<p>I’m just afraid that I’ll be bored out of my mind stuck in a cubicle one day hashing out modifications to the same designs on a computer sunrise to sunset. I at least want to do my own designing (I guess?). I’m not sure what I want exactly but what got me into engineering in the first place was my fascination with technology. Will I ever actually be involved? What do I need to do to insure that I will be? </p>
<p>Should I definitely go to grad school? </p>
<p>The future really freaks me out. I want to have fun at work when I’m older. I want to be passionate about my career. After my first year at CAL, I have definitely not been inspired in my classes. I guess I should join some groups, clubs?</p>
<p>oh yea, i forgot to say i’m on the path for a mechE degree, but anything can change! maybe i’ll do EE in grad school? maybe i’ll ditch and do IEOR then business…man, everything is so uncertain</p>
<p>Definitely not. Don’t go to grad school until you find passion in life. Don’t go until you cannot see yourself doing another job. </p>
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<p>What does that mean? Engineering projects are team based, and it will be rare where you will be responsible for entire design process. </p>
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<p>Is that any different from any number of desk jobs? Doesn’t an accountant have to go through mindless financials? Doesn’t a lawyer have to read and write thousands of mindless legal documents? At least by being an engineer, you get to work on something that (hopefully) interests you and solve problems. </p>
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<p>First, you need to identify what it is exactly that you want to do. Without a plan, it would be unlikely that you will achieve anything. You should get an internship and see if you like engineering work. Most people come into college without a real understanding of what engineering work is. It’s certainly not for everyone, and I think it’s a shame that many people get pushed in that direction for no other reason than they were good in math in HS (which isn’t hard to do). </p>
<p>Once you decide engineering is still for you, then lay out a plan to get your dream job. What field interests you the most? ME is pretty broad, so it would be to your advantage to know what specialty you enjoy and focus on that. Take a few extra classes, get an internship in that field. If cars are your passion, then take classes relevant to automotive design. Go work for a car firm. Perhaps you can’t get enough of HVAC, then that’s what you need to focus on.</p>
<p>It depends on the industry. Some are very desk heavy fields, others are very field/lab heavy. The majority will be desk jobs. There are relatively few jobs for full time lab engineers. The majority of the work in an engineering project will be done on a computer. </p>
<p>Eventually it will need to be taken to a lab to be tested. There are certainly positions like test engineers, that specialize in testing methods in a certain field. However, you’re not doing much design in that position, you are simply taking other people’s designs and testing them according to some standard. Test engineering has its benefits: its more hands on, but it’s less intellectually stimulating and you don’t get to do any design work. However, it’s a bit more fast paced and you get to play with some toys. </p>
<p>Again, it varies by field. Environmental, petroleum, civil… some of these positions require a lot of on-site work (and travel, for better or worse). However, there are certainly no guarantees, plenty of civil engineers have desk jobs. Others, such as AE, ME, EE, will be more desk jobs. There are always exceptions, ME and ChemE often work in factories and aren’t necessarily desk jobs. </p>
<p>It depends on what you want to do. If you want to work in a factory, you can. If you want to sit behind a desk, you can do that too. But if you wanted a simple answer: the majority of engineering jobs are desk jobs.</p>
I never looked at it that way. This makes a lot more sense.</p>
<p>I do know that something in engineering should definitely be a good choice for me. I loved math and science throughout grade school. I’ve always enjoyed building and designing things. I’m slightly obsessed with being efficient.</p>
<p>I agree that, if efficiency in the context of a wide variety of technical fields is your obsession, IE or OR would be a good choice.</p>
<p>I’m mostly in a cubicle these days. But, I understand your desire to avoid the Office Space/Dilbert world. I think your concerns are natural. Everybody needs to get that out of their system. I did. I joined the Navy and drove submarines around. </p>
<p>After that (and a few other ‘adventures’), a desk job started to look pretty nice.</p>
<p>I’d be surprised if your first year did inspire you. General and seemingly un-applicable prerequisites, along with weed out courses are probably the least enjoyable classes you’ll take. I didn’t start to get interested until junior year.</p>
<p>If you want to do hands on design projects, then I’d try to get in on some research with one of your professors. I work in the lab designing testing apparatuses, I pretty much do it alone, but confer with the machinist and my professor.</p>
<p>My friends who took internships in industry this summer mostly do CAD design and inventory stuff on the computer</p>
<p>I agree that junior year is when things get really interesting. If you shoot for design engineering, you’ll design things. I did software design, wherein each software engineer designs a portion of the whole program and then works with others to make the whole thing work. The product schedule determines what you do at any given time - you might be in a design intensive phase, or test phase, or integration phase, or formal qualifications phase, or field test phase. From month to month, you might see quite a bit of variety in daily tasks - some weeks solely at the desk, some solely in the field. Hardware engineers design portions of complex circuits using computers, await the implementation, test their design, and support hardware/software integration.</p>
<p>If you like efficiency, software or hardware design might appeal to you.</p>
<p>i don’t understand how a chemical engineer works in a factory. What does he do? Decide which machine go where? If they do, then i’d think it defeats the purpose of having an education in chemistry</p>
<p>“i don’t understand how a chemical engineer works in a factory. What does he do? Decide which machine go where? If they do, then i’d think it defeats the purpose of having an education in chemistry”</p>
<p>First of all, Chemical Engineering does NOT involve a ton of chemistry. Chemical Engineering is more based on physics than chemistry. </p>
<p>Second, Chemical Engineers who work in factories usually design machines that create a chemical or a product in the most efficient way. They solve problems that happen during production, and find ways to make production more efficient.</p>
<p>Why is that so unbelievable? Who do you think works in all those chemical factories and oil refineries out there? The oil/petrochemical industry basically spawned the field of chemical engineering and is still the largest employer of ChemE’s. Another large chunk of ChemE’s work in general chemicals, another chunk in semiconductor fabrication, another work in food processing, some work in biotech/pharma, and so forth. All of these are basically factory jobs.</p>
<p>I am a mechanical engineer who works in a power plant. I can spend a lot of time at my cubicle writing reports and reviewing data but I can also spend a lot of time out in the plant. For example, as a performance engineer I had to do the manual testing work out in the plant and that involved interacting with the equipment. The follow-up work involves typing reports and presenting the findings. Right now I am working on a control system upgrade and control room modification. I spend time at my desk reviewing electrical drawings and data concerning the input/output points that need to be verified. Once our unit is shutdown we will be tearing apart the control room and will supervise the installation of new control units and wiring and I will be working with the electricians to test the circuits, as well as coordinating the contractors who will be doing the physical renovations to the control room (new ceiling, new access floor, new lighting components, etc.). A major part of my job as a power plant engineer is serving as a liason between contractors and the plant.</p>
<p>I <em>think</em> there are some factories that have labs in them (all on one campus)… perhaps pharmaceuticals? You’re probably thinking about factories as just places that produce machines, and not chemicals and such.</p>
<p>Designing a new prosthesis would be more in the field of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering. There might be some chemical engineers though that look at the interaction between different types of materials (maybe? I’m not that familiar with the field).</p>
<p>I am about to start my first year of college at U of Texas on my way to becoming a Petroleum Engineer. I have yet to really figure out exactly what they do though, can anyone help me out on this post?</p>