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Graduation: the moment you’ve been waiting for all these years. You’ve been studying and working as hard as you can and you’re finally here. You’ve graduated with your engineering degree.
But… now what? Now that you have that shiny new qualification, what do you do?
That question strikes anxiety in the hearts of every graduate. It can cause great stress for those of us who don’t have a career plan in mind.
Life after graduation doesn’t have to be something to fear with the right mindset. There are plenty of opportunities out there for college graduates. Especially if you’ve graduated with an engineering degree! With some creative digging, you’ll find the perfect career in engineering.
That’s where this list comes in. Here are some ideas for jobs you can go into once you’re a fully trained engineer.
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Automobile Construction
Designing automobiles is a perfect opportunity for those seeking employment after receiving their degree. This field is divided into three categories: design, manufacturing, and operation.
In the design aspect, engineers draft models of cars based on the research either they, or their research team, completes. These models are reviewed by the company then moved forward to the manufacturing process.
The manufacturing process gives engineers the opportunity to create their designs, making sure to pay attention to the reviews given by the company. Here the design will be formed into a physical object, from the basic structure to the more aesthetic details (though a designer will also probably be hired for this section).
Finally, the operations sector deals with accessibility and safety testing. These engineers work with the testing lab to ensure the vehicle designed matches all the safety standards laid out and are easy for customers to use.
There is also a component of automobile engineering not usually considered – demolition. With auto wreckers, an important aspect for engineers to consider is recyclability of parts, best use of space for wrecked cars, and what parts of old cars can be salvaged and reused.
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Aerospace
What’s cooler than designing planes and spacecrafts? You’ll be hard pressed to find an answer to that question. With an engineering degree, you could take further education in designing airplanes to take people around the world, and spaceships to take them into space. Of course, aerospace engineering has two overlapping branches – aeronautical and astronautical.
Aeronautical focuses on airplanes. This means that workers in this field design, construct and test commercial planes that carry passengers around the world. They also work on smaller crafts for private use. The components of this job are similar to that of automobile engineering, in that they involve design, manufacturing, and operations.
Astronautical is the space side of things, working specifically with national and private space research centers. The divisions of engineering labor are the same, though astronautical engineers spend a lot of time in the operations sector, to make sure the spacecrafts are working an optimal functionality.
Both these careers give you the opportunity to work on huge-scale projects that will be used to further humanity. Airplanes help facilitate cultural, economic, and political progress by allowing humans to interact on a far larger scale than ever before. Spacecrafts are huge in helping humans discover the universe around them.
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Disaster Prevention
This field is all about making sure structures will be resistant to natural disasters that might affect them. The workers that enter this field are concerned with researching old engineering failures and making sure a new solution is developed for this problem. This helps to make the most informed decision before construction of buildings, vehicles and other large constructions where people’s lives will be at risk should the design fail.
If you are interested in creating safe environments for individuals to work, live, and commute in, disaster engineering offers plenty of opportunities. A person in this field is also a desirable hire in all sectors of the economy, because health and safety is a huge industry that is always searching for new developments.
Disaster engineering requires individuals to use their critical thinking skills and team work, because you’ll be placed into a team of people from all kinds of different sectors whose job it is to work together to make structures as safe as possible
