Career path in aerospace engineering.

[Rose53]

Hello all,

Despite a lot of family discouragement, this fall I am going to choose a major in aerospace engineering. Its been a lifelong dream of mine to someday have a career that has to do with the designing of air/space crafts.

It started with my curiosity in astronomy, then as a I grew older, it went to aviation in general, and space travel, rockets etc. I really enjoy and do well in physics and calculus as well. I am absolutely obsessed with astronomy.. lol. I was the one who would enthusiastically run out of the house to watch the meteor shower while people rolled their eyes at me.

I would appreciate some advice to get started on this career path. I have a few questions that worry me. What would be an entry level position for someone who has graduated with a BS in aerospace engineering?

Thanks..

 

[enigma]

Entry level positions at my current work are junior project engineers. A satellite building subcontracts to us to build specific components. We take the drawings, computer models, design specifications, etc. that the customer supplies and generate work instructions which technicians on the floor follow to actually build the part. This includes design of any custom tooling which may be needed for each part.

Junior engineers typically are paired with a more senior engineer for somewhere between 6 months to a year while they learn the processes.

That's just one branch of one site of my company though. My first job out of school was as a junior systems engineer designing a method to track masses of the parts being added to a satellite. Sounds a lot easier than it was.

I also wouldn't be worried about family discouragement. Aerospace engineers are basically specialized mechanical engineers. If you can't find a job in aerospace you will be able to find one as an engineer somewhere.

 

[Rose53]

Thanks. Do you know of some possible companies I can look into? Ex: nasa, boeing, northrop grumman, etc.

Do you know the basic qualifications for an entry level position for those?

I appreciate all the help, all the support I am getting is from here.

 

[jhae2.718]

I'm only an aero major at the moment, but if you want to go NASA I've heard that you need to do an internship/coop with them to have a really good chance for getting a job. (This from a talk by an alum of my uni who works for NASA...)

Aero's a great degree.

 

[Rose53]

Cool. Thats good to know. I'm interested in the design and materials aspect of aerospace engineering.

 

[z-component]

What would be an entry level position for someone who has graduated with a BS in aerospace engineering?

Entry levels in my group can do everything the senior engineers can do in general, like staff and plan wind tunnel testing, do various studies on new airfoil technologies, new and innovative control surface types and configuration, airplane derivatives, new airplane studies, and more. Entry levels will get the advantage of learning from technical experts and get to contribute to the group in very meaningful ways. Don't worry about lack of opportunity, at least at my company (a large commercial airplane company).

 

[viscousflow]

Cool. Thats good to know. I'm interested in the design and materials aspect of aerospace engineering.

Materials is a big thing in industry and you will probably never be without a job as long as "unobtainium" remains to be found.

 

[Rose53]

That's actually quite inspiring, I was told the opposite, that it's difficult to get a job in this field because you'd need a degree from a really good school to actually get somewhere.

I'm planning on going to a state college that offers this degree...Since I have the interest to begin with, I was going to go for it anyways and try my best.

Do you have any information about the design aspect?

I guess I would also like to know a general career path that I can explore.

 

[enigma]

Best thing to do is take as many summer internships as you can. Preferably with different companies if you can manage it.

 

[Eezyville]

I would suggest that you get familiar with computers. Computer aided design is really big in the industry and it helps to have some background. This can mean anything from designing parts using autocad to simulating fluid flow, combustion, or detonation using Fluent. Learning a programming language is really useful too. I think Matlab is taught everywhere but I would suggest you learn Fortran or C/C++ on your spare time. It makes you look more desirable to be able to modify source code to fix bugs. Also be sure to be active in student organizations like AIAA. They offer great opportunities and insight in the industry.

 

[lbrieda]

I am getting close to completing my PhD in aerospace, and I have worked in few places so I think I can give you some feedback. I am very happy with my choice, aerospace engineering rocks! :)

I also started studying astronomy/space science, but I soon realized engineering was more interesting to me (and my astronomy professor's constant complaining about the lack of jobs in that field helped too). While doing my undergrad, I co-oped with Pratt and Whitney. It was an okay job, but I found it rather boring and not quite inspiring. At these large companies you will really find people whose job it is to design a single bolt. Not exactly the grandiouse image of aerospace engineering you may have.

So because of this reason, I decided to go to grad school and concentrate more on research. My graduate work directly led to my first job. I started working for a professor specializing in "applied plasma physics" and we got tasked by a DoD laboratory to develop some simulation software for them. I was the main developer. After graduation, I worked at that DoD lab for 3 years, until I decided it was time to head back to school and get a PhD. So that's what I am doing now. I also work at NASA part time.

One thing about all these big government labs like NASA is that much of the work is done by contractors. These contractor companies are basically manpower suppliers. You end up working AT NASA, but not FOR NASA. It's very difficult to find a government job (where you work FOR NASA or some other lab) right a way, as there are only so many slots available and these are often given to contractors as a sort of an internal promotion scheme. As jhae suggested, good way to get in is by doing a co-op; co-ops are often hired in at the end of their study. Otherwise, try to find a job with one of the contracting companies. There are hundreds or maybe even thousands of them, these are companies you may have never heard of. Most have some 3 letter acronyms for a name. I used to work for ERC, now I work for MEI, bunch of other people I know work for SGT, other friends worked for API, etc... You get the picture...