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huhu posted:Wondering what everyone thinks about this... The PC will only help you out, for the most part. The employers who see it as a detriment are not the kind of people you would want to work for anyway had you come right out of school. A good employer will look at everything you have to offer. Having more than one language under your belt is more than most can say and will take you far.
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Oct 2, 2012 06:54
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I'm involved in the recruitment processes for our Engineering department and I prefer to hire well rounded people (no I did'nae just call ye fat!) not just qualifications. The foundation of any business is it's people so any diverse attributes that could potentially enhance your CV and not only your work ethic but commitment to actively participating in a team environment would certainly have your application standing out at the early short listing stage and I would probably be keen to be involved in the interview. I would go for it.
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Oct 2, 2012 14:05
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Thanks for all your input. I've been trying to get as many opinions as I can about what people think of doing/not doing PC. Starting to lean towards going for it because when else will I get to live in Africa for 27 months? On to questions pertaining to present day... Anyone have any good resources for Automatic Control Systems, specifically Block/Signal diagrams regarding spring systems, circuits, and other systems? I've had it covered in two classes this semester and am pretty lost. Could use some better tutorials and explanations.
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Oct 2, 2012 15:34
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huhu posted:Thanks for all your input. I've been trying to get as many opinions as I can about what people think of doing/not doing PC. Starting to lean towards going for it because when else will I get to live in Africa for 27 months? You sound adventurous so I would say go for it. You can live in the suburbs with kids the rest of your life. Even just working in the suburbs is starting to feel like a grind after 3 years for me...
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Oct 2, 2012 15:39
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huhu posted:Thanks for all your input. I've been trying to get as many opinions as I can about what people think of doing/not doing PC. Starting to lean towards going for it because when else will I get to live in Africa for 27 months? Yeah go for it, sounds like excellent experience. As for controls: is this more specifically block diagrams for the laplace transforms of dynamic equations? I'll see if I can dig you up something useful over the course of the week, no promises though as it's been a while since I've had to do it raw 
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Oct 2, 2012 21:11
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boxorocks posted:Yeah go for it, sounds like excellent experience. Yeah it is. I just realized I could drop this class and graduate on time if I want but I've already committed a month. Might drop after first exam.
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Oct 3, 2012 20:06
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Does anyone know anything about Agricultural Engineering? My sister is considering switching to it from IE.
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Oct 4, 2012 03:21
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huhu posted:Yeah it is. I just realized I could drop this class and graduate on time if I want but I've already committed a month. Might drop after first exam. Don't drop your controls class. As one of my professors said, "This is where you learn how to make poo poo do poo poo. If you don't know controls, you're not an engineer, you're just a well educated technician."
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Oct 4, 2012 07:02
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huhu posted:Yeah it is. I just realized I could drop this class and graduate on time if I want but I've already committed a month. Might drop after first exam. I found this on one of the Australian university websites; its pretty good: http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/aeromech/AMME3500/Course_documents/material/lectures/block%20diagrams.pdf Have a read through that. It covers the nuts and bolts of block diagrams. Basically if you have a dynamic system (e.g. a spring + mass + dashpot) you convert that into the laplace transform and that is your system "plant" of H(s). Ultimately the goal of control systems is to get your control input U(s) to equal your system output Y(s) through feed forward, feedback or a hybrid of both. Obviously this the ideal solution for a single input, single output system notwithstanding things like rise time and settling time etc etc. It does get a little more complicated when you move to discrete linear time invariant systems but not overly so if they're still single input, single output. Eventually in your course you will cover how to do this by using techniques like Root Locus Design and Bode plots. It is a little maths intensive but its not too horrible if you get those laplace transforms down, plus you'll have a nifty tool for solving dynamic equations whilst people are still doing newtonian solutions, unless you move onto lagrangian mechanics which is pretty cool as well (you'll notice that as the tools get more abstract, the less working out you have to do to solve a problem; cool, huh?). I don't typically do the nitty gritty of controls theory in my job as most PLCs have nifty features like self tuning etc and almost all commercial DDCs don't actually have a regular sampling period so its hard to tighten the control parameters; but knowing your poo poo if you do controls does set you apart. It also means you can tear a mechanical consultant masquerading as a controls expert to shreds which is always funny. edit: also, my maths is rusty as gently caress because I used matlab for everything 
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Oct 4, 2012 11:06
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I have a question for any of you newer hires out there. When you took your first Engineering job out of college, what kind of paid time off did you get? According to a few websites the average in the US for new hires is ~10 days/yr.
