Who's an engineer?

[XR6_661]

Well, I'm a step below..Civil Designer, I specialise in Stormwater, Wastewater & Water.

Love my job. And I agree with point 3 in an earlier mentioned post, it does change the way you think of things. I think my girlfriend gets frustrated when I am more excited about seeing a new stormwater headwall with some big RCBCs then looking at the scenery.

[LowEL2XR8]

I'm an Aircraft Maintenance Engineer.
Its great. Opens up so many other job oppertunites than just aircraft. Lots of guys who left the aircraft industry are snapped up by mining/automotive/marine etc.
Its a great way to go.

[Wally]

One good thing about engineering is that it you actually get to use calculus after a few years of thinking it a waste of time in high school. Once fully proficient in said maths, you dump it for nomographs and rules of thumb. :

[Wally]

Originally Posted by Ohio XB

I hope when it comes to actually getting a job based on experience that it is more valued there in Australia than it is here.

A couple years ago I went out to see how "marketable" I am. Besides other past experience I have I've also got 12 years experience in the trades, perform work beyond my job descrption (problem solve, engineer, reverse engineer, design, etc.) but I could not get a job doing what I've been doing. I can get a job at half my pay running machines in a machine shop but I am not qualified to do what I am doing without a piece of paper that says I learned about it 20 years ago, never mind I have been doing it for the past 10 or so.


Steve

No it's the same across the globe. Trade qualifications and experience are not considered equal to tertiary qualifications. Engineering here is a professional qualification that is issued under chartered rules and as such failry strict guidelines are observed for compliance. No matter that a 95 yearold engineer who went to engineering school when electricty had just been discovered and probably knew less then than a tradesman does now, he's still a professional, so long as he keeps his subscription up.

You may be better looking at enrolling in an associate engineering course and using any grandfather clauses that would give you exemptions to subjects based on practical industry experience.

[Spanrz]

My 2 cents.

I think it's "really" important to get your hands dirty really early in your quest for being an engineer (auto).
IMHO, it's probably most beneficial for your develpoment to understand what happens "on the floor"

I've been in the Earthmoving industry for nearly 20 years and have come to one conclusion.
That "some" (not all) engineers in the auto industry show too many signs of doing too much theory and not enough practical work.
The some comment, is mostly aimed at American engineers, but also applies here as well.

By means, in their wisdom of designing, it's all practical to them, but when it comes to pull apart the component and repair/replace it, it's a completely different story.

The exact point I'm making, which everyone here should have atleast gone through the pain once, is replacing a headlight bulb on the BA Falcon's.
Now explain to me, why does a simple 2 minute job take 15 minutes or longer for both sides?
I would have thought a consumable item should have easy access.
Who would have thought to change 2 lightbulbs for the sake of Roadworthyness, it takes removal of the battery and most of the intake air system.

I understand costs and why different designs happen, particularly when an easy way will cost more, but a simple thought "outside" the square can do a world of good for all.
Hence my thoughts about getting hands dirty, early.

[mcflux]

I'm a Civil Engineer (Bachelors Degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering), I work in local government as their design engineer.

My course would have set me up well for work with somewhere like DSE, a water authority, power stations/mines, etc, but I went for local govenment.

The pay (for engineering standards) is crap as there are some receptionists that earn more than I do ($50k/yr, 3rd year out of uni now, my engineering mates are earning $70k+ & have company cars, laptops, etc), but I've learned a lot of oldschool things from the senior engineers here who have diplomas rather than degrees. When you leave uni, you realise how little you actually know. I'm still a newb but I was blown away with how much knowledge I'd picked up when I was talking with a work experience kid we had in this week. Still, compared to the oldschool guys here I am still learning, and will throughout my career.

I do not have a passion for this work, and depending on the week I'm either disheartened (stuck with a problem I can't quite figure out, or sick of the project(s) I'm working on) or I enjoy the work. But, enjoyment isn't passion.

My work is 80% office 20% outdoors, the outdoors stuff is mostly pre-construction such as surveying & site inspections, site setout (locating where pegs & stringlines in the ground are to be set for a new building or something), and some post-construction stuff (redesigning something where there's a stuff-up).

The work isn't glamorous, the projects are small, but I've learned so much about roads, intersections, rail, bridges, hydraulics, drainage, environmental management (erosion, etc), floods, river systems, small buildings (construction of things like bus shelters, toilet blocks, bbq shelters), footpaths, carparks, earthworks...

I have found that I quite like surveying, and it's something I never did at uni nor have I received any formal training in, I learnt-as-I-went. Working for a rural council, it's pretty good to head up into the alpine region to spend a day or two at a lonely creek crossing, with no sound but the wind in the trees on the hilltops, taking recordings & measurements of all the features about you, looking at design considerations & mulling plans over in your head while you're working there. Some of the pics I've taken have been pretty amazing, such as one in the southern Strzeleckis about 25kms inland, and I can see the ocean from that far in.

The office work is part project management (project timelines, design & project work processes), and part design (design work based on survey data I have collected, or past designs - currently there's a job involving drawings from the 1880s), part drafting, and constantly, CONSTANTLY referring to various Australian Standards or VicRoads guidelines, etc etc. Also, looking at existing & new product catalogues for new ideas in design.

If you work in a consultancy, you'll probably find you'll specialise in a certain field yet know next to nothing about other fields. A couple of my mates are in this game. One pretty much designs estate layouts, and another just does fire water systems for buildings, mines, etc. My field covers a broad range of civil, structural, geotechnical, and environmental engineering, but it's kind of a jack-of-all-trades job rather than "mastering" one area in particular.

