Other Becoming an Engineer: Considerations and Personal Experiences

[FredGarvin]

If you wanted to do a grad school switch like you mentioned, you would undoubtedly have to take undergrad courses to bring you up to speed in some areas. I don't think it would be too much, but I doubt you'd go as indepth into areas like heat transfer and fluid mechanics if you went into a mechanical or aero engineering course. I think you'd be really well off if you went into an electrical engineering though. That's just an opinion there.

 

[kdinser]

The nice thing is, there is almost no difference the first year between engineering and physics majors. You will be taking Calc I & II, intro physics I & II, and Intro Chemistry I & II. Depending on the school, both may or may not require a an intro programming course. In other words, no need to nail yourself down just yet.

The other thing to look at is how long you want to wait before you start working, you can do a lot with just a 4 year engineering degree, while the options for a 4 year degree in physics might be more limited.

 

[Newton_Wannabe]

I'm finally in my senior year of high school and on my way to college. I've been waiting for a challenge since 8th grade and I'm told that engineering is the field of work that may offer it to me. I've been looking into different engineering fields. but the more I read into the one I thought I wanted, the less it appears to be what I wanted. I'm not sure which field I want now, and am hoping for a little advice. I was looking into Mechanical, but now it just seems less of what I want from the different sources I'm looking at.
If it helps you to help me, here are some of my interests:
Science, especially physics
math, working on finishing calc I
computers and video games
I like to know how stuff works, I'm trying to learn how computers and other electronics work.
Starting to learn Python programming with the help of my physics teacher.
I'm also looking to do more of a design aspect of engineering.

 

[russ_watters]

Electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science all seem like a good fit.

 

[Newton_Wannabe]

Thanks. I'm starting to find that I only have to worry about the last two years for a 4-yr degree. Can you tell me some jobs within each field?

 

[kdinser]

check out this link, it should answer a lot of your questions.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

 

[Astronuc]

I gathered from this discussion that 3+ years of engineering is hell enough for most everyone, so how common is it for engineers to continue their education to graduate school? And is it even worth the time and money to get a masters or Ph.D in any engineering field, with respect to employment opportunities?

I went through a MS and started a PhD. I did a fair amount of interesting and practical research, and the first job I had was related to the fact that I was only one of few students who had used a particular code. The research and advanced courses I had in graduate school were necessary, since undergraduate didn't get into the nitty-gritty details. Grad school was well worth it for me.

My company prefers graduate students, but we would consider hiring 'high performing' undergrads with the expectation that they would go to graduate school.

Yes, engineering can be hard - but I personally enjoy hard work - both physical and mental.

There are many interesting technological challenges coming at us, and we need sharp, bright minds who don't mind rigorous work.

 

[batman394]

No matter what you like. You have to be willing to put in the work. Just because you enjoy learning how things work, doesn't mean you'll succeed. My last fluid mechanics assignment took 9 hours. It was an 8 problem assignment. No one in my class got #8 done. And my 9 hours was spread across 5 days. You have to understand that it's a big committment. Engineering is exactly what it sounds like. You engineer things. For most of us we're going to go out in the world and take research that other people have done and make it into something useful.

 

[gschjetne]

I have International Baccalaureate exams in six weeks, and I have already applied for the faculty of Engineering at UVic and UAlberta in Canada.

Back when I was just a little kid with large ambitions I was a great admirer of a friend of my dad's - a professor of cybernetics at NTNU in Norway. When someone asked me what I wanted to become when I grew up I always said 'inventor' - mind you, I always thought Gyro Gearloose was a god damned idiot, making the real guys look bad

In junior high I did have a period of confusion - not whether I was straigt or not - but something worse; I wanted to start making documentary films! (No jobs, no pay, just a lot of kids hooked on the latest trend)

Luckily I got back on track by two great senior high science teachers, the only people who have actually understood me in all these years

I guess the modern inventor is in fact the engineer, so I pretty much had it all figured out from the start. Lately I've been fiddling with electronics, and if I don't make it to Engineering Physics at UAlberta, I'll go for EE at UVic (warm climate + Peter Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy & Cotton Tail )

Anyway, please excuse all the digressions and smilies...

My impression is that EE is mainly about telling all the stuff the girls and boys over at ME make how to move around. Signal processing, servo controlling, sensors, etc. Pretty close to cybernetics, eh?

