Mechanical Engineer or CAD Drafter?
 

Recently I realized that I'm not getting anywhere with my current job, and I don't want to still be doing this in 3-5 years, so I decided to start looking to go back to school finally.

I was originally just looking to get an Associates in Mechanical Drafting, with a Cert in Solidworks, but more than a few of my friends suggested I look into getting a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering.

I figured with the manufacturers and vendors here, someone would be able to give me a little insight. So, for those of you in the industry, what are the pros and cons between the degrees (obviously one is a bachelors, the other an associates...)
Which degree would make it easier to get a job? Would it be worth the extra time and money for the school to get the ME degree?

Any other advice?

i have an AS in CAD technologies from ITT. i plan on going for my BS in Civil Engineering. The engineering degree would be a good way to go from the start, i think if i had to start all over again, i would of went that way. but, i also think having 10 years experience in Steel design will also make it easier when i go back to college for my BS in CE.

however, i would like to give you one word of advice if you go for the engineering degree from the get go:

DO NOT dismiss any input from your experienced CAD designers when you get right out of school. i have seen it happen before when a young guy is fresh out of college, and he automatically starts thinking he knows more than a CAD guy that's been in the business for 20+ years. trust me, a lot of these CAD guys are just as knowledgable, if not more so, than a lot of the engineers out there.

either way, good luck on how you decide to go...

Having your BS degree will open you up to a lot more opportunities down the road. There are also drafters that have moved up into engineering positions, but you likely wouldn't start a job as one now with just a drafting degree.

I looked into ITT, but they are damn expensive, and since they are a private school, I can't use the colorado stipend.

I've been doing a little research, and I think if I go with the ME degree, I'll start at a community college with a transfer program to either Colorado School of Mines, or another 4 year college.

After talking with my brother (who is going to school for his master's in architecture) I am now leaning more towards the ME degree.

Anything else I should know while I am still doing my research?

The world could use a GOOD mechanical engineer. I've worked with and fixed the mistakes of a lot of mechanical engineers over the years and have come to the conclusion there are a lot more bad ones than good ones out there. They talk a good game but don't know shit for the most part. Good luck, be one of the good ones.

Many mechanical engineers don't think too much about manufacturability when they design things. Also, all engineers have a superiority complex (even if they say they don't), once you understand that, dealing with them can be alot easier. By the way, you spelled "worked" wrong :-P:flipoff:

Monkeyracer, get a good background in machining and welding, and if you go to school of mines, join the Mini Baja team. Just the experience you gain from designing something in CAD and then building it yourself will make you a better engineer when you get out in the real world.

I'm a firm believer that engineering is not a "career choice", it is a calling. I knew I wanted to be an engineer long before I even knew what an engineer was. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

What do engineers use for birth control?
Their personalities

Arguing with an engineer is like mud wrestling with a pig; after a while you realize the pig likes it.

And here's a classic Dilbert clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw



Edit: CAD Drafting isn't very fun. However, it is an art. Making a well toleranced drawing that properly shows the important dimensions but still gives freedom to the machinist to do what they do best is a difficult task.

Having the Architect brother I have seen a small glimpse of the bad engineers, and the "holier than thou" complexes that they seem to flaunt.

You missed that he missed an "and" right after "wroked"

The only thing that might hold me back from going to Mines is money. It's a lot more expensive than other schools (for good reason probably) but I'm finding it hard to get the money to go. That's why I am starting at a community college to get gen ed classes out of the way. I work a couple blocks away from Mines, and a lot of my customers at my job assume I go or went there.
I think it would be cool to do the mini baja, and be able to put the learning to practical use.

I think that if it weren't for my friends that say I should be an engineer, I wouldn't have pursued it. I look at things all the time, and think to myself, wouldn't it be better done this way? I've always wanted to do this, like you said, before I even knew what it was.

Growing up in a military family with 4 brothers has allowed me to keep pretty humble about life. So when I get the superiority complex, at least I can be humble about it. :mrgreen:

I think I originally confused CAD drafting as a stepping stone to Mechanical Engineering. I don't want to just re-draw parts, I want to design them, and I used (and still use) my old copy of AutoCAD 2000i to make little things here and there for the crawler.

My long term plan would be to get my Masters with a P.Eng. and design efficient parts (more eco-friendly or sustainable designs) for daily living and/or the automotive industry. This may just mean making a part with less waste material, or making a part that can be used in place of a less efficient part.

@joe - I'll be sending you a PM soon with a few questions...

Fixed the spelling, I type too dam fast.:mrgreen:

Seriously if you like designing/drawing, engineering and making a part thats not really what an engineer does. An egineer does the first two and doesn't make anything.

An engineer usually designs the parts and have absolutely no knowledge of how to actually make the part. If they had to make the part or do the stuff themselves they would scratch their ass the whole time and get nothing done. Too many engineers go by what they read in books and learn in college/school and don't have any actual experience in the field working with what they are designing.

Reminds me of when I was in college in my Mastercam class the mechanical engineers in training were bragging to us machinists that they were learning Mastercam. I told them thats fine but you have no dam idea how to setup and run the machine Mastercam is used to program.:lol:

With manufacturing declining in the US you would be better off going into Civil engineering.

