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SubCrid TC posted:It's a neat organization in concept, but not that much of it involves stuff like designing water pumps and building things. Weird, every single chapter I looked up around the Bay Area (by all means, not all of them, just the three near me) are all doing things like you said. SCU chapter is literally building water pumps & infrastructure for a small rural area in Honduras. Small sample size? Or maybe the area you are in will play a big part as to what they are doing?
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Nov 24, 2014 21:53
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I've been wondering if going for a PE license would be worth my while. My main reservation is that my ultimate career goal is to get into robotics (or something where I can be involved in real technological progress), yet the job listings I've seen that want PEs have mostly been in architecture, civil engineering, and infrastructure type stuff. How beneficial would a PE license be for working with robots and other complex machines?
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Nov 30, 2014 00:18
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Not really useful. Getting a MSc would be way more beneficial. Robotics is a pretty popular choice so spending a few years in a university robotics group doing stuff with the advisor is huge.
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Nov 30, 2014 03:45
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Uncle Jam posted:Not really useful. Getting a MSc would be way more beneficial. Robotics is a pretty popular choice so spending a few years in a university robotics group doing stuff with the advisor is huge. I agree with this. P.E.s also have their place on ride systems (think Disney World) or Aerospace but for the most part a master's degree with a little experience places you at a level 2 or 3 of 5 at most companies. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Nov 30, 2014 |
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Nov 30, 2014 04:57
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There is no reason to get a PE unless you actually need to stamp stuff and have work paying for your continuing education and so forth. There is also no reason to not take the FE exam - you can take the PE any time in the future after you've passed the first one.
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Nov 30, 2014 07:14
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Cockmaster posted:I've been wondering if going for a PE license would be worth my while. My main reservation is that my ultimate career goal is to get into robotics (or something where I can be involved in real technological progress), yet the job listings I've seen that want PEs have mostly been in architecture, civil engineering, and infrastructure type stuff. How beneficial would a PE license be for working with robots and other complex machines? Other people have it right, it's also useful for things like civil engineering or infrastructure design in which you have to signoff on things like building or electrical plans on a a regular basis. A lot of places I interviewed at as fresh out engineer didn't even know about Engineer in training or the whole PE thing.
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Nov 30, 2014 18:45
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I'll take the FE just because I already have the prep material and reference book from my girlfriend, but I don't expect I'll ever attempt the PE. I can't imagine it'll make much of a difference for a CS/CpE, but why not if I already have the material and it's not much extra to prepare for?
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Nov 30, 2014 19:25
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The FE's nice to have in your back pocket, just in case you ever do decide you want the PE later on, even if you're 100% covered by the industrial exemption in your current field -- besides stamping drawings, the PE is also required if you want to start your own engineering services firm, become a consultant, or testify in court as an expert witness.
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Nov 30, 2014 19:54
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:I'll take the FE just because I already have the prep material and reference book from my girlfriend, but I don't expect I'll ever attempt the PE. I can't imagine it'll make much of a difference for a CS/CpE, but why not if I already have the material and it's not much extra to prepare for? It's been many years since I took it but it tends to be more biased towards the ME side of the things e.g lots dynamics/statics type problems.
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Nov 30, 2014 20:11
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CarForumPoster posted:P.E.s | Aerospace I don't think PEs matter in aerospace. I interned at a major aerospace factory over the summer and not a single engineer that I met at a ~7000 person facility had a PE license.
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Nov 30, 2014 21:23
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etalian posted:It's been many years since I took it but it tends to be more biased towards the ME side of the things e.g lots dynamics/statics type problems.
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Nov 30, 2014 22:04
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KetTarma posted:I don't think PEs matter in aerospace. I interned at a major aerospace factory over the summer and not a single engineer that I met at a ~7000 person facility had a PE license. Yeah despite all the blurbs on being useful for consulting it's only really useful for civil engineering.
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Nov 30, 2014 22:08
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KetTarma posted:I don't think PEs matter in aerospace. I interned at a major aerospace factory over the summer and not a single engineer that I met at a ~7000 person facility had a PE license. I work at a large aerospace company. The only person I know with a PE got it so that he could sign the blueprints for the indoor pool addition he designed for his house.
