Mech Eng and EEE which one has more calculations?? 11

[maturestudent14]

I'm get bored easily with writing. I would prefer course with a lot of calculations.Between Mechanical Engineering and Electrical&Electronic Engineering(undergraduate) which has more calculations.

I know courses such as much Maths and Physics could suite me better but I'm looking other factors, like job prospects.

 

[racookpe1978]

Well, the OP will have no job at all unless he can solve at least one equation for his boss: "Can this design be sold to a real customer for more money than it costs to hire him for the period of time needed to do the design?"

It's an odd question: What the bloody hell do the colleges teach nowdays?
"How to Sit in a Computer Lab and Look at Pretty Finite Element Screenshots All Day 101, 102, 201, 202, 301, 302, 401, 402?"

 

[2dye4]

The math for mech and elect is largely the same except that ME math encounters more non linear phenomena which makes it more difficult.

Both EE and ME do advanced control system stuff which to me is the most sophisticated math I have encountered in Engineering.

If you wan't math specialize in control systems. I am still trying to get a firm grasp on that dmded Kalman filter and its control counterpart the LQR.

 

[glass99]

In respect to writing + communication - we should not discourage maturestudent14 excessively. Engineers still get hired primarily because they have technical skill. Most engineers are not super strong in the communication department, and the rest of the world does calibrate for that. In fact, if you are both semi-competent technically and have the communication ability of a normal person, you are a superstar. Elon Musk can barely string a sentence together, but he's successful enough.

 

[rotw]

" In fact, if you are both semi-competent technically and have the communication ability of a normal person, you are a superstar"

You are setting the bar really high....


"If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill".

 

[glass99]

I came of age as a professional in the late 90's where the whole technical world was fetishizing project management and minimizing technical ability. I drank the Kool Aid and spent a bunch of effort developing my empathy skills and so forth to the point where I was considering quitting engineering. There is no doubt that that human interaction is an important part of an engineer's work, but I feel like the pendulum swung too far in that direction and tech skills became undervalued. My shtick now is that I am pushier about selling non-tech people on the value of technology. The point is that you can do some amazing stuff with technology that is not obvious to a purely people person.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

My background is signal processing (and wavelet-based compression, to be more exact), one of the most math-intensive fields outside of theoretical mathematics... ask me how much calculation I do on a daily basis? Zero. If you want calculations, go into a theoretical field and you'll be content as a cat at the fireplace. But wondering how many calculations happen on a day-to-day basis when you're on the job? Spend a few years in pretty much any chosen field and you'll find it's about real work, not number-crunching... numbers are a small portion of the real work, so worrying about how much you'll get to do is like wondering what an extra 50% of 1% feels like.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[TenPenny]

In a thread about writing and communicating, I'm laughing at this part:

"we once had a very talented ECL designer who REEKED to the point where we would always attempt to interact with him upwind of the nearest A/C register, just to make sure we would pass out from the malodorous environment."

Not sure why you'd want to pass out, but on the assumption that you did want to, I don't think standing upwind of an AC register would help accomplish that.

 

[TheTick]

English teachers taught me how to write. Science teachers taught me the importance of effective written communication.

 

[1gibson]

If there was a job where you do calculations all day, someone would automate the process with a program or a spreadsheet. Then the job turns into data entry, and writing reports on the results.

 

[glass99]

In fairness though, there are decent jobs which are primarily about analysis. In my early career I worked a couple of them. I worked on a team of 5 or so guys in Detroit doing finite element analysis of car crashes. Out of 8 hours in a day, at least 7 were spent doing numbers. It was really solid nerd work, involving frequent consideration of Johnson-Cook strain rate hardening and model convergence. The pay was fine at the time at least. Even now 15 years later I spend a goodly chunk of the day with analysis, calculations, drawings, and technical research. I would say that the automation and off shoring of calculations probably reached a plateau at least 5 years ago, and there is still a lot of human work in doing analysis. There will never be a substitute for a clever engineer conceptualizing a messy physical situation in a simple way.

 

[2dye4]

One thing you will have to do regardless of EE or ME is get at least a masters degree if you want more math
in your life.

Oh and another thing. Be willing to move to where cutting edge work is being done.

