Is engineering boring? 10

[BoredEngineer]

I graduated two years ago with a Mech degree and I found school to be both fun and challenging. I loved it. Since then I’ve held two full time jobs (one with the government and the other a large defense contractor doing CAD) and I’ve found both to be unchallenging and boring - I end up finishing my work after an hour or two, then beg for additional work and ultimately stare at cubicle walls. After a couple of years of this, I’ve become awfully frustrated. I understand that I'm young and I have ALOT to learn, but I've looked around at the senior engineers and their work doesn’t seem all that exciting… Maybe this is engineering?

I would like to get my hands dirty -see what I’m good at and what I suck at. I would like an interesting, challenging and technical engineering job, but I don’t how to go about finding one without job hopping. It seems horribly inefficient for all involved. Any advice on where to go from here? Do I continue taking jobs and hope that one clicks? Go back to school and get into R&D?

 

[btrueblood]

"Personally, Mining or Geotechnical Engineering would be boring."

Until they gave you the shaft, right?

 

[MikeHalloran]

I wondered how long it would take someone else to pick up on that.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[KENAT]

Pick up on it, my second post beat him to it.

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[stanier]

Engineering is not boring. Some engineers are bores!

My take is that the world is full of dreamers, historians and the can do people.

The dreamers are actors, authors, politicians and scientists who dont actually get to the end point and throw up a million ideas in the process. Then someone has to fix on one and make it happen.

The historians cannont do anything until something has happened. When the wheel was invented someone wanted to insure or sell it. the attorney wanted to patent it and the medico heal the bloke it ran over. All this happened after the event.

The can do people. Well you guessed they are engineers. They sort the ideas into practical things and give the historians something to do. That take the science and employ their technology to better the world.

If it did not grow an engineer was behind it!

 

[PeterStock]

And there is Bioengineering for those things that grow.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services

http://www.infotechpr.net

 

[btrueblood]

"Pick up on it, my second post beat him to it. "

No, you claimed Civil Engineers. HE posted mining/geotechnical.

 

[KENAT]

They're all the same, they're involved in building targets. Actually, as I recall, at my uni they were all the same, at least for the first 2 years or so.

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[rowingengineer]

Them are fighting words.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

 

[stanier]

If you plot learning versus time it is generally a parabola. If you are bored then you are probably on the top of the parabola. Change jobs and get on the steep slope.

If you are still bored go bungy jumping, mountain climbing or base jumping. If you still bored find a Buddhist monastery. its your calling.

 

[Lion06]

I think that even if you ever got to a point where you stopped learning (this would only happen if you let it, there's so much to learn it's actually a little ridiculous), that by that point teaching (mentoring) younger engineers would take over and that's not boring either.

 

[ibertestint]

Bored?? Not, I try to update my knowledge every time I can (new documentation, software, etc)

Ibertest Internacional S.A.

http://www.ibertestint.com

 

[silverbullet1986]

i started working for a large defense contractor half a year ago. I feel what the OP posted when I'm are given 3 months to do a task that can be done in 3 days. It seems like that is how things are with govt funded projects. I notice the majority of people are IMing, surfing the Internet, or just chit chatting 80% of their time away everyday.

... on the other hand, just a mile or so away from the office, there are tradesmen and technicians who bust their ass doing labor and work real hard for their dollar who wish they can make x amount in that amount of time and effort. I feel fortunate to have it in this sense. I plan on starting my Master ME next year, and having a low stress job will def make things go easier.

 

[IRstuff]

Must be nice; we usually get it the other way around, 3 months of work to be done in 3 weeks.

TTFN

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[FeX32]

Maybe it is nice for a while. But when you realize you have been playing with your balls your whole life then you may regret that way of life. (No pun or offense intended)


Fe

 

[ExRanger]

Bored,

In my limited experience, things can get boring in a company when they are going too smoothly. For example the company is raking in profits on an existing product line where most of the bugs are already worked out, and the main focus is on slashing costs to squeeze out even more profit. If you get into a situation where a new product is being developed, or better yet put into the field for the first time, life can get interesting in a hurry. If there are problems, that's when the company will need your brain the most. But, you might get burned out with too much of this kind of thing.

I work for a company that has a lot of government contracts but we're all very busy. Not all the work is interesting of course, but there is no lack of work to go around.

 

[PeterStock]

From a sci-fi novel:

"Interesting: As in pertaning to ones death. Nothing so captures the mind than the knowledge that one is about to die."

Be careful what you ask for.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services

http://www.infotechpr.net

 

[BigInch]

Its already been said.

If things arn't exciting, you're just not going fast enough.
---Mario Andertti

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[MALK]

Being busy isn't the same as not being bored. your just too busy to notice. Thread's made me realise I must change my work to make me interested.

Lot's of engineering is boring/dull paperwork and calculation, for me once the concept of a solution is worked out I lose all interest. Unless its making parts for my bikes.

 

[moltenmetal]

malk: no offense, but I hope we NEVER hire you! Tough to be a happy engineer if you don't like to follow a conceptual solution through to its detailed conclusion...

I do hope you can find work that turns your crank, rather than just keeping you so busy that you don't notice how bored you are..

 

[HgTX]

mm--I've been the same way. It's why I didn't last in computer science or linguistics--once I saw that a solution to a problem was possible, I didn't really care about working it out for myself. The details in engineering were more interesting for some reason. But as long as MALK actually can do the work whether or not he thinks it's fun, he sounds like a good candidate for management, where he can deal with the bigger picture and leave the details for others.

Hg

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