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Oct 4, 2012 15:58
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SB35 posted:I have a question for any of you newer hires out there. When you took your first Engineering job out of college, what kind of paid time off did you get?
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Oct 4, 2012 21:58
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I'm five years out of college and I'm only getting 6 holidays, 5 vacation days and no sick days. 
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Oct 4, 2012 22:25
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Traitorous Leopard posted:Does anyone know anything about Agricultural Engineering? My sister is considering switching to it from IE. One of my best friends and roommates in college was an AgE. It seemed to be most similar to ME with courses specializing in agricultural applications. An actual AgE would have to comment on the overall usefulness of that specialization versus your average ME courses, but he now works at John Deere doing part design so I'm guessing he could have done the same job with an ME degree.
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Oct 4, 2012 22:27
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Noctone posted:I'm five years out of college and I'm only getting 6 holidays, 5 vacation days and no sick days. Holy poo poo. Where do you work?
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Oct 4, 2012 22:30
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Probably would be a bit uncouth to say specifically where, but it's a Berkshire Hathaway company. Technically I'm not even a direct employee, I work through a staffing agency. Upside is I get paid for overtime (at straight time rates though), downside is literally everything else. e: I used to get time and a half for overtime and I was supposed to get bumped up to 10 days vacation after a year and a half, but then the economy cratered and the company used it as an opportunity to crush our balls. Noctone fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Oct 4, 2012 |
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Oct 4, 2012 22:36
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Ah ok. Yeah, no need to say companies as that would be tactless. It does make a little more sense if you're a contracted labour though. We feel things contracting here economically in Australia so belts are tightening; and it didn't take a soothsayer to see it coming. I figured it was going this way for ages (over a year) based on news and what I had been following in the depression and eurozone d&d threads. For some reason though alot of middle and even upper management seem completely surprised that this is occurring. Although it could be a facade where they've tried to avoid panic as long as possible then suddenly go: todays word is redundancies! (but I doubt theyre that insidious; just incompetent).
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Oct 4, 2012 22:51
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D&D now has an engineering thread discussing the pros and cons of the profession: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3510238 It could probably use some more informed posters.
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Oct 4, 2012 23:05
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SB35 posted:I have a question for any of you newer hires out there. When you took your first Engineering job out of college, what kind of paid time off did you get? I get 15 days/year at the software company I work at.
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Oct 4, 2012 23:19
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SB35 posted:I have a question for any of you newer hires out there. When you took your first Engineering job out of college, what kind of paid time off did you get? Worked a big corporate gig for a year. 90 days after hiring, I got 14 vacation days, 3 Floating Holidays, 7 Company Holidays, 0 sick days. Just started with a new company. Small engineering firm (must more awesome job, my projects right now include exploring space, dredging up sea monsters, and curing cancer, and I'm only exaggerating a little), and I don't get a single vacation day until I'm 1 year in. I currently get 7 Company Holdays and 40 hours sick leave. After a year, I'll get 80 hour sick leave. It isn't too burdensome, even though I'm an exempt employee, if I work over 40 hours a week, I can bank anything over 40 as comp time, and take off later.
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Oct 5, 2012 01:35
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SB35 posted:I have a question for any of you newer hires out there. When you took your first Engineering job out of college, what kind of paid time off did you get? I had a 5 days vacation and 3 sick days (The place was terrible). Next job I got a 5 days vacation and 5 sick days. (Place is decent, but small companies tend to be a bit stingy, I think) SeaBass posted:Don't drop your controls class. As one of my professors said, "This is where you learn how to make poo poo do poo poo. If you don't know controls, you're not an engineer, you're just a well educated technician." Controls are neat but I think that's a bit much. Unless you are talking disciple specific and I overlooked it. In which case never mind. CCKeane fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Oct 5, 2012 |
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Oct 5, 2012 01:42
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Tekne posted:D&D now has an engineering thread discussing the pros and cons of the profession: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3510238 It could probably use some more informed posters.
