I’m thinking about majoring in Mechanical Engineering,but there is a slight problem. I’m not exactly daunted by the promise of theoretical work (I’m fairly confident I have the creativity to do well in that aspect), but I really want the type of hands on job that seems to correspond with Technologists. I was wondering if Engineers could work as Technologists or play both roles at the company they work for. If that can’t be the case should I get both an ME and MET degree or just work as an Engineer and suffice with woodwork as a hobby? Thank you guys for any help.
Once u have an engineering degree, working a technician job as a full time job, will likely be damaging to have on your CV. Future engineering employers will think WT Heck?
Well what I’m saying is to not be a technician full time but instead work primarily as an engineer and maybe do some technician duties when I have time. My big goal is to be able to be a part of design and application, not just one or the other. That is the logic behind my wanting to do both.
Or maybe is there some way that techs can be part of the design process once they climb up the ladder far enough?
if I understand you correctly, OP, you wish to design and be part of the fabrication process?
There are certainly jobs like this available out there. Small companies/start-ups are generally known to be rather demanding due to limited resources, so engineers often wear multiple hats. At larger companies the jobs tend to be much more compartmentalized. If you want to get involved with both the academic and hands-on aspects of engineering, you might want to look at the smaller companies.
Research and development also involves a mix of both academic and hands-on work.
As GMT said, you don’t want to start out as an engineering technician if you are unsure of what you want to do. Once you go down that path, it’s very difficult to get back into a full engineering position.
While you may not want to start out as a technician but both of my brothers did during the late 70s and early 90s, there were a big recession. They took whatever the market offered to them. One is now a doctor and the other is now an engineer. Once the employer found out one of my brothers has a BS degree, he was giving more engineering job.
What do you mean by “technician”? For several years I worked for an engineering services company. I was given assignments which explained what the issue was and what the goal would be, such as “Customer Z is tired of the 9/36” trammel shafts breaking and they want to convert them all to 6.35mm" So I would design equipment and tools to make this possible. I would then be heavily involved in building everything. I would then travel to the customer and actually spend time operating equipment. So 2/3 of my job could easily described as technician, but I was responsible for the overall technical aspect of the work. This was with a company with revenues over a billion dollars, so these opportunities do exist.
Thank you all for the great insight.
The duties of an engineer can lie anywhere on the “hands - mind” spectrum. Some engineers spend nearly all their time elbows deep in the equipment, others do 100% of their work on a computer. But technicians have different roles, and even when techs are working side by side with engineers they have different responsibilities.
I would not worry about this too much - there are plenty of hands-on jobs out there that still require an engineer’s mind.