Tell me about being an Engineer!

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

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

frr posted:

I don't mean to sound too negative, but I am totally and completely unexcited about something I used to love, staring at a computer all day eats my soul. If I did not have so much student loan debt Id go back to school to do something else.

MCNP is the most soul-sucking program I've dealt with in nuclear engineering.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2009 16:44

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 07:52

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Dangbe posted:

-Can any Engineers tell me the types of careers involved with Environmental Engineering

I can only speak for coworkers, but...

Hahahaha

Your choices are unemployment or soul-crushing EPA/state EPA paperwork. I seriously don't know a happy environmental engineer.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2009 23:07

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Invisible Minority posted:

I'm a first year Nuclear Engineering student. First off holy crap university is a lot of work, secondly all this talk of GPA's is intimidating since I've missed quite a few percentage points after getting hit with a huge poo poo tsunami of work three or four weeks in.

Anyway, is working in a nuclear power plant as fun as the process sounds? I hear its mostly just working with fluids, but it still sounds really interesting.

I just finished a half year as a intern doing my thesis on an industry project, and I had a blast. I've also worked a half year at a coal plant. Power plants are just generally pretty laid-back work places with practically-minded people and a relatively low amount of bullshit. I was with the engineering staff in both cases.

Nuclear engineering draws a pretty clear line between the mechanical engineers and the physicists, so be prepared to choose. Most of the jobs fall into the one category or the other. Personally, I'm a mechanical engineer specializing in steam and thermal-hydraulics (fluid dynamics and heat/mass transfer). The jobs I have available to me are mostly modeling and safety analyses in software programs which have been in development since the Ford administration (we have some from Nixon's first term, too). What do you want to focus on? Name the plant component that gives you the biggest hard-on...

~~btw, probably getting hired for my first nuke job in 30 min.~~

EDIT: Got hired.

Groda fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Oct 23, 2009

# ¿ Oct 23, 2009 13:39

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Invisible Minority posted:

I want to be the guy that shoots the neutrons at the uranium atoms.

Also congrats!

^{In Swedish, when we talk about changing out fuel, we use the same verb (att skyffla) for shoveling coal into a boiler furnace.}

Then in your case you'll want to keep with the applied physics students. Load up on your fuel chemistry and neutronics (applied neutron physics) courses/projects. Fuel guys are in great demand over there, although you may have to compete with some frighteningly brilliant physics majors whose dreams of being paid to do particle physics have been crushed by some junior-year reality check. Fortunately, a lot of them are unemployable.

Play with MCNP at the earliest possible opportunity. It will give you a bit of an idea of what kind of work you'll be doing. Better to find out you hate the job now than later. There are several big names (Computer programs, that is. Because they're so old, they will be referred to as codes.) in the field of fuel management. I don't know the American ones, but we have a piece of Westinghouse IP called POLCA.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2009 16:25

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Namarrgon posted:

Could you clarify this part?

Well, a lot of my classmates and those of coworkers were studying to get into particle (or other) physics research originally, but then moved into a master's in nuclear engineering once they figured out they either:
A. ...needed to get a paying job someday.
B. ...would never get a good doctorate/researcher/misc. quaternary position in their original field.

Anyone with that background is vastly over-qualified for nuclear engineering education (except the process and chemistry parts, of course), and those I know personally all ended up going into advanced research (i.e. things which won't be built for another 30-40 years) as a result. There are an awful lot of them that just don't leave the university, and don't perform their master's thesis in the industry or with present-day topics.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2009 18:12

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Calculus 2 is the worst calculus.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2009 18:35

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

grover posted:

At Penn State, we had:
1- Derivative
2- Integral
3- Vector calculus
4- Differential Equations
5- Advanced Differential Equations

That's like getting graded on a 6.0 scale.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2009 09:18

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

slorb posted:

Join the right study group. You want to be in the study group with the people who get good grades and are taking it seriously, not guys who are just going to bug you for answers. Study group time is valuable but not a substitute for time spent studying alone.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2009 13:13

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

I've got a master degree from a foreign school and will have one more (one of these days...). I'm living and working abroad for the near future.

