<p>Hey guys, my uncle is a Mechanist in Canada and makes machines. He asked me what i wanted to major in and i said Industrial engineering. He said specifically that all engineer majors are not worth it. He was a mechanical engineer him self and he beleives that the salary you get from the work is not worth it. </p>
<p>He said that mechanical and electrical engineers have no idea what they are doing at work. He said that all electrical engineers and mechanical engineers do is designe some equipment that will never work and it is the mechanist that do the real work in getting the machines to work. Is what he said all true? </p>
<p>He works for a company that has 30 workers and he makes 150g a year as a mechanist with 10 years experience. His company makes mass production industrial equipment for GM, GE etc.</p>
<p>I know this is just one persons point of view, i am curious what other people have to say about mechanists. </p>
<p>He's exaggerating, but I wouldn't say there's no truth to it. Some engineers may be able to design the best product in the world, but it might not be practical or even constructable. It's the person who's doing the actual fabrication / assembly / construction who has to figure out how to make it and it's this person that has to fix the mistakes... and there will always be mistakes. He probably wouldn't get paid so much if his job was easy.</p>
<p>And this isn't limited to mechanical and electrical engineers. You'll find this in any field where the person designing something isn't the person building it.</p>
<p>The task of an engineer is to design products that are useful, practical, safe, and efficient. A good engineering school teaches these fundamentals. Sounds like he worked with some bad apples. Perhaps those EE's were physics majors who got engineering jobs and like to call themselves "engineers" =)</p>
<p>I would not listen to him though. If engineers had no idea what they were doing then why would people keep hiring them and paying them very well to do nothing?</p>
<p>Yea thats a pretty bad generalization, maybe from his experience he worked with incompetent engineers, I'm pretty sure every engineer is not proficient.</p>
<p>Most mechanic types are known for *****ing about "those damn engineers" while working on a piece of machinery. It's a very common meme, as a matter of fact I know several that repeat it constantly while working.</p>
<p>If your technician is giving you the sass mouth, you got to keep your pimp hand strong and deliver a firm slap to their face.</p>
<p>I design all my circuits with lethal voltages to keep my electronics tech on his toes, with line voltage connected right to the chassis. I don't want him watching the youtubes while he solders my project.</p>
<p>I heard this mechanic vs engineering thing many times before.</p>
<p>I believe in my heart that all the people in any field that is legal should be respected. At the end we all need each other and only together can we make good things happen.</p>
<p>I have a couple of true stories for you guys that I heard at college from my professors.</p>
<p>There was an oil company. The engineers built the mechines and the mechanics fixed them. The mechines kept on breaking down. The mechanics blamed the engineers for a crappy design and the engineers said the mechanics did not know how to fix them. They were fighting with each other and the problem was not getting fixed and the company was losing hella money. So what the company decided to do was hire a business consultant. The business consultant found out that the root of the problem was in the communication between the engineers and mechanics. Things were not getting done because they were blaming each other. When they worked together they fixed the problem.</p>
<p>There was a medcial mechine that some engineers had made for a medical supply company. This machine was so well built that it did not break down in 25 years. The problem was that hospitals only bought this machine and it was very expensive so they would only buy one at a time. The engineers were told to make only a medicore mechine but they made a hardcore one. Management was ****ed. The CFO and CEO had to sit down with the chief engineer. The chief engineer didn't know what he did wrong. He thought everyone was going to be happy because his design was so good. The CFO said these machines cost a lot of money to make. Now if you had made a medicore design like we wanted you too we would have saved money for each design. Now your machine does not break in 25 years which means we would have to wait 25 years for someone to buy our machine. The CFO told the chief engineer to make a machine that breaks around 10 years. This way cheaper machine per uint cost as well as a buy every 10 years.</p>
<p>I heard this at my very first engineering internship. My job was to do something simply like CAD up a stand for a control panel and I took it down to the machine shop guys for advice on whether my design was practical, and basically they were pleased that I came down there to start a dialogue with them because there were guys that just plopped designs on their bench and expected them to figure it out. That really stuck with me.</p>
<p>That's really how it should be done. You don't know everything as an engineer (and the machine shop guys don't know everything you do). Knowledge sharing will make for a more successful company.</p>
<p>I think that depends on what kind of person you are. My father is a mechanical engineer, and works for Michelin North America and makes quiet a bit of money (granted he has been working there forever). You also have the option of going into management, which can be rewarding (both in your career and financially).</p>
<p>I dont know what you uncle is telling you. Ask anybody, a good engineer is hard to come by, and when a company gets hold of one, they usually promote you and pay you well so that you stay.</p>
<p>Being Canadian and having gone through engineering in Canada, i tend to agree with your uncle to a large extent. In Canada, and at the risk of generalizing, top trades likely make more than engineers other than management of course. </p>
<p>It is also true in Canada that while we have MANY engineers, and too many, I think we have relatively few engineers capable of undertaking good and original design. Frankly, the problem stems academics where few if any profs can actually DO what they claim to teach. Many hold academic positions no industrial experience. </p>
<p>Having studied chemical engineering, it actually took me years to realize what profs meant by the phrase "reactor design". it is not the physical design of the vessel including instruments. It simply means mathematical modelling. </p>
<p>It is actually very few engineers, including chemical engineers, that actually apply what they have learned in school to real situations. Compared to medicine this is a joke. All medical profs are also top docs many hold posts such as "chief of surgery" etc. </p>
<p>Comparing my 2 years of engineering traineeship to my friend's family MD residency is embarassing. i was stuck at 33K and he made 150K when he finished.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Being Canadian and having gone through engineering in Canada, i tend to agree with your uncle to a large extent. In Canada, and at the risk of generalizing, top trades likely make more than engineers other than management of course.
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It's not limited to Canada. Operating engineers (aka crane operators and other equipment operators) usually make more money than engineers in NYC. I don't know how it is in other parts of the country where unions hold less power though. It's not rare for experienced tradesmen to crack 6 figures.</p>
<p>Sorry, but machinists (AKA, Tool & Die Makers) Do Not make $150K unless they own the company. In which case they are not being paid as a Machinist/Tool & Die Maker anyway.</p>
<p>I am an engineering student that holds a part time job as a machinist's understudy. My boss has worked as a machinist for his whole life after completion of masters degree in industrial engineering. We get CAD drawings in the shop that contain pieces that make no sense. If the designer just talks to us for five minutes then we will work twice as hard and fabricate correctly the first time. The engineers that don't take time to explain or don't bother to at least leave a little note on the design get all mad at the machinist which just leaves a vicious cycle between the two parties.</p>