Engineers: What felt more rigorous/stressful? School or work?
- Thread starter yhelothar
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shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
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Work. By a million times.
Hynix was always trying to get the edge on production. We could never catch up to Korea.
Hynix was always trying to get the edge on production. We could never catch up to Korea.
Civil/Structural Engineering
In school, you are responsible only to yourself - your time, your money. At work, it's your time, but someone else's money, and I have a professional responsibility to the general public to not royally fuck up and forget to carry the 1.
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
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Its a horrid way to live.
I did it for 18 months and its one of the reasons I am not too terribly happy these days.
Depends on whether it's a small company or a large one. I use to work for a small aerospace company where I had to wear many hats just to get anything done. I was salaried and worked long 12-15hr/days and one weekend day. No OT or comp time. Definitely worst than school. Compare that to working for a larger company with a much more relax setting, way more resources + manpower, and crunch time only came during Engineering release. In that instance it was a lot less stressful than school.
PieIsAwesome
Diamond Member
- Feb 11, 2007
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Haven't graduated yet, but I work at a place as a co-op, and it is way less stressful than school. Also it can be fun.
Can't stand school anymore, can't wait to finish.
Can't stand school anymore, can't wait to finish.
Engineer
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 39,230
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Same. Although the stress here is not a 100% thing. It's on/off - up/down just like lots of other jobs. Never really felt stress in school.
I am an EE and it is easily work.
In school all you are getting are grades and if you get a project to 90%+ completion you can squeak by. Plus the vast majority of projects you do have already known and worked out solutions so there is very little chance you are completely in the weeds. It felt stressful at the time in undergrad but working for a while and going back to grad school really put it in to perspective. And that wasn't even engineering work.
In work it depends on what is happening but if schedule is king and things get messed up (through your fault or not) it gets very stressful getting things back to a good place while still maintaining schedule. On top of that you may not really know how to fix the issue while you are being asked to give estimates on when you will have it fixed. As you become more senior/trusted you get better at these estimates but they carry far more weight.
I owned the top level of a chip, last one to touch it before it went off to the fab, signed off on all the final full chip quality metrics. Even though I checked and double checked my results and had other people cross check my results waiting for the chip to come back was pretty stressful. A dead chip would cost huge in new masks not to mention slipping the tight schedule by months, enough to put the whole project in jeopardy. Plus the 130 engineers waiting to get this chip back to start testing would be pushed back. I don't care how cool and calm you are there's bound to be some stress in a situation like that especially when we had a fix at 2am the morning before we delivered so I had to whip through all the analysis and quickly reaffirm we were still good to go. Ultimately the chip worked, which shouldn't be surprising given the testing that goes into it but that's much heavier stress than any piddly little school project ever.
Now, that being said school was higher baseline stress than work but when delivering near deadlines work easily trumps school, even when things go smoothly.
In school all you are getting are grades and if you get a project to 90%+ completion you can squeak by. Plus the vast majority of projects you do have already known and worked out solutions so there is very little chance you are completely in the weeds. It felt stressful at the time in undergrad but working for a while and going back to grad school really put it in to perspective. And that wasn't even engineering work.
In work it depends on what is happening but if schedule is king and things get messed up (through your fault or not) it gets very stressful getting things back to a good place while still maintaining schedule. On top of that you may not really know how to fix the issue while you are being asked to give estimates on when you will have it fixed. As you become more senior/trusted you get better at these estimates but they carry far more weight.
I owned the top level of a chip, last one to touch it before it went off to the fab, signed off on all the final full chip quality metrics. Even though I checked and double checked my results and had other people cross check my results waiting for the chip to come back was pretty stressful. A dead chip would cost huge in new masks not to mention slipping the tight schedule by months, enough to put the whole project in jeopardy. Plus the 130 engineers waiting to get this chip back to start testing would be pushed back. I don't care how cool and calm you are there's bound to be some stress in a situation like that especially when we had a fix at 2am the morning before we delivered so I had to whip through all the analysis and quickly reaffirm we were still good to go. Ultimately the chip worked, which shouldn't be surprising given the testing that goes into it but that's much heavier stress than any piddly little school project ever.
Now, that being said school was higher baseline stress than work but when delivering near deadlines work easily trumps school, even when things go smoothly.
Imp
Lifer
- Feb 8, 2000
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Can't say... Work is hard because your job's on the line and what you make matters. School's hard because if you flunk, you have to repeat or flunk out. But you only need 60% to pass unless you plan on graduate school.
Either way, I decided a while ago that the work just isn't work the money for my field (civil). Collecting a paycheck until I figure out where I want to go, saving as much as I can in the meantime.
Either way, I decided a while ago that the work just isn't work the money for my field (civil). Collecting a paycheck until I figure out where I want to go, saving as much as I can in the meantime.
Mixolydian
Lifer
work, easily.
school is arguably more intellectually challenging (sheer amount of stuff to learn), but the workload is a joke compared to real work. in school, you get assigned a bunch of stuff and if you are fast you get it done and have all the time in the world to yourself. work work is an unending stream of stuff you need to get done and you can do it all as quickly as possible and you still won't be "done". it's all high priority and must be done as soon as possible. I work in a smaller company.
school is arguably more intellectually challenging (sheer amount of stuff to learn), but the workload is a joke compared to real work. in school, you get assigned a bunch of stuff and if you are fast you get it done and have all the time in the world to yourself. work work is an unending stream of stuff you need to get done and you can do it all as quickly as possible and you still won't be "done". it's all high priority and must be done as soon as possible. I work in a smaller company.
Red Squirrel
No Lifer
Not an engineer but I'd say school by a long shot for me and I can't imagine engineering school being any easier. In school you are constantly being bombarded with projects, deadlines, and constantly being tested and tested and tested some more, and the results of these tests have a direct impact on your future. With work, as long as you do what has to be done, normally everything works out ok. Of course the manager and staff can make a big difference. My last job was stressful because the IT manager was an asshole and always poisoning the environment, and I had to constantly walk on eggshells. My current job though is 100% stress free and I love it. I make more too.
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brianmanahan
Lifer
- Sep 2, 2006
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lol my co-ops were great too, it felt like having a life, it was fantastic
within 3 months of graduating and getting a job, i was even more stressed out than before and have been for most of the last few years
i say this as i am logging on after hours yet again to do another work-related task on my own time for free
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co-op is not real work
also the first few months of work I thought that way too. hey this is pretty cool i don't have to worry about tests and stuff. just do my work and have the rest of the day and the weekends all to myself, sweet!just you wait
WhoBeDaPlaya
Diamond Member
- Sep 15, 2000
- 7,414
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School. Then again, my PhD work was in a field that I detested, though I still did a good job of it (bunch of journals, two book chapters, two patents, conference presentations, etc.)
Do you work in design, or chip finishing? I'm at the second last part of the chain (place-and-route) and it's bad enough - can't imagine how much the designers must sh*t on you chip finishing guys
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PieIsAwesome
Diamond Member
- Feb 11, 2007
- 4,054
- 1
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co-op is not real work
just you wait
lol yes those are my thoughts. Don't spoil my dreams. D:
you could probably do that at a bigger company. small companies by nature tend to put many hats on ppl (as someone already said), have less buffering for scheduling inaccuracies and can change focuses very quickly.
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