/sci/ - Science & Math

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Anonymous Sun Mar 23 19:45:39 2014 No.6433443 [Reply] [Original]

Fellow Engineers.

How the hell to you break out of the job funk.

I became an engineer (Specifically Aero) because when I was young, I wanted to build shit. I went to school, got good grades, and got a job. No one told me Engineering jobs suck.

The projects you work on are so goddamn massive that anything you do is pretty insignificant. Being a project manager is among the worst wastes of time ever. And impossible workloads are demanded by people who don't understand their own workloads and any work that I do that is above the call of duty just causes more work to be shoved at me with no recognition for any of it.

I've been here for almost a year now, and I feel like I'm slowly being sucked into a world of shit.

What do you do in order to feel like your 20's aren't a complete waste of time and youth?

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 19:54:08 2014 No.6433458 >>6433443 browse 4chan, play video games, and fap to traps

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 19:58:08 2014 No.6433467 File: 22 KB, 255x364, 1358243319823.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Embrace philosophy.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:00:08 2014 No.6433471

communicate with senior engineers to get more reasonable assignments. fuck the 'coordinators' and 'leaders' and weekly meetings and crap. if you are working on all by yourself that doesn't have any oversight by a senior engineer then you are doing it wrong

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:00:08 2014 No.6433473 >>6433443 How did you you pass through undergrad and not realize that your general engineering job is shit. I double majored and now I'm on track to continue teaching.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:19:08 2014 No.6433536 >>6433471 Even if they were more reasonable, doesn't change the fact that the work seems completely meaningless. >>6433473 Hope mostly.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:21:08 2014 No.6433546 >>6433536 If the work were easy, you wouldn't be paid so much to do it.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:22:38 2014 No.6433549 Why would you become an engineer that isn't petroleum engineering At least then you'd get fat stacks for your boring work.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:23:08 2014 No.6433557 >>6433546 The work is damn easy. Just time consuming and classified, which is why I'm overpaid for what I do.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:46:48 2014 No.6433650 >>6433557 Let me rephrase that: if the work was fun, you wouldn't be paid so much for it.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:54:16 2014 No.6433679

Anyone here do EE? How is it? Good choice if I want to learn about integrated circuits and processor design or should I do something else? Good employment opportunities? Decent pay?

Would it be worth complementing it with some materials science or applied physics as well?

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 20:58:16 2014 No.6433694 >>6433650 Eh. I guess I wished that I could be one of those guys who got up for work every day and loved every second of it.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:02:15 2014 No.6433701 >>6433694 Unless you're a professional pussy slayer, you're not going to be that guy. Just count on working a job you hate until you're too weak to work, then have society throw you down the nigger hole.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:13:16 2014 No.6433740 >>6433546 You are clearly young yet, but you will some day discover that it is a general rule of the world that the more money you make, the less work you actually do.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:13:16 2014 No.6433741 >>6433701 But porn stars have an incredibly high rate of suicide I don't think being a pussy slayer is as prestigious at it appears

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:22:45 2014 No.6433765

Your complaints are true and are also true of most specialized jobs. You should put forth an effort to be more sociable with people in higher positions and also volunteer for jobs no one else wants. These are the two best things for moving up in the corporate world.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:27:15 2014 No.6433781

>>6433443
Sounds a lot like me, I was in aerospace working on the flight software for satellites. Sounded great when they told me about it but it was pure shit. Like you said the work you do is insignificant. And in my case it was repetitive, the same shit, every day. The other guys didn't give a shit about the job or trying to understand why they had to follow such and such rules, they were just doing it to get the paycheck. It kept getting worse so I left that shit world.

Now I'm at home, self-studying for the sake of it and working on starting my own internet company. In a few months I'll leave to start working as a roughneck on oil rigs. A job that requires no qualification, that is equally shitty but that pays three times more than what I earned as an engineer. Then I won't have to worry about money for some time while I try to launch my company. If only I had known what it would be I wouldn't have wasted so many years.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:27:15 2014 No.6433782

>>6433765
Truthfully from what I see, I don't see why anyone would want to move up in the corporate world.

The sheer inanity of corporate politics is mind boggling.

I've been wondering if Aero Engineering startups exist. I wonder if the startup culture would be good for me.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:34:16 2014 No.6433794

>>6433782
You will still need to learn the social art of getting to know people and play the politics, unless you believe you can carry the loads of running and financing the company by yourself, as well as advertising and distributing your product. Get in good with upper management. They can always make strong allies.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:35:45 2014 No.6433796 >>6433679 this

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:36:45 2014 No.6433801 >>6433781 Fucking flight software is so goddamn inane. The fact of the matter is that these are 500 million dollar projects, and so you HAVE to follow their preconceived project schema because they don't want to take risks.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:49:45 2014 No.6433854

>>6433801
Yep. Translate the software specification to code according to a set of rules. Then write the unit tests for every procedure/function in the code according to another set of rules. Then verify the unit tests according to yet another set of rules. If the tool used to run the test gives a green report then all good. Move to the next procedure. Rinse and repeat. Don't ask about the rational behind the rules, no one knows (at the least none of the guys I was working with), they never even wondered about it, they just apply the rules mindlessly.

They want you to be productive without understanding shit about why you do what you do, cause if you try to understand you are less productive. This is bullshit because the less you understand the less motivated you are, and I actually took the time to understand and find how some rules could be improved, they just didn't want to hear any of it. They've been doing it for years, so I shouldn't question it. Half the guys who write the specifications don't give a shit either, they expect the grunts like me doing the developing/testing to report inconsistencies/contradictions in their spec. Then they get all the credit for noticing those inconsistencies. Fuck them, I'm gone.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:50:16 2014 No.6433861 >>6433854 Fucking A, I guess tons of Aero-Engineering is exactly the same shit?

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 21:59:15 2014 No.6433891 >>6433861 >>6433854 And yeah, the company doesn't really want you to try and understand the code because taking time to understand it is time not delivering results. Fuck, I should start a company

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:03:26 2014 No.6433905 >>6433443 Sounds like you need to work for a different company or start your own.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:04:54 2014 No.6433910 >>6433679 I think Computer Engineering is more involved with integrated circuits and processor design.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:07:24 2014 No.6433919 >>6433679 As somebody who's worked in designing processors and general circuit boards, the actual job is mind numbing paint by numbers stuff unless you're really high up. Expect it to be done by computers in ten years or so.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:07:54 2014 No.6433917

>>6433861
I still hope somehow that it may be different in companies such as SpaceX and Planetary Resources, they have a long term dream they are pursuing it's not just about making money in the now. It is probably different in smaller companies too, those that are not subcontractors for the big ones. But how different? I didn't stick long enough to find out. I realized that the corporate world is just not for me, at least not as an employee.

I'm still passionate about aerospace, so my long term goal is eventually to start my own company in that area. For the moment I'll try to earn as much as possible through other means, and enjoy my 20's traveling around the world, I'll have more than enough time sitting behind a desk when I'm older.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:16:54 2014 No.6433950

>>6433917
I've always wondered how people could afford to travel like that in the 20's time wise.

I make good money and have tons of savings, but I don't have the vacation time to use it. 10 days a year PTO? You can't really do anything REALLY fun in that short a time period to travel the world.

I'm passionate about planes and crap, but holy shit the corporate world is destroying me. Pretty much every day I feel like I should learn some python or javascript or something and just do a random other career path, and hopefully be able to join the JPL or Spacex or something

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:17:24 2014 No.6433954

>>6433854
>>6433891
I am an EE student so I have no real job experience myself.

My father however is programmer. He never studied or anything but he is form the early days when people still worked with giant levers. He has a great salary and all but he complains almost every evening about how everyone makes everything unnecessary complex. His superiors won't accept any critique and programs he could make in 1 week would become assignments for entire programmer teams and over 100 days. Nowadays, instead of programming he has to help other people with their problems all day long because he is basically the only one in the entire company who understands it. Well, he programmed the initial program before a much bigger company bought everything. Ironically it's for flight cargo. His old boss basically sold him out for a LOT of money and my father now absolutely hates his job but is already way too old to change...

Yes, life isn't always nice.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:28:24 2014 No.6433992

>>6433950
Right now I can't afford it. Like I said I'm going to work a shit job on oil rigs. I should be able to save 50k over 6 months, then I'll do some traveling. I have some ideas for websites and smartphone apps that could potentially be big, if they take off then a couple years from now I could be able to travel wherever I want. Otherwise I'll keep working 6 months a year on shitty jobs that pay a lot. Eventually I may have to go back working in engineering but I will do everything that it takes not to.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:32:54 2014 No.6434002 >>6433458 OMG... Get out of my mind! How did you know that this is what I now do? Are you a GOD?

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 22:47:55 2014 No.6434036

>>6433679

You definitely want to go with computer engineering if you want to work with computers on an RTL level, although you probably will see a little bit of that in EE. You could certainly work on analog ICs, network signaling or transistor-level "digital" design as an EE. That's probably a little harder to break into than programming or high-level digital design, though.

It seems like a lot of EEs end up as competent programmers and computer engineers anyway, but you should definitely take a very long look at what you'd be studying before making a decision.

I would suggest that you do a little tinkering on your own spare time. You might want to try one or more of the following:

CS/SE/CE: Do a little programming if you haven't already (trust me, very easy to get started). I would recommend starting with C, since that's what goes into a lot of low-level systems.

CE: FPGA development - buy a development board. They tend to be a little on the expensive side, but there are exceptions - the Papilio, for instance, is basically the development board equivalent of the Arduino. You can get a functional system (Papilio+user I/O) for as little as $85 shipped. Find a good computer architecture/digital design textbook and download the appropriate development tools - I believe the Xilinx ISE has a free edition which should work just fine. FPGAs can be "programmed" to act as if they are a user-designed digital circuit. You can do schematic design or start learning an HDL.

