Any mechanical engineers out there.?

Question

If so, how do you like the job?
Can you give me a general description of what you do on a day to day basis?
How usefull do you think it will be to have 4-5 years experiance as a machinist? (Im going to school while working full time as a machinist during the weekends)

Answer 1

I'm a retired mechanical engineer who spent most of his time designing and specifying equipment for chemical plants, oil refineries, hazardous waste incineration plants, nuclear waste handling facilities, cryogenic facilities, breweries, and power plants. Most of my contacts were with large fabrication shops.
The work was always interesting and challenging, I got to do lots of traveling, sometimes too much, and I got to meet a lot of wonderful and interesting people, and they even paid me for doing all of that.
Your experience as a machinist will always be valuable to you, especially if you end up designing machinery. (i.e. pumps, turbines, compressors, etc. and you have to make your own drawings which is sometimes the case.)
Make sure you become familiar with doing CAD work, because that is where you will probably start. (i.e. autocad).
Try to get a job on an intern basis with a company before you graduate.
Get your Engineer-in-Training exam out of the way as soon as possible and then take the tests and get registered as a Professional Engineer as soon as you can. This will always give you a great advantage over your non-registered peers.

When I graduated we were still using slide rules to do calculations with, and we made our drawings on wooden drafting tables. Then along came those wonderful electronic pocket calculators that could add, subtract, divide, and multiply (but they were real expensive) and the new drafting machines. As those eventually evolved into the computers that we have today there was always less and less need for engineers in quantity, because an engineer with a computer and a little programming knowledge could do the work of 10 engineers with slide rules working on drafting boards.

Always remember to remain flexible and embrace new technological developments and tools as they become available or you will become obsolete in the blink of an eye.

I can't even imagine all the amazing changes that you will see occur in your time.
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Oh yes, and I have a son-in -law who is a mechanical engineer working for a company that will be coming out with a new line of motorcycles soon. He got involved in the design of several of the components and systems for the cycles, then had to find shops that could manufacture the necessary parts. He gets to test drive the cycles, and has traveled all over the world in the search for suppliers. I doubt that he would trade his job for any others at this point.

Answer 2

Mechanical Engineering is a broad catch-all phrase that contains a lot of sub-specialties. I focused on robotics and automation systems while in college, and if I had continued on to university, my day-to-day job would have been designing automated assembly systems, robotic workcells, and similar types of tasks.
Experience as a machinist would definitely be valuable, as it will allow you to use 'real world experience' when doing component designs; far too many engineers have only theory to fall back on when doing design, and frequently design assemblys that work well on paper, but can't be realistically manufactured.
Good luck with your career.

Answer 3

As a stationary engineer that worked as a machinist what I learned was very valuable. But you may want to look at other opportunities as you get more education. Your school can help. Try some refrigeration contractor.

Answer 4

The main thing is liking your work and the people you work with.

Answer 5

dude, you dont want to be an engineer, those jobs are boring, they pay well, yes, but stay on the floor...its more fun