I was reading a topic on the GQ board about what to do with $12,000 and noticed we have a few engineers here.
My question is, how many of us are in the engineering field and which discipline.
I’ve done a few widely varied things. I used to design sheet metal enclosures for data displays and monitors for military applications. Had that job for about 12 years.
From there I went on to machine and structural steel design for a couple years at a lime stone quarry.
Now I’m doing outdoor plant for telecommunications. How a guy whose training is in mechanical engineering gets to a telecom firm I can’t explain, but here I am.
Abstainer:a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. - Ambrose Bierce
I majored in Aerospace Engineering, specializing in Structures, although my entire professional life I’ve been considered a Mechanical Engineer. I do static (stress & force/deflection), fatigue and vibration analysis. I also do heat transfer to a lesser degree.
I’ve been keeping this to myself because I was worried (probably unnecessarily) about who may be lurking, but I’m currently trying to relocate back East (Southeast or Midwest specifically). I’m finally starting to hear from prospective employers.
I started as a sheet metal die design apprentice, then moved to TRW seatbelt division for a year or so doing seat belt/airbag studies. I currently contract FEA work in stamping feasibility and I’m a full time systems analyst for three small engineering firms. Keeps me off the streets.
One day I will go back to school, finish my degree, and get a real job.
My degree is in ME but I work for a large jet airplane manufacturer located in Seattle (three guesses) as a software engineer. I’m not even really sure what that term means but it seems to get more respect around here than programmer.
I just happened to get into it, mostly because I could program microprocessors (which was not something I learned in college). When I started working right out of college for a large yellow bulldozer manufacturer located in Peoria, IL, there was a group doing research in microprocessor controls for earthmoving equipment. My non-college skill was more important to them than my four-year degree, but it was the degree that got me in the door, so I guess I can’t complain.
I did do a little bit of mechanical engineering when I first started working. There are still D-8 tractors with parts I designed running around out there.
Five years later, when I interviewed for a job in Seattle the interviewer made a casual comment that they had lots of mechanical engineers but they sure needed software engineers. So I assured him that’s what I was. I got the job, but when my wife picked me up at the airport after the interviewing trip I told her we had to stop at a bookstore on the way home – I’d told them I knew how to program in C and I had to learn it before they got wise.
p.s. I did, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t do any C programming for a couple of years.
“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
– William of Ockham
Okay, this board has been pretty sparse today, but it’s nice to know I’m not the only foolish engineer at work before the holiday. I’ll probably be in tomorrow too. Gotta pay off that new software somehow.
Have a nice weekend guys.
Abstainer:a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. - Ambrose Bierce
My degree is CEG, focused on Robotics and Control Systems. After graduation, I moved to Sillycon valley, cause that’s the big concentration of high tech is right? Wrong, Robotics is Boston and Raliegh. Anyways, I worked at Wright-Patt writing test programs for GaAs semiconductor development (MIMIC I and MIMIC II) while in college, so I was able to get my current job as a design test engineer with my current company, a chip maker here in the valley. I get the fun of locating the designers logic mistakes.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
my husband has a doctorate in Industrial Engineering, taught for awhile at Iowa State, but now writes commercial software.
trisha
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice - Albert Einstein
It depends on whether being an ‘Engineer’ involves having an actual engineering degree. Most software engineers don’t, and of course there are the ‘Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers’ that are calling themselves engineers after taking a two-semester course…
Myself, I graduated from electrical engineering technology, then studied physics in university, but I’ve worked my whole life as a ‘software engineer’. But I’ve never used the title myself since I don’t have the ring.
Well, my degree is in Mechanical Engineering, but I work mostly in electrical systems and in the non-technical world of project engineering (which consists mostly of calling vendors and leaving them voicemails, since they never seem to be around). I also have my PE, which entitles me to hang out a shingle, if I ever want to.
I’ve also noticed that a lot of MEs end up in unrelated fields. Weird.
Could someone point me to the $12,000 thread? I’m kind of curious.
Mechanical Engineer checking in here. I worked in Graphic Design and Advertising for three years out of college (don’t ask me why) and just took a Web/Multimedia/Graphics job with a startup software co. I hope to learn interface design as time goes by. As strange as this sounds, it’s good to be around the engineering types again.
I think ME is the default major for smart kids who like science and aren’t sure what they want to do. I’d guess that their dads all say what my dad said, “It’s easier to drop ME as a major and pick up, say, English, than it is to Vice the Versa.”
I drive little locomotives around in my basement when I have free time…oh, wait, that kind of engineer…
Seriously, though, I’m going to go back to school within the next year for my masters in Fire Protection Engineering. Not quite an engineer now, but will be within 2 or 3 years.
I working on my PhD in Electrical Engineering. I specialize in pattern recognition. At my university, that falls under the category of Communications/Signal Processing.
I’m not an engineer yet. Just finished my 2nd year of electrical engineering.
i highly doubt i will be an electrical engineer but i find the stuff interesting and its a broad enough study that i have options when i get out of school.
stolichnaya, you might want to look at the OP and its date, and then the post of the guy right above you. The $12000 thread is probably buried rather deep, since this thread was dredged up by a proto-neaderthal.
Anyways, I worked at Wright-Patt writing test programs for GaAs semiconductor development (MIMIC I and MIMIC II) while in college, so I was able to get my current job as a design test engineer with my current company, a chip maker here in the valley. I get the fun of locating the designers logic mistakes. 