Nan in Mass Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 My husband is an engineer. We had a conversation yesterday that I thought might be of interest to some of you with children in engineering school. One of the best decisions my husband made when he graduated was choosing small startup companies to work for instead of large established companies. The startups have their downsides: they don't offer much in the way of benefits and they morph after a few years and you have to switch to a new company, but they AREN'T BORING. You get to wear many hats. You actually get to DO things, instead of just planning a bit of something. You get to see more of a project over time instead of just doing a tiny piece of it. You get to design more parts of the whateveritis. You get to be an inventor more often. It is much more the way children imagine engineering to be when they are small. And just when your curiosity about some subject is about satisfied, the company gets sold and moved, or runs out of money, and you get to start learning about something new. A great research or design job at a rich company would give you many of the same things, but only a few lucky people get those sorts of jobs. Start-ups are within the reach of everyone. They are much more like homeschooling as opposed to public schooling - no support LOL; you have to do everything yourself. I was thinking it might be something the engineers who had homeschooled might like to keep in mind. -Nan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quiver0f10 Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Thanks Nan! Passing this onto my sons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenda in MA Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Nan, My dh's career has gone much the same way. The ups & downs of the different companies have been tough at times, but he's glad that he is working in a cutting-edge area and actually designing things. One thing, though, he started out at a giant firm with hundreds of engineers, and he's glad for the experience. He was able to use that time (and their tuition reimbursement benefit) to get his masters degree before moving on to start-ups. He doesn't think that he would be where he is now without the masters degree, and he also doesn't think that the first start-up he worked for would have hired him right out of school with no experience. I guess what I'm saying is that starting out with a big firm is often a good way to get one's feet planted in the working world, and that it is possible to move on from there to smaller waters. Brenda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted December 17, 2009 Author Share Posted December 17, 2009 That is a good point. It is easier to figure out how to begin being an engineer in a big company, perhaps, where one's job is well defined. And startups don't pay for master's degrees GRIN. My husband plays with the idea of going back for one in materials, since that is a subject that interests him, but he hasn't found it a disadvantage not to have one. In fact, he has sometimes wondered if it were rather an advantage not to have one, since he can work for less money without raising eyebrows. (Working for less money means he has plenty of work.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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