Re: Need help with engineering carrer choices?

L Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Blake
> 
>   Entry-level engineering jobs tend to fall into one of two categories; 
> production, or engineering.

There is a third route: Design.

Maybe this is similar to your "engineering" category, but I will make
the distinction anyway. I see a lot of young engineers who are fresh
out of school with their BS degree, in a high tech product development
environment. A lot of their time is spent in front of CAD screens
creating drawings for pieces of things that will be made. This could
be:

Mechanical CAD
Circuit design
Code development (software, firmware, etc.)

I don't know if this is the "fast track" for the best and brightest,
but often one encounters people who are happy to earn a decent &
stable living without the stress of the fast track. A simple product
can require a lot of CAD to make it happen, perhaps especially if it
is intended to be cheap & mass produced. Look at the innards of
anything made by SONY, for instance.

At most companies, design is not a "degree required" job category, but
you see a lot of people with degrees doing it. It might actually be
cheaper for an employer to hire you as an "engineer, degree required"
because they don't have to pay overtime.

This may vary from one industry to the next, but I have never seen an
engineer use their higher math or theory skills.

My advice to any engineering student is: Make sure you don't graduate
from college without familiarity with the most popular or second most
popular CAD tool in your specialty. In mechancial design, a newcomer
called Solid Works is quickly gaining strength.

And I second the motion about the importance of an internship.