Game plan to start my own little business out of college 12

[michaelwoodcoc]

Tell me about some small engineering jobs you can do and average pay

I'm considering opening up my own practice when I graduate. I'm not chasing the money, I want the satisfaction of doing things my own way, for the better. (More on that after my questions though) I've looked up all the requirements and I should have no problem with my degree.

Questions:

How much engineering work is there in a local market? How much entry level work?

Do houses all need a mechanical engineer to sign off on them (Georgia)?

I know some states require calculations for the ideal AC unit size.

Also, there's ductwork and such that would need to be engineered for any custom house design. I'm aware that many house plans just have this stuff engineered once, so any house built from plans has minimal engineering involved.

Is it easy to bid on state government work? I already see the federal requirements need a dun & Bradstreet number, it'd take a while to get that

do larger companies ever sub out work? I live right near some aerospace companies

My background:

I have automotive experience, making custom parts, wiring, custom ECU's, etc.

my most relevant experience is HVAC. I have lots of HVAC experience from working on design bids, etc.

CAD, lots of CAD experience. 3d scanning and reverse engineering experience

Machining, including CNC, setting up my own machines/linux cnc

My inspiration

HVAC: I see so many things done just for initial cost savings. Also I see so many things where people just didn't use their heads, and so much $$ could have been saved with just a little more experience or thinking.

Automotive: Honestly I'm not sure where this field is going. I can do custom ECU's, design parts, all that stuff, and do a good job, but the performance market is shrinking a little since the fast and furious days have fizzled. Now it's mostly about stance.

I saw a manufacturing plant of dental tools. Totally automated proccess. Making the robots that moved the bits around would be easy for me. They told me they don't often need that stuff done, but when they do, the contracts are big money, and it's hard for them to find someone who can do it. My control experience, CAD experience, and everything else makes this something I really understand.

I think I can do it on my own. I really believe in that. I know it'll be very slow to grow. I may start after I graduate with the bachelors and go for my masters in something.

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

I don't suppose there's any advantage to joining Mensa? I took the practice test on their website, which was just 30 questions, then took this one, which was more comprehensive:

Each time I scored the same percentile.

There were two linguistic questions I found difficult. One was, Spell a different word using all the same letters as "INSATIABLE". I'm not in whatever academic discipline would prepare me to do well on a question like this, but, whenever you are in an area such as this and you have no idea what the answer is, you can seek analogues to previous experience or similar knowledge.

In this case, for example, I took all the letters out of insatiable and put them in order. I don't even know what these things I did are called. I combined the letters in to pairs of two, three, four, or 5 letters. I even used math. X combinations of Y letters will allow me to use 10 letters, for example.

I spent so much time on this one problem I couldn't finish everything. But in the end, I got it right.

The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is suppose someone is inexperienced. Suppose that person has a brain though, and likes putting it to use. He may come up with a method of solving a problem that has never been thought of before, and that beats all the rest. (mine doesn't beat all the rest, took way to long)

Meanwhile, those who have gone through whatever academic discipline deals with this thing specifically, will deal with it the way they were taught, which is certainly much faster than my own way.

But the point is, you don't have to know the best, easiest, or fastest method to come up with the right answer. You can just try something, and if it doesn't work, you can just try something else. The solution doesn't depend on one particular method. A method can be incapable of producing the desired solution.


So I guess what I would be thrilled to know is, what kindof things can I do with an engineering degree, by myself, which carries little risk, where I can come up with solutions in my own way, without any regard to how experts with the specific training come up with those solutions?

I need to do things where I can check or test it myself to know that the solution is really right. With some engineering jobs, you can't do that.

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

Ok final example, I guess. When I first took a psychology class, I was thinking to myself, this is going to be so hard. But it was easy as pie for the most part.

To understand any theory, how anything worked, what steps can one after another, you can just draw analogues to your own experience. You can build analogues upon analogues upon analogues. You don't have to remember all of these. Just like math, in which you don't memorize every specific example that will be on the test, you just have to know, methods of coming up with the answer.

The hard part of psychology for me was questions like this: "Name the theory invented by (this guy) that explained (this random thing)" and the name has nothing to do with the random thing. Those things are hard.

Questions like this are easy: "Name the steps of operant conditioning" because you can just look back on your experience, and figure out what they are. Or if you just know what the end of operant conditioning is, an action, you can just think :"What would make me keep doing an action?" Instantly, many posibilities, and analogues come to mind. For example, getting a reward from playing the lottery would be an example. You can just test this in your mind. 1. Advertising for lotto influenced my mind 2. I had dream I won the lotto 3. I bought a scratch off and won $30 4. this was not as much as I won in my dream so I kept playing 5. I kept playing until all of the winnings were spent. On the last ticket, I won another ticket. Then, I got the ticket I won, thinking this is it. Snake eyes. What happened in my experience?

