OT Question for Eng, Mechanical, Electrical, etc...
 

I am going back to college. My mind tends towards technical things (my current career is as a Network Eng). I'm thinking I might like Mechanical engineering, but since I've never been an ME I couldn't say for sure. I don't think I'd end up going the Chemical route. I'm more likely to do something like Electrical or Mechanical.

Can some of you engineers tell me a bit about your field, what you do, if you'd do it differently if you could do it again, etc. If you want to send me an email or PM instead of public that's fine.

Ultimately I'm not necessarily going for a career change, but for the journey, and hopefully to learn some stuff that I find interesting. I was an EE major for a couple of years when I was younger and remember thinking that most of the physics type classes were interesting, Phy 1 and 2, Statics, Dynamics, Materials, Thermo, etc...

Funny, I don't really have much desire to go into Computers, but I'm not a big fan of programming, and circuit design doesn't really sound much better.

Anyway, sorry for the use of bandwidth, but this is the best place I know to find a bunch of friendly engineers that would help educate me more about the various fields.

Thanks in Advance.

I'm a mechanical engineer and love it. If I had to do it over again I'd do the same thing. I spent a short 2 year stint in the nuclear industry and then have been in the aerospace industry for the last 16 years. I'm a design engineer and have designed hardware for everything from Space Shuttle payloads to liquid hydrogen feed systems to military hardware.

I think mechanical engineering is the best "all-around" engineering field to go into (I'm biased of course), but as a mechanical, you end up with knowledge in electrical, chemical and civil disciplines also. I also think that mechanical engineering knowledge more directly applies to the world around us (how things work), so I think it fits your "journey to learn some interesting things" requirement.

Mike
(will design for food)

I'm a ME....and ditto to what IROC says...it has to be a "part" of you....don't do it out of a love of money ( only) ...( ha !)... or "career stability" or whatever. You have to like this stuff and have an inquisitive mind. I find that the thinking discipline used in studying ME has served me well in other ( ex: project management) duties.

Mike(IROC)....no kidding?....in my past I designed cryogenic pumping and vaporization systems ( LN2 / L02 / LH2)...and contracted with NASA on hydrogen trans-fill station designs. We did their facility at the Stennis Space center, where I was big-time involved at one time. Also did some work for Vandenburg Air force Base, etc.....

Small world..... :)

Wil

Materials engineering here with a specialty in ceramics and metallurgy. I don't have a degree, but did it the hard way through experience and on the job learning. It took almost 10 years to get to the level of junior engineer. I'll never become a senior or project engineer though. My work is interesting as I work for a major defense contractor.

If I were to do it over again, obviously I would have graduated from college. I wanted to be an aerospace engineer but I quickly realized that job oppurtunities were limited.

I studied mechanical engineering while in college simply for its jack of all trades appeal. Unfortunately finances and family situations precluded my graduation. Tried night school for a while but that's really hard with a wife and kids. My advice to you: any engineering is good, JUST GRADUATE! Good Luck in the future in any endeavour.


Gene DiGennaro
Baltimore, Md.

Mechanical
 

I am an ME as well allthough I have never actually had an engineering job. I got out of school 26 years ago and went right into machinery sales. The technical background helps a lot when trying to sell a technial product to a group of engineers. It provides instant credibility.

If I had to do it over again I'd definitely choose mechanical per Iroc's and Wil's comments. The only thing I'd do differently though is I'd stay in school and get an MBA as well. A BSME with an MBA would open lots of upper level management doors that seem to be reserved for finance types.

Good Luck,

Don

if i had to do it all over again, and i may. haha. i would go ME. i am currently a registered CE. i took some ME electives and participated in college MINI baja competitions. our school placed 16th with an all CE team. just a bunch of motorheads, studying concrete, and steel. geez. i think there is more work in CE tho. especially with the decay traffic system throughout. from what i remember, the first two years we were all one big happy family. it is later that you branched off anyways.

electrical? i still cant figure out what the heck a wheatstone bridge is.

Yep..go M.E....like me :)

Ditto on the above comments about ME's being more rounded. I actually started out to become an Aerospace engineer! Ha! Some youthful dream of being an specialist on a shuttle mission. Can you imagine that? My tweaking something "up there" while posting on Pelican :)

No really, I work in an engineering consulting firm, so I see all disciplines of engineering. No offense to anyone who is not an ME, but IMO the ME's are much more capable than the EE's or CE's or Chem E's or Meterial E's (formerly acceptable to call them metallurgists!), etc,...

