# Engineering Fields



## pr0ficient

I am attending the University of Purdue next year and am planning on studying engineering. I selected mechanical engineering as my major but the more I read about it the less I liked it. Electrical and Chemical engineering seem much more interesting. Mechanical seems to automotive and mechanical part designs. Is anyone else studying engineering or have had experiences with different engineering fields? I'm wondering if anyone has found certain fields of engineering more interesting than others and why!

- pr0ficient


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## anna!

I've never studied engineering, but my Dad has a degree in Chemical Engineering and he *hated* it. After he graduated he worked for Shell for a year and one day. Then he went back to school, got a psychology degree and never, ever talked about chemical engineering ever again  Hope that helps!


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## kinetic

do physics, it's so much better.  me and my friends (also physics majors) all make fun of engineers.  they have to take the same physics classes as us, and they all do a horrible horrible job.  they try to just memorize stupid little equations instead of just THINKING.  physics teaches you to use your brain.  I guarantee that if you take a good and challenging physics course with a good professor you will FEEL the changes in your brain.


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## OhioGuy

I'm ME major, but i'm just now finishing freshman year so i really dont know if i'm going to like it or not


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## rm-rf

does software engineering count?


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## Finder

Haha, Purdue sucks. I should know, I went there. I hope you're prepared to work your ass off. I forget the actual statistic, but there is a dramatic amount of kids that don't even come close to making it through the engineering program.

Most flop out into various other schools, though a lot end up in Computer Science and Computer Technology, still quite a few still end up in the liberal arts school.

Also, to answer your question you may want to look into Electrical Engineering and then specialize in Acoustical Engineering. It's very specialized, but I had a couple friends do that.

Best of luck to you.


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## kinetic

at my school, they get rid of the excess (get rid of the stupid kids) by making them take physics classes.  do physics, it'll be good for you.

I for one went to college to work my ass off.


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## Finder

I took a couple of weed-out physics classes and got Bs. Though I'm better at physics than chemistry, the subject isn't really my strong suit.


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## afcone

I'm finishing my fourth year of an MEng in Aerospace Engineering.  Do engineering, but only if you are prepared to do a lot of work.  Many Science students sneer at Engineers, but in fact they do less work (and at my university, require far less grades to do, say physics, than to get onto an engineering course).

Aerospace is pretty close to mechanical, it involves similar skills, but it is a bit more interesting - Mech eng's tend to design items such as turbomachinery.  Chemical engineering is hard, you will have to be an extremely talented chemist and physicist to suceed.  Electrical is not too bad, I know quite a few of them - but remember this will still involve a *lot* of work.  Typically for a final (fourth) year student, at my university, Physicists + Mathematicians do 20 - 25 hours/week, Chemists do 30 - 40.  Engineers do 40 - 70.


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## afcone

I should also add that Engineering is fantastic to get a job with.  Unlike most courses you gain a wide range of skills - team working, project management, presentations - as an inherent part of the degree.  I've walked all of the job interviews I've taken this year.  No other candidates could say that they'd led a team of 14 people through a six month project or been involved in a 3 person investigation over year to design a missile.  A lot of people I know (myself included) who've done engineering walk into Finance jobs, and actually get preferred over Accountancy/Business/Finance graduates.  

(This is all from a UK perspective, of course).


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## TheLoveBandit

I graduated with a BS in Mech Eng, and a Masters in Industrial Eng.  Typical progression that I've seen is most people start off aimed at aerospace (big paychecks), then realize its too theoretical or too hard.  Then they switch to Mech Eng, which IMO is probably one of the widest fields.  Those that can't hack Mech Eng usually go to Civil and from there switch down to Environmental or other less prominent fields of engineering.  Chem E's and EE's (Electrical Eng) people tend to have been oriented in that direction from the beginning, never doubting what they wanted to get into.  Though some decide Chem E is a little too dificult and switch over to Materials Eng (not much easier, lol).

In speaking with friends and collegues from various disciplines, we all pretty much agree that Mech and Electrical are about the best fields for the breadth of areas in which to work.  Their principles apply to nearly every aspect of most businesses.

I'll speak primarily of ME right now, since that is what I am most familiar with and I'll correct a misconception - it isn't for just gearheads and other car enthusiasts - hell, I hate working on a car and won't even change my own oil.  Lost of ME's are not automotive oriented, though the automotive industry relies heavily on MEs to function.  From my ME background, I can get into part design, as you mentioned, but what kind of parts?  Medical devices, satellite or Mars lander components, gas station pumps, clothing or equipment manufacturing machinery - nearly anything in the world that you put your hands on a ME probably had a hand in designing.  But it isn't just about parts, let's take a step back and look at parts together - we also design systems - artificial heart systems, heating and airconditioning for any kind of application, hydraulic and control systems for production or mobile equipment (I personally worked on large mining equipment).  We can choose to focus on the manufacturing aspects of things (leaning on Manufacturing or Industrial Eng skills) - how it is made, what's the best process, best design, best use of materials, etc.  We can focus on control systems (which leans on Elec Eng skills), structural integrity of cmoponents or systems, production plant layouts and flows (leaning on Industrial Eng skills),  etc.  Other than Chem E and hardcore EE jobs, an ME has perhaps the best balance of background and skills to go into any situation and problem solve.  We can stay a jack of all trades or focus on any particular aspect of ME that interests us for a career.

