Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat in Engineering 4

[Gian11]

Hi everyone, I am Gian. I'm a second year high school student, and planning on taking engineering major when I've graduated. My counselor teacher asked me to make this SWOT analysis on engineering jobs, and I've decided to go to engineering forums to find out from the real engineers. Can you guys help me out?

1. What's the strength on being an engineer to you? What makes it more preferable to you than the others?
2. What's the weakness?
3. What are the opportunities (chances to be successful) we could get by being an engineer?
4. What are the threats? What are the downside, or risky things about being an engineer?

Oh yeah, If I'm planning to invent or develop a new kind of transportation, which engineering major should I go for? Automotive?

Thank you so much for your help. Engineer Cheers.

 

[rb1957]

i understand why you've done this, but student posts are not allowed.

maybe its ESL, or maybe i aim low, but aiming "to invent or develop a new kind of transportation" is certainly ambitious.

personally i'd try to put some of my own words to the questions and then ask (face to face if possible, as local as possible) an engineer. i mean, you should have some thoughts of your own in response to all four questions.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[JohnRBaker]

While this is a student, it appears that he (or she) has come to Eng-Tips because most of the rest of us are real engineers and thus we're the audience that he (or she) is looking for. I'll try to respond in that manner.

1) For one thing you tend to better understand how the world around you and stuff that's in it works. This is no small thing either since many people are ignorant of what it really takes to produce even something as simple as a loaf of bread, something that I'm very familiar with having spent 14+ years designing commercial bakery equipement.

2) See number 1. There's a bit of a loss-of-innocence as it were since you DO tend to know how stuff works and so some of the mystery is lost. And then there's this problem with getting on an airplane since you know better than the people around you exactly what could go wrong at any moment ;-) And lets not forget that some will look at you as a nerd, and if and when you get married, your spouse may tend to get upset if it turns out that you CAN'T actually fix everything that breaks around the house.

3) The greatest is seeing something built and working that did NOT exist before you conceived it or helped to bring to fruition. That is a very satisfying experience. And besides, engineering tends to pay well. Now you're not necessarily going to get rich, unless you manage to invent the next iPad or some other thing that changes the world, but it reliably puts food on the table and provides support for a family.

4) The biggest threat is obsolescence, not necessarily of what you've learned or are capable of doing, but that the rest of the world moves in a different direction so you must be prepared to move with it when it makes sense. I had to do tht myself 33+ years ago when I left a traditional mechanical engineering role and moved into computer software. It may be hard for a young person to conceive of time before there was a computer in every home and on every desk or for that matter, in your pocket, but there was. I risked a lot, giving up a good job, moving my family from one side of the country to the other and starting over at 33 years old with 3 kids and a wife,, but in the end it was the best thing that I could have done, but it was still a big risk. While the fundamentals of engineering don't change the application does and so you have to be able to either keep up or know when it's time to steer another course altogether.

And one last thing, don't become so obsessed with technology that you miss what else is out there in the world, like art, books, music and just being with people and seeing new places.

I'm sure that you have seen this already but this new Apple advert says alot of things that you should listen to very carefully as this if absolutely what life is all about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyIcz7wUH0

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[TheTick]

Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat

Sounds like you're suited for a mlitary career.

 

[rb1957]

nah ... business ! (typical MBA stuff)

in my day all it was was me saying to myself ... "i want to be an aeronautical engineer" ... we didn't have "aerospace" back then !
and then "make it so" (ok, you got me; i didn't actually think that expression (which comes more a much later era) but that was the sentiment).

none of this business BS ...

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[CheckerHater]

Search dilbert.com for topics 1 thru 4.

 

[debodine]

I can relate to JohnRBaker's comment 2) about flying on aircraft. I have been in aviation 40 years and it puzzled my family members so that they once asked me why I watch plane crash investigations and read NTSB accident reports even though I have to fly on aircraft quite often. I replied to them that when I am on the aircraft, there is nothing I can do to change what happens to the aircraft and I accept that. But if I can learn something from studying the investigations of accidents, maybe I can learn something from what happened to others. Perhaps I will learn something that will allow me to insure my designs support the prevention of accidents if possible, mitigate suffering from accidents if they occur anyway and increase the chances of survival for the passengers in all cases where survival was possible.

But yea, I do think about what could happen. I always keep it to myself so I don't frighten other passengers though!

 

[iceworm]

You're thinking ahead. That is smart, ambitious, excellent thinking - I'm impressed.

I'm planning to invent or develop a new kind of transportation, which engineering major should I go for?

I am an engineer. Some pay me because they think I am a good one. I never look for "new" methods. I always look for accepted methods. IEEE papers are my friends.

You want/like new, out-of-the-box, consider Theoretical Physics - possibly a phd (non-teaching I hope). That is where a lot of the really new stuff starts.

ice

Harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction

 

[MintJulep]

If you want to develop a new form of transportation why study an old one?

