wthats the coolest **** i ever seen.

 

wow...thats hott.

 

SAE f1 history
http://www.sae.org/students/fsaehistory.pdf

SUNY Stony Brook competes in the mini-baja
http://me.eng.sunysb.edu/~minibaja/

RIT, Rochester has a really strong reputation as a school and consistently does well in the SAE competitions. One of my friends transfered to RIT after 2 years at Rockland Community College. It costs more than the state schools but is definitely worth looking into.
http://www.rit.edu/~formula/

http://www.rit.edu/~932www/ugr....html

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by meanEG &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thats the coolest **** i ever seen.</TD></TR></TABLE>

You should look into it at UPenn
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~fsae/

 

All I can say is get yourself ready for all the heavy work load and sleepless nights.

Im just glad that im getting my degree after this year! F*ck yeah, finishing school when you're 19 is

 

maybe you should switch manufacters? I know techs who make 100-120k yr.

 

i was supposed to make 100k+ this year, everyine is slow really intheisa area b/c its winter. unfortunetly slower than usual though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by meanEG &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i was supposed to make 100k+ this year, everyine is slow really intheisa area b/c its winter. unfortunetly slower than usual though.</TD></TR></TABLE>thats alot of $$$. After how many years of expierence/schooling do you have?

 

I graduated from RIT, but I went for Mechanical Engineering Technology, a little more hands and less theory, took machine shop classes, composite fabrication and welding and of course all sorts of math and sciences. still insane amounts of math and calculations to figure forces and stresses on parts. First couples years are fun but by the end you want to pull your hair out when you get to fatigue and machine design classes. 8 pages of calculations were common in machine design.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask.

Right now I currently work for a packaging company, I am the glue between the different departments, I do everything from help design team develop new plastics shapes for injection molding, help engineers design new systems (such as machines using conveyors, linear actuators, gear belt systems), to helping production with simple palette patterns.

The pay is not great but there is a ton of oppurtunity for me to grow, that is something important to look for when finding a job right out of school.

 

uti in chicago 99-00
vstt-VW school 00-01
vw dealler 01-05
new dealer 9/05-present.

 

do as much, mini baja as you can, companies love to see school involvment more than anything, you could tell them your a weekend mechanic and have rebuilt 50 engines, it doesnt hold a grain of salt, next to someone who is seriously involved with school projects.

But there is a huge sacrafice there, My school required a lot of time devoted to SAE formula team. 8 am weekends regularly. And the team worked on seniority, so me being a tranfer student i would be starting at the bottom.

It depends on what you want, companies love to see it, if you can make the sacrifice i say do it. I wish i was more involved, but i had a great time at school.

you need to develop a balance, sure a company wants a brainiac, but you have to have a strong personality to go a long with that. lol thats why METs are better than MEs. just kidding, those that know the battle between the two will get the joke.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by MikeGRIS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">lol thats why METs are better than MEs. just kidding, those that know the battle between the two will get the joke. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Haha, no they won't. All us METs know that MEs dont have senses of humor, duh

 

MET transfer student to ME, I probably did not go to the best tech school NHTI but it is a joke compared to BSME UNH, but it definatily got me more into ME. UNH had more to offer but would have scared me right out of high school. Too much work not enough practical usage/hands on. At least at the tech i had time to build my engine and custom turbo kit and work, while getting an education.

And by the way i have learned more in FSAE this year then i have in classes. I have learned lots in school but just starting to apply it to systems now. Like heat transfer through a minks skin and fur and heat transfer through a swans leg. LOL

 

if you should focus on auto engineering... keep screwing around with cars whether doing mechanic or getting a part-time job dealing with cars.... keep up with the formula/baja stuff. In the end most auto engineering jobs are in MI/IN if you should ask!!! gl

 

Pretiate all the responses this is helping me in my decision process and makes me feel as if I should look more in depth as to whether or not ME is for me.

Joshua Dotson

 

ME= Problem solving..., I am in right now. It's a ton of calc and physics, which in most cases will all be irrelevant to what you finally end up doing. It's all about learning techniques to approach and solve problems.

