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What was the thing that drove you to be and engineer and how did you know ?

I am in 9th grade

civil-engineering mechanic mechanics cars enginering
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Kris’s Answer

I always loved Math from the time I was very young. I liked the fact that there was a precise answer. I thought I might want to teach Math. My high school math teacher let me teach his Algebra 1 class for a week. I prepared lessons and did sample problems on the board for only three days. I hated it. No one wanted to pay attention or learn. It was a boring math class. I realized then, I wanted to do something with Math, but definitely not teach. I needed something more rewarding. I also liked Music. I took my piano apart and put it back together to see how it worked. I started enjoying hanging out at construction sites watching the crews build. It was then suggested to me that I look into engineering school. I am so glad that I did. I have been an engineer for 30 years and I have been able to see several projects from early stages of design all the way through to final construction.

Kris recommends the following next steps:

Read about the various engineering disciplines. There are several - Computer Science, Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, Environmental, and more
Find someone who is an engineer and talk to them
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David C’s Answer

You should know right now what interests you the most. The career or trade you choose should not be decided lightly. You are going to spend a large portion of your life in it and you want to be able to look back and feel good at what you have accomplished. You need to pick something that you know would make you look forward to going to work for.

Early on I enjoyed sketching usually cars, planes and particularly, rockets. I was never much into figures or animal sketches, rather I was always sketching three dimensional objects of a mechanical nature. In school, it was obvious I should pursue mechanical drafting which I did for three years. I also had a love for farming, so I was also in the agricultural center portion of the high school I attended. After school, I continued mechanical drafting at home, always having a drafting board, drafting machine, and lots of neat things to design. I was unable to get a job at mechanical drafting right away, so I worked many years doing welding and welding fabricating, which I also loved and enjoyed. It was later I received a job as a draftsman and it was a starting point for my career in mechanical engineering. I was able to incorporate so much that I learned in my years in manufacturing that made my engineering career complete.

David C recommends the following next steps:

1. Decide what you love to do, what interests. Not just what pays the most.
2. Do some research as to how much a demand there is for your interest.
3. Do you really have to go to college for it, or can you attend a four year vocational school instead of high school?
4. Go for it!
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Peter’s Answer

I had graduated College with a degree in Molecular Biology and was working in a research lab. The Environmental Movement was just getting underway back then and I knew I wanted to get into the Field of Water Resources. It became clear that the most direct path for this very satisfying career was through Civil Engineering. So I attended a Civil Eng. graduate school and took a wide range of water-related courses while getting my Masters Degree. I got a job as an environmental scientist with a consulting firm, working a variety of water-related projects. A few years later I obtained my PE license and enjoyed a very fulfilling job working on water supply and water pollution projects.

Peter recommends the following next steps:

Determine what branch of engineering yoou wish to pursue
Pick several colleges that have good reputations for that particular branch
If uncertain, you can always wait until your Junior year to choose a specific engineering branch.
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David’s Answer

I was in high school when a representative of the local State technical college stopped by to talk to our class. As he was listing some of the classes we would have, like Design/Drafting, Thermodynamics, Statics, Fluid Mechanics, Machine Design, etc, I became interested. Then he listed the typical annual salary for graduates. That's when I decided to go to that school. My love of design intensified after I recommended a 3D design program (IronCAD) for the small company for which I was working at the time. The company still sells products that I designed, more than 25 years ago.
But to answer your other question, I really know how satisfying an engineering career could be until I started working, and designing.
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Douglas’s Answer

Hi,

As I look back at my much younger self, I always had an interest in knowing how things worked. I was always taking my bicycle apart and as I got into high school and got my driver’s license, I started working on cars and hanging around with other guys who liked to work on cars. Also, while in Jr. High and high school, I was good at math. I never particularly liked math, but I could do it along with physics and chemistry and geometry, trigonometry, etc. It was suggested to me by the guidance counselor that I might consider going to a technical school which I did and became a Mechanical Engineer. There are many different types of engineers: Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, Chemical, etc. if you think you might like to consider becoming an engineer, I suggest you Google Engineering and learn about the different types to see if "what they do or work on" appeals to you. Being in the 9th grade, if you think you might want to go to engineering school, be sure to take all of the math and science courses you can while in high school.

Good luck,
Doug
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Pascal’s Answer

Ever since I was a kid I liked to disassemble thinks in order to understand how they work. May dad got mad at me once after I was not able to put his nice Philips electric shaver back together. They were a novelty and very expensive at the time!
Later, I found that I liked math, physics and technology classes in high school, and also some of my best buddies -who knew better than me what they wanted- were talking about continuing on through some engineering school: I just tried to follow and was admitted, so why not?
In France you are admitted through a tough competition consisting of a full week of 6-7 hours per day x 5 days of tests, typically 2 years after graduating from high school. During these two years you prepare for this competition. It does not matter how you did before, all that counts is how you perform during this one week.
There are 'easier' ways to get a master, for example through a public University, but it is considered 'less prestigious'. However, I think that how good of an engineer you become does not depend on which path you chose.
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Farhan’s Answer

Hi Nathaniel,
Engineers are the ones who are passionate about designing and looking at things from efficiency and ease of performing tasks. Every machine which was designed by an engineer had the primary purpose to fulfill the task with efficiency. If you feel that you can look at the existing ways how people do certain things and come up with solutions improving the output then, you are on the path of becoming a successful engineer.
regards
Farhan
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Luke’s Answer

I always tested the best in math and science so engineering seemed like the obvious career choice also given that engineers are decently paid and always in demand. I chose civil engineering specifically because construction interested me. My choice to become an engineer may have been too pragmatic and therefore I wasn't passionate about civil engineering which eventually led me to leaving the industry for something more related to business.
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