There certainly seems to be a LOT of “water carrier” entry jobs out there where new grads do mundane things in support of more experienced engineers. The Goldilocks position seems to be finding a company that isn’t so big that they have plenty of engineers to do more complex stuff, but not so small that they can’t take the time for a new grad to learn on the job. Let me know when you find them. 
I am sure, as with most things in life, there is probably a happy medium. The problem is that said Goldilocks position will be different for everyone, so there is no one answer. A lot of the entry-level jobs sounded awful to me, but probably seem interesting to a lot of other people. Maybe being a CAD/FEA person is someone’s dream job, but it sure isn’t mine.
Different strokes for different folks.
@CaMom13 – Your post #4 is now starting something.
so - i liked what you said about making resumes and portfolios; I copied those links and your paragraph and emailed it to my architect college daughter to look at.
However, I didn’t email it to her –
I accidentally emailed it to my S20’s AP coordinator at our HS (who I had been emailing about a class); who then emailed me back saying “THANKS! good information, i’ve emailed that on to all of our English teachers and it’s already generated some great thoughts in our English Department!”
I am so thankful that’s what I emailed instead of something personal! But I found it really funny; I never would have considered sharing that with English teachers, yet they found those ideas interesting - outside of their box. 
@bgbg4us - oh, your story made me LAUGH! I have done that! Yes, TG it was something you didn’t mind “sharing” outside the family. 
I’m glad they found it interesting / useful and thanks for letting me know, that’s great.
Slightly off topic, but since we’re not really on topic at this moment (and the previous thread discussing this topic was closed some time ago), is there such a thing as too high a GPA?
I remember reading in that thread that, for some hiring managers, a 4.0 would raise a red flag. But don’t you take the school into consideration when viewing a GPA? I mean engineering is hard everywhere for the average student, but if I saw someone had a 4.0 at Alabama or Mississippi State (or some other non-elite flagship), I’d probably equate that to a 3.5 at GT, just based on how professors curve and the reality that, when everyone is a top student, you can go faster and push harder.
My son has a 4.0 and in all likelihood will have one when he graduates. I’m proud of him, especially since he was able to do that while having a social life and a very demanding extracurricular (unrelated to engineering) his last two years.
How important is it to demonstrate you’re a “balanced” human being when applying for an engineering job? I would think, especially for someone who wants to work on the product development side, being able to demonstrate you’re a well-rounded human (who has other creative outlets) as being is a positive, but I might just be telling myself that because it’s what I want to believe.
We like to see Revit/AutoCAD skills on entry level resumes. A major discriminator!
I don’t think any employers are turning away 4.0 students on the fear that they might not be “well rounded” human beings. There may be some concerns when first reading the resume, but any of those concerns can be reasonably cleared up in an interview.
@HPuck35 uses a term I like. He likes to see evidence that a candidate can “play well with others.”
The whole issue with grades is that there’s no context. There is a pretty significant amount of variability in grade inflation/deflation. You have Brown, where the average graduating GPA is something like 3.78 (Stanford, Harvard and Yale aren’t that far behind), to Harvey Mudd that graduates a 4.0 about once a decade.
I would think a graduate with a 4.0 and no other activities might be frowned upon, but no more than a 3.5 with no other activities. I don’t know that the other outlets need to be creative. Clubs, research, and jobs all show that a student isn’t just “in the books” all the time. It’s about breadth rather than the 4.0 per se.
What is ME design?
Is this helpful? It is taken from an ME course description:
“This project based course introduces students to the engineering design process including; identifying the need, benchmarking, writing design specifications, evaluating alternative designs and selecting a final design. Student groups will construct and evaluate a working prototype of their design. Additional topics include; creativity, product liability, reverse engineering, patents, and codes of ethics for engineers. Extensive written reports and oral presentations”
According to Wikipedia: “Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. … In project management benchmarking can also support the selection, planning and delivery of projects”
:
Several comments to the OP and several of the other posts within this thread:
-
A 4.0 GPA would not be a detriment for employment. In fact I would view it as a definite plus. Interesting to note that of the few 4.0 GPAs (it is rare) that I interviewed, I didn’t hire any. Didn’t pass my “plays well with others” criteria. Engineering is a team game and I needed team players.
-
“Design” implies different jobs for different companies. For some, a designer is just another name for draftsperson. Others, a designer does some CAD work but will do analysis and system design to formulate the design. You need to read the job description and ask questions. Ask what your day to day work assignment will entail. The job that some people call design may in fact have another title (systems engineer, development engineer, etc.) within a company.
-
There are jobs out there for new college grads in design. However, for entry level designers (as well as many other engineering sub-categories) you will be on a very short leash as to what you can do. As you prove yourself, the leash will be lengthened. No company will trust their existence to an unproven commodity.
-
Design jobs will differ also by size of the company. Big companies tend to have people specialize in a certain area. Small companies will ask you to broaden you skill sets. {FYI: I spent most of my career in a BIG company environment. I also worked at a 25 person company after I retired from the big company. The small company was fun but very frustrating at times. The resources at the big company were impressive and extensive. I always had people that were experts in their fields to use as resources. The equipment available was also always there. We were jury rigging things at the small company as they didn’t want to spend the money to get the equipment for limited usage.}
-
Small companies may get involved in research but larger companies definitely do. I was able to do some pretty exciting research; some totally inhouse and some in conjunction with outside labs. We didn’t always publish the results of our research as we sometimes wanted to keep the technology proprietary (you can argue the merits of that). There were also ITAR concerns about publishing some of the work. Quite different from the “publish or perish” concept within academia.
When looking for a “non-manufacturing” job, I’d suggest using the term “Product Development” instead of design.
I back up this assertion with a non-scientific happy hour survey of geeky husband and other engineering friends. (Disclaimer - we’ve all worked at the same 2 companies.)
@colorado_mom, that’s an excellent suggestion. I’ll pass that on!