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Nov 30, 2014 22:18
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:I'll take the FE just because I already have the prep material and reference book from my girlfriend, but I don't expect I'll ever attempt the PE. I can't imagine it'll make much of a difference for a CS/CpE, but why not if I already have the material and it's not much extra to prepare for? I'm a CMPE, I've never heard anyone even talk about the FE/PE in this field. The only reason I know about it is from my brother in law who is a higher up Civil Engineer. Unless you really like taking tests I don't think you'll get much out of the FE besides a piece of paper.
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Dec 1, 2014 02:11
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etalian posted:Yeah despite all the blurbs on being useful for consulting it's only really useful for civil engineering. I'm an EE/CompE and do consulting for a really small firm and it is a great competency trigger for any prospective clients. Granted, they're likely hiring you based on your rep and connections (this is true in any industry) but it helps and was worth sitting for before I lost like 80% of my lesser-used EE knowledge.
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Dec 1, 2014 02:15
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The most important reason to get your PE is so that you can trump the fire marshal.
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Dec 1, 2014 02:45
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if you end up in a place where you can get the signatures and get a P.E. it definitely doesn't hurt, at the very least when you retire you can still pull a salary for a few months a year by stamping off on things
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Dec 1, 2014 02:46
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I'm a senior undergrad ME student, and I graduate in May. I applied for a job at an engineering design firm in California. I'm out of state (Tennessee) and since there are a lot of MEs in California I'll be competing with, I want to make sure I'm as competitive as possible. I applied right before Thanksgiving, got a phone interview completed earlier this week, and took the BMCT they sent me and did well. They want to schedule a Skype interview with their engineering staff later this month, so it seems I am doing fairly well! One of the desired employee traits is the ability to apply ASME y14.5 1994 GD&T standards in designs. I think it would be a good move to try and get this certification before I graduate, possibly this winter if I really devote me time to it. Any suggestions / study material I should check out from those who have taken this cert before? I know ASME has a book on their website. Wish they could cut a deal for students, it's $175. Bleh!
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Dec 11, 2014 17:47
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Former mechanical engineer here, that somehow got roped into embedded systems and ended up doing a masters in mechatronics. I haven't done any actual ME work in 6 years, but my next project is going to involve me working with our mechanical team while simultaneously designing the controller and embedded components. I sold off all my old textbooks, so can someone point me to good resources to brush up on machine design basics?
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Dec 11, 2014 18:49
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Have you tried checking MIT's open courses? http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanical-engineering/2-72-elements-of-mechanical-design-spring-2009/
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Dec 11, 2014 18:55
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Thank you!
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Dec 11, 2014 19:05
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Party Alarm posted:I'm a senior undergrad ME student, and I graduate in May. I applied for a job at an engineering design firm in California. I'm out of state (Tennessee) and since there are a lot of MEs in California I'll be competing with, I want to make sure I'm as competitive as possible. There are tons of blueprint reading and making books that will teach you about GD&T. I dont havce a suggested good one. Also the proportion of jobs that say they want someone familiar with GD&T to those that actually use it beyond very very basic call outs is about 20:1 from what I've seen. If the job is in designing measuring equipment or gages that is where it will be used frequently. Also I moved to a tech industry job in Silicon Valley 2 weeks after graduating from a college in Florida. Stanford, Berkley, CalPoly cant put out enough engineers for this place to hire them all.
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Dec 11, 2014 19:34
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CarForumPoster posted:There are tons of blueprint reading and making books that will teach you about GD&T. I dont havce a suggested good one. Also the proportion of jobs that say they want someone familiar with GD&T to those that actually use it beyond very very basic call outs is about 20:1 from what I've seen. If the job is in designing measuring equipment or gages that is where it will be used frequently. 20:1 sounds a bit high to me. I would expect to see pretty serious GD&T use in any field where it's important to get stuff to fit together (aerospace, defense, automotive, etc), not just measuring equipment. For what it's worth, I rarely encounter drawings at my office (defense contractor) that don't have datums and geometric tolerances all over them. I don't know anything about the ASME GD&T certification but it would probably impress me if I saw it on a student's resume and I would recommend pursuing it, especially if GD&T wasn't part of your undergrad curriculum (my university never touched on it). It's an exceptionally dull subject but an important one for mechanical designers.
