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huhu posted:Would anyone happen to have any idea why a professor would require only pen for homework? My mechanical properties of materials professor is doing this and it sucks. Excuse I've heard is so that students can't get their work back, erase it, and go to the prof asking for full marks because they had it right. Realistically though, thats a stupid reason. Just say only work done in pen will be able to have marking corrections made. I had a prof who wanted stuff done like this as well, I just wound up doing most of my work on whiteboards, and once it was done I'd copy it out all nicely.
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Sep 21, 2010 21:11
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ch3cooh posted:What do you do when sales lines moving 6 million cubic feet of gas per day star freezing up and the nearest methanol unit is 2 days away? Cardboard? Seriously polystyrene is cheap and you could build a square tube around that very easily. Throw in some silicone sealant and your good! .... Hope to hell my solar box works well over the next week or so. (we just finished building solar boxes for a 4th year mech project. Interior temperature must maintain whatever standard it is between 9am-7pm, with only 4 Dcell batteries, no PV's/fuel sources, etc. Fun times!)
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Nov 22, 2010 01:07
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ch3cooh posted:Polystyrene is indeed cheap and if I were within 2 hours of a store that sold it I would gladly buy some. Unfortunately we were limited to what we had in our pickups. Ah, you're out in the middle of nowhere, makes sense now.
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Nov 22, 2010 17:07
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Traitorous Leopard posted:Nothing. I checked out the clubs and other various activities on campus but none of it interested me. So, you eat, sleep, go to class, do homework, and nothing else? What are your accomplishments outside of class/workplace? Hobbies that have taken time/effort/dedication and have resulted in something cool can probably be listed in the place of school related extra-curriculars if you don't have any. Personally I'm listing my time as president of x club (not going to list, that + my av could give you my name :P) along with the restoration work I've been helping my dad with on his project car. (I want to work in the auto industry and I figure it shows interest)
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Dec 2, 2010 03:41
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:That "project club poo poo" is what you'll be doing for the rest of your life, so this is another reason to consider a different career path. Plus that project club stuff is fun. Its cool being in charge of everything, from running practice nights, to ordering equipment, to making sure everyone is following the safety rules, to organizing competition nights with other universities... Doesn't feel like work. Guess its my turn for a question: My marks aren't great (I don't know GPA, canada and at my uni we use %) but I have a fair bit of experience outside of engineering, i.e. clubs and whatnot. Also, my mark in project based courses (design projects) is a fair bit higher than my average. Aside from highlighting that in my cover letter, is there anything else I can do to get people to look past my transcript?
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Dec 2, 2010 15:36
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hobbesmaster posted:On a serious note, licensing is not require for most engineers and outside of construction and public sector type stuff (think utilities) its rare to see a PE. As far as licensing in general, you want your structural engineers licensed for the same reason your doctors licensed. Actually, its arguably more important for engineers as when a bridge collapses it generally takes out more than one person... Hmm? In ontario I don't think this is true... Professional Engineers Ontario posted:You require a license if: Basically if you're designing anything that will be used outside of a research lab, essentially. You need a degree from an accredited university, plus 4 years work experience, then you need to pass an ethics exam.
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Dec 6, 2010 02:02
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Thoguh posted:That's to be a PE. Most engineering disciplines don't care about getting your PE. I work in defense and while everybody went to an ABET school, nobody has their PE or any plans to pursue it. Ontario might be different then, as just about all engineers I know either have their PE or are working towards it. I know its anecdotal but that covers civil, a few mechs, a bunch of industrial guys...
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Dec 6, 2010 04:02
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I'm in Canada, and graduating with a MechEng degree this year. My marks aren't the best, but also not the worst. Anyone here who deals with hiring mind taking a look at my resume? I've sent out probably 30+ resume's and cover letters, and I haven't heard anything back, and I'm wondering if theres some glaring error on my resume that I'm missing. 
