I need Engineers to answer this

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hi, I want to ask a few questions from engineers in this forum. My professor told me not to apply for those office type jobs in most firms that require bachelors degree. </p>

<p>I really want to do technical work when i graduate three years from now. How is it like?( work load, stress, and what happens when you cant get the work done at all?>) I mean do we have to know what to do based on courses we took in college? I want to go towards AVIONICS with my EE major. Can you guys please guide on what to do so that i can fit into the category of those technical people. I am exceptionally good with Physics, but i have to work to get the " A " in math. Does this hamper me from being innovative? And I would like to know if internships at places like Verizon and ConEd help towards such a field( avionics).</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Let me revise my question because it way to technical,,</p>

<p>How many engineers are out there? just reply.</p>

3

<p>I'm currently in grad school as an engineer, but I have no clue what you mean by "those office type jobs in most firms that require bachelors degree."</p>

4

<p>My friends have this job about "patents" whatever that is. And another one is going to start at Wall St. Whats so electrical about these jobs?</p>

5

<p>I will answer this one. Many students who study engineering decide to get jobs in finance because they tend to be far more lucrative and have a higher ceiling for growth. Just because you study engineering does not chain you to engineering for the rest of your life. There are many different types of jobs in many different industries. It's all a matter of preference, some EE grads may decide to go into Finance, IT, academia, sales, consulting, banking, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless and if I were you I would keep an open mind and consider anything I can get into, a certain type of work may interest you. There are many factors to consider when deciding what type of work to apply for, this will blossom for you junior/senior year. I wouldn't worry about it too much now, just focus on keeping a good GPA.</p>

6

<p>^^ Thanks for the details. Here at Poly, we have a mentoring program. The professors talk to us about these things and the eventually come to one point " Try to stay away from non technical work". I will have to argue next time because I seriously think that working at Wall st is better than ConED. Btw, a 3.6 should be good enough for most jobs right? thats where stand after two semesters( almost, finals are yet to come).</p>

7

<p>As a future engineer I have a serious issue with the whole "stay away from non technical" view that is supported by some people. Many people seem to believe that engineering is about punching numbers, being able to do math, do mundane calculations and designs... with which I disagree. I'm sure there are many jobs for engineers that are just that but that is not what I want from my engineering degree.
Like UriA702 said, the possibilities are endless with an engineering degree. Personally, I would go insane if I had to do a "technical" job for a long time. I think a good engineering degree gives a person the best possible undergrad education because it teaches one to think and perform under pressure, and above all to be versatile and imaginative. It is not a certification, or a long "how-to." It doesn't necessarily teach you how to do something specific but pushes you to innovate. Its just that due to its math-heavy content and its usual applications, it tends to attract people wanting to do mundane things rather than those wanting to innovate and make a difference.
It may be wishful thinking but for me engineering is much more about ingenuity than about mundane designing. Its about pushing the boundaries. Its all the stuff scientists/physicists do, but with more realistic applications. And in that it is applicable to almost any line of work out there. Now back to the original question...
Not being exceptional at math really doesn't mean that much, I think... especially if you're really good at physics. Qualitative and analytical thinking is far more important than quantitative/numerical thinking, especially for innovation. Sorry I can't answer any job specific questions... I'm only an undergrad myself.</p>

8

<p>electrifice, I agree and disagree.
The professor most likely said to stay away from non-technical work because of an engineer's natural interest in technical work. We chose engineering due to our interest in the more technical aspect of things. That's not to say you will be happier with a technical job, but from your professor's perspective, he obviously is only interested in the technical aspect because he is a engineering professor. </p>

<p>I agree that engineering is the best education you can get overall, especially in regards to analytical skill which is used very frequently in finance and other realms of the business world. </p>

<p>a 3.6 is very good in engineering, but in all honesty do expect it to drop, course work becomes more difficult after first year.</p>

9

<p>electic has point when he said we are taught to "innovate" rather than "do it this way only" approaches to problems. But why would anyone pursue an engineering degree, go through the trouble of studying sciences and then end in an box office? You can get a 4 four economics/finance related degrees and do the same work. But i guess it depends of the type of person.</p>

