Hi all, I am graduating soon with a ME degree from OSU. I can't stay for grad school just now; my debts are too large and I need a job, among other reasons.
I am writing to ask for any sort of brainstormed advice on looking for my first engineering job. Engr. for me is a mid-30's career change, so it's not my first JOB, in fact I have good manufacturing and middle management experience, as well as being an ex-owner of a small business.
My focus thus far has been thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. I am fascinated by turbines, be it gas, steam, or Pelton micro-hydro. I want to work with power and energy in some capacity. I would be most interested in a job that allowed me some hands-on work, some in-the-field work, rather than desk-centered analysis, but I would do either.
I am planning to keep my eyes on utility companies, of course, and I can relocate without too much difficulty.
Questions I'd love some insight on are as follows:
where besides utilities should I keep my eyes on? any great companies to work for? Any really *sucky* ones?
How stable (i.e., layoffs) is the power industry?
Would an MS really help in this field? I do plan to to that in the next
5-8 years. For that matter, would a PE license help?
My weakest area is my computer skills. I can do basic numerical methods analysis, (matlab or mathematica), I can run AutoCAD okay and SolidWorks somewhat less than totally proficiently. I have very limited experience with FEA, and my upcoming project (last thing for school) involves a bunch of CFD so I'll have a good handle on that within the next few months. I have the remnants of some basic Java knowledge, some VB, and I can write macro's for Excel. I understand programming structure pretty well, but haven't bothered to really learn any languages completely.
What languages do I really need? And how important is solid-modeling skill for what I want to do?
I can work on all that in the next few months as I'm cleaning up some credits and getting ready to graduate.
One last query: If there are other more specific Usenet groups for engineers in the power industry that anyone knows about, perhaps you could point me to them, or other websites/bbs's/mail lists?
TIA,
k wallace