Tell me about being an Engineer!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Tell me about being an Engineer!

«‹›7 »

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

spwrozek posted:

I don't agree with you on me being confused.

He said the engineering degree lets you skip an apprenticeship. I don't think this is correct.

You cannot become an apprentice and then become an engineer, you have to go to college and get a degree.

He's not talking about tradesmen becoming engineers, he's talking about engineers getting jobs as tradesmen (like electricians, plumbers, welders, etc), which traditionally go apprentice tradesman > journeyman tradesman > master tradesman.

Having an engineering degree does not let you skip right to journeyman, you still need relevant work experience in most states. It would make the written exams pretty easy, though. Tradesman without degrees *can* become engineers in some states, but it takes something like 20 years experience in order to even qualify to sit for the PE exam.

grover fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Nov 14, 2009

# ¿ Nov 14, 2009 00:53

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 06:34

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Dangbe posted:

Is anyone in here studying electromagnetism? And if so, what does this involve? I'm trying to find information on what an electromagnetic engineer does but it is kind of convoluted and isn't explaining what kind of things are learned through this path of study. I assume there is a lot of physics but what makes this different from a physics degree? Also if you are in grad school please tell me what types of things you are doing academically.

I took some EM in college, but decided it wasn't for me. It involves a lot of complicated calculus and maxwell's equations. They do a lot of antenna design, emissions, shielding, stuff like that. And for some of the really complicated stuff... model building. Actual physical brass models.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2009 18:07

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

In the US, each state has its own requirements for a PE. Some have reciprocity and recognize PEs licensed in other states, others have comity and recognize the requirements but require a PE apply for a license, but some make you go through the whole goddamn thing again. Generally, states with stricter licensing requirements will not recognize PE licenses from states with looser requirements. From the sounds of it, Canadian territories are similar. If you wanted a license in the US, you'd have to take the US licensing exam and go through the whole process again. (All US states use the same exams, so that much is universal.)

# ¿ Dec 3, 2009 01:30

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

slorb posted:

Is there a reason you need to be tested on material totally unrelated to your specialty to be licensed in america? It seems strange to me.

The FE exam is the test you have to pass to be an "Engineer in Training" and be able to sit for the actual engineering licensing exam once you have enough years of experience to quality. It's testing your aptitude as well as your knowledge; the breadth is so large that you can't just cram the night before, you actually have to understand the stuff and be able to think like an engineer. If you can, the test is cake. If you can't, then it's probably the hardest test you've ever taken and failed.

The actual PE exam is restricted to each specific discipline and is open book. And much much harder.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2009 00:45

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Jesschen posted:

I do a lot of desk jockeying, a lot of data entry, a lot of data review, a ton of looking over P&IDs and diagrams. And safety. Safety training for this, that, you name it. It's a huge, huge, HUGE deal. Bigger than they ever tell you in school.

Safety is out of control all other the place, often to the point of stupidity. The real shame is that the net result is that the truly important things are ignored.

Want to reset a tripped 20A breaker? Better be wearing cotton flame-resistant clothes, goggles, leather gloves and a hard hat if you don't want to die!

# ¿ Dec 4, 2009 02:45

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Nihilanthic posted:

Anyway, do you mean a 20A breaker like what would be in my house if I ran my microwave at the same time as my toaster or something? LOL.

Yep. Per NFPA 70E, you need Class 0 arc-flash protection when operating a 20A breaker, even on a 120/240V panel. Which is safety goggles, cotton clothes, etc.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2009 22:15

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

falcon2424 posted:

I have a B.Sc in Engineering-Physics. I'm in an economics PhD program, and about a semester away from getting my masters degree.

If I decided to leave grad-school with just the masters, what would my career options in engineering look like? Would an economics degree be largely useless, or would it be helpful in consulting or something?

