Becoming an Engineer: Considerations and Personal Experiences

[ahmad.hasan]

question: Should I become an engineer?
yes i am sure
Question: What engineering discipline should I study?
Mechatronics

 

[Achernar]

If I might suggest, go broad. I actually did start my engineering degree and decided after less than a week I didn't like how theoretical it was and didn't want to be bogged down for four years doing that degree and swapped into 2nd year of a Geology degree. But there was more to it than that, it was the third time I swapped a course. I live at a residential college, most of my friends are talking about swapping or changing their courses in differing degrees of seriousness. Changing courses in uni is a common event and there is a good chance that you'll be one of the people seriously considering it if you're reading this topic for advice.

The point is, no matter how certain or uncertain you think you are about choosing your course, pick what you think you want but go as broad as you can at the start. But also try to avoid courses that don't give you unit choices unless they are very broad in nature. Pick subjects that you enjoy, but pick them so they lead into other degrees and majors too. I got lucky that I didn't have to do an additional year, but I am paying for not going broad by having to do 125% course load this year. You might not be so lucky.

Good Luck

 

[gubretaw]

I am nearing my second year in Telecommunication and below are my answers:

Question: Is engineering difficult?
1) A definite YES ... unless you are good in Maths and Physics, then you do not have anything to worry about.

Question: What engineering discipline should I study?
2) I rather you pick which one you think you can handle or like best.

Question: Should I become an engineer?
3) Be an engineering if you are interested in knowing how things work and most importantly you need to be good in Maths and Physics. Curiosity is one of the key in becoming an engineer.

As for me I am in the wrong course, anyway engineering never entered my mind. I made a very stupid decision in choosing engineering and now I am paying for that rash decision of mine. Though I am doing fine, but engineering so far has bored me to death. I am terrible at the practical part of it, gah give me numbers anytime, just not the practicals.

 

[Gablar16]

Hello everybody, great forum, even though I don't understand much of it..yet.

I'm a 28 year old first year student of Computer engineering. Because of many reasons I couldn't go to school when I was younger and had to serve in the army for 8 years. My life was quite incomplte and always felt out of place. I've always thought I could be a great scientist but until now never had the chance to prove it. Now that I started school I feel that I finally have found my place and I'm doing something that challenges me and I love. I'm not quite sure what major I should follow but Computer engineering seems to fit my interests. here are my questions.

1. I go to school at the http://ece.uprm.edu/academics/undergraduate/icom_index.html#first" (curriculum)
Is this a competitive program?

2. I have a knack for math, particulary verbal problems. I really like my pre-calc and I have flunked the rest of my classmates(the professor grades the tests based on the highest grade) How hard would it be to change my major to other science related fields? (math, physics) and, At what point should this decition would become clearer?

3. I am naturally curious and objective. For me to learn I have to understand the How and Why things work. To other members with the same curiosity, does engineering satisfy it? ( I hope not completely)

4. In HS I was a B student ( didnt even bring my notebook to class)
Did I potentially missed out on important areas of knowledge or training?

5. I have never design anything(not even legos), but I am an excellent problem solver. How hard is to become a good designer?( in engineering terms)

Thanks for your input and I hope I can become a regular contributor to this board.

 

[kdinser]

1. No clue, but as engineering friends have told me many times over, 1 to 2 years after you graduate, no one will care where you went to school.

2. Math and engineering classes go hand in hand and being strong on verbal problems is very helpful. One of the common things I see in my classmates that are struggling is a failure to recognize when they are expected to know a certain formula and when they are expected to recognize that a certain problem requires an integral or diff eq. That being said, doing well in pre-calc is good, but it does not prove that you have the kind of brain that can get through higher math, but most likely you do. I'm currently about 2.5 years into my engineering program and I just finished my last required math class. Engineering students can generally be put into 3 groups when it comes to math.

Group 1 could easily be math majors if they wanted to be, they choose engineering because of money, interest, or any other of a thousand reasons. BTW, I am so NOT in group 1.

