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Junior-year Mechanical Engineer. I get to build robots here: http://www.me.vt.edu/romela/RoMeLa/RoMeLa.html It's pretty awesome in between studying for one of five tests I have in a 10-day time span. However, I did my internship at a Fire Protection Engineering company, which had me talking to construction workers, architects and fire marshals, reading up on building and fire codes, working with AutoCAD on building plans, and going to all kinds of jobsites (The coolest was watching a smoke test of a prison cell block. Filled up the whole area with smoke, then let a series of huge fans rip to clear it out quickly. Most job-sites were construction/renovation sites. Office buildings, schools, government facilities.) The only math I used was the Pythagorean theorem.
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Oct 2, 2009 13:40
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DerDestroyer posted:EDIT: That being said this is purely written from an aerospace engineering perspective in Canada where we don't really have a demand for that sort of thing. In the United States it could be totally different. In the US, Engineering is one of the most sought after majors. I don't know why Canada would be much different. All the engineers currently in industry are retiring and young engineers are being rapidly promoted. The guy who interviewed me for an internship last spring was no more than three years out of college at most and already in charge of programs. Also, at the recent job fair on campus, the Westinghouse booth told me they were looking for nuclear engineers (as well as mechanical, electrical, etc) like mad due to the retiring of all the older engineers and the upcoming boom in nuclear plant construction.
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Oct 7, 2009 19:38
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Here at VT (for Mechanical Engineers and most others) it's Calc I Linear Algebra Calc II Vector Geometry Multivariable Calc (Calc III) Diff. Eq. Statistics For CS, EEs and Aerospace(I think) they have a few more required which I don't remember. My System Dynamics class is pretty much "Let's solve Diff. Eq. problems using a method totally different from your pure math classes that is more real-world applicable" so it sort of counts, but its an engineering course, not a math one.
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Oct 30, 2009 08:30
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Nihilanthic posted:Confused student to be waiting on the January start at my CC for the AA (or first two years, whatever) - and I have some questions. You say that you don't care about the pipes and steam and crap, but if you want to work with engines, then thermodynamics and fluid mechanics will be the two most important classes you will take. Sure looking up values in steam tables suck in thermo, but at the end of it, you can easily take a tech elective or twelve about all the engines you want. It's all very related and really loving cool (even if HVAC is kinda boring) Good luck with the AA-route. You can usually cut some BS out of a degree by doing the basics (calc, chem, physics, etc) at one so when you transfer to a big engineering program you get put right into the cooler classes. Not sure about AAs, but at regular engineering schools, there will be at least one job-fair per semester where companies pay crazy amounts of money to set a booth up at your school for a day. Talking to professors and volunteering for projects/research is also a good in.
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Nov 4, 2009 07:34
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huhu posted:I need some help with my mechanical engineering woes and I feel like in the next week or two I'm going to get ball rolling in the right direction but I'd just like any extra help from the engineering community at large. How do you guys deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed at times? I really don't have any engineering friends right now but I'm trying to work on that so I feel like that might be one outlet. PS I'm in my fourth semester of engineering and have been making good progress so it's not like I'm being overwhelmed by Calculus 2 or something like that. Time-management is key. Make a schedule with everything you gotta do in the next few days and stick to it. I just had a week with 4 tests on top of the usual homework load. Did everything piece by piece and I didn't die at the end  Having friends in your classes that you can bitch with and help each other out with homework is extremely useful.Go to your TA's office hours as usually they're just grad students who'll pretty much show you how to exactly do something. Find something to do outside of engineering classes! Join a club or exercise or something and get your mind off for an hour at least.
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Mar 2, 2010 07:14
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Stinkyhead posted:Is it considered very necessary to take calculus in high school if one aspires to go into engineering? I didn't and it really hasn't affected me. If you're a borderline in or out case for admissions obviously taking calculus is a huge plus, but once you're in chances are you'll just take the intro calc classes again anyway (and even if you don't have to you probably should).
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Aug 17, 2010 19:21
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Scionix posted:
Get your rear end into some professor's lab and start volunteering. I literally just walked into a robotics lab here 3 years ago and now I can claim "Undergraduate Researcher - 2 Years" on my resume (and it got me into the lab's very competitive senior design project for this year). You can bet your degree that recruiters will ask you about that kind of stuff in the fairs and in interviews. Many of the questions in a couple full time job interviews I had just last week I was able to answer based on my experience from volunteering in the labs. Everything from technical stuff to people skills and teamwork. It really helps a lot when I can point at a robot that was on the cover of popular science and tell the guy "I worked on that and can tell you all about what I've learned" rather than just say I took XYZ classes that 300 other dudes in my year also took.
