Careers in Engineering?

[TortillaChip520]

So I am a senior this year, and am off to college next year, and like most people, have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I'm pretty smart, not insanely genius, but definitely above average. I'm good at math, and engineers make lots of money apparently, so I figured I could do that.
The only thing is I know next to nothing about engineering.

What different types of engineering are there, and who here is in one of those fields?

I'm curious as to what's out there, because I have no idea what to do.

[TrooperFarva]

I'm an Electrical Engineer. Within Electrical Engineering, there's a lot of subsets. Power would be one concentration, electronics another, including Analog design and Digital design, and Computer engineering another, like microprocessors, etc. There's also associated programming, especially Control systems. I've done mainly Power and Control.

I used to design generator control systems. They were very advanced, pretty serious stuff. It involves designing all the points that are actually controlled, how they're controlled, picking and installing hardware, and programming associated software.

Hardware design didn't interest me. I did a bunch of it in college, and I was pretty good at it, but I couldn't see me doing it for years on end. I never really got into the microprocessor stuff.

I'm still an electrical engineer, doing similar work, although I can't get into the specifics. I like the job a lot, and I make good money. One of the aspects that I enjoy most about engineering, at least in the jobs that I've held, is that I get to travel, and work in a lot of cool locations.

That said, I'm applying to law school now. I find the day-to-day engineering work a little too easy.

Off the top of my head, there's also Mechanical Engineering and Civil Engineering, and each of those have a wide array of subsets also.

[Sterling_Bass]

Aside from math and physics, do you like the sciences? How about biology or chemistry? Chemical engineering is a great field, as is biomedical engineering.

[blizzard]

I'm just about to go into 4th yeah Mechanical Engineering this year. Engineering at uni is definitely a fairly intensive course. I normally end up having classes 5 days a week and it can take up a lot of your spare time too. Having said that I really enjoy what I'm doing.

As far types of engineering, theres a lot. I'll list ones that my uni offers and try give a bit of an explanation of each.

Civil/Structural - Depends really on what you call it. They deal with static things mainly, bridges, buildings, roads, concrete (they have a few subjects just dedicated to concrete).
Mechanical - Generally, they cover things that move... its a pretty diverse degree, you cover a lot the work of statics (live civil) as well as dynamics and can work on automotive, rockets, heavy machinery, power generation, processing plants.
Chemical - Deals largely with reaction processes eg. Petroleum refining, alcohol production, thermodynamics etc.
Software - Basically what it sounds like
Mechatronics - A combination of electrical and mechanical, used for robotics, automisation (eg production lines).
Mining Engineering - Works in the mining industry oddly enough, covers a fair bit of economics, geology and you learn about using explosives.
Material Engineering- Develop new materials basically

There's probably more but thats what I can think of right now. As for difficulty Mining Engineering is the 'easiest' and also the highest paid. The rest are much of a much.

[fdeck]

I'm in optical engineering. It's one of the smaller branches, but with a lot of interesting and difficult work to do. I was attracted to optics because every project seems to involve both abstract theory and practical knowledge at the same time.

My degree is in physics, and before getting into optics, I worked on industrial process controls, electronics, embedded systems, and software design. My present job involves development of systems that include all of those things.

I also do a fair amount of "systems engineering" which seems to be emerging as an interesting field worth looking into. It involves making things work together in complex relationships. Systems can range from microscopic to gigantic. An airplane is a system, as is the process to control air traffic, and the website that sells you your ticket.

There are lots of options. Whatever you do, take as much math as you can stand, and learn it for its own sake rather than just to get through it.

[blendermassacre]

I just stared my BA in engineering. seems like a long road.

[TrooperFarva]

Originally Posted by blendermassacre

I just stared my BA in engineering. seems like a long road.

BA? Not a BS? What field are you studying?

[KeithBMI]

Go into mechanical engineering. We run everything.

The biomedical program at my university is run by a mechanical engineer.

I think mechanical, electrical, and industrial are the top three. Areas such as biomedical and "green" engineering are showing massive growth, but that is because you are going from 10 jobs to 100.

[TortillaChip520]

Originally Posted by Sterling_Bass

Aside from math and physics, do you like the sciences? How about biology or chemistry? Chemical engineering is a great field, as is biomedical engineering.

I originally wanted to be a chemical engineer, but really had no idea what chemical engineers do.
I'm interested in and good at alot of things, i'm just not sure what would interest me.

