<p>I have looked at Princeton Review and many career sites but they don't give me a great idea of what an engineer's day is like. Do they mainly sit in cubicles and design chips (electrical engineer)? Are they in the labs and what are those like? Is the office setup similar to that of the movie "Office Space"? I am very interested in engineering but I find that I have no idea what goes on day to day.</p>
<p>Do you mean a specific type of engineer? I'm sure it varies from each kind.</p>
<p>what about industrial engineers?</p>
<p>" Do they mainly sit in cubicles and design chips (electrical engineer)? "</p>
<p>from what I've heard about computer/electrical, and civil engineers....</p>
<p>1> 20% of your time is spent networking.....it's a survival technique, so that in case your manager is out of work, or doesn't give you work, you will have other managers that are willing to take you in. Engineers have to be extremely outgoing and network oriented....communication skills and presentation skills (the WOW factor when you communicate) is the #1 guarantee of keeping your job for more than 3 years.</p>
<p>2> The other 15% of your time is spent in meetings....round tables where you speak for 5 minutes on the work you did in the past week (or days)</p>
<p>3> another 20% of your time is spent in paperwork (diagrams, time keeping, accounts, hardware orders, following up with vendors etc.)</p>
<p>4) 20% of your their time is spent actually working on things they got a degree for...</p>
<p>5) 25% of the remaining time is spent idleing, personal stuff etc.</p>
<p>If you're on a busy project, it may be that you won't have idle time, or if you just lost a project, you may spend 60% of your time idleing and networking (looking for a project...hopefully some manager will give you work, otherwise you'll be laid off within a few months since you're now a liability).</p>
<p>Golubb, go awaaaay.</p>
<p>OP, Golubb is a troll who hasn't graduated from high school yet and has no idea what engineers actually do. He's going off of what three engineers say, and those are likely three engineers who don't like what they do.</p>
<p>Golubb, you're not helping anybody with all this uninformed naysaying.</p>
<p>"Golubb, go awaaaay."
alibar - if you think this is scary stuff, take a good hard look before you plunge into Engineering. I trust my sources enuf to know they won't misguide me.... if you don't see this right now, you may see it at your next job....or when you've passed 27-28 and are expected to be a senior engineer leading the juniors.</p>
<p>golubb_u:
i agree with what you said. my father is an electrical engineer-yes he does spend lots of time actually making chips (he actually is a chip desginer--->designing them on a computer) but the only thing he said he has a problem with is talking in front of others (for presentations etc...) english is his second language so thats why. i want to be an engineer as well but he keeps telling me that i have to boost up my 530 critical reading score cuz english, communications, etc... is vital in the engineering field. so yes engineers go to meetings and talk about their projects but engineers (like my father) do much less of it than say a manager or boss.</p>
<p>ps: aibarr u arent saying anything intelligent so stop bashing on golubb_u who actually seems to know what life as an engineer is.</p>
<p>Grad06- Golubb has made plenty of completely inaccurate statements on other threads and has been completely shot down by tons of other people. Check out his other statements. I just don't want him going around preaching all this negativism about engineering to people who might actually enjoy being engineers. Many of us have asked him to please stop bashing engineering just for the heck of it, and he persists. It's quite irritating to those of us in the field who actually enjoy engineering and the challenges we face in our work.</p>
<p>I've never said that communication isn't a virtue when it comes to being an engineer. I completely advocate that engineering majors need to be both literate and articulate in order to be highly effective at their jobs, but people aren't going to be laid off because they're a "huge liability" to their firms, if they lose an account. Accounts are lost. That happens.</p>
<p>I don't think this is scary stuff, golubb, I know that it can be a fact of life <em>occasionally</em>, but for the most part, the negative attitude you take on is completely unwarranted. Your <em>three</em> sources are just bitter about trials that they've faced, and as we've told you many, many, many times before, you need to not extrapolate three people's experiences and irritability at the state of their fields to the <em>entire</em> field of engineering. Please don't presume that you know more about the field of engineering than those of us who are actually professional engineers.</p>