I really dont feel that all the math and physics will come into play on an everyday basis. Most real-world problems are usually somewhat simple soh-cah-toa crap, pressures, distances/ diameters... basically measurements and clearances andmstuff... well, basically things that dont really require a ton of math...Only like 2% of integrals can be solved anyways,lol. I dont think it's used as much as it used to be... (although I'v heard that the guys who hang telephone lines actually use simspon's rule )

*not trying to sound smart, I'm still in school so its fresh in my mind

 

there is alot of good info in this thread about being an ME, personally i am a graduating Drexel MEM major (incase a potential employer in this thread wants to hire me), There are a couple of comments i want to add:

1. MEM is a WIDE topic, it ranges from auto stuff to HVAC to Building Design to Aerodynamics to.... i think you get the idea.

2. There are many careers that you could persue in MEM, and they range from sales to desk work to management to manufacturing. It is very broad however in the philly area most jobs are related to construction and things of that nature

3. If you want to get involved in Autos and things like that be prepared to relocate to the midwest after graduation. 90% of auto related jobs are in the chicago area, very very few on the east coast

4. Be prepared and dediced to math and physics. I was unsure about what i wanted to do when i got to college and just blindly chose MEM, as did many others. It is very difficult and most will not make it, IE: on my floor freshman year there were 20 engineers in the beginning of the year, and at the end there were only 2 (me and another)

Additonally starting salaries are not as high as you would dream or think, and depends highly on the cost of living in your area. They average about 45-55k here in philly, 60k+ in cali and lower in other places. (from my personal Jobsearch)

MEM

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by drdisco69 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm on the FSAE team here, which builds an open wheel formula car for the national competition. The advantage of having an SAE program is that at the competition, The Big Three are there looking at designs, talking to students, and doing recruiting.</TD></TR></TABLE>

This doesn't seem all that useful. GM and Ford are both rated "junk" by Wall Street; GM is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Ford isn't far behind. Both are laying off thousands of people (including engineers). All the best cars are designed in Germany or Japan, with Korea and China coming up behind them. Outside of specialty work, I don't see a lot of employment for automotive engineers in this country in the future.

Mechanics, on the other hand, are a different story. As long as the economy hasn't collapsed, people will always need their cars fixed. Plus, mechanics and other technicians are generally paid much better than engineers in this country. If you're an engineer, you're expected to put in a lot of unpaid overtime and accept a low salary because you love the work so much, but if you're a tech you're just hired help so they'll pay whatever the market will bear (which is a lot since competent techs aren't that numerous).

Don't go into engineering if you have any dreams of a large income.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by dwolsten &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Don't go into engineering if you have any dreams of a large income.</TD></TR></TABLE>

People have unreasonable expectations about all different types of degrees. Getting an MBA doesn't mean you'll be a CEO with a 6-figure income the year you graduate, especially with every school and their mother offering MBAs these days. You'll never make a large income working for someone else either. Whats funny though is a majority of the kids in my classes would be content working for some company like Boeing the rest of their life spec'ing out bolts for the tray tables on the 777.

 

The big three aren't the only ones that look at the FSAE and mini baja competition. The experience you gain is valuable for resume building and all that jazz. Anyway because of the correlation between the domestic economy and automobile production don't be surprised to see the Fed bail out another one of the big three if they go under. (Happened to chrysler before). Being a mechanical engineer doesn't mean you have to work for one of the big three if you want to work on cars either. There are plenty of companies that deal with OEM replacement, aftermarket performance, and upgrade parts as well. Working for a small company you'll find you can be more hands on, have more say in the overall project (and not just specing bolts or designing cupholders) and generally have a greater sense of ownership. Just a thought. A good advisor is a great source of information, connections, job placement asssitance, and will help you understand what you're getting into.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by daveG &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">People have unreasonable expectations about all different types of degrees. Getting an MBA doesn't mean you'll be a CEO with a 6-figure income the year you graduate, especially with every school and their mother offering MBAs these days. You'll never make a large income working for someone else either. Whats funny though is a majority of the kids in my classes would be content working for some company like Boeing the rest of their life spec'ing out bolts for the tray tables on the 777. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I don't think there's anything unreasonable about expecting the average engineer (with BS) to make more than the average MET, and him in turn make more than the average mechanic, simply because of the amount of up-front education required and its expense. I'm not knocking techs or mechanics, but you have to ask yourself, what is the incentive to go to all the extra effort of a 4-5 year BS engineering program (or worse, a MS degree on top of that), if you can't expect to get paid as much as if you went to tech school for 2 years? That's exactly the way it is right now in the US. But the worst part is that the corporations are all whining about how they can't find enough engineers. It's little wonder that engineering enrollment is falling through the floor.