Group 2 is where I would place myself, I'm reasonably good at math. I don't like pure math classes but I get the material well enough to pass on my first try. I know that the important material from those pure math classes will keep popping up over and over again in my other classes, so I don't sweat getting a C+ or B- in my math classes. This is the same group that I would place most engineering students. For this group, getting an A or B+ in calc I required little effort. Getting an A or B+ in calc II was possible, but would have required a LOT of extra study time that may not have been available due to other classes. Getting an A or B+ in multivariable calculus, diff EQ, and linear algebra would have required more time then most group 2 engineering students have available or might be impossible due to reaching the extent of their brains ability to understand mathematics. In othe words, if you put in enough effort, you can get through the math, your just not a math wiz like group 1.

Group 3-These are the engineering students that are taking calc II for the third or fourth time, and not just because they wanted to improve a C up to a B or A. Taking the rest of their math classes will be pure torture for them and they may have to repeat other classes multiple times. If they are persistent enough they may get through an engineering program, but it will be a huge challenge.

Sorry about the huge rant on math, but trying to discuss engineering without talking about math is pointless. Basically, if you have to take 1 or 2 math classes over again because you dropped them or failed them, you won't be the first engineering graduate that repeated a couple classes. if you have to take most of your math classes 2 or more times, you might be in trouble as far as engineering goes.

3. I'm about the same. I hate walking into a lab without understanding every line of code (if it's a programming type exercise), formula, and piece of equipment that is going to be used. Needing to understand things made some of my math classes more difficult then they should have been. Sometimes proofs of certain formulas were not given because the level of mathematics required to understand them was "beyond the scope of this book", I truly hated seeing that quote. It comes down to the difference between knowing something and understanding something. It's like the difference in KNOWING that 5*5=25, but not being able to apply it to the 7*3 and UNDERSTANDING that 5+5+5+5+5=5*5=25 and then being able to do 7*3=7+7+7=3+3+3+3+3+3+3=21 even though you never saw 7*3 before.

4. Don't worry about what you may have missed in HS, the important stuff will keep popping up over and over again.

5. Designing is problem solving.


EDIT:
One last thing, don't worry about being an older student, I was 31 when I went back to school to get an engineering degree.

 

[Gablar16]

Thanks very much Kdinser! Thanks for your elaborate response. I really liked your break down of engineering students, seems quite realistic and encouraging.

1. Yeah I expect most people to have never heard of it. Your friend is probably right, once we get some real world experience , we should find jobs based on our merits not on what school we went. But, I 'm still worried that I lag behind in knowledge once I graduate. Probably me just being paranoid :)

2. thanks for taking your time with your answer, it is quite helpful. I don't think I'm a math wiz, I studied very hard to get the grades I got in pre-calc, probably "overstudied" a lot but I now feel that I am up to speed.

On point 3, that's another concern I have. At pre-calc we had a few concepts that were "beyond the scope of the class" and at first it was hard to just accept it for what it was, but in the end I did very well. I hope I can do as you do and just be patient with it and rely on "memory".

Thanks again

 

[kdinser]

No problem, I'd encourage you to go talk to some people who are engineers, your school most likely has some contact with some of it's graduates. Most will tell you that very little of what you learn in school as an under grad will apply to the real world. Getting the engineering degree mainly demonstrates to an employer that you have the skills to learn how to be a real engineer from other engineers. It's kind of like med school, getting through med school doesn't make you a doctor, it's getting through the internship followed by the residence that teaches you what you need to know to be a doctor. Good luck, some of the classes are tough, but doing well in them is very rewarding in and of itself.

 

[Yura]

Question. When people say computer engineer, are they talking about software engineering or computer-systems engineering? because i went into computer systems engineering but no one i talk to seems to know about it. I know that its a mix of electrical engineering and software engineering but i heard thatt it was a new course taken in by the university I am studying at (in Australia) so no one really knows about it here so it a bit harder to get a job if no one knows what it is.

