Careers in Acoustical Engineering

[spencer]

Please forgive me for the typing I'm writing this from my iPhone at work.

I can't find out much by myself so I turned to the all knowledgeable talkbass..

Im looking for a new career. I currently work in construction as an electrician but feel like I could do better so to say. Not that it's a bad job I think it pays great but I see me doing something else as a career. I'm only 20 money is not super important to me but if I gotta go to college for 4-5 years, I'm currently making about 70k I'd have to quit this job for school so it better be worth it.

I want to get into acoustical architecture/engineering really anything to do with sound. I'm looking for the following

1.Careers in anything to do with sound engineering, I'm not talking about recording I mean design and such. Buildings to objects.

2. Schools that specialize in or have special courses for this sort. Of thing besides a physics class. I know Virginia tech touches on acoustics in their architecture classes.

3. Umm can't remember my third question..

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Dont really know anything about that field, but it seems like it could be quite a niche market job-wise.

If doing that, would look at getting a general engineering degree first, then specialising into accoustic engineering with a post grad or something?

To be honest, pulling in the cash you are, at only 20, is pretty impressive (maybe it's more common in the US). With the way the economy is going, sure, it's a good time to go to school if you can afford it, but if you have a pretty high paying job, that is secure, might be worthwhile sticking with it for the time being?

Again, just speculating here (as someone in school who wishes he just had a decent paying job).

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

If doing that, would look at getting a general engineering degree first, then specialising into accoustic engineering with a post grad or something?

When I was in college my roomate got an undergraduate degree in Acoustics by way of the Mechanical Engineering department.

Ironically, he then did not pursue Acoustics as a field, instead going into Audio Engineering...whereas I, who got my undergraduate degree in Audio Engineering, eventually wound up working as an acoustical consultant (a field in which I'm for the most part an auto-didact).

[jojobean39]

Engineering, in general, is a pretty tough field right now. The market is very competitive. There have been tons of layoffs in the industry. I have an electrical engineering degree, but I work and am friends with civils, mechanicals, architectural, etc. engineers and there are problems all over. It is a good career once you get in, but right now is a very bad time, IMO.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Originally Posted by jojobean39

Engineering, in general, is a pretty tough field right now. The market is very competitive. There have been tons of layoffs in the industry. I have an electrical engineering degree, but I work and am friends with civils, mechanicals, architectural, etc. engineers and there are problems all over. It is a good career once you get in, but right now is a very bad time, IMO.

Sadly thats the case across the board for engineering/sciences

[B.C.]

Well, that is what I am doing now. My degree program is electrical engineering with an emphasis in signal processing. This AFAIK will get you on the right track. Some graduate and undergraduate(University of Illinois, Purdue, etc.) offer emphases in acoustics.

Hope this helps

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

The University of Hartford has a cross-disciplinary program in Acoustical Engineering and Music.

Your location appears to be a secret, but if you're near NYC or able to be there in October, check out the educational and technical events at www.aes.org/events/127/

[Chebass88]

You can always work for the military. They are very concerned with "Acoustical Signatures" on almost everything. For example, machinery and propulsion motors on ships and submarines. I'm currently working in the Machinery Research & Silencing Division of a warfare center, in which we have many acoustical folks. (Not to mention a giant anechoic chamber for testing motors which would be great for a sound studio!)

Another example is household machinery - have you seen the advertisement showing the washing machine & dryer in the woods? These need acoustical treatment also.

One of my colleagues went to Penn State for Acoustics, after a bachelor's in EE.

Hope this helps!

ian

[spencer]

Originally Posted by i_got_a_mohawk

To be honest, pulling in the cash you are, at only 20, is pretty impressive (maybe it's more common in the US). With the way the economy is going, sure, it's a good time to go to school if you can afford it, but if you have a pretty high paying job, that is secure, might be worthwhile sticking with it for the time being?
.

I know this, and im so happy to have this job plus I feel its pretty steady only if Im willing to travel.

