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I'm currently in community college where it's cheap so I can save my GI bill for VA Tech and my MA. From my experience in the military I know I want to do engineering and that I don't want to do aerospace engineering but I'm not sure what engineering I should go for. Luckily one of my math teachers is a retired mechanical engineer and me has pushed me in that direction but I figured I should ask for a second opinion. I'm not fond of electrical engineering since my background in computers is weak and I hated basic electronics in tech school (I got good grades near the top of my class but I was just repeating out of the book, it didn't click at all)and I'm interested in working for jobs in alternate power sources such as wind or solar or in jobs that support pure science work such as radio telescopes and things like that.
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Oct 11, 2009 06:20
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Powercrazy posted:Thanks. Also are there any New Zealand engineers here? I plan to emigrate there once I graduate but I have no idea if they want or need engineers there.
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Oct 11, 2009 15:44
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Thoguh posted:Well, for wind/solar I'd say definitely go for Mechanical or Electrical (though Aero wouldn't hurt you if you wanted to get a job involved with wind energy, those turbines are just huge airfoils). If you are serious about stuff like radio telescopes then you'd want to go into Physics, not engineering. I just used radio telescopes since that was the first thing that was science related but was made using engineering. I'm not really interested in doing a science career myself but I like and respect the pure science fields so I just like the idea of working in a field that helps them do their job if not directly helping. I guess I'll give aerospace engineering another look but I think I'm burned out enough from working maintenance that I'm just sick of aircraft. BTW, speaking as a maintainer to all you AEs, EEs, and MEs working on aircraft; Make things easier to get to! You all ruined my life for 4 years! 
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Oct 12, 2009 04:27
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Kolodny posted:Just keep trying, took me a few hundred or so applications before I got in. Applying at the beginning of the fiscal year/end of calendar year may give you more luck but ymmv The process also takes a geological age. I'm waiting to start a job with the Army that I applied for in August, interviewed for and received the tentative offer in mid-November, and I'm still waiting on the security clearance to go through. Also, USAJobs still shows me as not referred for the position so take application statuses with a grain of salt. Speaking of the Army, does anyone have experience working with the Army Sustainment Command or large scale facilities engineering? After a visit to Rock Island the best description of the job I got is that I'll be taking known problems at various army facilities, developing engineering fixes for them, and then generating work orders in contractor speak, but then I'll have to go and find funding since the office I'll be working for doesn't have their own budget and instead must get the money to the complete work elsewhere? The whole financial side of the system sounds bizarre. -Zydeco- fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Dec 30, 2015 19:20
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davey4283 posted:Alright guys, looking for some advice. I was a USAF avionics guy on A-10s and I found that skill with avionics didn't translate to skill in electrical engineering. The intricacies on aircraft were much lower that the circuit stuff I saw in college. I was flight line though, so if you were back shop and actually dug into components you might have more closely related skills. If you still got time on your GI Bill, or can otherwise afford the time, I'd just go for the bachelors from the start. Why plan on getting an engineering tech degree if you're already looking at going for a bachelors? Aim big and dial it back if things don't look like they're going to come together. You can also take some classes in electronics before you have to declare your degree focus to make sure you really want to go for electrical engineering. That way you can still change to another focus if you find you don't like it without losing degree progress. For salary, I make $45,512 as GS-7 working out of the Quad Cities, but I'm in the recent grad intern program since that was the only way they could fill the slot I'm in and I go to a 9 next year and an 11 after that, so I'm starting relatively low on the pay scales around here. Engineers in the federal government in the quad cities are generally in a GS-12 slot which should pay roughly $80K at the current locality adjustment. BTW, don't look at your maintience experience as only in electronics. You have trouble shooting skills that can be applied to any problem whether it sparks or not. I wouldn't be overly concerned with sticking to electrical engineering because you did electronics maintience before. If you like electronics then ignore me and more power to you! (I never want to see another god damned wire attached to another god damned airplane for the rest of my god damned life)
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May 29, 2016 03:25
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davey4283 posted:Well, I really appreciate the feedback guys. It's for sure helped me to make a more informed decision. I'm leaning towards going for the BSEE. It'll be time consuming but I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end. The math and science seems pretty daunting but I'm willing to give it a shot. Don't look at the end level stuff yet. You'll start nice and easy and then work up from there step by step. Looking at the end goal makes the process look much worse than it is since you lose sight of all the intermediate steps that gradually lead you up to that level. If you want the degree and can focus on it then college is not bad, just make sure to use any help offered like professor and TA office hours and especially homework and study groups if you start having any difficulty. Slipping a bit in one class means you'll start the next a bit behind making it more likely you'll slip further. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure.
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May 31, 2016 01:35
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Not sure how often people look at this thread, but if anyone is looking at getting a first job or getting a new one, we're dying for people in the Veterans Administration. We need project engineers bad. We've been getting tons of money thrown at us to fix infastructure, equipment, and facilities that should have been dealt with decades ago, but the VA went underfunded so long that our manpower is extremely low. A lot of VA medical centers are hiring as fast as they can, but there has been a shortage of interest or people aren't checking for postings on USAJobs. You don't need actual project management experience if you can just argue you have coordination and review experience. We can actually use more design side experience since most of us have been on the management side for our whole careers and lack a bit in design review skills. You don't need EIT or a PE either, but it doesn't hurt. We just got a special pay scale for engineers so our pay is now more competitive (still not as good as private, but employment is more stable and we still get a pension on top of the TSP (401K equivalent). If you're interested the positions on USAjobs are for 0801 job series engineers. If anyone is interested, but put off by how USAjobs works and how the documents need to be PM and I'll talk you through applying.
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Jul 28, 2021 15:00
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Government engineering spots continue to be spread too thin, are hard to fill due to paying under comparable private positions, and filled spots are generally occupied by a bunch of burnt out old guys who don't care about trying to fix the process. Still reliable and dependable if you got a family and a fixed 8 hour day is great. We're still having a hard time finding bidders for work but that's probably more due to SBO rules rather than everyone just having a full plate like a year or so ago. We also have effectively infinite money for non-new construction projects for this year and maybe next for some reason so lots of small projects being put on the street. AIR Commission recommendations would have the VA replacing, consolidating, or upgrading huge swaths of medical centers and clinics starting in 5-10 years so that's something to eye if you are in hospital/commercial construction or medical systems. Lots of people (myself included) still arguing against the proposed recommendations, but it'd be a huge handout to private medicine in the form of reducing VA capacity and capability and offloading patients to local private medical providers ah la the Veterans Choice Act, so I assume it will come to pass.
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Jun 9, 2022 15:19
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