<p>I am almost half done with electrical engineering, and was wondering where to look for travel intensive jobs, especially those with international travel. All of sudden I get a feeling that I am missing out a lot of things in life (maybe because this month is so stressful), so I thought trying to get a 9 to 5 job (which I know I should be happy to get, but like I said, I am feeling selfish) same thing every day would be continuing the trend. My hope is that travel intensive jobs can let me not miss out on good parts of life while also letting me be responsible. Do newly graduated engineers have a chance of getting these kinds of jobs?</p>
<p>any sort of consulting will likely result in a lot of travel.</p>
<p>How about living a lifestyle that allows you to travel.
Keep your living expenses down so that you have more discretionary money to travel.</p>
<p>Why do you feel that extensive travel jobs would allow you to enjoy the good parts of life?</p>
<p>When an engineer goes on a travel assignment, they typically work long hours and many consecutive days on a project. It often may be inside a warehouse, factory, or sometimes a jobsite in the field somewhere. Sometimes (or even often) you’re traveling on your own rather than with a large group.</p>
<p>In any case, business travel offers little time for lesiure or pleasure activities. You might be able to use some vacation time before or after the trip but the cost of lodging and meals is on your own and it can be hard to arrange at times.</p>
<p>I don’t want to put down business travel but it’s not very glamorous when you get to the details of it.</p>
<p>Defense contracting on any type of U.S. foreign military sales (FMS) project will get you around.</p>
<p>i don’t know what type of “travel” you are envisioning but bigtrees is dead on. if the company is paying you to travel, you will be working your ass off 12 hours a day to get some emergency project done. btw, you will travel coach in case you were wondering as well :P.</p>
<p>I know someone in the pharmaceutical industry who got an international assignment for one year in Switzerland. There are people in that company who regularly get long term overseas assignments, though it gets tough when you have to move your entire family to a new country for a few years (or only be able to see your family once a month).</p>
<p>bigtrees summed it up. You’re definitely not going to see the “good parts of life” by traveling a lot for business. In fact, you’ll probably miss out on a lot.</p>
<p>I know a guy who is a perfect example of how traveling a ton is not a good thing (won’t go into too much detail, never can be too careful). It has played at least some part in pretty much destroying that family, though he did some of that on his own with his abrasive personality.</p>
<p>I would say that traveling some can be fun and healthy though, maybe for a week or something once every couple months. That wouldn’t be very taxing on your or your family or anyone else, and would be enough to get you some nice frequent flier miles.</p>
<p>if you need any more discouragement, check out “up in the air” with george clooney :P</p>
<p>I saw that and instantly thought of the guy I was referring to in my previous post, haha.</p>
<p>My husband’s first job as an EE PhD required him to travel quite a bit. Twenty years later he still travels a lot and still enjoys it. There are a lot of trade offs relative to missing family events, but he is able to balance family and work, for the most part. He does most of his traveling during the week and tries to be home on weekends. There have been trips to Paris when all he saw of the city was out his hotel window, but there have been trips when he’s sampled vodkas in Russia, visited the Great Wall of China or sung karaoke in Japan too. It’s not all drudgery and it’s not for everyone, obviously. What constitutes the good parts of life is very personal and if you think travel for work would be more of a positive than a negative experience then target international companies and make your interest in travel known. If you speak a foreign language, all the better.</p>
<p>DS had postgrad internships that were overseas and not in his college or home state. He now has job situations which gives him considerable time freedom (Mechanical engineer entrepreneur and as CS support staff at a ranked university). This year he’s been to Whistler a week prior to Olympics and had half-priced hotel, discounted meals, and private ski lessons. For spring break he spent, 2 weeks in Chile.</p>
<p>His hours are a little weird.</p>
<p>One thing you should understand is that when traveling internationally, it will cost your company $$$ to send you. I just got back from Sydney Australia and my tickets alone cost $10k (first class domestic - business international) and that didn’t include my per diem or lodging/misc costs. I was there for 42 days and (not including salary w/OT) the trip cost around $25k. So yea, the company is putting a lot of trust in you and is also expecting a lot from you to get the job done. Long hours - weekend work - whatever is necessary. I’ve been pretty fortunate with my travel experiences (Australia, South Korea, Canada, California, New Mexico) but I can’t say I know many other engineers that have the same opportunities. Like someone else said - you’ll have to vacation either before or after the work or weekend trips as the work schedule permits.</p>
<p>Wow so many nice replies already - thanks. The thing is before I have a family, I want to do these fun things, then settle down. In that way, I can accept a stressful lifestyle that moves me around constantly. Basically, I want to be a nomad. for a few years after graduation. Is this possible somehow in ways in addition to consulting?</p>
<p>Wow tennisplayer121, i guess you like tennis too (me too), and we have quite a bit in common. That last post is exactly what I have been thinking about. But then someone told me that why should any company care about what I like. If they hire me for travelling, then they wouldn’t care if I get married. They will still want me to travel and that is something not too cool once married. Usually employers will not change their terms according to the employee’s personal life.</p>
<p>Besides that, travelling does look great from land. But just after like a 10 hour flight, don’t you feel like “Gosh, that was tiring!”? I don’t know about you, but I sure feel that way (but maybe you are like the George Clooney of Up in the air, who seems to enjoy every last bit of travelling). Up in the air did seem to glorify travelling (like the partying etc) to a reasonable degree. But in the bigger picture, the movie too seemed to say that travelling too much sucks.</p>
<p>Here is a very fascinating read:-
[Up</a> in the Air Fantasies: What Does 10 Million Miles Get You? - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1949790,00.html]Up”>http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1949790,00.html)</p>
<p>yes I play tennis…I will take a look at this movie soon.</p>
<p>Ok I travelled for 10 years its fun and was ok for the first 5. Then the company i worked for started to understand how expensive it was to travel then the business class flights were removed the quality of the hotels went down and the work started to get more every year 66%. to 75% its a fun life you meet so many people however you can meet alot you don’t want to meet again. The other problem is that you can alianate your friends/family at home by not being there for them at the right times. Then you find yourself building a friend circle on the road. I have seen many sights great wall great ocean road australia japan russia, india africa but always at some kind of expense…</p>
<p>Hope this helps </p>
<p>Family Man</p>
<p>brothers: hi Bro…thanks for the insightful information. However, I believe you have replied to an old posting, dated April 17, 2010. That’s like a little too late by now?</p>