Then you have days like today when the IT guy doesn't bother ordering a license of Solidworks until after the trial license runs out and everything you need to do involves Solidworks and you have very little to do as a result...
Then you have days like today when the IT guy doesn't bother ordering a license of Solidworks until after the trial license runs out and everything you need to do involves Solidworks and you have very little to do as a result...
OldGray320i wrote: Wow, this has been an interesting read. I guess the only other thing I would say is that God gives us all talents and desires for a reason. Go do the stuff you do really well, enjoy it, and give glory to Him....
All glory to the hypnotoad.
On a serious note, this has been a great thread. I'm an ME currently working for a fairly small plastics company. I have to agree that working for a smaller company allows you to explore different parts of engineering. One day I might be sizing pumps and the next building a robot. It all comes down to finding what you want to do within the (large) field of mechanical engineering.
It is a great idea to do as much research as possible so that you know what you really want. Taking some courses at a community college, while they may be a bit bland depending on the course, is also a very good idea especially if you need to brush up on math skills.
93EXCivic wrote: Then you have days like today when the IT guy doesn't bother ordering a license of Solidworks until after the trial license runs out and everything you need to do involves Solidworks and you have very little to do as a result...
Wow, that is precisely why I have so much time on my hands right now as well. Waiting on a new computer that can run Solidworks...
I have an art degree, and have been in jobs with titles like: "Lab instrumentation engineer", "Industrial Designer", "R&D Engineer", "Lab Automation Engineer", "Product Design Engineer", "Senior Product Designer" and "Senior Product Design Manager".
My background sounds a lot like the O.P.. Gearhead, naturally skilled at mechanical problem solving, lots of hobbies, and a desire to make a living that's involved in this way of being.
I started as a bicycle mechanic and remained in the business for years, more on than off. In between I went to school to study whatever I thought would be interesting, was a musician, and lived a relatively interesting life. I was plucked from the motorcycle industry years later by a family friend who boldly thought I'd be able to walk into a gig completing a huge building full of all manner of proprietary lab automation stuff. Assembly, plumbing, wiring at first, learning CAD, designing more stuff later. I thrived. I learned everything I could. When they ran out of money and furloughed me 2 years later I was at work at another biotech firm in a week. I stayed there 3 years and the primary work I did remains the core product of a company in Canada. A building full of people all go to work cause of a little idea I had one day.
Eventually I was laid off but kept on consulting retainer for 3 months. As that was about to end I was cold-called by a recruiter and after a few fits and starts was the industrial designer at the renewable energy concern selling a solar integration/battery backup appliance. This gig lasted about 3 years 'til I jumped ship to a major solar energy services provider. There I designed the lowest cost, fastest to install commercial rooftop solar racking system there is. Saved them literally millions of dollars - got one patent, an OK paycheck, and was largely left alone. They were acquired by a major silicon supplier and the slow trajectory into suck steepened into a nose dive. I was dying to get out.
At which point my old boss from job #1 called and offered me a contract gig for a government agency with a huge advantage - the yearly salary (equal to the last solar gig) divided by the contract hourly rate equaled 25 hours a week.
So now I'm making a very comfortable living, working mostly from home, and 25 hours a week at that. I'm designing, fabricating, testing and integrating lab automation stuff, which is interesting work...
And I still have that art degree. No ME, PE, EE, nothin'. I'm definitely the exception, but it's possible.
I have one more piece of learning to recommend:
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work
I've worked with innumerable bright young people with brand new mechanical engineering degrees who were incapable of designing and fabricating the most rudimentary bracket. And they were hired because an HR staffer was directed to "find me an ME"...
Doing engineering work definitely changed and improved my life, but I don't know that I'd have pursued the work that's called "engineering" I see most of the engineers doing.
motomoron wrote:....
I've worked with innumerable bright young people with brand new mechanical engineering degrees who were incapable of designing and fabricating the most rudimentary bracket. And they were hired because an HR staffer was directed to "find me an ME"...