 

[MintJulep]

If you want to develop a new form of transportation why study an old one?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Question debodine: When you're sitting on a plane, have you ever had to explain to someone why is it that forward of the wings, on say a 737 or 757, that there are windows that seem to be missing?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[KENAT]

Ducting?

Posting guidelines faq731-376

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[JohnRBaker]

NO, it's a bit more hairy than that.

Look at this picture of a Boeing 737 and consider where the engines are located. Now look at the 'missing' windows. Does anything come to mind?

Perhaps a cutaway of where certain moving parts of the engine are located might help you figure out why there are NO windows at those particular locations along the fuselage.

Next time you get on a commercial aircraft of this configuration, look for yourself.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[berkshire]

Just by chance could there be a large chunk of thick metal in there ?
Maybe called an anti intrusion plate?
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[berkshire]

I think we are getting away from the OPs subject.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[KENAT]

Meh, you were a lot closer in the rear seats of an MD80/DC9 etc.

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[MikeHalloran]

I'd never voluntarily sit in the compressor blade shrapnel plane.
Survivors ooze out of the tail cone.
I hate MD80s for other reasons; the ventilation is terrible, and the fuselages buckle even when they don't crash.

Gian, the best part of being an engineer is that you learn how stuff works.
Gian, thw worst part of being an engineer is that you learn how stuff works.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[rb1957]

i don't think it's rotor burst ... a piece of Al skin isn't going to stop a blade.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[moltenmetal]

Great that you're trying to make an informed decision. Go in with eyes wide open- find out what engineers actually do.

My opinion: if you understand what engineers do, and are still hesitant to pursue it as a career, then don't do it.

If you're not certain it's for you, you're probably going to be lousy at it. And if you're not going to be in the top 10% of your peers in your chosen profession, at least in school, you're going to have a tough time.

At present, stats show that most engineering grads do something other than engineering for a living. And they're not all senior management, patent lawyers or something else glamorous. Not all of them left the profession by choice- most failed to gain entry in the first place. There was a time when we could barely train enough engineers to satisfy the labour force demand for engineers' services. Those days are long, long gone. There's no shortage. But there's a glut of fresh grads with all sorts of training, not just engineers, so that's not a particularly important deciding factor.

SWOT analysis for an engineering education?

Strengths: it's a practical profession, and you don't need a PhD to be taken seriously. Go to a co-op university so you get some job experience, and be in the top 10% or even top 20% of your class, work hard and have a good attitude, and there's STILL a good chance that you'll be able to find a decent-paying job after only 4 years of uni. It's the only profession you can enter with a Bachelor's and nothing more. That's not true for law, medicine etc.

Weaknesses: it's been commoditized by too much competition on a man-hours rather than capabilities basis, and we've become satisfied as a profession to merely bill by the hour rather than demanding a piece of the value our engineering gives to our clients. Whereas we used to out-earn lawyers and doctors and accountants in the 1950s, in Canada we barely keep pace with teachers on a median salary basis adjusted for vacation etc. The other regulated professions have left us in the dust in terms of compensation. For most, it's a profession offering a really low risk to reward ratio.

Opportunities: it makes you appear to be qualified for lots of things other than engineering, apparently. It doesn't really, but shhh- don't tell anybody! And if you LOVE it, the satisfaction of seeing your own imagination in built form is worth any amount of money. But to be fair, doing what you love is its real reward- it's nothing particularly special with respect to engineering except perhaps for the size and coolness factor of the toys.

Threats: global competition. It's not just manufacturing that can be out-sourced.

 

[KENAT]

Gian11, not direct answer but to try and make up for my off topic comments...

From what I've seen being good at Math & Science in school is a necessary but insufficient prerequisite for going on to having a really satisfying career as an engineer. Many of the folks on here that complain the most seem to be people that kind of fell into engineering because they were good at math & science but don't really have that much of an interest in or passion for engineering as such.

There are exceptions, and not everyone who drifted into engineering based on being good at math & science hates it but based on multiple anecdotes it's a hypothesis I have.

So, do you have an interest in engineering - maybe you don't see it in those terms but are you interested in how things work? Do you at least occasionally take things apart to see how the function? Or perhaps you're fascinated by planes or cars or some such and their technicalities. Or perhaps you've enjoyed playing with lego and the like. Or setting up PA equipment or fiddling with some programming ...

When looking at education and career decisions you need to balance following something you enjoy with earning enough to meet your desired lifestyle requirements. Don't pick something you aren't interested in at all or even actively hate just because it offers big $. Think twice before 'following your dream' if it's going to land you on welfare.

Obviously you probably do not know enough about the field to know if you'll actually really like it, and vice versa, but do you research to get an idea what it's like and consider the points I and others have made.

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