There is another question, what is your ultimate goal?  Management?  Research? Hardcore fields like EE, ChemE, and Materials Eng tend to be more research focused for careers.  I can't speak for Civils, but Mech E's are offered opportunities to go into R&D, Management, or just kind of float in a production oriented career.  I honestly feel the choice of ME provides the best opportunity to continue to evolve, change directions throughout your career, and still be competent and capable at what you do. 

The most basic question, however, is "what interests you."  Nearly any engineering field pays decently, and with any job you find a way to live on whatever you make.  But the key to life is to find something you enjoy (I knew I'd be an engineer by age 12, lucky me).  What interests you about EE and ChemE?  I'd imagine during the first 2 yrs your curriculum would be fairly generic (aside from the required English, Arts, etc) as far as entry level eng courses that allow you to decide your major later.  I'd use that first semester or two to wander the halls of the Chem E, EE, and Mech E buildings - find students studying in their Jr and Sr years and ask them what it is like studying in that field.  You are still very young, and far from graduating, you may also want to hit the job fairs as they come through - talk to some of the recruiters about what their business does, what engineers they look for and what they expect those engineers to do - see what sounds challenging and interesting to you.  The more input you get, the better informed decision you can make.  Feel free to AIM, PM, or email me sometime if you want, I'm always willing to talk about any aspect of this stuff.


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## Chaos Butterfly

afcone said:
			
		

> *I should also add that Engineering is fantastic to get a job with.  Unlike most courses you gain a wide range of skills - team working, project management, presentations - as an inherent part of the degree.  I've walked all of the job interviews I've taken this year.  No other candidates could say that they'd led a team of 14 people through a six month project or been involved in a 3 person investigation over year to design a missile.  A lot of people I know (myself included) who've done engineering walk into Finance jobs, and actually get preferred over Accountancy/Business/Finance graduates.
> 
> (This is all from a UK perspective, of course). *



I completely agree. Here in Australia as well if you do even remotely well you can walk into pretty much any industrial job on pretty good money, and if you go well to really well, investment banks and financial companies will love you are throw money at you.

I've just finished my Chem Eng degree and I loved it. There are so many areas that you can specialise in, and even then you aren't boxed in in terms of career. Chem Eng gives you a great skill base, in fact all eng does. Teamwork, leadership and communications skills are really stressed, I've found more so in Chem Eng than in other eng streams at my uni - especially communication. 

You have to be able to handle the math and the chemistry, we didn't do any physics at all, but we don't have to do much in the way of generic stuff over here... But you only do the math and the chemistry for the first 2 years, and then you get into all the more exciting fundamental stuff and elective classes that rock 

If you have any interest whatsoever in biotechnology - the biggest expanding industry at the moment - then getting into Chem Eng is definitely a step in the right direction. Or maybe even nano-tech, or environmental issues. There is little that you can not do with a Chemical Engineering degree. I've found that it is easier for people with Chem Eng degrees to get jobs than other streams, but this is just based on what I've seen over here in Sydney.

The other thing is, Chemical Engineering does not just mean that you are going to be working for a petroleum or chemical manufacturer, or a mining company, you have so many options, and if you decide to do a second major in say Commerce, then you will be completely set financially 

If you want to chat about anything regarding Chem Eng, please send me a PM 

CB


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## Chaos Butterfly

^^

Of course it all depends on where you are  Here in Australia it really isn't that hard to get a good engineering job, but it really does depend on the state of the economy and all that crap like job markets and the like where you are 

So if you can't get a good job where you are, come to Australia... if not just for the jobs, but because its a fucking awesome place to live


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## Scatterhead

afcone said:
			
		

> *I'm finishing my fourth year of an MEng in Aerospace Engineering.  Do engineering, but only if you are prepared to do a lot of work.  Many Science students sneer at Engineers, but in fact they do less work (and at my university, require far less grades to do, say physics, than to get onto an engineering course).
> 
> Aerospace is pretty close to mechanical, it involves similar skills, but it is a bit more interesting - Mech eng's tend to design items such as turbomachinery.  Chemical engineering is hard, you will have to be an extremely talented chemist and physicist to suceed.  Electrical is not too bad, I know quite a few of them - but remember this will still involve a *lot* of work.  Typically for a final (fourth) year student, at my university, Physicists + Mathematicians do 20 - 25 hours/week, Chemists do 30 - 40.  Engineers do 40 - 70. *



Sweet! I was going to study aerospace, although ended up swaping the planes for ships, mainly because there isn't a big aerospace industry in australia and i was concerned with the international status the aero degree would hold. As it turns out there is a lot in common anyway, propelling vehicles through fluids.