Then you will find a job doing Matlab all day every day and heaven will be your reward.

 

[brandonbw]

How come the choices are between Mechanical, Electrical and Chemical? Specifically what do you mean by doing calculations? I think you are going to find all engineering uses a lot of math, its just how much can you automate to be efficient. Anytime I do calcs while my business partner is around, he always says here let me make a spreadsheet for that, because he doesn't want to do math.

B+W Engineering and Design | Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

 

[glass99]

2dye4: yes, engineers in new and progressive fields have a much better time of things than folks in mature fields. If you are just sizing up a beam/pump/transformer in an application which has been built for decades, then there is always someone who is going to be able to eyeball it.

 

[GregLocock]

I was going to point out signal processing as being one area where a good deal of real live maths is done every day, if you are developing the scripts, rather than just using them. Even more fun is the following scenario (which repeats round here, with variations, once a year on average): "we took data on X channels. N channels failed as, or before, we smashed the car into the wall (or other such scenario). How do we estimate Y?" Answers you don't give are "Buggered if I know" (Guru status instantly revoked) "Repeat the test but this time switch all the amps on" (Right on the second point, but that means some other engineer loses their test car). The right answer is "Give me all the data, and answer all my stupid questions, and let's see what we can find". As somebody said above, it's all Matlab.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[Maui]

Maturestudent14, mathematics is one of many tools that you will use to help arrive at the answers that you have been tasked to find during the course of your career. Apparently you enjoy using math. This is good. But math alone is not enough to get the job done in most cases. As others have pointed out, your communication skills (or lack of them) will have a much bigger impact on how effective you are at your job in just about any engineering role, from intern to vice president. Good communicators can get their ideas across to others easily by speaking to them or by expressing their ideas in in a clear and concise way through writing. It is an essential skill that will serve you well in your workplace.

Maui

 

[urgross]

I would say good communication skills and mathematical ability are both overrated in comparison with common sense. Doesn't help much to be able to clearly communicate that you are an idiot.

Being good at mathematics is not much of a benefit unless you have enough common sense to properly apply equations and establish boundary conditions, and research whether the work, or similar, has previously been accomplished. Why solve the Mathieu equations when there is a free app?

What helps most, I believe, is being able to work in a profession you enjoy-you'll do much better. I went to school for philosophy and hated it. Took enough English for a minor, did technical writing, speech writing, etc., and hated it. Transferred from graduate mathematics to undergraduate mechanical engineering and loved it.

 

[GregLocock]

One of Akin's rules of spacecraft design - a bad idea well presented lives to fight another day, a good idea badly presented dies at the first review.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[Signious]

If you want a nice run of math for a semester, find out if your university offers any of the following classes:

-Control Systems Engineering (without computer aided engineering)
Anyone else remember manually plotting lotus diagrams. Because I sure as hell do - I hope you like Laplace transforms.

-Computer aided engineering, computer aided manufacturing, computer aided drafting Fundamentals (Going through FEA and curve equations by hand to understand more how the computer does it).
I hope you like complex IDEs without the help of Mr. Laplace and his wonderful coordinates system.

-Fundamentals of Mechanical Systems (thermo, fluid dynamics, and heat/mass/momentum transfer all rolled into a nice, non computer aided ball).
Three words - Cameron. Hydraulic. Data.

-Any 400+ level math or physics course
Why stick to engineering when you want to have a headache. Venture out of your field and into the theoretical world. Then into the bar.


The pattern here, if you haven't caught it already, is the lack of computer aids - Any branch of engineering can be maths intensive. Talk to the professors - find the old schoolers who think that computer aided engineering is a soft skill to be learned in the workplace. Take their courses.

 

[Maui]

Actually, if you really enjoy a challenge, sign up for a senior level physics course in electromagnetic field theory. Most physics majors who are required to take this course have not had vector calculus yet. And vector calculus is a requirement for understanding the physics presented in this course. So they have to struggle with learning vector calc at the same time they try to muddle their way through Maxwell's equations. For many students it leaves your head spinning.

Maui

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Signal processing, control systems... and if you are really a glutton for punishment, try a deep course in Probability and Stochastic Methods... that'll put hair on your chest!

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com