any mechanical engineers or electrical engineers on /diy/? getting out of the military soon and need to figure out what i want to do when i grow up. mechanical and electrical engineer seem like pretty neat choices since i have like trying to build things and i love learning how stuff works and plus they seem to have a pretty big variety of what they all encompass to hopefully make finding a job easier.
anyone care to share their thoughts and experiences, whether youre still in school or have a job?
>>948088
>i have like trying to build things
*i like trying to build things
>>948088
Nice stock photo
I can tell you are management material already.
>>948128
My bad, lemme go draw you a fucking picture of engineering as that is the point of this fucking thread
>>948088
ME here, graduated from a good college with a 3.5.
I could find a million jobs out of college in 2010, but they all paid 40-45k despite our professors and counsellors saying the pay range was 70-90k. Settled for $50k as soon as one came around.
Same with all but 1 peer, who says she received a $75k starting salary.
I'm finally at $70k, but also have an incredibly easy job that I enjoy. Should also be receiving a $3500 raise in a month. (They promised me a 15k but I doubt it.)
Also take the time for an internship. It helped those who did it find a better job immensely.
>>948149
That's pretty cool, what do you do?
>>948161
i design vibrating dragon dildos
>>948161
Design/programming of HVAC control systems. Light graphics editing for front end GUI.
>>948201
Pretty neat
>>948201
Dragon dildos makes more money, obviously.
>>948088
ME here, graduated from a decent state school branch in 2014, 3.19 GPA overall. Had an internship.
Story is kinda similar to >>948149
I had some trouble finding a job, especially locally, since it's not a big city or really a growing market. I looked at a lot of out of town jobs and could probably have turned at least 2 into offers if I tried harder, but I did really like that I could keep living at home. Found my current job through a friend's father who works as a salesman here - I started in Jan 2015.
The salary stuff is the same. All my sources (school info, salary calculators, college major pay studies) said I should expect around $50k starting. The place I ended up working insisted I start as an intern for $15/hr, then would not budge an inch on their offer of $38500/year once they hired me full time after 6 months. I just got a raise to $42700/yr like last week. Some of this may be because it's a small business (<50 employees) in a rust belt city, but I still think they're shafting me a bit. I really get shafted on vacation, where they gave me literally no discretionary time off besides 3 combined sick/personal days. After a year of being there full time, I get 5 vacation days. Again, I think some/all of this is my particular employer.
My biggest complaint is that I don't do much actual engineering. 85%+ of my time is spent doing either drafting or procurement (i.e. buying shit we need for jobs). Design work is rare and math even moreso. Overall, it's ok, but I always like to say that school really prepared me for a job halfway between this and working at NASA, and I do kinda want to switch to a more technical (or at least higher paid and better benefited) job after I get some experience. We'll see where I stand once I hit that magical 3-5 year (which really means 2-4 years) level of work experience.
>>948088
It's feast or famine
>>948228
Obviously.
>>948088
>i like trying to build things
I'm an engineer and really happy about it, but you should know what you're getting into. An engineering program isn't all tinkering around in an electronics lab or machine shop. Hands on work and projects will be around 20% of your life, and the rest is cramming calculus and physics textbooks.
>>948237
>>948149
Senior year ME here, no internship. How fucked am I?
We've finally gotten into the actual engineering in Senior year. Design process, reports, communication, documentation, planning, actual engineering-team work on senior projects, basically everything that isn't a direct extension of math/physics
... I'm actually too NEET for this.
I don't like talking to people and am not good at it, being on call for groupwork 24/7 makes me anxious as fuck all the time, I fucking hate paperwork, I'm pretty middle of the pack for intelligence or cleverness, I fucking hate groupwork and it's politics, ....
and lastly I've realized I'm happier being told what to do than having to figure things out all the time
I want hourly, not salary, and would rather do something comfy with a good Union rather than getting stuck as contractor in the wind, like machineshop work or something.
Was this even the degree for me?
I was good at the actual math/physics. That's it.
Then senior year we're finally doing engineering and I realize I hate it.
>>948342
What school you going to?
>>948391
Does that really matter so much in terms of getting employment? In the U.S.
Decently reputable for their ME program. I got lucky with scholarships, didn't cost me much otherwise I would have realized this sooner and jumped ship.
EE here. I work at a large company and I like my job. The pay is pretty good but I'm in the Bay Area.
Overall I wouldn't recommend the field to everyone. If you like the subject and you're good at it, then you should be fine. The recent report was that EE jobs are flat or decreasing, but baby boomers should be retiring soon... the problem is that companies are holding back on hiring. The sweet spot these days seems to be an MS; bachelors tend to get shit jobs where they do scutwork.