Sums up the degree issue nicely...
Rog
My understanding is that fewer and fewer engineering schools offer significant lab work, simply because labs are expensive and take up lots of real estate. - Thus the profusion of "paperheads"
I've worked with innumerable bright young people with brand new mechanical engineering degrees who were incapable of designing and fabricating the most rudimentary bracket. And they were hired because an HR staffer was directed to "find me an ME"...
That's always been an issue, at least as long as I've been in the business - most kids who go into engineering do so because they've always wondered how things work, and they like to take things apart and put them back together.
However, there are some who become engineers just because they think it's the thing to do, or they figure it's a good way to make money, or something. I remember when I was in school for my EE degree and being astounded that some of the other students didn't even know how to solder a wire. I think they're in the minority.
LeonV wrote:93EXCivic wrote: Then you have days like today when the IT guy doesn't bother ordering a license of Solidworks until after the trial license runs out and everything you need to do involves Solidworks and you have very little to do as a result...Wow, that is precisely why I have so much time on my hands right now as well. Waiting on a new computer that can run Solidworks...
I am also waiting on a new computer. 
kreb wrote: My understanding is that fewer and fewer engineering schools offer significant lab work.....
Yes. This is why the MET degree was created. Employers were asking for people with a mix of applied and theoretical training. Our guys take a full machine-shop course ("Prototyping") along with many other applied and theory-based courses (such as Statics, Physics 1 + 2, etc). If they don't pass the machine shop part, they don't get the degree.
I am an engineer, an industrial engineer who specialized in manufacturing, then aerospace, then government sales, then software development. When I was designing new production lines and introducing new products I made a reasonable living. I made the most amount of money in sales and software/hardware development. I went here RPI and graduated in 8 semesters (4 years). I have to laugh at 5 year programs, you should get a masters if you spend 5 years in engineering school. I worked at Heublein which closed the plant, motorola which closed the plant, homedepot who sold me to HD Supply, who closed my group, Confluent Data Systems which only survived while I was contracted to Boeing. So I said berkeley this.
Here is what I learned: Find something you love, that will allow you to work for yourself and can billed out by the hour. Your skills must be valuable enough that you are worth a reasonable amount of money for EACH and EVERY hour of your time. You want to work with your hands. Here is my breakdown:
1. Mechanic, basic level you can diagnose and remove and replace parts
2. Specialty mechanic, engines, suspensions, transmission, etc Like a neurosurgeon, you are the master of 1 area.
3. Fabricators: you can weld/mill/lathe anything the engineer creates or get the part to fit into the space
3. Design Fabricators: you can weld/mill/lathe anything you create and pay a Professional Engineer (PE) a State Licensed Engineer to certify it
4. Production engineers, welcome to the plant floor, see you in 50 years (you will never be bored, you will never be over paid)
5. Design Engineers : Creativity merges with engineering skills and your best work will live on forever if the folks in 1-4 can figure it out.
Find out where you want to work, what companies exist in that space and what skills your need to work there. Also make the BIG decision, do you want to work for yourself, or work for someone else?
Good luck, your brain is EXTREMELY flexible at 24 (heck you might even have a year left of Neocortex development) all paths are equally open for you.
stuart in mn wrote: I think they're in the minority.
I don't know about that, I can honestly say that 85% of the kids I was in 1st year engineering with had probably never picked up a tool in their lives, let alone done actual electrical work.
No different then my diploma, sure, some had done oil field labour, but most of them had worked mediocre jobs and about half of them didn't even know what a crescent wrench was (insert facepalm here).
I am 23 years old, and I am about to re-begin an ABET certified BSME program in about... three days.
I will be honest in saying that I was totally shocked by some of the replies here, which I found extremely discouraging. The cliffnotes to some of these posts, in my mind were, "you work your ass off, so you can have a E36 M3ty job, and you get to make no money on top of that."