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Jan 28, 2011 04:05
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Thoguh posted:You're missing the point. What posters who have gone through Engineering degrees elsewhere are asking is how people can get through an extremely time consuming and intellectually intense course of study and be the "guys always at the pub". Nobody is questioning any Australian engineer's intelligence or anything, just wondering how the most demanding degree options can lead to having time to always be at the pub. Even if someone is excellent at managing their time, they're still going to have at most only a few nights open a week. And that would require being really disciplined about getting all your homework and studying done in the mornings/afternoons, and not having a part time job or being part of a university sports team or club. My experience here in Canada sounds a lot closer to Nam Taf's than the american experience. The engineers here also have the reputation of being the heavy drinkers, but it's very much a work hard/play hard kinda feeling. Plus, the pub is an excellent place to work on assignments with friends over beers.  Thats not to say I don't spend most nights a week working. It's just that when I have nights off (I can usually swing friday/saturday, sometimes more/less depending on time of year) I'm out with friends.
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Apr 8, 2011 14:56
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So, not 2 weeks out of school I managed to land a job. To all those still hunting, good luck! Don't be too worried about marks -- mine aren't great, and I managed just fine. It was more about my project experience than my marks. To those in the thread who have answered questions and helped out, a big thanks!
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May 12, 2011 21:37
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Dead Pressed posted:Go where you have a passion. For real. Seriously. Do what you love, it makes life so much better.
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May 19, 2011 04:58
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Can-O-Raid posted:I'm going into Uni for a general first-year program in Canada (Ontario, if it matters). I'm undecided about the program I want to enter, but mostly I'm thinking of Civil or Mining. How healthy are/will the jobs market be for these fields? Am I better off in Mechanical, which I also find pretty interesting? Don't worry about it for now. Just go to the info nights for every discipline, and then choose what you like based on what sounds interesting to you, and what courses you enjoy / are good at. The info nights where I went were incredibly helpful about explaining what type of jobs they led to, and what kind of courses you should enjoy, etc.
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Jul 14, 2011 00:55
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Dead Pressed posted:poo poo, I've been in my first full time job out of school for 7 weeks and my boss was surprised I knew what a goddamned jam nut was. Ha, I'm at 4 weeks and they're impressed because I know how to read a P&ID, and understand the difference between ACFM and SCFM. Plus I got to spend a week actually building poo poo, it's amazing how much the shop guys fix engineering fuckups. (And vice versa) Next week I get to test that system, and eventually assist in start-up in the middle of nowhere. I love my job. 
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Jul 16, 2011 02:04
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Does anyone have this attitude for real? I've seen the Industrial hate-train make its stops, and the whole "haha you make targets" thing with civil, but with Enviro Too? Can you explain what you mean by environmental engineering? I've honestly never really understood the point behind a degree that was so specific like that - I graduated with a MechE degree, and am working for an environmental remediation company, and most of the people here have Elec and Mech degrees.
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Jul 16, 2011 23:33
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2banks1swap.avi posted:The major and the job position? Sorry, just meant the major.  You're in florida? There are tonnes of remediation projects going on down there, though state funding for the projects is just about dead apparently.SubCrid TC posted:It's not all that specific. The degrees I've seen are generally some combination of courses that would otherwise be seen in Civil, Geological, Chemical or Biological Ah, okay. This makes a lot more sense. I don't know if I'd be able to stand doing impact assessments all day long, but I can see how the overall knowledge could be applied a lot of ways.
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Jul 17, 2011 04:21
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Shark Tower posted:Hey guys, I was wondering if there was anyone in this thread who could critique my resume (and cover letter)? I graduated half a year ago in Mechanical Engineering, and have had absolutely no luck finding a full-time engineering position. I did a lot of co-op while I was an undergrad, and have been writing different cover letters for each company. But even with that, I'm not getting any interviews or responses from the applications I've been sending out. I can't say my undergrad's been stellar (had to repeat my first and second year, and my last year I had a really bad injury and was out half a year, meaning my degree took me 7.5 years when it only should've taken 5). My GPA's also completely in the gutter, so I haven't been including it in applications, instead trying to focus on my work experience. Is there something critical I'm missing here? I hope that your cover letters are a lot less generic than the one you posted there - ideally, writing a targeted cover letter for each job is best. Also, I've always thought you should list your work experience from most recent to least recent. If you can get your resume to 1 page, that always helps - especially for entry level positions, where they don't expect a tonne of work experience. I'd say your title block (name/address/etc info) on your resume could be a lot smaller, but the resume thread is probably a better bet.