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Sep 22, 2010 06:36
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AnomalousBoners posted:My school offers three senior year mech E class choices, is any employer going to care which I choose? Any reason to choose one over the other? How does an ME program not require you to take Thermo, Fluids, Deforms, etc in the first place? My senior year is pretty much all lab work and application-type courses. Sophomore and Junior year was when I did the nitty gritty stuff like endless amounts of thermo problems. e: I guess if I had to choose it'd be A because a lot of employers looking for MEs want someone who understands pumps/heat/energy because pretty much everything that requires energy will require an ME designing something along those lines. But then you don't have a materials course that helps you decide what material to use or a deforms course to make sure you know how to calculate the material's breaking point.... weird. Frinkahedron fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Oct 6, 2010 |
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Oct 6, 2010 16:14
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Globofglob posted:I'm having trouble deciding what major to pick when I go to college. I've narrowed it down to mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and biomedical engineering. Do mechanical engineering for undergrad and do biomedical engineering in grad school. Maybe take biomedical tech electives if you can for undergrad, but I wouldn't specialize so much right up front.
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Oct 22, 2010 05:00
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Apple2o posted:What engineering degree would have me NOT working in a cubicle? Schlumberger was looking hard on my campus to send people to work on oil rigs or fields for a few years. I'd say for your best shot at doing something outside a cubicle, Mechanical or Civil engineering are your safest bets. I'm mechanical and I ended up at an internship doing fire protection engineering work that had me on construction sites for half the work week, so the work is out there. Friends of mine are working in rail depots and robotics labs (which is what I'm doing in my senior year). Usually, younger engineers will be the ones outside doing the dirty work before being promoted indoors to run everything after a few years.
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Jan 3, 2011 06:32
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thenickmix posted:Any of you students or recent grads care to share your resumes? I'm a sophomore CmpE starting to hunt for a summer internship and feel like I have nothing to put on my resume. My only work experience are two meaningless work-study jobs (one from freshman year as a Chem Lab Assistant and the one I'm currently doing at the Library Circulation Desk) that I only work 6 hours a week for. That Chem Lab assistant job could be a really good thing to put on a resume. It shows that some professor trusted you with (probably) expensive equipment and some degree of responsibility. I'd hammer on that one a lot, Employers like to see work outside of the classroom, especially as a sophomore. They know that you probably don't have much "real world" work experience yet.
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Jan 5, 2011 22:23
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Flyboy925 posted:I am going back to school for chemical engineering and wiil be graduating in about 3 years. I have to retake some classes that didn't transfer. I am looking forward to after I graduate, and the job scene, but wondering where I can find info on the anticipated demand for Chemical engineers, especially in the Anchorage and Greater Seattle Area. I would think that the Refineries in the Anacortes area of the Puget Sound would be a great area to look for ChemE jobs, but couldn't really find any openings , or listings for that area. Going by my dad's work in the oil business as a chemE, he's always been "based" in an office somewhere and occasionally flies out to oversee a new process or startup or something. There's probably some jobs for chemE's at the refineries, but most are probably desk-type jobs at whatever research and development headquarters the company has.
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Jan 9, 2011 09:05
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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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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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If you're still taking calc classes, you still have the meat of your engineering classes to go. For full time stuff, they'll only really care about your in major GPA, which you probably still have to build up.
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Mar 23, 2011 21:15
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Anyone looking for full time in the systems/mechanical/structural/naval/test engineering fields, General Dynamics Electric Boat is literally hiring 300 entry level engineers this year, just flew up yesterday and back today for an interview.
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Mar 26, 2011 01:59
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Plinkey posted:I interviewed with them ~5 years ago when I graduated...and their facility was the most depressing place I've ever seen. I think about 30% of all offices/cubes were empty, looked neglected and hadn't been updated since the 60s. Is it any different now? I assume this is the Groton facility? Yeah, groton. The building I interviewed in was one of those old ones, but it was completely full and busy. They just bought the old Pfizer hq across the river and are gonna be moving offices into there and out of some of the old buildings, so those are improving (albeit slowly).