Positive reinforcement, variable ratio reinforcement, but at the end, projecting forward from the emerging pattern I saw that there would be negative punishment. The removal of money from my wallet was a downside of continuing the behavior.

and so I didn't have to study to get an A in that class. I just listened in class to whatever the teacher was saying and took notes to an experience I had that was similar enough that if I recalled it on the test I could come up with the right answer.

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[BrianPetersen]

"what kindof things can I do with an engineering degree, by myself, which carries little risk, where I can come up with solutions in my own way, without any regard to how experts with the specific training come up with those solutions?"

Anything you could think of which fits those criteria, means anyone could do it, which means EVERYONE would do it, which means the law of supply versus demand dictates that there's no value in it.

You have to pay your dues. You have to get the experience. Short-cuts either don't work or get you in trouble. If that means you have to work for someone else for a few years to gain appropriate experience, so be it.

Do you know the phrase "you don't know what you don't know"?

The little robot cell that I mentioned above, was designed by someone who didn't know what they didn't know. The result was something that was not safe. Now that they've been shown how to do it, hopefully they know more the next time ... and hopefully the situation was handled with enough tact and diplomacy that I may have gained a future customer. Diplomacy is something else that requires experience. "You have no idea what you are doing", versus, "Hmm, that doesn't seem right. How can we fix this?"

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

^That all makes sense. Everything everyone has said here makes sense. I guess to come up with a job I would like, I'd have to make my own products, invention, or creation. In which case, it would be best to have some experience in a similar field to the thing I wanted to make. Even if it weren't, I'd need some capital for research, design, testing, etc.

I'm just the kindof guy, I guess, who hates doing the same thing twice.

With Psychology questions, you can just draw analogies to your own experience.

With math questions, you can make comparisons to what you know before, and build on these comparisons.

And there are analogies that fit many different areas of academics. Even many different disciplines.

Some people make disruptions in category after category. There were employees at apple like this that I heard about on NPR. They went from computers at some time, to designing the IPOD. They were techies, who enjoyed trying new technology, but that beginning excitement of getting the cutting edge device was always killed when they removed a product from the box, and had to charge it up for a few hours before using it. They came up with a plan to kill two birds with one stone. Since some hard drives are defective, they made a method of testing the hard drive once the IPOD was fully assembled. During testing, the battery charged and each customer got the experience of having something fully charged and ready to go out of the box. I find it fascinating that people can jump around from one area to another that is related in a way, and make an impact in two different areas. They never have to do the exact same job twice.

The general consensus seems to be after graduating, I will need to get charged out of the box before use. I can live with that. That is the experience with a lot of people. And it works. It doesn't have to be a related field, but it's better if it is. I understand that Christian von Koenigsegg, started his enterprise with money from being a frozen chicken broker.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a29667/how-christian-von-koenigsegg-built-company/

I'm just curious in this case what I can do to make money in a short time and get a sort of constant income stream. I'm guessing the typical out of college job, save $$$, buy a house when the market is down, rent it out, then I'd have the luxury of time to pursue other ideas. Looking at typical financial investments these days it doesn't seem like you can really get a lot of income from safe financial investments like CD's.

If I did a CD account with a full year's salary as a college graduate, I could get $4,000/year 25 years from now at current rates. The game plan here would be to put away lots of money for a few years.

I'm curious in these cases, how do you guys get to the point where you have the luxury of time to pursue your own ideas?

I see some great ideas on here, for example. But people say the typical "I'm working on this while working my full time job" kindof stuff. If you know someone who has the luxury of time to do whatever he wants, how did he get there?

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[IRstuff]

If you know someone who has the luxury of time to do whatever he wants, how did he get there?

He paid his dues or got a windfall.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[miningman]

Why, oh why, do so many persons who are still in college, believe that their skill set is so unique, and /or better than the remaining population, that they believe that self employment is going to give them a living upon graduation??? This is despite the advice provided on forums such as this, and yet these individuals chose to argue as to why this advice is not relevant to their special, unique circumstances. I am seeing more and more of this behaviour and I despair for the future of engineering if this trait becomes increasingly widespread.