Someday, I might want to go back to the States, and I would much rather end up a P.E. down the line. As I understand it, I have to:

get my degree reviewed by someone and approved
take the FE exam
have a P.E. mentor as a boss or something

Is that it? Does anyone here know a P.E. who was educated outside the US?

# ¿ Nov 4, 2009 12:19

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

KaiserBen posted:

That's the process, AFAIK, but I'll ask some people at work (we have a bunch of foreign PEs).

Which field are you in?

nuclear/mechanical/process

I'd hate to do the mech.eng. F.E. since I know jack poo poo about materials.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2009 16:02

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Thanks for getting back!

Where was your coworker from? How long after getting his degree did he have it approved?

# ¿ Nov 5, 2009 15:54

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

KaiserBen posted:

One from Brazil, one from India. The Indian got his degree approved almost instantly, the Brazilian had a bit of a hard time, because he was 10+ years out of school by the time he took the FE.

Was the fact that the Brazilian's papers weren't originally in English a big problem?

# ¿ Nov 6, 2009 23:21

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

lightpole posted:

An engineering degree simply lets you skip the apprenticeship and go in as a journeyman. I dont really care what you call it.

That really sounds like a technician job you're talking about.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2009 14:01

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

spwrozek posted:

Personally, when studying abroad I feel you should take zero eng classes. Get all of the generals done in your year overseas. Just go out and enjoy the rest of the world, explore, see new things and have a good time. To me that is the reason to go abroad.

I'd second this, since you want to have as much face time as possible with professors who could be your future thesis advisors and/or hook you up with internships.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2009 00:49

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

In nuclear engineering, what are the long-term consequences of not having a PE? Is it a prerequisite for breaking into management?

# ¿ May 16, 2010 08:50

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

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 is a popular degree program here in Sweden, and there are tons of jobs right now for someone with a degree like this. I took both my degrees in energy engineering, and none of my classmates are having trouble with finding work or doctorate placements.

That said, I have not once heard of such a thing in the US. The interviewers for jobs which I applied to in the States weren't too skeptical of my degree, for what it's worth; they just needed some explanation.

# ¿ May 26, 2010 20:47

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Aerofallosov posted:

Is it a wise idea to do EE for a BSc then move on to nuclear power for an MS? I found out that there is a Nuclear Engineering degree in my area but it's only at the Master's Level and wasn't too sure which way to go.

Why would you study electrical engineering for a nuclear engineering degree? Aren't most of them just combined applied physics/mechanical engineering programs?

# ¿ Jun 1, 2010 21:39

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

Mr Crumbbley posted:

This is very relieving to see. I kinda panicked when going through the thread and only seeing negative comments about it.

Could you tell me a little about it? Like what exactly does the major entail, how is the course work? What kind of jobs are available to someone with this degree?

Well, here, the program mainly dealt with mechanical and process engineering at thermal power plants (hardly any electrical topics). Courses in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, heat/mass transfer etc to start with, but continuing with a whole bunch of pretty energy-specific courses: plant optimization, district heating, steam engineering, combustion/flue gas engineering etc. They also had some token courses in wind power and fuel cells.

I'll level with you, this degree was primarily for training people to work as engineers on-site. We didn't send many people to go work at the suppliers designing turbines/boilers/generators for obscene amounts of money. However, those on-site jobs my classmates got have a lot of room for advancement within the plants--especially since most of your coworkers only have high school diplomas. This applies to the small coal plant I worked at in the US, too. YMMV

I started a master's program afterwards in nuclear energy engineering, and now work in the industry doing design/analysis. That program was even more specific, as you can imagine.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2010 21:49

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

No matter where you apply to, try to find a map of the organization before you talk to someone who will be directly affecting your chances of getting hired.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2010 20:07

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

grover posted:

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.

Nuclear engineer here... :colbert:

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 21:23

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 07:52

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

grover posted:

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

An emphatic "no" to that, too.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2010 21:04

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