So what's the real deal behind engineering?

[mwmorph]

My father is a bit insane and just had a fit about me being accepted into a few colleges. Instead of being happy, he is livid(screaming and pouting and generally having a tantrum) abut my acceptance into the Mechanical Engineering School, saying how once I graduate, I will be jobless and instead should have opted for the electrical Engineering school or at least a Pre-Med program. (Purdue, SUNY Stony Brook, University of Iowa and University of Pittsburgh)

He is now pissed off to the point that if I choose to enter the mechanical engineering schools, he refuses to support me in any way emotionally or financially, effectively disowning me. He has pulled this stunt before on my brother, who was disowned for a period of time for picking mechanical engineering and had to pay his way through college and currently working his way through a postgraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering.

I am just trying to figure out, how true is it that mechanical engineering is a dying field? Who has entered in mechanical engineering and found a mechanical engineering job?

I'm still probably going to go into the mechanical engineering field despite what he says and I'll pay my way through college and see how it goes but I'm starting to see why my brother went to the school school that was the furthest away from home he got accepted into.

 

[Deeko]

what the hell? your dad sounds like a lunatic, he's prepared to disown two sons for choosing mechanical engineering? Its a very good degree. Tell him not to drive cars or planes anymore, since the mechanical engineers that designed their engines are obviously morons.

 

[cirthix]

wtf?

 

[MrDudeMan]

what an idiot. i am a CE (my university program is 90%+ the exact same as EE, however) and tons of my friends are ME. we all either have jobs lined up or have been accepted into pretty high profile internships. my point is your degree has little to do with what job you get relative to how well you can apply it. i have several friends who do pretty well in school but are too lazy to learn how to apply it in real life. if you graduate ME, EE, CE, etc. it wont make a lick of difference if you cant do something useful with it. tell your dad to quit being so unreasonable. if you want to do ME, then more power to you.

edit: oh, one other thing. mechanical engineering is pretty hard, harder than EE in some ways, so i have a ton of respect for people who make it through either program. dont let your dad spoil it for you. it will take a lot of discipline and work ethic but in the end it will be worth it.

 

[WW]

your Dad doesn't realize that everything that he can buy at a store has been designed AND manufactured with the help of a mechanical engineer. I work at a high tech company and there are more MEs than EEs.

your Dad needs to get a little education.....just do a search on a job site (monster, etc) and show him the positions available....done

 

[Toastedlightly]

We!

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: Toastedlightly
We!

ChemEs are insane. :thumbsup:

edit: you edited while i was quoting

 

[BigJ]

My buddy is a MechE and he got a job right out of college making $65k fabbing chips.

 

[OS]

Originally posted by: mwmorph
My father is a bit insane and just had a fit about me being accepted into a few colleges. Instead of being happy, he is livid(screaming and pouting and generally having a tantrum) abut my acceptance into the Mechanical Engineering School, saying how once I graduate, I will be jobless and instead should have opted for the electrical Engineering school or at least a Pre-Med program. (Purdue, SUNY Stony Brook, University of Iowa and University of Pittsburgh)

He is now pissed off to the point that if I choose to enter the mechanical engineering schools, he refuses to support me in any way emotionally or financially, effectively disowning me. He has pulled this stunt before on my brother, who was disowned for a period of time for picking mechanical engineering and had to pay his way through college and currently working his way through a postgraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering.

I am just trying to figure out, how true is it that mechanical engineering is a dying field? Who has entered in mechanical engineering and found a mechanical engineering job?

I'm still probably going to go into the mechanical engineering field despite what he says and I'll pay my way through college and see how it goes but I'm starting to see why my brother went to the school school that was the furthest away from home he got accepted into.

I can't offer detailed ME field knowledge, but my cuz who graduated ME like 2-3 years ago, found a job fine at a big 3 defense company doing fluid dynamics modeling.

If nothing else, ME field will likely atleast have to replace all the coming retiring engineers just from graying demographics.

