College for Mechanical Engineering?

[rmnc3r]

Hello fellow Calgunners
I am looking for School recommendations, job opportunities, insights and caveats to help guide my Daughter towards a possible career in Mechanical Engineering or related.

She is currently a 2nd Jr. College student looking to move forward to a University or Trade and Tech College in SoCal Long Beach area.

TIA!
R

[Ubermcoupe]

Does she have the prereqs (and GPA) to transfer into a Engineering degree @ a 4-year?

[ef9boy88]

She might check out Cal Poly Pomona.

[elSquid]

What is she taking now? How are her math and physics grades?

My first instinct is to say that if you need to guide her into becoming a mechie, she's going to get crushed under an engineering undergrad workload.

-- Michael

[rmnc3r]

Math skills and GPA well above average.

Jr. College is the least expensive way and best bang for the buck to take care of the first 2 years of required basic courses - my other children followed the same path before transferring to (and graduating from) 4 year Universities

Today's Education environment does a great disservice to our kids by indoctrinating them with the idea that a Degree - ANY Degree - is necessary to succeed (which is BS). So the last of my brood will be guided and hopefully motivated into learning something useful, with a marketable skill, and not some bogus, inconsequential Degree and just for the sake of being 'educated'.

We both came up with the idea of Mechanical Engineering independently based on her interest and skills, so it is a logical step to investigate in that direction.

[BBR]

EE is the hot ticket right now. Electrical engineers are in such short supply they average tenure at a utility is about four months due to a better offer. Sac State is the place to go right now. I know of a small Muni in the central valley offering associate ee's $100k per year.

Just an FYI.

Bbr

[rmnc3r]

Thanks for the suggestion, BBR - will check out EE, too

[Frozenguy]

Aerospace Engineer from Cal Poly Pomona here. I'll put this out here first and you can see why towards the end: FSAE (Forumla Society of Automotive Engineers)

But primarily:

--Mechanical/industrial/aerospace engineers will apply for a lot of 3D modeling jobs as their first job unless they show some real talent in actual design work.
--Chemical engineers will apply for laboratory technician work, right out of the box. Then move up to formulations, design, development.
--Civil engineers will apply to a lot of city jobs, construction company/architectural companies for 3D modeling, ensuring code and regulation before moving onto a Professional Engineer and sign off.

Now here is the thing. Companies STILL expect more than what the school is doing to prepare students. Even at 'hands on' polytechnic schools like Cal Poly. She has to get her hands on industry level equipment. If chemical engineering, she needs to get her hands on using and maintaining NMR, AAS, MS/GC. If she is going into mechanical/aerospace engineering, she needs to get on the computer and use CATIA, MSC NASTRAN, SolidWorks, ect.

FSAE:
If she can get herself on this team, it will help immensely. Almost all schools will have a team. If there isn't one, she should start it.

FSAE teams designs, builds, and races their own open wheel race car using industry leading techniques. Pre-impregnated carbon fiber with vacuum infusion layup is commonly used with teams. Design and build work of composites and alloys. Heavy use of design programs to make calculated trade-offs and then present it to your team for approval.

She puts some of that on a resume will for sure help her stand out. Internships are great, but even many many internships don't get you up to speed. Some companies use interns for their benefit, not to train. Unless they see great potential.

As said above, electrical is a big ticket however straight electrical engineering could be incredibly daunting (or a perfect mix). Interestingly enough, I graduated Aero but worked in the electrical field, building embedded data acquisition systems for a small company that designed and built sapphire crystal growth reactors. It was a great fit because the crystal is grown in a rotating fluid (aero engineering fluid principles). Then i went back to work in aero related fields designing marine and aeronautical systems. My electrical design skills always followed me whether it was for data acquisition, control, debugging, or quality assurance. In engineering there is so much overlap that you can teach yourself the intricacies of the other discipline. I'm now just about to launch my own WiFi enabled security device for your safe. All those days studying I never saw myself designing electrical devices. But engineers work funny this way.

[Whiterabbit]

Hello fellow Calgunners
I am looking for School recommendations, job opportunities, insights and caveats to help guide my Daughter towards a possible career in Mechanical Engineering or related.

She is currently a 2nd Jr. College student looking to move forward to a University or Trade and Tech College in SoCal Long Beach area.

TIA!
R

Math skills and GPA well above average.

Jr. College is the least expensive way and best bang for the buck to take care of the first 2 years of required basic courses - my other children followed the same path before transferring to (and graduating from) 4 year Universities

Today's Education environment does a great disservice to our kids by indoctrinating them with the idea that a Degree - ANY Degree - is necessary to succeed (which is BS). So the last of my brood will be guided and hopefully motivated into learning something useful, with a marketable skill, and not some bogus, inconsequential Degree and just for the sake of being 'educated'.

We both came up with the idea of Mechanical Engineering independently based on her interest and skills, so it is a logical step to investigate in that direction.

You said Long Beach area, but consider Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Few reasons.

