Future Outlooks/Options

[Arkitectus]

Hello guys,

I am a senior BSME at a top public school (in the US). I am about to graduate, but I haven't quite fixed all my plans yet, wondering if anyone had any advice. I want to do design, modeling, or stochastic modeling. My main outlooks are as follows:


[ul]
[li]Join the Air Force, try for reserves, and come back to school, go for physics (for stochastics), go active and do some time, switch to part B below[/li]
[li]Join the Air Force as active, do my minimum time, try to get into a gov contractor[/li]
[li]Enter the industry back home somewhere, and just roll.[/li]
[li]Study for the actuarial certification, look for jobs that make use of both.[/li]
[/ul]

If I seem like a try-hard, my parents are Asian lol. Anything helps, thanks

 

[JohnRBaker]

I went the Army Reserve route but only served the absolute minimum time, so no long term benefits.

As for the rest of the your scenarios, good luck...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[MintJulep]

You need a goal, or goals. Where do you want to be.

How do each of the 4 ideas you have help you get there?

 

[csk62]

If you are a senior in college you should be making your own life decisions without consulting your parents or doing things to please your parents.

You need to find a goal of where you want to be in 4 years. Then reverse engineer the path that will get you there. Having a plan is always better than no plan. Make a decision matrix based on the potential paths, etc.

The jobs you have listed are not really related to mechanical engineering. Why did you go through the trouble of getting a BSME if not using at least some of it for your desired career path?

----------------------------------
Not making a decision is a decision in itself

 

[CWB1]

Breaking this into tasks for simplicity:

Going into industry for design, the expectation today will be that you have at least a year or two of internship/coop experience and that your education is reasonably focused on design - a reasonable level of skill with 2-3 solid modelers, understanding of GD&T, basic FEA and/or CFD coursework, etc. If you do not and a career in design is the goal, then I would suggest using the time left in school wisely.

Going into the military on active duty or anything else full time will likely harm future employment opportunities in engineering. College teaches you maybe ~30% of what you need to be successful as an engineer, the rest you are expected to learn via OJT. As the first few years of a career are rather busy/intense there usually isn't much tolerance for folks who aren't 100% committed to their career decision. That said, I did eight enlisted before school and would recommend the military to anyone as a great and life-changing experience. Be aware however that it is a lifestyle, has its own unique risks to life and limb, and you will get the crap kicked out of you physically at times. The paychecks on the enlisted side suck for the first decade, then become ok'ish. On the officer side they're great, however commissioning is a difficult process. Had you joined ROTC in school you could've commissioned at graduation. Commissioning through AF OTS otherwise takes about a year on the reserve side currently and 2-3 years for active duty. Also worth mentioning is that the odds are seriously stacked against an officer completing a 20-year career on active duty due to lack of slots in the upper ranks, their bodies physically breaking down due over time, and hiring/firing cycles caused by politics. Many of the best find themselves put out at 10-15 years and have to complete 20 as a reservist or guardsman for half the pay.

Going into govt contracting or civil service as a fresh college grad is not something I would recommend in any field until you've spent a decade or so in industry. Success as a contractor is largely dependent on your individual abilities, and IME contracting companies are terrible at training employees. The govt is also terrible at training employees, but more importantly doesn't pay dink for lower-level positions. Once you are a skilled senior engineer or otherwise however, the earning potential in govt/civil service employment is phenomenal.

Going into a field other than engineering actually isnt uncommon. Someone here can point to the various studies but statistically something ~70% of engineering grads never become engineers. And yes, I did just state that you are not an engineer until you have worked in industry for exactly that reason.

Continuing on in school will earn mixed opinions. Personally I am of the opinion that a MS earned without significant industry experience is worthless and does more to harm a grad's chances of top employment.

 

[TheTick]

Go into the Air Force and... what?

If you like mind-numbing physics, see if there are any openings at Naval Reactors ("NR", might be called something else now), i.e. Admiral Rickover's old workspace. This is a different track than the typical navy nuc officer. It's office engineering work. Also a bit of a dead end for a military career, as you likely won't get enough sea time or ops time to be promoted beyond O-3.

If you want to do design, just get to it and find a good entry-level design job in a place where you can learn. Advanced degrees are not much of a plus in design. (20+ years in the field, here).

If you want to do FEA, get an advanced degree. There's no such thing as too much advanced materials or failure mode knowledge. Analysis is one of the few places I would recommend one go all the way to Ph.D. level.

If you want to be an actuary, go pound sand and die young, like all the people who will be dying from your number-crunching, health-care-denying profiteering.