>>948393
Mostly asking out of curiosity really.
>>948275
don't forget all the paperwork, reports, presentations, meetings, reports, and other shit like thiat.
>>948395
>le baby boomers meme
I hate when people say this. It can be applied to any career path that isn't complete shit, and isn't really true enough to matter anyways.
>>948417
serious. You think they're going to replace the retired baby boomer with another first world English speaker? Lol.
Had a tough time with school my first 3 years due to 30+ hours of work and all the school/schoolwork involved. I get that many people were able to do this with more ease, but I'm definitely the type of person to spend 1.5 to 2.0 times more time on studying since I learn a bit slower. Smart guy, just a bit slower.
Anyways, as a result I've been playing catch-up the past year and am worrying about getting a job post graduation since my grades don't reflect my aptitude and yet I still don't regret it.
My advice OP, ask yourself what you will regret more;
Not trying it out, or going for it.
Whatever you decide, stick to it and give it your all and don't half ass the begginner classes like I did if you do decide to do it.
>>948088
B.Eng. in Europe, mechanical engineering, graduated two years ago at 4.1 GPA. I'm a junior designer in a small company. My salary is to my best understanding a little over the median at the local design monkey market. Not good, not bad, I'd like to get a hint higher but I'll manage. Leaves me 1k€ of mattress stuffing per month.
Job involves carrying out change requests, making of part and assembly drawings for the machinery, offer/layout drawings, modeling new products by request, some original machinery design work and user manual writing/compiling. Also anything that involves graphic designing, video material, animations etc. usually comes to me.
I'm enjoying my work. Most of the time it's stress-free but I still get to use my brains. The human-human interaction is pretty minimal and I don't have to sit at meetings or talk to clients. I prefer to do what I'm told to do as opposed to giving out orders to subordinates and spending my time managing their work.
>>948128
fucking virgin
>>948848
If you think that is some sort of insult, you clearly haven't had sex yet.
Can't go wrong with a BS in physics...
If you do ME, make sure you take some programming classes. Too many freshly minted degrees with no ability to program, even in VBA. It's 2016, if you can't automate the shittiest parts of your job, you aren't an engineer.
>>948342
>no internship
>not brilliant
>hate group work
>doesn't like politics
>wants to be hourly
>no internship
You're fucked.
>>948859
Eng Phys masterrace
ME here. Find a school that has a co-op program, it's a huge benefit to your job search and a lot of co-ops lead to jobs. My last co-op got me a job offer before graduation. Worked there for 3 years, then moved into a different industry because my friend told me about an opening. There's 6 engineers at this company that got jobs from their co-ops.
The first company I worked for underpaid their engineers horribly and tried to justify it because the cost of living was cheap in the area. I stayed there because I actually enjoyed the work (firetrucks), but eventually the shit wages, shithole area they were located in and poor management drove me out. During my yearly review I got a 10k raise because they realized they were losing engineers due to pay, 2 hours later I got a call with my new job offer and that was paying 8k more than the 10k raise. Don't ever undersell yourself, if a company is willing to fuck you on pay/benefits, they will fuck you hard. Smaller businesses may seem more friendly, but you'll be doing bitch work and not paid well. Larger companies can better support their employees and you'll actually be able to do engineering work.
Also, engineering has a huge variety of tasks, you're mostly going to be problem solving. If you like this, then go for it.
>>948863
for fuck's sake do this. We do a ton of work in Excel VBA because our IT dept won't develop anything new.
>>948342
No internship used to hurt you a lot, I'm sure it still does.
>Was this a good degree for me?
Just as good as any, essentially everything requires teamwork and effective communication skills to be successful. The more interaction with others you have the better, it gets easier. Same with paperwork.
After a few years of work, you may get good enough that you are left alone.
I'm a computer engineer and we go through most electrical engineering training/coursework. I'm still a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and it's pretty nice. If you want to deeply understand circuits involving time-varying components like capacitors and inductors, you need a solid background in differential equations. Calculus is also prominent in analog signal processing, as you'll be using fourier and laplace transforms.
If you're interested in ME, you could try a maritime academy. Engineers get a degree that mostly encompasses ME, with a bit of EE and ship's archetecture and design. It's a great experience as you will learn design and theory of operation, then apply it out in the field operating shipboard equipment. Graduates from those places are almost always in high demand.
>>948088
WHY NOT BOTH ANON?
I became a Mechanical Engineer at first, then took a masters in Industrial Automation.