EE: Get a breadboard and a power supply, start messing around. There are tons of resources on all kinds of circuits which use all kinds of different components if you want to do blinky lights. It'll probably take a lot of textbook learning to figure out how they actually work, though. You can also get an Arduino (~$25), which allows you to write C-style programs which control output voltages, test input voltages, and can do general tasks besides. It can also act as a DC power supply.

Anonymous Sun Mar 23 23:06:24 2014 No.6434076

You know, try and find a good technician/technologist job. I've heard positive things about some of those jobs. Not office for the most part, a lot of hands on stuff. I met a guy that did performance engine testing and he loved his job. He got to manufacture the prototypes, test them out, recomend any changes to the engineers (he got paid more than them) and in general dick around with some cool shit. He went to college for 3 years.

Another guy I met did a B. Tech degree and was doing some Photonics work for a defence contractor. He didn't design the lasers outright himself, but he got to build them, test them, and then he got to make any changes on his own. Hired before he finished his degree because he did a summer of coop with them.

Unless you are doing your own R&D, engineering is all office/computer work. Not what a lot of people had in mind when they started the degree. The tech guys might not garner as much respect in some places, but they have a well kept secret. Their work is better and often get paid more than their engineering counter parts because they have actual work place experience they got during their degree from mandatory coops and general hands on learning.

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 23 23:57:01 2014 No.6434150 Anybody here in MSE? Seems incredibly interesting, but is the job actually that interesting and am I actually that likely to get employed? I don't want to end up getting a degree with no job opportunity at the end.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 00:47:13 2014 No.6434227

>>6433443

>pick chemical engineering
>real passion is math/physics
>not confident I could make it to phd in those fields
>know that the rest of my days are set financially, as long as I live out a dilbert-like career playing office politics.

Whelp. At least I can feed my family.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 00:52:00 2014 No.6434231 >>6433443 Get a more interesting job. My friend did aerospace engineering and he works at NASA and loves his job. Just find one you enjoy. Government jobs are always nice.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 00:57:00 2014 No.6434238 >>6433443 make a detailed list of your concerns and the inefficiencies and how to correct them and take that to upper level management. If they ignore you than take it over their heads until someone listens.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 01:30:46 2014 No.6434284

>>6434036
I feel this is a good time to make an important lesson for anyone in this thread taking the time to read this.

As intelligent as I believe a lot of the folks on /sci/ are, some of you may be a bit naive and trust your superiors a bit too quickly. When you work somewhere that isn't enough anymore with the way those at the top think, they will not hesitate to sell you if they believe they can get a good deal. You must always be invested not just in your work but in the hierarchy and how the people around you work. Your real work should be more important but that is not always the case unfortunately, you must also devote time to learning about your colleagues and those above you, I cannot stress this enough, learn about those you work with and everyone above them, learn how they think and use it to your advantage and make connections so your soul is not lost in the machinations of these corporations and their greed.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 06:03:01 2014 No.6434578

>>6434284
He's right. Consider his words in your daily routine. Next time you talk to a colleague consider his words and start improving.

You work with people and people happen to be brain fucked. Use it to your advantage. Study your co-worker's, supervisor's etc. habits and establish a unique communication protocol to each of them.

However, never forget:
>they will not hesitate to sell you if they believe they can get a good deal.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 07:40:12 2014 No.6434709 >>6434227 pretty much >tfw we will have nobody to draw comics for us to smirk at and sort of relate to when scott adams dies

Cogito ergo sum Mon Mar 24 11:02:45 2014 No.6434902

>>6433443
>The projects you work on are so goddamn massive that anything you do is pretty insignificant. Being a project manager is among the worst wastes of time ever. And impossible workloads are demanded by people who don't understand their own workloads and any work that I do that is above the call of duty just causes more work to be shoved at me with no recognition for any of it.

Feel fucked?

Thank an MBA.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 11:20:15 2014 No.6434922
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>>6433794
My dream is to somehow make it to the top while being known as that no-nonsense, straight-faced, doesn't-play-politics "Winston Wolfe" type guy. I skip the "Hi how are you" and people trust me because I'm the best at what I do.

I think the only way I do this is start my own business and play by my own rules. Regular business is fake smiles and office politics everywhere.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 11:34:15 2014 No.6434942
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Very few people are capable of understanding all the intricacies of a complex system from top to bottom. E.g., the simulation software, how it works, how to code it better, how every single piece of equipment and control system works and how to improve it, why the process was designed a certain way and how to improve it. The chaos gets kind of maddening. But you have to manage hundreds of employees. Rather than let them think for themselves, it's much easier to say "Do exactly this and not in any other way." That way when there's a problem it's easier to find out who did what wrong. A lot of the world is just taking what works and not changing it. So engineers learn a lot of theory in school end up never applying that theory because their boss said "Don't get cute, just follow the standard. There's money on the line."

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 11:41:15 2014 No.6434952 this thread is slowly sucking the motivation out of me to continue my engineering degree fuck

Cogito ergo sum Mon Mar 24 11:52:45 2014 No.6434968

>>6434952
>this thread is slowly sucking the motivation out of me to continue my engineering degree

ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM!!!

Finish it because you LOVE IT. Finish it because you feel a NEED inside your gut to understand how things work. Finish it so that the road behind you is in better shape than the road in front of you.

FINISH IT BECAUSE YOU GIVE A DAMN

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 11:55:15 2014 No.6434975 >>6434968 t-t-thank you anon

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 11:55:45 2014 No.6434974

>tfw working at big tech firm while working on physics degree
>tfw what i currently do is try to break software and send off the problem to be fixed by engineers
>tfw tech firm pays for most of my schooling
>tfw i graduate i will have a guaranteed job
>tfw physicist working as engineer
The folks I work for seem to have a really big chubby for physicists and hires them to be software and hardware engineers and pays them quite well starting off. I wanted to get into geophysics because I have friends and family that work for big oil companies, but then I landed this cushy job and it has been nothing but awesome. The initial work as glorified phone support for a year was kind of soul crushing, but I have moved on since then.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 11:56:15 2014 No.6434977 I've been thinking on getting a degree in Nanoscale Engineering in Albany, NY near where I live, I graduate with a degree in Electrical Technology (AAS) this may. Should I instead continue with electrical?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:25:15 2014 No.6435044 http://www.unf.edu/catalog/link/2013-2014CCEC-BSCCISCIS3/ vs http://www.unf.edu/catalog/link/2013-2014CCEC-BSEECEGR/

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:32:15 2014 No.6435079 >>6434977 >>6435044 >>>/adv/

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:33:13 2014 No.6435080 >>6435079 Seemed best to ask engineers while I was here. Whatever

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:37:44 2014 No.6435097

>become an engineer anon!
>youll do high level math!
>work on amazing projects!
>earn lots of money!
right, lets do chemE
>math only up to calculus
>group work, group work, group work
>dont design something new, just copy tested methods
finally done with degree, lets do some real work
>work for 1 year, most advanced math is solving a polynomial
>meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings
>boss: "hay anon, we know nothing about the technical stuff but we want you to do this..."
>me: "we cant do that, it violates the second law of thermodynamics"
>boss: "well, just try and see if you cant get it to work"
>take this excel sheet, and copy all 2000 lines to this new template which is just different enough so that you can just copy it.
>try to find out why this broke, even though all the sensors on that part of the plant dont work because we dont like spending money
>me: "we need to fix this now, or it will destroy the whole plant in 2 months"
>business guy: "will it cost money to fix?"
>me: "yes"
>business guy: 'then leave it"
>me: "but"
>business guy: 'just leave it"
>incompetent guy breaks $2m equipment
>gets promoted to office job so that he cant break things anymore
>write checks to people who work 10% of the time i do, but get 10 times my pay
I hate my job. but only 3 more years and ill have enough money saved to become a farmer.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:40:13 2014 No.6435115 >>6435097 fuck it i'm done, just finished calc 3 on my EE track. I'm switching to CE so I can be miserable with my computers instead.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:43:43 2014 No.6435124

>>6435097
I have been tempted to save up to own a ranch and be a farmer. Cows, pigs, deer, horses, etc. Maybe even have an orchard and other crops.

This thing right here is retarded, but you might find it interesting: http://opensourceecology.org/ I have used it for a few 'what ifs' in my head.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:50:43 2014 No.6435144 >>6435124 luckily my parents own lots of farmland, but they don't have the capital to use it. I already have 72 sheep, 300 chickens and 4 pigs but that's not nearly enough to live off of.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 12:55:43 2014 No.6435166
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What's the consequence to be drawn from this thread? I guess "better do what makes you happy."
People in every field are unhappy with their lives.* I figure it is not more so the case with engineering - in other jobs people cry about the money for their families, you guys cry about repetitiveness followed by underappreciation.

>a farm
*pic related, super successful pure mathematician, /sci/ loves to suck his dick, never really a happy man. He said fuck it and moved into the mountains - never to be seen again

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 13:04:46 2014 No.6435187 Is farming some kind of meme now? I just saw a post about becoming a farmer on /pol/.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 13:17:46 2014 No.6435211 >>6435187 I dont think so, i was the first one to post farming ITT and i wasnt meeming

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 13:27:16 2014 No.6435233 File: 165 KB, 778x658, nobleman, swerve.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6435187 Maybe?

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 13:37:17 2014 No.6435249

>>6435097
>>boss: "hay anon, we know nothing about the technical stuff but we want you to do this..."
>>me: "we cant do that, it violates the second law of thermodynamics"
>>boss: "well, just try and see if you cant get it to work"
What the fuck, usually in Engineering companies the bosses are well...Engineers.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 13:43:16 2014 No.6435264

>>6435166
>What's the consequence to be drawn from this thread? I guess "better do what makes you happy."

