really set me apart from the other lawyers? Why I really didn't fit in? Because I was actually loving curious about my environment. If a door was buzzing or smoke was coming out of something, I'd stop and look at it. Oh, how eccentric he is, he's listening to the humming from the magnets in the fire door! God drat, gently caress, lawyers. Well that's more about me than anyone ever needs to know. Martin Random fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 19:19
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Martin Random posted:
Law school dropout looking at doing something similar (ideally in a few years, but circumstances may force my hand) and I can't reinforce this enough. Lawyers and law students are almost remarkably devoid of any kind of intellectual curiosity concerning the world around them. Edit: Not that I ever have or expect to be considered *especially* normal, but the law crowd is pretty exceptional on that front. Daico fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Mar 1, 2011 |
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Mar 1, 2011 19:54
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Hey all, I am studying engineering at the moment, leaning towards mechanical engineering but I am interested in all aspects of engineering really, I love to see how it all links together. I'm looking for some other things to learn that have some link to engineering or may help me understand other aspects of it. Stuff that I can learn on the side sorta thing. I've been thinking of seriously learning CAD or really learning a programming language for example, both things I should have some familiarity with I would expect. Just anything that would be useful or something maybe you wish you had of looked at before your first job but didn't think of. Anything really, cheers!
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Mar 1, 2011 22:48
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Martin Random posted:I think I will actually enjoy doing the work of an engineer, because it involves building things and solving actual problems. I can't be sure, but I'm willing to research it a lot before jumping and then give it a try. Maybe its the lawyer in you saying "research, research, research", but you don't have to become an engineer before you build things and solve problems. I suggest you start building all sorts of things to see what you like. In fact, SA has a DIY forum that can probably get you started. Wanna learn about mechanical engineering? Build your own CNC mill! Like electronics? Start turning microcontrollers into blinky boxes! What about biochemistry? Hell, I have a yeast lab in my basement!
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Mar 1, 2011 22:53
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You can do what I'm doing and turn on/off some pretty lights with logic gates. Goddamn I'm swamped with work right now. Electronics is something you might actually like as a hobby, there is plenty of stuff you can build. Microcontrollers are useful for a lot of things, what you need when you have knowledge is creativity. I built a ph-meter from scratch a few semesters ago and I knew basically nothing of electronics!
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Mar 1, 2011 23:12
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Martin Random posted:See, here's the problem with what you're saying: Know where you want to end up, by the way, there's no place to read about the places where you could end up, because the jobs are so varied and are often unreported. Tell me about it. Pretty much everyone I know went into to it blind more or less blind. Though most people seem to end up liking it, or at least not minding it.
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Mar 1, 2011 23:25
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I don't think this has been previouslly covered, but if someone was starting out (specifically in the UK) and has very few qualifications even at base level, does anyone know if there was a good route off the ground level. Or would it be advisable to re-do my GCSEs ( Maths, Science and English ) and then go into a BTEC or HNC/HND? As someone in full time working looking for a significant career change this seems to be my major stumbling block and nowhere I can tell can put it any other way that assuming I have half a degree falling out my rear end.
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Mar 1, 2011 23:46
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Martin Random: It's always nice (not to mention somewhat rare) to see an engineer who can write really well, I hope you leverage that skill somehow in whatever field you go into. Oh and if you like irony, you could go into software engineering and write law programs that extinguish the ranks of your prior profession!
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Mar 2, 2011 03:07
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Angrycel posted:Hey all, I am studying engineering at the moment, leaning towards mechanical engineering but I am interested in all aspects of engineering really, I love to see how it all links together. I'm looking for some other things to learn that have some link to engineering or may help me understand other aspects of it. Stuff that I can learn on the side sorta thing. I've been thinking of seriously learning CAD or really learning a programming language for example, both things I should have some familiarity with I would expect. Just anything that would be useful or something maybe you wish you had of looked at before your first job but didn't think of. Anything really, cheers! Machining is probably the single best related skill to have as a mechanical Engineer. It has paid big dividends for me in job prospects though I am still in college. For example I am taking dynamics but I may be getting a job as an actual mechanical Engineer, my second interview is Thursday. Even if I don't get it, I'd say even getting a second interview when I know the other candidates have BSMEs is pretty remarkable. If you are interested in programming, electro mechanical interfacing is something you can be good at fairly cheaply and do very very neat things with. Look into microcontroller packages like the Arduino or the NerdKit. You will need to learn some C programming but you will be able to interface the real world with computers. If you have never heard of microcontrollers and have no idea what they go, check out hackaday, sparkfun and adafruit for various info that they have on them. Lord Gaga fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Mar 2, 2011 |
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Mar 2, 2011 05:24
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Martin Random posted:You can do three things as a lawyer. Seriously, the profession boils down to three things. You can fight with people. Project Management Martin Random posted:You can become an expert in something complicated and arbitrary (yet essential) that very few people care about. Engineers that don't quit for management Martin Random posted:You can be a professional pessimist, researching and obsessing over pitfalls and traps. This pretty much describes design if you add in doing stuff as cheaply as possible Martin Random posted:
Most engineers don't have cool jobs. They fight for the cool jobs that do exist like the guests at a jerry springer taping. If you want a cool job making plasma guns just realise you're going to have to earn it. Having said that even a boring fairly routine engineering job offers some opportunity to use your creativity.
