<p>Do you like working as an engineer more or less than being an engineering/cs student?</p>
<p>I'm sure most people miss their college social life and don't miss their financial situation, but do you think you enjoyed studying, doing projects, and going to lectures more than going into work every morning?</p>
<p>This semester, most of my classes are project-based where we are teamed up into 3-4 members, trying to build something. I must admit I enjoy this far more than those stressful midterms. I suppose this is how the real world would be? Focusing on building something as a team?</p>
<p>Depends on what aspect of engineering you pursue, and if you are a little cog in a big wheel, a person who is in design, quality control, consulting, etc.</p>
<p>I’ll be honest… once in the real world I did miss the opportunity to start over with a clean slate at each semester 
</p>
<p>My jobs have used general problem solving skills, but I have not used all the in depth math that I needed for engineering classes. That’s disappointing to some, ok to me.</p>
<p>I enjoyed school more, but only because there was the feeling of infinite hope and opportunity. Not to mention, I thoroughly enjoyed my college experience, and learning the theory behind everything.</p>
<p>I’ll preface this next part by saying that not all real-world engineering is bad. In fact there are more pros to it than cons. Overall, it is very rewarding.</p>
<p>That being said, however, once you start working, you will realize quickly that engineering is less glamorous than you might have thought during school. This varies, obviously, from job to job, but even with great engineering jobs, there is still the reality of having to make presentations, attend boring meetings, and potentially travel a lot. Fortunately, you can minimize these negative aspects by taking a more technical engineering path (like I did) as opposed to a management path.</p>
<p>In my experience it has varied considerably. I have had three positions in my current company (my only engineering employer), and the first was worse than college, the second was on par, and the third (and current) kicked college’s backside.</p>
<p>My first job was a paperwork position where I did no design and no real analysis, just tracked what other people doing and generated reports. It would have sucked my soul away in no time flat, and if college had felt like that I would currently be a philosophy major or something. That having been said, I should note that I was surrounded by people who loved working in that department, and later trained a replacement who loved it as well, so maybe it was just me!</p>
<p>My second job was a design position, and while I loved the work itself it was somewhat isolating - only had one real friend in the department, could easily go through a typical day without even talking to someone, even my cubical-mate. In these respects it was a lot like college for me, and since I did like college, I had no real problem with it and would have been more than content to stay there had another opportunity not parked itself in my lap.</p>
<p>My third and current job is a systems architecture support position - I went from being the guy who designs one tiny part of the system to being the guy who helps the guys who design the overall system. This involves a different type of design, avoids most of “system engineering” (the lower levels of which I find unpleasant), and puts me into meetings, tests, and presentations with a lot of very powerful people and high stakes. I love it! I am also very aware that it is an opportunity very few people at my company get, and am very grateful to have been given the chance, much less kept around! Much, MUCH better than college!!</p>
<p>My question is, when you are desinging stuff, or being an engineer, is there a section of that field that is more group oriented? Or are my plans for an engineer mostly just being lonely working?</p>
<p>Wyatt</p>
<p>TrapperTeen - the amount of meetings generally increases as you reach more complex systems and as you more towards the final product. If you want to be alone, try to work designing the smallest, simplest components possible in systems that are much more complicated. If you do NOT want to be alone, go the opposite route, and either work move towards the systems level or whatever level represents your company’s final product.</p>
<p>As an engineer designing circulators (a small “simple” electronic components) I worked almost entirely alone. As an engineer designing circulator boards I worked in a team of 3-5 people and we met or interacted about daily. As an engineer working on the overall design for multimillion-dollar electronic systems (the final product for my company) I worked with a core team as well as a wide range of other people, and spent so much time in meetings, consultations, discussions, reviews, and brainstorming sessions that one of my biggest problems was finding decent blocks of “alone time” to get my parts of the design and analysis finished!</p>
<p>I am retired now (mostly). I enjoyed working as an engineer much more than college. I enjoyed college too; just work was actually more fun.</p>
<p>I was lucky in that I worked for a very high tech aerospace company that was doing mostly NASA projects. Sometimes my work would involve research to see how something behaved in order to use it for design of the hardware. (Sorry, but if I start giving details, then you could probably figure out which company and maybe more which I don’t want to happen). I was challenged in many of the projects I worked on. </p>
<p>College also challenged me, but it always seemed a little artificial in that challenge. The research in college was info that was then used as input to a paper. But then what? </p>
<p>The stuff I worked on as a professional engineer solved problems that then was used to design hardware for the latest Mars rover for example. Much more satisfying.</p>
<p>As I said, I was lucky. I went to a top college and got a good job right out of school. I worked with some really smart people. Not everyone will be so lucky or fortunate. There are some engineering jobs out there that are not that exciting.</p>
<p>Hpuck, what would be one thing that you could give as advice for a hopeful engineer?</p>
<p>TrapperTeen</p>
<p>Pm your way puck.</p>
<p>" Or are my plans for an engineer mostly just being lonely working?" - In my corporate jobs, engineers did much collaboration. I’ve assumed that is true at many places.</p>