posted
I've noticed a lot of people here at hatrack mentioning that they are engineers. Then I got to wondering: just how many hatrackers are engineers?
So, what kind of engineer are you? Why/How did you get involved in engineering?
I am a soon-to-be mechanical engineering student, and I became interested in engineering through FIRST Robotics. I found that I like to see something come from a vague idea in my head and become a working (sometimes), tangible thing.
Posts: 4174 | Registered: Sep 2003
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As a telecommunciations engineer, I am very thankful to your home city of Greenville for giving me a job once again ('cause there ain't none in Dallas anymore!)
I got into it because my dad said it paid well... I wanted to be a physicist, myself... but the steeper math finally got to me.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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(The Rabbit stands up, looks around the circle and then down at her feet. She shuffles from one foot to the other for a few seconds and then says)
My name is Bonnie and I'm an ah ah Engineer.
(She sits down and the person to her left stands . . . )
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Though I hesitate to substitute the term "engineering" for programming, I am, if you so choose those words, a part-time software engineer.
(I thoroughly respect all engineers, even programmers who choose to use those words, I just don't feel qualified to apply the term to myself. )
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I confess. I, too, am an engineer. Electrically flavored. What can I say? I really loved buildling stuff as a kid and wiring things up, exploding things, launching things, burning things, and making various infernal contraptions. I got into Electrical mainly because the EE program at my school (Auburn) was superior to all the other Engineering disciplines, and also because electricity is just cool to play with, of course. I took a serious zigzag into computers for a while but luckily I recovered from that and now I get to play with bigger toys.
The physics and math part are really cool, though, I think. Sometimes I have leanings toward science or math type things. Astronomy is very awesome and I love it. Still I like for stuff I do to be immediately useful. I like making things that actually accomplish something right now. And I like to get my hands dirty and actually do the work. My dream job would probably be buildling observatories on the moon.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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If software engineers count as real engineers I don't see why education engineers shouldn't. For a summer job maybe I'll be an underwater ceramic sanitation engineer.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I'm an engineer. Not sure what kind, yet. My major is (probably) engineering physics. Take that as you will. Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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My good friend Pancho Villa let me drive a train once.
This train it was headed from El Paso to the mines in Mexico. There were some mining engineers onboard the train that day. Those engineers did not make it to the mines. Posts: 35 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I shovel coal into a locamotive. No. Not really. I'm just a lowly technician (Technically, I'm the exact opposite of an engineer.)
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I'm in a profession that's loathed by several types of engineers, but I suppose that doesn't count for much around here...
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I'll gladly bask in the glow of Hobbe's wit.
I got two degrees in Mechanical Engineering, but now I just work as a software developer.
No, I'm not a software engineer -- there is no such thing, any more than there are sanitation engineers.
And although I don't really do any engineering, the software developing I do is with engineering tools, namely CAD systems. Every member of my software team has a mechnical engineering degree.
Posts: 751 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'm an engineer, or at least I used to be. I don't know if you can still say that I am. I have a computer engineering degree. I've always been really interested and done well in math and sciences. And my whole family is engineers of some sort or another. Seemed natural, and I was very interested in computers and technology.
But I quit my job almost two years back in favor of a drastic life change that did not involve engineering of any sort. I don't plan on going back to it any time soon. It's a shame, there were aspects of it I genuinely liked, but those aspets were few and far between.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Gonna be a computer engineer. Hopefully. Or computer programmer. Bah, who's keeping track of these things anyway?!
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I wanted to be a robotics engineer when I grew up, but that was a long time ago. I ended up doing something else instead. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I'm a geotechnical engineer. I started out studying aerospace engineering, but decided that the job market was way too dependent on government whims. I got into civil engineering because I had to get into a engineering college and that had the most credits that could be transferred to whatever discipline I decided on. I decided I loved civil, especially dirt. Geotechs use a lot of their own judgement and aren't confined to numbers out of a manual. Dirt never has a specific modulus of elasticity, compressive strength, etc.
quote: I'm in a profession that's loathed by several types of engineers, but I suppose that doesn't count for much around here...
Only when you try and tell us how to do our jobs.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I have a chemical engineering degree, but I still have few years' work left before I can get my professional engineer's certification (I need four years of work experience and have one). I got into it because society expected me to go into the sciences and because I wanted to land a job that would be interesting while also enabling me to support my hobbies. It's working out okay so far, though I don't live in the most exciting place ever. I'm also considering trying to move into an environmentally-oriented position so I can feel like I'm doing something beyond merely making my company money.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Engineering: The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems.
quote:Software engineering (SE) is the profession, practiced by software engineers, concerned with creating and maintaining software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, and other fields.
quote:Software Engineering: is the practice of creating software, productively and with quality. Members of this profession are called software engineers, programmers, developers, or practitioners. People who write code and do not follow the doctrines of software engineering are more accurately called programmers, developers, or software artists.
"Programmer" implies that you do no design or analysis (such as for a certain architecture or algorithms). You just write code for software that someone else designed. If design and analysis of processes are a large portion of your job, then are you not an engineer?
