To M.E. or not to M.E. for me...

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Posted by Chris.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monster, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.

Posted on 10/23/2000 2:26 PM MST


In Reply to: To M.E. or not to M.E. for me... posted by Ken on 10/21/2000 1:23 AM MST:



Wow - there was a lot of thought put into that. I enjoyed reading it since it sounds EXACTLY like what I used to think.

Here are my thoughts:

Andy Baker was right on the ball - development is where you want to be. That is more or less what I do at TRW for about 50% of my job. Development work can be exciting, frustrating, boring at times, thankless at times, and rewarding at other times. Overall, I wouldn't want to do anything else.

There is one thing, though, that you should consider: The more advanced degree you have, the more opportunities you will have to do development work. Not only that, but you will have more interesting opportunities with an advanced degree. Since I showed a knack for this type of thing, I was able to start doing development with only a bachelors degree, but everyone who knows me knows that I am half way to my masters degree now. After I get that, I will have even more opportunity for development. My group employs 3 PhD's who's entire jobs is development. If you get a PhD, your whole life will be devoted to expanding the envelope of technology. That can be exciting, but it can also be stressful.

My current job is in new technology development. I work on a team that is pushing the envelope of automotive safety in the area of 'smart restraints'. I've been developing an occupant classification and dynamic occupant sensing system for the past couple of years. This has been a very rewarding experience. It has also been stressful at times (and thankless at times). But in the end, it's been a great experience overall.

As Andy mentioned, there are people that post to this board that have patents. I don't have any issued yet (since it usually take a few years to get a patent issued), but I do have 12 patents pending. I've also won 3 TRW 'Patent Day Awards' for the 'best patent submission of the year' type of thing. That was probably the highlight of my (brief) technical career to date.

In summary, there is a lot of opportunity in engineering to invent new things and develop new technologies. You just have to be sure to find the right job, and an advanced degree usually helps. Also, be sure to understand everything in your subjects very thoroughly. This is the most important thing if you want to do development, This allows you to have an understanding of the 'big picture' in how an entire system works together.

If you have any questions, just ask. Your professors should have a wealth of information. Or you can e-mail me (or probably anyone on this board) if you want more details on what we do.

Regards,

Chris