Magna86

Ok figure I'd reach out and see if any of you are in the mechanical engineering field or similar type positions. I'm starting to put a college degree plan together and its one of the ones I would be interested in. What is you job like? How do you enjoy the work and or hours? Is just having a associates in mechatronics useful in your field as well? My ultimate plan is to not work once i hopefully retire from the armed services but I cant predict the future obviously. Since I can basically get one paid for free I'm going to earn one and maybe further up to a masters down the line so I want one that will be useful in the future and land a good paying job. Any information you guys can provide would be great.

83hurstguy

I am, in the power generation field currently. Power is a tough market right now, natural gas prices are hurting a lot of the utilities, power prices are low. Try to find a company or market you want to work in with your engineering degree... there is a lot of opportunity out there. Anything with consumer commodities can be cyclical and challenging if you don't work for the right company.

Koda

I am, in auto manufacturing. Toyota Motor Co. Automotive is ok right now. I do production engineering, which is developing, sourcing, installing, and upgrading equipment used to make things. It's a lot of project management, and not a lot of thermodynamics or anything classically mechanical engineering. My job title is engineer, and usually requires a 4 year "engineering degree." It's more of a "can you hack a tech background?" than anything specifically related, so electrical, mech, chem, industrial, mech eng tech, all that is ok, just have a 4 year degree.


I have a master's degree, and it has done jack and squat for me. You need to leverage your armed services experience, hopefully you did something technical. Get the 4 year degree, and while you are at it, do internships. Companies like people with tons of qualifications who have worked for a competitor, or to hire people straight from college when they are 22. You are neither, so you need to get not only the degree from college, but the connections. We have technicians, called seibis, that are maintenance guys with 2 year associates degrees. It's a different job, but complementary in role to us, and competitive in pay.


I enjoy the work; I do not enjoy some of the people. The pay is competitive, but, being Toyota, the base salary is not competitive, but I get overtime and I earn a lot of it, so that ramps me over some of my salary-only school buddies.


My advice is get into a big state engineering school, get a good degree, work hard at it, and use them to get internships which will hire you out of school once you graduate. Toyota engineers are typically Purdue, U of Cinci, RIT, Rose-Hulman, Kettering, U of Illinois, Carnegie Mellon, SIU, UK, OSU, UT. I did my masters out of Rose, and got hired from there. I went to undergrad at Vanderbilt, and the engineering school there is so small, they gave me no help getting any contacts. Go to a big, primarily engineering school. Engineering is much more fun and just better at places with bigger budgets and bigger departments.


A co-op for us is typically a college kid that spends a semester with us instead of a semester at school. If we like him or her, we accept them back for more terms. If you do 3 good terms with us, it's practically a guaranteed hire. The other way we hire is contract engineer, and they can interview for permanent hire positions as they become open.

Happy Trails

I'm not a mechanical engineer. I did have an opportunity to speak with some mechanical engineer college students the other day. They are working at Medtronic for their internship. Sounded like they loved the work and were being exposed to a lot of different things during their internship. If they do well it sounds like Medtronic will hire them on after the internship and their schooling is over, which is common.

The health care industry has been going through a lot of change lately, but it is still a great industry to be in. If I was looking to pursue a future in mechanical engineering I would give serious consideration to the medical device industry.

oldcutlass

I am an exception and not the rule, a non degree'd electrical/ mechanical engineer with a 2 year vocational education and 30 years of experience. I've done amusement games, aircraft avionics/electrical systems and aircraft simulation, food and beverage manufacturing/ automation, and industrial sales. I've worked positions from super tech/millwright, production engineering and planning, to senior plant management. Its a fun career choice with plenty of challenges and opportunities to learn and move up. In order to be successful you have to prove that you can perform, be able to think on your feet and out of the box.

I'm going to suggest a different approach, look into technical industrial sales. Commission based sales will net you a great living and can be both interesting and challenging.

VC455

I have a 5-year bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from a top-tier school. Having always been interested in mechanical things, I chose electives in that extra year in advanced Mechanical Engineering subjects.

I currently work for a large (number 4 or 5 in the world) consulting engineering company. When they hired me 20 years ago, they set a condition of employment that I needed to get a Professional Engineer’s license in Mechanical Engineering within one year. I did that.

My job is to design mechanical utility system for large industrial clients. Those systems include compressed air, steam, chilled water, cooling tower water, air conditioning-heating, et al.

