Most needed kind of engineers?

[JediBrain]

Hey everyone, I'm a student studying in sciences getting ready to apply to University in a few months. I'm looking mostly at Engineering programs and was wondering what you think are the most needed types of engineers in our world today and why? Just curious. I'm debating more between Electrical and Aerospace but I'm open to discussion.

[Newbies_Kid]

I think Mechanical.

[DJBruce]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics it appears as if of all the engineering specialties that Biomedical will experience the largest growth, 72%. However civil engineering will have the most job openings in the near future, and other fields will experience significant growth as well, environmental 31% and petroleum 18%. As for electrical and aerospace engineers, electrical engineering will be fairly stagnate only growing by 1% and aerospace will grow by 10%. Note I am not sure if this data is strictly for the United States job market or if it includes the entire world.

 

That being said I would not necessarily choose what career I would go into based strictly on the employable of the field. You are more than likely going to spend a majority of your life doing what you choose so you should try and pick something that you enjoy. Are you in the US? I ask this because generally when you go to an engineering college you do not pick your specialty until the end of your second year, and generally during the first two years you are required to take courses that will give you a taste of the many different types of engineering. So if I were you I would not make my decision right now. I would go to college and try many different fields, and then eventually select the field, which you enjoy the most.

[skyhook]

I heard that there is always a demand for engineers. I'm not engineer level, but just a Technician when I was working. Now I'm slacking at the beach or something. yes I think aerospace engineer earn a lot and so are chemical engineers in the petroleum trade( with some risk involved). I was in electronics and I feel some electronics factories went to china or neighbouring countries. we have some semiconductor plants, but I somehow hate donning a cleansuit. Mechanical and electrical engineers will always have jobs. Biomedical engineering, I think has several lines you may end up in. You could work in a hospitals as biomedical engineers, which do things like certify the equipment is working properly,with lots of nurses to ogle, or you could be in some pharmaceutical factories donning clean suits, manufacturing plastics surgical wares etc. There are large MNC that make medical equipments, like Panasonic, Fujinon, the equipments are varied,lasers machines, colonoscopes ,ultrasounds, etc.., and its a trade that is quite specialised, if you have experience, you may be in demand. The most rich of these lot are sales engineers, I think. There is this remote surgery equipment I saw, that's quite impressive. One thing I was a little troubled is there may be rare occasions when you are near a very ill patient, and you tend to feel uneasy. and some years ago, there was a SAR epidemic, and H1N1 and you could drop unexpectedly. hahaha...

I was mildly interested in environmental engineer, but it seems the work involves making sure construction worksites are safe, preaching no accidents, no mosquito breeding, and such. so check up what it is before you go in.

 

There is also software engineers and IT engineers, which sometimes pays well, but the numerous talents from india and elsewhere may undercut you. <br><br>hope you can do something you like, and pays well.

Edited July 25, 2010 by skyhook

[JediBrain]

Thanks for the replies. And no I don't live in the US. I live in Quebec Canada so hear we choose a program from the start but like you said, until the second year its pretty general for any program. Thanks again, I'll def. keep looking into it. But I'm not really worried about getting a job as an engineer. From what I hear around here, any engineer shouldn't have trouble finding a job. I was more asking what you thought the world needed most facing current issues. Climate, space challenges, energy, etc.

[forufes]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics it appears as if of all the engineering specialties that Biomedical will experience the largest growth, 72%. However civil engineering will have the most job openings in the near future, and other fields will experience significant growth as well, environmental 31% and petroleum 18%. As for electrical and aerospace engineers, electrical engineering will be fairly stagnate only growing by 1% and aerospace will grow by 10%. Note I am not sure if this data is strictly for the United States job market or if it includes the entire world.

 

That being said I would not necessarily choose what career I would go into based strictly on the employable of the field. You are more than likely going to spend a majority of your life doing what you choose so you should try and pick something that you enjoy. Are you in the US? I ask this because generally when you go to an engineering college you do not pick your specialty until the end of your second year, and generally during the first two years you are required to take courses that will give you a taste of the many different types of engineering. So if I were you I would not make my decision right now. I would go to college and try many different fields, and then eventually select the field, which you enjoy the most.

pretty mature and reasonable advice..objective too..and most importantly, you backed it up, kudos to you sir.

 

certain others may wanna learn from this;

chemical engineering is a good bet. no matter whats happening in the world copious amounts of chemicals are needed

 

 

this kind of unbiased advice is what he needed.

 

 

 

well, the chemical engineering industry has been left relatively unscathed by the economic crisis(job opportunities have continued to grow although the have slowed a bit). much better than other areas of engineering such as electrical and electronic engineers which are enduring a shortage of jobs just now.

 

damn right its biased, but i'm capable of backing it up.

"backing" ones assertions with more assertions is erroneous, but if you start complaining every time you see such thing you'll just never stop complaining, but when i see one set an example, delivering a lesson may not be that bad of an idea .

 

from the link above;

Chemical engineers are expected to have an employment decline of 2 percent over the projections decade. Overall employment in the chemical manufacturing industry is expected to continue to decline, although chemical companies will continue to employ chemical engineers to research and develop new chemicals and more efficient processes to increase output of existing chemicals. However, there will be employment growth for chemical engineers in service-providing industries, such as professional, scientific, and technical services, particularly for research in energy and the developing fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology.

chemical engineering was the ONLY engineering field with a negative change percent of employment from 2008 to the projected employment of 2018, according to the Projections data from the National Employment Matrix.

 

oh my..facts are golden

 

p.s, if a mod sees this better fitting in the other thread, so be it.

Edited July 26, 2010 by forufes

[smartacle]

Well to me projections and statistics wouldn't work for these types of situations. You would have observe and taking in discoveries and events to ultimately determine which one's going to be the most needed. I mean if the U.S. announced it was going to the moon: Aerospace. If the U.S. experiences over 50 natural disasters: Civil. So, to me you have to do the "wait and see" type of thing to see what's going to be needed most in the future. For right now, I would agree with DJbruce that you'll get a run for your money with Biomedical and Civil.