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Mar 26, 2011 15:28
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I'd say mechanical is a little above electrical, but both of those fields will probably have the widest array of jobs that are available to you.
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Mar 26, 2011 20:26
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I know two people who did/are doing the ME+EE route. The guy who finished his did it in 4 years and had a large amount of job offers before graduation. The other is probably going to continue onto grad school. Both double majored, didn't do a minor.
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Mar 31, 2011 15:00
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I have a 2.8 and I'm going to be starting grad school as a fully funded GRA this summer because I spent more time doing projects and undergraduate research than homework  (This semester I'm getting a 4.0 though, because all my grades are in classes that are 90% project work. Yay!)
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Apr 7, 2011 16:10
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Cannister posted:Anybody know about good places for a Computer Engineer to work in Massachusetts, Southern NH, or Northern CT? I've gotten nothing but radio silence from Intel for a week now and I want to keep looking. Looking to stay in Digital Design. Dunno how much computer engineering is done on for a submarine, but General Dynamics Electric Boat in Groton, CT is literally hiring hundreds of entry level engineers, maybe look in their posted listings. The three of us who interviewed with them on my senior design team all got job offers (we're all MEs though). (But I'm staying in grad school  )
Frinkahedron fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Apr 15, 2011 |
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Apr 15, 2011 04:42
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If you're into control theory, you can definitely do that as an ME. We have entry level up to graduate level courses in controls in our ME department.
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Apr 21, 2011 05:26
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huhu posted:My semester GPAs go 2.7 1.2 2.4 2.6 3.0 and this semester I'm looking at a 3.5. I have no real chance of getting a 3.0 overall or something similar to what a lot of places seem to be asking for. Is there any suggestion to show my improvement? Looks like you're a junior. What's your in major gpa look like? Use that instead and try and get in some lab work on the side you can fit into your resume. I have a sub 3.0 gpa and I turned down two job offers to continue as a fully funded grad student next year. I had 2 years of internship experience and 3 years of lab experience before I even started my senior design this year. It really helps to have actual things to talk about in an interview when you've been doing it for years already. Look into undergraduate research credit if your school offers it. It's an easy A (usually) and is more like real engineering than a lot of my classes. My volunteer work in the lab had me doing everything from CNC machining and programming to CAD to vision processing and lots of stuff in between.
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Apr 24, 2011 04:58
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All I had entering as a freshman was Trigonometry. First calculus was first day of class in college  I did well on my SATs and I had ok math grades in high school, so they didn't think I was unqualified to start with all the other freshmen who had calc already. We all got killed anyway on the first test.Got a C, C+, and B+ in Calc I,II and III, respectively. I've probably done 10 things of actual calculus since then (not including watching the professor derive a much easier to use formula for a class using calc). I start graduate school in two weeks
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May 9, 2011 19:18
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A big thing is to ask lots of questions (within reason, don't start fishing for something if you totally cannot think of something relevant) but an intern candidate who is curious and asks questions about working there will always be liked more than the guy who just answers questions and sits there.
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May 20, 2011 17:58
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Passed the EIT  Yeah something like 98% of all ME grads from Virginia Tech pass it on their first try, I know. The worst part about the test was the drive in complete fog on I-81 at 6AM. Still happy I wasn't one of those 2%.
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May 22, 2011 01:07
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Heli0s posted:Not quite sure if this belongs in college advice or here, but I've read most of this thread and there's been tons of great advice so here goes. If you aren't required to take a writing intensive class, take one (Technical Writing should be offered by your English dept). Knowing how to communicate is absolutely essential. Use the career center that you probably have on campus. They'll help you with resumes and interviews and its likely free. As a mechanical engineer, Wolfram Alpha is your friend. Always have a pencil and paper with you. Go to class. You won't use much calc after you get out of the calc only classes, but its good to know for understanding how some formulas are derived. If you aren't interested in being super ahead, I suggest retaking Calc from the beginning. A lot of people I know took Calc in high school and still retook it in college just because it was either an easy A and a good refresher or they realized they didn't learn poo poo in high school. Also, use your professor's office hours. I really wish I went more often. If you can, start volunteering in labs that do research that interests you early. Its a great connection maker for getting a letter of recommendation from a professor later and you get to do cool stuff outside of classwork. If you find you're into more research stuff, its a great path into grad school. (Which is what I ended up doing.)
