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An alternative path?
8

An alternative path?

An alternative path?

(OP)
I am a fairly new engineer. I've been in consulting for about a year now. I'm seriously questioning whether it was a good idea to go to school for engineering, particularly civil/environmental. Had I taken my coursework in a different order, I probably would have gone for mechanical or chemical. Regardless, I have these degrees now, but am not really satisfied with my work. Do you know of any paths outside of traditional engineering careers that people with engineering degrees have successfully taken?

RE: An alternative path?

Many. IMHO, at its essence Engineering is "problem solving." The world is always in desperate need of people who can look at a difficult situation, think analytically, chop it up into manageable chunks, and form a plan of action to create a solution. My friend from Grad School told me about her father who got an Engineering degree and discovered it wasn't his "life's calling." He charted a course to pursue and attain a Ph.D. in Psychology and sailed that boat until he retired. I can't put a number on the quantity of people I know with an Engineering degree who successfully went into a career in Sales. When younger, I arrogantly thought they were wasting their degree. Looking back on my career, I kinda wish I had.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
www.bluetechnik.com

RE: An alternative path?

(OP)
Thanks, Tygerdawg. I tend to agree with you about the "problem solving" aspect. I just feel pigeon holed. Along those lines, I'm also getting a lot of pressure in my current workplace to pick a technical path within environmental. I don't want to be stuck in one area. I enjoy learning about all kinds of things. If you were me, how would you develop a profile and network to get potential employers to see you outside of the specialty area you're already in? Do you see what I'm saying? Most companies don't have openings for "problem solvers" and most hiring manager are there to check off specific experience boxes, rather than find a bright candidate who can learn, adapt and solve problems well.

RE: An alternative path?

Sales? I knew an engineer that hated engineering and became a sales rep for surveying equipment. He loved it.

If money is not an object, how about an environmental activist. Seriously. (But only if you love it).

Go into politics. They badly need engineers, they just don't know it.

RE: An alternative path?

Used to be that the big management consulting/accountancy companies liked eng grads - I know that with my aero degree they'd accept a much lower grade than with most non engineering degrees.

I've known a log of Engineers that went in to consultancy, sales, SW development...

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: An alternative path?

first job and less than a year, I would think that it is a bit too soon to jump off the engineering ship already. you might want to take your one years experience and look for a different engineering job before you decide to go into sales. you may find that things are completely different with Company B. believe it or not, not all civil's work on pure civil projects. For instance, you could go to work designing water or wastewater treatment plants and do mostly mechanical or chemical engineering. At just one year, don't expect that you will be doing anything but the grunt work.

RE: An alternative path?

My old flat-mate at university used his Mech Eng degree to get sponsored by a City (London) law firm through law school. The Eng degree seemed to open almost any door among my other former class-mates.

Steve

RE: An alternative path?

70% of engineering grads here end up taking those "alternative routes", so you'll be in good company. Any kind of work requiring analytical thought and a bit of math is up for grabs to an eng grad, in theory at least. Most of the ones I know, who left the profession for opportunity rather than later in their careers at the end of a boot with a pink slip in hand, are making at least as much as an engineer makes- but on average, eng grads working outside engineering in Ontario make 20% LESS than an engineer makes here- some eng grads end up in quite low paying jobs, dragging the average down. I know lots of engineering grads in undifferentiated "business" or "finance" roles, sometimes with added qualifications, sometimes not. Lots work for management consulting companies or financial auditors writing R&D tax credit applications etc. Patent law is another popular one.

I wish you the best of luck. Not sure that a switch to chem or mech would solve it for you at this point, but only you will know that for sure.

RE: An alternative path?

I know a guy with a BSME from a very nice school. Graduated at the wrong time relative to the economy, and this year was his first full-time engineering related job. He is an engineering technician. Im an entry level technician (hourly) and my projected gross income for the year is 13% lower than an entry-level engineer with Co-ops and internships and a BSME from the top state university.

I have to work overtime to get there, but I really enjoy my job.

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

RE: An alternative path?

How are you a new engineer working in consulting? It doesn't make sense. Perhaps that is where your dissatisfaction comes from. There is still plenty to learn if you specialize. You'll learn that you don't know nearly as much as you thought you did.

