Mechanical Engineering thoughts in college vs. reality?

[TiaFAU]

Hi everyone,
I'm a sophomore in college and we have a project discussing mechanical engineering. I'd like to know what you thought your career would be like before you graduated and now that you're in your career what is the reality.
Addition questions:
How long after college did you wait for your first job in your field?
Were you happy with your salary?
How long are the hours?
Is it a desk job or do you get hands on building?
include anything else you wish you would have known in college

 

[SagarPohekar]

Hi 'TiaFAU', am mechanical engineer and having post graduate degree M.Tech in CAD-CAM. Now ans to your questions, What I thought during my graduation about Mechanical engineering was based on my interest to go in Design field as most of us wants to go in Design and my Job is core design area such as Crane Design, Excavator means related to machine design and simulations. Am enjoying my job at L & T . I am working in FEM area also and also I am a coder also developed some Engineering Design Automation. so in short I got job exactly what i thought. Working hrs are 8-9 but if project is critical then we have to work up to 12-13 hrs per day
am having desk job
I advice you to decide your interest e.g. design, manufacturing, CAE, CAD, CAM, PLM, then find job accordingly
and fortunatly i got job in my prefinal year of M.Tech