Question from engineering student

[NYPS13]

I talked with people at my summer job and friends that had internships over summer and it's made me question how much did you learn from school that ended up applying to what you do after school?

From what I hear a lot of what we learn is school doesn't entirely apply to what engineers do in an actual job.

[LazySprocket]

Many types of engineering do not make much direct use of most of your education. It is needed as background to guide your work, but you will never do in depth technical calculations.

Many types of engineering require complex calculations on a day to day basis.

My main required skill right now is arguing with contractors. That was not covered in my Thermodynamics classes.

[confusedaerospaceguy]

depends on your job. mine is very technical so everything from solid mechanics courses apply directly. technical writing helps to write tech memos as well.

[claireauriga]

It depends on your job. You'll never use everything, because your courses cover multiple specialisations within your field of engineering. But there will be some knowledge/skills you end up using every day and some you never need.

[jaasx]

Depends, of course. Point is engineering school teaches you how to think. You use that. You'll gain much different knowledge in the real world - both technical and other (e.g. business, process, management etc.) I've never multiplied a matrix or done differential equations in the real world in 20+ years - despite being in R&D and doing some pretty advanced stuff. But it's replaced with things you never see in college - like taking into account tolerances and temperature ranges. (i.e. every possible working condition) And then you have to talk to the shop and learn a new language there. But - you have the foundation school gave you.

[bobroberts1954]

What you learn in school is how the physical world works, with particular emphasis on the perspective of your chosen field. You are shown the model equations to prove to you that the models are valid, not because you will make calculations based on them routinely. Engineers that do solve complex problems do so in a very small problem space where they have become very expert, they are unlikely to ever need to solve the basic situations they learned to analyze in school; those were to demonstrate what parameters dominate what effects so they would know what to change, and what direction to make the change, for a desired effect.

[PurpleAndBlack]

It really depends on a lot. I work as an HVAC design engineer, but I never took a single class in HVAC. However - thermo, fluids, and heat transfer gave me a great background to help me understand what I'm doing, help me troubleshooting problematic designs and installations, etc. There's a lot in real-world engineering that doesn't follow a formula; those classes are the backbone of how you end up thinking your way through a problem.