Problem is you think engineering is gonna make you happy from what everyone tells you, and then it turns out to be not at all what you expected. So either you keep doing something that doesn't make you happy, or you move on to something else altogether trying to forget the last 5 years you have wasted. Also I didn't know I would despise the corporate world so much, now I want to get as far from it as possible for the rest of my life

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 13:51:16 2014 No.6435279 >>6435249 Not as much as you'd think, actually.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 14:01:16 2014 No.6435299 I just started getting my Civil degree, anyone with experience have any tips?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 14:04:16 2014 No.6435309 Why not capitalize on your astute mental prowess and go in to a field like finance, /sci/? Make a fortune by simply manipulating money, gain economic security, proceed to do whatever the fuck you'd like to do.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 14:20:16 2014 No.6435359

>>6435264
what are the options? I mean I'm close to a pure math person and the academic world is very hard/shitty too - but without the money.
What is it about the cooperate world that you don't like so much (my main problem would be to not have people with academic interest around me)

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 14:21:16 2014 No.6435361

Farming is like music or game programming. People want to do it, so they compete to be allowed to do it, and bid each other's compensation down until they need day jobs.

Except that with farming, you have basically no chance of producing a "hit farm" and making it rich.

Basically, if you haven't inherited a large farm, it can either be an investment that never pays off, or a job where you work very hard for very long hours for what ends up adding up to less than you could make working at an easy job for regular hours, and with no security of actually making enough to live each year.

I can't recommend it.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 14:22:17 2014 No.6435364 >>6435309 im going to do this while farming.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 14:24:16 2014 No.6435372 >>6433443 Go to grad school

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 15:04:52 2014 No.6435456

>>6435359
>What is it about the cooperate world that you don't like so much

In order to climb the hierarchy it's not about being smarter, doing a better job, being curious, asking yourself questions, applying your knowledge, trying to find novel solutions or understand, it's about doing what you are told and having good social skills so your superiors have a positive opinion of you. Since what I was told to do was uninteresting repetitive shit and since I don't have good social skills I had no hope of progressing in that world.

You are not judged on what you are able to do, it's one big social game. At least that was my experience, maybe it's not the same in all companies, but my experience was horrible enough to not want to ever go back.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 15:20:39 2014 No.6435494 >>6435166 Thought engineering would make me happy. School sucked but the payoff was supposed to be worth it. Nobody told me I was going to have to deal with office politics all day

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 15:27:09 2014 No.6435508 >>6434002 It's the only sensible course of action.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 15:35:39 2014 No.6435522 >>6435361 Unless you save and invest prior to acquiring the farm, then turn it into a business endeavor and hire people to do the work for you while you work yourself. Invest, invest, invest.

Anonymous Mon Mar 24 15:37:09 2014 No.6435532

>>6433992
>I should be able to save 50k over 6 months
You won't.
Not unless you have ~3 years of experience and don't spend ANY money or pay ANY taxes your first year. It's a lot less money and a lot more expensive to work and live as a roughneck than you think.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 17:25:03 2014 No.6435753 >>6434922 Yeah. Me too. >tfw not professor challanger >tfw the time for those kind of people are long gone >tfw transcendental captcha

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 17:27:33 2014 No.6435757 >>6435532 >farming=roughneckery Lol no. Here in hueland we don't even call farming "farming" it's called the Agroindustry

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 17:44:33 2014 No.6435783 >>6435532 Yes I will, salary is 25$/hr, overtime paid 50% more beyond 40hrs/week, living allowance of 140$ per day, if I don't save 50k in 6 months it means I'm throwing away money in hookers and gambling machines

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 17:48:33 2014 No.6435790 >>6435783 make it 8 months actually, I may have been a bit high with my estimate

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 18:28:33 2014 No.6435877 >>6433443 >not goign into engineering for the money because all the jobs are shit >not becoming a petroleum engineer 300k starting Its true that the job might be boring and isolated form society, but at least it pays.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 18:32:33 2014 No.6435886 >>6433701 Dude, those pussy slayers get to the point where like, they just can't get off at all. They literally inject Viagra into their dick in order to get hard enough to slay pussy. That doesn't sound enjoyable at all.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 19:13:04 2014 No.6435965 >>6435877 That's what I realized way too late, I should have gone for petroleum since the job is shit anyway

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 19:32:05 2014 No.6436003 >>6435877 It's a relatively obscure major and few schools offer it. It's just glorified ChemE mixed with geology anyway.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 19:51:04 2014 No.6436032 >>6433443 Welcome to MechE

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 20:28:19 2014 No.6436123 >>6435877 Fuck man, would have to move to the shithole of America though

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 20:38:19 2014 No.6436139 >>6436123 Does anybody really care about that? I assume engineers are the type that have no friends or girlfriends so living in an oilfield accumulating vast sums of cash is the perfect lifestyle for them.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 20:44:49 2014 No.6436146 >>6436139 No girlfriends, sure. No friends? Hell no

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 20:49:49 2014 No.6436157 >>6433781 Funny, I'm a roughneck in the Alberta oil patch so I can earn enough money to get through undergrad to become an engineer. Should I just kill myself now?

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 20:52:19 2014 No.6436168 >>6433443 im going into aero ive always wanted to work on rockets and help land a man on mars even if knowing i was only a small part of it i really want to work for space x or work with Nasa on SLS if i could do that id be at peace finally

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 23:26:48 2014 No.6436411 >>6433443 get a different job you dumb mother fucker.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 24 23:43:48 2014 No.6436445 >>6433443 Become a physicist and do real science.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 00:59:21 2014 No.6436539 >>6435097 This makes me depressed, not all engineer jobs are like this, r-right guys?

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 01:22:18 2014 No.6436564

>>6436168

My grandfather was a chemical engineer.
He helped design the solid fuel rockets for the Apollo missions.
I still have his notebooks and memos from when he worked on the project. I can't understand most of the stuff in the notebooks but it is still amazing to look through them.
I am always depressed when I think about how I will never do anything remotely as interesting as that with my life.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 01:22:48 2014 No.6436562
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>Mfw this thread
>Mfw literally every associate i knew in high school is going into engineering
>I repeatedly told them "You will be a well paid corporate slave while shareholders fuck you in the ass and you do all the work"
>They mumble muh STEM, it just werks, well paying job
>Do economics and finance instead and laugh and my pleb friends.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 01:25:48 2014 No.6436567 Wow, EE undergrad here. How discouraging. Applying for internships and jobs seems taxing enough. Now you guys are telling me that it only gets worse from there.....shit man

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 01:36:18 2014 No.6436585 >>6436445 9/11 would lol again

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 02:43:48 2014 No.6436641 File: 1.99 MB, 369x271, 1391194893726.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Thais why I stopped half way and became a math teacher.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 02:48:18 2014 No.6436644

>>6435372

/thread

If you're expecting to finish your undergrad and be anything more than a drone following a plethora of SOPs at a large company, think again. You would have better luck making more of an impact at a start-up or being an entrepreneur - expect to have a more diverse workload as compared to the corporate drones. There are always outliers, of course, but in general engineers with nothing but a B.S. make up the brute labor of the high tech industry. If you're lucky you might make it to middle management and become a paper pusher.

Want more? Try for an M.S., maybe even a Ph.D. if that floats your boat. Though, if you want to go out into industry, M.S. is usually a good stopping point (depends on your major). If you really want to contribute to the /sci/entific community, and you can handle an M.S., think about a Ph.D. Just realize it's for the love of the game - you don't make yourself much more employable than someone with an M.S. AND the politics of academia are just as fucked as corporate politics. Especially these days with the lack of funding.

TL;DR: If you want to feel like an engineer/scientist, then going to grad school is a safe bet. If you want to be a systems integrator and throw things together that were designed by the guys that took it all the way, stop with your undergrad. It's not always that black and white, but it's a good generalization to start from.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 03:34:05 2014 No.6436679

>>6436644
>If you want to be a systems integrator and throw things together that were designed by the guys that took it all the way, stop with your undergrad

How much would someone with an undergrad that is a computer engineer usually make? I'm planning on being single the rest of my life, and I just want to make enough money where I can travel from time to time.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 03:47:35 2014 No.6436690 Should have went Software Engineer/CS. You could have done shit that was actually fun.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 05:07:41 2014 No.6436771 >>6434922 This is my dream and now I have to find out who Winston Wolfe is.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 05:13:11 2014 No.6436774

>>6434922

>My dream is to somehow make it to the top while being known as that no-nonsense, straight-faced, doesn't-play-politics "Winston Wolfe" type guy.

That will never happen. Don't live in a fantasy world, social connections are imperative in moving up in the world. No-one likes you? That means no-one wants to work with you, regardless of how good you are.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 05:30:12 2014 No.6436787

>>6436644
All I'm reading is
>If you want to do the fun stuff and actually get involved in industry, stop with B.S. and get a job
>If you want to... well... "feel" smarter than everyone else, go to grad school
So what's the benefit of going to grad school again?

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 05:30:42 2014 No.6436786 >No one told me Engineering jobs suck. Didn't you listen all the way through? I bet they means >No one told me Engineers' job is to suck dick.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 09:45:40 2014 No.6436969

>>6436679
You should be fine. Expect 70k-80k out of the gate, depending on your experience, alma mater, where you get a job, etc.

>>6436787
Actually, no. If you want to do fun stuff and get involved in industry, stop with M.S. and then get a job. It's the best of both worlds.