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Dec 12, 2014 04:18
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CarForumPoster posted:There are tons of blueprint reading and making books that will teach you about GD&T. I dont havce a suggested good one. Also the proportion of jobs that say they want someone familiar with GD&T to those that actually use it beyond very very basic call outs is about 20:1 from what I've seen. If the job is in designing measuring equipment or gages that is where it will be used frequently. Isn't that only true for CompSci or CompE?
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Dec 12, 2014 04:22
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Shipon posted:Isn't that only true for CompSci or CompE? Anyone that builds a physical product (that includes Facebook, Apple and Google) will have mechanical engineers. Well. They can contract it out. But thats still a job that would be in northern california.
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Dec 12, 2014 04:35
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Have any of you worked as a field service engineer? The idea of traveling to work sites and diagnosing/fixing things and doing technical hands-on work seems appealing to someone who probably should have just gone to technical school and studied welding or automotive work or something but instead got a bachelor's and a master's in engineering (engineering physics and materials science & engineering, respectively.) My main concern is that my resume may make me look somewhat overqualified for a job that only requires an associate's degree in an engineering field, but what's the worst that could happen, they don't call me back for an interview? Is taking a job like this for a few years going to make it harder to eventually move into a more traditional engineering job, should I decide that's what I want to do?
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Dec 14, 2014 20:51
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It's a technician job. See also: field service technician I have a ton of friends that do this and none of them have anything beyond highschool diplomas. Most of their work involves traveling somewhere, taking something apart, cleaning it, putting it back together, verifying it's working, then moving on to the next one. The pay is generally pretty decent, 50-80k depending on experience, how much travel, how technical, how far, etc. I'd say that most of my friends travel between 50-75% with the smallest area of responsibility being within a state and the largest area of responsibility being "entire west coast and Japan"
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Dec 14, 2014 21:43
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There are also test engineer jobs that are similar, except less diagnosing problems and more doing a lot of what will probably be similar tests and writing a lot of reports. The advantage that has over field technician, for example, is that it can require a lot more engineering knowledge and understanding to do the tests and write the reports. vvv and we're hiring for this exact position. See you around the office? Good luck 
totalnewbie fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 02:22
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totalnewbie posted:There are also test engineer jobs that are similar, except less diagnosing problems and more doing a lot of what will probably be similar tests and writing a lot of reports. The advantage that has over field technician, for example, is that it can require a lot more engineering knowledge and understanding to do the tests and write the reports. I am interviewing for exactly this right now.
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Dec 15, 2014 03:40
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A part of my job is troubleshooting process columns and other things which can mean a lot of travelling. Which is, I guess, kind of like field service but for chemical engineers. You need experience and specialist knowledge to do it though. If it's something you want to do then a graduate job at a process licensor, package supplier or a company like tracerco is where you want to be. Basically a company which does troubleshooting or commissioning fairly often.
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Dec 15, 2014 07:10
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I graduated ChemE but ended up getting hired as a "technical product support engineer" at a semiconductor tool supplier. I'm basically traveling 75% of the time, spending a lot of time in fabs supporting all sorts of customer activity (tool installs, upgrades, troubleshooting failures, etc). I've been to many different (Asian) countries which was kinda cool. It's a ton of travel, which can wear on you very quickly. It really depends on how you handle being alone in an unfamiliar environment. It also depends on where you get sent out, since some places are much cooler to be in than others, obviously. Semiconductor fabs tend to be in "middle of nowhere" types of places though 
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Dec 15, 2014 07:17
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canoshiz posted:I graduated ChemE but ended up getting hired as a "technical product support engineer" at a semiconductor tool supplier. I'm basically traveling 75% of the time, spending a lot of time in fabs supporting all sorts of customer activity (tool installs, upgrades, troubleshooting failures, etc). I've been to many different (Asian) countries which was kinda cool. Did you stop at a BS or did you go onto a Master's? I'm a junior in ChemE right now and that's the field I want to go into.