It's an amalgamation of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, without the thermodinamics bit (which still come in handy if you have to design something that uses heat or something).
It's awesome.
>>948342
If you hate it why are you doing it?
Systems Engineer here.
1. All the job activity is in software. Software is everywhere... I work for a large semiconductor company, and we literally have an entire building of software developers.
2. Company recruiters look for co-op work experience, projects, and top marks. We mostly hire Asians because they have the top marks, but I got in because I had a relevant co-op job and project. University is all about building a resume. My most successful classmates picked their courses and projects in order to tailor their resume for a specific target job or company. If you do the minimum to get the degree, you're fucked.
3. We recruit out of a handful of universities. From the company's perspective: why sort through thousands of resumes when you are guaranteed a suitable applicant from just one or two sources? If you're not at one of the chosen few universities, you won't have access to most jobs. That said, you won't need to "network" per se, just being at the right university is a foot in the door.
ME is broadest engineering discipline. for the best chance in sticking with it, you'll want to find an area that you are interested in.
Talk to a few people who are actually working as engineers. most people, including freshmen eng students, don't have a real good idea of what working engineers actually do. also keep in mind that most of the technical skills you learn in school (at least in undergrad) won't be used in your job.
ME undergrad here with 2 semesters left. Also in NROTC so I'm going nuke to make all the money. I know some officers on their way out who have ME degrees and the experience who've interview for jobs ranging from 70K-220K
>>948088
I have a BS in Mechanical Engineering but I don't really work in that field.
After I graduated I applied a few places and eventually a coworker said her husband was looking for an Assistant Engineer at the television station he worked at. I applied and basically became a Broadcast Engineer.
Five years later, I started working for "A large telecom" managing a data center for their TV operations. I have been working there now for 5 years.
I looooved working at the TV station but they didn't pay shit. I kind of hate my current job but more because I am alone at the office so its lonely and the paranoia that runs rampant at a large corporation among employees is maddening. But the pay is great.
I have considered trying to get back I to an ME position, but there isn't a lot in the area and I don't really want to move.
>>948088
Take a good look at other military options before ejecting, including switching to other services to get that delicious twenty years. If you can do the math for engineering, do the math for retirement including post-20 pay bumps.
Play it right and you may never have to work again after retiring in your forties.
Self and milbros are often in that delightful situation. It is magnificent. Some start second careers, but a paid-for house (keep it small and pay off quickly) and very low overhead is a fine situation to be in.
Even with a good civilian gig you have to save a shitload of money to retire, and you will likely work well into your fifties at best. One recession at the wrong time and you are FUBAR.
Recessions routinely wipe out retirement investments and there will be more. Recessions routinely destroy major corporations. Offshoring routinely wipes out comfy jobs.
The military is the last stable "union job" in the US. Crosstraining can get you better gigs than bullet catcher if want, and crosstraining is fun. There are many ways to serve, as the saying goes, and lots of them don't require a life of deployed suffering or working with retards.
NROTC + nuke guy made a beautiful choice. Ka-fucking-ching.
>>949492
Yes but there are LOTS of shit companies out there that hire you based on your Engineering Degree.
Agree Software is the most important field.
BS EE here.
I didn't have an internship, but I was involved in student competitions (lead programmer one year and lead electronics the next), I worked for a professor on projects, and even took on contract design work for a start up during my senior year.
I didn't graduate with the best GPA but I was still doing contract work after graduation. Keep that up for about a year then decided I needed a real job with benefits. Found a job pretty fast as a test engineer. It was mostly testing shit quality Chinese products and reverse engineering competitors models. Company was having trouble and let go of 1/5th the employees including my entire department.
I had a job offer the next day doing design work and sensor research. We do contract designs for industry. I've been sent across the country for trade shows. My designs are soon going to be mass produced. And we are working on commercializing our own products which we think will be very popular.
>>948342
Yeah, you're boned.
> I have like trying to build things
Build up on your grammar first
>>950414
>I have liked* trying to build things
Caring more about typos than message is indicative of low IQ.
mechanical engineer here.
graduated 3.2 from a shitty florida uni and ended up in a 55k job (disappointing, but i like the job a lot) within a week of graduation. i didn't do an internship and was a lazy piece of shit in school so if i could do it you can too.
>>948088
EE, grad student, 3 internships @ 35-40 an hour, projected 90k starting.
I'm Analog, but Power engineering is the easiest 70k-100k you'll make for possesing 0 brain cells
Mech. eng. from germany here.