We always have a bit of a chuckle at the pure mech eng students, they always tend to be working on refidgeration systems... not my idea of fun. I don't think you should be overly concerned with picking the engineering discipling, especially in the first years i've found they're all similar and focus on learning the basics. Our first two years involved mass lectures with chem, mech, mechatronic, aero, naval, mining, enviro, elec, telecommunications engineering students all together. Students swapped faculties and there weren't any big dramas. 

What you do with your degree is more important. I know people who studied aero and are now working on train design, chem eng graduates working as merchant bankers. It helps if you specialise in the field you want to end up in, but if you're not sure what you want to do yet, choosing your degree now is not the be all and end all. The only way you're going to know if you'll like mech eng is to give it a go.

Goodluck... its a long, hard slog... but very rewarding.


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## DB Cooper

I am enrolled to hit up some electrical engineering.  I just love circuits and junk, so figured hell why not.  I wanna be a teacher tho, and get a teaching degree.  I figure I can be one pimpass sci teacher.  ChemE and physics sound fun tho.  In ChemE, how good do you get at organic chemisty(yes, I along with every bluelighter want to be an organic chemist for no reason at all).  Ill probaly just go to school for like 10 years and see what I end up with besides bills and a bad liver.


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## Chaos Butterfly

IN Chem Eng, you only do 3 semesters of Chemistry, and Organic is about half of that... you get to know probably 30-50% of what you would need to know for nefarious purposes, the rest you could find out by doing some extra chemistry classes. Personally I didn't really care. Doesn't interest me at all...

Mostly because so many people have this useless preconception that Chemical Engineering means making drugs and bombs... which it isn't. At all. Well unless you go and work for an explosives or a pharmaceutical company of course


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## blacklabel

I'll be transferring next fall to a uni, majoring in computer engineering. I see no one mentioned that? Understandable, I don't see BL having that many geeks on it.  

CE is prety close to EE, except you get a lot of computer science courses too. Some unis don't even have a CE program, rather there might be a computer concentration to the EE program. My general courses aside, I have about half CS classes and half EE classes.

Once I got my first computer when I was like 9 or 10 I was into them a lot, too much for a while. So I figured I would major in something computers. At first it was gonna be Computer Science, but 1) I don't enjoy programming all that much and 2) CS majors are a dime a dozen these days, plus shit gets outsourced to India and the like. There's always a demand for good engineers!


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## kinetic

I'm still all for doing physics rather than engineering.  I'm taking an analog electronics class through the physics department (it's an upper-division class but i'm a freshmen) and I know a whole crapload more about electronics than all the junior EE majors in my physics class.  Makes me wonder what they're wasting their time doing.


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## afcone

^^^^  That, of course, is entirely up to you.  But if you're looking for a marketable degree, Engineering is hard to beat.  The problem solving and analytical skills, combined with project management, leadership and team-working, in addition to the long hours and high work ethic required means that employers tend to fall over themselves when offering jobs.


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## kinetic

except I'm pretty sure that physics is even better than that.  I know that there are a shortage of jobs in the US, and everyone goes into engineering thinking they're going to get a job straight out of college for good money.  but the fact of the matter is, that's not happening anymore.  physics majors get a better education, one that involves not only applying your knowledge, but being able to problem solve and use your brain in a matter that doesn't just involve working out equations.  with a BS in physics, one can go on to grad school in physics, or engineering, and can even diversify and attend medical school or law school.  My dad worked on wall street and said that many of his great coworkers were physics majors.  I know that I won't have a problem finding a job out of college, and my biggest problem will probably be picking which aspect of physics I enjoy the most.


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## julinka

I got a EE degree last May with a concentration in CE.  I've screwed around a little since then (too many drugs), but hopefully with the economy picking up I'll get back into something that's in my field instead of temp work.  I did have a nice stint with a company programming a computer game though.

It all depends on what you want to do with the degree.  I started out with chemical, but moved to electrical engineering after I discovered I didn't like the chemistry part so well.  I've done projects developing chips and even entire PCB boards, and even with the long hours it took I wouldn't trade the degree or experience for anything.


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## --brian--

EE is the best way to go IMO.  You can go a ton of places from there for sure, like others have mentioned you won't be tied down to designing circuits the rest of your life.


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## kinetic

designing circuits is awesome, great fun.  


I'm totally serious.  I really enjoy.  the way EE majors go about it is retarted though, working on damn equations that are needless when you can just solve it with a computer program.


