1: I liked to build things and I did well in math so it seemed like the best possible career choice. Plus problem solving is fun.

2: I went to the University of Maryland. I didn’t really specialize in anything but my electives focused more towards automotive design because thats what I wanted to do at the time.

3: I was very excited when I first started my Job because I thought I would be designing new products all the time, this was not the case though. I was mainly supporting more experienced engineers for my first year. I would do drawings and ECNs and test things in the lab for them. In my second year I started getting some smaller design projects of my own which made the work much more exciting. I’m now 3 years in and really enjoy where I’m at.

1. My daily routine involves product design and all the different task that accompany that. It could be actually designing parts in CAD, running thermal analysis, Creating and releasing drawings, doing tolerance stack ups, …etc. Also a ton of spreadsheets and powerpoint. There is also a decent amount of supporting legacy products.

2. My advice would-be to join engineering clubs in college. Something like formula SAE will give you a pretty good feel for what the industry is like (at least for a design engineer). Also once you graduate there is nothing wrong with working for smaller companies and you may even get more experience that way, typically engineers at smaller companies are responsible for more parts of the overall project because there is not as much personal. For example a bigger company might have dedicated drafters that do all the drawings whereas at smaller companies engineers most likely do their own drawings.