Extremely useful in management. If you like dealing with the economic side, people with engineering and business backgrounds are in high demand. Especially once you get a few years experience and start looking at higher level management positions.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2009 21:15

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Skycks posted:

Would it be prudent to double specialize as an Electrical Engineer? Like most EE's I'm assuming, I'm most interested in Microelectronics and communication circuits and the like. So I want to take that sequence of courses. But then all I hear is if you want it to be easy to find a job after graduating, the High Power route is the way to go, because every big building and city grid in America needs EE's to do the job. I was also wanting to get a minor in computer science to go along with my first specialization. Is this a good idea to have all these tools under my belt so to speak, or should I just stick with one specialization?

There are two kinds of power engineers- utility, and commercial. (Residential doesn't need much engineering.) Utility engineers work with voltages measured in the thousands to hundreds-of-thousands of volts, and much of it is extremely large. Commercial engineers design building electrical systems and work with that's technically considered "low" voltage of 600V or lower. Large projects may involve 4160V or higher, but it's always much smaller than utility. Most of the real engineering work is calculating fault current and voltage drop (which is all done by computer) and, in the case of commercial, memorizing and applying the national electrical code.

Very few colleges offer anything by way of power engineering, and employers don't generally expect any specialized knowledge; it's easy enough to learn OTJ if you have the right background. No matter what your electives, you will graduate with an EE degree and that's all you really need; the degree is very flexible and will get your foot in the door of any EE field.

A PE license is far more important for power engineers than other EEs; make sure you take the FE/EIT exam your junior or senior year.

grover fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Dec 28, 2009

# ¿ Dec 28, 2009 13:15

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

NativeAlien posted:

The thing is I also interviewed with a power company for another co-op position, and power plants are what I would really love to do. I can't guarantee they will offer me anything, but I can say my interview with them was the best interview I've ever had and the interviewer himself told me he was extremely impressed with me. The problem is they won't be getting back to me for another 1-2 weeks, while I have less than a week to respond to the first place. Getting a full-time position with this place isn't guaranteed, but the experience will be invaluable.

Would anyone who has experience/knowledge about these fields (agriculture vs power) share what they know about each one and which one would offer a better future? Which one is more stable (I'm from a heavy agricultural state, for what that matters)?

Those are two completely different fields! And very broad ones, too. It's hard to really get into specifics. The question is, which do you enjoy more?

# ¿ Feb 19, 2010 01:54

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

DuckConference posted:

Yeah, I guess I'm getting karmic justice for all those times I thought "heh good luck getting a job arts majors".

Count your blessings. If you have it hard right now, think of how awful it must be for those liberal arts guys.

Does your diploma say "Electrical Engineering" or "Electronics Engineering"? I was pretty heavy into semiconductors and MEMS in school, and ended up working in a completely different field on my first job, and a completely different branch again on my second. A lot of people are like that. If you can get a job coding, hey, it's a job! You can always keep looking, and having some good work experience on your resume will help, too.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2010 04:33

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

NativeAlien posted:

So...update. This morning, the guy I interviewed at the power company called and left a voicemail saying they picked someone else for the co-op spot, but I was a great candidate and if I could do a summer session he would love to have me so I should reapply for that, etc. Fine, so I got ready to just take the first offer from the ag company, created a list of preferred locations, etc.

Then at 4:30 today a lady from HR at the power company called me and said she'd like to offer me the co-op spot. I'm really confused at this point. I was really geared up for the agricultural company but now I'm second guessing it, and I have two days to respond.

Congrats, #1 turned it down, the job's yours now!

# ¿ Feb 23, 2010 00:23

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Mr Crumbbley posted:

Well I just switched my major to Energy Engineering, so any one here have experience with it? It sounds interesting, but I don't know much about it. I switched to it because I couldn't get into Civil Engineering. I don't like that I'll have to be doing way more Chemistry and Thermo, but I guess that's the way it's gonna be.

This sounds really gimmicky, which translates directly into "hard to find a job." You'd most likely be better off as a straight electrical or mechanical engineer with electives tailored towards energy engineering, which would be just as marketable. Having a basic degree would allow you to take jobs outside of energy engineering, too, should the current fad dry up.

Also, why are you changing your major to one you know nothing about? What part of that seemed like a good idea?

grover fucked around with this message at 10:51 on May 24, 2010

# ¿ May 24, 2010 10:48

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

hobbesmaster posted:

As stated on the last page, and needs to be reiterated constantly, programming in a regulated environment such as aerospace or medicine is 99% paperwork, validation, etc and 1% coding. In not so regulated environments you might make it down to 90% paperwork and 10% coding!

