<p>I am a year away from graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering with an aerospace minor.</p>
<p>I'm not very excited about going to work after I graduate. I guess I'm having trouble visualizing what life as a working engineer would be like. Would I be in a cubicle doing some calculations? Would I have an opportunity to be creative, and actually design something? </p>
<p>Right now I visualize being a human calculator. </p>
<p>So, the question is: Are you having fun as an engineer? Is there anything you'd rather be doing? Are you just working for the money?</p>
<p>Find a job you’ll like, that will allow you to do what you want. You can’t always be creative, you don’t always have to time to develop something new, and sometimes you have to do that hard stuff… but not always.</p>
<p>It seems like you have a handle on what you want, so go take it.</p>
<p>I have fun as an engineer because I get to work with smart people who like working together to try and solve tough problems. If had to work alone all the time or was only given easy problems to solve I wouldn’t like my job.</p>
<p>Haven’t you done any internships to try and get a taste of what engineering is like in industry? If not, I suggest trying to find one pronto for this summer. It will help you out with some of these questions and is one of the keys to getting a great job at graduation.</p>
<p>No, I haven’t done any internships. I need to spend the summer taking classes if I want to finish by next spring. Am I screwed without any internships?</p>
<p>You can still get good jobs without internships, but you’ll want to have done something worthwhile at least one of the Summers you weren’t working. Taking classes probably counts towards that, unless you just took some easy general-ed stuff that wasn’t to free up time during the year for increasing technical breadth/depth.</p>
<p>Who said you have to graduate in the spring? I fully understand the feeling of trying to rush and get through with your BS, but in your case, delaying till the Fall can only help you. You could pursue an internship this summer as well as next. With the job market the way it is, delaying a semester could be a good thing as far as job opportunities and making yourself more competitive with the relevant summer experience.</p>
<p>Engineers generally don’t do calculations. We have computers (and in many cases, supercomputers) that run very expensive analysis software to do the calculations for us. It is very likely you will work in a cubicle because it is cheap for the company to pack us in like sardines. But working in a cubicle isn’t that bad and there are actually really nice benefits to it.</p>
<p>What you’ll likely do is be part of a team designing something. The “something” is likely to be an improved version of a design that has worked in the past but the customer wants the new and improved version. You may actually do the design work, support the designers, or test the new and improved design.</p>
<p>It’s actually fun and a lot different than college. I wouldn’t worry about what you will do after college yet, I’d worry about getting your degree and then figuring out what you will do.</p>
<p>Are you having fun as an engineer?
Not really. Some days are slightly more exciting than others and some days drag on forever. Most days are unremarkable and a bit on the boring side.</p>
<p>Is there anything you’d rather be doing?
Yes, quite a few things actually. However, I suspect that a few of them are cases of “the grass is always greener on the other side.”</p>
<p>Are you just working for the money?
When you get down to it, that’s the real reason 99%+ of people go to work. But, I am sticking with engineering (for now) for the money.</p>
<p>Not many people sit at their desks and do “homework problems” from what I’ve seen. I have never actually used a calculator at work. Sometimes I use MATLAB to solve problems because I need to do a lot of very simple calculations. On a day to day basis my math is generally limited to +, -, /, *, and %.</p>
<p>There is always going to be some room for creativity in almost any job, even outside of engineering. However, if you expect to be bleeding edge design work and coming up with extremely creative and clever solutions to problems you’re probably going to be extremely disappointed. The amount of creativity you can throw at a job will vary from job to job but coming right out of college your employer is not going to expect much from you.</p>
<p>Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, I recommend you work with others in a primary capacity. From a sociological standpoint, life’s going to pass you by if you’re not interacting with others. From a technical standpoint, working with others is one of the few reasons civ. have advanced/achieved as much as we have.</p>
<p>engineering is not fun; the way the workplace is structured, you are never designing a spaceship. instead, you are designing the lower left panel of the launch apparatus :). </p>
<p>there are of course people running the whole design, but the way it works out, they mostly do paperwork all day and/or sit in meetings with the lower-level engineers.</p>
<p>thus you are either focused on the small picture, taking marching orders, or you are doing paperwork all day.</p>
<p>bigtrees, I believe that Boeing is much like Rolls when I was there in that only the super special people got matlab and the rest of us just got to be really jealous.</p>
<p>I know of very few jobs that people love so much they would continue showing up even if the paycheck stopped.</p>
<p>I know a guy who actually did that once. The company ran out of money but kept his desk there and he kept going into work for about 6 weeks even though they stopped paying him. Then eventually they had to close the office and that is when he decided he needed a new job.</p>
<p>well the weird thing is that it is not JUST the money. among work environments and tasks, it is relatively pleasant. if it were all about the cash, the better paths are business, law, or medicine :)</p>