<p>...that explains the process of going to school/becoming an engineer in depth? I am currently a junior and I want to (hopefully) become a mechanical engineer in the future. I am just confused as to what decisions I have to make in college and honestly just about everything that has to be done to achieve my goal. Can anyone help?</p>
<p>1) [url=<a href=“http://www.google.com%5DGoogle%5B/url”>http://www.google.com]Google[/url</a>]</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>2) [url=<a href=“http://www.google.com%5DGoogle%5B/url”>http://www.google.com]Google[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Wow, you don’t know how helpful you were.</p>
<p>Find another thread to ■■■■■, please.</p>
<p>[Mechanical</a> Engineering: The Process of Going to School/Becoming an Engineer](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/c4am23]Mechanical”>http://■■■■■■■.com/c4am23)</p>
<p>Haha, I see the community here is full of comedians.</p>
<p>Now honestly, what I find funny is that you actually took the time to reply to this thread instead of simply passing over it. Did I ever say I needed someone to Google it for me? I actually find it insulting that you think I hadn’t already tried the most obvious solution to the problem at hand. No, in fact I asked if someone KNEW of a website that could help me with this predicament, not a search engine that could find one for me.</p>
<p>This may help:</p>
<p>[Sloan</a> Career Cornerstone Center: Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math & Healthcare](<a href=“http://www.careercornerstone.org/engineering/engineering.htm]Sloan”>Career Cornerstone Center: Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medicine)</p>
<p>What would be neat is a first-person story about an engineer’s life prior to college and thoughts about college. Topics could include; first college physics/math class, initial/final opinions on classes like thermodynamics and statics, when he/she started to become interested in a particular topic, and internship/first job experiences. Of course thats just a little bit of what I would like to see. There is much more, like social life ect. The stories I read are about engineering drop outs and it ends up being a rant more than an informative essay. Just a thought.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for someone (or two people) that took this thread seriously :)!</p>
<p>Thanks everyone else who gave me a good laugh.</p>
<p>[Crisis</a> in Engineering Education | Design News](<a href=“http://www.designnews.com/channel/Crisis_in_Engineering_Education.php]Crisis”>http://www.designnews.com/channel/Crisis_in_Engineering_Education.php)</p>
<p>[ASEE.org</a> - ASEE - Publications - College Profiles - Search the Profiles](<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/]ASEE.org”>http://profiles.asee.org/)</p>
<p>Check the links in the left margin</p>
<p>[All</a> Engineering Schools - Search our Comprehensive Directory of Engineering Schools.](<a href=“http://www.allengineeringschools.com/]All”>http://www.allengineeringschools.com/)</p>
<p>[ACE</a> Mentor Program](<a href=“http://www.acementor.org/]ACE”>http://www.acementor.org/)</p>
<p>mentoring program for engineers, construction and architecture (a very nice program offered in many communities.</p>
<p>I would be happy to help. Let’s see. I was always good in math, but being female in the late '70s, never thought about engineering. My dad, an engineering professor, made a remark at a party about my being the next engineer in the family, and a light bulb went off! He had helped me with a couple of science fair projects that I really enjoyed. Using trig to design wood trusses was cool! I also played piano and thought about majoring in that. From a practical standpoint, engineering made a lot more sense!</p>
<p>So I applied to the University of Texas at Austin. NO other schools! Its architectural engineering program was one of the highest ranked in the country, and tuition was only $4 per credit hour. A no-brainer. I was valedictorian and had good SAT scores, so they wanted me. They gave me a good scholarship and placed me in engineering honors.</p>
<p>My HS physics class was crappy. Not AP!! So I did fine in calculus, but honors physics was horrible. That was my very first test in college, and I made a 45!! Talk about a shock. I was ready to transfer to the music department! I got a tutor, though, and stuck it out.</p>
<p>Most of my classes seemed easy, but I struggled in the architectural design class I had to take. I have not a single artistic bone in my body. My overall GPA was 3.8, but I made a C in that architecture class! I also discovered that my brain is very two-dimensional, which is kind of a handicap for a structural engineer! Things that guys picked up on quickly, I had to work really hard at. Statics was not an easy class for me - all those cables going in weird directions! I’ve had to train myself to think in 3D - I guess I look at it mathematically rather than intuitively.</p>
<p>During the summers, I had a job at a local structural engineering firm. That was wonderful, and I highly recommend getting that kind of experience. At first, I answered the phone, and then I progressed to drafting, and eventually performing engineering calculations. I really enjoyed the work and the people.</p>
<p>I did well enough in school and on the GRE that I got a fellowship at UT for grad school. They paid ME to go to school! I had more disposable income then than I do now. I took flying lessons and had a blast. I partied a lot and still made As. My future husband was in two of my classes on semester, so we studied together and were engaged within three months.</p>
<p>As I finished up my master’s degree, I got a good offer from a local engineer, and my new husband continued to do research for UT. Then oil prices fell from $27 to $13 a barrel, and the engineer had to rescind my job offer! DH and I started looking for work all over the country. We sent resumes everywhere, and a big firm in Portland, Maine hired both of us. I enjoyed the work, but discovered that I’m not so great at “big picture” kind of things. If I was given rough drawings for a building and told, “Here, do the structural design for this,” it freaked me out. I was surprised that engineering was NOT black and white as I had assumed it would be! There were lots of judgment calls and decisions to make. DH and I worked at the first firm for 4 years, and then got laid off the same day when the company decided to go a different direction and eliminate our division entirely.</p>
<p>After that, we worked for several different companies. We got tired of the instability and extra hours without pay, so we started our own consulting firm in 1998. We’ve worked out of our own home since then, and done quite well. DH IS a big-picture sort of person, so he can figure out the structural concept, and then have me do the more detailed calculations which bore him. I also LOVE doing AutoCAD, so I do all our drawings.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this helps much. If you have specific questions, I would be glad to answer them!</p>