Sounds like you want to be a design engineer. Generally the people who get these jobs are experienced (5-10 years experience) mechanical engineers who have a "knack" for details, CAD and a very strong math background. My original goal was to be a design engineer but after seeing how much they sit behind a computer screen I realized I like to be on the floor solving problems and getting my hands dirty. I still do a little design work and it's enough to keep me happy.

Just so you know, all the people I know with masters degrees in engineering fields are worthless as engineers and are generally overqualified for the majority of entry level jobs. I specifically stopped at a bachelors degree so I could get a job here in Colorado Springs.

x2 on a Masters in engineering. You can also skip the P. Eng unless you want to do consulting work as it's not really necessary.

Our engineering offices were directly above the factory floor, so if there was an issue we got to go down and see the problem 1st-hand. Made it real easy to design for manufacturing if you knew an angry production worker was going to find you if you designed something that was impossible to build.

I actually had all my new engineers spend time on the production floor 1st so they could see how things were built. Ones that came directly from the big three didn't understand that and had some of that "holier-than-thou" attitude. They either changed that quickly or went someplace else.

That was another thing I was curious about, and I would have seen what jobs were available right out of school with a Bachelors degree. So, maybe a masters isn't necessary? Would a degree from Mines hold any advantages over say CU-Denver or Metro State?

Is there such a thing as a design engineer that sees the end result and makes the changes necessary to improve the design?

I think part of what I want to do with "efficiency" design would require real world testing and feedback from those tests. How can you know if it really is more efficient without testing it? (Theory only goes so far... example; in theory, Communism works, but in practice, it's all wrong, so very wrong.)

Also, I think designing a part to be machined with less waste would require a working knowledge of machining, and I am pretty sure that Mines has that in their curriculum. If not, I would want to work for a company like what CPE MT said; The machine shop is walking distance from the engineering office.

I agree with the notion that a lot of engineers don't see the actual product. They see the computer model of the product, and it's stress testing, etc, but don't see how it's actually made, and how it is used.

I designed some 2.2 wheels with manufacturing in mind. Reducing machine time (to keep cost down), reducing waste material, but keeping strength, versatility, and durability in mind. These wheels are still only 1's and 0's because even a prototype is still a little expensive to get made.

Is there a different degree for a design engineer vs a mechanical engineer or do they start as ME's and move into DE?

Perhaps you should become a Copy Editor. :lol:

It's all mechanical engineering. I had engineering liasions as part of the team, which were degreed engineers (typically right out of school) who were the main points of contact with the production group. They'd work on the production line, get a feel for production, and often brought a fresh set of eyes to an issue.

A Manufacturing Engineer also helps streamline some of the production flow, but may be limited in how much their ideas are listened to by design engineers. If they're part of the team, that's a good way to do what you're looking at as well. If they're considered a separate group, you'll often have good ideas that are ignored.

...

Detail oriented... 8)

ok, that answers a few questions...

As far as R&D, I would love to work with a company that has manufacturing integrated with engineering. I would want feedback from end users, prototype testing, and manufacturing to be able to most effectively make the part or system efficient. If that's in the form of data or an email or whatever, I think it will help make an overall better part.

I would prefer to work with a smaller company, but I won't necessarily be picky about a job with the way the economy is. (And it will happen again)

I could never get passed the math. Calculus was bad. Calc II was worse. Differential Equations and Engineering Physics was the death of my ME aspirations. Being in a fraternity didn't help either :)

You know, if someone asked me at what point in my education career, did everything start to come together and make sense, I would HAVE to say during Diff Eq. It's funny too, because I took that class as an elective. Diff Eq shows you EXACTLY where a lot of these equations (specifically, Maxwell's Equations) come from...and that they don't just simply pop out of thin air. I think that this class should be recommended for any Engineering student and should be MANDATORY for any Physics student.

Diff Eq was the hardest class I took in my college career. It took me 3 times to pass it :oops:

For some reason it just didn't click in my head like every other subject. Calculus and even applied diff eq (controls) I was fine with though.

Most of the people in that class were Math majors....and there was me. That class was required for them....but I think I did better than them all. I still have (and use on a daily basis) the TI89 that I was required to buy for that class.

Math and physics were never a problem for me.

In middle school, I was taking High School Algebra, then in High School, I was one of the only non-seniors in Physics (I was actually a sophomore, where most Seniors don't even get to Physics.) Also, not to further "toot my own horn" but I got a 34 in science, 30 (or 32, can't remember) in math, and a 28 overall on my ACT (out of 36).

I never learned about factoring polynomials, but after watching a short youtube video about it, it just clicked. I only found out about them through the Colorado State Placement test. (since it's been more than 5 years since high school, otherwise my ACT scores would have worked to place me in Calc I)
Because I never learned about them, I didn't do as well on the math placement test. After watching the vid, and brushing up on other things (quadratic formula, etc.) I'm going back to retest, but I'm confident I'll do fine.


In practice though, how much of that math do you actually use?