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Mar 19, 2012 23:57
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Man, it's funny how different the mentality seems to be Canada vs the States re grades. Maybe I just didn't apply to the right places when I graduated, but literally not once did I get asked for my grades, and none of my buddies seemed to get asked either. It's probably a good thing, as my average wasn't the best, but I blame that more on not being a good test writer. I was top 10-15% in every design course, and bottom 30% of most of my test based courses. Course, I took as many design courses as I did, and was involved in design stuff outside of school, so that gave me lots to talk about in interviews. I know where I work the hiring process seems to focus more on project experience & how much you bring to a team, rather than pure knowledge. I think our top guys put it best when he said something along the lines of I can teach anyone with an engineering degree 95% of the technical things they'll need to know without any issue. Teaching someone how to be part of the team is a lot harder.
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May 10, 2012 23:50
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Tim Thomas posted:Completely anecdotal, but I work for a major cap equipment firm as a systems/EE and am heavily involved with college hiring. And then of course there are schools with final year industry sponsored design projects that actually, you know, do projects. My group implemented a data acquisition system on an electric tractor that previous years had built, monitoring a bunch of different things. Of course, I can talk about that project extensively and in depth in interviews to show it was a lot more than an intro course.
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Jun 9, 2012 21:17
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That's because it's Allen Bradley, seriously gently caress AB. Their support sucks and they're incredibly overpriced. Of course most of my rage comes because clients spec AB equipment when Direct Logic/AutomationDirect stuff works fine. For reference, I'm dealing with standalone units where we're not networking multiple PLC's or controlling complex equipment, generally deal with a mix of discrete and 4-20mA signals, and really only need the 4-20's for alarm set points and data logging. We don't do a tonne of math on the PLC, which is where I've heard AB can be better. I'm also not a programmer / electrical guy, I deal with the Mech side of things.
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Jul 22, 2012 02:03
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huhu posted:Also, I'm working on CAD architectural drawings for an Engineers Without Borders project. The way I do CAD drawings for mechanical engineering is draw a dimension or note once and then not repeat it. The lady that is correcting my drawings keeps adding notes and repeating them. One example is that there is an access hatch and I labeled it once as "Access Hatch". She has labeled it every time the access hatch shows up which is in several drawings. Is she an idiot or is this the way things are done for architectural drawings? Label everything, every time, then hope to hell the shop guys read about 1/4 of it. (I do a decent amount of system layouts - If someone has to use your work to build something, label it everywhere.) Yes, you were supposed to use Sch.80 PVC for everything, and yes I've found 3 Sch.40 pieces. Yes, you're going to have to fix it. It didn't say that on the drawings? Here let me show you where every single PVC item is labeled Sch.80 and it's listed in bold letters on every drawing. Lots of new guys out in the shop, it's been a bad month for rework.  e: To clarify, our shop guys are awesome and will catch mistakes we make and bring them up so we can get it corrected. It's just good practice to label everything. TrueChaos fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Oct 12, 2012 |
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Oct 12, 2012 00:49
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huhu posted:I've been going through engineering with a generally crappy GPA around 2.2 to 2.5. This past semester I finished 18.5 credits and got a 3.55 and dean's list. It brings my major GPA to a 3.03 and my overall GPA to a 2.96. How do I best advertise this? Do this: Pander posted:Upward trend. Overcoming some sort of block. Getting into more advanced subjects that draw your interest rather than weed-out courses. And this: Dead Pressed posted:Post it on your resume as in-major gpa 3.0. I don't think that is uncommon. Bring it up as a point of pride in the interview, know what your gpa is in the last x number of credits. IE, my last 30 credits I went from gpa of 2.6 average to 3.4. We didn't do GPA at my school when I was there  but the difference in my marks in my last 2 years vs my first 2 years was hilarious (~62% average vs ~93%). I talked about why in my interviews, (health issue in 2nd year + way more interesting course as things got more difficult + being able to choose courses that interested me) and for the most part it was a complete non-issue after it was explained.
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Jan 18, 2013 03:05
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Ingenium posted:After having spent I good amount of time on the job hunt, I have become a bit curious about the sales engineer/applications engineer position. I seem to be getting the best feedback from these kinds of openings, but I am worried that it will make it difficult to move into a greater design focus engineering position in the future. For anyone here that has done hiring for engineering positions, do these kinds of jobs have a negative impact on a persons chances to obtain a more typical engineer job? I'm an applications engineer for a company that builds environmental remediation systems. I deal with RFQ's from consultants that our sales reps bring in (so I'm not really involved in the actual "sales" aspect, outside of how we present our quote). I love it - fast paced work, and honestly 70-80% of design is done at the quote stage, at least for us. My bids usually have turnaround times of under a week, then you're on to something new. Plus it's great experience to see and understand the buisness side of things - because I work directly with the sales team I gain insight into their processes. As for career path, I'm moving into a mechanical design role within the next year, and then likely starting up the management ladder within 2 years of that, so I'd say its good experience. But it's going to depend on where you work, and how they handle the applications role.