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May 27, 2011 03:56
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I was a student club officer for 3 years and its one of the things I always talked about in interviews when they asked about teamwork/personnel management/"how do you solve an argument between two people" sort of questions. It's always good to be in a club unrelated to engineering to show you're a real life person and not a bookworm who can't talk to people outside of the lab. (In my case, I was a photographer for my student paper.)
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May 27, 2011 16:37
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You may have to take a materials science course, but that's so far removed from basic chemistry you just really need to be able to look up definitions if needed.
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Jun 1, 2011 04:33
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Wickerman posted:I'm currently a Chemistry undergrad student at Ohio State thinking about switching majors to Mining and Minerals Engineering. Unfortunately, OSU doesn't have a Mining and Minerals Engineering Program. VT is very good about answering transfer credit questions, I suggest contacting the Mining department and getting in touch with whoever is in charge of student class registration. The ME department person in charge was very good about letting you know what you needed and I can't imagine Mining is any different.
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Jun 25, 2011 17:49
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Ask lots of questions, no one will expect you to come in knowing how to do anything anyway.
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Jul 15, 2011 05:15
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Dead Pressed posted:I just graduated from VT's MinE program in May. To add to this, I did the University Studies -> Transfer into Engineering route (Mechanical), so if you have questions about that I'll be around.
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Jul 24, 2011 20:37
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Rhaegak posted:Awesome, thanks. Sent him an e-mail with a few questions. So my main thing is preparing myself so I can get accepted, and since I have plenty of time to get whatever I can out of the way I'd rather do it now rather then waste more time when I get out. At tech you apply to the university for admission directly into the college of engineering. If they decide your grades aren't good enough for engineering but are good enough for university studies, they'll put you in there instead. After your freshman year you'll transfer into the specific department you want to study (Mining, mechanical, whatever).
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Jul 25, 2011 20:47
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UZR IS BULLSHIT posted:There's no longer any reason whatsoever to spend money on a graphing calculator. At home you can use WolframAlpha, or Mathematica if your school has a student license set up, which is leagues above anything a handheld calculator can do. If you need a fancy calculator to pass a test, you don't actually understand the material, and will probably bomb the test anyway. I'd still be taking dynamics tests if I couldn't use the simultaneous equation solver on my ti89.
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Aug 23, 2011 21:17
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MrBlandAverage posted:I want to go to grad school. I feel like my BSEE gave me a good background in everything, but feeling stagnant at my current job has me thinking that I'd really like to go more in depth on the topics I'm interested in - modeling & embedded controls for electric machines. I have three years of work experience in this area. This was my situation heading into grad school. I was lucky enough to want to go to the same school as my undergrad, so I was able to do undergrad research and get to know the professor I wanted to work under. When the time came, he pledged his support to the admin/admissions people. I have to take a semester of classes part time to "prove" that I can handle graduate work and then I can get accepted full time. I'm still getting paid as a GRA and everything so in the long run its not a giant hurdle, just extra steps.
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Aug 28, 2011 02:15
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Keep an eye out on your department listserv and definitely ask your professors before/after class. I guarantee they'll be helpful. Professors are always looking for Also if aerospace has a student professional organization like ASME, hit up their meetings. fake edit: Although since it's 3 days after the start of the semester, it might be too late to do research for credit by now. Still, ask your professors. You might still be able to start a project that you can list on your resume.
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Aug 28, 2011 04:05
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plester1 posted:Everyone I've ever talked to in both the academic and professional worlds says don't get suckered into paying for your own master's degree. Any company will pay for it if its relevant to your professional advancement. Alternatively, if you're going the academic route, you should get funding through your adviser or department to pay for school as a GRA or GTA. I'm getting tuition and a stipend to do research.
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Oct 19, 2011 14:58
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You'll have trouble working anywhere that requires security clearances, but a chemical engineer can work pretty much anywhere.
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Nov 9, 2011 17:14
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Echoing Dead Pressed above. The engineering department at Virginia Tech has their biggest engineering recruiting fair in September. I had a job offer in October as well that I ended up turning down, but it's never really too early.
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Nov 13, 2011 21:40
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Lord Gaga posted:Does anyone with a Mech E even get a P.E.? The only ones I know are professors. I interned at a fire protection consulting firm which requires PEs (eventually) if you worked there full time. Most were ME grads but the PE was for Fire Protection Engineering. So, sort of.
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Nov 22, 2011 02:36
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