The only big "advantage" I can see in being an engineer rather than a tech is that you don't have to get your hands dirty. Most engineers just sit around and do computer simulations all day, and never even touch the things they're designing. That's when they're not spending half their time in pointless meetings.

I only point this out because I saw some posts in this thread where some people seemed to think that by going for a BS degree in engineering, that they'd make more money than they do now as a tech. This simply isn't the case, so if money is your motivation, forget about engineering school.

While it's true there's some engineers that make huge salaries, they're either 1) extremely lucky or talented (a tiny minority) and have gotten themselves into a position where they're so valuable to their employer that they can command that salary, 2) they're "engineering managers" and actually just do management all day, and don't do any actual technical work, instead spending all their time in meetings or making PowerPoint presentations, 3) they're "sales engineers", which is just a glorified title for a salesman, where again they don't do any technical work of any kind, or 4) they've quit their jobs and started their own company, in which case they still have to do both some management work and some sales work (though not full-time), plus they're taking a big risk. The vast majority of engineers only make about $60k, and just stare at a computer all day speccing bolts or something similarly boring.

 

this thread is great....altough it seems starting salaries arent that bad, how much do some other ME make after some years of expeirence in the field. Im really not THAT interested in pay lol just wondering to see how much they are paying.

 

My boss this summer (engineering department manager) put in 60+ hours a week and had been at our company for probably close to 30 years. He started way back when he was a co-op in college. I think he made just under $90k, but he was there 6am to 6pm every single day.

On the other hand my high school econ teacher taught 4 sections of AP Econ a day, spent the rest of the time day trading, got full medical and dental benefits for life, summers off, and was making more off just his salary from the school working for about the same period of time.

I also have a few professors who make a shitload doing side consulting work while I have others that don't at all. Its all about how hard you want to work.

 

There are people who know how to make money and there are others that dont. Engineering degree gives you job security. There are plenty of autotechs that get paid well, and there are others that get paid junk. When you are 40 and tired of working on cars at such a crazy rate you are going to be kicking yourself for chosing that career path. Just like when you are 25 and sitting in front of a computer doing mind numbing work you will be kicking yourself. 40 as an engineer has a lot more job security than 40 as an auto tech. Everyone has to make their choices in life. One thing you can be sure, if you get an engineering degree you should be able to find a job. The world never stops needing engineers. Thats why it always has and always will be a good field to go into. The same things cannot be said for other professions. Getting a communications degree is very easy, but what job security does it offer? Hell, become a CPA, do you still have job security? A software engineer with a CPA could put you out of business tomorrow. How many of you do your taxes with Quicken, Quickbooks, or Turbotax? Don't ignore job security. That's one of the most important things about going into engineering. You will always need engineers.

If you want to live comfortably, marry rich. At the very least, marry a girl that isn't in college looking for her Mrs. but an actual career. To be economically comfortable in this day in age you need to pull in two decent to good salaries or one excellent salary.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Chronicsinners &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">there is alot of good info in this thread about being an ME, personally i am a graduating Drexel MEM major (incase a potential employer in this thread wants to hire me), There are a couple of comments i want to add:

1. MEM is a WIDE topic, it ranges from auto stuff to HVAC to Building Design to Aerodynamics to.... i think you get the idea.

2. There are many careers that you could persue in MEM, and they range from sales to desk work to management to manufacturing. It is very broad however in the philly area most jobs are related to construction and things of that nature

3. If you want to get involved in Autos and things like that be prepared to relocate to the midwest after graduation. 90% of auto related jobs are in the chicago area, very very few on the east coast

4. Be prepared and dediced to math and physics. I was unsure about what i wanted to do when i got to college and just blindly chose MEM, as did many others. It is very difficult and most will not make it, IE: on my floor freshman year there were 20 engineers in the beginning of the year, and at the end there were only 2 (me and another)

Additonally starting salaries are not as high as you would dream or think, and depends highly on the cost of living in your area. They average about 45-55k here in philly, 60k+ in cali and lower in other places. (from my personal Jobsearch)

MEM </TD></TR></TABLE>

response to your number 3: Not chicago to say the least..i live 40minutes from Chicago and just a few positions in auto engineering...last i looked!!! most are neighboring chicago though, like indiana and the big time Michigan.. Wi has a few not that much though. IN and MI are probably #1 in auto engineering jobs.. go to MONSTER.COM and check for yourself...