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## Chaos Butterfly

^^

yeah but when you have to DESIGN the computer programs, you need to know the equations behind it


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## TranceAggie

^ what he said.


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## kinetic

how many people do you know that actually design spice?


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## Chaos Butterfly

Ummm... spice? not too sure, but the thing is you need to understand the background theory otherwise whats the point.


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## kinetic

I do understand the background theory, but my point is that the way EE are taught to design circuits is as impractical as it can get.  It's extremely time consuming.  why do you need to spend hours running through calculations when the accuracy of 1% is all you need.  a simple approximation will suffice, especially when considering that with circuit components you are lucky to find ones with that much accuracy.  I recommend that anyone interested in analog circuits read "the art of electronics" by horowitz and hill.  It's absolutely the best book out there on electronics (although my physics professor is writing a book to replace it).


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## Chaos Butterfly

^^

fair enough


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## Transition Flow

It depends.  I have a duel BS in ChemE and Mat Sci E.  Jobs are pretty easy to come by, but you have to work your ass off in school.  The curriculum is really difficult, but at the end, IMO, worth it.  Like Chaos Butterfly said, ChemE's do not take that many chem courses.  General chem, o-chem, physical chemistry.  That's about it.  All basic stuff, nothing really advanced.  Most of chem e is about reactions and reactor/plant design.  This can be used in variety of fields as most manufacturing companies all have some sort of chemical plant design need.  Or, as lots of friends did, couple your chem e with bio-chem background, and you can get into a hugely developing field of pharmaceutical plant design. 

Mat Sci is an interesting field, and one that I enjoyed immensely in college.  There is a whole world out there where mat sci plays a prominent role.  The only thing about mat sci is that most companies want to hire mat sci people with at least a masters degree (phD is preferred).  I can kind of see why...it just seems like after all the courses I took for mat sci, I am still not confident in my abilities to survive as a mat sci engineer.  The field is just too big to cover with an undergraduate major.  It's much better to specialize and get an advance degree.  I have a friend who's doing his masters in nano-technology right now, he loves it, and NASA has been sort of bankrolling his advanced degree.  But if you want a growing field with tons of potential, mat sci might be right for you. 

The good thing about engineering fields is that there is always a shortage of engineers.  This is because compared to other majors, engineering curriculum is ridiculously tough.  

Ultimately though, I guess it comes down to what you want to do.  If you want an office job, this may not be for you (computer sci notwithstanding).  Most engineers are hands-on, out in the field, running day-to-day operations.  But if that is what you like, then this could be for you.


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## Moose onE

for those that already have their engineering degrees.  did you take the FE??? did you go on to take your PE???   what is your opinion on people with PE's and those without? what are the differences in job opportunities and types of jobs that you can get?  this is somethin i was pondering earlier today, would like to get other people opinions/input on the matter.


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## Chaos Butterfly

Just a little confused... what is an FE, and what is a PE? This could just be a locational difference in terms but I've never heard of these


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## 9volt

I'm a fourth year EE student and I feel that circuit theory is emphasized in order to further weed out weaker students.  When I went to my coop job as a control systems designer, the manuals for the equipment being used in the system were what helped me get the job done - not my controls systems class.  Some of the tech school grads I was working among were very aware of the fact that a university grad or student doesn't really have the immediate ability to get a job done.  But they hated that the EEs got paid more.  Personally, I'm just proud that I know a little theory...no matter how much dope it took for me to learn it.  
The theory classes seem to be proving grounds..."If you get this bs, you'll have no problem with the product manuals."  My solution: 4 year tech schools???

Do any other engineering students or grads dis/agree with this?


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## Moose onE

in america heh forgot we are international

FE = fundamentals of engineering test
PE = practice and principles of engineering test

basically the FE is a test you have the option of taking after you get your bachelors. its a stepping stone to the PE, which if you pass will dub you a Professional Engineer, in your respected field.  The requirements are tough as i hear these tests take all day to complete. And also hear that only the top 10% that take the PE get it awarded, as to not flood the market.  

Basically to my understanding if you wanna open your own business/company/firm/etc you'll need to have a PE.  if this isnt the route for you then you dont need one and will be workin for other companies.  its importance varies from person to person. opinion to opinion.

feel free to correct me if i'm wrong. i'm just sharing some info an my opinion. and would like some feedback as well.


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## Chaos Butterfly

Ah hah... that sounds sort of like the process that you take over here to become Chartered i.e. a chartered engineer... although I don't know exactly what the process is, I'd imagine that its kinda similar...

Over here it really isn't stressed at all. In fact I didn't hear a thing about it during undergrad, I can only assume that if you are in a firm that cares about that sort of thing they will tell you about it and push you in the right direction.

I wouldn't mind becoming chartered, but I'll finish my PhD first


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