 

[batman394]

quit complaining.. explain to me how someone who is in pre-calculus will understand a proof based in calculus3 ? its just too big of a jump.. hence the "beyond the scope of this class"
im a mechanical engineer with a minor in math.. i spent a week with math professors from all over the world for the Function Spaces conference at SIUE (look it up).. and i constantly heard them explain things to me in analogies and stories because otherwise it doesn't make sense if i don't know all of the research and theory leading up to it... one lady was telling me her research was like "Calculus 17"..

 

[russ_watters]

Question. When people say computer engineer, are they talking about software engineering or computer-systems engineering? because i went into computer systems engineering but no one i talk to seems to know about it. I know that its a mix of electrical engineering and software engineering but i heard thatt it was a new course taken in by the university I am studying at (in Australia) so no one really knows about it here so it a bit harder to get a job if no one knows what it is.

In the US, they typically differentiate between computer engineering and software engineering.

 

[manko]

which should i choose?

I want to become an engineer, mostly becouse i have had this passion for building machines, like cars, i never had legos but i had erectorset or mecano which is called now i think. Its more advanced than legos, since you ave motors and screws, etc.

I love electricity and physics, mostly things that have to do with wires and motors. So i don't know if i should choose mechanical engineering or elctrical engineering, also i don't like the idea of working on a building to much and doing more practical stuff like welding. Also does elctrical engineering have to do with electronic chips and the making of them or something more like wiring of buldings and power suplying, its i saw this show and there were these people working in a lab, making chips and it looked so boring.

My dream is to open a buggy store .

thanks

 

[kdinser]

LOL, if your dream is to open a buggy store, skip engineering and just focus on learning as much as you possibly can from people who do it 8 to 12 hours a day every day of their lives. That's more of a craft then a professional degree.

Take the show monster garage, if you have never seen it, it's a blast. 90% of the people working on those rides probably dropped out of high school or barely graduated because they spent every second of their homework time working on cars.

I've been a mechanic, I built hotrod engines, transmissions, and rear ends. Nothing in any of my engineering classes will make me better at actually turning a wrench. I suspect that even if I focused on ME, it wouldn't do me any better. It might give me some better insight into why some of the mechanical tricks work, but I doubt it would help me vastly improve upon systems that have been studied and worked on for many years by people far more intelligent and creative then myself.

From what I hear, as an engineer, you will rarely have time to play with the fun stuff during your day. Maybe you will do that in your spare time at home as a hobby, but your day will be filled with meetings, designs, materials costs, ect...

I'm not saying your not smart enough or anything to become an engineer, but it sounds like your goals might not be in sync with that degree. Maybe you should look into engineering technician.

An engineer would be happy to design something and then let their little brother build it out an erector set, then test it to see if it fell within expected performance and capacity.

An engineering tech would rather be the little brother.

I just want to add, that I am not a engineering graduate, I'm just a student, but before I went back to school, I researched engineering extensively both on the web and by interviewing many of the people that I know who hold engineering degrees ranging from undergrad to PhD's. All of this is my opinion.

 

[nikola-tesla]

Last year I was worried will I be able to pass my engineering courses and is engineering for girls. I completed my first year of Electrical Engineering and would like to say Thank You to all of you for your encouragement.

It was a lot of hard work but it paid off in the end. Thanks again.

*****girls can do it:-)

 

[kdinser]

Bahhh, way to many woman have been convinced that math and science are a mans professions. When it comes to picking team members for projects and labs, the only thing I and most others would care about was getting people that knew what they were doing. Last semester my lab group was made up of myself and 3 females. 3 of use knew what we were doing, the other just kind of road along. It turned out our lab group had 3 of the top 5 lab scores for the semester and our test grades were close to the top as well. I bet the 2 competent girls in my group scored higher then 90% of the guys in the class.

 

[manko]

thanx

I know the buggy idea would just be a hobby, I think ill go for mechanical engineering, it sounds like a lot of what I am looking for, and the erectorset models i creted were probably have of them my desing.

As for electrical engineering, i don't know if i have the wrong idea, but does that include electronics or not?