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Oct 5, 2012 01:51
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Had a look at that thread; fwiw it's not so much a discussion on engineering pros and cons but more an attempt to draw conclusions about political ideology based on the profession (complete with anecdotal pissing contests of course). One could say "terrible people will have terrible political ideas regardless of profession". Edit: it's a pretty good troll though boxorocks fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Oct 5, 2012 |
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Oct 5, 2012 02:20
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The original post makes it seem broader and then almost everything following is politics. *sigh* On top of that, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of sincere posting in that thread, but all the angst (whether it's pretending or real deep hurting) is amusing to witness.
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Oct 5, 2012 06:37
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That D&D engineering thread is a giant turd. It reads like a bitcointalk forum thread. They should gas the thread and everyone in it.quote:You rated this thread '1'! Great job, go hog wild! In other news one of my clients paid for the whiskey tonight while discussing an innovative project, but I'm stuck working six days a week.
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Oct 5, 2012 08:09
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Oct 5, 2012 15:22
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Oct 5, 2012 15:26
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Hello US engineering goons, do you have a lot of foreigners working as your colleagues ? I'm just wondering how easy is it for a foreigner to work in the US, as an engineer.
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Oct 5, 2012 17:13
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dlink posted:Hello US engineering goons, do you have a lot of foreigners working as your colleagues ? I'm just wondering how easy is it for a foreigner to work in the US, as an engineer. My case may be not typical since I work for large international oil&gas company, which likes to move people around and it is very common to see foreigners working abroad. I am foreigner, working in Canada. Few my foreign friends work for the same company in US. When it comes to things like P.Eng. we have to rely on local guys of course, but bringing experienced expats for some of the positions vs hiring locals pays off, since expats know how company operates and they have an established network within the company already. Expats are usually more expensive, although North America is probably the only area where it is not necessarily true. Overall, I guess it depends on industry and company size. I doubt you will see many foreigners in small engineering company, especially if it has military contracts.
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Oct 5, 2012 19:55
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Hopefully you engineers can offer some tips for my vibrations homework. I tried asking in the physics thread about my last homework but I wasn't able to get helpful answers. My solution is basically split two systems where the spring and damper connect to the mass. Some issues though. 1) What would be the mass of the left half? The problem ignores the weight of the spring and damper. 2) How do I relate y2 to y1? 3) Anything else I might be missing and not realize it. I think I understand the control systems aspect of this question but I've never covered springs past pretty simple setups and I'm not sure how to go about solving these.  
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Oct 5, 2012 21:04
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I don't usually help people with their homework and it's also been a long time since I've done statics and dynamics. I'll give some hints as I can't remember how to complete this. Firstly look at the questions. Working on answering those as there are some specific hints. Once you have a differential equation that's (a) done. Something that might help is to write the equation out in full. Notice all those time based functions? The mass of the left half doesn't matter. The weight of the spring and damper doesn't matter. Don't try to solve things that you aren't asked to solve as these are engineering questions not science questions. Also, if you can get through this into higher level courses you'll get taught how to solve more complex problems. How does Y1(t) relate to Y2(t)? If there was no spring/damper and the hitch was a rigid connection then 0 = Y1(t) - Y2(t). That's your starting equation now add the spring/damper of the hitch to the equation somehow. Now look at question (b) which is where I got the inspiration for that equation, and consider how those state variables could help you. Now it's worth taking a look at your lecture notes as the problem should have been worked through. If not look at going to the same lecture with a different lecturer that actually works through example solution. If that is not possible you need to ask in tutorials. Don't forget about google either. If you're really stuck there are worked examples of RLC circuits in physics (if you search for differential equations, maybe even simple vibrations). Those circuits have an inductor and capacitor which work in a similar fashion to a spring and damper. Devian666 fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Oct 5, 2012 |
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Oct 5, 2012 22:54
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Tekne posted:D&D now has an engineering thread discussing the pros and cons of the profession: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3510238 It could probably use some more informed posters. This is an obvious troll thread as was pointed out multiple times in the first two pages.
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Oct 5, 2012 23:44
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2012 01:19
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dlink posted:Hello US engineering goons, do you have a lot of foreigners working as your colleagues ? I'm just wondering how easy is it for a foreigner to work in the US, as an engineer. I think that about half of my group was born in a foreign country when I worked as an engineer at a somewhat large company in Silicon Valley. Most of them got a masters in the US before getting a job here.
