Questions for engineers

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I have some questions related to some of the engineering disciplines, particularly civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering.</p>

<p>1.) Should civil engineers be doing actual hands-on construction work? If not, what should they be doing? My dad, who co-owns a construction company, is having me do actual tradesman work when I'm supposed to be doing other things, according to some. Why is he doing this?</p>

<p>2.) As you've probably guessed, I'm an engineering student. I have other questions. What kinds of things should an electrical/computer engineer be doing in his job? </p>

<p>3.) How much mechanical and electrical engineering comes into play in any discipline of civil engineering?</p>

<p>4.) I know there's a structural engineer on these boards. aibarr I believe was the name of the person. I'm trying to come up with some questions about her experiences. What is it like to actually do engineering work? What kinds of things do you do? Is the pay awesome?</p>

<p>5.) I'm interested in power systems and embedded systems in electrical engineering. I'm reading up on Wikipedia about those, but does anyone have any experiences with those fields?</p>

<p>6.) Does electrical engineering overlap with mechanical engineering?</p>

<p>I did a lot of electrical/computer engineering work when I was in college, and I want to finish that up, but I don't want to get stuck as a tradesmen just because my dad forces me to. I want to do design work in engineering.</p>

<p>You might also recall some posts a couple of months ago about me completing college. Well, I'm a biology graduate who is working as a construction laborer full time now. I know that doesn't require a college degree, what I'm doing now. I just want to start doing either white collar jobs for as much money as possible or be an entrepreneur and someday make a TON of money.</p>

<p>I know that was a mouthful, and I apologize. So fellow engineers, can you answer my questions?</p>

2

<p>I don't have any answers to your questions but just want to say that you should have a job that makes you happy. The contractor that I have used in my house has a double major in biochemistry and computer science. He's very happy as a contractor. Makes for interesting conversations when he's doing a job at my house.</p>

3

<p>1.) Your dad has probably had his fair share of experience with idiot engineers during his time as a co-owner of a construction company... People who probably have asked that rebar be spaced at something like 3.86 inches center-to-center, or other such nonsense that may be <em>technically</em> accurate, but in the field... Honestly, who's going to expect one of y'all to get out the digital calipers when you're laying steel? Good grief.</p>

<p>Those sorts of things are the sorts of mistakes that younger engineers, particularly those who haven't had any field experience, tend to make. I think it's a fabulous idea to get some field experience before you go full-force into engineering so you know what's possible and what isn't. I don't care if I've got a million degrees from MIT, if I'm designing a weld and an ex-con and expert welder with thirty years' welding experience covered in tattoos and unable to string two words together tells me that it's an impossible weld to make, I'm gonna listen to him! I may be able to do tensor calculus in my head, but if it just plain can't be done in the field, the design I come up with is worthless. So, I think that if you can get that sort of hands-on experience and you eventually want to go into design, that's fantastic, and you've got a great opportunity knocking.</p>

<p>2.) Can't answer that one...</p>

<p>3.) Mechanical: TONS. Electrical: not so much. I haven't touched E&M since AP Physics C in high school, but towards the end there, my curriculum completely overlapped with the advanced mechanical eng guys' courseloads.</p>

<p>4.) "I know there's a structural engineer on these boards. aibarr I believe was the name of the person. I'm trying to come up with some questions about her experiences. What is it like to actually do engineering work? What kinds of things do you do? Is the pay awesome?"</p>

<p>You found me!
And actually, legally, I should point out that I'm a structural engineering <em>associate</em>, as I'm not a licensed PE or SE, just an EIT. It is, however, my intent to become licensed at some point.</p>

<p>I just finished my masters and have started work in forensic engineering and structural design. The pay is pretty darned nice... Mid-fifties, but it's in Los Angeles... Ridiculously awesome benefits, though, so it makes up for the high CoL here in SoCal. I'm getting my feet wet with some seismic design, and I'm hoping to get into disaster mitigation and retrofit and collapse investigation. I'm having a great time, though. The people here are really cool, my schedule is really flexible, and I'm loving my job.</p>

