<p>Just out of curiosity, how much of the things you learn in classes actually help you with your job, if you have one?</p>
<p>A job! I've got one of those.</p>
<p>And incidentally, what I learned in school helps a TON with what I do in my job. Not every class, mind you, but I've talked with my colleagues who went in different civil engineering-ish directions, and whatever I don't use, at least one of them seems to use.</p>
<p>I catalogued my notes from my undergrad years, and I kept all my textbooks. I have them all on shelves in my office at work (luckily, they've given me quite the setup... a table, a drafting table, a desk, and a set of bookshelves, along with a very comfy office chair, a drafting stool, and free fizzy beverages in the staff fridge... they take care of their engineers), and last week I was moved to a workspace across the hall from a colleague that I was collaborating on, and by the end of that week, I'd moved about ten textbooks over to my temporary desk from my office... So, I've used a lot of what I learned.</p>
<p>Some jobs use more than others. Some jobs might use a single textbook intensively. Others might use a few. Others might use none. It really depends on the job. I would say, on the whole, most engineers use very little maybe ~10% of what they learned in school. That does not mean the other 90% is pointless. It just doesn't come up that often.</p>
<p>So do you guys think specializing early (ie. undergrad) is a good or bad choice?</p>
<p>Engineering curriculums typically force you to specialize in something, its not really much of a choice. I don't think I've heard of a program where you don't take advanced electives, that right there is enough of a specialization for most cases. That doesn't imply that you will get a job that is at all relevant to whatever elective you decided to take, but I would still consider it a specialization. </p>
<p>Its almost impossible to predict what you will end up doing when you graduate. Typical graduates take whatever they can get, so its difficult to say exactly what you should specialize in as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I've been interning at a traffic engineering firm for the past year before I actually took the traffic engineering course at my school. Just go the textbook for it a week ago, and I looked inside; I didn't recognize many of the things. The VP of my company (who happened to graduate from the same college I'm attending) told me that we won't use most of the stuff we learn in school, though he did insert a disclaimer saying he doesn't know about other fields of engineering. </p>
<p>However, I can't see how specializing in undergrad can hurt you.</p>
<p>I graduated from chemical engineering and was unemployed for a quite a long time. So I did not use any of my courses during that time (no chemical engineering involved in cutting lawns)! </p>
<p>When I started working, I found a little from each course was useful. By the way, I never had to use calculus in my work. Has anyone on this site ever used calculus or differential equations in their work?</p>