2 years work experience as Mech Engineer or MS in engineering?

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Andrew_ASC said:
Oh my lord... I met one test pilot named Gerry Ward at FedEx, he flew the DC-10 WASP and told me how they zapped hubble for a missile defense agency. NASA was unaware of that mission or that the plane read write data to telescope op amp. And the WASP is a known platform. I had simply asked a bunch of random people for test pilot informational interviews. Somebody's wife at a event said here you have to talk to my husband. Dude started out as a cop after having an engineering diploma in electrical engineering then went Airforce. He moaned when I asked if he liked RLC circuits.
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This is the kind of “stream of consciousness” posting that you need to learn to control. No potential employers will be interested in it.
 
one standard you'll need to get used to is signing a Non-disclosure agreement. where you can't talk about certain things. I'm sure everyone here has signed one, and has heard one story of a colleague breaking it.. Sometime even just talking to a cashier at the local Kroger can get you done in..
 
Don't ask NASA speaker people about airfoils not on PDAS. They don't take seeing coordinates without any equations for those coordinates. It's like throwing a flying squirrel into a quaint meeting room. Chaos, surprise, and panic ensues. Then they calmly state we can not answer your question at this time. Google is absolutely amazing.
 
dr wogz said:
that is probably the most sensible thing I've ever heard you say.
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The world needs trades people. They are fine professions. My son I almost 15, and he is seriously looking into plumbing, or possibly finish carpentry. He would do well at either.

Ultimately, many of us never end up doing what we thought we would, and many times not what we went to school for.

Find something you enjoy and work hard at it.
 
No technical degree can take the place of knowing how to write well and communicate effectively.
I used to watch engineering majors squirm at the thought of having to write a paper for English class.
 
markkoelsch said:
The world needs trades people. They are fine professions. My son I almost 15, and he is seriously looking into plumbing, or possibly finish carpentry. He would do well at either.

Ultimately, many of us never end up doing what we thought we would, and many times not what we went to school for.

Find something you enjoy and work hard at it.
Click to expand...

+ 1 sage advice that.
 
Andrew_ASC said:
Don't ask NASA speaker people about airfoils not on PDAS. They don't take seeing coordinates without any equations for those coordinates. It's like throwing a flying squirrel into a quaint meeting room. Chaos, surprise, and panic ensues. Then they calmly state we can not answer your question at this time. Google is absolutely amazing.
Click to expand...

Learn to focus. You have people here who have decades of experience and are willing to help you. Reciprocate by listening and staying on topic. If you can learn to do that here, you will be more apt to do it in your professional life. If you can’t do that, you won’t be taken seriously in either venue.
 
lakeroadster said:
The key to my success was staying out of upper management. I loved engineering, designing, making CAD models - then drawings, then managing the project as it went through the shop and into use by the end customer. For the last 20 years I was poked and prodded to go into upper management... but I refused to do it.
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I don't get your phobia of upper management but I relate to how you like seeing the design phase complete from raw paper idea until finished product and satisfied customer. The 3D modelling aspect I really enjoy. I guess your having too much fun designing from problems to want to deal with people, more accountability, or company policy processes. What my mom told me about management was it was a job where someone else could cost you your job by their actions at the end of the day if all the work wasn't completed by the deadline or the objectives weren't met. She learned a lot about the entire company from a starting field operation until a finished service in logistics. Her nightmare was meeting 5000 people hired per month. She kept her management job by meeting the numbers. She claimed working with people related a lot to like teaching a classroom. Her bosses and an engineer failed to meet numbers once in that same position at a company's largest air cargo freight hub. Management can expand your knowledge more if you can deal with up to twenty hour workdays and more accountability of people that may be assigned to you that do not want to work or processes that are not financially in a budget you are assigned. She used out of processes to do advertising on a limited budget and got railed a lot but she got stuff done and stayed in management for ten out of 27 years. She saw people not last three months of higher pay grade than herself. If they hate you as a manager be hated equally. Then they will say you are fair and not discriminating. Let the performance of meeting deadlines speak for itself. She did a lot of training programs with upper management, speechwriting, and also long term planning. Everyone in upper management she claimed hated the live studio filming aspect. Granted that was her opinions.

