OT: Career Shift - Engineering

[matthewhelmuth]

Hi all,

I've been a forum watcher for a long while and have occasionally posted over in the gallery section when I feel my bike is looking particularly pretty. I'm in my mid twenties, into cycling, have a young family, and wonder how on earth you all pay for this very expensive hobby. That and other (much more important) reasons are driving me to consider getting out of my current line of work and into a more lucrative one.

I'm a graduate of a small Midwestern liberal arts institution, and I hold a degree in religious studies. I'm currently working at a small third party undergraduate program and am at a point of transition.

I've got significant aptitude in mathematics and a strong interest in mechanical and electrical processes. I have a number of friends who are at various stages in their engineering careers and have heard from them that it's possible to get into the field without holding a degree in engineering.

I'm curious to know whether any of you are electrical or mechanical engineers (or drafters)? If so, do you mind telling me a bit about your experience of that industry? What do you think of the prospects for someone coming into the field as a self-taught drafter (perhaps with a bit of mentoring input from friends and acquaintances)? I'm thinking of taking the next nine months, buying a computer and either Solidworks or Altium, and immersing myself in one of those systems. Am I off my rocker?

Matthew

[estilley]

I'm mid 20's and a liberal arts graduate and just started my ME post-bac program. Worked retail analytics for a few years and wanted a change. Didn't do it for the money, probably would have made more in the old job track. Ended up working in an auto-shop setting while figuring out the next steps and found ME. The days are long with work, school, and riding, but it's a good life!

Best of luck!


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[elcolombiano]

I am an EE, worked 33+ years in the defense industry and retired at 55. I saw very few people do well without at least a 4 year degree. Now days they expect a masters. By far the ones with technical degrees did even better. You need to enjoy math and physics or it will be very difficult to succeed.

[slidey]

Good on you for taking the initiative enough to consider venturing out into the unknown.

However, it is the unknown to you, and so I would like you, if you wish, to give me a better idea of what context you're using to declare the below statement about having an aptitude in mathematics. In short, engineering maths is per my experience only superficially to do with numbers, a lot more to do with symbols/theorems.

As for "getting into the field without a degree", my first reaction is utter skepticism. However, feel free to disambiguate what you mean by "getting into the field". Are you talking of electrical contractor, or control systems engineer? No judgment on what a person chooses to do for their living, as long as its keeping them independent+gainfully employed, but knowing the destination helps choose a reasonable path. In other words, maybe a 2-year vocational degree, or a community college degree might be a more reasonable (time-efficient, cost-to-degree, time-to-degree, competition) path to take. Accurate personal evaluation of options is the only way to make a reasonable choice, and the above are a few dimensions to gather more data on.

Don't have to reply here, but I urge you to think along the above dimensions.

Originally Posted by matthewhelmuth

I've got significant aptitude in mathematics and a strong interest in mechanical and electrical processes. I have a number of friends who are at various stages in their engineering careers and have heard from them that it's possible to get into the field without holding a degree in engineering.

[ripvanrando]

I'm EE. Some would question whether I have ever used my degree due to the variety of work I have done over the decades from Marketing, Field Service, Quality, Regulation, procurement, Manufacturing, and various levels of management. I am now a consultant. As you can see I never did much design work although I have been on development teams and have conducted qualification studies. In my field nobody gets hired entry level with a liberal arts degree although mid-career, the degree does not matter as much. For instance a Microbiologist could move out of the lab into other roles in some firms, but at the entry level?

I have literally poured thru hundreds if not thousands of tech files/dossiers in the medical device field and other than some basic statistics, not much math is involved in my world (EE and ME).

[AngryScientist]

first off, engineering is such a broad field that anything is possible. I have an engineering degree and my career path and the choices that the degree allowed me are as big as my imagination, and i mean that. to me, being an "engineer" means your mind works in a logical way and you have good problem solving skills and an adaptable mentality.

anyway - yes, it is very possible to break into many engineering disciplines without a degree. as an adult, i think it is the right move to get your foot in the door with a good company who will let you do some work and pay to earn a higher degree. all the "big" engineering firms will hire draftsman (or whatever they call them) to do drawings, which is not a degreed job. you will need some training in mechanical design and CAD. it's a good entry level position and can get you a feel for working with an engineering/design team, and potentially allow you to pursue a higher education while you work.

that's of course only one course of action.

where do you live, and what do you actually want to do? if you've got the right attitude and are flexible, anything is possible.

[eddief]

and I'd suggest you do a ton more of it by talking to actual people working at jobs in the field. It is called informational interviewing. It is different than asking about job openings. You make appointments, request 20 minutes of a person's time, you introduce yourself, and ask them smart questions focused on getting the info you need to make a decision. Then you decide. Those folks become a part of your network and often end up being connections to jobs once you know what you want to do. You might find yourself talking to folks happy with their work...and who don't have a degree.

The tricky part, especially for introverts, is getting people to commit to talking to you. There are many career resource books that discuss this topic and tell you how to approach it.

[redir]

I would not recommend getting an engineering degree (or any degree) just because you think it's lucrative. You really should actually like the idea of being an engineer, then the money part just happens. But anyway you need the degree for almost anything today. Unemployment rate for those who hold a Bachelors degree is something like 3%. You need at least that to start. You are plenty young enough - go for it.

