I get a PM every week or two from prospective or current engineering students asking general questions about the degree, career opportunities, etc. After spending a good bit of time on this particular response, I wanted to share it with the rest of yall. The questions addressed were:
The more I work, the more I find that "engineering" is about as broad as business, as far as opportunities and job descriptions go. I'm an applications/design engineer; I design and modify parts to fit customer specific applications, including pressure, weight, loading, environment, and fitment with existing parts and tools. My boyfriend is a field engineer; he designs procedures for and oversees offshore oil equipment installation. I worked an internship as a manufacturing engineer, solving problems and improving efficiency on an assembly line.
The best advice I can offer is to work as many internships, coops, apprenticeships, research assistant positions, etc as you can. Experience as many different kinds of engineering as possible. I'm not talking about Chem E, Electrical E, etc., I'm talking about manufacturing, projects, design, R&D, field, whatever you can find. Work experience is by far the most vital key to getting a job post graduation. Don't sweat your GPA - mine wasn't exactly stellar, but with 1.5 years work experience at graduation I was getting calls from all over the place for possible positions.
Automotive engineering is boring. You have to be very well connected or very lucky to end up with someone like Team Mustang or GM Performance Division; otherwise, you end up designing turn signal switches for 25 years in one of the most depressed areas of the US (Michigan). Roush and Steeda both have internship programs, so check their websites. If you can get a foot in the door there, awesome, otherwise look elsewhere for jobs. I would recommend the petroleum industry; it's not the most interesting, but it pays the best, and for engineers it's usually fairly stable.
Decide early where you want to end up living, it will define the field you should go into.
Be prepared for little to no social life, classes that make you hate your life, tests you'll score a 32 on and get a C, single homework problems that take 8 hours to work. But remember that the average starting salary for an ME is one of the highest in the nation, and unless you become a structural engineer for Lockheed Martin, odds are you won't have to know most of what you learn. The biggest thing you will take out of school is not how to solve a 3-degree of freedom vibrations problem, or how to calculate the efficiency of an Otto cycle. You will learn how to think, how to trouble shoot and solve a problem. That's the core of being an engineer.
Do I like what I do? Yes, I actually do. I like being able to look at a list of requirements and make something work. I like looking at a drawing and understanding the loads, stresses, assembly processes, and machining steps required.
Buy a TI-89. Learn it, love it. It will be your best friend in school. And always carry spare batteries.
The more I work, the more I find that "engineering" is about as broad as business, as far as opportunities and job descriptions go. I'm an applications/design engineer; I design and modify parts to fit customer specific applications, including pressure, weight, loading, environment, and fitment with existing parts and tools. My boyfriend is a field engineer; he designs procedures for and oversees offshore oil equipment installation. I worked an internship as a manufacturing engineer, solving problems and improving efficiency on an assembly line.
The best advice I can offer is to work as many internships, coops, apprenticeships, research assistant positions, etc as you can. Experience as many different kinds of engineering as possible. I'm not talking about Chem E, Electrical E, etc., I'm talking about manufacturing, projects, design, R&D, field, whatever you can find. Work experience is by far the most vital key to getting a job post graduation. Don't sweat your GPA - mine wasn't exactly stellar, but with 1.5 years work experience at graduation I was getting calls from all over the place for possible positions.
Automotive engineering is boring. You have to be very well connected or very lucky to end up with someone like Team Mustang or GM Performance Division; otherwise, you end up designing turn signal switches for 25 years in one of the most depressed areas of the US (Michigan). Roush and Steeda both have internship programs, so check their websites. If you can get a foot in the door there, awesome, otherwise look elsewhere for jobs. I would recommend the petroleum industry; it's not the most interesting, but it pays the best, and for engineers it's usually fairly stable.
Decide early where you want to end up living, it will define the field you should go into.
Be prepared for little to no social life, classes that make you hate your life, tests you'll score a 32 on and get a C, single homework problems that take 8 hours to work. But remember that the average starting salary for an ME is one of the highest in the nation, and unless you become a structural engineer for Lockheed Martin, odds are you won't have to know most of what you learn. The biggest thing you will take out of school is not how to solve a 3-degree of freedom vibrations problem, or how to calculate the efficiency of an Otto cycle. You will learn how to think, how to trouble shoot and solve a problem. That's the core of being an engineer.
Do I like what I do? Yes, I actually do. I like being able to look at a list of requirements and make something work. I like looking at a drawing and understanding the loads, stresses, assembly processes, and machining steps required.
Buy a TI-89. Learn it, love it. It will be your best friend in school. And always carry spare batteries.