Her take on management was it wasn't design problems with numbers but more of problems with motivating, training, and listening to needs of people and making a decision that would affect the outcome globally of a situation. The problem in training she had to deal with was multiple cultural backgrounds of a diverse work group and often localized arguments would occur. Some cultural groups simply refused globalized training sessions with other groups. She had to learn to integrate the entire training sessions in a manner that pleased all. So she had this ability to see a situation and make a change until a positive outcome resulted. There were introverted personalities that do not do well in management because they could not verbally communicate a change in a timely manner to affect a situation in real time. I don't know how she literally listened to some co workers whine for four hours once on the job, but she put up with it. One thing I know my mom did not do well with was she never had that ability to know when to shut up and deal with a bad policy. People that worked with her either loved her. Or absolutely hated her. There was no in between because she was direct and blunt. Not rude or mean but too opinionated at the wrong times in meetings. She didn't meet many engineers that liked management.
 
Bat-mite said:
That is really not a bad idea. I live and work in the Washington, D.C. area, and I work with a lot of military and ex-military folks. Once you are in the military, seek out a top secret security clearance. When you leave the military, you can get a contractor job with NSA, CIA, NRO, etc. Have clearance, will work.
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What he just said x 10

I had an offer to work at a Navy missile range right out of high school after smoking the ASVAB tests. I didn't want to start out as an E-1 cleaning launch pads.
My ignorance at the time I did not know how it all worked. In the 70s all I had to have was 2 years of college under my belt and then go to OCS, I could have been a retired Navy Captain by now and working on my 2nd career in government contracting. Instead I worked construction for years, went to engineering school late in life and have done a lot from houses, to hospitals and built a nuclear power station. I joined my brother's real estate team in Alexandria, VA and have not regretted making the move. I design anything I can get my hands on: rockets, racing engines, electronics, construction, HVAC design. The curse of being an engineer, your compelled to design and build, ALL THE TIME, I love it!

What I know now I would have been a Naval officer, hands down. A great career path where you can go as far as you want, especially after you retire.
Military has some good health benefits, teaches honor, respect and focus.
What I do not enjoy is writing that check each month for private insurance at $2,950 for just me and the wife.
 
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Andrew_ASC said:
I don't get your phobia of upper management but I relate to how you like seeing the design phase complete from raw paper idea until finished product and satisfied customer. The 3D modelling aspect I really enjoy. I guess your having too much fun designing from problems to want to deal with people, more accountability, or company policy processes. What my mom told me about management was it was a job where someone else could cost you your job by their actions at the end of the day if all the work wasn't completed by the deadline or the objectives weren't met. She learned a lot about the entire company from a starting field operation until a finished service in logistics. Her nightmare was meeting 5000 people hired per month. She kept her management job by meeting the numbers. She claimed working with people related a lot to like teaching a classroom. Her bosses and an engineer failed to meet numbers once in that same position at a company's largest air cargo freight hub. Management can expand your knowledge more if you can deal with up to twenty hour workdays and more accountability of people that may be assigned to you that do not want to work or processes that are not financially in a budget you are assigned. She used out of processes to do advertising on a limited budget and got railed a lot but she got stuff done and stayed in management for ten out of 27 years. She saw people not last three months of higher pay grade than herself. If they hate you as a manager be hated equally. Then they will say you are fair and not discriminating. Let the performance of meeting deadlines speak for itself. She did a lot of training programs with upper management, speechwriting, and also long term planning. Everyone in upper management she claimed hated the live studio filming aspect. Granted that was her opinions.

Her take on management was it wasn't design problems with numbers but more of problems with motivating, training, and listening to needs of people and making a decision that would affect the outcome globally of a situation. The problem in training she had to deal with was multiple cultural backgrounds of a diverse work group and often localized arguments would occur. Some cultural groups simply refused globalized training sessions with other groups. She had to learn to integrate the entire training sessions in a manner that pleased all. So she had this ability to see a situation and make a change until a positive outcome resulted. There were introverted personalities that do not do well in management because they could not verbally communicate a change in a timely manner to affect a situation in real time. I don't know how she literally listened to some co workers whine for four hours once on the job, but she put up with it. One thing I know my mom did not do well with was she never had that ability to know when to shut up and deal with a bad policy. People that worked with her either loved her. Or absolutely hated her. There was no in between because she was direct and blunt. Not rude or mean but too opinionated at the wrong times in meetings. She didn't meet many engineers that liked management.
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What?

In a previous thread you said you could write well. I honestly gave up trying to read these two paragraphs because they are so poorly written. Several people, myself included, have stressed that engineers need to be able to communicate effectively. You need to learn how to write.
 