Now obviously I cannot comment from the perspective of a professional engineer, so I am at the mercy of your expertise. That said, statistically speaking, there are very few jobs that pay as well with just a bachelors. Most degrees shoehorn you into a small list of careers, engineering does not. When you're done with school, depending on which discipline you pursue, you have the tools to create just about anything (in concept) in a precise and safe manner.
Plus, from my understanding, an engineer that can dangle spanners is an extremely rare thing and will make you stand out in the crowd, if you sell yourself appropriately. "I like cars" is much different than "I was the primary welder and head of the suspension department for my FSAE team at UblahofState. I am a dying breed of engineer, one who can prototype 99% of what he creates."
Why do we even hire CAD monkeys stateside? It is my personal opinion (which is not founded with fact) that american engineers that are only paper smart are easily replaced by outsourced work. I feel blessed that I am pursuing a BSME with my mechanical background, as I plan to use this to leverage myself into more stimulating jobs.
I dont know. This is my 3:15am I-just-got-up-to-pee-and-had-to-blindly-rant-about-something rant. Take it with a grain of salt.
Taiden wrote: I will be honest in saying that I was totally shocked by some of the replies here, which I found extremely discouraging. The cliffnotes to some of these posts, in my mind were, "you work your ass off, so you can have a E36 M3ty job, and you get to make no money on top of that." Now obviously I cannot comment from the perspective of a professional engineer, so I am at the mercy of your expertise. That said, statistically speaking, there are very few jobs that pay as well with just a bachelors. Most degrees shoehorn you into a small list of careers, engineering does not. When you're done with school, depending on which discipline you pursue, you have the tools to create just about anything (in concept) in a precise and safe manner. Plus, from my understanding, an engineer that can dangle spanners is an extremely rare thing and will make you stand out in the crowd, if you sell yourself appropriately. "I like cars" is much different than "I was the primary welder and head of the suspension department for my FSAE team at UblahofState. I am a dying breed of engineer, one who can prototype 99% of what he creates."
Everyone of my friends who just have a bachelors degree is making less then me. I mean no you might not make as much as a lawyer or some of those business types. But you will make more then enough to have a comfortable living.
And on the second point, that is exactly how I ended up with my current job. I know how actually do fabrication and work with my hands. I don't just have the book knowledge and 90% of that I learned thru being in Formula SAE, Baja SAE and the NASA Great Moonbuggy race competition.
In reply to Taiden:
What were you hoping to hear? I'm not asking in a snarky way, I'm just curious.
If someone isn't making a living as an engineer they're doing something wrong. A willingness to move to where the work is at is a definite bonus; until you're extremely experienced you can't work from home, and if you make your home in an area without industry you have experience in, I think things will be much harder on the pay front.
There's been a backlash in this thread against college graduates that don't have a lot of experience working on things. I don't think I am one of those people at all, but I also wonder if there's too much pressure on these students to have experiences that may be hard to come by. Not everyone grows up in a household with a garage and at least one parent that is supportive of hands-on hobbies. And if someone is willing to learn on the job I want to think that with time and perseverance those things can be overcome.
I won't comment on the outsourcing issue, I think it would derail what has been a useful discussion.
To the OP, listen to Steve Jobs commencement speech he gave at Stanford about 6 yrs ago - it's excellent. Summed up, do something you enjoy.
pres589 wrote: There's been a backlash in this thread against college graduates that don't have a lot of experience working on things. I don't think I am one of those people at all, but I also wonder if there's too much pressure on these students to have experiences that may be hard to come by. Not everyone grows up in a household with a garage and at least one parent that is supportive of hands-on hobbies. And if someone is willing to learn on the job I want to think that with time and perseverance those things can be overcome.
There are so many engineering projects available at schools there is no excuse for an engineer not to have hands-on experience. I didn't come from a home where the whole hands-on thing was exactly a big thing but I did a bunch of projects and I learned that stuff.