<p>5.) No experience here...</p>

<p>6.) Can't comment too much here, either...</p>

<p>Being filthy rich isn't that feasible in structural design, unfortunately, so if that's your goal, you might want to pull back from the whole construction laborer thing and get out to do what you want to do... Still, I find the whole structural design thing really fascinating and rewarding. Lots of different things to work on, so I don't have to end up bored and burned out.</p>

4

<p>On your question of overlap between electrical and mechanical engineering....yes, there is some overlap. The area of dynamic systems and control (including robotics) is one example. I got my PhD in mechanical engineering in this area but others did things that were similar to my work and got EE degrees.</p>

5

<p>aibarr, what do you know of electronic structural monitoring? Do you know anyone who might know something about this?</p>

6

<p>It's an interesting field, and I wish I knew more about it!</p>

<p>Like I said in my PM to you... check out Hjelmstad's research at UIUC. I know his group's doing some structural monitoring research. There are a lot of forensic engineering companies out there who do some structural monitoring. Unfortunately, I haven't had much contact with structural monitoring, so all I can do is point you in a few directions.</p>

7

<p>Sorry about the dual post. Check out my PM to you, aibarr. Also, everyone, I would like some answer on my EE/CompE questions. Thanks!</p>

8

<p>Since aibarr covered question 1, 3, 4, I'll try to stir the pot with my two cents on the rest :)</p>

<p>2) E/CE is an extremely broad field, and you can end up doing a variety of things. You can go into any of the subfields like digital signal processing, electric power systems, electromagnetics, analog electronic design, microsystems (integration, MEMS(Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems)), optics and phontonics, controls and systems, communications, computer architecture, and intelligent systems. And many of these subfields overlap with each other. </p>

<p>As you can see, there are just wayyyy too many things to be covered for "what might an E/CE engineer do at a job". As an example, as a new bachelors grad in ECE, you may be expected to work as a verification or test engineer who checks and verifies that the digital logic on a prototype circuit design works as intended. Or you may be engaged in some simple design work, such as printed circuit board layouts or small components. To engage in more complex designs, which from the sounds of it is your aim, you'd have to work your way up, or get a graduate degree.</p>

<p>5) I'm not too familiar with power systems. I did take a class in computational intelligence, and my prof has worked with several major power companies to use neural networks to forecast power usage for the nxt day. Embedded systems could be grouped under computer engineering, which is my field. I looked over Wikipedia's article on embedded systems, and it does provide a great primer on the subject. Did you have any specific questions that is not covered by the article?</p>

<p>6) Yes. As Dr. Reynolds pointed out, in the area of controls and systems, there are a lot of overlap. Robotics immediately comes to mind. Many engineering projects are EMS, or Electro-Mechanical Systems, where the electrical parts provide sensory feedback and control, and the mechanical parts provide structure and support. A modern automobile is a great example of an EMS. As an ECE undergrad, I took a couple of ME classes such as Statics and Thermodynamics.</p>

9

<ol>
<li>Perhaps doing the actual hands on work isn't necessary, but having field experience is defintiely a plus. Like aibarr said, you learn a lot about what can be done on paper but not in the field, which is what counts when all's said and done. Just working for a contractor, or an inspector is good enough I think.</li>
</ol>

10

<p>I think hands on work for every engineering field is necessary. Too many people think what the book says is the truth and the only way its done, when in practice its very different. Lots of times workers will get a sketch of a part that needs to be made, and with their experience making parts they know it won't be possible to make. Engineers without experience with building parts won't know this, but if you have had the experience before, you would know, ok this won't work how else can it be done. I think its good to see how the things you will design some day will be put to use, and how things are really built, not just on paper.</p>

11

<p>I'm just a high school senior so pardon my ignorance but if its not possible/ practical in the real world, then why is it even being designed on paper? Aren't engineers taught to come up with designs which are realistic and practical? Hence, won't the methods taught to them make them use materials/designs that are practical?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

12

<p>Many times books tell you methods that don't really work in real life. Lots of times engineering students are taught by people who never worked as an engineer in real life, and only know book stuff. In general you need a few years of work experience to even be able to start engineering things. Young engineers spend the first few years learning the ropes and how things work, then they start really "engineering" things.</p>