|
DragonSharp was nice enough to share this link with us. Thank you
Well. If you could, what type of engineering would you suggest to someone who decides to start and engineering major?
Poll: So?Computer Engineering (22) 23% BioEngineering (16) 17% Chemical Engineering (16) 17% Electrical Engineering (13) 14% Mechanical Engineering (11) 12% Civil Engineering (5) 5% Nuclear Engineering (4) 4% Industrial Engineering (4) 4% Aeronautical Engineering (3) 3% Other (specify in the comments) (1) 1% 95 total votes Your vote: So? (Vote): Mechanical Engineering
(Vote): Civil Engineering
(Vote): BioEngineering
(Vote): Nuclear Engineering
(Vote): Electrical Engineering
(Vote): Chemical Engineering
(Vote): Computer Engineering
(Vote): Industrial Engineering
(Vote): Aeronautical Engineering
(Vote): Other (specify in the comments)
As of myself, I love physics but I think that it would be pretty useless to study just physics coz I am more of a type of person that is interested in how the nature works so he could use it to improve human life.
And how about finding job? I am sure that every engineer will probably find a work, but which are do you think will have the major breakthrough in the next 10 years?
Please discuss, I am really interested in your opinion.
EDIT: I changed the list, coz I made some mistakes
 
|
As an aerospace engineer who was recently laid off, I am having trouble finding a job even with NASA on my resume and being involved in cutting edge work for past few years (helping design the new shuttle until Obama axed the whole project). You may just contribute that to the overall economy lull, but I've been looking for aero-jobs for almost 3 months again now... not many out there.
I don't see it up there but I recommend materials engineering.
|
As a CompSci/CompEng guy myself, I obviously vote for that. I find it a very interesting area of study, with many different paths to choose from when it comes to actual work.
There is currently several 'slow revolutions' going on within CS that will make programming in 10 years possibly very different from what we do now, and very different from what was done 10 years ago. At least if we are talking consumer hardware.
First of all, the push for parallellisation has been going on for a while, starting (as always) on 'big iron', supercomputers and the like. Getting Twin/Quad/Eight-core boxes on consumer hardware has changed a lot of stuff already, and is set to change things even more as programming shifts to ways where it is easier to determine what can be done in parallel.
Further, the smaller transistors get, the more 'leakage' you get in the signal, i.e. you no longer have a 'clean' binary when current is measured in individual electrons. This makes processor design a bit hard, to say the least, and I know there are several projects and other stuff going on to find solutions. Needless to say, that may also change how you work with various things.
And of course there is the ever-ongoing fight to make things faster, smaller, more flexible, more useful, etc. etc. where everything changes constantly. A lot of cruft has creeped into programs as a result of programmers thinking 'oh, that'll work better later with better hardware', but as devices get smaller (iPhone/Android etc.) I think that people actually may start paying attention to what they are doing again.
In general, just making the damn computer do what I tell it to do is enough satisfaction to me.  Solving problems using programming is a pretty special occupation, but the feeling when you have spent the last 4 hours frantically coding, debugging and rechecking your program, and then seeing it work beautifully, efficiently and correctly, no matter what kind of abuse you submit it to is a very good feeling.
And as for physics, if we jump past the obvious physics of circuit design, there's always a need for better simulation of various phenomena.
|
Ill be quite honest with you, if you are interested in eng, u really dont wanna just jump into the major if your still uncertain. main reason people give up on eng isnt because its not interesting, or they dont think its awsome. no, in fact most students love eng, but no student loves the first 4 semesters (other eng's feel free to chip on xD) almost no uni you go to will offer you eng courses that dont require most of your basics coures to be finished (like diff eq and calc 3 or phy2 with calc etc)
for jobs, cevil eng and industrial will land you the most jobs, next being computer (only if you like programming, remember most computer eng's do mostly programming) but what name your degree hasnt doesnt make the job you get. An electrical eng can get a job doing programming, or even a civil eng job, its not as cut and dry as most students think coming in.
i hope this post came out helping you, and if your really still curious, feel free to PM me, but try to see your self in 10 years, are you doing research? working outdoors? want to have your hands on whats going on? or oversee it? if you can answer this question, then the eng major you choose is pretty obvious, not to mention what you find interesting.
|
Interesting the first post about aerospace engineer. I was thinking about it too, and seemed cool. In the future I presume there will be needed a lot more aerospace engineers just because of our space exploration that is growing larger and larger.
As of the second post, yes it seems pretty interesting, but coz I was in a dilemma whether to choose pure physics or engineering (read applied physics) I think there wouldn't be a lot of satisfaction for me programing various software. Nevertheless you think that computer engineering will have a major growth in the next 10 years?
|
I'm curious, what can an industrial engineer do that an economist, mathematician, or actuary can't?
It seems like they mostly solve optimization problems, which are pieces of cake to any of the above professions.
|
Bioengineering with some computer courses mixed in.. learn how to make nano computers 
|
i'm a comp sci major, but I'm feeling more and more that programmers are the factory workers of the next generation. go with mechanical engineering. it's a flexible all around major, and you can move into any other subject after a mech engineering degree.
|
On June 15 2010 04:53 jalstar wrote:
I'm curious, what can an industrial engineer do that an economist, mathematician, or actuary can't?
It seems like they mostly solve optimization problems, which are pieces of cake to any of the above professions.
Supply chain management, human factors and ergonomics design, and process and production control come to mind, but I'm not an IE. Well, almost all of engineering is optimization in some sense, but different training and experience helps one person formulate the problem and communicate those ideas better than another person.
