JPL/NASA Anyone want to work there?

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by phrontist

Honestly I think it would be hard to have enough confidence to be a professional engineer.

It doesn't take confidence, it takes judgement. Even the PE exam is an exercise in good judgement.

Fortunately, you need to practice for several years under the authority of a more experienced engineer before you can even attempt the exam. So you have an opportunity to develop good judgement before you get into a position where you can get people hurt.

Remeber:

Good judgement is the result of Experience


Experience is the result of Poor Judgement

[Michael Hill]

I would definately love to work at NASA. It is my dream job. I am trying to get to Purdue to major in aeronautics and minor in astrophysics.

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by phrontist

Engineering is high stress though...

I think its more important to be good at what you do then to do what you want and suck at it. Engineers are the only thing preventing the technological meltdown of modern soceity. A minor mistake could kill many, many, people. Remember, with mass manufacturing, your mistake could copied millions of times.

I think I wanna be a highrise apartment engineer, nuclear power-plant engineer, or how about designing assembly lines for slaughterhouses. Yeah, those'd be a low-stress jobs

Honestly I think it would be hard to have enough confidence to be a professional engineer.

Actually, the mistakes made by California P.E.'s can be pretty dumb. Go to:
Complaint and Enforcement Information and click on one of the "Disciplinary Actions Against Licensees" to view a whole slew of idiotic mistakes made by these people. The causes seem to be mostly ignorance or ethical deficiency. Most of these are civil-engineering cases, and most of them result in gross financial inconvenience for the customer, not injury or death.

I've been fascinated to read about these cases, ever since my husband got his P.E. license (he passed the exam on his second try, after gaining more mechanical experience in one season with a FIRST team).

The Board has also stated that there is a shortage of land surveyors in California, so if someone likes working outdoors, has good spatial reasoning abilities, and doesn't want to be an engineer, he or she could look into being a surveyor.

[Adam Y.]

... I have several connections to the FBI, and would deffinately like the benefits of a federal job. I know the government would love to utilize my IST degree and Albany's field office isn't that far from home. :shhhhh:don't tell Greg

Hey I know the CIA wants engineers. I don't know why but they really really really want engineres. So much so that they were trying to recruit FIRST students at Atlanta. I got a pin and a pen light that didn't work.(I hope they don't want engineers to design pen lights.)
CIA
IRobot
Nuts and Volts or Servo Magazine
Animatronics

I think its more important to be good at what you do then to do what you want and suck at it. Engineers are the only thing preventing the technological meltdown of modern soceity. A minor mistake could kill many, many, people. Remember, with mass manufacturing, your mistake could copied millions of times.

Actually there have been many many engineering mistakes when you think about it. There have been a few arenas that I know of that collapsed. The Tacoma Narrows bridge was technically built correctly even though it collapsed. I could go on but I really can't remeber anymore.