I started working in this field from day one for 2 years where i pretty much learned 2D/3D CAD. Took 1 Semester off to have a bit more time to study, so i can keep up. In my fourth semester i got into sales for a software company selling some really nice product and had an overall awesome experience. I pretty much lied myself into this job, i don't want to get to much into detail but i was working from home managing a sales team in the age of 21 which i never told them :^).) Afterwards i got back into the engineering field where i could get my ass into a management position due to luck. The job market is a fucking joke. There is no way you'll be jobless. Totally was worth the stress
>want to do mechanical engineering.
>get into college
>because "america makes thinkers not just dooers",
>have to spend two years of bullshit classes completely unrelated to mech eng.
hell.. these classes are completely unrelated to anything in stem. fuck my life.
>>948088
>veteranfag checking in
Here's the deal. Electrical engineering with good grades and research experience, youre pretty much guaranteed 70k starting salary. My friend did it easy. Your number one priority should be finding the largest state university with top 30 programs in the field you choose.
>>950695
Power engineering seriously is dildos. Even our professor for power who consults said "oh yeah I just do some simple power factor correction shit, condensers, capacitor banks and they pay me the big bucks"
I've never been super interested in power. I like analog circuits and controls tho.
EE senior at pretty well known school. 3.0, two internships at NASA.
Hope im gonna make it??
>>950877
Like what? History of feminism? The opression of negroes and white guilt?
EE student here, first year, studying in italy. The subject are hard (especially calculus and geometry) but I like every subject related to electricity, how things work and industrial thinking. I hope to graduate in time and I hope that someday I'll work in the photovoltaic field
>>950702
What is the average pay for engineers graduating with M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering in Germany?
>>951207
Music class, American history.
English classes are reading books about how white men oppress everyone else.
>>951583
45k to 55k euro with an university M.Sc.
>>951713
>Music class, American history.
>English classes are reading books about how white men oppress everyone else.
But you are there to study engineering. In Finland we can choose to take additional bullshit courses but otherwise it was just engineering.
>>951713
When was the last time you had an English class?
It's all negress queens best poetry and Mexican immigrants farm stories, and this is a good story entirely because the author is brown, not for his own merit.
And that was almost fifteen years ago. Its probably all written in ebonics now. At least it used to mostly be English.
>>952091
Im supose to be, I dont get to study engineering for a while now. bullshit classes are *required* for graduation.. so I have about half a dozen of them to take over the next 4 years.
>>952106
about 5 years since high school English.
>ebonics
close, its all tumblr speak.. we are not allowed to say "him or her", we have to say them or xi, because "anyone could be transitioning and we dont know"
I still say him or her, fucking shoot me for it.
I die every day I'm in school just because of this bullshit and having to go though middle school level classes just to get up to a respectable level because of prerequisites.
What are the last two years of school for mechanical engineering like, is the work pretty relaxed? is there a ton of stuff you have to do?
What advice would you give to someone that you wish someone would have given to you?
>>953685
so many fucking lab reports
>>951583
Depends on where you live, in east Germany 30k, west 40-45k, south up to 55k
I started with 45k as B.Eng, a coworker is M.Sci and started with 40k
>>953685
I don't know if it's ME or just me but I found ot got easier. My last semester was a breeze and it's the only one I got all As in.
Half the ME courses start to feel like the same class. Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, IC Engines were all 75% using the same exact thermal tables.
There were more reports to do but I am pretty good at those. Case and point, my roomate was a first year when I was like a senior. He was taking ME101. He comes back from class and he says "The professor (same one for both classes) was showing off your Pollution Control report to class as an example of how to make a good professional report today."
>>953772
Same here, my first 3 semesters GPA was a 2.1 and I was trying my ass off. Next few were all 3+. My last 3 full and a summer 1 and 2 average was a 3.8. I retook a class I made a D in my first semester and blew it away with an easy A+.
I think a big part of it is I just got better. I came from a shitty tiny school in Texas where none of the teachers cared, none of the students cared, our history books still talked about the looming giant USSR in the 2000s, the only sex ed we had was "don't do it before you're married or the devil will get you", despite multiple sluts in the class already having kids and mentioning evolution was a trip to the principals office with most teachers. Enforcing the rules was more important than education.
Took me a year and half to learn how to learn.
Oh and weed out classes, I went to a school that accepted anybody into engineering, but then threw you against a wall for the first 2 years.
>>948088
Im in my first year of ME. I love it, and so will you if you like building things and have in interest in how things work. It's hard work, no party time for me, but in the end of the day I'll be a productive member of society with either a good job or maybe my own company. Would recommend. Keep in mind EE grads make more money on average, but the two are very different, decide carefully what you want to do.
