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Skip to the last paragraph if you don't want all the fluff.
So here I am sitting in my cubicle with about four days left on my summer contract. I'll be heading into my last year of university this Fall and, unless I somehow fail miserably, I will graduate with a bachelor of engineering (aerospace) in April.
Engineering sucks. I realized this around second year, but I am decent at it, and I didn't want to start all over again so I kept at it. Besides, an engineering degree is pretty useful, and maybe if I got some real work experience I'd change my mind. That summer, I landed a pretty good research assistant position with a professor scaling down a modular robotic joint. The work was alright, but the boss turned out to be a real dick. Anyway, I couldn't see myself working in a lab for the rest of my life.
So after grinding through third year, I landed my current internship at a relatively large aerospace manufacturer. I thought this would be a great opportunity to get a glimpse of what a future would be like in this industry. I was doing important work, and I got to meet plenty of people who walked my path long before me.
It opened my eyes. Most of the engineers here would come in at 6AM and check drawings all day 'til 5PM. Others, such as myself, would do some programming and/or number crunching. My supervisor would sometimes be in here over 12 hours a day, with no over time. I have lunch every day with some of my colleagues from school and we all agreed that this was not what we had in mind. Our friends who landed placements at other companies were just as miserable.
So, I am now seriously looking at other options. I plan on finishing my degree, so I will have at least a B. Eng. I wanted to go into teaching, but the job market in Ontario is horrible. I think what I hate most about these jobs is sitting in front of a computer all day (ironic, I know). With that in mind, what else can I do with an engineering degree?!
ps. sorry if this reads all fragmented; i was switching between work and writing!
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Calgary25967 Posts
If you don't want to sit in front of a desk, why'd you go into areospace? It would probably make sense to revert back to a more general mechanical engineering degree if you don't want to go into the aerospace industry.
Edit: The question "what else can I do with an engineering degree" is ridiculous since you can do almost anything with an engineering degree. Let's start with what you want to do and then figure out how to get you there.
Edit 2: The oil industry in Alberta is strong right now, and the natural gas industries in Alberta and Saskatchewan are starting to boom again too. Any engineer can get into those fields, if they want, and positions would range from deep, technical engineering (100% desk) to field construction managers (100% field).
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if I could go back in time I'd study hard and become a civil engineer, just because it really interests me where as my current field doesn't at all. Maybe I'll just spend another million years in school.
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On August 28 2009 02:34 Chill wrote:
If you don't want to sit in front of a desk, why'd you go into areospace? It would probably make sense to revert back to a more general mechanical engineering degree if you don't want to go into the aerospace industry.
Edit: The question "what else can I do with an engineering degree" is ridiculous since you can do almost anything with an engineering degree. Let's start with what you want to do and then figure out how to get you there.
Heh, I realized this AFTER I started working. I mean, if I had no problem sitting at my desk playing Starcraft all day at home, why would it be different at work? Anyway, aerospace topics still interest me, I just don't like working with them! Also, mech and aero are very similar and in most cases interchangeable.
You're right: I have no idea what I want to do. I mentioned teaching because it is a very attractive job: about 3 months of vacation, best pension in Ontario, salaries start low but increases very fast (opposite of engineering). Yeah, I want to do it for all the wrong reasons. I'm sure most people do too, maybe that's why there's too many teachers.
I guess I'm looking for suggestions/ideas really.
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Have you considered poverty? It's a real eye-opener.
Get yourself a job that challenges you and that you think you would appreciate day to day, whatever industry it might be in. If you don't like desk work, maybe something "in the field."
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i wouldn't suggest teaching if you don't enjoy teaching xD, i'm halfway through a teaching degree and i can tell you the profession runs over people who are only in it for the perks. if you enjoy it, it can be the best job, but if you don't it'll be hell
btw i'm pretty sure here in michigan if you're an expert in a field (ie engineer) you can get a teaching license without a teaching degree. not sure if the policy is still around but my physics teacher in HS got her job because of being an engineer. you could check if your area has something like that.
and there are MILLIONS of worse degrees to have than an engineering degree so don't despair 
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Calgary25967 Posts
Field work is not fun, either. Trust me. Flying around and living out of hotels and eating out every night sounds fun, but it's actually terrible. Working 12 hour shifts for 10 days also sucks ass, especially in Canadian winters.