I am not a code monkey. I am not a garbage man. And if this thread is only for certain types of engineers, it should have said so. If you are a "programmer" and not an engineer, thats fine. But don't say we don't exist.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I'm an electrical engineer. Although sadly, the job I'm currently in has very little in the way of electrical stuff, it's mainly a consulting design/project management for new commercial construction. So it's like what I went to school for except without everything I enjoyed studying.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:And if this thread is only for certain types of engineers, it should have said so. If you are a "programmer" and not an engineer, thats fine. But don't say we don't exist.
I think the question might have been better phrased "Who here is a licensed professional engineer".
Or maybe not. That's the only distinction I make between "real engineers" and the 400 million other people who call themselves engineers because it makes their job description sound cooler.
I'm not accusing you of this, Xavier, I'm just generalizing.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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You could also draw the distinction between an Engineering degree, and those just in school for engineering as well.
The fact, is only a few of the "engineering" professions *need* the PE, with it being most crucial for Civil engineers, with Electrical following closely behind. Chemical engineers don't commonly take it in the U.S. though I plan to since I passed the FE exam. I also plan to take the Mechanical Engineering PE rather than the chemical one. At my company with literally hundreds of Mechanical engineers only 3 have actually passed the P.E. But we aren't in a field that requires a P.E. to sign off on drawings either.
posted
I think a good rule of thumb is that if a discipline has the word "science" in it (political science, social science, computer science. science, etc.), then it probably isn't scientific.
Physics science. Chemistry science. Zoology science. Why don't they use the word science -- because they don't need it.
Posts: 751 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Xavier, the thing about "engineer" is that it's a term that has legal meaning. That's why some of us get a bit antsy when people who are not, in fact, engineers (in the legal/professional sense of the term) start throwing the word around.
It'd be like a chiropractor saying "I'm a doctor." Apples and oranges. What's wrong with "software developer" or something similar?
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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My degree is Computer Engineering. Seems like I've been everything but though, Systems Engineer, Software Engineer, Engineering Analyst.....
I can go take a PE so I think that makes me a "real engineer" Maybe if I go out and drive the train though there won't be any question of my realness
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:What's wrong with "software developer" or something similar?
I think it's because of the desire to be seen as above what Xavier describes as "code monkeys" or "garbage men". Of course, the problem is that the only real objective difference between a "code monkey" and a "software engineer" is what they are called.
(I'm not saying that there's no difference. But if there is, it is largely a subjective difference.)
Posts: 751 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I guess I'm a software engineer, since I do design and analysis in addition to cranking out the code. I switched to the computer science major from biology after looking at a diagram of how a strand of mRNA is zipped through a ribosome and decoded to make a protein and thinking "Oh, just like a Turing machine."
Posts: 957 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I know plenty of people who can turn out boilerplate code under direction on what to code, and very few people who can design new software systems. The ones who design new software systems are the engineers, and the ones who turn out boilerplate code are the code monkeys/programmers, and this difference is pretty easy to spot and pretty objective.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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The point about a legal definition for engineer is well taken. However, the difference between what we've been calling a software engineer and a code monkey can still be objective even if there really isn't such a thing as a software engineer.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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edit: Part of the problem with the use of the term software engineer is that it's generally the person themselves that gives them the name. Why do they call themselves a software engineer? There are many possible reasons, and you cannot know unless you know their abilities.
And if you know their abilities, then there's no need for a title like software engineer.
Posts: 751 | Registered: Apr 2005
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It is true that a lot of engineers don't have any need to get their PE. A lot of my civil and mechanical buddies have no desire to get theirs. Ironically, if I was doing the type of EE stuff I really liked, I probably wouldn't get my PE.
But with consulting stuff, it would be stupid to be without it.
Edit:
Is anyone surprised how quickly this topic became a discussion of what jobs qualify as engineering?
I think definition of terms is like engineering school day one.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I am the son of one of the top electrical engineers in the U.S. His specialty is microwave communications, and a lot of what he does is classified, because his company is a defense contractor. I do know that he has done a lot of work on unmanned aircraft in the past few years.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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My degree is in Electronics Engineering Technology. I think it falls a bit short of a true EE, dealing more with implementation than with design.
Since college I've gradually slipped over to the software side, bridging the gap where the software meets the hardware.
My official title now is Senior Software Engineer. My company installs warehouse and factory automation equipment. My job is to design and code software and user interfaces that drive the equipment.
Today I will be sitting in a project kickoff meeting in which we find out what the salesman has promised the customer in terms of system layout, throughput, capacity, and user interface. It will then be my job to make the software live up to the customer's expectations.
In the end the title doesn't matter so much as the stuff that is lining your wallet.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Yeah, we could get into Civil Engineers and how they’re just bridge builders and how Mechanical Engineers are just glorified mechanics and Chemical Engineers are just chemists. Who does real engineering with chemicals?
Now before anyone jumps all over me that was being silly to make a point.
But anyway…… I think you see where it’s going. Each field has its common worker and its expert Engineer Designer in its area. Right?
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Excellent, we're almost up to my personal pet peeve where the label "architecture" is being applied to many disciplines where it was fine in an abstract sense, but has become far too common.
posted
Currently, i am a Information System Engineer. But i may go on any mécanical part of industry (Studies, Production, or Quality, or R&D) and in any type of industry (Electricity, Car, military part, aeronautic or space...) because, in my school, we learn many skills.
So, i prefer to say i am a general engineer.
And for why, it's simple : i like to build.
Posts: 1189 | Registered: Dec 2004
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