Andrew, some people like to move up, and eventually go into management. Some see it as an advancement. it is, sort of. I, like a few others, prefer to do the design work, and be good at designing. There is nothing wrong with being the lead engineer / designer on a project / in a company. I know I'm advancing in my department, so I get the occasional 'one off' or special project to tackle. Do I want to manage the department? No. But I do help coordinate others on the team.

Some people make good managers / bosses. Some don't. Some move into the position and motivate their subs, and get excellent results from them. Some move up and become tyrants or dictators. SOme move up for the sake of moving up, and forget where they came from..
 
One of the huge problems with management in companies is that so few people are taught how to lead. A lousy boss will make even a great job a nightmare.
 
No matter where you end up working, put aside at least 10% into IRAs or the company 401k if they offer matching funds. Start at the beginning, don't ever stop. Don't ever take out of it.

25 year old you thinks this is a waste and you can wait and start later.

55 year old you will be sitting pretty and able to retire early and live comfortably.
 
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Zeus-cat said:
What?

In a previous thread you said you could write well. I honestly gave up trying to read these two paragraphs because they are so poorly written. Several people, myself included, have stressed that engineers need to be able to communicate effectively. You need to learn how to write.
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I treat school assignments and texting on a phone differently. If you would like to see my school assignments I can post those. The forum to me is somewhere in the middle and I don't give a crap because it's a "forum" and not a formal communication letter to either a boss or a professor.
 
Mushtang said:
No matter where you end up working, put aside at least 10% into IRAs or the company 401k if they offer matching funds. Start at the beginning, don't ever stop. Don't ever take out of it.

25 year old you thinks this is a waste and you can wait and start later.

55 year old you will be sitting pretty and able to retire early and life comfortably.
Click to expand...
Is 10% enough? From those who are retiring now?
 
Andrew_ASC said:
I treat school assignments and texting on a phone differently. If you would like to see my school assignments I can post those. The forum to me is somewhere in the middle and I don't give a crap because it's a "forum" and not a formal communication letter to either a boss or a professor.
Click to expand...

That's one of your main problems right there.. And as such, you're coming across as arrogant, condescending, superior.. And, what if one of us is one of your potential employers?

if you "don't give a crap because it's a forum", then why should we put 47 posts in to help you with a question?! It makes me (us?) think that the effort you put into school & professional communications is an act, a front.. Yet, you are your true self here..
 
Andrew_ASC said:
Is 10% enough? From those who are retiring now?
Click to expand...

There's almost no such thing as "too much savings". Max out your 401K contributions if you can. Learn enough about investing to know how to allocate your investments *sensibly* (i.e. don't put it into money market fund, nor 100% into employer stock, both mistakes I've seen young'uns make).

The key is to get those contributions going as soon as you're eligible, as Mushtang suggests. That'll put you ahead of the game right from the start. So many who are new to the workforce just don't think about it until they've lost a lot of valuable time. Time and compounding returns are your best asset.
 
Andrew_ASC said:
Is 10% enough? From those who are retiring now?
Click to expand...

At the very least, contribute as much as it takes to get the maximum match from your company. If they offer a 100% match on 6% of your salary, then you really, really, really want to be contributing at least 6%. If not then you're leaving free money on the table. But try and get to the point where you're contributing the maximum allowed by the IRS. This year it's $18,500. You may not be able to put that much money away when you're starting out, but if you start with a good number, say 10% of your salary, and keep bumping that percentage up a little here and there as you get raises and promotions, then you'll hardly notice all the extra money going into your 401K. The most important thing though, is to start saving. If you get used to your paychecks that already have 10% taken out, you'll barely notice the hit.
 
dr wogz said:
Andrew, some people like to move up, and eventually go into management. Some see it as an advancement. it is, sort of. I, like a few others, prefer to do the design work, and be good at designing. There is nothing wrong with being the lead engineer / designer on a project / in a company. I know I'm advancing in my department, so I get the occasional 'one off' or special project to tackle. Do I want to manage the department? No. But I do help coordinate others on the team.

Some people make good managers / bosses. Some don't. Some move into the position and motivate their subs, and get excellent results from them. Some move up and become tyrants or dictators. SOme move up for the sake of moving up, and forget where they came from..
Click to expand...

