Versatility of Engineering

Written by: Callaghan TysonMayer

I did not declare engineering as my major until the end of first semester. I started college completely undecided with no direction in mind. As a result, my first semester classes were all general courses, mostly filled with freshmen. Through this wide range of courses I met  a lot of different people from various majors. I saw how other colleges run their courses; like the college of social science and the college of business. Every college is so different here at MSU and every student has a very different plan for what they intend to do with their major. The college of engineering is not an exception to this standard.

 In every field, the same degree will not get every student the same type of job; not every music major will be a professional musician, not every business major will be a CEO. Careers do not always match up with an individual's degree, there's not one set path for every major. That is especially true with engineering. An engineering degree can qualify an individual for lots of different jobs; especially with all the different fields of engineering.

 Since there are so many different types of engineering, every student has something very different in mind for their career path. Some students chose engineering so they would never end up sitting in an office for 40 hours a week; others crave working in a lab every day. Every engineer does something different, in very different environments. This is one reason an engineering degree is so versatile.

I have no idea what I want to do when I am out of college, but with an engineering degree I really don't need to have a specific job in mind. It will be easy to find a job I'm interested in that requires an engineering degree because there are so many different types of jobs in this field.