 

[IRstuff]

One option, for someone who thinks they're too smart for books anyway, is to major in Computer Science, grab a job in Silicon Valley, pull in $200k/yr for 5 yrs, save every penny and at least semi-retire. There are bloggers that claim to have "retired" on about $300k total.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[BrianPetersen]

"I'm curious in these cases, how do you guys get to the point where you have the luxury of time to pursue your own ideas?"

I graduated from mechanical engineering in 1991. I worked for "someone else" for 18 years before landing in a position where I make my own decisions. (Easing into semi-retirement now. Still working, just saying "no" more often.)

General caution about consulting-type work: Just because you don't have fixed 9-to-5 office hours doesn't mean you're not working. "Flexible hours - which 60 do you want to work this week?" is more often how it ends up. Yes, I could often be spotted during business hours out on my motorcycle or at a coffee shop de-stressing ... but that offsets answering emails and finishing up paperwork and writing up quotations at 10 PM, or answering emails when I'm supposed to be taking a vacation day, or getting up at 4 AM to catch a 6 AM flight somewhere for a meeting and then returning home past midnight. I've been accused of "always working".

And that's if your business is successful (as ours has been). If it's not successful, you're still spending that time, but now it's on trying to drum up business, or figuring out why others are getting the work that you're not. If you think it's stressful working overtime and getting paid for it, it's even more stressful working overtime and NOT getting paid for it.

There are lots of ways for an engineering firm to not be successful:
- Not having sufficient experience to back up what you are saying about engineering matters.
- Not having sufficient experience to be able to work efficiently AND accurately.
- Not having sufficient experience to know when to say "no".
- Not having sufficient experience to know how to deal with clients and keep them coming back for more.
- Not having sufficient experience to know what you don't know - and be able to admit it.
- Not having sufficient experience to respect client's budgets and schedules.

How do you get that experience?

You work for someone else for a while.

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

Why, oh why, do so many persons who are still in college, believe that their skill set is so unique, and /or better than the remaining population, that they believe that self employment is going to give them a living upon graduation??? This is despite the advice provided on forums such as this, and yet these individuals chose to argue as to why this advice is not relevant to their special, unique circumstances. I am seeing more and more of this behaviour and I despair for the future of engineering if this trait becomes increasingly widespread.

Let me put it to you this way, unfortunately I have autism. I can do some things really good. But when I have a job, I really can not deal with workplace politics.

I am really good at some things, and I've been applying for part time jobs. I just have a really hard time making a good first impression on whoever is doing the interview. It seems very hard to land a job that requires you to leave a positive impression from talking.

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

so to put it another way: I dread leaving home every day. I don't go to the store, I utilize amazon.

I went to see some mental health professionals many years ago, and I told them my problems. It feels like anxiety when I have to talk to people. First I tried lots of anxiety drugs before finding one that helped, a little. Then they recommended therapists and psychologists since I still had symptoms.

When they told me I had autism, they told me I should just be happy because I'm good at math, and there's not much they could do because there's a lot less research out there on how to help adults. (They have some programs for adults, one called PEERS, but that's nowhere to be found around me)

So my hope and dreams is to get some kindof a job, probably from home, where I don't have to deal with people, office politics, and I don't really care how much money I make as long as it's enough.

Certainly with a degree, you can work from home and make enough money to pay a mortgage, keep your fridge stocked from Amazon fresh, keep the lights on, and everything else? Or am I pursuing the wrong degree?

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

General caution about consulting-type work: Just because you don't have fixed 9-to-5 office hours doesn't mean you're not working. "Flexible hours - which 60 do you want to work this week?"

That's already the kindof guy I am. When I worked on motorcycles, I was the mechanic who knew what I was going to be working on the next couple of days, and brought the service manuals home to study them. Your time spent at work is more productive, that way.

My highest salary doing that was 44K gross, so I think I've done 60 hour work weeks for a lot less $ than what I could do with a degree, possibly in consulting. Is that right? I think it should be easy to make more than 44K with a degree like this, no?

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[BrianPetersen]

My sympathies for your autism condition. That adds a dimension that the rest of us were not aware of, on top of the challenges already mentioned.

 

[enginesrus]

You mention you can't decide Electrical or mechanical. Which do you prefer the most? The problem with trying to work at home, outfits that are fussy about proprietary information will likely not go for that, nor any sort of secret work if it is for a government contractor. There are many jobs that can be done from home like the CNC programming, CAD, and most all computer programming. There has to be some outfits that wouldn't mind having a contract engineer working at home, it costs them less.

 

[michaelwoodcoc]

Brian, I appreciate the sentiment, but I was really only looking for some understanding of why these goals are kindof what I prefer, if that makes sense.