As an ME in my industry, I do everything from designing buildings, pipelines, pipeline facilities, electrical design for my facilities (with help from my sparky budddies and drafter some times), electrical and pneumatic controls, flow modeling, the list goes on....and I even work with LPG+LNG+N2 injection (that's for you Wil :) )

The EE's here? They design panels and lighting for my buildings, route conduit, calc wire gauge...make sure the NEC is met and soak up project hours :(

The most important thing, regardless of one's degree is YOU! How capable are you of learning new things and applying yourself? I have know EE's that were far better mechanical engineers than mechanical engineers! And I know drafters that make far better engineers than the engineers they take instructions from!

An engineering degree does not make you an engineer! You have to be an engineer at heart to be a good engineer...and you don't need an engineering degree to be a good engineer (although it's harder these days to got that route). I see a lot of engineers who would have been better off working as used car sales men. Sure they got through school, but there couldn't design a card board box!

Just like most things in life, you make of it what you want. One really good thing about engineering is that the job market is very good and steady if you have developed yourself to be capable! With what I have seen as a consultant, there will always be a demand for good engineers.

ok no offense to be taken: what is the engineering pecking order?

Thanks for the info guys. What you have said is kind of what I was thinking/hoping.

Mechanical engineers design weapons - civil engineers design targets. :>)

Mike

Good one. Do Electrical and Chemical provide the raw materials for the Mechanicals' weapons?

Think of ME's as the integrators and the rest sub system designers :)

ME as well, most of my engineering was in software, building feedback control systems, now I have given in to the dark side, and I am in sales.

Jim

mechanical engineer here.

i'm now the manager of the mechanical engineering group at an aerospace company that specializes in aircraft fire detection.

if it were 1989 all over again, i'd study aero so i could get a high power job at an f1 team. actually there are now "motorsport engineering" specialties at several universities. i'd love to have done that.

Good thread!

I particularly like Souk’s post. He is right on.
A good ME program encompasses all the disciplines, particularly computer science and EE. Although costly, take more than minimum to broaden your perspective.

I’m an EE by education (Carnegie Mellon) and Economics, and started my MBA when I heard my Porsche calling. My education taught me how to think clearly.

For the past 15 years, I have taught a very high end high school science research class (9th grade – 14 YO) as a volunteer. This has forced me to become familiar with a remarkable variety of disciplines. Great fun.

Whatever you do, do it well for your intellectual satisfaction. Pass it on.

Best,
Grady

Make sure you like physics and math, try a statics and a dynamics course early on.

I seem to recall the following pecking order of 'smarts', highest to lowest ;) ...

ChemE
Mech/Electrical
Civil

if you couldn't hack that... you went to a lowly comp sci degree. this is in the early 90's before the 'internets'. :) who woulda thunk those dumb c.s. guys would be making mad cash in a few years.

my undergrad was in mechanical. its a good foundation for problem solving regardless of what you end up doing for a living.

bernie, P.E. :D

My degree is in Welding Engineering. WE is another "jack-of-all-trades" engineering degree with training in Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Civil Engineering.
I work in our dying manufacturing base. If I had it all to do over again I would heve gone on to Med School. Then I could afford more cool 911's.

Re: OT Question for Eng, Mechanical, Electrical, etc...
 

If you don't need the degree to change careers, why spend the money? Spend the cash on stuff that you find interesting. If cars interest you, do like Soukfu and others, and do some R&D or build up some cool rides. Unless you're deep in the sh~t, Statics and Dynamics aren't going to be immensely useful. So are you looking for a four year journey, or are you looking for a real challenge?
just my opinion, jurgen

Thanks, I enjoyed Physics including Statics and dynamics in college the first time, and statistics was mostly interesting, and I have been through Engineering Calc 1, 2, 3, and Diff Equ. Math and Physics are familiar and interesting to me. THat's why I am gravitating towards ME, it seemed Physics heavy.

