How did you decide that you wanted to do engineering?

<p>You are a SR in HS, have had no engineering exposure (probably) and I was curious how you would <em>KNOW</em> that you want to enter an engineering pgm in college, in short, to become an engineer?</p>

<p>I assume that anyone choosing RH would have made this kind of choice already and hits the road running on the engineering track.</p>

<p>I assume this question cd be posed to anyone entering an engineering school, whether big ones like UIUC , or Perdue or a small one such as RH.</p>

<p>@roderick - not a easy question to answer. In my son’s case none of the other majors appealed to him, so he decided to go this route and give it a chance. Other members in my family have gone to engineering because they like fixing things or they are curious to find out how things work so they became interested in engineering. I know of one HS senior - all he wanted to do was to be an inventor of the fastest computer ever designed so he could have a better gaming experience- not realsitic, but at least he had a dream.</p>

<p>BUt I do want to caution you and others who go into engineering - You will at times wonder and also be frustrated with all the foundation courses you have to go through to get an engineering degree and you wonder when am I ever going to do something interesting. It may or may not happen, however chances of that happening are high once you graduate with a BS and even higher if you pursue graduate degree.</p>

<p>I am an engineer with over 20yrs of experience. I have had good and exciting times with the actual engineering part and there are times I wonder why am I doing this - it is boring
because you are doing other things non -engineering which still has to be done. </p>

<p>Overall I am happy with what I have acheived.</p>

<p>thanks. Sounds like it might be important for the hs sr to have some people around him or her ‘in the biz’ to help form an HS Sr’s expectations desires, and hopes. There are afteer all, many images on TV, as well as in kids’ everyday lives, of doctors, but not too may engineer images. </p>

<p>I wonder if my son’s comfort with numbers and the sciences excepting biology - he seems to gravitate to the less squishy sciences - enough to go into engineering. He says the purpose of college is to prepare himself adequately for a (good) job.</p>

<p>Segueing to jobs: Does the <em>horizon</em> look good for engineers in the USA? I have a friend who just told me that she is not going to encourage computers and engineering to her HS soph daughter since she knows so many computer programmers and engineers out of work now, including herself (and myself, a comp pgmr, btw) - jobs mostly taken from outsourcing to other countries where they can, say the CEOs, do it more cheaply. Wouldn’t this dynamic only continue in the future?</p>

<p>Offhand, anecdotally, I know a couple of 40-50 something people with engineering degrees who have been looking a long time for work , too. One person sounds a bit like you were suggesting - he has an engineering degree from ND from teh 80s, but his work skills and experiences were transmuted, if that is a word, to managing manufacturing plants. Since those plants went down, he is out of work doing what it is that he is most valuable. Sometimes that ‘other stuff’ an engineer might do , might at once be the stuff to put bread on the table, but also can get you dislocated.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong - No matter what profession you get into there is some amount of adminsitartive paper pushing work that you don’t want to do but you have to. Engineering can be fun. In terms of JOb security - the best way to keep yourself marketable is to keep updating your skills to stay current even after you graduate by taking classes and staying currrent with technology and science in the area that you specilaize in. In the past you get an engineering degree you are set for life, but today it is differant - you need to stay on top of things to stay employed and most hard core engineers like to learn new things and stay current - That is why they became an engineer in the first place. Enginners can also move into management if they choose to. </p>

<p>Regarding Outsourcing — I don’t want to impose my opinion on this, since I could be wrong. But in general a highly sought after expert or people in high demand areas are always more likely to be always and this is true in engineering. I wish I knew what areas in engineering have better prospects for the next thirty years. – Perhaps bio engineering, Aerospace ( defense industries), engineering of medical devices and instruments. In general I would advice young engineers to go beyond programming ( Programming today is like learning english - you need to know programming), but if that is all you can do you are not marketable for ever.</p>

<p>Here’s my story. </p>

<p>Ever since I was 11, I liked taking apart and working with computers. It was something that I really liked doing, whether it’d be building , repairing and sometimes programming (mostly web-based though).
Over the years, I developed my skills and now…basically I’m the guy to ask for any type of computer problems or questions at school.</p>

<p>I started a sole proprietorship with the things I did and offered my services to build cheap and reliable computers for people as well as publishing websites for firms , school clubs and such. </p>

<p>Although, my parents have discouraged this hobby because of the amount of time it can often take up, I still pursue it because it drives me forward to learn new things and how to creatively solve problems.</p>

<p>Engineers essentially do things that are not that much different so yeah!</p>

<p>That’s just me!</p>