Really though, I would say that most all engineering disciplines are pretty good to go into if you are interested in that kind of thinking. However, I wonder if bioengineering and related fields are graduating too many students right now, which can be dicey from a future employment perspective.
|
@Sid That's only partially true. My uni worked on a quarter system and got you into some entry level engy classes within your first few quarters. I'm not positive, but if you find an engineering focused school it should work like this.
As for the OP. The engineering fields you listed are so wildly different it's hard to comment. Which one fits you is really going to depend on your interests and your skill set.
What part of physics do you like. If you are interested in stuff like gravity, friction, etc. then maybe Mechanical, Aeronautics, or Civil engineering will be for you. If you take more interest into physics as it related to energy, waves, magnetic fields, etc. then Nuclear, Electrical, or Computer engineering may be more up your alley.
Chemical and Bio engineering can be a bitch (well all engineering can really), if you're not really into chemistry and biology I'd shy away from them. Though these areas have a lot of room for future discovery of course. Then again all engineering fields do to an extent.
As for finding a job, get internships while at school, get good grades, and know your stuff. People are always on the lookout for highly skilled, knowledgeable, and sociable engineers.
I'd say clarify what kinds of problems you like to solve and what types of things get you interested. If you aren't into your engineering field it will be hell, well to an extent. The most important thing is whether or not you're the engineering type at all.
|
Chemical Engineering if you want to have 0 free time in undergrad, but its a great field to be in.
Personally I'm computer science, and would actually recommend EE or evne a pure science like physics/chem for a lot of work I see CS people doing now. It's honestly not that hard to learn to program well if you're someone who's completed another field of fairly challenging undergrad studies
|
No way I can see myself in something related to chemistry or biology. As for the part which interests me I'd say the whole physics, but if I have to narrow it, it would probably be nuclear physics.
I was thinking mechanical engineering, but then again I would find myself best if I could design robots/sattelits/sondas and so on.
|
I come from a family of engineers and am pumped to star taking my Chem Engineering classes this fall (going to be a Sophmore at the University of Minnesota.) I chose ChemE just becuase I love chemistry and because it has the most opportunities for avante garde jobs and research.
Just looking at what you can do with a ChemE degree (I'll be going for my masters as well) is very exciting. You can work for oil companies (not the most popular thing to do, but if you want money...), pharmacuetical design, designer chemicals, materials science (metamaterials), biomedical engineering (the fields are very similar depending on what you focus on), and my favorite: nanotechnology which is probably going to be the biggest technological revolution of our generation and maybe even ever, as nanotech has HUGE wide raging implications in almost every area of science.
just my 2 cents
|
I'm double majoring in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering, love both so it was a simple choice. Pays well and jobs are not impossible to find.
|
I'm in Computer Science and I like it so I voted for Computer Engineering (even though they're two separate things).
Computers are going to produce a lot of jobs in the future, but I went into it simply because I'm fascinated with them. You can't really go wrong with any engineering, engineers are pretty much the backbone and thinking behind just about everything.
You said you like nature, so maybe civil engineering in the one for you.
|
On June 15 2010 05:38 MadVillain wrote:
I come from a family of engineers and am pumped to star taking my Chem Engineering classes this fall (going to be a Sophmore at the University of Minnesota.) I chose ChemE just becuase I love chemistry and because it has the most opportunities for avante garde jobs and research.
Just looking at what you can do with a ChemE degree (I'll be going for my masters as well) is very exciting. You can work for oil companies (not the most popular thing to do, but if you want money...), pharmacuetical design, designer chemicals, materials science (metamaterials), biomedical engineering (the fields are very similar depending on what you focus on), and my favorite: nanotechnology which is probably going to be the biggest technological revolution of our generation and maybe even ever, as nanotech has HUGE wide raging implications in almost every area of science.
just my 2 cents
This. I am a great deal interested in nanotechnology, however I think that almost every type of engineering will be applied into it. Especially bioengineering and mechanical, no?
|
IMO, go for Bioengineering. There will be a growing demand for those guys.
If it is not your cup of tea, then yea mechanical engineering is a safe bet. I'm going as mechanical as well.
|
Computer Engineer here, recommended. As far as jobs go, unless if your GPA is great, I'd recommend internships prior to graduation or you may have a tough time getting that first job due to a lack of professional experience. This of course depends on the location and job market at the time you graduate.
|
On June 15 2010 05:53 Art.FeeL wrote:Show nested quote +On June 15 2010 05:38 MadVillain wrote:
I come from a family of engineers and am pumped to star taking my Chem Engineering classes this fall (going to be a Sophmore at the University of Minnesota.) I chose ChemE just becuase I love chemistry and because it has the most opportunities for avante garde jobs and research.
Just looking at what you can do with a ChemE degree (I'll be going for my masters as well) is very exciting. You can work for oil companies (not the most popular thing to do, but if you want money...), pharmacuetical design, designer chemicals, materials science (metamaterials), biomedical engineering (the fields are very similar depending on what you focus on), and my favorite: nanotechnology which is probably going to be the biggest technological revolution of our generation and maybe even ever, as nanotech has HUGE wide raging implications in almost every area of science.
just my 2 cents This. I am a great deal interested in nanotechnology, however I think that almost every type of engineering will be applied into it. Especially bioengineering and mechanical, no?
I'm pretty sure other types of engineering will work on it as well. Much like airplanes except this field is much smaller.
|
Hello fellow engineers, I have a question I have long needed to ask and I feel this thread is the good opportunity for it so here goes:
I am currently in college studying computer science ( programming), one of my teacher said that software engineering is more of talking to the client and analyzing what is needed, is that true ?? Will I stop being a programmer myself when I step into being an engineer ? Because, what I really like is programming, not preparing documents explaining what to code.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT : I don't mean that all I want to do is type, analyzing is obviously something I like to do, but analyzing without getting into programming at all, only describing objects needed for the application is just plain boring to me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