While the only reason for choosing this is my pure interest in the field (and not enough mad skills for theoretical physics), I have some "backup justifications" for my choice:

• Making a difference
• Providing for a wife and kids some day
• Easier to get jobs (my sister at the road dept. says they are practically begging for engineers)

Edit: Mixed up 'Gyro Gearloose' with the French name for the same character

 

[batman394]

hrm.. there's a lot more to it.. simply power transmission.. like the fact that the powerlines running to your house supply a lot more than 120v at X amps.. and there's a down transformer in your house that converts it into something you can use...

your field can have almost nothing to do with my ME field. think about tvs.. that's a purely electrical phenomenon.. besides the manufacturing portion of it... but you are designing the circuit boards in it, the tubes, the lcd display etc... think of an EE more in that way.

 

[gschjetne]

Control engineering is of course a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering#Sub-disciplines". I might also be interested in electronics and signal processing. Power transmission doesn't seem too interesting to me, and I'm not sure about microelectronics either, as I'm not a big fan of chemistry.

At least it gives me peace of mind that I don't have to chose that yet.

 

[Astronuc]

Control engineering is of course a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering#Sub-disciplines". I might also be interested in electronics and signal processing. Power transmission doesn't seem too interesting to me, and I'm not sure about microelectronics either, as I'm not a big fan of chemistry.

Well, the original controllers, like the governor on a steam engine were entirely mechanical, so there is control theory in mechanical, and by extension, aerospace and power engineering. Basically, any dynamic system require a control system, or regulation, and certainly in the modern world, many control systems are electronic (and digital).

In addition to nuclear engineering and materials, I did course work in power systems and control, and two interesting courses involved digital and micro-processor based relaying systems. Basically one designs various transducers to monitor system states, e.g. flow, temperature, power, etc . . . , and these are processed into electronic signals, which are sent to a computer which compares the states with a model. The actual states are compared with the predicted states, and thus stability is maintained. The interesting part is when a fault occurs and the system must be protected from gross failure and otherwise returned to stability 'without (or perhaps with minimal)' disruption to operation.

The closer to physical or technical limits a system operates, the greater the challenges - being able to control the system effectively (and preventing catastrophic failure) and being able to model the system well enough to design a robust controller.

One of the more interesting aspects of power engineering is the generation of electrical power and the attendant control systems.

 

[aspotting]

Yes you should become an engineer, if you are interesting in searching problems an of corse to find solutions on big or small problems. I can say I started to study civil engineering and I´m happy with this step.

 

[batman394]

Yes you should become an engineer, if you are interesting in searching problems an of corse to find solutions on big or small problems. I can say I started to study civil engineering and I´m happy with this step.

Again i say... check in with some business students.. a large number of them are former engineering students... check out the computer management info systems people... they're former computer science (engineering people)... its a tough field of study.

i extremely resent anyone saying mechanicals take less math. i take more than the industrial, manufacturing, and electricals.. more than bio-engineering. we don't have aerospace here. but they couldn't take more than mechanicals either. by our requirements a civil or mechanical gets a free mathematics minor because of all of the math requirements.

if you can't spend 5-8 hours a night doing homework. don't bother entering engineering. its going to happen. if you don't want to sit through derivations and calculus. don't enter engineering.. i know this gets really negative.. but you have to work hard. if you don't want to then its no point. you're better off being a business major. (and anyone that wants to arguing about business being hard.. I am game. pm me.)

 

[evrimfeyyaz]

Hello,
First I would like to thank to everyone who has contributed to this subject. I've found this when I was studying physics for tomorrow's lesson. Thanks for creating a brilliant source for potential engineers :) I live in Turkey and going to high school. This is my second year. In Turkey at the end of second year of high school we choose departmants(science, language, turkish-maths etc.) I would like to tell my traits and get help from you. Main subjects that I'm good at are English and maths. But I don't like biology and geography a lot. I improved my English without exerting any effort and it's better then my coevals now(I'm sixteen). Because of this my English teacher wants me to choose language department. But I want to become a game programmer. In Turkey there is no computer science department in universities. There's only computer engineering. I started programming in my 10-11 with HTML and I have improved it till my 14. I was even writing articles for a website but I'm not doing a lot in programming now beacuse of school and laziness. I think I'm lazy and I get bored quickly if I'm not passionate about something. I'm in the top of the school in science and maths but I'm not the best. I think I'm also perfectionist. I also haven't studied any lessons till this year. But this year in high school is hard. We learn new things in maths and other lessons. I didn't study and the school doesn't go superb(but I'm in the top of the school about marks). As i said if I study hard and I'm passionate about something it is really good(I mean my lessons here :). I like making projects, examining things and solving problems. Should I be a person who doesn't sleep even in the high school(I don't mean university. I know I should forget what sleeping is there :). There are people like that but I'm better than them in creativity. I also like making researches and reading online encyclopedias. I always want to learn new things, and I try to learn just when I see something new. Should I choose engineering? I think I wrote too much. Thanks for reading, and I appreciate all the answers.