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Feb 14, 2013 18:02
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I've had the occasional 60 hour week, but they're incredibly rare. I usually average 40 or just over. Ill happily stay late if I've got a deadline to hit, but realistically I'm salaried with no benefits for working overtime and our company is staffed such that I don't normally need to stay late to get everything I need to get done. I've done travel on the weekends, worked weekends to get a system out the door, etc, but that's the exception rather than the rule.
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Apr 4, 2013 16:21
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I'm expecting an offer for an 'intermediate' consulting engineering position, and am trying to find information on what I should be expecting salary wise. I'm going from a small town to a larger city within Ontario, Canada, and I really don't have a good reference - outside the feeling that I'm underpaid at my current position given the responsibilities involved (Lead engineer on custom system manufacturing projects - averaging >10 Mil / year in project value out the door, at a salary in the $60-70k range, with at minimum 35% of the sell price being direct profit after all expenses including building upkeep my salary etc. and working hours that frequently hit 50-60 hours per week.) Anyone know where I should be looking for general salary info?
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Jun 14, 2018 00:05
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Thanks for the info guys. I'm still with the first company out of school (7 years!) and I've moved up into my current position through the ranks, but without the salary increases I'd expect (despite asking for them). Two interviews for a new job, and they've checked with my references which from what I know is the last step before an offer, and now I'll have info to negotiate with.
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Jun 15, 2018 02:05
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Yeah, I did get an offer and am in the process of negotiating it now. I did read through the negotiation thread, and based on my research countered at ~12% more than their offer. Will be happy and take any counter above 6% immediately, given the bump over my current position. I should hear back today, so we'll see how it goes. My current employer (also where all my references are!) found out I was looking and offered a promotion and a raise, so I've got that to consider (and use as a negotiating chip) as well.
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Jun 19, 2018 14:03
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Tnuctip posted:Good luck! Just remember, you didnt magically become an a better engineer by putting in a job application, so how come only now your current firm is making it rain? The offer came back at 11% over their initial, so I start there in 3 weeks! spf3million posted:Figuring out how things are approved/funded is the most important part. Getting ops on board that your project is actually good for them is the second most important. Hopefully your experience and relationships with ops will make that part easier. One of the biggest things I learned doing system design is that if the operator is happy the system will run well. You can have the most fantastic system in the world, but if the operators aren't happy it's going to run like poo poo. I have changed chemical dosing controls from direct PID control based on measured values (i.e. sodium bisulfite dosing into an RO system to knock out chlorine, based on ORP measurements) back to simple flow pacing with operations setting the dosing rate on a per gallon basis, because the operators didn't like that the dosing wasn't directly proportional to flow at whatever they wanted to set it at. We discussed the increase in associated chemical costs with the customer, but they were also fine with paying more in chemicals to keep operations happy. 
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Jun 22, 2018 18:00
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If you want to get anywhere in the consulting world, you'll need a P.Eng. I'm a process engineer (water/wastewater) / PM though these days I'm doing more project management than anything else. As much as I miss design work (prior job was project engineer for modular water/wastewater/industrial water treatment) I managed a 50% salary bump switching to a consulting firm, which was worth it to me. We have a bunch of techs in the firm, but the ceiling for advancement is a lot lower, outside of a few edge cases. Of course, we're stamping everything - where as my prior job didn't care about P.Eng as essentially nothing was stamped.
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Dec 11, 2019 02:45
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Not a Children posted:As someone who works intimately with water/wastewater design, I'll second that this is an extremely medium bucks field. However, working in something that is inarguably a common good is worth a hell of a lot to me, so I fully endorse this tack, even if a flood of oil engineers into my industry has the potential to drive wages down. Hey another person who makes sure poo poo flows downhill and then is occasionally pumped back up!  It's a good industry, and we can't hire anywhere near enough people in my area, so wages are pretty good as a result. My coworker is on parental leave right now though, so my regular 40 hour work week hasn't been that for a while. Back to normal in two weeks...
