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grover posted:There are more engineers getting trained than ever before. I'm not sure about this. When I was in school, a lot of the professors complained that enrollment in engineering was way down from where it was years ago. Likewise, when I was interviewing for jobs after graduation, a lot of employers said that it's getting harder to find engineers to hire.
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Oct 2, 2009 17:33
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Action_Bastard posted:BeefofAges: why is the University of Michigan MIMS symbol holding guns in your sig? You're mistaken, it's the Realtek crab.
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Oct 2, 2009 20:27
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boeman posted:Here is a free tip: if you like the intellectual challenge of your engineering cirriculum, go to graduate school. You will be bored out of your mind if you go into industry with a B.S. I speak from experience As with all gross generalizations in this thread, this isn't universally true. There are plenty of intellectually challenging jobs out there. It does take more initiative than school does - if you don't push yourself to constantly learn new things, it's easy to get stuck just doing the same boring things day after day.
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Oct 4, 2009 18:07
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T.H.E. Rock posted:Any advice on finding an internship (I'm MechE)? I have ok grades but no technical job experience at all. Go to a career fair and go to every single engineering booth telling them you want an internship.
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Oct 5, 2009 02:50
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Cicero posted:When I write it out like that, it seems like I should have a good chance, I'm just worried because it seems like in every CS class I take, every other guy already knows all the concepts the class covers and has a part-time real job coding for an actual company, e.g. "Oh yeah CGI? Yeah I've did some Perl scripting on the side for [some company] a couple of years ago, neat stuff, these days my job involves databases though." That's because the nerds in your CS classes are insecure jerks who brag about stuff without actually knowing what they're talking about. Chill out, you're in really good shape. Just go to career fairs and such and chat up some recruiters. You'll find an internship in no time as long as you're friendly and confident.
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Oct 8, 2009 07:03
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Cicero posted:Thanks for the reassurance, I do think I have better social skills than most of the guys in my major. There are some people who I will just stare at and think, "I wonder if he realizes why he's permanently single?" I've come very close to telling some students in the class that I TA to go home and take a shower. I had the same experience when I was working as a tutor for the intro to programming classes. Some students just smelled awful. Maybe CS students are just afraid that they'll short circuit if they step into a shower. Speaking of tutoring intro to programming classes, that's a really good thing to have on your resume. I guarantee you that you'll get asked about that in interviews, so be ready to explain about how it's strengthened your grasp on the fundamentals of computer science and so on.
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Oct 8, 2009 07:20
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huhu posted:1. By chance I've already taken 9 credits of sociology and only need 3 more classes to get a minor in it. Could sociology maybe be used to show I'm personable(which I am to begin with) on my resume. Generally minors don't matter, but it can't hurt. If you like the subject matter, by all means get the minor and put it on your resume. quote:2. I took 4 years of Spanish from 7th to 10th grade but got screwed over by my college because they required me to take 6 credits of Spanish before I could even begin my minor which just wasn't plausible. I've decided to immerse myself in it the best I can and am pretty sure I'll be fluent by the time I graduate. Depending on the company and job, fluency in multiple languages can be pretty useful. Again, put this on your resume. quote:3. I'm totally open to travel and really wouldn't mind being sent all over the world for the first several years of work. I've been to countries in which I couldn't speak the language and was completely comfortable with going out on my own. This isn't really the sort of thing that needs to go on a resume, but you might get asked if you like travel during an interview. Usually positions that require travel will say so in the job listing. quote:4. The fraternity allows for me to take on a bunch of positions such as treasurer who handles almost $40k a year.
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Oct 13, 2009 04:06
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SubCrid TC posted:It depends entirely on the type of industry. There are all sorts of places where this might not be necessarily required, but having people willing to head to the field for a few weeks is an absolutely huge bonus. If you're applying for somewhere where it could help, put it in your cover letter. That's interesting. What industry are you in?
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Oct 14, 2009 03:47
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I generate code and bug reports.
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Oct 15, 2009 04:16
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Cyril Sneer posted:As I mentioned earlier, an engineer's real job is producing paperwork. This isn't true for all engineers! I produce code and bug reports, but no paperwork.
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Oct 31, 2009 03:12
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DefiantCls posted:Do Computer Engineers work on hardware and software or do they get grouped into programming. All of the above. Some computer engineers end up as programmers, some design hardware, some test software or hardware, and so on. There are a million different things that computer engineers can do. You can ask 50 different computer engineers what their typical day is like and hear 50 completely different answers. I work in testing consumer electronics. They're devices that use specialized embedded processors and run Linux. Some of my job is just sitting around playing with the devices trying to get them to break. Some of it is writing up test plans for technicians to run through. Part of it is writing test software that interacts with the devices through a debug port on the PCBA. Sometimes, I even get to design new features for the devices, which is pretty cool when you see users talking about them on forums.