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Dec 15, 2014 08:33
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Diabetes By Sundown posted:Have any of you worked as a field service engineer? The idea of traveling to work sites and diagnosing/fixing things and doing technical hands-on work seems appealing to someone who probably should have just gone to technical school and studied welding or automotive work or something but instead got a bachelor's and a master's in engineering (engineering physics and materials science & engineering, respectively.) I've been working as a field engineer for an electrical testing and maintenance company for two years now and it's pretty boss in most aspects. I worked as a design electrical engineer (automation, power distribution, fire & gas, grounding, etc.) for a pipeline company for five years before this and I loving hated it. I make way more money now and the work is orders of magnitude more interesting. I can't speak to field service companies in general, but my employer at least seems to be pretty keen on hiring people with engineering degrees when they can entice them. There are certainly a lot of field service skills that you can teach to just about any monkey with half a brain, but when it comes to the more complex and/or large-scale jobs it really helps to have people who have high-level problem-solving, communication and organization skills -- skills that degreed engineers are more likely to possess. I haven't felt any desire to return to traditional engineering yet, but if I ever do decide to return I can't imagine my field engineering experience will do anything but help my prospects. I've learned way more about electrical systems in this job than I did when I was a design engineer, and on top of that I've been exposed to a massive variety of installations. I dunno that I'd even have to actively look, people from my office get poached on a pretty regular basis and I've already had a few customers offer me jobs. The only downside of field work is that it can be hell on your social life. A few of the guys in my office have managed to strike a good balance, but the majority of my coworkers have gone through at least one divorce, several of them multiple divorces. Most of my friendships are pretty casual and I don't think I've dated anyone longer than a couple of months, as it's really hard for me to maintain frequent and regular contact with people (my hours are often long and erratic, and I spend 3 - 6 months of the year away from home).
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Dec 15, 2014 09:22
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Shipon posted:Did you stop at a BS or did you go onto a Master's? I'm a junior in ChemE right now and that's the field I want to go into. Honestly, I've used exactly zero ChemE knowledge, and all you really need to break into this field is an associate's degree. We do have a process engineering counterpart and those people tend to have advanced degrees.
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Dec 15, 2014 17:21
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canoshiz posted:Honestly, I've used exactly zero ChemE knowledge, and all you really need to break into this field is an associate's degree. We do have a process engineering counterpart and those people tend to have advanced degrees. How's the pay? I'm slated to finish my associate's in 2016 (could cut it down if I drop some stuff I want to take that will transfer to my bachelor's) and this sounds like something I'd be interested in doing for a couple years to build up some cash to finish my bachelor's with, along with good job experience.
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Dec 15, 2014 22:14
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Hello Sailor posted:How's the pay? I'm slated to finish my associate's in 2016 (could cut it down if I drop some stuff I want to take that will transfer to my bachelor's) and this sounds like something I'd be interested in doing for a couple years to build up some cash to finish my bachelor's with, along with good job experience. I guess I should clarify. The guys with associate's degrees gathered up a decent amount of experience by working on the manufacturing floor before eventually switching over to a permanent role. The pay range for an entry level product support guy is along the lines of what KetTarma said (50-80k depending on experience and amount of travel). I believe we also use temp agencies like Adecco to provide us with contractors (who don't necessarily have the same level of experience) for loan labor at various sites, although I haven't gone this route so I'm not exactly sure on the details. These guys tend to get paid hourly, and for the amount of hours we end up putting in, they probably make more than I do as a permanent employee. They also get paid for their travel time as well, door to door 
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Dec 16, 2014 03:06
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Getting paid for Tavel time is pretty sweet, can recommend.
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Dec 16, 2014 19:01
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Looking for a little bit of advice regarding schools. I've got 2 semesters remaining for my associates before I transfer to a university to pursue aerospace engineering. The original plan was to move to San Diego and hit up UCSD, however my girl has the possibility of transferring with her work to either Seattle or Austin. Is it going to make that much of a difference with a degree from UT Austin when compared to UCSD or University of Washington?
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Dec 22, 2014 15:56
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Quite A Tool posted:Looking for a little bit of advice regarding schools. I've got 2 semesters remaining for my associates before I transfer to a university to pursue aerospace engineering. The original plan was to move to San Diego and hit up UCSD, however my girl has the possibility of transferring with her work to either Seattle or Austin. Probably not, although I'm speaking more about engineering in general than aeronautical engineering. Even still I kinda doubt it, at least on the BA level. Just make sure your Associates will transfer to your target schools alright.
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Dec 22, 2014 16:13
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Engineering goons, are any of you GE Edison EDP graduates? Am at half of the first course and kind of struggling with motivation.
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Dec 22, 2014 22:40
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