Engineers! Please share you experiences!!!

[Engineer]

1.What excites you most about engineering as a career?
I love to build stuff. Ever since I was a kid, I built stuff. I even put a sail on my littler red wagon so I could ride in it instead of pulling it around.

2. What made you decide to become an engineer?
One of my dad’s clients was an engineer from Shell Oil who was the project manager for those platform ships that go out and they sink one end of them. He saw stuff I built around the house like a fire place heat exchanger and custom suspension systems. He said “you should become an engineer” and I did.

3. In your job, how important are good communication skills (written and spoken)?
Engineers are typically not touchy-feely people. Our communication skills are usually lacking. What is important is attention to details and documentation. Depending on the type of position, your verbal and written skill requirements vary. In engineering sales, they are very important.

4. Do you primarily work alone or in teams?
I primarily work alone. We do meet and brainstorm but you usually go off and complete your assignments and present the results. Where I work right now, there are only a few engineers and we just talk over the cubical walls.

5. Is it important for an engineer to understand strength of materials concepts (stress, strain, deformations)?
Not every engineering position requires an in depth analytical knowledge of stress, strain, and deformation (or expansion/contraction ratios and galvanic cell potentials). But all engineers need to understand the concepts and keep that in mind while working.

6. What kind of engineering did you study?
I studied mechanical engineering at UCSD.

7. What kind of engineering do you do now?
Right now I do mechanical, electrical, fluid dynamic, thermal dynamic and hydraulics.

8. Where do you work now and what do you do?
I work for a Pentair company called Hypro. I work in the FoamPro division. We do the fire fighting foam proportioning equipment. I get to play with fire trucks and make lots and lots of bubbles. It’s really fun to make bubbles. Ever seen an Olympic swimming pool emptied in one minute (10,000gpm) and all that water turned into foam. That’s a lot of bubbles every minute.

[SuperJake]

I guess it is fair for me to chime in...

1. What excites you most about engineering as a career?
I really love technology. I love using high tech things, I love learning about high tech things, and I love making high tech things. I also like that what I do really has a direct, tangible impact on people's lives.

2. What made you decide to become an engineer?
I started out wanting to be an Astronaut - just like every kid growing up. Over time, I started being pulled by all of the high-tech computers that were coming out, mobile robotics was starting up, and then FIRST was just the icing on the cake. Over time I realized that I really didn't need to be an Astronaut to be happy - I just liked all of the toys they had.

3. In your job, how important are good communication skills (written and spoken)?
Communication is EXTREMELY important in my job. Especially your ability to express your ideas in words. This is how you pitch our idea to the team, or convince the people with the money that they need to spend more of it (not the easiest task in the world). Technical writing is a must if you are shooting for project management or team leader because they are the ones that write progress reports. The biggest problem I have seen is when an engineer can't translate "Engineeze" into English so the business people reading the reports can understand them.

4. Do you primarily work alone or in teams?
We primarily do things in a team setting with multiple engineering disciplines collaborating on a single project. Commonly I'll be the only mechanical engineer on a project, but I will have to work very closely with a software and electrical engineer in order to make sure my design keeps all of the magic smoke in its place.

5. Is it important for an engineer to understand strength of materials concepts (stress, strain, deformations)?
The biggest thing I got out of college was a gut feel for these types of statistics. Often times in our line of work having that strong feel for strength of materials will get 90% of your design done - then you have to do all of the calculations for critical failure points. Identifying critical failure points is also aided by your understanding of material properties and kinematics.

6. What kind of engineering did you study?
I studied Mechanical Engineering, but also dabbled slightly in Electrical Engineering.

7. What kind of engineering do you do now?
I am a Mechanical Engineer

I work for Foster-Miller as a Mechanical Engineer working in the Future Robotics group. I have been here for 1.5 years.