Why is your engineernig field the coolest?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Students, what is it about your engineering field that lured you into it in the first place? </p>

<p>Grads, what is it that you're working on now that makes you think it's the coolest field around?</p>

<p>I'm in Chemical Engineering. I think my field was cool because of the hype on tissue engineering and targeted drug delivery. I'm always a fan of biology (particularly molecular biology and biochemistry), and it's only natural for me to find that the application of engineering principles to solve medical problems is about as exciting as... well, nothing can really compare to how exciting I think it is.</p>

<p>Let's make this a fun topic rather than a 10-page discussion on why engineering isn't really that exciting in real life.</p>

2

<p>bumppppppppppp</p>

3

<p>I'm going into aerospace engineering. I love every aspect of flight and the fact that we manage to get such heavy objects up in the air that cruise at hundreds of miles per hour is still amazing to me. We're basically turning really big fans to propel heavy hunks of metal into the air AND we manage to not get lost up there :)</p>

4

<p>I love how we're able to take mother nature and make it inhabitable. You can see the works of civil engineers everywhere, from the buildings you live in to the water treatment plant that gives you clean water to the traffic signal patterns that prevent chaos at intersections. </p>

<p>Some structures are absolutely amazing, and they keep getting higher and higher. Look at Taipei 101, the Burj Dubai and the Petronas Towers. Taipei 101 actually has a 700 ton pendulum in it to minimize sway at the top due to winds. Don't forget about the Chunnel, the Alaskan pipeline, and the Panama Canal. The Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge is over 6500 feet long!</p>

<p>Without a doubt, civil engineering products affect everybody's daily lives, whether you're a millionaire in the U.S. or in poverty in a third world country.</p>

5

<p>I loved aerospace, but i didnt pursue my dream for a number of reasons.</p>

<p>BUT EE is the next best thing, micro processors , solar cells, and other electronics have really tempted me towards this major. </p>

<p>Nuclear engineering has allot of relationship with EE as well. And you know how cool "nuclear" stuff is.</p>

6

<p>Chemical engineering is cool because laymen think you're some hardcore uber-chemist, when in actuality you're more of a glorified plumber (if you're a process engineer). :p</p>

7

<p>You want glamorous, tell a layperson that you're an engineer who designs things like NFL football stadiums and skyscrapers. ;) It's pretty awesome, and they want to hear all about it.</p>

<p>I used to be a structural failure analyst, which was pretty exciting... I really enjoyed telling people that I'd ride swing stages (those suspended scaffolds that window washers use to get to skyscraper windows).</p>

<p>I really liked the courses involved in civil and structural engineering, too. Concrete design, steel design, geotechnical engineering, welding... I had both welding (awesome... I've become a pretty decent welder!) and concrete labs, which beat the pants off of thermodynamics labs. Like mechanical engineers, civs get to go through Strength of Materials lab, where you get to break things every week.</p>

<p>Watching construction projects becomes a lot more interesting. You also get the best of both worlds... I get to do my behind-the-computer dynamic modeling and presenting of papers in journals and stuff, and I also get to go out to construction sites with my hard hat and steel toed boots.</p>

<p>There's a little more respect (and money...) as a design engineer than there is as a failure analyst or diagnostician, but both are just a blast.</p>

<p>Speaking of blast... I used to do blast protection finite element analyses, too, for prominent structures, and we were subcontractors for the department of homeland security. My old boss used to go out to air force bases and blow things up (high speed cameras, crash test dummies, instrumentation, the whole deal) as research. There's just a huge range of things that you can work on, and a lot of them are just ridiculously cool.</p>

<p>Also, if you decide you don't want to fool with buildings when you get done with your masters in structures (recommended), then you can get a gig designing manned spacecraft or rockets or submarines or satellites or things like that.</p>

<p>Structural engineering is undoubtedly the coolest field. ;)</p>

8

<p>I'm going to have to disagree with you there, aibarr. You guys do make cool targets and all, but they're still targets ;)</p>

9

<p>grrrrr.... stupid mechies. ;)</p>

10

<p>Materials Science. We melt metal with fire.</p>

11

<p>Well you can't blame the mechEs for being jealous... why do you think they want to blow our stuff up? =P</p>

<p>speaking of the common layperson, one guy asked me what im majoring in and i said civil engineering, and he replies "ohhh, civil rights engineering?" lol.</p>

12

<p>lol... wow.</p>

<p>I told my high school physics teacher that I was a civil engineer and he said, "Well, I've always known you to be very polite, but what sort of engineering do you <em>do</em>?" (He always <em>was</em> very sarcastic...)</p>

13

<p>"It is interesting". I think this is the good answer</p>

14

<p>We're not jealous...heck even aibarr admits to liking things up. We just happen to do it all the time, not just some of the time ;)</p>

<p>If I were really talking to y'all, at this point, I would tell the story of how my friend's dad (who is a civil engineer) describes the sewer system of every building he's worked on as we drive by.</p>

15

<p>haha, i'll admit that civil engineering is probably the dirtiest engineering discipline out there. Who else has to work with waste management and play with dirt?</p>

16

<p>The reason I like EE right now is for the same reason that I hate it. The math and physics is so ridiculously screwy at times that you can't but solve it with a huge grin on your face. I am not a masochist... this is a reason to love any engineering field because of the personal satisfaction that follows solving these problems.
Of course, all the exciting developments in EE are also why I love the field so much, not to mention all the physics involved!</p>

17

<p>hey man i am chemie too, but i like working on process controls/automation & which is what i am doing right now. i am also thinking of getting a MS in this field .</p>

18

<p>Hey! what about all the cool things in Bioengineering? I dont hear anyone talking up that major. As a possible Bioengineer, I would like to hear someone argue why Bioengineering is such a cool field (since im currently in the selection process of engineering majors). In all honesty, it's just because im curious :)</p>

19

<p>We ravage the landscape in the most efficient ways humankind can devise: we're military aerospace!</p>