Baseless sarcasm aside, being in grad school has little to do with being 'smart' and more to do with how well you can design an experiment, how motivated you are to see it through, and how well you can defend your results. Being 'smart' (i.e. being well grounded in theory) is just a prerequisite. The benefit is that you are more experienced and you are more employable, from a company's perspective.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 09:48:10 2014 No.6436974 >>6434922 >My dream is to somehow make it to the top while being known as that no-nonsense, straight-faced, doesn't-play-politics "Winston Wolfe" type guy Yeah, you and literally everyone else.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 09:52:45 2014 No.6436978 >>6433443 >OP discovers why groan ups are miserable. >OP discovers the expectations he had of "real life" were based on a massive set of lies he was told throughout his youth.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 10:22:45 2014 No.6437008

>>6436978

>OP realizes all these abstractions such as measurable "intelligence" (from IQ tests or whatever) probably have root in the sociocorporative world where arbitrary competition is enforced as a way to weed out numbers

> numbers = people

> human resources

> resources are humans, humans are resources

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 10:23:15 2014 No.6437009 >>6436974 If that's true, why do so few people actually do that? Apart from "making it to the top". Obviously not everyone can be at the top.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 10:28:15 2014 No.6437018 I said it again in this thread and I do it again: Politics are everywhere. Academia is just as much work, maybe slightly less repetitive (unless you're a chemistry/biology lab rat), but much less pay. Stop crying and enjoy life.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 10:31:15 2014 No.6437024 >>6437009 >If that's true, why do so few people actually do that? Because game theory.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 11:32:45 2014 No.6437092

Just learn how to ask for promotions. If your accomplishments stand on their own, and you know that the company would be fucked without you, you have nothing to be afraid of by asking for more and being ready to walk if they say no. You can be firm without being a dick. It's a fine line that assertive alpha men walk.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 12:14:15 2014 No.6437143 >>6437092 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUysjXdBD1U

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 12:31:15 2014 No.6437155

>>6437092
my company started not giving a damn about whether they need you or not, now its impossible to get promotions. we have people who have been working there for years, running entire sections of the plant and still get the trainee salary because of it.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 12:47:15 2014 No.6437176 >>6437155 That's when you give them an ultimatum. Someone with that much experience is probably being headhunted. "You will notice when I'm gone."

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 13:06:43 2014 No.6437196 >>6436562 my dad says theres two kinds of engineers, the kind who do economics on the side and those who dont. fuck hip hop

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 13:28:13 2014 No.6437220 Would it be crazy to start a consulting firm or something just because I don't think anyone will hire me?

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 15:31:16 2014 No.6437428
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>>6437024
Elaborate. If everyone wants to be straight they'll frown on others not being straight and so it wouldn't be an obvious advantadge. Does it have to do with limited information?

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 18:15:45 2014 No.6437860 I haven't got my degree yet, so I don't count as a fellow engineer, but I see what you mean. Maybe you go alone and try your luck with a startup. At least you would be your own boss and do what you really like.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 19:16:45 2014 No.6438009

>>6437860
I always hear about these mythical startups as a last resort for people who don't get hired by other companies. Where would I find one? I assume either the pay is really shit and/or the job is extremely stressful since the company is being built from scratch. But if as a founding member I make it big when the company makes it big, that would be a huge motivator for me to put in 80-hour weeks to make sure it's successful.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 19:22:45 2014 No.6438022 >>6436644 Finishing my PhD. It was fun for a while. But I've really come to hate it. And I'm having difficulty finding a job.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 19:55:45 2014 No.6438117 >>6438009 I'm trying my luck in the flavor industry. It's fun if you like chemistry. Find a topic you like and go ahead.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 20:14:45 2014 No.6438179

>>6433679
Go power. Learn about power distribution and protection. If you come to Texas my company will hire you tomorrow for $65k exempt. Be over $100k in three years. After you become a PE you can doff the hardhat for good and take a non exempt salaried position in the company (but that shit is for weenies).

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 20:33:45 2014 No.6438252

>>6436157
You're really working there now? That's where I plan on going. Don't kill yourself become an engineer in petroleum instead, I bet that experience will look nice on your resume.

The other day I saw an ad for a drilling engineer, 1 year of experience required, salary banding 2000-2500$ per day. I'll try to get a engineering job in that field but my hopes are real low, so more realistically I'll work there as a roughneck. Which will still be paid 3 times more than my previous job as an aerospace engineer.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 20:54:15 2014 No.6438300
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This thread seems to affirm what I've come to realize over the past few days:
That, despite what I've been assuming for these past couple years in community college, I don't actually want to be an aerospace engineer.. I've decided that a major in one of the sciences would suit me better.
I have no interest in working in an office for the success of some company. I always wanted to work for NASA (I know they're in the shitter right now) or something similar, I want to be on the front lines of real investigation and discovery.
What would you guys suggest as a major/career?
Chemistry? Physics? Geoscience? Astronomy/Astrophysics? Not even ruling out some form of biology..

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 21:03:15 2014 No.6438336

>>6438300
If you want to be on the front line in aerospace give a try to SpaceX and Planetary Resources, I tend to think you will meet a similar spirit to that of NASA. If you change path keep in mind you will probably get the same crap in the other fields too

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 25 21:19:15 2014 No.6438378 >>6438300 As a nonengineer, I'd say that material science is on the breaking edge of research

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 21:43:15 2014 No.6438471

>>6438300
You can do that in any engineering major if you're the 1% of the 1% of genius students. Straight As, professors say you're the greatest student they've ever had, shattering records on exams, undergraduate research experience, recommendation letters, etc. Then be a tenure track professor and research whatever you want in your field. Most people slog through it getting Cs to become corporate drones.

Anonymous Tue Mar 25 21:43:15 2014 No.6438472

>>6433536
Meaningless?
You need to find meaning!
I can talk for 7 hours about how amazing it is that I can get a soda from a vending machine for around $2. Stopping to buy one every now and then when I get too depressed. That level a joy and amazement came from learning where the soda came from and how it got to me. From the Bauxite mines in Australia, to the corn fields in the US every step coming together backed by over a century of R&D.
Figure out why your job matters and imagine how messed up things would be if it didn't get done. And know me and many others would do just about anything for your job, so be glad you have one.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 00:26:42 2014 No.6438920

Would a Masters/PhD in Physics lead to less soul-crushing jobs than a masters in ChemE?

I'm more interested in physics but academia doesn't seem like a nice place to be. Reading more about the engineering life, I'm not so sure it's that much better.

Honestly I'll probably just get my degree, accumulate debt and then off myself when it's time to face the real world. Can't win with these cards.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 01:14:11 2014 No.6439052 >>6438920 What sort of work/research are you interested in?

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 01:23:10 2014 No.6439069 >>6438920 If you don't want to go into academia, then just get a pleb major and get a pleb job and live a boring, plebbey life.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 01:31:40 2014 No.6439085

>>6438300
THIS so much. I have want to go into some science field, I want to expand human knowledge and understanding. I don't want to be a corporate shill working to spit out the next product.
What major should I do? I'm currently engineering, thinking of going physics, but from what I heard >nojobs and only like 10% of people get some sort of job in academia. I'm not completely against industry work but I think you know what I basically mean.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 01:37:40 2014 No.6439093 >>6436771 Pulp Fiction character.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 01:39:40 2014 No.6439098 >>6433443 >How the hell to you break out of the job funk. Work for a small company. Seriously.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 01:44:40 2014 No.6439103

>>6438300
>>6438336
Speaking with experience, most of NASA is just as boring as big business aerospace. Seriously, join a small startup company. you'll have to work your ass off but you get to work with hardware and software and everywhere between system level and component level stuff.

Not to mention that there's a chance to become filthy fucking rich with the coming of civil UAV and spaceflight industries in the next two decades - seriously, it's going to be like the web development industry in the 90's pretty soon.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 14:50:36 2014 No.6439985

I've applied to do Chemistry at a top-10 University (and got an offer), but reading all the nojobs posts everywhere and how labratty it is, I was thinking of trying to get transferred to ChemEng, try and get those fatstacks, also because I'm more than capable at Chemistry, Physics and Maths.

Is it worth it? I feel like I would be happier doing a pure Chemistry degree, but I have the feeling I'd be scraping by on a slave wage being a lab rat, and frankly I'm freaking the fuck out a little bit due to not knowing what the fuck I'm going to do next year/the rest of my life.

What would /sci/ recommend? Is there any money in pure chem? Willing to do a phD if neccesary.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 15:35:06 2014 No.6440057 File: 132 KB, 400x500, Aviation-Dream.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6437008 oh, the Matrix again

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 15:46:36 2014 No.6440090

>>6433443
I know the feel OP.

>physics undergrad
>work in aerospace industry
>felt my soul dying
>started reading good books (novels, philosophy)
>started part-time applied math MS
>kept working
>watched Office Space again
>read Don Quixote
>lost my mind
>setting out on a quest for a long time in a couple months
>will seek adventures, defend the weak, fight for justice, rescue maidens, etc...

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 15:59:36 2014 No.6440129

>>6438920
>Honestly I'll probably just get my degree, accumulate debt and then off myself when it's time to face the real world. Can't win with these cards.

Don't do this anon, instead live as a recluse to concentrate on doing what you love, or use your intelligence to get rich. Then with money you do whatever the fuck you want. Don't want of a soul-crushing job? Get rich, start your own company then fuck them all.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:00:06 2014 No.6440131

bumping, I'm worried about becoming the OP. What are majors that dont turn you into a corporate drone? I want to be in the cutting edge of research and discovery, not a working to make the new landing gear to the next boeing jet or something. I'm currently an engineering major btw

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:04:06 2014 No.6440135

>>6439098
Not OP but I guess I'll try to do that at least once. Right now I'm starting my own project but it's hard to be motivated all the time when you're working alone, especially when the result won't come before months

>>6440090
>setting out on a quest for a long time in a couple months
Sounds interesting, what sort of quest?

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:09:36 2014 No.6440145

>>6440131
>What are majors that dont turn you into a corporate drone?
I guess most do, maybe go for those that make you travel and work outside? Geology, petroleum, what do i know

>I want to be in the cutting edge of research and discovery
Same here, but I'm starting to have the impression that to be on the cutting edge you have to be very specialized, so if you want to be on the cutting edge of say space exploration you won't design everything yourself, you'll concentrate on the nuclear reactor, the solar panels, the attitude/trajectory control algorithms or whatever

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:20:06 2014 No.6440172

>>6440135
Basically going to buy a 1 way plane ticket overseas, likely landing in London (from east US). From there I'll wander around/head west until I run out of money, get tired of it, or hit the Pacific. Been saving for quite awhile for this. I don't have a dead set itinerary, but a general idea.

