<p>Depression is a very strong word. Everybody likes to complain, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're depressed.</p>
<p>lol, if you have "engineering related depression" then you don't belong in the field. Obviously you can't handle it if you get depressed, like ken said, depression is a strong word. Or maybe your school sucks that bad O_o.</p>
<p>I can't see why someone will be depressed doing something interesting like engineering, it could get stressful but not depressing...</p>
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recent field switch. I was a mechanical, and just could no longer stand the concept of stresses in metals, and the breaking of them
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<p>What is your major now?</p>
<p>"Obviously you can't handle it if you get depressed"</p>
<p>I'm a senior with a 3.9. I dont know any of anyone who really likes the major, except a couple of aerospace yuppies. Theres just a general malaise of sadness in the lab at all time.</p>
<p>I switched into engineering science</p>
<p>Engineering can be very stressful at times, but it's certainly not depressing (at least for me). Just maintain a good social life outside of classes...it's not that hard.</p>
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I'm a senior with a 3.9. I dont know any of anyone who really likes the major, except a couple of aerospace yuppies.
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That leads me to believe that you probably weren't truly interested in the subject matter if there are others that like the major. How do you like engineering science compared to mechanical engineering?</p>
<p>Engineering science is alright, since my favorite topics are electrodynamics, math, and thermo related stuff</p>
<p>Ugh, can you just tell us what school it is? 100 Undergraduates is pretty darn small, and I can only think of Webb and Cooper Union as being that size. </p>
<p>Maybe the size is part of the depression?</p>
<p>Wow, I'd hate to see one of your school's classes. Must be depressing as hell seeing a bunch of depressed glum looking engineer students. That probably feeds on itself. Anyway, I was a bit down and out at my undergrad in the beginning due to my own personal situation and having bad grades in tough classes didn't help(I was on probation for a year). Eventually I got outta that and enjoyed life so to speak. I couldn't really imagine that if you do well in classes, how all those engineers would be depressed. Is it something in your water perhaps or perhaps a toxin in an engineering lecture hall? ;)</p>
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Being an engineer is about as stressful as most other careers.
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<p>I'd like to know more about this. Do engineers have like "take home work" to do after their 9-5 shift? Extra projects to work on the weekend?</p>
<p>I would think these are stressful especially when you have a family. I hope this does not happen, and that when it's 5PM, you are able to think about other things.</p>
<p>Atleast you have weekends :P</p>
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I'd like to know more about this. Do engineers have like "take home work" to do after their 9-5 shift? Extra projects to work on the weekend?</p>
<p>I would think these are stressful especially when you have a family. I hope this does not happen, and that when it's 5PM, you are able to think about other things.
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<p>It probably varies from company to company, but it's definitely possible. I once worked at a firm where 1/2 of the department was working 60-80 hours a week for around 6 weeks. Towards the end, people were working 18-20 hours in a day. We were pretty much a family since we practically did everything together for a one week stretch. Our client took very good care of us though. We had great food every night, and our company made a pretty hefty profit (which translated into very nice bonuses for employees). Of course, this was an extreme situation that happens maybe twice a decade from what I've heard. And this wasn't a typical project since we were serving as expert witnesses for a law firm.</p>
<p>Oh, and that same summer, I got roped into another big project with the other half of the department and worked two 70 hour weeks. Not as bad though. </p>
<p>Working on two megaprojects like that in such a compressed period is pretty rare though, so don't think this is the norm. I'm just saying it can happen when clients are waving a boatload of money at your company.</p>
<p>EDIT: I should clarify that the vast majority of this work was done in the office and not taken home.</p>
<p>I'd also like to know what typically goes on during a workday. Like are you just working on a team on an assigned project (can you go more specific on an example regarding this), and what happens in meetings?</p>
<p>What role does the manager or supervisor play?</p>
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I'd like to know more about this. Do engineers have like "take home work" to do after their 9-5 shift? Extra projects to work on the weekend?
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<p>It really depends upon the company's culture. With the top companies, yes, that's pretty much the case. I had three 12-hour days last week and nearly always work at least nine or ten every day. Lately, since my husband's been finishing up his doctorate in Baton Rouge and I only get to see him on weekends, I've said that I really can't work weekends until he's done and has moved here full-time, and my coworkers understand that, otherwise I'd be in on the weekends.</p>
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I'd also like to know what typically goes on during a workday. Like are you just working on a team on an assigned project (can you go more specific on an example regarding this), and what happens in meetings?