As for that girls can't be engineers, there were these to girls in my class which were like geniouses for math and most of the other subjects, its just the wrong idea that people have in there minds about what men can do and what women can do.

Also what would an engineer technician do as their job?.

 

[kdinser]

Here's a pretty good description of an engineering techs job.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos112.htm"

Electrical engineering covers a huge range of fields including electronics.

Here's a pretty good breakdown of engineering disciplines in general.

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm"

 

[Serbian.matematika]

kdinser, thank you for the sites.

 

[Batmaniac]

I'm currently in my senior year of high-school and will in the next few months have to apply to university and I'm leaning towards Engineering.

I am very passionate about physics and I enjoy math (especially problem solving), with chemistry also being fairly enjoyable. I am very creative and love designing things, but I do not particularly like working with my hands or "tinkering" with things. I love working in groups on projects and do not want to work alone for the rest of my life.

Does this sound like I'd enjoy Engineering?

 

[Dagenais]

Stick with it, engineering degrees are not easy courses, but the rewards are worth it.

Yeah, graduating with a heavier workload in University, then sitting in a cubicle and getting bossed around by some middle-aged liberal arts/business major while having the same paycheck for the next decade sounds real rewarding.

 

[Kadosa]

hello everyone, it seems like this is a good place to ask some questions due to the large number of people responding so let me try!

Ok well I am in my last year of high school and thinking about engineering as a career as a result of my stronger interests in Math,Physics and computer related courses!

I am pretty confused though what specifically i should go into. Currently I am looking into Aerospace OR Electrical engineering. Can someone briefly tell what they would recommend about either. From researching aerospace has way less people in it than electrical but also aerospace is one of the hardest engineering programs?

If someone can briefly outline somethings they know about either do so please! Like what each of them are like, and if i rather do "this" than "that" then go into ...

etc...

Thanks !

 

[russ_watters]

Generally, Aero and EE are about on the same level of difficulty, and difficulty (unless they are too difficult) should not be an important factor in choosing. Choose what you are interested in and think you can get a good job in. And don't worry - you'll have until at least the beginning of your Sophomore year before you really need to decide. And generally that means you'll have introductory courses in both to help.

 

[Kadosa]

Ok thanks for replying, but i was wondering that i live in Canada and so far in my high school we have not done A GREAT AMOUNT on circuits and everything. Instead we have had brief units on them so going into university with little knowledge, i mean, if i decide on Electrical do you think i will be able to do and understand the material with what i know. Like I am willing to work hard and put in necessary hours but if i cannot understand then, its useless.

thanks!


(my brother is currently doing mechanical and said that he was going to go into electrical but it was way to hard and he was barely passing the exams so he switched to mechanical)

 

[russ_watters]

You will be starting from scratch and so will everone else. People tend to get overexcited by what they learn in high school. You don't learn jack in high school that will help you past your first semester in college (long before your majors courses start).

 

[Kadosa]

ok thanks that makes me feel better. But you said first semester college, I am going straight to first year university from gr 12 highscool (im in Canada). So is your opinion still the same, i mean do you think ill be alright going from gr 12 to first year electrical engineering (well I've heard first year is the same for all engineers so i guess from gr 12 to first year general engineering)


also one other question, from researching i found electrical engineering prospects for future jobs is good but what do you guys think. Electrical engineering, good career as in after university, perhaps after my 4 years (bachelor) will i be able to find a job easily or not.

 

[JSBeckton]

I'm a 3rd year ME student, the classes don't get easier they get harder and your competition gets tougher as weaker students drop out of engineering. Just remember that everyone is in the same boat and you just have to work harder and study more if you are not in the upper half of your classes.

I truly believe that its not how smart you are per say, its how hard you are willing to work that decides how well you will do in engineering.

 

[kdinser]

I'm a 3rd year ME student, the classes don't get easier they get harder and your competition gets tougher as weaker students drop out of engineering. Just remember that everyone is in the same boat and you just have to work harder and study more if you are not in the upper half of your classes.