RE: An alternative path?

2
spciesla asks a fair question.

I worked for a well-known company of consulting engineers a little while ago, and there were a lot of very smart young engineers employed there who had never worked anywhere else. Their lack of real-world operational experience was quite striking and it showed in some of the proposals they produced. Consulting is not the ideal place for a raw graduate to learn, except perhaps if there is a design house attached to the consultancy or vice-versa.

RE: An alternative path?

(OP)
I really appreciate everyone's responses. Thank you for taking the time.

My initial post was vague, so I'll try to be a little clearer. I am not a 20 something with no experience who walked out of college into a consulting firm. I also have a language degree (BA) and several years experience working for the Federal government at management level. After this, I went back to school for engineering (BS & MS). While in school for engineering, I interned at both a municipality and a consulting firm. This isn't an issue of feeling like I know too much, or grunt work or feeling undervalued. I work on designs for different aspects of water and wastewater treatment systems. I'm finding that this area, just isn't a fit for me. While I'm interested in water treatment, I'm interested more in the research side. But I can't see a way to make a living doing research without going back for a PhD, which is not at all financially feasible for me personally. So, I am trying to get perspective on if there is a way for someone trained in civil/environmental to transition into something else - another field, but something that does not require yet more schooling. What would those paths be or look like? I don't really know.

RE: An alternative path?

Water and wastewater infrastructure rehab is a growing market. Maybe look there for something related but different.

Richard A. Cornelius, P.E.
WWW.amlinereast.com

RE: An alternative path?

The guys on Wall Street used to recruit Columbia engineering program graduates to be bankers.

Engineers can do anything. If you want an avenue into a different line of work that requires no additional schooling, consider learning Python.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: An alternative path?

Don't limit yourself to what you've only done or classes you took. When I graduated with a BS in Civil (Environmental), most of my classes were geared toward wastewater treatment. I had 1 class on air pollution, and a couple classes in geotechnical engineering. I worked for 2 years working on Air Pollution Permits, 2 years in Wastewater Compliance, and the last 20 years dealing with Hazardous Waste Permits. All of these jobs were with the State of Indiana, but each job had different challenges.

A lot of my job isn't design work, but reviewing other engineers' design. You'd be surprised how many stupid mistakes are caught because an engineer is looking at the plans & specs just because we're so detailed oriented. Additionally, we're not always overly impressed by someone having a PE who tries to force an issue without sufficient backing (especially if we have our PE's as well); but non-engineers are intimidated by engineers, especially PE.

You indicated your interest in research. You might see about jobs with the EPA or ITRC or other governmental or environmental agencies/groups. They always seem to need people to do research for conferences and regulations.

RE: An alternative path?

Cant help but agree with previous posters regarding having new engineering graduates working in consultancy. Seems like a complete oxymoron to me, and would look very unfavourably on any consultancy that sent me a recent grad to help with a problem I had identified , regardless of how much experience said recent grad had in a previous life. The degree just gives you enough knowledge on how to START being an effective engineer. Strongly suggest you go get some experience in the real world and see engineering from a company point of view. Might change your whole outlook on life. Sales might provide a salary, but do you really want to be a pedlar???

RE: An alternative path?

there may be some issues with terminology
in the mining industry and in some other countries besides the US, including Canada, a "consultant" is a term meaning a very highly qualified engineer, with a lot of experience. Usually a principal or owner of a firm. These folks charge out starting at $200 per hour or more. On the other hand, there are numerous "consulting" firms in the United States and technically, if you are employed by one of these firms and you are a degreed, registered engineer - than you would likely be also considered to be a "consultant". So with just 6 years experience, passing a test and billing out at $120 per hour, you would be able to call yourself a "consultant". At some point, many years down the road, these newbies might finally earn the title.

RE: An alternative path?

You might typically think of a consulting engineer as someone that other engineers or big companies go to to seek their expertise. That might generally be the case in more manufacturing oriented industries where the company that wants the product has in-house engineers, so if they are going to an outside source, they must need some real expertise.
When your local rec center wants a new rooftop AC unit, though, they also have to consult an engineer to have plans drawn up, etc. That engineer probably won't be someone with 30 years of experience plus a few dozen publications to his name.