Enginesrus, I'm currently in school for mechanical. Before I knew much about electrical it seemed the best choice for me. I like the down to earth-ness of just seeing things. My conundrum has arisen because with some more experience with electronics and some students who are in the electrical engineering program, I've learned you can see electrical things, you just need the right tools. Oscilloscopes, for example. Being able to see what was going on made it, exciting. I'll probably stick with mechanical, and I may decide to do both. I have spoken to an advisor and it would add two semesters and a little extra to get both degrees since some of the classes are not really interchangeable.

I realize the advice shouldn't really change based on my circumstances, that the idea there is an absolute and perfect solution to my life's troubles is unrealistic, and there are probably some alternatives to the solutions I've come to hold in high regard.

I've always done my best in these circumstances:
[ol 1]
[li]smaller companies, small workgroups, preferably a little under 10, I did the best in 2 and 3 person work groups with under 10 people total employed there[/li]
[li]low turnover (I don't like getting acquainted with new people on a regular basis)and this sometimes happens at small companies that are good employers just because there's others nearby who offer higher salary[/li]
[li]no or little micromanagement. I prefer a list of things in the order they need to be done, and to kind of enjoy the silence of time to complete them[/li]
[li]not hearing much office chatter or background noise[/li]
[li]no large meetings[/li]
[/ol]

My job acquiring circumstances go like this:
[ol 1]
[li]I do good in interviews where people know about the position[/li]
[li]Ex: when I was interviewed for the motorcycle mechanic position, the guy was an ex technician. He asked me questions like :"how many volts are in a 12 volt battery?" ofcourse the answer was 12.6, and he said so many people never got that right so he stopped asking tech questions, wrapped up the interview, and went onto the next guy[/li]
[li]EX where I didn't get the job: I recieved a personality test one time, and another time I was interviewed by someone who did all the hiring who knew nothing about the job and asked I guess other employment questions[/li]
[/ol]

I'm presuming that many engineering jobs at the larger companies where I might even work in smaller groups, the hiring is done by someone from HR.
I have heard that you can have someone call before hand and explain your strengths, and it tends to make them talk about these instead of the usual questions, and that might help. I also think it might work to start at a small place and if it's not going so well just being there explain I'd prefer to work from home.

If anyone else knows somebody with similar problems, how did they find things that worked best?

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[IRstuff]

I would suggest reconsidering the possibility of computer science:
> immediate results and immediate changes
> relatively small teams, even within a larger company
> fewer interactions with other people required
> much more amenable to working at home, or remotely
> no PE license required for consulting
> lower startup costs for consulting -- much of the useful software is free

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[michaelwoodcoc]

IRstuff, thanks for the tips! I'm going to look into that

Engineering student. Electrical or mechanical, I can't decide!
Minoring in psychology

 

[SuperSalad]

With regard to the Mensa question, I have no idea how it would benefit you in your business endeavors.

My experience with Mensa is that Mensa exists to make Mensa members feel good about being in Mensa and provide an ego boost while within the hallowed congregations of Mensa. Once one steps outside of the Mensa circle, no one on planet Earth gives a s---.

Andrew H.

http://www.mototribology.com

 

[CWB1]

I've learned the best people are self taught.

I heard that a LOT growing up in the family diesel shop and again working for others' as an adult for a decade before going to school for engineering. IME, 99% of folks that is said about don't really know dink nor are successful. The other 1% has quite a bit of education and experience in a closely related niche so suggesting they are "self-taught" is a bit of a misnomer.

Condolences on your issues but if its any consolation, most here will attest there are all manner of characters in engineering. I've never known any autistic engineers (not that I ask) but I'm sure I've worked with some. I did however work previously with a very well respected senior engineer who had Tourette's complete with yipping noises et all, which made for interesting presentations in our frequently large corporate meetings. Nice guy and proof that anything can be overcome. I've also worked in many offices that resembled an episode of the "Big Bang Theory" complete with comic relief due to clumsy, nerdy engineers.

 

[IRstuff]

Autism is a spectrum, as is psychopathy; up to some fraction of the worst-case, both can be found in any work environment. Supposedly, many CEOs are psychopaths, murdering in the business sense.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[IRstuff]

As for the comment about Mensa, it's just a comment. Almost all social groups exist to make people feel good about themselves; why would anyone join a group to feel bad about themselves? Nevertheless, there are other reasons for joining such groups, such as a shared experience; just as I might join an engineering society to have a ready audience that immediately understands the ramifications of Biot's Law or constant brightness theorem.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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