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<p>For the next year, I'll be working on a series of two 20-30 story hospital towers. There are five engineers working on it. We all know what tasks we should be working on. My current task is all the beams, joists, and wind girders on Level B3, B2, and B1, on the south half of the full city block that this monster's going to occupy. I show up around eight AM and check my e-mail, check CC, get the caffeine flowing... In ten or so minutes, I'm ready to start running calcs. There's a lot of fine details to keep track of in my work, so I use post-its heavily. I have about ten file folders, each with a major task (looking around: north spandrel, south spandrel, perimeter spandrel, waler-area embedded beams, joist redesign, ramp details, typical details). My task today is to finish up a couple of problem beams where I'm having some deflection issues because of a concrete masonry wall that they've stuck on top of said beams. I'll probably go home at about 7 or so... Maybe 7:30. It's a little hairier in the winter when the days start getting shorter because I take the bus, and I live in a nice apartment in a pretty sketchy area. I don't like walking alone after dark. During the winter, I'll head home at 5, eat dinner, and bring my car back to the office, then I'll work until I'm at a stopping place.</p>
<p>At the end of the week, we sit down and have a team meeting, discover we're three weeks behind and that it's nine weeks 'til the deadline, and we work harder and start cutting efficiency and design things a little more conservatively and a little more quickly (our client would prefer that they have to pay for a little more steel than have us miss a deadline... missing a deadline is death). The manager is the one who makes that call and acts as a liaison between our team and the client, and all of the other contractors who're working on a project.</p>
<p>This is one of the top five or ten companies in the nation, definitely the top company in this region. If we were able to actually float offices in Chicago, New York, and Boston, we'd be up there with LERA, SOM, and Thornton-Tomasetti. It's not this way everywhere, though.</p>
<p>60-80 hours per week for only six weeks and you got bonuses? Sounds great. More typical may be 60-80 hours per week for...years... and no bonuses ever... and no extra pay for over 40 hours either.</p>
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More typical may be 60-80 hours per week for...years... and no bonuses ever... and no extra pay for over 40 hours either.
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<p>If you're facing that, you should probably quit and find a different gig. Those are pretty abysmal working conditions, and I don't think any engineering employer could get away with forcing employees to live with that situation unless they were working on something superbly awesome. Like Spore.</p>
<p>60-70 hours per week for years, ok. You should be getting bonuses of a few thousand. If you're salaried, you're not going to get extra pay for over 40 hours, that's kind of par for the course.</p>
<p>The only people I know who have "worked" 80 hours per week long term were the NYC Dept. of Transportation inspectors who are paid hourly. I imagine that stopped once the local media exposed them... in any case, you can't work that long without burning out. </p>
<p>At my old company, which did traffic engineering/urban planning, people typically had a few different projects on their plate. It was pretty normal for someone to work on 3 projects in one day in order to juggle deadlines. The engineers didn't really have many formal internal meetings. It was a small office, so everybody just went over to each other's desks when they needed to discuss something. The only formal meetings we usually had were meetings with clients towards the beginning and towards the end of a project, and general monthly staff meetings to update everybody on the status of the company as a whole. Everybody typically worked 9-5 or 9-6 unless there was some field work that had to be done at certain hours in the night.</p>
<p>Projects in this field can last as short as 2 weeks or as long as 5 years because of delays due to the owner, the DOT, or someone else on the environmental review process.</p>
<p>The manager/VP typically worked on technical details as well. They also served as experts and were also responsible for reaching out to clients and bringing in more projects for the company.</p>
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If you're facing that, you should probably quit and find a different gig. Those are pretty abysmal working conditions, and I don't think any engineering employer could get away with forcing employees to live with that situation unless they were working on something superbly awesome. Like Spore.
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<p>if they worked that hard on spore it wouldn't be delayed for for months at a time over and over again</p>
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60-80 hours per week for only six weeks and you got bonuses? Sounds great. More typical may be 60-80 hours per week for...years... and no bonuses ever... and no extra pay for over 40 hours either.
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Well, if you were getting paid baller money, I could put up with it.</p>
<p>I see it as either you put in the handwork now or later on in life…and the security and confidence I get in the quality of life I am working for in the future gives me satisfaction, enough to carry me through the rigors and strife. By quality of life I mean not just material but the emotional and psychological sturdiness that comes from education and hardship experience. Sometimes I do feel though that working for the future is kind of dangerous…</p>