What do mechanical engineers mainly do?

Hi Marcos,

This is a great question! Like others have alluded to, Mechanical Engineering has many potential applications in various industries.

Here's a quick list of careers that come to mind:
- Product Design Engineering: Design consumer, medical, etc.. products for people to use. Basically, you work with cross functional teams to transform concepts into real products.In this job you work with industrial designers who sculpt the product and make it pretty, product definition managers who define what the product should be, electrical engineers who make the electrical systems work, and many others. A lot of the work in using 3D CAD but there is a lot of fun prototyping and proving out your concepts. Well known companies like Apple, Google, and Dell (to name a few) all have teams of product design engineers (mechanical engineers) who do this.
- Quality Control Engineering: Often a Quality Control Engineer will analyze upcoming products for potential issues, review and diagnose existing problems with products and design fixes, and implement quality improvements for products. These roles range from Automotive to medical device. Less 3D CAD work and more hands-on working with existing designs. Proof of concepts and prototypes are also used a lot.
- Sustaining Engineering: Sometimes similar to Quality Control, a sustaining engineer monitors and makes improvements to existing products/designs until they are obsoleted. The name of the game here is to find ways to save money, increase yield, and communicate design improvements for future products.
- HVAC: Mechanical engineers in this field design Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems for buildings. ME's can design very energy efficient systems to fit the needs of the building as well as the energy requirements of the area. I personally don't have a lot of experience in this field, but it might be worth investigating if it interests you.

There are many other career paths as well, but the above were the first that came to my mind. Contrary to what some commonly believe, Mechanical Engineering doesn't necessarily have anything to do with cars or automotive (though it can). Think a bit about what kind of company you could see yourself working for and what you'd like to do. Then see if mechanical engineering would be a good fit for that position. Also, a great plan is find someone to shadow for a day and see what they do.

Mechanical Engineering was a great choice for me; hopefully you'll like it too!

Hi, As a broad description, Mechanical Engineers design and work on things that move (like cars, machines, airplanes while Civil Engineers design and work on things that do not move (buildings, roads, bridges). The third basic type of engineering is Electrical Engineers who design and work on things that use electricity (electrical devices like computers and motors, electrical distribution systems like the wires outside of your house). You need to figure out what you like to do, for example : work on your car, build a shed, assemble a computer.

Hope this helps.

Hi and OK. Mechanical engineers can be anything from Civil Engineers, mainly highway and bridge construction (not design) to bio medical engineering, the marriage of mechanical with electronic components (Printed circuit boards and sofware/firmware applications). In other words I want this signal to move or do something (IEDs come to mind or seat belt not connected no start car). If Civil Engineering is of interest the a state usually requires a PE certificate (Practicing Engineer). Each state is different, but allow you to do infrastructure work, dams, power stations, etc.
Mechanical engineers also work in industrial setting making stuff, like cars, cranes, medical devices, military hardware, aerospace and anything produced for consumers, food and drug manufacturing are specialized areas, not usually taught in schools.
So bon voyage and enjoy the ride for our own interest.
Cheers,
Gordon Hopkins