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Calgary25967 Posts
The point is, the majority of careers available to you aren't going to be exactly fulfilling. Your job is not your life. You need to find out what you find to be acceptable as a job and start there. A degree like aerospace doesn't exactly allow one to change between different career options, however.
I don't really have any advice until you give some more background on the situation.
Going from engineering to teaching because of the benefits is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Buy your own benefits, get a contract with 3 month vacation, save your own pension, and you will still end up with a way bigger salary and more interesting work. If you find teaching interesting, that's fantastic and you should go for it, but stepping down from engineering to teaching for the reasons you listed is so stupid.
Also, personally, I always laughed at the people in my mech program who dreamed of working at Boeing. First of all, the competition is so high it's really difficult to get in. Second of all, the competition is so high that the salaries aren't that high. You work ridiculous hours. And in the end, because there are so many engineers with such high specifications, you most likelybecome the expert on the T219 hex nut sheer stresses.
If you don't have a passion for aerospace, I would strongly recommend getting into another area of engineering.
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Early 20-s, not sure what to do in life? Welcome to the club.
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sick
i left uni when i was 20, had 2 years to go
since then ive done every kind of work you can possibly find. Construction, cooking, fishing, cab driving, landscaping etc etc. I hated uni after 3 years but right now? fuck id give a lot of things up just to go back
i guess we always want something that we dont have? but in the end you realize it wasnt all that bad
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Calgary25967 Posts
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relax, you are young, work a while, then do whatever you want with your money. With your degree you can study anything that you want on any university in the world. You have the same maths than every engineer in the world.
My suggestions is stay working and save money until you get your degree, then do something that you want to do, like going somewhere, or whatever, then you will ask yourself "what do i want now" instead of "what do i want in my life"
Its surprising how easy you can answer to "what should i do now" when you know "what do i want now"
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You talk as if you're going to spend the rest of your life waking up, going to work, staying there for ten hours, going back home, sleeping, waking up, and repeating this process over and over again.
Work is just a part of your life, as it is going to the restroom, working out, eating, making love to your wife, watching TV, and so on. There is a time and place for everything and just because you don't like one doesn't mean you're going to give it up that easy, does it?
Make a career out of your life, not a life out of your career, whatever you choose to do with your life depends solely on you and no one else, not the companies you work for or the boss you're with.
But at our age, we tend to think everything is the end of the world. It's not.
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That is the problem with all us Gen - Y.
Too much fucking choices.
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Chill, you're right. I don't want to be the specialist on xyz rivets. That's the problem with working for large companies, I guess. You end up working on some incredibly tiny portion of the overall picture. The whole engineering degree thing is just that: you work your ass off in your undergrad years to get a job working long hours with shitty salaries.
Anyway, money isn't as important to me as getting a job that I look forward to going to every morning.
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On August 28 2009 03:36 1984 wrote:
Early 20-s, not sure what to do in life? Welcome to the club.
yep.
i'm still trying to figure out why the hell we put so much value on something we dont have (for material things) or havent experienced (for non-material things). i put so much value in highschool on random material things and then once i got it ... "uhh ok is this it? ___ isn't that great"
so then in uni, there's all this co-op pressure you know, getting a job, working for those famous companies, getting that experience (i guess money is also a factor, but mostly its non-material .. just the fact that you're there) and then once you get there "uhh ok is this it?" (and the sad thing is i can still see this in motion for example, when i tell my froshie friends "oh i work at X" and they're like "holy shit that's amazing!" when really it's not.. its just a job)
so now i just place value into having fun, and luckily, fun isn't one of those things where you experience it and go "uhh is this it?"
and hey, even if your job isn't fun (welcome to the club btw), at least it enables you to have fun ^____^
oh yeah and tomorrow is my last day of my summer internship thingy.. wooot?
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Do Business School : sex, drug and alcohol. :D
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idk what im going to do with my life, im so fucked
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EPT