Programming in unregulated environment- when something needs coded and there's no money to contract it out and you're the only engineer in the office who knows how to do it- can be rather fun, though! 95% coding and 5% pushing out updates to everyone.

I actually enjoy programming and am quite good at it, but I hate programming professionally. It's always boring poo poo, database access and stuff like that. Way more fun to do it as a hobby.

# ¿ May 28, 2010 19:08

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

hobbesmaster posted:

You don't have management causing you to waste 90% of your time with paperwork, status meetings and the like? And you work for the Navy?

I was saying that more in proportion of programming to programming-related-bullshit-work; it was really just one project pretty early in my engineering career; I've not had any programming tasks like that in the last 10 year or so. The ratio of bullshit:actual work is always rather high, regardless of asignment. Retarded online training sucks up an inordinate amount of time. Mostly, the big time sink is email. Always tons of email that need read, absorbed, and replied to. Email is 75% of my office time right now. Mostly it's engineering related, but it just takes a lot of time to really understand an issue to be able to give the right response, and then it takes time to communicate that, too.

I like field work the best. Sucks sitting in airplanes/airports 24hrs straight, sometimes 3 full days in transit traveling to some of these places, but once I'm there, I really enjoy the work.

grover fucked around with this message at 21:07 on May 28, 2010

# ¿ May 28, 2010 20:22

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

RealKyleH posted:

I work for a small company where engineers sometimes do go out in the shop and I have never once been out in the shop despite being a better machinist. This is just where I work though. Most of what I do is testing/spec updating or writing (Like mil and SAE)

IMHO, engineers absolutely need to routinely be down in the shop, on the jobsite, etc. They're going to be poor engineers if they don't see the results of their work first-hand and get direct feedback from the mechanics and technicians implementing the design.

# ¿ May 29, 2010 22:16

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

OctaviusBeaver posted:

I wouldn't sell it too short though. I know people who have been hired over similarly qualified people because they worked on their own cars. Granted that was for an internship, but anything you can use to differentiate yourself and show some sort of mechanical aptitude is definitely a plus.

Believe it or not, I've seen this a lot- working on your own cars is a pretty common aptitude check for engineers. If you can't do something simple like change the spark plugs on your 4-cylinder Ford, how can you be expected to properly design ultra-complicated multi-million dollar systems that will require frequent maintenance and repair? I've also been asked what tools I own, which goes along similar lines.

I don't know too many engineers that don't at least do simple repairs.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2010 18:53

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Markov Chain Chomp posted:

Don't you mean "mechanical engineers" here, not just "engineers"? It's a pretty huge field and I don't see what car repair has to do with semiconductor design.

I did mean engineers in general here, but was careful to note that I was talking about my own personal experience here, not trying to make a blanket statement. Most of the EEs I know work on their own cars, too. The only engineers I can think of offhand who don't do any work on their own cars (two civils & an industrial) have spouses that do the work instead. They were more planners with an engineering degree, too, come to think of it. I'm sure there are plenty of engineers I know who don't work on cars, it's not something I ask when I first meet them, and many will do simple stuff themselves but pay a mechanic for more difficult jobs. It's only been recently that I've been brave enough to do really difficult jobs like replacing headgaskets.

And no, working on your car has nothing to do with engineering at all. You don't need to be an engineer to change an alternator! But as BeefofAges pointed out, engineers just seem to gravitate towards tinkering- towards fixing broken toys and taking apart broken coffee pots and hard drives to see how they work, etc. I doubt they'd ask you about car repair this if you're interviewing for a semiconductor job, unless your duties included fab lab automation or similar, in which case it would be highly relevant. Though they might ask you if you built your own PC! (My thesis was in MEMS, btw, so I understand where you're coming from.)

grover fucked around with this message at 10:57 on Aug 16, 2010

# ¿ Aug 16, 2010 10:44

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Beasticly posted:

Any there any power engineers reading the thread?