 

[ahmad.hasan]

question: Should I become an engineer?
yes i am sure
Question: What engineering discipline should I study?
Mechatronics

 

[Achernar]

If I might suggest, go broad. I actually did start my engineering degree and decided after less than a week I didn't like how theoretical it was and didn't want to be bogged down for four years doing that degree and swapped into 2nd year of a Geology degree. But there was more to it than that, it was the third time I swapped a course. I live at a residential college, most of my friends are talking about swapping or changing their courses in differing degrees of seriousness. Changing courses in uni is a common event and there is a good chance that you'll be one of the people seriously considering it if you're reading this topic for advice.

The point is, no matter how certain or uncertain you think you are about choosing your course, pick what you think you want but go as broad as you can at the start. But also try to avoid courses that don't give you unit choices unless they are very broad in nature. Pick subjects that you enjoy, but pick them so they lead into other degrees and majors too. I got lucky that I didn't have to do an additional year, but I am paying for not going broad by having to do 125% course load this year. You might not be so lucky.

Good Luck

 

[gubretaw]

I am nearing my second year in Telecommunication and below are my answers:

Question: Is engineering difficult?
1) A definite YES ... unless you are good in Maths and Physics, then you do not have anything to worry about.

Question: What engineering discipline should I study?
2) I rather you pick which one you think you can handle or like best.

Question: Should I become an engineer?
3) Be an engineering if you are interested in knowing how things work and most importantly you need to be good in Maths and Physics. Curiosity is one of the key in becoming an engineer.

As for me I am in the wrong course, anyway engineering never entered my mind. I made a very stupid decision in choosing engineering and now I am paying for that rash decision of mine. Though I am doing fine, but engineering so far has bored me to death. I am terrible at the practical part of it, gah give me numbers anytime, just not the practicals.

 

[Gablar16]

Hello everybody, great forum, even though I don't understand much of it..yet.

I'm a 28 year old first year student of Computer engineering. Because of many reasons I couldn't go to school when I was younger and had to serve in the army for 8 years. My life was quite incomplte and always felt out of place. I've always thought I could be a great scientist but until now never had the chance to prove it. Now that I started school I feel that I finally have found my place and I'm doing something that challenges me and I love. I'm not quite sure what major I should follow but Computer engineering seems to fit my interests. here are my questions.

1. I go to school at the http://ece.uprm.edu/academics/undergraduate/icom_index.html#first" (curriculum)
Is this a competitive program?

2. I have a knack for math, particulary verbal problems. I really like my pre-calc and I have flunked the rest of my classmates(the professor grades the tests based on the highest grade) How hard would it be to change my major to other science related fields? (math, physics) and, At what point should this decition would become clearer?

3. I am naturally curious and objective. For me to learn I have to understand the How and Why things work. To other members with the same curiosity, does engineering satisfy it? ( I hope not completely)

4. In HS I was a B student ( didnt even bring my notebook to class)
Did I potentially missed out on important areas of knowledge or training?

5. I have never design anything(not even legos), but I am an excellent problem solver. How hard is to become a good designer?( in engineering terms)

Thanks for your input and I hope I can become a regular contributor to this board.

 

[kdinser]

1. No clue, but as engineering friends have told me many times over, 1 to 2 years after you graduate, no one will care where you went to school.

2. Math and engineering classes go hand in hand and being strong on verbal problems is very helpful. One of the common things I see in my classmates that are struggling is a failure to recognize when they are expected to know a certain formula and when they are expected to recognize that a certain problem requires an integral or diff eq. That being said, doing well in pre-calc is good, but it does not prove that you have the kind of brain that can get through higher math, but most likely you do. I'm currently about 2.5 years into my engineering program and I just finished my last required math class. Engineering students can generally be put into 3 groups when it comes to math.