 

[Rudee]

I have a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a Petroleum Minor. Where I live - Alberta, Canada - the guys with pipeline experience are the guys who are making the big bucks. (senior pipeline engineers are getting upwards of $1300/day) however, they are away from their families for significant periods of time.

 

[PHiuR]

tell your dad a lot of people go to school for ART (like me, photography)...and that he should be happy you chose a major that can provide you a well paying job after college.

oh, your dad is a dumbass.

 

[panipoori]

May i ask what is your ethnic background

 

[PHiuR]

what is your dads occupation?

 

[MasterOfKtulu109]

Engineering (all fields, but especially mechanical) degrees are one of the best to have right now. Tell your dad to go read the U.S. News article about it. There is a shortage of engineers right now.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Putting your dad's reaction aside, no one should get too excited about identifying a particular field within engineering before their sophomore year in college. Most engineers I know changed their minds at least once between freshman year and graduation.

I entered as an aeronautical engineer, switched to mechanical, then electrical (for BS), and finally electrical power (for ME).

Good luck!

 

[KillerCharlie]

Originally posted by: PowerEngineer

Putting your dad's reaction aside, no one should get too excited about identifying a particular field within engineering before their sophomore year in college. Most engineers I know changed their minds at least once between freshman year and graduation.

I entered as an aeronautical engineer, switched to mechanical, then electrical (for BS), and finally electrical power (for ME).

Good luck!

Very true. I entered as undeclared engineering and graduated aerospace engineering.

All engineering degrees are great to have right now and the market is pretty good. Mechanical engineering tends to not get as specialized as some other types of engineering, meaning there's a huge spectrum of jobs available to you.

I'm guessing your dad is not an engineer since he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about.

 

[Yossarian]

asian huh

 

[Minjin]

I'm working on both (electrical and mechanical). I'm trying to build a broad engineering background for when I start my spacecraft manufacturing company. :thumbsup:

 

[BarneyFife]

Wow. He is trying to live his life through you.

 

[CraKaJaX]

What the hell does he have a degree in?

 

[Skunkwourk]

Originally posted by: Yossarian
asian huh

thats what I was wondering.

 

[mwmorph]

First off, thanks guys. Yeah I underst and that almost everyone have career changes in their lifetime and in the end their major is almost never their final career. I picked ME because I'm a visual mathematician. I tried some EE projects last year in my engineering projects but all it taught me was that ME come much more naturally to me so that's why I chose to apply to ME. With ME I was easilty top in my class when it came time to test our projects but with EE I as probably about or below average.

Originally posted by: panipoori
May i ask what is your ethnic background

7/8 Chinese, 1/8 Egyptian

Originally posted by: PHiuR
what is your dads occupation?

He works doing programming for targeting software for patriot missiles last time I checked but he's now got a segmented top secret clearance or whatnot, he really cant tell me anymore.

Originally posted by: CraKaJaX
What the hell does he have a degree in?

He's got a doctorate in Math, his thesis was something involved in the mapping of the Human genome project.

 

[Sukhoi]

lol your dad is a fvcking idiot. I graduated with an ME degree and I definitely have an ME related job.

And how would ME possibly be a dying field? Think about that for a minute. EVERYTHING is mechanical. Even CPU designs heavily consider heat dissipation and other mechanical things.

Your dad is one of those really booksmart people that can't figure out to put a quarter in a newspaper box right?

ME is WAY different than ECE. Do not attempt ECE if you do not like it.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Why don't you ask him why HE thinks that ME is a dying field? I would like to hear his answer.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Sukhoi
lol your dad is a fvcking idiot. I graduated with an ME degree and I definitely have an ME related job.

And how would ME possibly be a dying field? Think about that for a minute. EVERYTHING is mechanical. Even CPU designs heavily consider heat dissipation and other mechanical things.

Your dad is one of those really booksmart people that can't figure out to put a quarter in a newspaper box right?

ME is WAY different than ECE. Do not attempt ECE if you do not like it.

Well thats what I was saying, Every product you use has an ME guy working on it but he sees it as pegged solely with the "dying" US automotive industry and maybe some aircraft companies.