The goal of the quest? Hmmm, now that's a thought...

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:29:06 2014 No.6440196 >>6440145 I think physician-scientist might be a way out, of course that path is hard as hell, but it seems there still is a lot of research going on.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:30:36 2014 No.6440198

>>6433917
SpaceX is different in that your work is cooler, you generally have greater autonomy over your projects (i.e. do the design AND analysis on a part), and the cachet of saying you work there. OTOH you're expected to work 70-80 hours without overtime, that's why they hire starry-eyed new grads without families who can sacrifice their lives to the mission. They really milk the new engineers.

Source: know current and former SpaceXers

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:39:36 2014 No.6440224

>>6440172
> likely landing in London (from east US). From there I'll wander around/head west until I run out of money, get tired of it, or hit the Pacific
If you go west you'll only see a bit of England, then it's the Atlantic all the way to the US. Probably you meant east?

That sounds good. Personally I'll leave France for Alberta, Canada to work in the oil sands for 6-8 months, then with the money saved I plan on traveling for a while too, have a trek in the Rocky Mountains, go in Alaska to see Mount McKinley and maybe climb a part of it, then once I've had enough of the cold go to Thailand and stay there for a while, then New Zealand and back to Europe. I won't plan it any more than that, adventure is not adventure if everything's planned in advance.

No goal either, just enjoy the world and life while I'm young. And who knows what I'll experience on the way, maybe I'll come back a completely different person. Or maybe not, but at least it won't be something I'll regret never having done

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:41:37 2014 No.6440231

OP I'm like you. Wanted to do aerospace since 14, now I've got twice as many years and hate it. Looking to transition into something location independent like contract programmer maybe so that I can escape LA. But I'm also worried about losing my meager friends here...

reddit.com/r/jadedengineers

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:47:06 2014 No.6440244 >>6440198 >former SpaceXers What did they leave for?

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 16:55:36 2014 No.6440264 >>6440244 The only former guy I know left SpaceX for my company, a small aeronautical firm (but not a startup). We only work 45 hour weeks, but nothing remotely sexy like SpaceX (we're actually very conservative in every way).

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:03:06 2014 No.6440285

As a physics undergrad that is (was) planing to switch to engineering this thread makes me depressed. I always liked physics, computers, machines and technology in general; and I've always been good in math so I decided physics (although I was really close to picking computer science or engineering, but I thought this would be more interesting). But as the time passes I realize that I want money. I want a great car, I want a good house, I want to have the money to travel and invest, I want to satisfy the needs of my wife and kids (not in this stage yet though)... the only problem is that getting a job with a physics degree is hard (at least where I live), and getting a good paying job is very hard. When I was younger (21 now) I said fuck the money, I was so wrong.

My dad warned me about this, and said to me that if I want money I should become an engineer like him (although he's not really an engineer - he does have a masters in engineering but he's been working in an IT company since he finished college so he really doesn't have any exp as an engineer). I read an article in the newspaper a few months ago about some company from some north-european county looking for 1000 engineers from my country (Croatia). Starting pay for a engineer directly from college (with masters) 100 000 €, what the fuck man. And I've decided a few months ago that I will switch to engineering after this summer 'cause money, but after reading this thread I'm afraid that that it's a good choice either. I don't want to be stuck in some shitty desk job doing repetitive stuff like a robot, fuck that man. I want for my love for technology and science to grow as I grow, I want my job to be interesting and exciting. Am I just being a goddamn stupid and young and not realizing how to world works, how life works? If so, fuck life, fuck the world. This goddamn thread...

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:04:06 2014 No.6440290 >>6440285 Sorry if I made some mistakes writing this post, english is my 3rd language.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:08:36 2014 No.6440302 >>6440264 Nice, out of curiosity what does your aeronautical firm do?

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:15:06 2014 No.6440319 >>6440302 If he's talking about XCOR, I say we throw him out the window.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:16:06 2014 No.6440324

>>6440285
>If so, fuck life, fuck the world
This was my conclusion as well. Actually only the "fuck the world" part, I still want to live. If I can do a shit job for 100 000 € / year then I'll do it, but not for long. Then I'll enjoy life. Better than doing a shit job with a shit pay. Sadly we do not live in a world where the quest for knowledge, discovery and understanding is highly regarded by society. If you want to work in research it's not much better, you have to suck dicks and you don't get to pick whatever you want to work on, someone has to pay you and they will only pay you if they want to pay you for what you do.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:22:36 2014 No.6440334

>>6440224
Ha yep! Heading west would certainly be a short trip -- meant east.

Mountain climbing in Alaska sounds great. Maybe I'll stop through there at the end. I'm also planning on ending up in Thailand and Vietnam at one point. A friend of mine is heading there for a few weeks in October/November and I've said I'll meet him there. He expects to see me dirty with a long ass beard and full of stories.

I've done some traveling before, but only at most a few weeks at a time. This will be for the long haul, and being out and seeking adventures will be good enough.

>"Don't be in such a hurry to know all this, Teresa," said Sancho; "it is enough that I am telling you the truth, so shut your mouth. But I may tell you this much by the way, that there is nothing in the world more delightful than to be a person of consideration, squire to a knight-errant, and a seeker of adventures. To be sure most of those one finds do not end as pleasantly as one could wish, for out of a hundred, ninety-nine will turn out cross and contrary. I know it by experience, for out of some I came blanketed, and out of others belaboured. Still, for all that, it is a fine thing to be on the look-out for what may happen, crossing mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting castles, putting up at inns, all at free quarters, and devil take the maravedi to pay."

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:23:06 2014 No.6440340

>>6440334
>" "Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honour, life may and should be ventured; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can fall to the lot of man. I say this, Sancho, because thou hast seen the good cheer, the abundance we have enjoyed in this castle we are leaving; well then, amid those dainty banquets and snow–cooled beverages I felt as though I were undergoing the straits of hunger, because I did not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been mine own; for the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit. Happy he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but heaven itself!"

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 17:36:06 2014 No.6440372

>>6440334
>I'm also planning on ending up in Thailand and Vietnam at one point
Between Eastern Europe and China/Mongolia there is a good chunk of land I wouldn't want to pass through for an adventure. Russia, Kazakhstan and a lot of what's below sound a bit dangerous if you don't know where you're going, or maybe I'm prejudiced

>for the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit
So true. Don Quixote is it? I'll have to give it a read

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 18:08:58 2014 No.6440425
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>be br
>engineers are badly needed here, are overly well paid, can work wherever they want and depending on the uni you will get sucked by companies
>most that have 2 languages go live/work abroad (a friend of my dad went to clankerland and now works for thyssen krupp with spooky stuff), others go to Ferrari, Audi and other manufacturers and a small group (growing though) start their own business to do what the fuck they want.
>see thread
>american engies are treated like trash, common pleb office workers
>mfw the whole time
How the fuck is that even allowed? People spend 6 years on a university bench and get that crap? What the fuck america.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 20:41:46 2014 No.6440782 >>6440302 Won't go into details because it could identify me. We make small aircraft. You probably haven't heard of us. >>6440319 Nope.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 20:42:45 2014 No.6440785 >>6440782 There's at least on XCOR guy who hangs out on /sci/. Thought you might have been him.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 20:45:13 2014 No.6440792 So what is /sci/'s? recommendation for non soul crushing corporate lacky majors.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 20:53:13 2014 No.6440798

>>6433443
>What do you do in order to feel like your 20's aren't a complete waste of time and youth?
Signed up for innawood.org and working to help everyone involved make it happen. Engineering, science, computing, even farming are fun but not when you are just a replaceable cog, people didn't evolve to live like that.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 20:57:13 2014 No.6440806 >>6440782 You guys happen to be hiring?

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:06:43 2014 No.6440820 >>6440792 They're all soul-sucking, that's why it's called work.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:08:43 2014 No.6440823 >>6440820 this is a cruel world, and I'm in one of the better countries

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:10:43 2014 No.6440826 >>6440820 Work doesn't have to be soul sucking. Plenty of people actually enjoy and love what they do

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:28:13 2014 No.6440857 >>6440425 Depois que tu te formar vais ver que não é assim não, calouro.

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:28:43 2014 No.6440856
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>be me
>be EE undergrad
>classes kicking my ass hard despite me putting in a shitton of time to study/work
>3.0 gpa sophomore
>see this thread

Go into engineering they said. It's good and has a lot of opportunities they said. 100k starting they said... FUCK!

I also find it funny that I might get an internship at an aerospace company this summer.

I hope that I can at least find employment after graduating...

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:36:13 2014 No.6440870 >>6440806 Not really. Besides, it's not that great a place to work. I'm thinking about going back to Boeing.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:38:43 2014 No.6440873 >>6440870 How's Boeing like. They're usually at the forefront as this crap, but they are like THE big Aero corporation, so I can't imagine that they're all that different from other companies

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:41:43 2014 No.6440877

>>6440425
You're lucky to live in a country where most of the high-tech manufacturing is protected by stiff tariffs. While that ensures a well paying engineering occupations, the public has to pay $$$ for Apple/Mitsubishi/Siemens

But yes, I would consider relocating to Brazil if I did not have to compromise my quality of life

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 21:46:13 2014 No.6440883
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>>6433443

>tfw browsed /sci/ for years during high school and learned all this before learning the hard way

Get a job in finance/business. If you love science and math, do it on your free time, otherwise you'll be a labor monkey who hates your job for someone who went in business

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 22:44:13 2014 No.6440995

Chemical Engineering undergrad 1st year here. I honestly don't give a shit about money, I just really fucking don't.

I don't even know why I picked this major. Maybe it's because I like chemistry and I like engineering in general. All I want to do is some decent R&D. Are there any chemical engineers in this thread? What are you working on? Can you tell me about you guys do?