Group 1 could easily be math majors if they wanted to be, they choose engineering because of money, interest, or any other of a thousand reasons. BTW, I am so NOT in group 1.

Group 2 is where I would place myself, I'm reasonably good at math. I don't like pure math classes but I get the material well enough to pass on my first try. I know that the important material from those pure math classes will keep popping up over and over again in my other classes, so I don't sweat getting a C+ or B- in my math classes. This is the same group that I would place most engineering students. For this group, getting an A or B+ in calc I required little effort. Getting an A or B+ in calc II was possible, but would have required a LOT of extra study time that may not have been available due to other classes. Getting an A or B+ in multivariable calculus, diff EQ, and linear algebra would have required more time then most group 2 engineering students have available or might be impossible due to reaching the extent of their brains ability to understand mathematics. In othe words, if you put in enough effort, you can get through the math, your just not a math wiz like group 1.

Group 3-These are the engineering students that are taking calc II for the third or fourth time, and not just because they wanted to improve a C up to a B or A. Taking the rest of their math classes will be pure torture for them and they may have to repeat other classes multiple times. If they are persistent enough they may get through an engineering program, but it will be a huge challenge.

Sorry about the huge rant on math, but trying to discuss engineering without talking about math is pointless. Basically, if you have to take 1 or 2 math classes over again because you dropped them or failed them, you won't be the first engineering graduate that repeated a couple classes. if you have to take most of your math classes 2 or more times, you might be in trouble as far as engineering goes.

3. I'm about the same. I hate walking into a lab without understanding every line of code (if it's a programming type exercise), formula, and piece of equipment that is going to be used. Needing to understand things made some of my math classes more difficult then they should have been. Sometimes proofs of certain formulas were not given because the level of mathematics required to understand them was "beyond the scope of this book", I truly hated seeing that quote. It comes down to the difference between knowing something and understanding something. It's like the difference in KNOWING that 5*5=25, but not being able to apply it to the 7*3 and UNDERSTANDING that 5+5+5+5+5=5*5=25 and then being able to do 7*3=7+7+7=3+3+3+3+3+3+3=21 even though you never saw 7*3 before.

4. Don't worry about what you may have missed in HS, the important stuff will keep popping up over and over again.

5. Designing is problem solving.


EDIT:
One last thing, don't worry about being an older student, I was 31 when I went back to school to get an engineering degree.

 

[Gablar16]

Thanks very much Kdinser! Thanks for your elaborate response. I really liked your break down of engineering students, seems quite realistic and encouraging.

1. Yeah I expect most people to have never heard of it. Your friend is probably right, once we get some real world experience , we should find jobs based on our merits not on what school we went. But, I 'm still worried that I lag behind in knowledge once I graduate. Probably me just being paranoid :)

2. thanks for taking your time with your answer, it is quite helpful. I don't think I'm a math wiz, I studied very hard to get the grades I got in pre-calc, probably "overstudied" a lot but I now feel that I am up to speed.

On point 3, that's another concern I have. At pre-calc we had a few concepts that were "beyond the scope of the class" and at first it was hard to just accept it for what it was, but in the end I did very well. I hope I can do as you do and just be patient with it and rely on "memory".

Thanks again

 

[kdinser]

No problem, I'd encourage you to go talk to some people who are engineers, your school most likely has some contact with some of it's graduates. Most will tell you that very little of what you learn in school as an under grad will apply to the real world. Getting the engineering degree mainly demonstrates to an employer that you have the skills to learn how to be a real engineer from other engineers. It's kind of like med school, getting through med school doesn't make you a doctor, it's getting through the internship followed by the residence that teaches you what you need to know to be a doctor. Good luck, some of the classes are tough, but doing well in them is very rewarding in and of itself.

 

[Yura]

Question. When people say computer engineer, are they talking about software engineering or computer-systems engineering? because i went into computer systems engineering but no one i talk to seems to know about it. I know that its a mix of electrical engineering and software engineering but i heard thatt it was a new course taken in by the university I am studying at (in Australia) so no one really knows about it here so it a bit harder to get a job if no one knows what it is.