I'm only in my first year of an EE degree but somehow I managed to get a scholarship from a power industry group which gets me a bit of cash and work experience which is really cool. The only thing is that I haven't really done anything at all related to power at Uni so, apart from what I've learnt from wikipedia, I don't have much of an idea what it's about. From what I've been told though, it's a field where it's relatively easy to get work internationally which really excites me.. is there any truth to this?

I'm doing a basic control systems course this semester (at least I think that's what it is - it deals with logic gates and stuff) which I'm finding really interesting. I'd imagine that there'd at least be a bit of this in the power industry?

So yeah, if there's anyone that knows about power engineering then I'd be really interested in finding out more!

There are a many more areas about power engineering than most people thing. One area is controls, which a few people have touched on- PLCs taking data inputs, monitoring networks, opening and closing motor-breakers, etc. Another big area is protection- calculating fault currents, designing relaying to protect systems from all sorts of different power failures (under/overvoltage, under/overfrequency, phase rotation, loss of phase, ground fault, etc), arc flash potential, and fault coordination (so that a fault on one small branch circuit doesn't trip the main breaker). Power quality is yet another field- investigating the sources of transients, harmonics, EMI, voltage drop, or just plain old gremlins... and designing the system to mitigate them. There's also grounding and bonding, lightning protection, and all sorts of other niches that power engineers deal with. Utility high-voltage distribution is different than light industrial is different than critical UPS/generator is different than residential.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2010 01:42

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Beasticly posted:

Thank you all heaps, my EE knowledge isn't really good enough to know what most of that stuff is but the variation seems like it'd suit me really well. Looking forward to doing some real vacation work!

They don't really teach much, if any, power engineering in college. A lot of it is just OJT and work experience.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2010 10:35

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

timtastic posted:

Do any of you read any trade journals or have some sort of other source for what is happening in your industry?

So much information is available free on the web that there's really no need to pay for trade journals, IMHO, but I don't subscribe to any, so I may be unfairly biased against them. Following trade forums or engineering forums like engtips is probably the best way to stay on top of things. I do get EC&M, which is focused much more on the electrician then the engineer, but they give free to anyone remotely related to electrical work, and usually has one or two interesting articles in it.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2010 09:53

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Plinkey posted:

If they ask you something like 'Why are you interested in working for us?' A canned answer like 'I need a job' or 'I'll take whatever I can get at this point' won't get you anywhere.

This really hurts you in salary negotiations, too. Best if they think you're highly competed for.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2010 22:30

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Fortuitous Bumble posted:

Does anyone have experience with getting jobs outside of the engineering industry with an engineering degree? I'm about to graduate with an aerospace degree, did like 3 different co-op tours and another summer internship, but I've decided I totally hate engineering.

The only thing I really enjoyed was an internship I did programming simulations but I don't see too many jobs for that and I think I'd rather get away from engineering in general at this point rather than getting sucked into some sort of soul-crushing job editing requirements documents for space-rivets. I've talked to the career office at my school but they haven't helped at all outside of my resume.

Companies love salesmen with engineering backgrounds. Ditto for business managers who work with technical subjects. In both cases, you might touch on technical stuff, but most of your day will be spent doing sales or business-type things, AND you'd be able to leverage your degree.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2010 23:53

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Sweet As Sin posted:

Does anyone know about grounding rods for buildings (not homes), or where to find info about them? I mean, how long should they be, how deep should they be buried, what to fill the hole with, etc.

National Electric Code has minimum requirements for this, and is likely what you're looking for. There is no one easy answer, as it varies by soil type and what's in the building.

You could google MIL-HDBK-1012/1 for more detailed information on grounding for datacenters, too.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2010 12:06

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

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.

Your first two years will be identical courses regardless of which of these your choose, giving you another 2 years to decide. It's not until your 3rd year that you'll start taking a lot of discipline-specific courses.

My advice is to go generic. EE and ME degrees can go towards just about any job, but if you do something super-specific, your options are rather narrow and you'll have a much harder chance of finding a job.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2010 03:38

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Zo posted:

Our mechatronics class always had higher co-op placement rates than the EE class in the same stream as us

Mechatronics: EE but more.