>pipes

Anonymous Wed Mar 26 23:47:44 2014 No.6441145

>>6440873
Boeing's better than my company in that they use more sophisticated analysis, being backed by a huge fortune 100 company, versus the "classical" engineering done at my workplace (a lot of hand calculations, tables). We don't even use MATLAB, we can't really afford it (they tell us). Also total pay, benefits would be better, plus the Boeing Alpining Society is one of the best and cheapest ways to get into mountaineering in the US (and Boeing also has a ton of cool activity clubs, my 20-engineer company doesn't have shit, everyone just works & goes home to their kids).

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 00:49:13 2014 No.6441242 Can anyone here attest to the working environment for nuclear engineers? (In a job working on actual engineering, not as an operator.)

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 01:15:13 2014 No.6441281

>>6440995

I'm a sophomore chem E, and I rarely ever use true chemistry. You can't even classify chem E & chemistry as related, other than making us take those service chem classes.

I probably know 10x more math and 5x more physics than I do chemistry.

I don't even want a real engineering job, I just want the cushy office job that starts high and gives stability. I don't even fucking like engineering that much. It's just something I can stand doing and not everyone else can do.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 01:43:50 2014 No.6441304 >>6441242 This, I'd love to know as well.

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 01:48:20 2014 No.6441316
File: 13 KB, 152x158, really.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>6441145
>We don't even use MATLAB, we can't really afford it (they tell us).

it would just be a small percent of a percent of your salary, I would just get it myself if they were stiffing me like that

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 01:51:50 2014 No.6441320 File: 1.94 MB, 235x180, 1395899504890.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6437428 >that picture Do theists not understand virtue based ethics? Or any widely accepted ethical theory for that matter?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 01:55:20 2014 No.6441331 >>6441145 >2014 >hundreds of different freeware CASs to choose from >bitching about not having MATLAB >also being an engineer: >calculating how many dicks you could fit in your butthole, etc. obligatory

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 03:50:51 2014 No.6441454

>>6438022
That's a damn shame, but at least you can call yourself Dr. I think most people would be lying if they didn't concede that the title is at least one reason they got their Ph.D. When's your final defense and what have you been working on?

>>6438179
I am technically EE, but I'm much more involved in the materials side of things (semiconductors). If you're interested in a specialization that'll test your EE, physics, chemistry and materials science knowledge, test the waters in any of the semiconductor related fields. It'll keep you on your toes.

>>6438300
I heard a joke a long time ago that aerospace companies hire more electrical engineers than they do aerospace engineers. Food for thought. If you want to be on the front lines of real investigation and discovery, don't rule out any field (other than aerospace).

There's a mammoth amount of effort that goes into making everything required for, say, Cassini-Huygens-like missions: electrical engineers [controls, communications, circuits, etc.], materials scientists [radiation hardened materials, exit/entry materials, etc.], computer and software engineers [DSP, more communications, more controls, AI, etc.], and mergers of fields [lab-on-chip, solar cells, etc.]. Science these days, to be done effectively, requires a large amount of collaboration, and people that were trained as X may well be focusing on Y as their career unfolds. My advice, look at electrical engineering. We're a jack of many trades with the ability to move around and be flexible.

>>6438920
Academia isn't generally a nice place to be at times, especially when funding is tight and professors seem to have grudge matches with people they can't play nicely with within their area. Perhaps think about experimental or applied physics?

>>6439085
If you want to do what you claim you want to do, then don't expect to be doing it with just a B.S. Try M.S. on for a size and see if you still feel the same way after you defend.

Cont...

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 03:58:20 2014 No.6441464

>>6441454
Cont.

>>6440145
Specialization is the name of the game these days, but that does not mean your knowledge base doesn't extend into many areas. To be even remotely competent, it should, but you will still have your primary expertise which will have people turning to you for advice.

>>6440856
At least you're sticking with it. Shit's rough, but if you make it through the hard patches, you'll be out of uni with a good degree that has a lot of versatility and gives you decent flexibility in your career options. Also, seems like that little joke I was told was accurate.

>>6440883
Money's not always the end all be all, just most of the time. Sometimes it's nice to be able to point to a published document and say "this is my contribution to society." It may be a small, extremely niche and all together unnoticed contribution, but for some people, that's worth the effort.

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 04:46:20 2014 No.6441517
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>>6440877
>Quality of life
As an engineer it wouldn't be damaged. I'd say depending on what you do here it'd increase. But that's my opinion. We are a really diverse country you have billionaire closed almost self sufficient cities on one city of the road and on the other a slum. That's most statistics people spew around are kinda useless. A hu3non made this map where he shows the "livable" places. (That means you have 0.7~ HDI and is not an outright jungle)

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 04:51:20 2014 No.6441521 >>6441517 >one city I meant one side. Autocorrector a shit

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:09:50 2014 No.6441524 I dont understand why you are complaining about not having to do complex calculations or writing code 8/5. I would be happy to have meetings and not sit by my computer all day long. CE student

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:33:20 2014 No.6441537

From reading the thread it seems to only way to go is starting a company, which is like telling someone to just win the lottery.

Anyone here done this? (Start a company I mean, not win the lottery, although that would be an interesting conversation topic if you had)

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:35:20 2014 No.6441539 >>6441537 I was thinking about starting a web development company

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:48:20 2014 No.6441552

>>6441537
I have a few ideas but they all require workshop space/tools/materials and I'm poor and live in a shared terrace house so that's out of the question for now. I was thinking of offering a 3D printing service to people in my city, specifically to the art college and all the students near here, but I have no idea if there is a market for such a thing and dropping £2k on uncertainties isn't something I really want to do. Fml.

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:51:50 2014 No.6441554

>>6433443
I tell everyone
Every single person, that if they like building, and like solving problems, to not become an engineer.
Friend, it's only going to get worse. As you show more and more proficiency at your job, you will, absolutely, positively, one-hundred-god-damned-percent will end up doing less engineering. You'll be doing boring, tedious paperwork and meeting with assholes you wish you could strangle, and then shoot, and then maybe toss out of a window. And then maybe shoot again.

It's not worth it. No money is worth it. When I was a kid, I worked a cannery, big fuck off place, hotter than satan's asshole in the summer. You stood at a fucking line counting cans and pushing them into carts for minimum wage and would prefer to do that TODAY than ever go back to engineering. You're an idiot if you want to be an engineer, unless the only thing you care about is the money.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:54:20 2014 No.6441557 >>6441554 If I like building, solving problems, mathematics, science and technology what am I supposed to do other then become an engineer? I (we) don't really have any other choice.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 05:56:20 2014 No.6441558 >>6441557 Dont listen to that twat, to create great things you have to cooperate with a lot of people and therefor meetings and paperwork are needed

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 06:44:20 2014 No.6441591

>>6441557

Go into information security. You can go into so many different areas depending on proficiency with discrete mathematics. You can go full electrical engineering and build secure systems, or you can go complexity theory and prove protocols secure.

I love my field.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 06:57:20 2014 No.6441599 >>6441557 Become a real scientist and not an engineer

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:20:20 2014 No.6441619 Work sucks. Even if you like the field of work you're in. I don't know why you guys are so surprised.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:25:50 2014 No.6441623 >>6436567 A job is a job is a job.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:27:51 2014 No.6441624 >>6441552 >>6441539 Starting a web company is I guess the one thing you can do from your house and get some good money from. If you have good ideas and they work out things can get big.

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:36:51 2014 No.6441634

> Being a project manager is among the worst wastes of time ever.

It's so fucking annoying. Meetings and meetings and meetings of people reporting factless things, discussing the same things over and over again from one meeting to the next because some people don't remember exactly what happened, or weren't there, or because someone feels like he needs to reintroduce his idea from the ground up since he had this little additional new thing to put on top of it. People unrealistically projecting things in the future instead of starting something productive *right now*. Etc etc.

Management is a nightmare. I cannot begin to understand why our society still prefers giving management positions to the its elements best able to do the job to manage: they're not trained to manage, and it leaves the engineering itself (or whatever it is in other contexts) to the persons least able to do it, since the best are busy managing. Fucking waste of resources.

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:44:41 2014 No.6441643

EE student here.
I'm currently focusing on learning how to program PLCs, I'm supposed to be Automation Engineer.

What else would be good to learn? Embedded systems seem like natural continuation of learning to program PLCs.

Also, is being PLC programmer nice job? From what I'm hearing you get tossed around the world, automatizing factories in 3rd world.
Seems like an adventure, but I imagine being for few months in China has shit parts.

tl;dr what should EE student learn

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:48:41 2014 No.6441648

>>6441643
>Also, is being PLC programmer nice job? From what I'm hearing you get tossed around the world, automatizing factories in 3rd world.
Im just someone studying CompE who can choose a minor in industrial systems but why would they need to send you abroad in order to write some code?

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 07:59:41 2014 No.6441659

>>6441648
PLC programming is done at very low level, it's programming in assembly languages, at highest level of it you might get something that looks very similar to C or Pascal.

So, you need to know what hardware you've got (attached modules), configure it (no plug&play), then write program which will be run by CPU commanding those modules.

So, you really need to know what are you automatizing, what sensors you've got, what actuators, is it analog or digital and so on.

It seems like real problem solving to me, I'd like to do it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:05:22 2014 No.6441665 File: 23 KB, 370x295, 100926-ladder-logic.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6441659 You dont write in an assembly language when developing PLC software. You use ladder logic

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:05:52 2014 No.6441664

>>6441659

>PLC programming is done at very low level

You're talking out of your ass, maybe 20-30 years ago. Look at PLC software from Allen Bradley or Siemens. It is a much higher level than most programming languages.

Have you ever done any real PLC programming?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:07:22 2014 No.6441668 >>6441659 lol, if this is what they teach EE people today it really is sad

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:09:07 2014 No.6441671

>>6441664
>real
no

I said I'm studying it right now. We're using Siemens S7-300.
We just begun with it, currently have to program some model of assembly line using ladder logic in Simatic software for Siemens PLCs.

