Mechanical drafter moving to electrical engineering

[AnAbstractPixel]

Hello,

I'm currently working as a mechanical drafter a few years out of high school. I have a few different certifications in Solidworks, Inventor, AutoCAD, and also from the tech school I went. I've worked at my current job for about two years as a military contractor and have a security clearance. Most of my work is just preparing drawings based off of sketches given to me by our engineers, taking measurements in the field, and sifting through 50 year old drawings to verify those measurements.

I originally went to tech school with the intention of working as a mechanical drafter for a few years and then going to school for mechanical engineering as that's what my high school CAD teacher had done and recommended for me. Over the last year or so I've found myself more drawn towards the electrical side of engineering. I've always had a much stronger inclination towards electrical than mechanical. I've been obsessed with computers and electronics from a young age, I've messed around with Arduinos for a few years, and I just find the concepts described in the class descriptions to sound more interesting. I probably would have went into electrical drafting if it had been available, but both my high school and tech school only offered mechanical drafting. I've also had a lot of interest in physics and that had been the major I had declared when I first went to college a few years ago, but I've ruled that out for now as I'd rather major in something that is more applicable to the industry.

My main question and the point of this post is will my background as a drafter be of any use to me as an electrical engineer? I know that having that work experience and background could be helpful when trying to get internships or my first job but I want to know if any of the skills I've gained will be useful as an electrical engineer? While I don't regret the past few years I've spent as a drafter it would be nice to know that not all of it will be wasted if I pivot my career path.

Any insight is appreciated.

 

[Vanadium 50]

will my background as a drafter be of any use to me as an electrical engineer

Probably less so than your work experience. But it is what it is. Why should it be a problem?

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PF.

I don't think your mechanical drafting background will help you much in your EE studies and career. It will be a little help as you learn the EE tools like schematic capture and circuit simulation (with SPICE packages), but only in that it will make you more comfortable with the user interfaces more quickly than the other students who are learning such interfaces for the first time.

I think perhaps a strength will be that since you are comfortable with mechanical drafting and interfacing with MEs, that you will be able to work with ME collegues more naturally than your EE peers. For example, in a company where I worked a few years ago, the MEs and EEs collaborated very closely to cost-optimize the designs of automated electric utility meters. The EEs would do initial floorplans of the designs, and the MEs would look into ways to fabricate the enclosures to reduce costs and improve performance.

On AC Mains designs like electric energy meters, there are very important safety rules for the spacings of the conductors and insulation areas ("creepage and clearance" distances). In the end, the EEs would design the PCBoards with cutouts between traces and the MEs would design the enclosure plastic to poke up through those cutouts to maximize the insulation value in the smallest (cheapest) possible package. It was a really cool thing to see.

The MEs used 3D CAD design tools to do the drawings, and used high-end 3D printers to make the prototypes to fine tune the design and iterate with the EEs on their PCBoard designs.

Anyway, enjoy the ride to your EE career!

 

[berkeman]

I've always had a much stronger inclination towards electrical than mechanical. I've been obsessed with computers and electronics from a young age, I've messed around with Arduinos for a few years, and I just find the concepts described in the class descriptions to sound more interesting. I

I would also encourage you to keep pursuing personal projects with microcontrollers (uCs) like the Arduino and add in other circuit modules to do different useful functions. Building personal projects (or even kits) helps to expose you to real-world design challenges, and helps you learn to "ask the right questions" of yourself and your instructors in your EE classes. I built a number of projects during my EE undergrad (a 2-D laser scanner, a digital clock, a lab bench power supply, etc.), and all of them were fun and useful to me. And often when I would see a problem in my homework sets or in EE labs, I would have already encountered the issue in my personal projects and have a better idea of how to solve it.

 

[CalcNerd]

Look for schools that have mechatronics in the curriculum. Mechatronics marries both mechanical and electrical disciplines.

 

[phinds]

Welcome to the forum. I'm an EE and loved it (retired many years ago).

I agree with others that your work up to now will not be all that much help, BUT ... your work experience and comfort in a technical field will give you a strong leg up on your way. Good luck.

 

[Lnewqban]

Welcome, @AnAbstractPixel !

Any acquired experience and skill may be useful, sooner or later.