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Aug 5, 2020 02:37
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Canned Sunshine posted:AZ PE here! I work in the Water/Wastewater industry in Phoenix, and at least for this industry, experienced PEs are still in pretty hot demand. I spent over 8 years in private consulting before I needed a break for life quality, and went to the municipal sector, but pretty much every consulting firm that we work with, large to small, seems to be looking for people due to the sheer amount of work that is available. Not in phoenix, but another poo poo engineer over here in Ontario. I'm on the consulting side, and we'd hire 3 more of me if we could find them. There's massive amounts of work out there right now due to lack of infrastructure spending over the preceding decades, which has meant tons of municipal infrastructure on the water/wastewater side with deferred work that can't be deferred anymore.
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Dec 15, 2023 19:53
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Canned Sunshine posted:Yeah, it's amazing (but not surprising) how few staff/project-level design engineers are currently available in the water/wastewater industry; it's basically like perpetual demand. I'm very lucky to be at a firm that is entirely employee owned. The way we're set up is a bit different - probably about 1/5th of the employee's have an ownership stake, and the amount of shares you get to purchase each year is dependent on performance. Last year, the shares returned about 50% - roughly 30% increase in share price, plus a dividend of about 20%. I'm both the PM and lead design engineer for my projects, and for the most part it's fun. The consistent 50+ hours a week (with some hitting 100) isn't great though. I've gotten to the point where I know how to say no to the stupid weeks, and I have less of an issue issue with 50 hour weeks because I'm now WFH and I spent more than 10 hours a week commuting before switching, so I'm still coming out ahead. Can't make what I make on the public side, I've looked - it'd be a >30% pay cut before considering the bonuses & dividends. From what I've seen, the higher up I get the less time you spend working, though that seems to flip again at the VP level.
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Dec 25, 2023 15:35
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Any field other than medical device QA is going to require a lot of learning, regardless of what he does. Being entirely unwilling to go back to school does not give me confidence for his prospects.Canned Sunshine posted:I think you said you are in Canada, right? It makes me wonder on the differences of Canadian vs. US employee-owned consultants. The firm I worked for had about 15,000 employees worldwide when I left, though most were in the US and its HQ is here. It's an S-Corp, but since it's private, we didn't get dividends, etc., and the bonus' were rather paltry for a company clearing several billion dollars a year. In general shares weren't performance-based, and you could buy as many or as few as you wanted. What was lovely though, to me at least, was that if you used the 401K that was available, the company would match it, but as their company stock, not as actual funds going towards investment. The company's "stock" price was set via comparison to other large, publicly traded peer firms and how they were performing. Yeah, at a Canadian firm. It's probably a size related thing as well - we are not even 10% of the 15,000 person firm you were at. The benefits at my firm are entirely covered and better in some areas, worse in others than the public sector plans. Though being Canada, that's a roughly 4500CAD value. Typically private firms here will pay 50-75% of the cost of the benefits package. They're great on sick days, vacation, etc. So while it's occasionally stupid hours, I'll deal. Up here the real benefit to working in the public sector is the pension - but it's one of those things where you really do need 30 years in for it to make sense. I don't want to work till I'm 65, which rules it out for me at this point. There are certainly PM's who do only PM work at our firm, but I'm essentially doing the PM + EM role you've described. Win the work, run the project, lead the process design aspects and coordinate the rest of the disciplines, plus do all the client side interactions/workshops/etc.
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Jan 24, 2024 03:53
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I'm a PM. The amount of time I spend making sure electrical has talked with mechanical has talked with I&C has talked to architecture has talked to structural is absurd. It's mostly coordination, but I also lead the process design aspects. Which is mostly just reviewing others work these days. I prefer it to straight design work, but I'm weird. I like seeing all aspects of the project, and working through all the stupid crap that comes up. Basically I spend a lot of time making sure the team has what they need to complete the work, and making sure they're working together / talking to each other during design. Then there's all the fun client management, scheduling, scope changes, side of things. I don't really enjoy doing my invoicing every month, but it's a necessary evil.
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Mar 7, 2024 23:26
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Pander posted:I will never remember to tell structural about the wall mounted panel I'm installing until the day before issuance and you can't make me. It's okay, I changed the process design making that panel redundant and forgot to let you know anyway 
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Mar 8, 2024 18:22
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