PhD in engineering?

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

<p>Here is a post from Reddit where a user named Toymakerii describes his model the scope of working in engineering research. Not sure if our PhDs and candidates agree with this, but it seems reasonably well aligned with what I’ve gleaned in general:</p>

<p>"Research comes in different shades.</p>

<p>"Some people work on something called “basic research” it is the process of developing new knowledge in a field. It generally requires alot of paper writing, and most people who do it, don’t care much about real applications. (Think about developing new techniques for touch screens, but all you got to work was one pixel, or one part of a pixel). This is where the MOST Ph.D’s live. (The Ph.D process is designed to ensure you understand what new knowledge is, and how to find it).</p>

<p>"This spectrum moves all the way to researching which parts are most cost effective. Or researching how all the parts will glue together. Once this is complete the work becomes logistics and Operations & Maintenance, and no longer requires research.</p>

<p>" * Your job as a BS is to learn how to do basic engineering.</p>

<p>" * Your job as a MS is to learn how to write a paper and do basic research.
" * Your job as a Ph.D. is to learn how to conduct research, and generate new knowledge.</p>

<p>"Stick to where you belong and have your ears to the ground. One of my pride points is that I am very good at doing real things (what people with BS’s do) while able to conduct the research required for Ph.D’s. (Believe it or not this is unusual and can be quite frustrating)</p>

<p>"Things to listen for and start poking around at now would be research papers and grants. Try out google scholar on topics you might be interested in. Start finding a professor who is interested in those topics. Then try and find small grants that might fund the thing you want to work on. Then go get money, do the thing you wanted to. Lather rinse and repeat.</p>

<p>“Find out what parts of this process you liked, and that will tell you where you should end up :).”</p>

<p><a href="http://www./r/engineering/comments/10n4yf/will_i_really_need_a_phd/c6eyg4u%5B/url%5D">http://www./r/engineering/comments/10n4yf/will_i_really_need_a_phd/c6eyg4u</a></p>

22

<p>In general I think that is accurate. I can say from my experience with my various colleagues and connections that there are some slight changes I would make to that. Here is my slightly altered version of things:</p>

<p>First and foremost, some definitions:</p>

<p>Basic research: It is all about developing new knowledge and solving the unsolved fundamental problems. It generally is several steps away from being applicable to real applications. For example, I do basic research on boundary layers in the flow over, say, an airplane wing. That is a very important part of what keeps an airplane in the air and understanding it can have vehicle-level implications, but for me, I am concerned with the physics of the layer itself. For the most part, what to do with that new knowledge about said physics falls to others.</p>

<p>Applied research: This would be where someone takes the information generated by basic research and applies it to solving a new problem or developing a new tool for solving new problems or solving old problems better. To build on my previous example, this would be where someone takes the new knowledge of the physics of the boundary layer that I find and uses it to slightly alter a plane to make it more efficient.</p>

<p>The vast majority of Ph.D. engineers fall into one of those two categories, and a lot do a bit of both. Those that work in industry tend to lean toward the applied side of things since that is closest to the market being served by the company and makes the most business sense. Those in national labs do some of both depending on the lab and the funding they are currently receiving from Congress. For example, I know that Sandia gets money to do some very fundamental work in my field but also has groups working on systems-level work that is much more applied, all of which pertains to various national interests (though mostly pertaining to the US nuclear arsenal).</p>

<p>Then there is academia. One reason professors generally have such high job satisfaction is that they are free to do either or both of these broad classes of research on any topic that interests them so long as they can convince someone to give them money to fund it. My Ph.D. advisor, for example, has projects that run the gamut in this regard, starting with my work in probing the basic questions about hypersonic boundary layers all the way to a few colleagues of mine working on looking at what effect various step sizes have on the flow over a wing (simulating variable manufacturing tolerances). Professors also, of course, teach classes and supervise graduate students.</p>

<p>So, given that far more Ph.D. engineers work in industry than in academia, I would argue that actually most are doing the applied research that industry likes to see. When industry wants basic research to be done, they generally go ask a university professor to do it for them, as it often requires specialized knowledge that it just doesn’t make business sense to bring on for a single project. Of course, to the BS-level engineers who are just trying to get proficient at basic engineering, even the applied research can probably seem esoteric at times.</p>

<p>So, in running through the Reddit poster’s descriptions over various levels of degree, I would amend them to the following:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Your job as a BS engineer is to learn how to do basic engineering. Once you get out into industry, your job is to solve problems important to the business largely using the tools and knowledge generated by the more experienced engineers.</p></li>
<li><p>Your job as a MS is to learn how to write a paper and get acquainted with the research process. Once in the workforce, you generally will take on some of the more specialized tasks suited to your area of focus in your degree using a mixture of old and new method and help develop new tools, though generally not as the lead.</p></li>
<li><p>Your job as a Ph.D. is to learn how to conduct research, and generate new knowledge. Out in the workforce, your job is to continue to conduct research and generate new knowledge.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>There may of course be some variability in there across different fields, but based on my experience and a variety of colleagues at different degree levels, this seems to be fairly common to all the fields that I know of without too much change.</p>