by P. Clifford

Created on: March 24, 2009

Engineer is a nebulous term. Everyone from sanitation workers to the guy who plumbed your high school's toilet (Building Engineer) had engineer in their job title. So what is an engineer? Is an architect an engineer? Is a fire protection engineer an engineer?

These are all typical questions asked by the public at large and persons considering engineering. The truth is everyone mentioned, even a sanitation engineer working at a sewage plant, is an engineer of sorts. The trick is to match your personal gifts, interests and situation to the occupation best fitting your needs. The truth is engineering is a big tent with room for highly creative people, communicative people and even the stereotypical reticent introvert. You just have to be ready for a tremendous amount of work.

Traditional Engineering

The most academically demanding engineering jobs are the traditional engineering disciplines like Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Environmental, Material and Computer. A job in any of these fields will require advanced calculus and an enormous amount of academic study and work. A traditional student in one of these fields can expect to spend 80 or more hours a week in class and studying during their four years of undergraduate study.

Persons with degrees in these fields may work as designers of machines, buildings, roads or computer architecture. A bachelor's degree in these fields can also set up a student for advanced technical graduate degrees. A person with a doctoral degree in materials science and engineering might work doing research designing new synthetic fabrics or maybe designing solar cell roofing tiles.

Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical Engineers can work in a wide array of fields. However, a large portion of persons with will work designing and constructing items relating to infrastructure like roads, manufacturing plants, power plants and commercial buildings. A smaller percentage may end up working on aerospace projects and design of various mechanisms. Jobs in these disciplines often require professional registration and licensure.

So, you might imagine the work environment for the traditional engineer to be an enormous cubical farm with guys in black rimmed glasses "ground hogging" over cubicle walls. There is a certain amount of that out there, but if that is not for you, there are plenty of options. Engineers can spend a large portion of their time in the field surveying and inspecting construction and projects or on a shop floor examining manufacturing

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