10

<p>Yes, UriA702 you're right. I wasn't able to phrase it as well as I would have liked to. I'm not denying that as an engineer you will have to be interested in the technical parts of things, and sometimes even immersed in them, but in the end engineers should not be viewed as "commodities" that are only good for specific tasks and applications, which is what "technical" smells like to me. I don't want to be a monkey!
I think this is best exemplified by those people who get these "desk jobs" in offices that greenvision is referring to. Personally, I can't understand why anyone would want to do that (other than for money) after a rigorous engineering education, but I firmly believe that there is an aspect of "innovation" to almost any job (probably not in the same was as in engineering) which makes engineers a viable candidate for them.
Also, the switch from engineering to finance or other sectors is understandable because by the end of it all many people get burnt out or find that they don't want to work as an engineer, or that they are genuinely interested in business/entrepreneurship. This might just be a phase but it convinces many people that engineering is not for them.
And I think many people are misled towards engineering. If you're good in math, you're automatically declared a lock for engineering. And vice versa too. Neither have to be true. Though its practically impossible, we can have great engineers who don't know anything about math. Regardless, we have to learn a lot of it so it helps if you're good at it.
As a final note, I really don't think I'll retain the specific parts of my education, and I don't think that much of it will be directly applicable to many engineering jobs out there. But the problem-solving skills will definitely remain with me and can be applied to any job out there.</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
I'm not denying that as an engineer you will have to be interested in the technical parts of things, and sometimes even immersed in them, but in the end engineers should not be viewed as "commodities" that are only good for specific tasks and applications, which is what "technical" smells like to me. I don't want to be a monkey!

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<p>Doing technical work doesn't mean that you will be a monkey.</p>

<p>Being good at physics is good for avionics. You don't have to be a math genius, you just need to be able to do math well enough to get by, which it sounds like you can do if you are getting 'A's (however easy or hard they were to earn) in math. You might want to try for a summer internship in a defense contractor or civilian aerospace company's radar division.</p>

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<p>
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Doing technical work doesn't mean that you will be a monkey.

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<p>Yeah. Even in, for example, structures, where there's a lot of repetitive work, yes, the younger engineers do most of that repetitive work. It doesn't mean that it's at all mindless. A monkey could not do it. Someone without a high school diploma couldn't even do it. Only with significant practice could an intern do it. There's repetition involved, but there's enough variance that this just means that eventually, you'll be able to design the more repetitive things cold, without even thinking about it.</p>

<p>As you move up the food chain in my field, you start getting the more complicated tasks... going from simple gravity beams and mastering those, to designing the girders that those gravity beams feed into, to designing the columns and beams that resist all the wind and seismic lateral loads, to designing the lateral load plan itself. </p>

<p>There are unique projects that you work on, too, in and around the more repetitive things, where you'll have to solve problems and figure out principles that nobody else in the company has worked on, and then people will come to you the next time there's a question on doing whatever it is you have more experience doing. I'm already the office expert on pedestrian walkway time-history vibration analyses. I've been here four and a half months.</p>

<p>Eventually, at my company, you become a design manager, and you work on many different projects at once, helping younger engineers solve the trickier problems that are anything but repetitive. It's more like being a professor with perpetual office hours than anything else. It's pretty cool. Completely technical, no management stuff to deal with (unless you want to).</p>

<p>Yes, I work at a desk. I'm sitting at my desk right now; it's a very nice desk. We've got an open floor plan (no cubicles, just half-walls... actually really spacious) and I've got a view out the window. Working inside gets a little tiring sometimes, and there's more sitting-in-one-place than there was when I was in college, but that's kind of the nature of doing what I want to do.</p>

<p>It's not mindless, though. I'm mentally whupped when I head out for the evening. I do a lot of keeping track of many, many details in my head, and I use a lot of sticky notes to remind me to check things I think of that might end up controlling the design.</p>

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<p>Great post aibarr... and thanks for the insight on your job.
I guess I had the wrong idea by "technical," and I agree that repetitive isn't necessarily tedious. However, just a question that popped in my mind... how much does your work feel like doing math homework? I really hate math homework, problem after problem, same thing with slight differences, from easier to harder. I like learning math, reading the book to figure out how to do the more interesting problems, and I really love physics homework (well... to the extent that one can love homework).
Also, some things you mentioned... designing "gravity beams," "columns and beams," "lateral load plans"... these sound like interesting things and I'm sure there is enough variance to keep the work at a significant distance from the reach of monkeys. Yet, how often do you get to work on something totally new... something that could be called "uncharted territory." Its understandable that one might not get to such work early in their careers... but how about later on?
As an (bad) example... one can be totally mentally drained trying to work out a difficult math problem, or on the other hand, in trying to figure out nuclear fusion. I find the latter more interesting, of course.</p>

14

<p>
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how much does your work feel like doing math homework? ...and I really love physics homework (well... to the extent that one can love homework).