Of course now my job title is "electrical engineer", so I guess I lost in the end.

I was electromechanical but got hired as an EE, too, so yeah.

Safe and Secure!: Generic is GOOD! Far better than specific; opens up a lot more doors. Nobody hardly ever gets hired doing exactly what they were studying in college, the job market just doesn't work that way. Enviro is huge right now, but is another one of those specialized fields. Of those, I'd go with Civil. Also, I'd switch to an engineering school. Yours is pretty clearly not an engineering school, you're much more likely to get a better engineering education in one with a better engineering department.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2010 15:51

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

NomNomNom posted:

Quoted for untruth. When your homework's are two-week long affairs that comprise 40% of your final grade, that's hardly optional. I've had classes like this since freshman year. The only classes I had where homework was "optional" were out of major prerequisites, like calc and such; even then you more or less had to do the homework to have a prayer of understanding the material.

This REALLY depends on the prof. For some classes, attendance and homework really are optional, and if you know the material, you can show up for the tests and get an A. Others take attendance and heavily grade busywork. gently caress those teachers; I was in college to learn, not to play their little games, so I didn't. Hence why I graduated with an excellent education but mediocre grades in a number of classes.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2010 19:51

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

TheOmegaWalrus posted:

A lot of idiots need that as a transition from highschool to college. Rateyourprof.com is awesome for weeding this inane stuff out though.

How prevalent is drug testing, all you grads?

I'm a federal worker, so it may be different for me, but though they threaten random drug screenings, and hit the military I work with constantly, I've never had a random drug screening. They did drug tests at the annual physical I had to take in my last federal job (was an industrial job so they screened for all sorts of long-term injuries), but I always knew about that 30 days in advance.

I'd never use illegal drugs while I have this job. Not for any moral objection or anything, I just I can't risk getting fired.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2010 00:24

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Everybody hates dealing with enviros because no matter what message they bring, people get pissed off by it. If Civil, Electrical, etc, do their jobs right, nobody ever gets angry. (Well, maybe when safety concerns are raised, and the subsequent price tag, but that's another issue...)

# ¿ Oct 23, 2010 14:34

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Zo posted:

Grades are also absolutely a non-factor after you have even half a year of experience, and I say that as someone who had good grades. Wish I slacked more and barely scraped by, efficiency!

Spoken like a true engineer! Overdesign costs precious resources and funds- don't build the bridge any stronger than it needs to be.

That said, mediocre grades will always look poor on your resume, regardless of how much experience you have. Not as important when you're 50, but will always be there, with the hiring official going "hmmm... this guy always struck me as awesome, but he only got a 2.5 in college?"

I slacked my rear end to a 3.0 and have very little regrets, but I do blame that 3.0 in costing me an astronaut job with NASA :argh:

grover fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Oct 23, 2010

# ¿ Oct 23, 2010 22:23

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

ch3cooh posted:

I work 120+ hrs/week and I'm on salary.

Join the oilfield kids!

poo poo, and I get upset if I have to work fridays!

I don't think I've worked 3 fridays all year, and those were in places like Japan and Puerto Rico. Working for the government sometimes has its perks

# ¿ Oct 29, 2010 01:23

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Windfucker posted:

Yeah, I don't have my gpa on my resume, but they always ask. I'll try doing that next time.

Lack of a GPA would be a red flag for me reviewing a resume; it's easy to assume the worst.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2010 22:56

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Or, you could pick the subset of subjects you did well in, and say something subtle that sounds like a major, like "3.25 in Electrical Engineering Coursework" or "3.50 average in Remedial Arithmatic."

# ¿ Nov 14, 2010 02:35

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Pfirti86 posted:

Who hasn't heard of Cooper Union? It's a pretty well-known school among at least us academics.

Olin is one that's somewhat more obscure.

I've never heard of either. How are the football teams?

Pfirti86 posted:

Eh, probably nothing wrong with that, but realize that there's a pretty wide perception out there that it's actually easier to get an A in graduate courses than undergraduate.