The first time I was young and didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I didn't apply myself. This time I plan on actually learning the stuff instead o just getting by. My wife and both stepkids are in College, and after working with them for the last couple of years, tutoring them through Math and some of the sciences my love of learning has been rekindled. At 18 away from home for the first time surrounded by 30,000 other college students there are many, many more interesting things than studying. This time I don't have the same kind of distractions.

I'm confident that I can Ace most of my classes this time maybe with the occasional B.

One other question, how much does the college that you get your degree from matter. I'm in Houston. The easiest 4 year for me to transfer to is the University of Houston which is a state school, then there is Rice U which is a spendy private school, and then there is Texas A&M which is more difficult because it's not really quite local to Houston.

Thanks again.

Re: Re: OT Question for Eng, Mechanical, Electrical, etc...
 

I'd like to have a degree and the education. Even with my networking experience there are many jobs that want someone with a 4 year degree, so it would be useful even if I stay in networking. I think that once I have a degree I probably will actually change careers to work with it. I learned a bunch of stuff the first time I went to college, but there is so much more that I can learn.

Ultimately college will turn out cheaper than hobbies/Porsches, and will pay me back in the long run. Besides, it's a lot easier to get the wife to let go of a couple of grand for school than for a couple of Recaros. Besides, I do find learning and Physics and math interesting.

But your opinion is welcome, thank you.

Steve - Rice is a near-top quality school - I assume you don't want to move....

masraum, my "original" degree is a BFA in photography. i had huge dreams of kickinA images i was gonna sell to the masses. well, i made good money, but my last gig was shooting a photos for a streetsweeper brochure. it was lame. so at 29, i found myself hanging with a bunch of younger folks with better studying skills than myself. trying to remember the trig-identities was a rude awakening. all in all, i wouldnt change a thing. best decision of my life. i signed on to a project to bore a huge tunnel thru some of the most beautiful real estate in the world (devil's slide). right on highway 1. i will have my leica with me 100% of the time, and at the end i hope to have those kickinA images. no decision to keep learning is ever bad.

cliff
my pecking order.
chem E
EE
ME
civil
industrial E...and ME bumps civil, just because of that damn kinematics class!

soh cah toa

School wont mean Sh...#@ unless its MIT or something. I would think if you stay in that area and that state school has a decent rep. then it will show well on a resume'. I am a CE and PE. I think if I had it to do over again I would do something in Business. I love business/finance and those guys can make some bucks if they are sharp at all. I wish I had gone back for an MBA before the family.

There is tons of work in Civil, I am in sales now and call on Eng. firms and get constant job offers. But civil is bottom of the barrel and they cant charge large fees for design so they cant pay the CEs that much. They wish they could, there is a terrible shortage in the Atlanta area.

Sounds like you would enjoy ME it definitely covers all the basis. Most MEs dont get a profesional license (no reason too) and they plateau out pretty hard unless they can make it into management. Just higher plateau than CEs. I think Chem Es make good money but that is hard work to learn all that chemistry.

I think the forrestry engineers were below the CEs in the heirarchy and I thought the Materials too, but I could be wrong.:-))

As long as the school you go to has a solid program you'll be fully challenged. I am an ME also. I have done very little work as an engineer though. If the school you goes to matters a little, that totally evaporates once you've passed the PE exam. I'd say go with ME. I have always thought of it as practical physics. You study mechanics (statics, dynamics, strength of materials...) and flow (thermodynamics, fluids, compressible fluids, heat transfer...). You also get to touch on electronics, materials, processes, programming, etc. The fact that you don't get hyper specialized as an undergrad is why I went with ME. You're always getting something new. I loved the flow classes and did pretty well, but controls, and numerical methods were also really fun. I had an evil, slave-driving, cruel taskmaster for controls and barely got a C. But, over the summer break I found myself thinking about everything in terms of feedback loops and stability. I realized that I had really learned. So I signed up for the advanced controls class with the same professor. It was 3x as hard and I loved it. Got an A. The guy was brilliant at teaching systems modeling. He was famous for his 48hour tests. He'd hand out an exam and it would be due 48hours later. You'd take it home and work on it until bedtime. Wake up and work on it all day, all night, and right up until it was due. He got canned a few years later which was too bad since he was the best teacher there (despite being an evil slavedriving SOB). If I were doing it again I'd still go with ME but I would emphasize materials. It seems like every practical design issue I have ever dealt with boils down to materials issues.