RE: An alternative path?

Find something that makes you happy

Looking back over 30 years I have many friends and colleagues who are doing now something totally unrelated to their education or even past work experience

RE: An alternative path?

(OP)
Some of these answers have been insightful, helpful and encouraging, so a thank you to those. Others have been much more presumptive and rude than I expected to find in a forum like this.

RE: An alternative path?

Doesn't really line up with your stated interest in research, but if you really want to be a jack-of-all trades and don't mind being out in the field, consider environmental engineering for a large general contractor. My wife does that and loves it.

RE: An alternative path?

3
The place where they tell you only what you want to hear, is elsewhere.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: An alternative path?

Sorry for the long post and rambling thoughts. Your lucky I have not started imbibing yet.

I know a guy who was valedictorian of the class behind me in high school. We both went to the same college I majored in Civil and he in Material Science and Engineering. His plan all along was to grade well which I'm sure he did and go to medical school. I believe he had the photographic memory. It was either him or the Salutatorian of his class that did.

This guy happened to be interning at a hospital in NYC when 911 happened is what I heard. He now is a doctor back in our hometown/county.

As far a Civil Engineering goes I think specializing in something is somewhat necessary especially in a consulting environment if you like earning a pay check. When the economy takes a dive it helps for you to have a specialty if your job goes south. It either gives you a dual usage at your current job or makes it easier to find another job if need be. When I say specialty I mean one of the facets that basically a masters degree can be obtained in. So that would be geotechnical, transportation, structural, and environmental from a consulting standpoint based upon my experience and might also include construction management as well.

I began working at a full services consulting engineering, architecture, surveying, landscape architecture firm straight out of college. They have plenty of employees who are not professionals when they start our will never be. They work on various projects all of which will be stamped by a licensed professional. I started in the field on a survey crew and made may way into the office and back in the field a few times for 9 years there until I got my PE and left for better pay two years before the economy got bad. In the office I worked in the civil/site department which had some association with the Transportation department. I did not however do much transpo so based on my theory I had no specialty other than civil/site which will take a large hit in a bad economy and without a specialty as a back up will make you less useful to your employer.

Also by specializing in something it does allow you to get good at it and perform those tasks quicker and more reliably which the bean counters like. I.E. they can make more money off of you. If you keep jumping around to different areas how much money are you making your employer? Sure it is more fun for you but I doubt that your employer is as concerned about your happiness as their bottom dollar. Somebody somewhere made a budget for what you are working on so you need to be able to get good at one thing before jumping into something else if you want to keep the same employer.

As I was saying earlier I spent nine years with my first employer. I was pigeon holed a lot and felt like it. But I was there long enough (paid my dues) that when I got my PE I could produce a complete set of CE plans including doing all the design, calculation, reports, estimates, and specifications and be somewhat proficient at it I had just never done it all on one project from start to finish until I switched employers. Unfortunately those skills are not as in a great demand when hardly any one is building anything in a bad economic situation unless you have lots of government contracts.


I interviewed with a guy once whose specialty was structural engineering but the economy was booming in the early 2000s so he jumped into land development and civil/site type of stuff. I'm sure that it was fun for him but he had paid his dues as a structural engineer already and had that in his bag of tricks when the economy did bust.

Myself not having a specialty in my opinion got me laid off a few times during the bad years. I more recently went to work for an electrical contractor who was looking for a CE or EE because they only have guys with mainly business degrees if any. I'm about two years in and have learned a lot about site electrical which I was unfamiliar with and I'm getting paid more than I would doing consultant CE work. But I have been applying for some recently opening CE jobs for what reason I don't know. I suppose don't want to feel like maybe I wasted 20 years between schooling, work experience, and a PE. But in a sense I have not wasted anything as I still have that experience which I suppose is why my current employer hired me. I'm just learning something new and having fun with it.

One plus of this job is ideally I was brought in to take over for the owner of the company when I got up to speed so he could look at starting other businesses.

Sorry for the rambling definitely time to imbibe now.

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