Focus on Designing/Building in Engineering

electrifice
Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:31:22 +0000

You should try to do some projects that involve building to see whether you like it or not. I had very little designing/building experience as well, but I had some experience from putting together computers and taking apart electronics before. I also had a lot of experience with programming, which is a good parallel to building and designing things.

The amount of theory vs design depends on your school. Certain school are geared towards the practical aspects of engineering, which helps if you want to get a job. Others prepare you for graduate school and tend to focus on theory more. At a given school, the amount of theory and design you get in each discipline should be around the same. However, some of the disciplines (like EE or ChemE) might seem more “theoretical” because they grapple with concepts that are tougher to visualize or have any intuitive feel for.