This may sound like a ridiculous question, but I am a junior-year EE student, and I get this weird feeling from my professors (all of which were professional electrical engineers at one point) that they all utterly hated engineering or otherwise had a bitter distaste for it. It’s like there’s a dark cloud around the actual topic of working as an engineer (compared to the academic side of it, which I enjoy quite a bit of) but I am just concerned because now I will be paying $10k a year to go to university (still working on getting financial aid–fingers crossed) and want to make sure I made a good choice.
I know that no job will be total bliss, and every profession has its challenges and rewards… I was just hoping that a few actual engineers could post some of their favorite things about their job, and/or the things they dislike the most, and most importantly, do you actually enjoy a good percentage of your job?
I have searched the internet tirelessly for this and have found a lot of mixed answers, and in fact one of my professors today told the entire class to “have fun now, because you will not enjoy working as an engineer… waking up at 6 am to drive to a job you hate every week”… literally his words. I am a little rattled to be honest, haha. Either way, I am committed to finishing this degree and learning firsthand what the electrical engineering field has to offer… until then, any encouraging but most importantly HONEST replies are welcome!!
Honestly, it’s not bad and not particularly great in general, which is pretty much what you’d expect from a job. It has its moments and a whole lot of very general day-to-day activities which are neither exciting nor terrible (think writing documents and filling out spreadsheets).
For me personally the biggest problem was always getting along with other engineers on a personal level. Working with engineers is fine on a professional day-to-day basis, but I find that too many of them are just not particularly likable people (especially software “engineers”/programmers). Always got along better with pretty much every other group - managers, technicians, scientists, administrative workers, business folk, etc. That tends to make working quite solitary, which is fine if you really don’t care for talking to other people at all, but a wee bit lonely even if you do tend to be introverted.
Waking up at 6 AM is accurate (this isn’t too bad once you get used to it), “job you hate” is probably not unless you get really unlucky. It’s generally what you make of it.
I’m not an engineer, but I will point this out. While the professors can’t imagine that working in industry would be enjoyable, PhDs working in industry can’t imagine that working on lecture plans until late at night or grading student assignments would be any fun, either. This goes both ways.
My DH loves, loves, loves being an EE! (He also happens to be naturally gifted in math and science.)
He loves math, physics, chemistry, and problem-solving, but often loses track of time. He has been doing this for 30 years and really loves technical challenges while meeting contractual deadlines. Specifically, he likes helping junior engineers and shows them what is physically possible in designs. He is surrounded by a really good team which he has helped to build.
He hates meetings but deals with them through humor, and lots of references to 80s movies: “Bueller? Bueller?” “May the force be with you.” (For tough assignments). “Run Forrest run!” (on lab tests), etc. yes, kind of nerdy, but his employees get to spout back with their comic relief-dressing as cone heads, nerds on Pi day, etc.
So, if you really like what you have learned, and are a natural in this discipline, you will like engineering.
Sometimes, I had to call him and ask, “Are you aware that it is 9:30 and I’m putting away your dinner?”
I do. Granted it’s more the software side of embedded controls, but yeah, I take genuine pride in my work, and really enjoy working with new hires. I have come to think of it as a skilled trade like carpentry, where experience allows you to do more complicated things more quickly, and sometimes you get to do some truly elegant things. Sometimes, you’ll be able to do something in a couple of days that would have taken months before.
But it means I sometimes take positions outside my comfort zone, and for fun I’m redoing calc and linear algebra …
Seeing your work in products is kind of cool too.
Go get an internship for the summer and come back and tell us what you think. I’d bet you will find industry much different than how your professors describe it. Is it all fun an games? Of course not. As I like to say - if it were all fun and games, they wouldn’t have to pay me.
Hands on engineering is so much more fun than learning from a book or lectures. Best thing is to get a job working in the field or directly with equipment to know how the real world works.
People say the same thing about accounting. I love what I do. It’s not for everyone but I’m happy. The 6am is pretty much normal for any 9 to 5 type of job. You could be reception and have to get up at 6am.
