<p>I would like honest opinions of this degree. I work with capital projects in Oil & Gas. </p>
<p>If you are interested in systems engineering jobs, then yes. Systems engineering gets widely applied in pretty much any industry.</p>
<p>Yes, great for a MASTER’S degree BUT the industry is more for experienced engineers. Systems engineers are involved with each phase of the product lifecycle…where “product” is airplane, software, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t know how “Systems Engineer” title is applied in the defense industry but for private industry it’s more about the “process” and less about the product. “Product Engineer” is used more internally and differs from Systems Engineer in many respects. “Product Engineer” is a title engineers would present to potential clients or “customers”. </p>
<p>If the hardware fairy delivers hardware on your bench to do the work you’re a software engineer
If you are the hardware fairy you’re the hardware engineer
If there’s a problem with your bench you can pray for a hardware fairy or a systems engineer.
Systems engineers, like fairies, exist. But they’re busy traveling to nice locations like Sunnyvale or to talk to the other mythical creature, the Customer. So you never see them.
Systems engineers deal with abstractions like DOORS, requirements, test plans, validation, etc.</p>
<p>If you don’t understand anything from above you’re a manager </p>
<p>:)] </p>
<p>Like Turbo said, Systems Engineering is a higher level degree intended for project leads/managers. It’s a good supplemental degree, but not a good primary degree… meaning, yes it would be suitable as a Master’s degree (if you like systems engineering), but very limiting to your career options at the bachelor’s level.</p>
<p>Systems Engineers often get exposure to many areas of the project, and the tasking varies from doing mundane managerial stuff, to in-depth verification of engineering work. As a Systems Engineer, you will be expected to know a moderate amount about all engineering areas for those cases where you need to verify another engineer’s work, but a large portion of your time will be spent integrating, planning, and making sure the finished product does what it’s intended to do.</p>
<p>Systems Engineering is a love-hate thing for many people. Job prospects are very good though as more and more companies are realizing the value of having a dedicated integrator. The government is crazy about systems engineers… lots of jobs available in the government.</p>
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<p>This cannot be overemphasized. Companies are clearly valuing the discipline greatly, but God almighty do I hate it with a passion.</p>
<p>How do you know you;ll make a good Systems Engineer?</p>
<ul>
<li>you have an account on DOORS</li>
<li>you actually remember your DOORS password</li>
<li>you know all the hardware and software engineers, QA people, and all the good restaurants since you travel so much</li>
<li>You like meetings and schedules</li>
<li>you know how to pull code off GIT, do a build, flash the product, and test it</li>
<li>you have enough courage to take the product to the customer for ‘feedback’</li>
<li>you can describe failures better than the QA summer students (“Duh, Sir, It dids not worked”)</li>
<li>you can talk ‘Supplier-ese’ and ‘Customer-ese’.</li>
<li>you know all lab technicians by name and title</li>
<li>you have a secret supply of parts, connectors, cables, etc. only for close friends</li>
</ul>
<p>All of us software drones play integrator to some extent, but in a complex product you need someone who understands both the software and hardware side. and the customer side. Usually our Systems Engineers are EE’s or ECE’s. </p>