Hey guys, I’m currently studying mechanical engineering. I’m in my sophomore year and me and my uncle were having a conversation about mechanical engineering in general and he brought up the fact that since i’m becoming a mechanical engineer, he’s never seen me take things apart or fix something.I told him that my interest more towards aerospace and avionic systems. He said that since your studying engineering you should know all types of tools used in a workshop and different types of bolts and wrenches and screw drivers. I told him that’s not my job, i’m more on the theoretical side of engineering. My uncle told me, if you get hired by a engineering company, their not going to waste time telling you how to use tools .FYI my uncle is not an engineer nor a machinist or a technician. I’m actually doing good in my classes but I just feel turned off by the fact that I don’t how to use everything in a tool box and fix certain things around the house or my car. Will that make me a bad engineer?
Your uncle is a dope. You don’t need to be Mr. Fix-it to be an engineer.
I think your uncle has a fundamental misunderstanding of what an “engineer” is.
I would certainly get some time in with using machine tools (drill-mill, lathe, mill), so that you get a bit of a feel for what is hard and what is easy. It is all too easy to make excellent choices in a design to design for manufacturability and it is all to easy to ignore that facet. Having to actually manufacture one of your own designs will do wonders for your engineering. That goes for welding, powder-coating (vs. anodizing), etc. To be a great engineer, you need to make choices that are informed by manufacturing methods that reduce variability and reduce cost while maintaining quality. Your uncle has some excellent intuition in this.
I would be surprised if your education does not include some component of “hands on” including use of CADAM and use of shop tools. Even using injection molding equipment, 3-D printers, etc. should be de-riguer. It is really valuable experience.
I have seen designs that require wire- or plunge-EDM that could have been thoughtfully rendered in folded sheet-metal with PEM inserts. Getting some hardware grounding is a very good thing. And, yes, I am speaking high-tech aerospace here.
The ability to use tools and being and engineer are not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, it’s not required either.
I am one of those engineers (although not as much lately - age gets to you after a while) that is a lot of what your uncle thinks engineering should do. This is not because I went out and got those skills, its because that’s who I am. I grew up working on stuff and still do that at home a lot because that’s what I like to do. So when I got offered a job early in my career that required a lot of equipment tear down and rebuild, or crawling around inside to do inspections, or whatever, I was sold. In this instance, my hands-on skills were valuable. At the same company, there were guys exclusively doing analysis based on the results I was getting from field work. Two very different roles were needed to keep everything running.
But I am more the exception than the rule. You need to have the theory down pat. Some working knowledge of whatever hands on stuff applies in the industry you land in would be very useful. Using the machine shop example, you need to be able to have an intelligent conversation with a machinist about what you are making.
Engineering coursework involves more math/analysis than most people realize. However, it’s helpful to also get hand-on shop experience too if you can.
I think we had a tour of the machine shop in one of my mechE lab courses. But Mini Baja (all terrain vehicle competition) club is what gave me useful exposure. I’m not a trained operator, but I’m glad for the project experience.
I didn’t have much shop and tool experience either before starting M.E, but now I have a lot more due to club involvement and projects… I would say it shop experience is more of a tool than a requirement.
Experience with tools gives you a great background in manufacturing and is a great skill to have. It also allows you to use your engineering design (and material mechanics) and put it to work. Such as developing a better frame to maximize torsional stiffness.