<p>(FYI- I've more than "plunged" into engineering. I'm a graduate research assistant at UIUC and have worked for four firms, while golubb is drawing on what he's heard from three acquaintances who are in the engineering field. I know what I'm talking about, and it isn't that everyone in engineering is doomed to be forced into early retirement, as golubb keeps implying.)</p>
<p>golubb_u is quite stupid if he thinks that his information is true of all engineers.. For example, I know engineers that are in their late forties and early fifties that have never been laid off, never had to worry about younger guys, and easily make six figures each. Now, do I think all engineers lead this lifestyle based on a few people I've talked to? NO..get some sense..</p>
<p>"Grad06- Golubb has made plenty of completely inaccurate statements on other threads and has been completely shot down by tons of other people"</p>
<p>.....NO. I haven't been shot down by tons of other people, just two or three. There are at least two other people that have said the same things I have, so that's proof that people have experienced the stuff that I mentioned.</p>
<hr>
<p>"golubb_u is quite stupid if he thinks that his information is true of all engineers.. '</p>
<p>no, I'm not stupid, nor am I uninformed. It may not be ALL true for ALL enginners, but it's true for a whole LOT of engineers.</p>
<hr>
<p>"FYI- I've more than "plunged" into engineering. I'm a graduate research assistant at UIUC and have worked for four firms, "</p>
<p>how did you work for FOUR firms in your time as a grad research assistant?????? Were you full time or part time? Were you an intern by any chance at these FOUR firms?? Interns have zero politics, so of course things are going to look rosy for them. And besides, if you're less than 25 years old, then you're in the "good years" as an engineer.</p>
<p>As an engineer, you're expected to "progress" in your career as follows...</p>
<p>engineer-> senior engineer at 25 -> principal engineer at 28 -> manager at 30-35 -> director after 35 -> VP, EVP, CTO eventually.</p>
<p>At 35 if you're not a manager you're going to be the laughing stock of your group .. Have fun paper pushing after the age of 35 ;)</p>
<p>That's interesting...i didn't know engineers need to be outgoing and have good communication skills, because i have seen quite a few engineering majors with NO people skills whatsoever. This is a good thing though and may put me above the rest, or so i hope.</p>
<p>"my dad is 55, isnt a manager and he makes over $140,000 a year "</p>
<p>That's interesting. May I ask which company he works at an what he does??</p>
<p>The highest average pay for engineers (according to bureau of labor) is about 100k in San Jose California. Your dad making 140k is just outstandingly high.....I'm interested in know which companies pay that much, and whether or not your dad has outstanding other qualifications.</p>
<p>Also, does he work for the government, or IBM (where there are a whole buch of older engineers)?</p>
<p>Alexk330-</p>
<p>Yeah, having good communication skills is a <em>great</em> thing for an engineer. You'll be able to communicate with your clients, and articulate speech and writing is one of the things that really impresses potential employers. =)</p>
<p>Isn't it nice to know that if you can string words together in a grammatically-correct sentence and talk to other people without staring at your shoes, you've got a leg-up on the competition? ;)</p>
<p>That's awesome..i am a social person who can buckle down and get work done.</p>
<p>golubb_u: don't engineers get a pay increase of about 5% a year? So let's say you start out at $50,000 at the age of 22. His dad is 55 so let's say 30 years later... 50000*1.05^30 is over $200,000. I'm sure it doesn't work exactly like that, but as time goes on, you're worth more.</p>
<p>ive heard, someone verify, that engineers pay tends to level off after 10 or 15 years</p>
<p>"Isn't it nice to know that if you can string words together in a grammatically-correct sentence and talk to other people without staring at your shoes, you've got a leg-up on the competition?"</p>
<p>well, that's not the kind of communication skills that are worthwhile to engineers. It's more about presentations and public speaking.</p>
<p>"well, that's not the kind of communication skills that are worthwhile to engineers. It's more about presentations and public speaking."</p>
<p><em>sighs, shakes head</em>.
Golubb, you'd be really good at playing Whack-a-Mole.</p>
<p>Anyone know what a day in a chemical engineer's life is like?</p>
<p>^^^^ I'd like to know as well, and do chemical engineers work with new technology such as hydrogen fuel cells?</p>
<p>ChemE's are not always in cubicles but right in the plant or factory checking things over and fixing problems when they pop up. That is only for industrial type chemEs. There are plenty of other options for them but I was just noting at least one instance where you would definitely not be in an office.</p>