Quote:
Originally Posted by iCurtis
That's awesome! I come from a family of hands-on engineers I've only gotten horror stories of not being allowed to touch anything. My dad worked at Raytheon, and got in trouble for moving a cart between labs after it sat unmoved for several days with a fast approaching deadline (unionized lab techs). A family friend worked at Caterpillar, and said the rule was if you were an engineer, you couldn't do anything that required two hands. (i.e. all wrenches must be turned by techs, all heavy things must be moved by techs, etc.).
I imagine this probably changes with company size (i.e. smaller companies you get lots more hands on time), but I'd imagine a fairly significant portion of engineers are hired by these larger companies.
I can't believe how much the US is throwing away it's trade infrastructure. It seems like all the schools around me have eliminated their machine/wood shops. While it's great for picking up decent equipment at cut-rate prices, it's bad for business because fewer kids get introduced to them, and don't have the opportunity to get interested in the field. Anyone with a job can (and should!) become a hobbyist machinist. 
I TA the freshman introduction to shop class at RPI. It has given me a great respect for the machine shop teachers in high school, those guys have nerves of steel.  |
Sounds like your family has been involved in manufacturing and production facilities, which is quite different from the world I (and most of my friends) are involved with, which accounts for the difference in perception. I don't have as much exposure to unions putting red tape over everything. I work for the federal gov't (whole different set of red tape), and a majority of my job revolves around working in labs or on-site. Many of my friends work for, both large and small, private companies, and most of them are the same way (lab and/or on site). At least until you reach the higher (managerial) levels, it seems many engineering jobs definitely involve a hands on factor (though not always directly constructing anything, usually more on the troubleshooting and testing side of things).