I truly believe that its not how smart you are per say, its how hard you are willing to work that decides how well you will do in engineering.

I would kind of agree with that, but I know several people who are taking some of their math classes over 4 or 5 times. It's not that they don't work hard, or that they are stupid. They are committed and put in more hours studying then I usually do, but I have serious doubts as to the likelihood of them graduating with engineering degrees.

 

[Nomy-the wanderer]

I totally agree with that, it's well known that the one who gets the highest grades isn't actually the best, nor the most intelligent, but it's the one who has worked harder...

That's how it works...

 

[JSBeckton]

I would kind of agree with that, but I know several people who are taking some of their math classes over 4 or 5 times. It's not that they don't work hard, or that they are stupid. They are committed and put in more hours studying then I usually do, but I have serious doubts as to the likelihood of them graduating with engineering degrees.

In all honesty, if you are taking basic math (Calc I,II,III, DiffEQ,Lin Algebra) 4-5 times then I would say that you are either not working hard at all or you are not smart at all.

And I know people who I would say are not that smart that passed all of those classes the first time. I have never met anyone who tried hard at all that couldn't pass those courses (at least on the 2nd try).

Has anyone else?

 

[nikola-tesla]

@my university they would not allow you to repeat 4 to 5 times, no way.

 

[Nomy-the wanderer]

The thing is if you are unable to do things within a certain limit, what will you do when you are graduated working as an engineer, and you are the one who has to make a decision, you don't have forever...

 

[Kadosa]

hello guys i was wondering if you guys think i would be alright going fromgr 12 high school straight to university planning to do electrical engineering.
also
i found electrical engineering prospects for future jobs is good but what do you guys think. Electrical engineering, good career as in after university, perhaps after my 4 years (bachelor) will i be able to find a job easily or not.

 

[Astronuc]

hello guys i was wondering if you guys think i would be alright going fromgr 12 high school straight to university planning to do electrical engineering.

Many, if not most high school students who attend college, choose this path.

i found electrical engineering prospects for future jobs is good but what do you guys think. Electrical engineering, good career as in after university, perhaps after my 4 years (bachelor) will i be able to find a job easily or not.

Demand for engineers, especially those who are top students (particularly those with advanced degrees), will remain high. EE will be in demand.

One may wish to visit www.ieee.org - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - but known as IEEE. It has the most members of any technical professional organization in the world, with more than 360,000 members in around 175 countries.

http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE

 

[kdinser]

In all honesty, if you are taking basic math (Calc I,II,III, DiffEQ,Lin Algebra) 4-5 times then I would say that you are either not working hard at all or you are not smart at all.

And I know people who I would say are not that smart that passed all of those classes the first time. I have never met anyone who tried hard at all that couldn't pass those courses (at least on the 2nd try).

Has anyone else?

One friend that is struggling already has a degree in biology, another has a degree in business management. These are not stupid people, they just have trouble with math. There are many different kinds of intelligence besides mathematical reasoning, but I do question Georges wisdom in not giving up after his third time failing or dropping calc 2 and I don't know what makes him think he will ever make it through calc 3 or diff eq.


EDIT:
Does anyone happen to know the drop rate for engineering programs? I've run into a LOT of people that started as engineering majors and then switched and not nearly as many who started as something else and moved to engineering.

 

[JSBeckton]

IMO calc II was harder than Calc III or DiffEQ. I believe that people that have "trouble" with math usually don't put in the time. I don't believe in the notion that "I'm just not good with math", to me that means that you are not good at:
1) learning rules
2) following rules
3) analyzing situations
4) troubleshooting
5) reasoning

These atributes are needed for most anything, if you do not posess these then I don't believe that you should be considered "smart"

And sorry, a degree in business is hardly comparable to engineering. Check that, an MBA is arguably not comprable to a degree in engineering.

Biology requires little more than memorization.

Again these are just my opioninos and when I say "you" I mean the hypothetical you, not you!

 

[JSBeckton]

sorry computer error