Hiiii, it is blog time!! We are going to be talking about my dream career today, and it is not an average career so it may be a little unconventional. However, I’m really excited to talk about it, because it’s really all I’ve been thinking about lately, so I need to get it off my mind. Okay so first off, I will be going into some form of engineering. I was tuned into computer science for a while, and I have been teaching myself how to code and it is going really good. I have been learning python and swift but those are really easy in the coding world, however JavaScript, C, C++, HTML, and SQL are where it gets tricky and it is so specific that if you are missing a comma or parentheses your entire code will not work whether it is a game, website, or whatever. It is fun to learn at my own pace and a good skill to have but it is not the major for me I do not think. So, my next choice is engineering, specifically mechanical or electrical. I have a huge interest in cars so if I want that I will do mechanical but if not electrical. Mechanical is broader so it is the basis of all its other engineering counterparts. It focuses on things that move and do not move. Some type of engineer has designed or manufactured essentially everything around you. It is based on physics, mathematics, and material science. I can go into so many fields such as automotive, aerospace, biomedical, construction manufacturing and so much more, but I would choose the automotive industry with a focus on visual and functional design, which determines how the car looks and making it easy to repair, or internal and external testing to ensure maximum performance and safety of the vehicles being produced.
On the other hand, if I did electrical, I would be more focused on electricity and electronics from microscopic computer components to large power networks. With this degree I can go into automation and robotics, advanced driver assistance systems, aerospace and defense systems, or computer engineering. With this degree I would prefer to still work with cars, but infotainment systems, controls, and circuitry. Either way I prefer to work with cars, but I have a wide variety of opportunities with either one of these. Also, electrical engineering is based on mathematics, physics, and telecommunications. Now let’s get into credit hours, classes, base salaries, and how my life would be set up with each. I applied to multiple tech schools like Washington State, MIT, Stanford, Michigan, all the Ivies except Dartmouth, Duke, etc. The range is 120-130 credit hours for a degree, but the classes differ immensely. Mechanical has classes such as Engineering Graphics, Calculus 1, 2, &3, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, University Physics, and so on so on. Then electrical has Modern Convex Optimization, CAD Design of Digital VLSI, Speech Technology, Advanced Optical and Optoelectronic Instruments and Devices.
By just the titles of the classes I am sure you can see the difference, but they are both heavily influenced by math and physics and they both use CAD, which is Computer Aided Design. Now the salaries because I know this is what we’ve been waiting for. The average salary for a mechanical engineer in the auto industry is 100k give or take about 5k or so. Starting salaries are more around 75 to 80k right out of college but still great, nonetheless. Meanwhile electrical engineers in the auto industry make 80k starting salary but around 93k in other industries starting salary, but the average is about 120k. Most employers also give health insurance, a good amount of PTO, options to work remote, in office, or hybrid, and they also have travel contracts where you can work within the company at different offices around the us and maybe the world depending on how big the company is. The money is definitely an incentive, but I love understanding how things work and why, especially cars, and if I can fiddle around with them fixing problems all day big or small, I would definitely love it. I know most people dread college but I am actually really excited to go. Thanks for reading my blog and basically helping me decide my career.
picking my major was so hard bc i had to sacrifice money for something i’d enjoy </3 understand ur process
I’m really happy to hear that you know what you want to do and are excited about it. I hope it goes well:)
I loved hearing about this major because i always hear it being talked about but never the details