Mechanical Engineering
4/10/12, 07:25 AM
#21
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If you want to graduate with any sense of practical engineering, find whatever SAE teams there are at UNO and join up with one that appeals to you and appears to be well run by the students. FSAE is awesome, but I don't see a team at UNO.
4/10/12, 01:07 PM
#22
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I started an engineering degree in '71 and got through 3 years before I was 'asked' to leave the Air Force Academy. I ended up doing for a living what I had always done as a hobby - working on cars. I eventually ended up at a Ford dealership, but you could usually hear me screaming several times a day "who designed this crap". In '96 I decided to finish my BSME, going to Colorado State and graduating in '01 (as an old man). All of the above statements about no hands on or common sense are pretty much spot on. The FSAE suggestion is also a good one, although I had a guy as the previous years team captain (with a 3.85 GPA) totally bewildered as to why their car idled at 3000 RPM just because it had a torn gasket in the intake system.
I've been working in the natural gas industry since graduation and everything I learned in school is pretty much back-up for what I've always understood through practical experience. It very obvious that you have it or you don't, because when I try to explain what I think are very simple issues to guys in my office they have no concept of what I'm talking about. I spend most of my time in the field building our projects and it always blows me away that I can explain something to the guys in the field and they get it right away.
It is a great field; it is a difficult degree. Think hard right now about how you'd want to use it, and where. If you have preferences about where you want to live, that sometimes makes things difficult. I knew exactly where I wanted to live and without the EXACT job I currently have there is no way I could live there.
I've been working in the natural gas industry since graduation and everything I learned in school is pretty much back-up for what I've always understood through practical experience. It very obvious that you have it or you don't, because when I try to explain what I think are very simple issues to guys in my office they have no concept of what I'm talking about. I spend most of my time in the field building our projects and it always blows me away that I can explain something to the guys in the field and they get it right away.
It is a great field; it is a difficult degree. Think hard right now about how you'd want to use it, and where. If you have preferences about where you want to live, that sometimes makes things difficult. I knew exactly where I wanted to live and without the EXACT job I currently have there is no way I could live there.
4/10/12, 01:23 PM
#23
NTTAWWT
amen to the common sense thing.
I was on an FSAE team for a few months. They went out testing one day, and the throttle stuck coming out of a corner, and the driver ended up boiling the brakes and ruining the transmission trying to get it to stop.
When they had a meeting to determine the causes, I took about a 5 second look at the car and noted two things. One, there's not a power cutoff switch like there should be, and Two, the morons had like 8-9 different linkages for the accelerator pedal. It was ridiculous!
I was on an FSAE team for a few months. They went out testing one day, and the throttle stuck coming out of a corner, and the driver ended up boiling the brakes and ruining the transmission trying to get it to stop.
When they had a meeting to determine the causes, I took about a 5 second look at the car and noted two things. One, there's not a power cutoff switch like there should be, and Two, the morons had like 8-9 different linkages for the accelerator pedal. It was ridiculous!
4/10/12, 04:55 PM
#25
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A lot of that depends on whether you have a preference about what you want to work on / with. If you have none, the horizon is open. If you are specific, your choices start to get a bit limited to certain geographical locations.
4/10/12, 09:59 PM
#26
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Until you start working. Then places get real particular about your past experience. I've varied mine working in multiple industries. If always being able to be employed is important to you, diversification in experience is best. Some people end up doing one little thing for a long time and then they have trouble if they get downsized or the company goes out of business.
After all my years in product development I can usually figure out why and how that stuff got the way it got. Some has better reasons than others.
ME is far broader than the other engineering majors. Each school specializes in particular facets of mechanical engineering and it often shows up in the coursework.
As to equipment, like I mentioned before, using shop and manufacturing equipment doesn't fit with the insurance policies the schools have. The thing is using it is the only way to understand. So if you get people who never explored on their own time they aren't going to have a clue.
I've always gotten along good with the machinists and others because I'll listen to them. Most don't seem to even care if I agree with them, just that I listen and if I cannot accommodate their wants explain why I can't. Then sometimes they'll have a good idea that works. It's just a matter of listening and not making things unnecessarily painful for them.
The thing that get me is the sense of believing that an engineer knows what the hell is really going on with equipment. That's just from my experience with the engineers I deal with on a daily basis. It usually takes millwrights and and equipment operators to gang up on an engineer to finally talk the real world sense into these guys. They have pretty much taken all real world experience out of the engineering education. At least the ME education. Chemical, civil, electrical, really smart guys with a lot of really good ideas and reasoning. ME not so much.
As to equipment, like I mentioned before, using shop and manufacturing equipment doesn't fit with the insurance policies the schools have. The thing is using it is the only way to understand. So if you get people who never explored on their own time they aren't going to have a clue.
I've always gotten along good with the machinists and others because I'll listen to them. Most don't seem to even care if I agree with them, just that I listen and if I cannot accommodate their wants explain why I can't. Then sometimes they'll have a good idea that works. It's just a matter of listening and not making things unnecessarily painful for them.
4/10/12, 10:01 PM
#27
oo onemore thing...... dont forget once you are done, use common since and dont over analyze projects.. I work with a bunch of engineers, and we joke with them that in there college, they forgot to take Common Since 101.... Common since will fix alot of problems without over engineering it...
4/10/12, 10:23 PM
#28
I know a mechanical engineer who works at Freightliner designing different components on the trucks, and knows exactly what he's doing. Then again, my dad's boss is an ME at an electric corporation and didn't know the difference between a powerline and a cable line when he got the job. I'm just saying you can get a job at a company just by having a degree.
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