Later we should be doing HMI and SCADA, but this is first thing.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:11:06 2014 No.6441675 >>6441671 >We just begun with it, currently have to program some model of assembly line using ladder logic in Simatic software for Siemens PLCs Why the fuck are you talking about assembly languages then?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:15:06 2014 No.6441679 >>6441675 ? Because now we'll do it in ladder logic, later in STL, which looks like assembly language to me.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:15:36 2014 No.6441680 Congratz, you're going to run the half-marathon (21k) in under 1.5 hours..

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:18:06 2014 No.6441682 >>6441680 Im an engineer, i dont run

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 08:57:06 2014 No.6441710

>>6441682
haha, that was supposed to be a cynical comment for that homework thread (I also saged it). I'm currently training for one. Half-marathon, that is.
I've posted in this thread before: I don't think other jobs generally such much less - at least engineers have money. Although I could never do that, in particular. Not that I have any idea what to do. I'm currently finishing my "chemical engineering" PhD and have no idea if I'll end up in a post doc position, a banking job or move to a foreign country. For at least 3 years now, I voluntary spend almost all my free time on learning and doing math for statistical physics/field theory - if I make this my job again, then I'll probably lose interest and realistically speaking, you can't get a good job in academia anymore. The nicest way to live would probably be to work a 20h okay job and go to university the rest of the week. I fear the semi-misanthropic girl on my side is dedicated to become the next Leonard Susskind and will be mad the rest of my life if I don't make more cash than her, making our lifes worse. I'd say write down a list what you want in life and make your decision accordingly.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 09:45:36 2014 No.6441756 File: 57 KB, 640x360, k-bigpic.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] I see that you engineers have fun with the toys that physicist made.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 09:47:36 2014 No.6441759 Move to Germany where engineering jobs are better

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 09:52:06 2014 No.6441770 >>6441759 >shit weather >niggers >merkel >EU No, im moving out of EU as soon as i have finished my degree

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 09:53:06 2014 No.6441772 >>6441770 >niggers >Germany Nope Also >moving out of Europe because of Niggers To where, exactly?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 09:55:36 2014 No.6441774 >>6441772 Shanghai

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 09:59:36 2014 No.6441778 >>6441759 What about the language barrier?

Anonymous Thu Mar 27 10:06:36 2014 No.6441789

>>6440285
What exactly did you read in article? Im from Croatia, too, and im eng major ( FER)
I'm pretty much in same boat, first year of uni wasn't really interesting, but if I could make that much money, I could save a shitload and stop depending on active income.
Also, question for more experienced, next year I'll have to EE programming, what's better choice?

Theme song for this thread- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3CuMDXaPs

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 10:15:36 2014 No.6441805 >>6441789 >https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3CuMDXaPs This is why you work for a small startup

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 10:18:06 2014 No.6441810 >>6441789 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC8lt--rEEo

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 10:46:56 2014 No.6441858 >>6433443 >Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. Relevant

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 21:12:13 2014 No.6443012 So someone (like me) who's in it mainly for the money would just be better off in something like finance?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 27 21:35:43 2014 No.6443046 >>6440198 I interned at SpaceX in McGregor tx. They didn't pay me nearly as muchas what the electrical testing NETA style companies paid so I turned down their offer. Most of the guys were happy there. Maybe it's different at the other locations.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 11:30:02 2014 No.6443986 So after reading this thread who is still gonna go for engineering? We should start our own country, imagine a country dedicated to science, not focused on financial gain. How far we could go with that.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 12:04:02 2014 No.6444031 >>6443986 Not very. Hard to do engineering without money.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 12:06:32 2014 No.6444035 >>6444031 Not if you hit the gym once in a while, pay for decent clothes and haircuts, and get a full-body wax.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 12:08:02 2014 No.6444038 >>6443012 Yes since finance pays more and you arent interested in engineering

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 12:12:32 2014 No.6444043

>>6444031
Why don't we create money? Imagine a self-sustaining country (i.e. not importing resources from other countries) where the government pays people to work on big scientific projects. Or even better, a country where all inhabitants share the same ideal of advancing science, contenting themselves of an average (by our standards) comfort of living. As long as you do a job that the society requires, you would be guaranteed this standard comfort of living. Taxes nor money would be required, at least not in a way that it hinders scientific progress

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 12:44:12 2014 No.6444093 >>6433679 EE is the way to go. My college roommate is an EE major. Got an offer from GE and is making $80+ Grand a year starting salary

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:10:12 2014 No.6444160
File: 20 KB, 300x291, eu quero hue.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>be depressed american engie
>cry softly on my cubicle erryday when my manager asks me to violate some thermodynamic laws
>discover that is in the 3rd world that the good shit is for they lack everything
>move to brazil
>aquire bunda wife
>work on what I want and get paid 20x more my previous job because of lel cargo cult
/sci/ please. Do you even hue?

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:18:51 2014 No.6444180 File: 83 KB, 1230x832, 1395163896028.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6444160 That's my plan when i have finished Uni here in FInland

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:20:21 2014 No.6444190 File: 56 KB, 720x537, pao.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6444180 >tfw brnon who will go to france or germany when I finish mech eng L-L-let's change places?

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:23:07 2014 No.6444200 File: 844 KB, 680x503, 1395163503364.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6444190 I would do it, fuck EU.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:24:07 2014 No.6444202 File: 87 KB, 379x426, bacalhau orapois.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6444200 But EU has low taxes and comfy weather... Why would you ever leave it anon.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:26:07 2014 No.6444204 >>6444202 >But EU has low taxes and comfy weather But that's the thing they dont have and the reason im leaving. Always shit weather here

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:33:37 2014 No.6444212

I'm an EE major, but I'm only a freshman so I don't know shit.

How hard does it get, really? So far I've only taken one course on digital design and my grade ended up being in the 10 percentile, but I wasn't sure if that was indicative of anything other than most of my classmates being stupid ("flagship" state university lel).

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:33:37 2014 No.6444213

>>6444204
Never seen snow in my life ;_;. We had an abnormal dry air mass some months ago, half the country (And area almost as big as europa) was engulfed by dry and hot weather in the fucking summer... We got 35 C and Almost 50 C of apparent temperature here... But I'll come back if I study in europe. The salary of an engineer here far outweighs taxes and everything. And you can start a company here as most market niches aren't filled or are filled by foreign corporations. I think BMW is going to open a factory here.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:34:37 2014 No.6444214 >>6444212 Here in brazil all engineering courses are the same for the first years (They range from 3-6 years). Then they start to diversify and specialize.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:37:07 2014 No.6444219 >>6433740 >bitter fast food worker detected

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:40:07 2014 No.6444227

>>6433954

Your dad is probably an idiot. Programmers don't look holistically at complete business processes. Sure your dad understands Java but he doens't understand the business processes that drive what the software is meant to do. It's likely that even though he could technically write a program that does the jobi n x language, his solution wouldn't provide scheduling/reporting/other functionality that's now critical to business efficiency.

300k/yr CIO who originally major'd in physics reporting in.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:41:08 2014 No.6444233 >>6444227 >300k/yr calling bait on this one

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:44:07 2014 No.6444238 >>6435783 Wut, you're on $50k a year, before tax. How are you going to save more than you earn, in less time than you earn it.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 13:46:37 2014 No.6444241 welp. I'll figure it out when i get there. So far I'm loving my EE internship despite not doing shit. at least i see interesting stuff.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 14:05:37 2014 No.6444291 >>6444238 >implying it's in the usa >implying i won't work 70 hours per week don't know about the taxes in canada though i'll have to look into it

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 14:20:37 2014 No.6444330 >>6444291 >don't know about the taxes in canada Oh, you poor dumb bastard.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 14:28:37 2014 No.6444347 any bioengineers here?

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 14:29:07 2014 No.6444351 ITT: people that hate their jobs >any reccomendations for people before they pick a degree in S.T.E.M?

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 14:31:36 2014 No.6444356

>>6441665
There are multiple forms of programming a PlC

Programming language is the easiest to work with and the most malleable (Hope thats the right term) in terms of what it can do. 1 line of code could equal 3 rungs on a ladder.

Ladder logic is babbys first plc program shit.

Finally Sequential function charts are a step between ladder logic and actual code.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 14:52:59 2014 No.6444393 >>6444356 PIC and PLC is not the same thing

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 15:02:29 2014 No.6444409 >>6438252 are there any specific company I should look into if I also want to get a job in this field?

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 15:02:29 2014 No.6444410 So a master in management when you went for EE is a safe choice ?

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 15:35:59 2014 No.6444472 >>6444330 15-20% that's alright. Plus it's about 100k/year not 50k

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 16:06:59 2014 No.6444518

>>6444472
>it's about 100k/year
Then you'll be paying about 25k/year in federal and provincial income taxes alone, assuming you're in a low-tax province like Alberta. Then there will be employment insurance and other taxes.

More to the point, your marginal income tax rate will be 36%, so when you put in that overtime, over a third of your pay for it will be going to the government. Make much over 100k/year, and it'll be boosted to 39%.

In some provinces, it can be over 50%.

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 16:14:29 2014 No.6444526

>>6444518
All the taxes are identical even for a foreigner? I'll be in Alberta.

So assuming 8k/month over 8 months and one third goes to the government then I'm left with 42k, minus cost of living I should be able to save max 30k? Converted in euros that makes 20k, which is what I would be able to save here as an engineer in 14 months. That's still better but not as much as i thought, oh well Canada is still nice

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 16:31:59 2014 No.6444548 >>6441772 mexico

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 16:32:29 2014 No.6444549

>>6444526
Actually I was wrong it's better than this, it's more than 100k/year. Typical worktime is 12h/day 7 days/week 3 weeks/month apparently, that makes about 8k/month which are taxed, on top of which we add 140$ of untaxed living allowance per day over 21 days (i'm not sure if it is totally untaxed or if it's only the federal part that is removed).

