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The honest truth is that students endlessly argue about who’s major is more difficult because that’s all there is…to do. Aside from studying lol. Actual jobs and their difficulty is not rooted in fluids vs statics. It’s your boss, your team, what location you have to live in, etc. the only solid measure is how good a job pays vs the other and that can change what you are willing to deal with. Still! It’s fun to speculate but nobody out there has the experience in all engineering roles to have a real answer.
>Still! It’s fun to speculate but nobody out there has the experience in all engineering roles to have a real answer.
Exactly. But then every now and then you'll get these born-again engineers/engineering students who will come in like "well ACKTUALLY my undergrad was in x-engineering but then my masters/PhD/second bachelors was in y-engineering, so I actually *know* x is harder than y."
Like, no dude. You're never going to be able to compare them fairly. You already have an engineering background, so you're not going into the second one fresh. Or, if it's switch made for grad school, you simply can't compare undergrad vs grad curriculum. Same with jobs.
There is no way to compare difficulties between engineering because its all based on your company and job title and what you consider difficult. A mechanical engineer for NASA could be more difficult than a civil engineer at a small local construction company, and vice versa. A electrical engineer at a TESLA could be more difficult than a mechanical engineer who designs plumbing. The only thing thats more "difficult" is the stress and deadlines. ANY engineering type is has a shit ton of work/deadlines will be more difficult than a engineer who works for a laid back company and doesnt have much work/deadline/projects to complete. Dont compare yourself or anyone to each other. Focus on your own career
I have found all my engineering jobs to be way easier than school. I’m a ME working in aerospace. Nothing is solely on you. Everything is team based and pretty good with handling the many different personalities.
And tasking you do receive has reasonable due dates. At least, I find I’m never the long pole in the tent when it comes to getting stuff done.
I find my job intellectually fulfilling but can't quantify it in terms of difficulty... you have resources available to you when working that are not available to you as a student. My degree and job title are pretty different though - so maybe not the best person to answer here.
I'm aerospace, but I also practice in a completely different specialty than the one I have a degree in, so take this with several grains of salt. The only hard thing about being an engineer is obtaining the right to do it. Once you have the paper you're doing career on easy mode for the rest of your life.
I literally don't use much from school. Nearly everything I use, is something I learned before school. The few things I've done with stuff from school is calculate forces/torques on tooling, and do some rudimentary FEA on tooling.
It depends a lot more on what industry you work in than it does what you majored in. I'm a mechanical engineer who works extensively with civil engineers and electrical engineers, and their work is no easier or harder than mine. If I were to go into another industry that might be different.
I'm doing an internship in geotechnical engineering, basically civil eng who dig soil and drill rocks. I've taken sneak-peeks into what my seniors do and tbh, it looks pretty rad. It's a tier 1 firm so we do lots of national infrastructure projects, and they don't hold back on the design and math. I don't see how my studies can get as hard as that.
I'm a MechE grad from Georgia Tech (class of 2021) and work as a Quality Engineer. The job is kinda mindless, aside from some solid modeling and basic understanding of thermo fluids science, but they pay me solid and I like the people there. Otherwise I would've quit a long time ago. Part of me feels like I kinda needed an easier job after college. Looking back at my degree I've noticed that had I taken the classes now I'm pretty sure I would've aced it. I think a large part of why I struggled with college sometimes was because I was pretty immature and haphazard with my studying.
Now my biggest concerns are paying off my student loans lol. Once that's paid, I'll probably look at more engaging (if riskier) options
Everyone is already nailing the point here, which is that major difficulty vs job to job difficulty varies indefinitely. A mech E at one company may have a much more "difficult" job than the same job at another.
This also begs the question of what is "difficult"? A lot of our brains lean towards certain specialties- sometimes those who are amazing at EE courses may struggle with fluid dynamics or vice versa.
