Gloria
What are the most important abilities and skills required for mechanical engineering?
I would like to know what sort of abilities and skills to work on before pursuing mechanical engineering. I want to prepare myself and know what I am doing before anything happens. I like to plan a lot of things out in that sense. I want to know the big picture that is mechanical engineering. #mechanical-engineering #help #advice #skills #abilties
2 answers
Shumon Hossain, P.E.
Shumon’s Answer
Great question, Gloria! Mechanical engineering is a great field to study and a rewarding career. Being one of the broadest of engineering divisions, you can find yourself working on cars, airplanes, water boilers, engines, refrigerators, electronics, and practically anything that has moving components. As with many engineering disciplines, mathematical thinking, creativity, and attention to detail are three great characteristics that are crucial to be a successful engineer. As far as classes go, in high school I would prepare by taking math classes such as trigonometry, geometry, and calculus. In addition, immerse yourself in physics classes, too, as physics really puts the science and math together and this lays the backbone for mechanical engineering studies. But I think the most important ability to have is being inquisitive, just like you are here asking the question. Keep asking away at questions, as this is something I do at my job everyday still. To help build creativity, take a look at every day objects like a refrigerator, car engine, door lock, etc. Understanding how the simplest machines function can help your brain think about combining ideas and being creative. Good luck to you and your future!
Thank you very much for the response and I found it really helpful. Actually I am in my junior year of high school so I am taking Physics Honors and Pre-Calculus Honors, so I think I am on the right track here. Since for senior year I could just go for AP Physics and AP Calculus. I will do my very best out there.
Gloria
Benson Wu
Benson’s Answer
The courses of the Department of Mechanical Engineering mainly cultivate three core abilities of students:
The first core competence is the ability to innovate and design, to be brave to breakthrough tradition, to give full play to creativity, and to design mechanical equipment that is more in line with human needs and production efficiency.
The second core competence is the pragmatic analysis ability, which uses a solid theoretical foundation and professional knowledge to pragmatically evaluate the feasibility of innovative designs
The third core competency is a hands-on ability, innovative designs must be implemented before they can be implemented.
In order to cultivate the above three core abilities, the professional courses required for four years of mechanical engineering include: graphics, mechanical painting, computer mechanical drawing, dynamics, mechanical design, and other courses to cultivate innovative design capabilities; and applied mechanics and material mechanics, Thermodynamics, heat transfer, automatic control, stress analysis practice, engineering mathematics, numerical analysis, and other courses are to cultivate pragmatic analysis ability
The above is provided for your reference.