This isn't really about 4runners but I've noticed that this forum seems to have a really high concentration of engineers. I'm a senior in high school and am planning on pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering at one of the 6 colleges I've applied to and am wondering if anyone has any advice for me going into college.
So post up of you are an engineer or have anything to tell me!
This will likely get moved to off topic shortly [MENTION=66316]1engineer[/MENTION]
First, congratulations on preparing to graduate and take the next step. I am a Mechanical Engineer myself with a little over 6 years out of school working for the same Fortune100 Company in 3 different roles. My views have changed dramatically in these past 6 years and I am sure they will continue to evolve as I gain more experience. I will assume that you have a baseline of the class type that is required for ME and won’t provide guidance there, only that I assume you like math?
The beauty of Mechanical engineers is that the field is extremely broad- you can be a design engineer, test and validation engineer, Manufacturing engineer and those are just a bit of what I consider "core options" once you are in industry , even more doors open. Knowing what you think you want to do out of school will help guide the school/class choices. Do you want to do actual product design and engineering calculations or do you want to use the engineering mindset to solve practical, but maybe not “cutting edge” problems? (No one job will be strictly one thing or the other)
Moving on to advice,
*I assume it is too late for this but in hindsight I wish I had taken more AP exams, both to save money and spread out course load. Although, taking Calc 1&2 in college after taking them in high school make those 2 easy A’s to get a solid start to the GPA. Speaking of, GPA is not an end all be all, I did not have a 4.0 but you do need to keep it above X level for most companies I would say 3.0-3.2 was the min. they were looking for…..obviously more is better but don’t think for a second that it’s the only thing that matters. Having been on both sides of the interview table now I will say we are much more likely to hire a 3.4-3.7GPA with some solid experience with activities, teams etc. then someone with a 4.0 and only a senior design project on the resume.
*Not sure if it’s still popular but when I went to school there was an amazing amount of folks that used websites like RateMyProfessor etc to try and get the easiest schedule possible….DO NOT DO THIS, use it as a tool to help make worthwhile decisions. There are crappy professors out there meaning not only are they bad at teaching but they are hard testers/expect a lot….avoid those. But if you just try to get the easiest schedule you are only cheating yourself out of a solid education that you are paying for.
*If you are more hands on consider schools with good outside core class activities like Baja or Formula Racing these are great because they can be lots of fun, allow you to work in a team environment and are awesome things to talk about/have on the resume. Remember as you progress in life the field gets “tougher and tougher”
*As I mentioned earlier if you have an idea of what type of job or industry you want to be in tailor your elective classes to that. Someone wanting to go into widget manufacturing will likely get little value out of a high level Dynamics class but on the other hand human factors (safety) class can give you a leg up on the current standards and how they apply. Opposite would be true if you want to design missiles and rockets for a defense contractor.
*Co-op/internship I believe these are almost required nowadays but plan on aggressively pursuing this during your college career and realize that it gives you a HUGE leg up not only for the company’s you work for but also when applying to other companies. Even though it’s fairly rare for a freshman to get one I went to the career fair to get experience talking to recruiters and selling myself etc.
*Be prepared to buckle down during the more advanced classes that may or may not have value in your career…example I found Linear algebra and Diffy Q very tough and hated them……not just because they were hard but at that point I had interned at the company I was 99% sure I would work for (and yes I did end up there) and have found ZERO practical use for that knowledge in my field and guarantee that if I took any of those exams again would bomb them. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth while it just can get a bit frustrating if you don’t see the value in those subjects and harder to focus.
*If you can, work to help put yourself through school my parents paid ~65% of school and the rest was on me. You will appreciate it more AND if possible graduating without student loans is a huge help.
*Finally, not school work related but network as much as you can. Even now, if you have a company in your area that you think has ME’s….send them a e-mail, phone call or if its small enough swing buy and explain you are thinking of going to school for it and are curious to what type of roles they have. Its encouraging that you reached out here, continue that behavior and you will be just fine.
*O, and have fun!
I have plenty of other rants about things to do/not to do when starting a career but will leave that for another time. If you have any questions feel free to PM me. I will be out of town for the weekend but will respond next week.
Thanks for reading my unusually long post, back to 4Runner stuff for me!
