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Unread 15-11-2003, 12:59
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Matt Reiland Matt Reiland is offline
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Re: Purdue - Engineering

Quote:
Originally posted by Clark Gilbert
I'm at Purdue right now as a freshman and I thought that Engineering at Purdue would be the thing for me, until I wasn't accepted. I had heard previously that it was a tough course, but fun at the same time. When I arrived on campus they told us during our orientations that this freshman class at Purdue was the "smartest" class ever accepted and the bar was raised for everything. Now that I look back on it near the end of my 1st semester I'm kinda glad I didn't get accepted into it. From what my friend tells me it's engineering "boot camp" and the drop out rate is incredible. One thing I did discover is a thing called Mechanical Engineer Technology. From what it sounds like it should be a lot of fun, because it's a more hands on approach to engineering.

Purdue kind of gave me the impression that actual "engineering" was for me, but now I think this aspect of "engineering" is right for me.
Clark,

Great to see some more people at Purdue. When I started at Purdue I thought engineering was the thing, however at that point I had never actually met an engineer and really didn't know what they did but it seemed right. (No FIRST back then as far as I knew '91) However after 6 semesters in EE at Purdue I began to wonder, is this for me, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life. (Purdue is very intensive into the theory, many engineers from Purdue seem destined for research) For those of you who aren't from Purdue it is probably very similar to many Universities in that there is almost nothing remotely connected to Electrical until about your third year, until then you go through Freshman engineering which is the same for all disciplines then advanced math and physics. However I am definitely more of a hands on person, math didn't bother me but it doesn't have much 'fun factor' figuring out the attraction of a single atom to a infinite plane of atoms 1 meter away My father always told me to make sure I pick a career that I enjoy going to otherwise each day will seem like an eternity. Well what did I do, I started asking around and found the Technology department at Purdue and ended up transferring to EET. Immediately instead of reading about the theory of a transistor, I was designing circuits, learning how they work and how to troubleshoot. Then I was able to get into some MET classes and CNC machine and design. Later I found classes in PLC programming and control systems to be the most interesting and thats how I ended up at GM in the Controls, Robotics, and Welding group. At first I was concerned that the BS in EET would not be held as highly as the EE degree that I was working on, however it turned out nearly opposite. Many of the EET's and MET's are actually very prepared right away for application type engineering where as many of my co-workers with straight EE degrees had no/little experience in hands-on building, programming, debugging. If I could do it again, Purdue now has a program called CIMT (Computer Integrated Manufacturing Technology) which is exactly what I do and would have been perfect. (Control Systems, Robots, Manufacturing all in one).

So is Engineering right for you? It very well might be, however don't become an engineer because your parents want you to, or someone else says it is right for you. If you want to be an engineer talk to the engineers that you get to experience FIRST with, find out if they would do it the same way if they could or what might be a better pick for your special case.

If anyone out there wants any further info from me please drop me an email I would be happy to help.
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