In industry, maybe the engineer who is technically advanced but can't manage their projects would appear to have a difficult job. But their results might suffer, because to them project management is difficult. It's all relative (and futile lol)
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The honest truth is that students endlessly argue about who’s major is more difficult because that’s all there is…to do. Aside from studying lol. Actual jobs and their difficulty is not rooted in fluids vs statics. It’s your boss, your team, what location you have to live in, etc. the only solid measure is how good a job pays vs the other and that can change what you are willing to deal with. Still! It’s fun to speculate but nobody out there has the experience in all engineering roles to have a real answer.
>Still! It’s fun to speculate but nobody out there has the experience in all engineering roles to have a real answer. Exactly. But then every now and then you'll get these born-again engineers/engineering students who will come in like "well ACKTUALLY my undergrad was in x-engineering but then my masters/PhD/second bachelors was in y-engineering, so I actually *know* x is harder than y." Like, no dude. You're never going to be able to compare them fairly. You already have an engineering background, so you're not going into the second one fresh. Or, if it's switch made for grad school, you simply can't compare undergrad vs grad curriculum. Same with jobs.
this ^^
There is no way to compare difficulties between engineering because its all based on your company and job title and what you consider difficult. A mechanical engineer for NASA could be more difficult than a civil engineer at a small local construction company, and vice versa. A electrical engineer at a TESLA could be more difficult than a mechanical engineer who designs plumbing. The only thing thats more "difficult" is the stress and deadlines. ANY engineering type is has a shit ton of work/deadlines will be more difficult than a engineer who works for a laid back company and doesnt have much work/deadline/projects to complete. Dont compare yourself or anyone to each other. Focus on your own career
I have found all my engineering jobs to be way easier than school. I’m a ME working in aerospace. Nothing is solely on you. Everything is team based and pretty good with handling the many different personalities. And tasking you do receive has reasonable due dates. At least, I find I’m never the long pole in the tent when it comes to getting stuff done.
I find my job intellectually fulfilling but can't quantify it in terms of difficulty... you have resources available to you when working that are not available to you as a student. My degree and job title are pretty different though - so maybe not the best person to answer here.
Too much variety to gain any meaningful answer or insight.
I'm aerospace, but I also practice in a completely different specialty than the one I have a degree in, so take this with several grains of salt. The only hard thing about being an engineer is obtaining the right to do it. Once you have the paper you're doing career on easy mode for the rest of your life.
I literally don't use much from school. Nearly everything I use, is something I learned before school. The few things I've done with stuff from school is calculate forces/torques on tooling, and do some rudimentary FEA on tooling.
It depends a lot more on what industry you work in than it does what you majored in. I'm a mechanical engineer who works extensively with civil engineers and electrical engineers, and their work is no easier or harder than mine. If I were to go into another industry that might be different.
I'm doing an internship in geotechnical engineering, basically civil eng who dig soil and drill rocks. I've taken sneak-peeks into what my seniors do and tbh, it looks pretty rad. It's a tier 1 firm so we do lots of national infrastructure projects, and they don't hold back on the design and math. I don't see how my studies can get as hard as that.
If you are a real engineer, and not everyone is mentally there, then the real job is cake compared to school.
I'm a MechE grad from Georgia Tech (class of 2021) and work as a Quality Engineer. The job is kinda mindless, aside from some solid modeling and basic understanding of thermo fluids science, but they pay me solid and I like the people there. Otherwise I would've quit a long time ago. Part of me feels like I kinda needed an easier job after college. Looking back at my degree I've noticed that had I taken the classes now I'm pretty sure I would've aced it. I think a large part of why I struggled with college sometimes was because I was pretty immature and haphazard with my studying. Now my biggest concerns are paying off my student loans lol. Once that's paid, I'll probably look at more engaging (if riskier) options
Sometimes maybe yes, sometimes maybe no.
Everyone is already nailing the point here, which is that major difficulty vs job to job difficulty varies indefinitely. A mech E at one company may have a much more "difficult" job than the same job at another. This also begs the question of what is "difficult"? A lot of our brains lean towards certain specialties- sometimes those who are amazing at EE courses may struggle with fluid dynamics or vice versa. In industry, maybe the engineer who is technically advanced but can't manage their projects would appear to have a difficult job. But their results might suffer, because to them project management is difficult. It's all relative (and futile lol)