Taiden wrote: Why do we even hire CAD monkeys stateside? It is my personal opinion (which is not founded with fact) that american engineers that are only paper smart are easily replaced by outsourced work.
And you just explained why the profession of engineering has been harder to make a decent living in while bitching about it... I'll let it slide considering it was 3:00am. 
An engineer is NOT someone who builds things by hand normally, an engineer is the one who develops the product. Simple as that, there is a reason why technologist positions were created, which was to give people the theory to liaison with engineers while getting their hands dirty.
93EXCivic wrote: Then you have days like today when the IT guy doesn't bother ordering a license of Solidworks until after the trial license runs out and everything you need to do involves Solidworks and you have very little to do as a result...
Yeah I run into that "sequential type", where if on a hike, they have to run out of water before they start looking for more.
An engineer dies and reports to hell.
Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements.
After a while, they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.
One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"
Satan replies, "Hey things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next."
God replies, "What??? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake -- he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."
Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him."
God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue."
Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right. And just where are you going to get a lawyer?"
Best Lawyer joke I have heard in a while....
HiTempguy wrote:Taiden wrote: Why do we even hire CAD monkeys stateside? It is my personal opinion (which is not founded with fact) that american engineers that are only paper smart are easily replaced by outsourced work.And you just explained why the profession of engineering has been harder to make a decent living in while bitching about it... I'll let it slide considering it was 3:00am.
I'll back that up with an example.
An engineer didn't invent the scoop. Nor was one needed to tranform a scoop into a spoon. And probably one was not needed to transform the scoop into a shovel.
One would be neede to transform the scoop into someting that can pick up a load of 50 tons, and do it all day.
And an engineer would be needed to make 100,000 scoops, spoons, or shovels in a plant.
Or another example- I'm quite sure it does not require an engineer to design some of the games that are played on various machines. But it did take some kind of engineer to design that machine, and write the code to run the machine, and probably to debug the code AND the machine so that you can play with.
How much you want to work with your hands is very dependant on what you do. Some do all the time, some barely do.
The breadth of work that engineers do is stunning.
Taiden wrote: Why do we even hire CAD monkeys stateside?
I take it you haven't tried to get CAD modeling done from overseas...? You know how frustrated you get when you call customer service and it's somebody overseas reading a script that doesn't understand your product, your problem, or the solution you desire? Now imagine that the success of your project relied on that type of mentality and you'll quickly realize why expert CAD "monkeys" are a valuable asset to any stateside engineering team. I won't go any further, just pointing out that I've been down that street (not by choice) and it's a really crummy road.
Bryce
I don't expect an engineer to be the one making every product with his own hands. But I feel as if an engineer should be engaged in the entire process. Conceptualization or modification of an existing concept, design, prototyping, destructive/non-destructive testing, redesign, prototyping, loop as needed, and then finally manufacturing.
If a company wants to pay someone to draw things in solidworks all day, shouldn't they hire a drafter?
Anyway, when I have finished the degree, I foresee myself sacrificing pay in order to work at a small business that does 'cool' things, whatever that may be. And I will be willing to relocate anywhere, as I feel no ties to any location.
Taiden wrote: If a company wants pay someone to draw things in solidworks all day, shouldn't they hire a drafter?
depends.
Sometimes it's a whole lot faster for the engineer to do the CAD work. Sometimes the engineer wants so much involvement that they just do the work.
Sometimes the company doesn't see the value of a drafter.
Sometimes the drafter makes things worse.
And then sometimes the drafter is integreal part of the process.
Just as important, sometimes, a drafter isn't needed at all. I've never once used a drafter, nor have I drawn a single thing in solidworks. And I'm a mechanical engineer. The job I do does not require any drawing work what so ever.
It depends.
I will say one thing- if you don't want an MBA (some don't), and still want to be very useful, you should know quite a bit about electronics, computer, aero, chemical, and mechanical engineering so that you can do anything. My actual job uses all of the above.
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