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<p>I know what you mean. Sometimes I get a little tired of what I'm doing, when I design joists for four or five days in a row, all day long. In that sort of case, it's like math homework, in that "I understand what I'm doing and can I just move on now please" sense... But at the same time, there's a bigger purpose in mind in the real world. The purpose is not that I have to understand it and then that there's eventually a point at which I'm like, okay, I get it, but I have to do all these stupid assigned math problems still and it's just annoying now... When I'm doing this in practice, it's that I have to design all the joists for this building. It's easier to get it done when there's a purpose, or a set goal, in mind. I can highlight each joist I design and look at my progress, and know that each one of these joists is going to be actually used in construction. It's mentally draining, to a certain degree, and there's a point at which I'm like, jeez, I get it already... But the ultimate purpose isn't for me to get it. The ultimate purpose is, in the case of what I'm working on right now, to give doctors a place to help women with high-risk pregnancies carry their babies safely to term. Speaking as a person who's had a few friends who have lost babies along the way, it's like a baseball bat to the face-- these aren't math problems anymore. This isn't a word problem, this is a promise of a safe structure for the futures of the families like ones I personally know. This is for real. It's far bigger than my occasional ennui, so I suck it up and keep number-crunching.</p>

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Yet, how often do you get to work on something totally new... something that could be called "uncharted territory."

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<p>That "time-history vibration analysis" thing I mentioned? It's for the most complex elevated pedestrian walkway ever designed. I'm the only one working on it. I will get at least one if not two journal papers out of it. It's <em>that</em> uncharted. So, fairly often.</p>

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...one can be totally mentally drained trying to work out a difficult math problem, or on the other hand, in trying to figure out nuclear fusion. I find the latter more interesting, of course.

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<p>And there's a good mix of both. There's mental drain of both kinds. I enjoy the latter, obviously, and that's the kind of mental drain that, when I leave the office, I look up at the buildings downtown as I walk to my bus stop and think "wow, this world rocks..." but I don't get to do that every single day. Some days are really long and irritating, and there are some days where I just can't get one stupid beam to work within the constraints I'm given so I work on that all day and get nothing accomplished... And those days are frustrating, but when it all evens out, I'm still designing skyscrapers and hospitals and stadiums, and they actually get built. The structures I design are where people go to worship, to give birth, to die, to cheer for their favorite team, to propose to their girlfriends, to get married, and to eat their Cheerios in the morning, and that's why I keep doing it. Along the way, I'm challenged. Sometimes I'm bored. But ultimately, it's important, and that's why I keep getting up and going to work every morning.</p>

15

<p>I can live with that. Work is, after all, work. And I don't think you could find anything that doesn't have some amount of tedium or frustration. It's good to know that there is room for original work as well. Thanks for the insight!</p>

16

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What's it like? (workload and stress)

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<p>It depends very much on the company and what work you do. In some roles if some plant breaks down you'll need to be there to help bring it back online (that means you may need to be on call). If you estimate the cost of civil structures you may never need to work overtime. Overall, there are a lot of companies where I live that allow you to just work 37.5/40 hours a week. Certainly I think the workload and stress is less than in other fields like law and investment banking.</p>

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What happens when you can't get it all done?

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<p>I go home but I don't have a great work ethic. You do need to have some flexibility though and you definitely will encounter pressure to work longer than your contracted hours if you're in a office environment. I imagine those who work longer hours do get better performance reviews and probably have a better chance at promotions/more pay.</p>

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Do we have to know what we did in our college work?

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<p>Some days I think I use my theory from college way more than expected, other days way less. If you rotate about large company (e.g. you're in a rotating graduate programme), you will sometimes encounter work where you don't know what to do and your theory can sometimes help you out of those situations. However it's in the company's interest to make sure you understand how to do your job - so someone should be available to help you out.</p>

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I am good with Physics, but I have to work hard to be in Maths. Does this hamper me from being innovative?

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<p>Absolutely not. Some of the most innovative ideas in my field (electricity transmission) come from guys who started out working in the field as tradesmen and then got engineering degrees. I believe innovation comes from thinking about things in a different way and having a good understanding of your field. You can gain that understanding through academic pursuits, practical experience or a combination of both. But maths is not engineering though the thought process and, to a lesser extent, the actual theory can be very helpful in engineering.</p>

<p>Quinnox.</p>

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<p>Thanks allot guys, I am really setting this info into my head. I asked these questions because The other day I was trying to code( a REALLY long program involving people getting married,lol) in C++. I just couldn't get it right, so i went to sleep. The next day I got so some help and it was ok. I thought to myself , would i be doing this everyday to earn my living? Trying to solve and solve and eating my brain out? lets face it, sometimes you just need a break. But now i understand that its not as bad as i anticipated.</p>