I love being an engineer, although I’m structural and not electrical. It is so cool to use math to CREATE things! It’s very satisfying to see my designs and drawings turn into buildings. I also love the fact that I’m not just shuffling paper all day.
Engineering has allowed my husband and me to start our own firm and work from home. The quality of life is outstanding. We’re not getting rich, but we have a nice life.
Keep in mind that your first job as an engineer probably WILL be hard. It was for me. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing! I asked an older engineer about it, and he said for him, it took about five years before he really felt comfortable that he knew what he was doing. But older engineers were willing to mentor me and show me what I needed to do to improve.
Yeah, getting up early is no fun, but like sensation723 said, that’s par for the course, no matter what you do.
You can’t really fake professors’ words on this kind of matter at face value. Professors hold a PhD and are very research-oriented, while you will be earning a BS and are not likely to be angling for a research job at this point. It’s almost apples and oranges.
For someone who is research-minded, the entry-level industry jobs will absolutely be kind of boring. For example, when I did internships as an undergraduate, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really feel inspired or even really like it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted to be the guy developing the new tools and ideas that engineers were using to develop new products. That partially (largely) influenced my decision to go to graduate school and earn a PhD. Now I have a job that is much more exciting to me. Most professors are similarly motivated to me. Further, being a professor at a research university is almost like being in charge of your own little start up, so it’s unsurprising that most of them would have little interest in giving up that freedom for the rigid power structure at most businesses.
On the other hand, I have many friends who had no interest whatsoever in research or an advanced degree and who are perfectly thrilled to be using a variety of different tools and ideas to help solve problems and design new products. They are the ones whose job satisfaction you should consider, not professors. Most friends I know reasonably enjoy their engineering jobs. Some just tolerate them for the paycheck. Very few seem to outright dislike the job, though.
I find it appalling that your professor would express such a negative attitude/opinion about the career choice of his/her students. Why is this person teaching? Tuition costs are growing 4-5% a year to pay this professor??? Pretty amazing.
@STEM2017 This person is teaching most likely because it is a necessary task that comes with being in a job where his or her primary goal is academic research. Even at that, I don’t really see the problem here. Like I mentioned in the previous post, the professor probably just got jaded with the rigidity of working in industry compared to the flexibility of working in academia. Should he be sharing that in this manner with students? Perhaps not. I don’t see a problem with having that opinion while teaching students, though. The vast majority of professors don’t like the rigidity of industry.
Prove him/her wrong how? What’s to prove? Most professors are not of the mindset that they would enjoy the typical BS-level job, plain and simple. There’s. I thing wrong with that, after all, that’s not their job. Most engineers studying to earn their BS are of the correct mindset to enjoy those kinds of jobs. The ones that aren’t often end up in grad school, non traditional jobs for engineers, or just sucking it up because many engineering jobs are relatively low-stress and pay well.
40 years ago a professor said guys who get As become PhDs and have fun in the lab; and guys who get Cs make the most money. Some profs never understood the profit thing that drives our existence. I got Bs and have had a dynamic (up and down) career that I am proud of. Takes a while to find a niche and you will need to reinvent yourself along the way.
EEs are fortunate because their technology changes daily and are consequently always in demand. Whereas a civil engineer’s concrete highway can wait another decade before being upgraded.
I mean, this is pretty much completely wrong. There are plenty of people who are academically talented who prefer standard industry work to academia/industrial R&D (or some form or other of professional school) and plenty of C students who really have outcomes that aren’t that impressive (there are probably more wealthy A students than C students by far).
Being good at academics doesn’t mean you have to enjoy them. Being a weak student doesn’t mean you have some form of brilliance that will make you wealthy.
My soon-to-be-graduating son (BSEE, May 2016) has a near-perfect GPA, but has NO desire to work in academia or research. He’s had a lot of experience during his college years with several internships, paid lab research work, and TA’ing and absolutely can’t wait to get out of school and begin his job in June. It will be interesting to hear his take on everything after 3-4 months of working, but he’s really ready to work a standard industry job right now and be totally content.