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Oct 6, 2012 03:01
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dlink posted:Hello US engineering goons, do you have a lot of foreigners working as your colleagues ? I'm just wondering how easy is it for a foreigner to work in the US, as an engineer. Might be a bit tougher if you need them to sponsor your visa, and especially if you're not here already. But there are certainly companies that need foreign engineers, particularly if you have language skills that are in need.
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Oct 6, 2012 05:00
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huhu posted:Hopefully you engineers can offer some tips for my vibrations homework. I tried asking in the physics thread about my last homework but I wasn't able to get helpful answers. 
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Oct 6, 2012 06:37
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mongeese posted:I think that about half of my group was born in a foreign country when I worked as an engineer at a somewhat large company in Silicon Valley. Most of them got a masters in the US before getting a job here. Hmmm, i'll consider post-graduate studies in the US then  SB35 posted:Might be a bit tougher if you need them to sponsor your visa, and especially if you're not here already. But there are certainly companies that need foreign engineers, particularly if you have language skills that are in need. Yeah i figured. Oh goooooood its so hard to move around
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Oct 6, 2012 06:54
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So I decided on going back to school this winter to study mechanical engineering, the problem is it's been 6 years since my last calc class and 7 since physics C in high school. Right now it looks like I'll be taking intro to differential equations, modern physics, statics, and some other stuff. I've got a book for engineering math that I've been using to refresh (any topics I should concentrate on other than the obvious?). What should I do about the physics? 'Cause I forgot drat near everything from back then.
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Oct 8, 2012 16:20
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stranger danger posted:So I decided on going back to school this winter to study mechanical engineering, the problem is it's been 6 years since my last calc class and 7 since physics C in high school. Right now it looks like I'll be taking intro to differential equations, modern physics, statics, and some other stuff. I've got a book for engineering math that I've been using to refresh (any topics I should concentrate on other than the obvious?). What should I do about the physics? 'Cause I forgot drat near everything from back then. Do you have the course descriptions? Here are my guesses: Modern Physics -probably "Phys 3", with Phys 1 being Newtonian Mechanics, and Phys 2 being E&M. You'll get sound, optics and waves, if Phys 2 didn't have them. Otherwise, I'd guess basic quantum mechanics, particle/wave duality, Bohr, etc. Personally I found Modern Physics really fun, and almost all conceptual (very basic math, if anything). Intro to Diff EQ - I didn't do so hot in Calc 2, but did great in Calc 3 (multi-variate). I probably would have liked DiffEQ more if that was the other way around This class will probably be your timesink, and should be; the things you learn here will probably be critical for Dynamic Systems / whatever MEs call their controls class.Statics - sigma F = 0, this should be a cakewalk. So honestly? For the physics, I'd go read some Feynman lectures just to get your head around some of the terms, or skim through any basic Phys 1 / Phys 2 textbook to get the formulas and concepts down. You need a solid base in that anyway as an engineer. No clue about the math though, sorry. It's probably the hardest subject to teach, because everyone learns it differently (memorize everything, do hundreds of problems, look at the concepts for 10 seconds and know everything*, etc) * - this guy is an rear end in a top hat
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Oct 8, 2012 17:58
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^^ Statics is not statistics  Modern Physics generally means Quantum Physics, though it probably won't get to actual "real" quantum physics until near the end of the semester. Takes a lot of background to build up to that point. Statics is THE basic fundamental mechanical engineering course. Cable tensions, moment of inertia, that sort of stuff. Lot of free body diagrams with forces and levers. It's also traditionally a huge weedout course, though if you can think like an engineer, it's not all that hard. The difference between statics and dynamics is that all the forces cancel out in statics, whereas they won't in dynamics, and you then have to add velocity and acceleration of different members into account. grover fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Oct 8, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 19:41
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stranger danger posted:So I decided on going back to school this winter to study mechanical engineering, the problem is it's been 6 years since my last calc class and 7 since physics C in high school. Right now it looks like I'll be taking intro to differential equations, modern physics, statics, and some other stuff. I've got a book for engineering math that I've been using to refresh (any topics I should concentrate on other than the obvious?). What should I do about the physics? 'Cause I forgot drat near everything from back then. First year papers are pretty much there to cover the last year of high school and add a bit more so everyone is on the same level. Physics you can pick up as you go and if you have a good physics book for the course it will also help a lot. I didn't even do physics at high school. I just did a summer paper in physics prior to going to university
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Oct 8, 2012 21:54
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