<p>Hey everyone.. I am currently a sophomore mechanical engineer entering my junior year. Recently, my placement manager told me that the manager I was originally assigned to had incorrectly asked for too many interns, so now I have the option of either staying at the originally planned location, are moving to another facility.
While I had originally wanted a design/analysis role, there does not seem to be any left. Jobs in the other facility I believe are mainly in manufacturing, and I don't believe this is something I would be interested in.</p>
<p>As for the other positions available, I am concerned on one particular opening. It is listed as "project support" rather than an engineering role; however, it is in area that I am interested in; that is, energy: "the world's most advanced combined cycle turbine" (might give you a hint as to where I'm working). However, the job description lists "no specific requirement", and I feel that I would be wasting my time and technical knowledge in mechanical engineering in something that may be less rewarding in the long run. My question is, how valuable of an experience in project management be to my career? While management is certainly something I am open to in the future, I don't believe it will help much at such a lower level. I had always envisioned gaining a strong technical background first in order to lead projects.
In fact, the job description seems like I would be working more as a liaison, rather than doing the hands-on engineering I had originally hoped for.</p>
<p>The other jobs are in engineering positions, however, one is in cost estimation and the other in controls engineering (all of these for power plants). Equipment cost analysis and identifying cost drivers wasn't what I had in mind, and controls engineering seems to be mostly EE based, and while I am open to gaining experience in EE (in fact, I happen to really enjoy CS and EE stuff), I am concerned that my ME background would be insufficient. Oh yeah, and that position happens to be a co-op, while I had only wanted to do an internship.</p>
<p>Actually, there is a 4th position available closer to home, and that one seems to be more demanding in designing and improving Labview test programs. Again, I am unsure of my background.</p>
<p>Your help would be appreciated. I am very time-pressed here, as I plan to make my decision by Monday. Thanks a lot.</p>