Originally Posted by KeithBMI

Go into mechanical engineering. We run everything.

That's what i'm thinking of majoring in right now, i'm just not entirely sure of all the things you can do with it.

I want a job that doesn't require alot of work outside of work, if that makes sense. I don't want to have to take it home with me, because I value my free time (I am a musician, after all )

I just don't want to be in some field where my job is my life, and that's all I have time to worry about. But I have potential to make good money and don't want to waste that.

[Fontaine]

Petroleum Engineering, That's all you need to know.

[Sterling_Bass]

Chemical engineers synthesize compounds (and develop new ones) and try to devise ways of doing it on a large scale.

[KeithBMI]

When you start getting into engineering classes you'll find out quickly what interests you. Everyone is required to take "intro to this" and "intro to that" classes.

[iamlowsound]

I am in school for environmental engineering, which is a subset of civil engineering. Ideally I want to get into site clean up and green energy. I like building and designing stuff, so engineering was a logical step and there is going to be a boom in environmental engineering in the next several years. Right now I can`t wait to get done school so I can start working. There are some boring `intro` classes, but if you can get past those, it gets really interesting, really quickly.

If you don`t know what type you want to get into, many school offer an intro to engineering type of first year, where you decide what stream you want to follow starting in second year. That would let you get a handle on what interests you the most.

lowsound

[fdeck]

Originally Posted by TortillaChip520

That's what i'm thinking of majoring in right now [Mechanical], i'm just not entirely sure of all the things you can do with it..

I work at a site that has roughly a dozen mechanical engineers and designers. We have about 60 engineers all told. A typical assignment for an engineer is to find out the requirements for a design, do the design work, document it (i.e., produce drawings and work instructions), hold a design review, and then push the design through the (bureaucratic) steps towards getting it into production. Often many engineers will contribute designs that go together into a final product.

Almost all of our design work is done using commercial computer aided design (CAD) software. In mechanical engineering it is a program called Solid Works. Look it up. They have a user forum where you could introduce yourself and probably get a lot exposure to the sorts of problems that mechanical engineers are working on.

Most of our engineers spend some of their time in project planning, and also troubleshooting problems in the plant. I should mention that this is an engineering group located on site of a mid sized high-tech manufacturing facility in the US.

A few engineers venture into project management or supervision of other engineers. I've done project management, and presently supervise two people. Some engineers get into the business side of things, or become entrepreneurs. Some get into sales or customer support. I enjoy working with customers.

[karrot-x]

I'm 2 semesters away from graduating as a Computer Engineer. I can almost see the light!

[kiwlm]

I have a B.ENG in Electronics engineering, which we learn about everything that deals with electrics, we have separate Electronics Engineering and Electrical Engineering over here, some universities offer both of them together. The main difference is that Electronics deals with small amps and small volts (think computers, phones) and Electrical deals with big amps and big volts (think power lines and generators).

My interest is in Software all along, so I have not done any bit of Engineering after I graduated, but I did not regret any bit of choosing Engineering over IT in my university.

I have friends that are in Civil Engineering that told me they prefer to do something that they can see and show their friends, like "look, this is the bridge that I am working on".

[MJ5150]

Choo choo train engineers make good money too. Plus, you get to chill with hobos and taggers.

-Mike

[blizzard]

Originally Posted by TortillaChip520

I originally wanted to be a chemical engineer, but really had no idea what chemical engineers do.
I'm interested in and good at alot of things, i'm just not sure what would interest me.


That's what i'm thinking of majoring in right now, i'm just not entirely sure of all the things you can do with it.

I want a job that doesn't require alot of work outside of work, if that makes sense. I don't want to have to take it home with me, because I value my free time (I am a musician, after all )

I just don't want to be in some field where my job is my life, and that's all I have time to worry about. But I have potential to make good money and don't want to waste that.

Talking to people who already have jobs in engineering you should be prepared to put in some unpaid overtime... though thats more when you're approaching a deadline.

[ADbassman]

Social Engineering is pretty lucrative.

[Horny Toad]

Originally Posted by TortillaChip520

So I am a senior this year, and am off to college next year, and like most people, have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.
I'm pretty smart, not insanely genius, but definitely above average. I'm good at math, and engineers make lots of money apparently, so I figured I could do that.
The only thing is I know next to nothing about engineering.

What different types of engineering are there, and who here is in one of those fields?

I'm curious as to what's out there, because I have no idea what to do.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I work for the IEEE. Let me know if I can help out with any info/resources.