Also design work can be disconnected from what's actually out in the field at times. What looks good on paper might not make any sense out in the field. It helps to go out & see for yourself what you'll be designing where, or how it's meant to work, etc, rather than just sit behind a computer in the office all day. For some projects I've learnt this the hard way.

If you're genuinely interested in engineering, then that's great! I wasn't, I went into engineering due to considerable influence from my parents (had finished school, hopes & dreams of becoming a pilot were dashed after poor marks, worked at a supermarket for a while & hated it, parents continually said "go to uni, do engineering", so I did). I feel I will only ever be merely competant at my line of work, I don't think it will become a passion, and while I do feel some pride when I see a project I've designed become constructed (and marvel at other works, such as the South Gippsland Highway near Foster, that is an AMAZING road), this is just a job for me, I can't wait for the end of each day or for the weekend so I can follow my own interests.

I've probably steered a bit away from OP's topic, hope you don't mind the read.

Cheers

[mcflux]

I should add...

I'm grateful that I have my job and that my employer has invested time & money into me for training & improvement (and I'm not looking at taking off after being trained up & chasing dollars, I do like to think I have a soul). And we can't have everything, after all I could still be stuck at that supermarket earning about $5k less than I do now & still getting treated like a sh1tkicker.

It's just that sometimes I look at my schoolmates who left school in year 10, took up an apprenticeship, love their work, and now own 1 house while paying off a 2nd, have done their world trip, are married, have kids/on the way, have new cars, aren't in much debt, and are earning double what I earn. They just seem to be 10 years ahead of where I am in life, and love their work.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Ghia5L raises a point not yet covered in the thread and that is if you are considering engineering for the money then you are barking up the wrong tree. It is a poorly paid profession when you are a lowly engineer "on the floor". The money is in the management positions once you have moved up the corporate tree. And even then I imagine there is more money in the accounting and business fields.

Dont worry Ghia5L, I graduated 7 years ago and I'm still not on 70K (nowhere near it) and dont get a car. I do have a mobile phone though so I guess thats a bonus if I want to ring overseas or something lol. I do work for a small-ish company though; the engineering department spanning 2 factorys consists of 4 only design people. I am actually head engineer of my product line, but I'm also the only engineer lol.

[mcflux]

Well, it depends on where you start. If you want a government job, the work can be cruisier & is much more stable, but at the (literal) cost of less income compared to private companies. Larger private companies I should add, after all a mate of mine who graduated with a Mechatronics degree works for a small company who only pay him $40k, and he's 3 years out too. $40k!

If you're chasing money, take up a trade, people may say "oh but the pay is terrible as an apprentice", but consider this: to go to uni, you're pretty much paying each week what an apprentice earns each week, to learn. My HECS fees (which I paid as I went) came to around $30k.

The downside to taking up a trade? With the work, when it rains it pours, and then you'll have droughts. But it gives you a hell of a head start. Then later in life maybe look into a management course (or alternative career) when your body can't deal with working on site, or you get sick of it.

Powdered Toast Man, yeah I've got a mobile too, hooray for brickphones! And yeah, I'm head design engineer for the same reason :P

[Spanrz]

Originally Posted by Ghia5L

I should add...
It's just that sometimes I look at my schoolmates who left school in year 10, took up an apprenticeship, love their work, and now own 1 house while paying off a 2nd, have done their world trip, are married, have kids/on the way, have new cars, aren't in much debt, and are earning double what I earn. They just seem to be 10 years ahead of where I am in life, and love their work.

I hear this all the time. Particularly from co-workers who have done the "Mines" work. In excess of $150,000.

With my comments on the mines, the initial issue to get the above, you have to work like there's no tomorrow for 2 odd years. You are in a very harsh environment sometimes above 42 C constantly, work 14 hour days for 3 weeks on, one week off, then back at it (etc etc).
Not many people make it past the first year. You don't have a social life at all, only the pub. If your allowed to drink that is.
It's a job deep down, you "want".

I deeply know what you are talking about, as I have asked myself the same question.
I have a house, but still paying it off, I don't get the nice paypacket I wish I did.
The last few years, O/T made up 1/3 of my total wage, which it made things a bit better.
Now, if I asked for a pay rise, I'd loose my job. If I want the job, I have to deal with it.

Whilst I know one fella that "had" to work at the mines out west, simply because he got divorced and had to pay maintenance for his kids. He has no house, due to the wife getting it.
So it can work both ways for the good and the bad.
But the $150k a year with 2 houses, 3 cars, wife, 3 kids, 2 boats, 20 car garage and a partridge in a pear tree, sometimes does get "annoying".

When it comes to engineering etc, I love to talk turkey with the engineer. Swap ideas etc etc. Understand the problem better.
Usually though, when an Engineer get's involved in my line of work, it kinda relates heavily to warranty work, due to a failure.
So sometimes you get a good answer that says yes it failed because of this, but then you get the diplomatic answer of, it failed but we wont pay, or pay a certain amount, not all of it.

[mcflux]

Oh yeah, working in the mines or out west definitely is doing the hard yards!

I guess the example I had in mind was of a schoolmate who became a sparky. He stayed local, loves his work, is loaded, and has all of those things (except kids... for now)

I'm not interested in the money or the assets, I quite like my zero-debt & being relatively free if I had to up & move, but at the same time at 27 all I really have is 2ndhand furniture and two E-Series lol. And I'm not the type to waste money (E-Series jokes aside :P)

Then again, I'd hate to be locked into something like a 40 year mortgage, which so many of my younger friends are doing. I see that as a sentence, not a goal!