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Mar 3, 2011 13:56
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slorb posted:Most engineers don't have cool jobs. They fight for the cool jobs that do exist like the guests at a jerry springer taping. If you want a cool job making plasma guns just realise you're going to have to earn it.
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Mar 3, 2011 14:28
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grover posted:Even the supposed "cool" jobs end up being pretty mundane in practice. But it sounds impressive at parties! God drat it guys, you're sure not talking up the profession to any going-on-college students like me 
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Mar 3, 2011 14:37
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Dr. Goonstein posted:God drat it guys, you're sure not talking up the profession to any going-on-college students like me
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Mar 3, 2011 14:46
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I don't think I've posted in this thread, and since I'm sort of a BFC regular, I suppose I should: I graduated in 2004 from Purdue University with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. 3.4 GPA, minors in math and psychology. In Purdue's AAE program you can have a major and a minor area of study; mine were aerodynamics (major) and design (minor). I took a lot of aerodynamics classes, including high-level CFD and a lot of theoretical classes. Great stuff. Lot of math involved, which I'm very comfortable with. Once I graduated, I had trouble finding a job. I didn't co-op or get any internships (I tried for a number of co-ops but never got any; there were a lot of AAEs and the job market wasn't too good is my basic understanding). None of the big people (Boeing, Lockheed, Honeywell, NASA (which is local), etc... were interested in me. A lot of my friends were having similar problems; The people that got the jobs all had internships and co-ops under their belts, or 4.0 GPAs. I eventually got a job through a family friend designing HVAC equipment for heavy vehicles like busses, ambulances and fire trucks. There was wind tunnel testing involved, and I learned CAD (Cadkey and Solidworks). Some minor thermodynamics, but it was mostly things like product management and testing. It was a very small company and I was basically the one person involved from basic design sketches through the entire prototyping process, release to production, documentation, and post-release product changes. It was cool. The problem was, it was such a small company that they didn't want to pay well. I started at 26k, quickly increased to 30k, then 36k, finally after five and a half years I was making a little over 41k a year. Then I found my current job. I've been working at my new company for about three months now, started at 55k. I design hitches and my specific duty is desinging OEM hitches. I do a lot of Solidworks stuff still but my area is more post-initial-design but pre-design freeze. I've been involved in testing and computer simulation (FEA). It's more limited but still enjoyable. It's especially neat working on actual OEM automotive applications since the viewability is so high and it's very high volume. The equipment here is pretty awesome since we have to deal with such high thicknesses of materials (my previous job pretty much was just a warehouse / assembly location with some R/D equipment and testing facilities). I think I like the automotive business more because the end product is much more tangible. A lot of aerospace projects are 20-30 years in the making. Here, it's more like 2-3 years. Heck, at my previous job, a normal project would last about four months start to finish, which was quite nice. I was able to roll out some pretty nice projects once I figured out what I was doing. So basically I've got an AAE degree but I've been working as an ME for some time, specifically an automotive engineer. And I'm enjoying it alright. CornHolio fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Mar 3, 2011 |
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Mar 3, 2011 15:00
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Dr. Goonstein posted:God drat it guys, you're sure not talking up the profession to any going-on-college students like me Take Slorb's advice with a grain of salt. Seriously. Take as an example his equivocation of project management with trial work. I've done project management and I've done trial work, and let me tell you, they're not comparable. As a project manager, I've never hired private investigators to steal the household garbage of my team mates, follow them around at restaurants to overhear their conversation, or try to destroy their ability to fight back by freezing the assets they need to live for invented bullshit reasons. Trials are wars. Project management may involve conflict, but at the end of the day, you're on the same team, and not trying to destroy each other. The same holds true for his dim comparison of byzantine regulatory wizardry with actual problem solving on a project. His reply was pithy and discouraging, but seriously, even the little that I know about engineering, I can tell it was easy to write but way, way off. Grover is correct - if you like doing the work, you like doing the work. Grover posted:The less sexy jobs are often more fun because you have more autonomy than being a small cog in a big project. This is EXACTLY correct. Grover's got it going on. This is one parallel between the legal profession and engineering, and, well every other profession. The sexy jobs, the well advertised jobs, the "pipeline" jobs, tend to be dreadful yet prestigious. The weird poo poo you never heard of which doesn't sound impressive tends to have a better chance of being awesome.
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Mar 3, 2011 15:57
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