-The school is excellent for engineering. Any. Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, Aero, even General. Architecture.
-Companies hire right out of Cal Poly. They have a jobs fair every year, companies from Silicon Valley come out to recruit. Cal Poly SLO is as competitive as Berkeley when it comes to value as a candidate.
-Learn-by-doing is the motto, more lab than chalkboard learning. Thus, see above. UC schools with pedegree churn out great chalkboard engineers. Cal Poly churns out engineers who know what happens in reality when you throw the switch. again, see above.
-Cheap. Compared to UC education of course. Or private. great value. And low cost of living compared to a silicon valley or LA basin university. I won;t tell you what my education cost, but for my status and station, it's pretty good. I am not in student debt.
-If your girl is looking for an advanced degree, Cal poly is a good undergrad school. Doesn't matter where you get your undergrad IF you pursue a grad degree. So see above about a bargain and excellent education. But a good school of itself if a masters+ is not in the cards.

I am biased of course as a Cal Poly grad from SLO, Materials Engineering.

The soft-benefits

-Close to the ocean (like long beach)
-Pismo (if you have a dune buggy, I don't, but people do)
-"more conservative" than SF and LA. Not as conservative as, say, Arnold, but about as conservative as you can get for being ON the ocean in CA. Way more conservative than Santa Cruz which is a similar small town feel.
-Small town, 50k people or so. Nice downtown.
-Close to woods and wilderness, camping, NF, surfing, etc.
-SLOSA (for when dad visits)
-Wine country (for when dad visits)
-She's only 3-4 hours away by car. 6 hours by Train. town is small enough that no car is needed. you can walk everywhere.
-Town doesn't explode on Holidays like Chico or Santa Barbara.

-------------

But it is NOT around Long Beach....

[elSquid]

Math skills and GPA well above average.

Jr. College is the least expensive way and best bang for the buck to take care of the first 2 years of required basic courses - my other children followed the same path before transferring to (and graduating from) 4 year Universities

Have you confirmed that the 2 full years of credits are transferrable?

I did college for my first year, then moved to university. A lot of my 2nd year courses were engineering specific/engineering only. Heck, I didn't get credit for one of my 1st year courses, I had to retake it in 2A.

-- Michael

[Whiterabbit]

And I hear you about a paper degree, but keep a couple things in mind:

The degree is a requirement for some jobs. Not in reality, but for the hiring manager to consider. It doesn't GET you the job, but not having it GETS your resume thrown away.

Second, and this is huge, companies are under lots of pressure to hire "NCGs" (new college grad) which are considered cheaper than hiring experienced professionals. It is hard enough to get a good job, it is even harder when you have zero experience. The first 6 months out of college (and the last 6 months before graduation) are a huge, huge advantage for finding a job because hiring managers can check off the NCG box and meet their corporate metric. So use it. And you can't get strong NCG status if you pick a trade school over University.

It sucks, but it's the reality. Get the 4 year degree, unless your daughter wants to be in the trades. And don't think twice if that is what she DOES want. Industrial electricians, pipe fitters, gas guys, etc etc make the world go round, Google wouldn't exist if Facilities could not supply buildings with endless power and heat management for the server farms. That's good work. But not Engineering, it's a Trade. Key to know the difference.

(and yes if this engineering thing didn't work out I'd be a Sparky for sure.)

[NYT]

forget mech, def have her go ee. my buddy and i both went to the same college, graduated with engineering degrees and similar GPAs. he with mech, i with eecs. i make more than double his salary and he gets to work with the bottom of the barrel... state and city govts.

[Frozenguy]

forget mech, def have her go ee. my buddy and i both went to the same college, graduated with engineering degrees and similar GPAs. he with mech, i with eecs. i make more than double his salary and he gets to work with the bottom of the barrel... state and city govts.

Ok. You of all people should know about data sample sizes
But sure, mech E is not known for the salaries.

[NYT]

Ok. You of all people should know about data sample sizes
But sure, mech E is not known for the salaries.

my father and grandfather are mech Es from Texas A&M. it was not a happy day for them when i decided to go eecs. my younger brother and i have the building stuff gene but i am on the tech side (my brother skipped it entirely professionally-wise) and went business with his mech E degree. he is the youngest VP at nationwide though and overall more successful than the rest of us.

[elSquid]

forget mech, def have her go ee. my buddy and i both went to the same college, graduated with engineering degrees and similar GPAs. he with mech, i with eecs. i make more than double his salary and he gets to work with the bottom of the barrel... state and city govts.

Ok. You of all people should know about data sample sizes
But sure, mech E is not known for the salaries.

Some things never change.

~30 years ago, when I was a new undergrad, I did a quick survey of co-op jobs and it was pretty clear that mechie jobs were kind of scarce and that the computer related jobs were in overdrive. Affinity/interest wise I was leaning mechie, but my pragmatic side said to do computer engineering so I did that instead...

...of course the real kicker is that I probably should have done computer science. I would have had a much easier courseload and more time to goof around and have fun, and ironically probably be in a better position for my eventual career in software. Inverse kinematics is neat, but I've never used it in the real world.

Anyways, please excuse my old-guy-ramblings. Something else for the OP to think about.

-- Michael