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Former Computer/Electrical Engineering Majors, what's your work environment like?

irishScott

irishScott

Lifer
I've read a couple billion potential job descriptions, and I'm just wondering what I'm likely to end up as. Main issue here is that aside from a mutual interest in technology I have very little in common with others in my major.

1. I am not a lab rat. If I'm going to be stuck in a windowless room 8+ hours a day, I better be working on something pretty damn exciting.

2. Only about 15% of my friends are engineers, and only about 10% of my acquaintances. I'm extremely social outside of the engineering circle, because quite honestly I have more in common with regular people than I do with said engineers. Maybe it's just my University's (Univ. of Delaware) current crop of engineering majors, but there are so many basement nerds in the department. Granted basement nerds can be cool, and I've got plenty of nerdish tendencies myself, but I can have just as much fun at a frat party as I can at a LAN party in someone's parents' basement.

So basically what I'm asking is if there's any job for someone with a CPEG degree that involves interaction with actual people and sunlight. I'm also considering a Bioengineering minor, if that makes any difference. Might eventually go into Biomedical, but that's years down the road.
 
Gotcha. Well there's always management; someone has to get out there and stick up for the lab rats and bring in projects for them to work on. As an EE "lab rat" myself, I work quite closely with 5-6 people daily at my small company. We got to show off our latest work to our clients (we do basically contract engineering work for other companies, plus our own startup company) last week which was pretty fun.

The project managers work with our clients and travel back and forth every couple of weeks or so to keep in touch.

I get a fair amount of sunlight, too. We tested out a client's old product that we have been redesigning, which consists of a wearable camera for extreme sports. So, a coworker and I took it out mountain biking a couple of times. I've done quite a bit of radio propagation testing out at the boss' house and swimming pool. Recently I've been collecting swimming data at the pool from another coworker who was a college swimmer so we're using him as our data source.

Anyway, we get to do some fun stuff. It all depends on what projects you're on and where you're working. I'm very thankful to be where I am and not stuck in a cubicle!
 
Yep, technical marketing or consulting if you want to deal with people. If you want to do computer engineering, you'll be in front of computer a lot.
I kind of like it that way, I have meetings one day a week, and the rest I can go in and out or work from home as I please. Anywhere with fast Wi-Fi can be my office. I could call into meetings too and never go to the office at all.
 
Originally posted by: Leros
Originally posted by: newnameman
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
What is CPEG? Google isn't helping me.
Click to expand...

Computer Engineering.
Click to expand...

How does CPEG = Computer Engineering? 😕
Click to expand...

ComPuter EnGineering

That is at terrible acronym though.
Click to expand...

Me, CPEG at least sounds like a word. When I hear "CE" I think "Common Era". Likewise, Chemical Engineers here are called CHEGs.
 
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: Leros
Originally posted by: newnameman
Originally posted by: irishScott
Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
What is CPEG? Google isn't helping me.
Click to expand...

Computer Engineering.
Click to expand...

How does CPEG = Computer Engineering? 😕
Click to expand...

ComPuter EnGineering

That is at terrible acronym though.
Click to expand...

Me, CPEG at least sounds like a word. When I hear "CE" I think "Common Era". Likewise, Chemical Engineers here are called CHEGs.
Click to expand...

CompE, ChemE.

CE is pronoucned sea-eee.
 
everywhere i've ever been, CE = Civil Engineer, CmpE = Computer Engineer, ChemE = Chemical Engineer.

 
My employment would make you jealous. 😛. I get to travel the planet. I get too much sun, but at the same time, see too much ocean. We are currently playing chicken with two typhoons in the area.

 
Really depends on the company & the industry you're in. Inevitably in any EE/CS/CE-type field you'll be sitting in front of a computer or lab equipment 99 % of the time. A cube or windowless office (or lab) are basically par for the course in those fields (with some lucky people having offices with windows). If you're in the defense industry and working in a classified environment, you can bet there will be no windows.

As for human interaction, I don't think that's necessarily a problem, though it really depends on your group. Inevitably you'll be part of a team which you'll be collaborating with on a very regular basis (i.e., multiple times per day). I'm currently working on a project that's mostly independent, but even so I'm talking over problems with my manager, my office-mate, and random people in the department.

If you're a social person, then perhaps more important than the work you'll be doing is the people you'll be working with, and this is something I've personally found very important. In my previous internship I worked with a relatively older group of individuals. While I got along with them pretty well, we just had very little in common, since they were all 30 years older than me (they talked about their high-school-aged kids, golf, retirement, etc.). The current group I'm in is a group of younger people, older than me but not by too much (say 5-10 years).

Anyway, in short, sunlight's gonna be hard to come by in those fields. Human interaction depends on how well you choose the group you work with.
 
I'm an electrical engineering major. Spent 15 years in industry. Been a professor in that field for the last 7+. I must like it then...
 
Originally posted by: irishScottSo basically what I'm asking is if there's any job for someone with a CPEG degree that involves interaction with actual people and sunlight.
Click to expand...

yes, at most engineering jobs you do creative or analytical work on a computer, and there ain't much sunlight.

on the other hand, e.g. Bruce McFarland, previously with WaveLoch, now with some new wave surfing company. his engineers get plenty of sunshine.

or field engineering for a company like Harris/ Farinon. plenty of sunlight. one of the top managers the company ever had, his path to the top was when the company got a job creating the analog microwave network for the Alaska pipeline. in the 1970's. a little too much sunlight there.

i had an interview for CG work at Pac Bell in 1994. the network engineer i interviewed with showed me a smorgasbord of networking technologies, including satellite dish (outdoor). 2 of the sites he showed me were satellite sites, outdoors.
 
Computer Engineering = CMPE
Civil Engineering = CE

That said, I'm an Electrical Engineer doing logistics at the moment for a DoD firm. I'm still in the first band (level 1) of salary, but I'm 3 years out of school and that'll change soon. If I didn't have so many student loans, I'd be living like a million bucks.

You sound like what I want to do. I'm actually going to go back to school here pretty soon and get my master's in CMPE (company pays for it 100%) and try the embedded software engineering route. If nothing else, I could use that degree for some Biomechanical type engineering.

I think the only way you'll not be stuck in a cube farm is if you end up doing some Field Engineering. I'm contemplating doing that in my current company in about 6 months if I decide to wait on the Master's program.

OP, why don't you shoot me an email and we can kick it sometime and I'll tell you all that I've been through and I'll let you meet some of my other engineering buddies.
 
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