[Davist]

to echo the above, currently we look at people with Masters type degrees for "pure" engineering work. Figure out what part of engineering you'd like, certainly the "cloud economy" (I'm in data center power) is one of the bright spots, not hampered by commodity pricing/reliance on public $$ (like infrastructure or renewables).

I started as an EE but now have moved toward a pure technology role after sales/marketing/management path over the last couple decades.

There's certainly (I'm in Phila, though not unique nationally) a cool program with the electrical contractor's union IBEW and NECA the contractors association, where they pay you and you end up with a degree (though an associates) while learning the trade with employment benefits.

Some of the most successful people I know are in the "trades" and have moved into mgt / ownership roles. They have trouble finding qualified people in general, and I see opportunity for smart technically oriented folks like you seem to be.

As for the Solidworks/CAD stuff, there's currently opportunity for what's called "lean construction" using BIM (REVIT, what's called 4D CAD, including the time/project management aspect) type modeling for construction projects, one of our clients in San Jose has something like 150 engineers on staff just for turning out the models for this approach. As the old time-y electrical guys (GE, ABB, EATON, Schneider, Siemens) catch up, they'll need to hire folks directly for this as well, though with IT stuff, I'm guessing that it'll be "globally sourced" while the construction part will have to remain more local as a general statement.

[fa63]

My wife is an EE, my brother is an ME. I am a CE. Anyways, if you are going into drafting for money, then don't. They get paid OK but certainly nowhere close to what an engineer makes. My wife who has been an EE for 4 years supervises two drafters, both with 20+ years of experience, and she makes >50% more money than them.

If money is important, then I suggest looking into computer science. It is the hot field to be in right now, and will continue to be so for a while.

[benb]

I would think about getting into Software Engineering if this is something you want to do.

Unlike Mechanical/Electrical/Civil engineers none of us are professional engineers, almost none of us are in professional societies.

What does that mean? Lots of people who don't have a Computer Science degree (definitely the best degree for working software) at all. It's a lower barrier for sure.

I do have my CS degree, but I've worked with lots and lots of smart people who did not have one or had a liberal arts degree. Once you get your foot in the door and have a few years of experience you're fine in this field with the exception of maybe some of the big companies like Google and Amazon who are very focused on degrees and having just the right resume. (And they're really looking for mostly graduates right out of school who they can indoctrinate in their way of thinking right from the beginning.)

Just about everything pays better than religion (unless you're cut out to be a TV evangelist) so if you're really worried about money almost anything is going to be up as long as you don't go crazy and decide your true calling is really theater or music.

Others are right though.. it's more than a degree, you need to have the right mindset for a particular field and really love it to be successful. If you come into this thread thinking you want to become a mechanical engineer and you really know it my suggestion for computer software is totally off base.

The other thing with "I'm good at math" is if you do go the degree path you have to realize these fields have very high bars at good schools. You go into a top notch engineering school and you see kids who got a perfect score on the math SAT and were the class valedictorian fail out. The schooling is very very hard compared to liberal arts fields. Most of the time in math/engineering there is only one or a very small # of right answers, the professors are very tough, and there is vastly less grade inflation than in liberal arts schools. You can get into some of these fields without a degree but keep this in mind if you do go back to school. It's pretty hard to get back on that math train once you get off and a lot of these schools have "math for engineers and scientists" and "math for everyone else" and they're not the same difficulty even when they have the same course title!

[572cv]

I earned a BA in visual studies, worked in architecture and was a builder for 7 years before going back and getting a degree in civil and structural engineering. Going back to college was a hard mind shift, but once undertaken, really stimulating. I really wanted to understand fundamentally how the materials I had been working with to form a building worked, and why they worked. In other words, I was motivated by a curiousity and passion for what I was doing. I ended up with my license as an architect, after working in engineering and then architecture for a while.

Today, my feeling with respect to building sciences is that Mechanical and Electrical engineering are the most interesting and influential fields to pursue. The impact of developments in these areas on our climate, on peoples' health and on energy consumption are huge. I am pleased to see anyone discovering a passion for mechanical engineering. Engineering applies scientific understanding in a manner which is fundamentally beneficial to society. In its best examples, it can be the essence of beauty as well.

May I suggest that you thoughtfully consider what you want to achieve on a personal level, and then set yourself on a course to achieve that. That will help establish the value of different degrees, or whether you want to approach this field in a different way.

[superbowlpats]

Polish your PowerPoint skills.

[Ralph]

Any internships available that would let you get into the field you want....and then let you work up thru experience and company paid schooling? Check thru the placement office of where you graduated from...as a start.

[shovelhd]

I'm an EE. I started designing digital logic and got bored of pushing gates around. I moved into CAD support, management, and IT. IT in general is going through the race to the bottom no matter what you read. There are lots of jobs but there are 10x candidates. What employers demand today is proof. To get a sniff at a good job you need certifications and preferably an internal contact at the company. Employers, for all their screaming about not being able to find good help, are more picky now than ever. So unless you have a solid contact with a hiring manager that will take a chance on someone without a degree, you won't even get a response past the application receipt. I'm just being honest here.

It doesn't take an engineering degree to learn a CAD program, but using a CAD program doesn't make you an engineer. It's not just the math, it's the subjects you wouldn't think would matter, like materials science and thermodynamics that form the foundation of the craft. If you really want to move into engineering without an internal cheerleader, I'd suggest going back to school and getting your MS. Your undergrad doesn't matter, other than the classes you may need to take in addition to your grad classes.

Good luck.