How can someone get the best out of their engineering major?!?!??!?!

Hello,

 My question is mainly for people who have been through or know people that are engineers and have been working in the field for a number of years. Im currently attending Penn State University and pursuing engineering. I just finished my freshman year. I don't know how it works at other colleges but at Penn State you are considered "Pre-Engineering" until your junior year when you decide which branch of engineering you get into. I plan to get a bachelors in mechanical engineering and eventually get a masters in aerospace because thats what my personal interests go into most. I am an average engineering student, i with about a 3.4 GPA and are actually slightly ahead of my peers in classes because of AP high school credits and summer classes. 

My question is how can you get the best out of your major. Im someone who obviously values money but i definitely value happiness and enjoying what I do more. I picked engineering because my math and science skills are strong and I enjoy problem solving and how things work. A lot of people who graduated with engineering are saying "DON'T DO IT" because they hate what they do and think their lives are boring. From what you have seen, where are the more enjoyable engineering jobs at? How can someone can into that side of engineering? I have 2 siblings who are engineers and one went  into engineering management and another went into just straight engineering. Is one better than the other? I just want to know whats ahead and how i can plan for the best. Thank You!

And other than Aerospace and Mechanical fields, music and fitness are my favorite hobbies but it’s be real hard to get a job in those industries with engineering i feel like.

There’s a difference between living to work and working to live. Some engineering jobs are exciting and some are boring, but the good news is that they all pay well enough that you can live a pretty nice life outside of work.

Other than that I’m not sure what to tell you. You are just going to have to explore on your own and find a job in a field that interests you if you want to enjoy it. For my part, I really enjoy my job, but it’s definitely not the typical engineering career path.

First jobs sometimes are tough. The don’t do it people are probably still in an entry level position. But those gigs help you understand what you do and don’t like. What’s even better is nobody else likes those gigs either (that’s why they were open) but they do understand the value of someone who will work hard at it.

Also, not everyone who wants to be an engineer should be one. Imagine someone who took shop for seven years and couldn’t make a simple bench. Similarly, there are well trained engineers who just don’t get it. But if you like solving puzzles, you’re really ahead of the game, IMO.

Some projects are more fun than others. One place I worked did track support for Indy Cars. The travel and hours were nuts, but what an experience . I worked with one guy who’d spent a few years designing suspensions for Corvettes, and another who designed monitoring equipment for suspected nuclear sites. … and another who interviewed at a place that simulated certain … “thermal” events, involving the sudden venting of large amounts of superheated liquid oxygen to atmosphere. The first time you run one of your own designs on a live piece of equipment, expensive flammable equipment, is a pretty solid rush.

so yeah, there are fun jobs out there.

You own only two things, your name and your reputation. Build those things and keep your ears and eyes open and surprising opportunities materialize out of the ether.

I am an engineer (ditto for my Dad, husband, son and lot of friends). I’ve never heard the I can’t recall ever hearing " a “DON’T DO IT” speech from grads. The academics are tough, so I’ve definitely heard students warn high school students to stay away if not will to work hard.

The thing with engineering is that there is a lot of variety of jobs. If per chance you don’t like any of them, then you can use your problem solving skills in other ways.

Some engineers do work a lot of unpaid overtime. But I think that is common in many career paths.

Our S is an EE who graduated in 2010. He is working for the federal government, where he started in 2011. So far, he seems to love his job. He does some project management, some robotics, some drone flying, and some electrical engineering. When he was a student, he did some research in the department which he was paid for, as well as helping prepare some papers for publication. He also did an internship for NASA as well as a summer research for a local professor.

It is helpful to learn all you can at whatever job you end up with so you develop skills that can transfer to other positions if you opt to apply for a new job or transfer or your job morphs into something else. Having a lot of different skills can make you more valuable to your employer and give you more opportunities in the future. At S’s U, everyone was encouraged to take a survey of engineering fields in their 1st year and choose their specific field after that, so S chose EE since that was what his dad had wanted to be but couldn’t handle the math of physics.

I think S likes having the balance of doing some project management (which he has since gotten certified in) as well as some engineering, robotics, wearable tech and drone flying. It helps make his work and days more interesting rather than the same old, same old every day. Since the projects he manages are outside of where he lives, he also gets to fly to the sites where the projects are located, which tend be in cities he enjoys visiting.