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Nov 5, 2009 02:57
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Nihilanthic posted:Is it possible to get internships within a Community College? Should I crash a job fair at a University that I would be transferring to, or just eat the two years. The different fields overlap a lot, and so do the job opportunities. There are plenty of computer engineers working in jobs that are normally held by people who studied computer science or electrical engineering. It also just really depends where you look. If you go straight to the career websites of the right companies, you'll find plenty of postings looking for computer engineers.
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Nov 18, 2009 04:22
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Nihilanthic posted:Well, now the question would be 'what are those companies' and 'how does one find out'? VLSI is but one part of the design process. You have to remember that all of these computery majors encompass dozens of different fields and specializations. Depending on what you want to do, you might find computer engineering job listings at all of the major computer component manufacturers (AMD, Intel, NVidia, Seagate, Western Digital, HP, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi, Apple, etc.) or at one of the millions of smaller companies you can find if you look carefully. Embedded systems especially seem to often be developed by small specialized companies.
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Nov 18, 2009 09:16
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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? It really doesn't matter. Undergraduate engineering educations are usually general enough that you could do practically anything in the field of electrical engineering after graduation. For example, I specialized in embedded systems programming, and now I'm a test engineer and I mostly code in Python. As far as the job hunt goes, there are a lot of job openings for every kind of engineer, so don't let that choose your path. Do what seems like fun.
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Dec 28, 2009 06:06
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spwrozek posted:I pretty much disagree with the article... Just because a lot of terrorists are engineers doesn't mean that a lot of engineers are terrorists.
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Jan 1, 2010 04:10
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The Engibeard posted:I am in Biomedical Engineering now. Let me just say this now. If you were hoping to get a co-op, you either better A) know someone in some company or B) have a drat good GPA. It is drat near impossible to get one. I have applied to about 10 companies in the last week for my next co-op this fall and not a single one has responded. Just for shits and giggles I applied to 2 companies in Japan and they both got back to me. They said no, but they were still courteous. The mistake you made here is that you only applied to ten companies. I had a great GPA and a good resume and I still applied to dozens and dozens of companies only to get a handful of interviews. It also often takes companies months to get back to you. As a college student, you are worth less than dirt, and so most companies won't give more than a few seconds of attention to your resume.
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May 22, 2010 16:50
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Anonymaus posted:I'm at the end of my freshman year and I have given one last chance continue as Electronic Eng./Computer Eng. or change major to Civil/Mech/Industrial. They're all hard. Just do what you enjoy. If you don't enjoy what you're doing, the classes you'll take in a year or two will be hell.
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May 24, 2010 02:57
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you ate my cat posted:Is engineering a field that is feasible to get into somewhat 'late'? I'm 26, and though I strongly considered going to school for engineering or something similar when I went to college the first time around, I didn't because I was loving retarded. Now I'm stuck with a useless degree and a prospective life of useless jobs, and I'm getting worried that it's too late to get into anything I'd actually enjoy doing. Yes, it is. I have coworkers who didn't start studying engineering until they were your age and they're doing fine.
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May 25, 2010 04:31
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huhu posted:Anyone have any suggestions for interesting engineering or related blogs/websites? I love reading about stuff like that and keeping up to date on what's going on in the world but I've been searching google for awhile and can't seem to find anything worthwhile. Most of what I find seems to be a lot more technical or however you'd describe it and not very interesting. What field of engineering? I don't think you'll find anything that covers all of engineering.
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Jun 17, 2010 02:46
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hobbesmaster posted:But designing what? In all likelihood, Verilog/VHDL would be far more useful. MATLAB is for math and is used in research. If you want to go into test, picking up some LabVIEW might not be a bad idea. Having exposure to everything aforementioned isn't a bad idea. You'd be surprised. MATLAB is heavily used for simulations and such in industry.
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Aug 16, 2010 01:05
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hobbesmaster posted:Which would fall under (private sector) research, correct? Regardless, I would think a CompE's time would be better spent on learning more VHDL. MATLAB isn't really that hard to learn so long as you know math and C (or FORTRAN, for bonus points). No, I mean that (for example) many ordinary embedded systems firmware engineers use MATLAB on a daily basis as part of the product development cycle. Whether to learn VHDL or MATLAB really depends on what you want to do as a career. Honestly, I'd recommend getting a little experience with both, so that if either comes up as a job requirement you have a foundation to start from.
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Aug 16, 2010 01:43
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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. It doesn't have any direct relation, but engineers are generally people who like to tinker with stuff and do their own repairs. This is true of the majority of my coworkers, even though none of them are mechanical engineers.
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Aug 16, 2010 05:40
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timtastic posted:Do any of you read any trade journals or have some sort of other source for what is happening in your industry? I work on digital media players and hard drives and do a bunch of test automation using Python. None of these are really covered by trade journals. Instead, I spend a lot of time every day reading forums, reviews, documentation, and more on the internet. Continuous self-education is crucial.