I always found it easier to get As in honors classes because the professors didn't feel obligated to maintain strict bell curves, and had no problem giving everyone in the class an A if they performed. I did way better in honors classes than giant lectures. I only took a few grad classes, but they were much the same.

And gently caress those basic programming classes where the material is trivially easy and 2/3 of the class should have an A+ but they force a bell curve on it anyhow.

grover fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Nov 14, 2010

# ¿ Nov 14, 2010 17:03

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

SubCrid TC posted:

If they're critical and vulnerable to freezing why aren't they already heat traced and/or insulated?

Poor engineering.

:iceburn:

# ¿ Nov 21, 2010 12:28

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

BeefofAges posted:

I know you're kidding, but designing weapons is definitely somewhat ethically questionable.

Guns are harmless.

Bullets are the real killers.

grover fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Nov 25, 2010

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 16:29

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

BeefofAges posted:

I've always believed that an important part of engineering is ethics. When you design a building, or a vehicle, or an electrical component, or whatever else, you try not to design it such that it'll injure your users. Even with something as benign as consumer electronics, I try to make sure that the products I work on play nice with the other electronics people connect them to, that they won't die prematurely, and that they won't otherwise behave unexpectedly and ruin a user's day. I don't just do this because it's good for the company not to piss off users, I do this because I owe it to the people who use the things I help make.

Guns and rockets and bombs and such are indeed awesome from a sciencey point of view, but I find the idea of contributing to their design very troubling.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find an engineer anywhere who wouldn't jump at the chance to work on aircraft carriers or F-22s.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 19:50

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

Groda posted:

Nuclear engineer here...

And you wouldn't want to work on high budget compact naval reactors?

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 21:25

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

UZR IS BULLSHIT posted:

Engineering is a craft and an art. What engineering should be is the application of human knowledge to make the world a better place for people to live in, even if all that means is making it easier for people to check their email. To the guy who said this thread isn't the place for a discussion of engineering ethics: you're dead wrong. Engineers play a huge role in modern society. It is up to the members of the engineering community to ensure we use our power for constructive, rather than destructive purposes.

Yeah, yeah, and engineers that build cars are unethical for destroying the environment and engineers that design farming equipment are putting laborers out of work and perpetuating poverty in the 3rd world. One could also very easily argue all the work of engineers in these fields (defense industry included) is saving lives. Just about everyone is guilty of perpetuating rampant consumerism or massive resource consumption or something someone else finds unethical, or enriching lives if you look at it from the other direction.

This is a very good thread for information about people wanting to know what real-world engineering is like; I don't think we should be derailing it into an ethics argument. D&D or LF would be the appropriate forums for that. Lets get this thread back on track, please.

grover fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Nov 26, 2010

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 13:37

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

There are "cool" engineering jobs, like working for Lamborghini, and "boring" jobs, like running sewer lines through new suburbs. The cool jobs are often not as sexy as they might seam, and the boring jobs can be quite interesting and rewarding.

For instance, you might find yourself in a job as an electrical engineer for Boeing working on the 787. Nobody sits there and designs a jet engine by themself, though. Your small part will far more likely be doing something more mundane like designing the wiring harnesses that run between the electronics bay and various equipment, selecting connectors that mate with the off-the-shelf equipment someone else selected, and picking cable types that match those specs and working with some other guy who's routing cableways to make sure they're big enough and run to the right places, etc.

Or you may find yourself in a carboard box plant, the sole engineer (or perhaps the sole ME working with 1 EE) responsible for the entire assembly line, designing new control systems and automation machinery from-scratch.

grover fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Nov 26, 2010

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 13:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 15, 2024 06:34

grover: Jan 23, 2002; PEW PEW PEW

BeefofAges posted:

I think it's reasonable to discuss it as long as we don't use inflammatory terms like "homicide bomber". After all, many (most?) engineering schools feel ethics is important enough to spend some time teaching it to their students.

"Engineering ethics" is generally more related to fraud and misrepresentation and avoiding jail than "the government is evil!!!" though. The former will even show up in the PE exam. The latter is rather restricted to niche internet forums.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 17:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Tell me about being an Engineer!

«‹›7 »