An alternative path? 8

[nerdster]

I am a fairly new engineer. I've been in consulting for about a year now. I'm seriously questioning whether it was a good idea to go to school for engineering, particularly civil/environmental. Had I taken my coursework in a different order, I probably would have gone for mechanical or chemical. Regardless, I have these degrees now, but am not really satisfied with my work. Do you know of any paths outside of traditional engineering careers that people with engineering degrees have successfully taken?

 

[nerdster]

Some of these answers have been insightful, helpful and encouraging, so a thank you to those. Others have been much more presumptive and rude than I expected to find in a forum like this.

 

[Lomarandil]

Doesn't really line up with your stated interest in research, but if you really want to be a jack-of-all trades and don't mind being out in the field, consider environmental engineering for a large general contractor. My wife does that and loves it.

 

[MikeHalloran]

The place where they tell you only what you want to hear, is elsewhere.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[sam74]

Sorry for the long post and rambling thoughts. Your lucky I have not started imbibing yet.

I know a guy who was valedictorian of the class behind me in high school. We both went to the same college I majored in Civil and he in Material Science and Engineering. His plan all along was to grade well which I'm sure he did and go to medical school. I believe he had the photographic memory. It was either him or the Salutatorian of his class that did.

This guy happened to be interning at a hospital in NYC when 911 happened is what I heard. He now is a doctor back in our hometown/county.

As far a Civil Engineering goes I think specializing in something is somewhat necessary especially in a consulting environment if you like earning a pay check. When the economy takes a dive it helps for you to have a specialty if your job goes south. It either gives you a dual usage at your current job or makes it easier to find another job if need be. When I say specialty I mean one of the facets that basically a masters degree can be obtained in. So that would be geotechnical, transportation, structural, and environmental from a consulting standpoint based upon my experience and might also include construction management as well.

I began working at a full services consulting engineering, architecture, surveying, landscape architecture firm straight out of college. They have plenty of employees who are not professionals when they start our will never be. They work on various projects all of which will be stamped by a licensed professional. I started in the field on a survey crew and made may way into the office and back in the field a few times for 9 years there until I got my PE and left for better pay two years before the economy got bad. In the office I worked in the civil/site department which had some association with the Transportation department. I did not however do much transpo so based on my theory I had no specialty other than civil/site which will take a large hit in a bad economy and without a specialty as a back up will make you less useful to your employer.

Also by specializing in something it does allow you to get good at it and perform those tasks quicker and more reliably which the bean counters like. I.E. they can make more money off of you. If you keep jumping around to different areas how much money are you making your employer? Sure it is more fun for you but I doubt that your employer is as concerned about your happiness as their bottom dollar. Somebody somewhere made a budget for what you are working on so you need to be able to get good at one thing before jumping into something else if you want to keep the same employer.

As I was saying earlier I spent nine years with my first employer. I was pigeon holed a lot and felt like it. But I was there long enough (paid my dues) that when I got my PE I could produce a complete set of CE plans including doing all the design, calculation, reports, estimates, and specifications and be somewhat proficient at it I had just never done it all on one project from start to finish until I switched employers. Unfortunately those skills are not as in a great demand when hardly any one is building anything in a bad economic situation unless you have lots of government contracts.


I interviewed with a guy once whose specialty was structural engineering but the economy was booming in the early 2000s so he jumped into land development and civil/site type of stuff. I'm sure that it was fun for him but he had paid his dues as a structural engineer already and had that in his bag of tricks when the economy did bust.

Myself not having a specialty in my opinion got me laid off a few times during the bad years. I more recently went to work for an electrical contractor who was looking for a CE or EE because they only have guys with mainly business degrees if any. I'm about two years in and have learned a lot about site electrical which I was unfamiliar with and I'm getting paid more than I would doing consultant CE work. But I have been applying for some recently opening CE jobs for what reason I don't know. I suppose don't want to feel like maybe I wasted 20 years between schooling, work experience, and a PE. But in a sense I have not wasted anything as I still have that experience which I suppose is why my current employer hired me. I'm just learning something new and having fun with it.

One plus of this job is ideally I was brought in to take over for the owner of the company when I got up to speed so he could look at starting other businesses.

Sorry for the rambling definitely time to imbibe now.