So I could expect to save 40-50k can$ over 8 months, which is what I would save as an engineer here in france in about 20 months

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 16:37:00 2014 No.6444557 >>6444549 Have you accounted for the mandatory expenditures on maple syrup and hockey pucks? And what about feeding the moose?

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 16:46:29 2014 No.6444563 >>6444557 I'm more concerned about resisting the temptation of hookers, could buy a bunch of bitches with that dough

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 17:18:59 2014 No.6444628

>>6444518
> In some provinces, it can be over 50%.
Not true. Nova Scotia and Quebec top out at a marginal rate of 50%, but the actual marginal rate is much lower because of deductions, shelters, and so on. When I lived to the US, I found that I paid more income tax than I did in Canada... and that's not even accounting for the fact that I had to buy my own health insurance and so on.

>>6444526
If you are from the USA, you should know that you may still have to pay income tax to the US government, even if you're also paying it in Canada.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 17:19:59 2014 No.6444630 >>6433536 >work seems completely meaningless. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 17:29:29 2014 No.6444647

>>6444628
>If you are from the USA, you should know that you may still have to pay income tax to the US government, even if you're also paying it in Canada.
Nope I'm from France, I believe I don't have to pay income tax to the french government as long as my "tax domicile" is abroad (which would be the case here)

Anonymous Fri Mar 28 17:41:07 2014 No.6444662

>>6444628
>deductions, shelters, and so on. When I lived to the US,
...you didn't know how to set up the deductions, shelters, and so on?

There are states with 0% income tax. The difference between the highest marginal income taxation rate (federal and state together) in some states in the USA is lower by 20% than in some provinces in Canada.

And the USA actually has better deductions, so almost nobody making enough to qualify for those rates pays anything near them.

>that's not even accounting for the fact that I had to buy my own health insurance
Health insurance isn't a tax. I see this argument over and over again that Canadian taxes should really be treated as if they were lower because healthcare is covered by the government, and it's nonsense.

Tax rates are tax rates, cost of living is cost of living, and quality of services available is quality of services available. They're separate things, and you can't add one to the other.

You never hear anyone argue that we should factor in the cost of trips to the USA for medical treatment up to standards completely unavailable in Canada, or rationed out in Potemkin hospitals with waiting lists longer than life expectancies.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 28 18:24:36 2014 No.6444716 File: 28 KB, 418x396, 1335893216413.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6440856 >3.0

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 00:24:42 2014 No.6445438 File: 50 KB, 640x480, hhh.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6441591 gimme moar this is my planned field, is taking CS a good route?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 00:41:12 2014 No.6445464 >>6440856 I graduated with a 3.1 in EE, working at a Satellite Communications company as an RF Systems Engineer. Made 70k starting. Keep at it, bring up your grades, and keep that internship.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 00:42:42 2014 No.6445466 >>6444716 Look at you sitting atop your wall of shit like some clueless egg cunt. You remind me a squeezed dick. If you don't knock off your shit I will summon all the forces of darkness to hound you to an assisted suicide.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 00:45:42 2014 No.6445470 >>6444716 If I could I would fucking pound you into paralysis.

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 06:38:26 2014 No.6445801

>>6440856
Noice. I'm the br who posted earlier. In the last years of the course here we are kinda forced to get an internship in a local industry or a foreign one (or go abroad to study more for a year) to end that "need experience for job and need job for experience" thing. The local industries always want engineers as most of the people can't add 2 and two and think math is the devil. And it's normal to get kicked hard in the teeth mate. (Everyone but a autistic pothead who scored all tests goddamit I'll stab that nigger)

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 07:08:26 2014 No.6445812
File: 10 KB, 346x251, tfw.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

im probably going to study some kind of engineering. i was motivated as fuck, wanted to join the army as an engineer etc etc.

but man, fuck that
every job fucking sucks
i just want to make the most amount of money possible

is it petroleum engineering for me or is there something even more rewarding in 4~5 years?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 07:33:56 2014 No.6445828 >>6445812 Petroleum or mining if you're in it for the money.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 07:37:56 2014 No.6445834 >>6445812 Why the fuck would you want a job that you have no interest in? You will be spending most of your awake time working, why not enjoy it?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 07:41:56 2014 No.6445840 >>6445834 you can always find interest in things >>6445828 alright, will look into them. mining sounds even better than petroleum, if you ask me!

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 07:48:56 2014 No.6445845 >>6445840 It's also a lot easier than petroleum.

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 08:39:42 2014 No.6445875

engineering is SO FUCKING GAY

holy fucking shit, everyone that studies it or teaches it is autistic

Im doing this fucking assignment on torsion in beams and i have no examples to work from. The only reference I have are these shitty lecture notes on torsion that explain jack fucking shit about what is going on. This is making me mad because everything in engineering is so fucking un-intuitive and having no examples to work from is like walking blindfolded across a minefield.

For instance, right now my lecturer told me that the particular solution for my torsion of a beam had a GJ=1, which is fucking impossible unless your beam was made out of fucking jelly or something

FUCKING NIGGERS

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 08:45:42 2014 No.6445882

Learn yourself programming, the reason i got in to it is because I wanted to make things. And that's why i love it, you're designing a machine. True they aren't phyisical machines but they let you do things you couldn't before.

And when making a digital analog of a real world thing, you have to find out how the real thing works. So you're constatly learning not only about programming but about other real life things such as physics/maths/engineering/whateverthefuckyou'redoing

I am self thaught, but now doing a 2 year course so I have an official paper saying I can program. I don't learn new things there though.

Oh, and did I mention the monster salary and the need for good programmers?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 08:47:42 2014 No.6445885 >>6445882 Programming is taught in most engineering courses. But learning some of it before hand surely helps.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 08:51:12 2014 No.6445894 >>6445885 Than you're probably programming in a specific language for doing simulations or something. I mean learn how to write a piece of software from scratch(in the language best fit for the job). There's loads of high paying jobs out there.

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 08:54:12 2014 No.6445900

>>6445894
Yeah that's exactly what they teach. At least here. And once you get a hang of how programming "works" (Realizing it's just a language) it's a hell lot easier to learn other languages, specially with lots of experienced and good teachers around. At least that's how it works here in brland.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 08:58:42 2014 No.6445904 >>6445900 Uh.. Forgot to use as an example a quadcopter some guys programmed to fly to 200m and monitor fish schools. They used java for it. But of course they learn other languages for simulations, like matlab for example.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 09:06:12 2014 No.6445914 >>6445900 Sound's like you're on the right track. At least your understanding of what actually programming is. You don't sound that enthousiastic though.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 09:15:43 2014 No.6445926 >>6445914 The "that's exactly what they teach. At least here" is directed towards>>6445894>I mean learn how to write a piece of software from scratch

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 09:28:43 2014 No.6445942

The people in this thread seem to be whiny bitches. I'm a student going for MechE. Currently, I am delivering pizzas for less than minimum wage just so i can pay for transportation from school. Before that, I was working in landscaping working 12-16 hour days in blistering heat. I'm going for MechE right now because I enjoy studying math and physics. If I can land a gig as an engineer, am i going to complain, no. I'm going to work my ass off and stack up until I have the resources to do whatever I actually want to do.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 09:29:43 2014 No.6445943 >>6445942 lmao

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 10:21:43 2014 No.6446004

>>6445942
Oh fuck you and your sense of superiority. People like you act like you are the only ones to ever bust your ass. You don't think other people worked during school while studying the? News flash when you realize all your hard work amounts to a overpaid desk job whee you feel your life being sucked away you won't feel so goddamn smug.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 10:23:13 2014 No.6446009 >>6445942 Oh yeah. Enjoy never using math and physics ever again ever. You never use that shit because any math or physics you can do a computer can do it better

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 10:39:44 2014 No.6446026 File: 20 KB, 400x393, frodo.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6446009 >this whole post Jesus fuck america what are you doing

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 10:42:13 2014 No.6446031 >>6445942 Damn you are pathetic. Why not focus on your studies?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 10:43:13 2014 No.6446036 >>6445942 >If I can land a gig as an engineer, am i going to complain, no. I'm going to work my ass off and stack up until I have the resources to do whatever I actually want to do. Confirmed for slave

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 11:10:14 2014 No.6446065 >>6446036 Entrepreneur, eh? Let me guess. You aspire to be the next Steve Jobs. Good luck with your start up, bro!

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 11:12:13 2014 No.6446068

>>6446004
>when you realize all your hard work amounts to a overpaid desk job whee you feel your life being sucked away you won't feel so goddamn smug.

News flash, bud. If work was fun, it wouldn't be called work. It's entitled kiddes like you that make our generation look bad. "B-but i s-studied in school!!! My work should b-be intellectually challenging."

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 11:22:43 2014 No.6446092 >>6446031 >implying delivering pizza interferes with studying at all

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 11:36:44 2014 No.6446122 >>6446092 I dont see the point in working while studying. I get 1200€ per month in welfare money when studying

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 11:40:43 2014 No.6446130 >>6446065 >steve jobs >engineer >working Pick 2

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 11:45:14 2014 No.6446138 Systems Engineering vs Systems Architecture?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 12:55:43 2014 No.6446253 >>6446130 u wot mate?

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 13:28:58 2014 No.6446315 >>6446068 And it's sheep like you that allow employers to force you to work 70 hours weeks unpaid.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 29 13:35:29 2014 No.6446324 >>6446315 This. Actually I'd say it's sheeps like him that are responsible for the current state of affairs in the corporate world. If you accept being a corporate drone then you become one.

Anonymous Sat Mar 29 13:43:28 2014 No.6446345

Try cultivating your personality, body, and mind, you little bitch. Jesus H. Christ you want your job to be fulfilling? Jobs are shit and its everyone's problem. There are bigger issues than you and your first world problems.

I'll bet you're working on some project whose net effect on the world is generally to make it a shittier place am I wrong?

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