 

[batman394]

quit complaining.. explain to me how someone who is in pre-calculus will understand a proof based in calculus3 ? its just too big of a jump.. hence the "beyond the scope of this class"
im a mechanical engineer with a minor in math.. i spent a week with math professors from all over the world for the Function Spaces conference at SIUE (look it up).. and i constantly heard them explain things to me in analogies and stories because otherwise it doesn't make sense if i don't know all of the research and theory leading up to it... one lady was telling me her research was like "Calculus 17"..

 

[russ_watters]

Question. When people say computer engineer, are they talking about software engineering or computer-systems engineering? because i went into computer systems engineering but no one i talk to seems to know about it. I know that its a mix of electrical engineering and software engineering but i heard thatt it was a new course taken in by the university I am studying at (in Australia) so no one really knows about it here so it a bit harder to get a job if no one knows what it is.

In the US, they typically differentiate between computer engineering and software engineering.

 

[manko]

which should i choose?

I want to become an engineer, mostly becouse i have had this passion for building machines, like cars, i never had legos but i had erectorset or mecano which is called now i think. Its more advanced than legos, since you ave motors and screws, etc.

I love electricity and physics, mostly things that have to do with wires and motors. So i don't know if i should choose mechanical engineering or elctrical engineering, also i don't like the idea of working on a building to much and doing more practical stuff like welding. Also does elctrical engineering have to do with electronic chips and the making of them or something more like wiring of buldings and power suplying, its i saw this show and there were these people working in a lab, making chips and it looked so boring.

My dream is to open a buggy store .

thanks

 

[kdinser]

LOL, if your dream is to open a buggy store, skip engineering and just focus on learning as much as you possibly can from people who do it 8 to 12 hours a day every day of their lives. That's more of a craft then a professional degree.

Take the show monster garage, if you have never seen it, it's a blast. 90% of the people working on those rides probably dropped out of high school or barely graduated because they spent every second of their homework time working on cars.

I've been a mechanic, I built hotrod engines, transmissions, and rear ends. Nothing in any of my engineering classes will make me better at actually turning a wrench. I suspect that even if I focused on ME, it wouldn't do me any better. It might give me some better insight into why some of the mechanical tricks work, but I doubt it would help me vastly improve upon systems that have been studied and worked on for many years by people far more intelligent and creative then myself.

From what I hear, as an engineer, you will rarely have time to play with the fun stuff during your day. Maybe you will do that in your spare time at home as a hobby, but your day will be filled with meetings, designs, materials costs, ect...

I'm not saying your not smart enough or anything to become an engineer, but it sounds like your goals might not be in sync with that degree. Maybe you should look into engineering technician.

An engineer would be happy to design something and then let their little brother build it out an erector set, then test it to see if it fell within expected performance and capacity.

An engineering tech would rather be the little brother.

I just want to add, that I am not a engineering graduate, I'm just a student, but before I went back to school, I researched engineering extensively both on the web and by interviewing many of the people that I know who hold engineering degrees ranging from undergrad to PhD's. All of this is my opinion.

 

[nikola-tesla]

Last year I was worried will I be able to pass my engineering courses and is engineering for girls. I completed my first year of Electrical Engineering and would like to say Thank You to all of you for your encouragement.

It was a lot of hard work but it paid off in the end. Thanks again.

*****girls can do it:-)

 

[kdinser]

Bahhh, way to many woman have been convinced that math and science are a mans professions. When it comes to picking team members for projects and labs, the only thing I and most others would care about was getting people that knew what they were doing. Last semester my lab group was made up of myself and 3 females. 3 of use knew what we were doing, the other just kind of road along. It turned out our lab group had 3 of the top 5 lab scores for the semester and our test grades were close to the top as well. I bet the 2 competent girls in my group scored higher then 90% of the guys in the class.

 

[manko]

thanx

I know the buggy idea would just be a hobby, I think ill go for mechanical engineering, it sounds like a lot of what I am looking for, and the erectorset models i creted were probably have of them my desing.

As for electrical engineering, i don't know if i have the wrong idea, but does that include electronics or not?

As for that girls can't be engineers, there were these to girls in my class which were like geniouses for math and most of the other subjects, its just the wrong idea that people have in there minds about what men can do and what women can do.

Also what would an engineer technician do as their job?.