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Aug 22, 2010 19:29
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dxt posted:any engineering interview tips? I have my first one with xcel on thursday. Try to think of some specific projects you worked on, so that in the interview when they ask you for examples of stuff you've worked on, you don't just give a vague one sentence answer.
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Aug 23, 2010 17:26
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You could make a tone generator/music box. You'll need to create a digital to analog converter, either using a resistor ladder or PWM if your microcontroller has a PWM output. You then hook this up to a headphone jack and plug in some powered speakers (because the signal will be pretty weak and will require amplification). You can set up switches to modify the tone or the pattern or whatever.
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Oct 14, 2010 08:41
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40sTheme posted:To be honest I'll do anything. I got to do all sorts of fun projects in undergrad engineering. You just got unlucky, I guess 
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Oct 22, 2010 03:11
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40sTheme posted:I suppose... University of California, Irvine. Don't get me wrong, we had tons of homework and boring stuff to do, but we also had fun projects.
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Oct 22, 2010 17:42
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Yeah, I much preferred the classes where the grade was based entirely on tests (and possibly projects). Being graded on homework is lame.
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Oct 22, 2010 20:26
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My job has plenty of busy work, but I don't really mind it because I can see that it has a real effect, instead of just feeling like a waste of time (which is what homework often felt like in school). I understand that most people need to do homework to learn the material well, but I don't, so it was frustrating to be forced to do homework. And contrary to Zo's experience, the stuff I learned in college has been incredibly useful, even the stuff I thought was useless. I'm a test engineer for consumer electronics, so I deal with a huge variety of issues all the time. I would be much less efficient if I hadn't mastered a bunch of different subjects.
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Oct 23, 2010 22:27
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bobomb posted:Another thing, I have 2 interviews lined up for internships. The sales pitch from both sound like QA/software testing. Should I even bother with these, or wait for something better to come around? My GPA is at 2.4 (3.1 for my major), though I expect to raise it to 3.0(3.5 major) within the next year. Chalk up poor GPA to me being a retarded college student who needed to wake up. This might just be my pride as a test engineer speaking, but QA can be serious business and is nothing to scoff at. You can learn a lot from designing test cases and test plans and finding other people's bugs.
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Nov 22, 2010 01:23
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Peyote posted:Guns dont kill people, the people who design them do. I know you're kidding, but designing weapons is definitely somewhat ethically questionable.
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Nov 25, 2010 10:12
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Thoguh posted:There, I fixed it for you, this is a thread about engineering, and big things that go boom are in fact awesome from an engineering standpoint. 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.
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Nov 25, 2010 18:45
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Thoguh posted:I you want to argue moral implications please go to LF rather than trying to derail this thread. 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.
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Nov 26, 2010 17:09
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Even when you're writing software according to someone else's design, there's a good amount of small-scale engineering to be done.
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Nov 28, 2010 23:02
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flux_core posted:Does anyone have a breakdown of the various titles from "architecht" to "monkey"? There's no standard, it varies from company to company.
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Nov 29, 2010 06:10
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seo posted:think I botched an interview. its for an internship doing java ui stuff. its been 6 months since I've done java and when it came time for the technical interview I was thinking in assembly and verilog and forgot a whole bunch of OO terminology. think I impressed the project manager though who was doing the human/team factor part of the interview. worst part is I'm pretty sure I could do the ui stuff It's ok, this happens to everyone sometimes. Note that if this does happen to you in an interview, it sometimes helps if you explain why you're having trouble.
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Dec 22, 2010 18:37
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T.H.E. Rock posted:For a new graduate without much job experience, does it make sense to list technical courses on the resume? I figure it would help to have various technical words that HR might skim for, but I've seen conflicting advice on this. Yes, because they'll ask you what classes you took anyway.
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Dec 30, 2010 21:29
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Sweet As Sin posted:In my university internships are a requirement to get a title, but they're done until the last year of the career (and there aren't really recruiters for the early years over here). However, I just got a job at school doing PCBs with a nifty machine and also as an almacenist in charge of every piece of equipment, and I'm also a private tutor for like 20 kids and have a high GPA. Does that kind of experience count for something? Yes, it's very good.
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Jan 27, 2011 18:44
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I've been working as a test engineer for over two years now, and I like it. Thing is, I have technicians who do the bitch work for me. I get to do the fun parts, like developing the automated tests 
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Feb 16, 2011 07:21
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ApathyGifted posted:Are you hiring? I will do bitch-work. I don't control hiring, sorry I did hear my department is going to be looking for intern engineers and new technicians this summer. Are you in Southern California? Maybe I can try to get your resume to someone who can do something with it.
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Feb 20, 2011 23:09
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