Continue Engineering?
Discussion
Where to begin...
I've since leaving university (BEng / MSc in Mech Eng at a good uni) nearly 4 years a go become dissatisfied with my career in Engineering (graduate scheme / manufacturing role at a 100,000+ employee company) and have decided to pursue other career options. The engineering in industry I have found to be not particularly stimulating, a lot of it seems to come down to administrative work, project management, creation of operation sheets and I find it very boring. I rarely have to do any scientific work, carry out research, complete calculations, be creative or use knowledge from my degree. Additionally there is limited interaction and team work between colleagues, it mostly seems to be a case of firefighting and everyone dealing with their own small tasks at hand. As a result there doesn't appear to be much development of engineers with respect to their technical ability, there is the occasional small soft skills courses from the training department and that is about it.
I really enjoyed my degrees and found them very satisfying to be learning all of this knowledge and then applying it. I just don't know if other Engineering jobs will be the same and that as a career whether is worth continuing down this route in the hope that it will improve, especially considering the limited pay for engineers. At the moment I'm finding it difficult to transition from a manufacturing to a design/development role due to the lack of experience in those areas unfortunately, although I do feel that I would be happier in those roles and that it would be a more suitable fit for me.
I have been considering the possibility of doing graduate entry medicine... but again unsure if that would be the right decision.
Sorry for the rant, I guess I'm just looking for other peoples perspective and experiences. Whether they continued with Engineering or tried something else?
I've since leaving university (BEng / MSc in Mech Eng at a good uni) nearly 4 years a go become dissatisfied with my career in Engineering (graduate scheme / manufacturing role at a 100,000+ employee company) and have decided to pursue other career options. The engineering in industry I have found to be not particularly stimulating, a lot of it seems to come down to administrative work, project management, creation of operation sheets and I find it very boring. I rarely have to do any scientific work, carry out research, complete calculations, be creative or use knowledge from my degree. Additionally there is limited interaction and team work between colleagues, it mostly seems to be a case of firefighting and everyone dealing with their own small tasks at hand. As a result there doesn't appear to be much development of engineers with respect to their technical ability, there is the occasional small soft skills courses from the training department and that is about it.
I really enjoyed my degrees and found them very satisfying to be learning all of this knowledge and then applying it. I just don't know if other Engineering jobs will be the same and that as a career whether is worth continuing down this route in the hope that it will improve, especially considering the limited pay for engineers. At the moment I'm finding it difficult to transition from a manufacturing to a design/development role due to the lack of experience in those areas unfortunately, although I do feel that I would be happier in those roles and that it would be a more suitable fit for me.
I have been considering the possibility of doing graduate entry medicine... but again unsure if that would be the right decision.
Sorry for the rant, I guess I'm just looking for other peoples perspective and experiences. Whether they continued with Engineering or tried something else?
Edited by 4efte on Tuesday 21st March 12:57
Thanks for all of the replies, very interesting to read the many similar experiences people have had.
I did actually do a year at a small company (75 employee) before chasing the lights of a big corporate, and I did enjoy my time much more there even without being a full on design or development role. It was so much more varied and dynamic, as well as generally being a friendlier atmosphere without all of the politics. I guess in my naivety I thought that the engineers at big firm would be more capable, the work would be more interesting/challenging, and that there would be more learning opportunities. I was also under the impression that there would be the opportunity for rotation of roles, which unfortunately didn't materialise, as it isn't in the interest of the organisation for engineers to move about due to the long time required to bring engineers up to speed within their niche.
I have fortunately maintained my CAD (Autodesk Inventor and Siemens NX), as well as other skills for design. The difficulty I seem to find is in expressing that I am capable of doing this to the HR staff or recruitment agent.
Rather than going through recruitment agencies, is it sometimes better to take a more direct approach to potential employers?
I did actually do a year at a small company (75 employee) before chasing the lights of a big corporate, and I did enjoy my time much more there even without being a full on design or development role. It was so much more varied and dynamic, as well as generally being a friendlier atmosphere without all of the politics. I guess in my naivety I thought that the engineers at big firm would be more capable, the work would be more interesting/challenging, and that there would be more learning opportunities. I was also under the impression that there would be the opportunity for rotation of roles, which unfortunately didn't materialise, as it isn't in the interest of the organisation for engineers to move about due to the long time required to bring engineers up to speed within their niche.
I have fortunately maintained my CAD (Autodesk Inventor and Siemens NX), as well as other skills for design. The difficulty I seem to find is in expressing that I am capable of doing this to the HR staff or recruitment agent.
Rather than going through recruitment agencies, is it sometimes better to take a more direct approach to potential employers?
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