Tonight's Thought

[Tyler d4c]

I had a passing thought of going to college once again to be a engineer or something along those lines. I hated school bad. Halfway though high school I went on work release and worked all afternoon. Would it drive me up a wall to go. I'm single live in the basement and no kids (that I know of). Have no debt.

 

[skyking1]

It is a different thing when it is of your choosing. I went at 33~40 ( the infamous 7 year associate's degree program ) and had a blast. It is your job, one that you choose and you do well at it.
When it is mandatory like high school and you are bored out of your gourd, it is hard to stay on task.

 

[JD955SC]

If you find something you like it’s a whole different ballgame

when I went back to school for my diesel degree I crushed it because I wanted to be there 100% and the material was mostly interesting as opposed to my bachelors which I had gone because I was told I had to go to get a good job (and I fell for it!)

the thing that you will likely hate about a university is the BS classes and culture While a STEM degree would mainly be made of core classes that are relevant to that degree, the general ed CRAP they stuff the requirements with is complete BS. Also the culture of your average university is nowadays packed with multicolor hair FREAKS and other scum who have never worked a day in their life but are quick to tell you how they would implement the ideal communist society by killing people like you and I off (yet they can’t decide what gender they are on a particular day). The social justice warrior crap was born and raised on college campuses so choose a university that is less about that crap (avoid liberal arts focused ones in particular) and you won’t be fighting the urge to knock some teeth out as much


Also don’t pay for what you don’t have to there are all kinds of grants and scholarships.

 

[redneckracin]

Just wanted to throw it out there. I have my B.S. in engineering and if you don't love math, don't bother. I had 4 semesters of calculus that were no joke. I did very well in high school and I had a serious wake up when I hit college. Everyone wants to be an "engineer" because it sounds cool. I like being an engineer because I enjoy finding solutions to problems. Almost every class required math as well. I had a few gen ed credits that were not math based, but they were for sure the minority.

One more thing. I did a TON of homework. I remember assignments taking 5-7 pages to show my work and take multiple hours to complete. I was seriously under prepared for the amount of homework I was required to do. The other non STEM degrees seemed to be able to float through with little effort.

 

[JD955SC]

Just wanted to throw it out there. I have my B.S. in engineering and if you don't love math, don't bother. I had 4 semesters of calculus that were no joke. I did very well in high school and I had a serious wake up when I hit college. Everyone wants to be an "engineer" because it sounds cool. I like being an engineer because I enjoy finding solutions to problems. Almost every class required math as well. I had a few gen ed credits that were not math based, but they were for sure the minority.

One more thing. I did a TON of homework. I remember assignments taking 5-7 pages to show my work and take multiple hours to complete. I was seriously under prepared for the amount of homework I was required to do. The other non STEM degrees seemed to be able to float through with little effort.

Another option if you don’t want to go through full engineering degree is to become basically a “field engineer” This is what my uncle does for Eaton, he doesn’t have a formal engineering degree but he works on custom designing giant circuit breakers and then visits sites like power plants to install and troubleshoot. They’ve sent him all kinds of places.

 

[colson04]

I can vouch for what @redneckracin stated above. I have my BS in Mechanical Engineering and it was a very intense program to accomplish in 4 years. I won't dissuade someone from doing it, I'm just shooting a fair heads up that it's not what everyone thinks. During freshman orientation, they had all the incoming freshman (1500+/- people) sitting in a large auditorium. The professor giving a speech stopped, and asked everyone to introduce themselves to the person on their left and their right. Then he stated "Two out of the three of you won't graduate with an engineering degree." Three semesters later, I realized how right he was. I had a lot of friends and acquaintances from my first year that didn't come back the next year, or changed majors to a non-engineering discipline.

That said, 12 years out of college and I have started my own, non-engineering related business. I don't regret the degree choice though as it has paid back 20 fold what I paid for it. I was even able to payoff my student loan debt within 18 months of graduating. The opportunities are certainly there.

So, single, no kids? Yeah, I would take a deep look at it and probably do it all again. Especially if you have a mind for numbers because math is the language of engineering.

 

[colson04]

Also, there are Engineering Technology degrees available. Less theory, more hands on application and still a very rewarding career. I probably would have gone this route when I was 18, if I had known it existed. By the time I learned about it, I was already excelling at the engineering program and advised by a guidance counselor not to switch majors.

 

[Tarhe Driver]

Many students are veterans, as I was. We were older, and more focused. You'll proably have several in your classes.

Georgia Southern University has a BS in Construction Management, if engineering is not your goal. They also have a good, and very large, civil engineering program.

Good luck, but keep us posted on your progress.

 

[Nige]

One more thing. I did a TON of homework. I remember assignments taking 5-7 pages to show my work and take multiple hours to complete. I was seriously under prepared for the amount of homework I was required to do.

I'll second that, as wel las the "if you don't like maths then engineering is probably not for you" school of thought.

One of the best things that I learned was to explain what I was doing using a line of text in between each line of a calculation, because in that way a mistake in calculation leading to a wrong answer on an exam paper wasn't the end of the world. Maybe only 10% of the available marks were for getting the correct answers, the other 90% were for proving that you knew the theory and how to apply it. Effectively you could get every answer wrong and still get a 90% mark on an exam paper.

 

[John C.]

I actually admire most of the young engineer scholars and young graduates. I know it is a very high bar to jump for entry into the profession. It is impressive to me that a person can take a proposed problem, design a solution in their head and put it on paper or a computer file and then see it through the manufacturing.

But for practical purposes there are those that get the ego trip as they get older and spend too much time in a chair with pencil and paper or computer screen in front of them, then refuse to acknowledge a physical impossibility of their proposed way of accomplishing something. I think the biggest issue is multiple engineers working on different parts of something with little collaboration and then pointing fingers at who they think is more wrong. The perfect example is the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

 

[Jumbo]

I received a degree in Forest Engineering in 1972. That meant I was a civil engineer with an arm load of forestry classes. I was one of thousands who got similar degrees that year, with only about 200 jobs opening that year. I went to work in the rigging, ended up hooking on a trakloader then into a gravel truck finally into a log truck. All the time work was tenuous, we built the last road to the top of the last ridge and road construction became road maintenance. I saw the end of logging as a viable career in 1978 and got into an electrical apprenticeship which I retired from with a very comfortable pension and moderately good health. As for "BS" classes in college, I loved them. Nothing was better to support an argument with a customer or an electrical engineer than to quote some philosopher. I have worked with all levels of education including one PhD. All were fun to work with and were cause for some interesting lunch conversations. Don't knock the "BS" classes, they broaden you perspective and even if you don't like the ideas promoted, they make you think. Something that is sorely lacking in many people today.

 

[Truck Shop]

A lot said above is true-Because of my position maintaining a fleet I get to deal with some engineers and some corporate on different levels.
I have found a few that don't talk much but do ask questions-and it's getting a lot more rare these days. I have sat and stood for long lengths
of time waiting for most to get done preaching their knowledge and product.

When they are done-I remind them I'm the one dealing with the design-I am the one where the rubber meets the road.