What's the average entry-level engineering job like?

InPursuit
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:54:33 +0000

There are definitely R&D jobs available to recent grads, but as has been stated, they are a minority. As an anecdote my uncle, an EE grad from a less than stellar school with a less than stellar GPA started his career for Raytheon working on guidance systems and absolutely loved it, although it was stressful and required long hours. With that said, he now makes multiple times what he did in that job sitting behind a desk a Lockheed Martin basically being bored to death. His wife, also an EE grad has taken pretty much the opposite route. She started in a mundane desk job hardly seeing any engineering work and now works with the military through Lockheed Martin designing for various projects(she has her MS though). My point is, engineering jobs are varied and will likely change throughout your career. Many engineers end up in management. If you truly want to design engines (awfully specific if you ask me for someone who hasn’t even taken an engineering course…) you can probably get a job designing engines. However, that job may not pay as well as other less desirable jobs or be as stable. R&D jobs rely on the project you are working on, meaning that if your project loses funding you lose your job. They also usually require longer working hours and more stress for not so great pay, unless you are the project manager or higher up, in which case you will be doing less engineering and more management.

You mention aerospace engineering… Considering the aerospace industry is very dependent on airline and government demands, you may want to consider ME. You would still be able to get entry level AE jobs and take most of the same classes, but it would also keep other options open for you in case the aerospace industry is not doing so well when you graduate or sometime down the line in your career.