Definately go back to school, and do it because you want to learn! I'm almost envious (but that is because I have forgotten how much I hated homework!).

I guess I would add .....follow your heart.

Too many go in to this line of work because of the peripheral issues...( "good pay"...etc) and never truly ask themselves if they "like" what they do.

As I said, even if you don't apply the engineering principles directlly, you will still find yourself approachuing issues more clearly and with a structured approach. Works for any management position you might hold or aspire to someday, too.

A related concern , however, is the penchant for US business going overseas to get to a qualified brain trust "cheaper" , if you end up working for a large multi-national. Russian ex-pats and people from India are hightly trained, qualified and work cheaply "over there". Tends to keep you "in check" if you start feeling too big for your britches. Even as many of thes people come here to the States, it also serves to drive salaries down, in some industries.

I would probably dual-degree if I had to do all over again. Technical / Business or Technical / Finance maybe.....

Wil

he was the best teacher there [because he was] an evil slavedriving SOB.....


nobody ever says this about coaches, do they?

SoH Cah Toa..... LOL !

I thought only I did that in school to remember trig relationships....brings back memories

Wil

Wil - I learned that from my geometry teacher in 10th grade. :) Almost 20 years ago now.

As an aerospace engineer I would have to say our curriculum trumps ME. :D

We get most of the ME curriculum + advanced mathmatics, + advanced phyics & thermo + fluid dynamics + electronics & instumentation.

The wide variety of skills served me well. The computer programming skills I learned allowed me to make some good money for several years as a programmer and project manager during the dot com boom which was great since the aerospace sector was in a bad shaoe when I graduated.

When the 930 project is complete I will probably start looking around for some fun engineering work again. I love my current machinist job but its not quite the money I have become accustomed to.

Do you remember FOIL? Quadratics rule the engineering calculation world.

Oh now.now we are turning onto geeks again :)

Wil, I'm probably 1/2 your age, and I learned of our favorite chief SoH CaH ToA .. and of course FOIL too Tony :D

Thanks guys. Yes, I'm thinking ME because the curriculum sounds more interesting on the whole than for Elec (zzz) or Chem (Aaahhh). I find myself getting really excited by most of the technical threads that have popped up here regarding physics, aero, acceleration on wet grass, etc.... When I got laid off and was out of work I actually started reading my old physics book just cuz.

I know that unless I enjoy what I'm doing (like I do now) I'll be miserable. One of the reasons I quit going to college the first time. It would have been great if I had been driven, knew what I wanted to do, and actually applied myself to get good grades and finish, but the past is the past.

Thanks for all of the input. It's been educational and motivating.

Nope, not my thing, like you said, "what I want to do" is the key
Yep, for a few years I worked on the Cisco TAC (technical assistance center). We took trouble calls telling people how to fix their network. Many, many friends got laid off when Cisco started outsourcing and off-shoring their stuff to India, Mexico, Costa Rica, Manila, etc...

Randy, since the whole family is in school, and my current job is paying for everything including school for 4 (minus financial aid), we are hesitant to move. Rice or A&M seem like the best choice to me, but I am wondering once you get done how much difference it really makes.

Vash, I'd also love to be a photographer. Or even better yet, independently wealthy and able to travel the globe taking pics for no reason! ;)

I think I'd get mighty bored with Weddings and print ad stuff. I think I'll do the engineering thing and keep the photo stuff as a hobby.

They'll never outsource CEO's or CFO's......

No wonder I never rocketed-up the advancement ladder....I keep asking questions like, "....how come it's OK to get cheap engineers from India....but all our CEO's are all stateside? I'm *sure* we can find a CEO from Calcutta that'll work for only 40X an engineer's salary instead of the US-average of 200X.."

Then the meeting gets quiet......

Steve..have fun...good luck

- - Wil

Hopefully this won't get lost since this thread is getting older, but...

Is a BS enough for engineering, or do you need a Masters?

depends on the field. bs should do for most.

I would vote for BS as long as you stay within the options presented by the current company you work for. An ME helps if you shift to other companies frequently. Again, this can be very dependent on the industry. IMO....once you get the core BS degree, what matters next is on-the-job performance.

Wil