Each job is unique because each client has their own ways of doing things, has unusual situations and requirements, and has distinctive processes to be served. I like the changes, being the creative type of person.

One of my current jobs is designing mechanical systems for a massive diesel-electric generating station for a remote outpost of USA World Police (Kwajalein Atoll). On that job, I am also writing the detailed operational descriptions that are used to create the programming for computer controls.

Graduate engineers earn about $55,000 per year in our industry. Experienced engineers make two to three times that. Engineers who publish articles and sit on national boards and associations earn four times that.

Most firms pay engineers straight time for overtime. On some projects with short timelines, you need to work overtime. I work an average of 42 hours per week.

There is a dual career ladder, meaning that you are not forced into management if you want to earn more. You can choose an engineering career and earn the same as you would if you became a manager.

Job security is good for older engineers because your employer uses the resumes of those with the most experience to gain new work. When a downturn comes, the younger engineers are laid off first.

Those with mechanical interests, having two-year degrees and equivalent, will usually become designers. Designers use drafting software to create construction plans and diagrams. Some designers have knowledge equaling or surpassing that of engineers, but they generally make about 70% of an engineer’s wages.

Congratulations on your choice and good luck with wherever it takes you.

Magna86

Thank you guys for the responses so far. While on active duty the gov't covers 16hrs each semester and all it costs me is time to file the paperwork and the books. That doesn't include any grants or scholarships I may qualify for to pay for schooling. Earning my degree while in makes me more competitive and allows me to transfer my GI Bill to future children. My job is an Admin type job dealing with maintenance logs, work orders, technical directives and technical publications for aircraft and their parts. I'm also working on one more promotion so I can submit a package to become a commissioned officer. With a promotion I'll still be in the aviation maintenance field but obviously I would have much more responsibility than currently. Being active duty it is hard to go to school at one school to complete a degree let alone a "signature" school geared towards a certain field. Being able to complete an internship that I couldn't be hired from right after wouldn't happen until the end of my career. I've thought about staying in the aviation field when i get out but not sure what type of degree would be best to compliment my experience? A business management degree or some more related to aviation like an aeronautical engineering degree? Depending on when I get out, I will only work for 5-10yrs unless my investments completely fall out and my retirement check from the gov't wont cover my lifestyle. When I retire I'll be anywhere between 47-57 and I'm putting things in place now to make life easier later like paying off all my debt, looking into investment property and retirement property so that those wont be big expenses to deal with once I'm out. Local here I'll probably taking classes at the Tidewater Community College and or ending up with a degree from Old Dominion University.

oldcutlass

You can also look into civil service doing a similar job that you have now. Also vendors and suppliers may hire personnel leaving the military.

joe_padavano

I got a degree in Aerospace Engineering from MIT in 1980, though I concentrated in structures and mechanisms at school and early in my career. I've got the job I've wanted since I was five years old. I find it a lot of fun and have been able to work on many very cool programs and missions. I will say that I've used relatively little of the skills I learned in college. The more important part of college was that they taught you how to think. I will also say that in the field of designing and integrating systems, I've used skills I learned working on cars as much as skills I learned in school. Many "book taught" engineers have no clue about the need to leave wrench clearance, or how to deal with tolerance stackups because nothing is ever machined exactly to ideal specs.

jeffsims

I have a 5-yr BS in Mechanical Engineering. I am in the automotive industry working for Honda Manufacturing of Alabama. I have to refer back to Koda's response and ditto everything he has said. Change all his Toyota references to Honda.

Olds64

Forgive my pessimism, but I am an Army veteran so hopefully my experience can show you what not to do.

Currently, I am an Electronics Technician working for an FAA contractor with a worthless 4 year degree and an even more worthless MS degree. Don't count on a degree getting you anything once you retire unless it's from an ABTE certified full-fledged state school or an ivy leauge school. Often, veterans are targeted by "for profit" schools. Don't fall for it.

One bonus you should use is that you are a veteran. Everyone I work with in the FAA is a veteran. I've found that the technical and engineering jobs the FAA posts are "non-veterans need not apply." Ultimately, the skills I use professionally I learned as a soldier. Everything I learned in school I've either never used, or only applied outside of work.

Magna86

Yes I am purposely looking at actual brick and mortar schools that are not for profit or really for a school. Instead you are just paying for a piece of paper stating your earned a degree at a high cost and learned nothing.

Olds64

Yeah, it's a bummer that higher education is 8 up.