Need Opinion on Choosing an Engineering Field

5, at least, in each category:

List your interests.

List your strengths.

List your accomplishments.

List your life's goals.

List your weaknesses.

List the things you think other people like about you.

List the things you think other people don't like about you.

Be expressive and use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation.

To which I would add: master the art of writing grant propsals and, as a working researcher, expect to spend six months out of every twelve doing this.

Sadly, the OP has plenty of goals, "travel for work, go into management, work on big, cross disciplinary projects and be part of a team. I DO NOT want to work alone at a desk all day".

Even worse, we have no clue what the OP is good at. His qualifications are, at this point, going to "Queens" for a year, where they apparently have no career counseling.

In all fairness, he knows more about what he wants to do than most undergrads. I knew what I wanted to do - electrical engineering - well before high school, but I was in the minority by far, and even though I went to a brand-name uni, my experience with career counsellors told me in short order that they didn't know WTF they were talking about - and I turned to friends' dads who were techs and engineers actually out there working in the trenches. I got my very best advice from them. If this site had been around (the Internet even more so) I would've stopped in with plenty of questions. Good ones and bad ones. I commend the OP for having the motivation to do a little research and ask questions on his own. The questions will improve with time, knowledge - and patience on our part.

"The questions will improve with time, knowledge - and patience on our part."
Knowledge is plentiful around here, but patience - not so much. With you being one of the few exceptions, that is.

Thank you but, no, I am very *impatient* to a fault. Truly. It's just that in this case the OP's questions are much like my son's. He is attending uni this coming fall and has lots of questions about what he should pursue as a major, which school is best for what, etc - he's garnered a bunch in grants and scholarships from a number of schools and has trouble making up his mind. Thing is, he likes a wide variety of things engineering and scientific, and he's good at them, but doesn't want to commit to a particular field only to discover in practice that he'd rather be doing something else. I told him, if all else fails, major in Mathematics. It's the language of Science and of Engineering and, when you know the language, you can talk to the natives.

I am often reminded that the nuances of the languages we use profoundly affects the way in which we frame and work through problems. The languages in which we are fluent don't merely provide different tools for solving problems, they shape the way we perceive problems.

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The reason I bring this up is because, sometimes the language a culture uses to talk about a subject seems to provide insight into the way that culture is dealing with that subject. Specifically, the way we describe choosing a career path is quite convoluted and seems to be an attempt to depersonalize the decision.

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'She doesn't know what she wants to do yet'. I find this construction very strange. It suggests that there is an active desire inside a person that they cannot manage to access. If someone can't perceive a want or desire, it likely doesn't exist.

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Moreover, the same generic phrase is also used when there are an abundance of interests and desires, but typically instead of explaining that the person has not yet determined which career path they will start down, the tendency is to create the mysterious unknowable third person. 'He doesn't know what he wants to do yet'..... which isn't true at all, he wants to do so many things, he just hasn't yet decided which interests should be tied in a sack and thrown in the river, so that the chosen few can grow strong.

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The world most of us consider and reflect upon is composed of words. I am not chastising anyone, merely suggesting it might be worth considering. I realize it is a common figure of speech, and that many people will argue that the phrasing doesn't really affect anything. I think it is more important than that. I certainly isn't a cure for the anxiety or uncertainty in someone choosing what to do for what seems like the remainder of their life. But using more direct language the actually coincides well with the reality of the situation might at least not add to the stress.

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As far as the OP needing an opinion on choosing an engineering field, I am in support. He clearly wants to be an engineer, so my opinion is that choosing what type of engineer he will study to become is a good thing to do.

And what did the university's guidance councilors tell you?

What about your favorite instructors? Have you asked them?

Somehow the goal morphed into environmental engineering, which was then unaccountably deleted as a duplicate thread. For environmental engineering, an internship with Sanford & Son would be just the ticket. (And far from working alone at a desk all day!)

Interestingly, 'Sanford' was Redd Foxx' actual birth name.

Go into mechanical engineering and when you come out of college, go to work for General Electric and be a field engineer on Gas and steam turbine generators. after ten years of work in the field, you either go into the office or quit and go into business for yourself and become a milliner by working for yourself. Trust me this will work if you appy yourself and learn what GE will teach you. In ten years I have made a million dollars folling this line of work.

Please report at the below thread!

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/89773/Rich-Engineers

$100k/year is not rich, at least not in the US

I seem to remember a speech that the 'All Knowing' Al Gore made, back before he launched his "Inconvenient' tour, when he was the 'water carrier' for the Clinton's; where he said that "If you make a $100k/yr - in ten years you ARE a millionaire!"

I marvel at the otherwise utter stupidity, of someone who can do math that well!

I guess the definition your 'monetary wealth' ultimately depends on who is eyeing it for tax purposes.

How did you get from engineering to making women's hats? I didn't realize there was that much profit in a one man hat making operation.

Yes, but do you still have it all?

Sounds like you need to join a branch of the armed forces as an engineering career officer.

The advice you didn't want to hear, the advice no one else is going to tell you, and the advice you will probably youthfully ignore, but repeat to someone in later years.

Get a degree for a job that is hiring and has a future and that will pay well. It is hard to follow your dreams without the means to pay for them.

Saying you love physics but choosing electrical is like saying you love swimming so you are joining the soccer team.

You have a couple years of Math ahead of you before you need to get serious about selecting which path. It is better if you can start now but that is not how it goes. Get serious about how you are going to pay for the life you want once you are out of school. Families happen.

Good Luck, cheers.

Engineers build s*&t...

What sort of stuff do you build? I suggest you go into working on that s*&t.

If I had a do-over, one time I had a chance to go for career for "The" company that makes best in high performance sailing equipment, being a racing sailor, it would have been a great fit. I had the skills match they needed and the working knowledge of the current product lines... but, alas I was just about to get married and couldn't make a major change and relocation at that time.

I work for a great place, it's all about finding a decent fit for you. Expect to switch jobs a few times, until you settle in.

There's a lot of merit in what Dwarf says in 14.

Your personal life after 'work'; daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and eventually retirement, will have a great effect on what your career path will be.

There is a price you must pay for this life style - and not just money.

Focus therefore has to be on how you pay for it, and in turn who will pay you, and what your customers get for their money.

Basically this will be for a service or a product, and here is where your input has to be valuable - and measurable (you need to be able to judge your worth).

In this modern day-and-age it is unlikely that specialising in a single engineering discipline will suffice. Your skills need to be spread over a number of sciences that combine to create a product (or service) that traditionally would have needed a number of individual engineers.

In other words, if you have academic and inter-related working knowledge of (say) four subjects then you will be valuable to an employer (or customer) if it avoids employing or using four separate engineers.

But which subjects, for you, I can't say. I guess some 'non-engineering' knowledge will become essential, such as health and safety, contract law - and finance! - you get the idea.

Queens had a great engineering physics program before, which would allow you to pursue any of your interests.

Aircraft crash investigation. Covers ALL your bases.

Oh, and guys, we have a saying here in Canada, "what do you get when you graduate from University? A job in fast food. What do you get when you graduate from Queen's? A job. Queens is very prestigious, like an Ivy League Uni in the States.