Originally Posted by
taiden
I'm a non traditional student in Mech E. I have no career experience. So take what I say with a grain of salt.
A machinist with a whole brain can definitely "eat a bad mechanical engineer for breakfast." But an engineer with a whole brain could walk all over a bad machinist just the same.
In school I feel as if you can tell who is going to be a good engineer and who isn't. There are people in my major who are overachievers and only go for the grade. They don't care about how things work, they just want to be able to answer the professors questions quickly and accurately. When they graduate they will be CAD monkeys.
Engineering as a major is no joke. If you want to have as much fun as possible in college don't be an engineering student. You must be prepared to learn a lot of science and math. As an engineering student you will go further in math alone than any other major except physics and mathematics. When you graduate as an engineer, you are immediately first pick for a lot of non engineering related jobs because you have proved that you can complete the program... not at all an easy feat in itself. And you will be in the top 0.01% in the world for mathematics ability.
"Mathematics is the great equalizer," you can be a minority from the slums with one eye no legs and three arms, and if you can show up to class and find directional derivatives of three dimensional functions, you will be able to find a decent job when you graduate.
That said, I have no plans on going into an engineering career. I plan on using all the skills I will learn to be a hyper-successful entrepreneur.
If you want my opinion on how to be a successful engineer, I would start by:
Learn how operate a manual lathe and mill
Learn how to do carpentry
Learn how to TIG weld and stick weld
Use khan academy to blow through math and aim to complete Calc 2 your senior year. Take the AP exam
Save up $500 and use it to start a business (and fail)
Don't ask your parents to buy you a new car, buy an old junker and get it going
Drive this car 1000 miles in one direction and then turn around
If you can do this all before your freshman year as an engineering student I will personally guarantee that you will be more successful in life than 98% of your graduating class.