But If I had a choice career it would be in something else..

And im at the point in my life where waiting might not allow me to ever go to school. Im getting married in two months but currently have no bills other than cell phone and a few credit cards but in a few months if Im going to be looking into buying a house and will have many more bills in which going to school will make it very hard to go to school and work. However if I get my mind set and decide to go to school I really could just keep the few bills I have and it will be alot easier.

[SonofJud]

I would think for acoustics it would be best to get a mechanical engineering degree, wouldn't it? If by acoustics you mean the shaping of whatever you are creating for sound, methinks that would be alot of PDES and Fourier stuff, along with other structural things related to mechanical. Although it would be interesting to do something like materials science and work on the dampeners etc. I guess more knowledge wouldn't hurt.

[Hoover]

Oh god, this thread just entered the Sad Zone. I am so sorry.

You're only 20 years old, you're making $70k/year...and now you're gonna get married?!?!?

So much potential. Wasted.

[vene-nemesis]

Its been said before but still: Im quite sure that acoustics is a sub branch of mechanical eng. Im doing myself a machinery focused branch degree and have one optional class called acoustics. Even though youll might get better lectures about acoustics through the structures branch of mech eng.

[spencer]

Originally Posted by vene-nemesis

Its been said before but still: Im quite sure that acoustics is a sub branch of mechanical eng. Im doing myself a machinery focused branch degree and have one optional class called acoustics. Even though youll might get better lectures about acoustics through the structures branch of mech eng.

This is really heLping as I thought I would have to focus on Physics. So I might need to look for mechanical engineering or start with architecture depending on what I want to do.

Hoover yes I'm very thankful I make this much and I'm very thankful for my fiancé and know I'm mskngbthe right decision

[B.C.]

Originally Posted by spencer

This is really heLping as I thought I would have to focus on Physics. So I might need to look for mechanical engineering or start with architecture depending on what I want to do.

Hoover yes I'm very thankful I make this much and I'm very thankful for my fiancé and know I'm mskngbthe right decision

IME, acoustics is an electrical engineering field. Especially with signal processing and such.

The universities I've been to and research all had acoustics under EE

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by B.C.

IME, acoustics is an electrical engineering field. Especially with signal processing and such.

The universities I've been to and research all had acoustics under EE

Acoustics is the study of how sound behaves in a physical medium. There's no electricity required for the phenomenon to exist, no electricity required for the study of the phenomenon, and no electricity required for the practical treatment/control of sound behavior in an architectural space. IMO it makes absolutely no sense to treat acoustics as a subset of electrical engineering. If you're studying pure theory it's a branch of physics; if you're studying in order to provide practical solutions it's a branch of architecture.

And DSP is just this week's bandaid to a mechanical problem that acousticians had been solving effectively for >50 years before DSP was even invented.

[vene-nemesis]

Originally Posted by Hoover

Acoustics is the study of how sound behaves in a physical medium. There's no electricity required for the phenomenon to exist, no electricity required for the study of the phenomenon, and no electricity required for the practical treatment/control of sound behavior in an architectural space. IMO it makes absolutely no sense to treat acoustics as a subset of electrical engineering. If you're studying pure theory it's a branch of physics; if you're studying in order to provide practical solutions it's a branch of architecture.

And DSP is just this week's bandaid to a mechanical problem that acousticians had been solving effectively for >50 years before DSP was even invented.

Sound per se only exists in a physical medium.

But maybe at his uni those research labs studied the transformation of mechanical waves into electric signals and viceversa. It could have been called acoustic transducers and being told just as acoustics.

[winston]

You might want to check the "Acoustics in Motion" forum over at Pro Snob...er...Pro Sound Web

Also on the West Coast there are programs such as Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics
and
UC Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT)
and
UC San Diego Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA)--MAX/MSP/Pure Data creator Miller Puckette teaches here.

These programs might be a bit more computer/arts-oriented than you're looking for, but each school has a world-class engineering dept.