One of the biggest mistakes engineering companies make is taking a good engineer and making them a manager. They are two completely different skill sets that one person may or may not have. I was in management for a while and was really happy to go back to being technical. If nothing else, I got 3-4 hours a week back from meetings.
 
Andrew_ASC said:
Is 10% enough? From those who are retiring now?
Click to expand...

If you start young it absolutely is but you’d be silly to stop there. There are other tricks also: max out your Roth IRA every year, if your 401k has the ability to increase your contribution automatically do it; you’ll never miss it.
The greater you contribute up front the better you’ll be.
 
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dr wogz said:
That's one of your main problems right there.. And as such, you're coming across as arrogant, condescending, superior.. And, what if one of us is one of your potential employers?

if you "don't give a crap because it's a forum", then why should we put 47 posts in to help you with a question?! It makes me (us?) think that the effort you put into school & professional communications is an act, a front.. Yet, you are your true self here..
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Another suggestion, take the Dale Carnegie Training course or at least read How to Win Friends and Influence People. This is a good idea for all of us. The earlier you start, the greater benefits you gain from it (much like the retirement accounts).
 
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Communication, both written and verbal, are key to any professional job. I don't care if you're the next Einstein, if you can't communicate clearly and professionally, then you wont get hired or keep a job for any length of time. You need to break yourself of the stream of thought process that you've shown so far. Your stream of thought style of writing will get all your communications immediately deleted and people will begin to do anything they can to bypass you. You also need to learn that sometimes it is better to keep things to yourself. There is absolutely no reason I should know that you found sabotage at a car manufacturer. Letting people know that you worked there, that you troubleshot production issues and that as a result, you increased production are all good things to share. Airing dirty laundry about the specifics in a public forum like you have in the past would be grounds for immediate termination from most large companies.

for retirement, add the maximum you can to your retirement package when you can. If the company does matching, that level should be the absolute minimum you select. My company will match up to 6% and so that first 6% I add has a guaranteed 100% return since the company matches it. Several years ago my company started to offer an option to automatically increase the contribution level every year. I selected the 1% increase annually and I never noticed it since. Now I'm at 18% and I still have over 20 years before I'll retire. When I retire, I should have well into 7 digits to retire on.
 
Andrew_ASC said:
Is 10% enough? From those who are retiring now?
Click to expand...

My wife and I maxed out all available retirement plans (401K, IRA) just a few years after we started working. I retired a few years ago at 56 and she retired at 58. I know other people near my age who say they can't even think of retiring because they don't have the money.

Our goal/budget was to live on roughly 1/3 of what we made, invest another third and the rest went for taxes (federal, state, local and property). Live BELOW your means and you will be better off financially in the long run.
 
heada said:
Communication, both written and verbal, are key to any professional job. I don't care if you're the next Einstein, if you can't communicate clearly and professionally, then you wont get hired or keep a job for any length of time. You need to break yourself of the stream of thought process that you've shown so far. Your stream of thought style of writing will get all your communications immediately deleted and people will begin to do anything they can to bypass you. You also need to learn that sometimes it is better to keep things to yourself. There is absolutely no reason I should know that you found sabotage at a car manufacturer. Letting people know that you worked there, that you troubleshot production issues and that as a result, you increased production are all good things to share. Airing dirty laundry about the specifics in a public forum like you have in the past would be grounds for immediate termination from most large companies.
Click to expand...

A far better way to communicate what you did is to talk about cost savings. I did X at car company Y and we found a way to save $120,000 a year by doing Z. Talking about specifics on a resume, especially dollars and cents, will get you noticed. I have read hundreds of resumes that said "I did some stuff and we made things a little better". Those resumes went into the pile where I would rather hire a dead dog than hire one of those people.
 
Andrew_ASC said:
I don't get your phobia of upper management...
What my mom told me about management ... She didn't meet many engineers that liked management.
Click to expand...

I got to choose between being in control of my own destiny... or dealing with people problems. Opinions vary on that being a phobia.

Sounds like your Mom is a wise gal. Maybe check back in with me and her after you've been in the trenches for 35 years.
 
Andrew_ASC said:
I treat school assignments and texting on a phone differently. If you would like to see my school assignments I can post those. The forum to me is somewhere in the middle and I don't give a crap because it's a "forum" and not a formal communication letter to either a boss or a professor.
Click to expand...

You should care. Many of your posts approach being unintelligible. You are what you practice so I suggest you write in a more organized and cohesive manner as practice.

Communications skills are likely the single most important skill you can develop.
 

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