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Mech-Engineering degree and UTI??


Guest RUST FREE Z

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Guest RUST FREE Z

Im going to school for a Mech-Engineering degree. I was wanting to be a F1 engineer but i read all about it and they spend like 2/3 of the year on the road. I cant do that to my wife and family. So I was looking for a career located in the US.

I read that UTI students can go to Bmw and make around 40K to start and after more training they make over 100K.

 

My real Q is that if I had a degree and went to UTI what other careers would open up for me? Has any one else done this?

 

I would like to work for nissan, bmw or other tuner cars for a company that tunes and does custom race work to those cars. I wouldnt mind being a master tech for a shop like bmw making over 100K a year either.

 

Let me know what you guys think.

Thnx to all that reply.

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If the money is what drives you, you will be miserable no matter where you go.

 

Usually it works the other way around, UTI certification, job, then night school to get the degree and take on more responsibility and more challenging projects.

 

It would likely be an asset to be in the training department, actually being able to do the work you devlop training criteria and lesson plans for with an OEM. But then again, that's the 'teacher's salary' job in the OEM world.

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I'm not completely familiar with automobile tech degrees but I think a Mechanical Engineering degree is very different from an automobile tech degree. From the numbers youve listed the pay is about the same for both, but the work you do is very different. Also, from what I've seen, its not easy to get an engineering job in the automotive industry, much less a F1 team.

 

If you want to work on cars, auto tech seems like a good option and, judging by your numbers, the pay seems to be about the same as a ME would recieve. Again I imagine jobs doing any real custom fab/race work will require a lot of time, dedication and sacrifice.

 

From what I have seen any "cool" jobs related to cars require you to be really interested and really stand out from everyone else to be hired. They are high competition jobs since almost everyone likes playing with cars. IMO you cant expect to go into that kind of work and have money be your motivator, you need more.

 

If youre after money, there are better career paths to make big bucks and as Tony pointed out you might be left disappointed whatever you end up doing.

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the mech egr degree alone will not get you into the doors...i tired a number of times to get an internship at Honda’s Ohio facilities and actually got a phone interview but did not get the position. I tired for about three years and finally gave up on it and looked into different industries. Its hard to tell what they are looking for. At the time I had about 3 mechanical internships/jobs on my resume and a decent GPA.

The only think I could think of was they wanted someone focused in automotive engineering.

With that being said…I would go for the mechanical engineering degree and while you’re doing that try and get into a established race shop/team as like an apprentice. I think that was the piece I missed… I did do SAE stuff but nothing major…

Another thing…I would suggest you not limit yourself to only the automotive industry… With a mechanical engineering degree you can branch off into many fields easily that you can make good money in and enjoy… I ended up in the glass industry J my life is like the show “How its Made” with a little bit of “Dirty Jobs”

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It seems like your looking at the degree as just a stamp that says "Im an engineer." As mentioned working anywhere like an F1 team or a tuner company doesnt just require a stamp. Alot of training and experience has to come before that.

 

If your thinking you can just go into a job like that right out of college I think your whole idea on the college/education thing is a little tipsy, its not that easy.

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To get any respect in the engineering community the program has to be ABET certified. The universities in MI have special programs for the auto industry, and from the shape of the US auto industry they are probably looking for jobs.

 

I have a degree in Mech. Eng. Technology from an ABET school and still got some flack. Now that I have a professional engineering licensee no one seems to care any more.

 

You will never go wrong by expanding your knowledge, but do some research and check out several schools.

 

Mechanical Engineering covers a broad area of possible work.

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Guest RUST FREE Z

well thanx all. I know it seemed like I was looking for the money but to be honest i just wanna make a living you know. I startign to do property investments so thats were i would make most of the money.

 

I just heard that at BMW and places like porsche only take people from UTI. I like working on cars like all of us do and i thought it would be a good career path. I thought with a ME that it would make me stand out more, but from what you guys are saying to get experience in the feild aslo makes alot of sence.

 

I know that with an ME you can do alooot of things from cars to making artificial organs. I just wanted to hear what you guys had to say about it.

 

If any one has more to say pls post.

thnx all

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BMW wants line working wrench turners. And from UTI you just might qualify for that...which is a backbreaking tedious existence of slapping on parts and moving on to the next job. Yep, you can make $100K+ at a busy shop. Until it slows down and your flatrate jobs dry up. Or they decide to stop paying you commission on the parts you sell. Remember that those 'starting salaries' are just that...

 

As a line worker, you will be hammering away on your body until Carpal Tunnel takes over, or you can't do it any more. Without further education to fall back upon, you end up the next broken down line mechanic working the service writers desk lamenting your cut in pay. I've seen it all too many times.

 

Many of my friends are now in their mid 40's and mid 50's trying to do jobs like they did when they were 24. It wears you down. They ask me what openings we have where I work, but unfortunately none of them have the educational background to do the engineering analysis. They are great wrench turners, but it really limits their opportunities. If we had purely hands-on supervision of overhaul work, I might be able to get them on...but unfortunately they don't have that engineering background and they lament their broken bodies and back pains...worrying about wether they will be able to keep the pace up till their kids are out of the house.

 

And education makes for a great fall-back when your older. I could not go from school to design work. It drove me nuts. I had to go out and work with my hands. Curiously I found that overseas I work in hands-on jobs with plenty of Masters and Bachelors of ME. Some have advanced degrees in Finance (The Engineer I was doing this last Stud Exchange/Retrofit was ME with an Executive MBA from the former parent company for the place where I work now!)

 

When was the last time you saw ANY MBA in America with a pair of coveralls twisting a ringspanner and torquing the splitline bolts on a piece of rotating equipment?

 

For me, working line work when I was young, I decided the inbred malice towards formal education from my co-workers was a sign of the times. Those who didn't wish to learn have a hard life now. But the resistance to education on an advanced level persists in many professions (especially in America where there really is no apprenticeship system). Even where an apprenticeship system exists, "Technical Colleges" (Like UTI, Basically) are getting people advanced journeyman tickets without any supervised work experience. They are coming into the workforce with a certificate of competency but without any practical application knowledge and have to work with guys who took the 'old route' of being an apprentice for five years, while going to college concurrently and then working under the supervision of a master tradesman for anotehr 18 months before being certified.

 

Question is who do you think is 'more qualified' to do the work---and which kind of person do you want to be?

 

For myself, the only thing I ever wanted was to be thought of as 'competent'---and in many cases didn't put any educational information on my resumes at all, just what I'd worked on. It's totally backwards from the 'fast track' route of getting far more money up front...but to be honest if I looked at one more bracket for an MJ-1A bomblift I was going to take an axe to work and start smashing cubicles.

 

I liked the fresh air. I learned a lot that I wouldn't have being stuck in a cubie, or being straight salaried engineer away from the productin or field problems.

 

I loved cars, and thought I wanted to be there, I had friends who went to GMI while I went directly to work on the line (had my SASE Certificates in Brakes, Tune Up, Overhaul, etc... by the time I was a Junior in High School). I decided I liked working on cars too much to 'make a living at it' and decided to go into other areas of mechanical endeavour, keeping automobile mechanics as my 'getaway'...

 

And you need a getaway. You can PM me if you want, I got more to say but it's late and I got to be up in the AM for the drive down to Rayong to see some customers about some electrical controller problems.

 

As an aside, after being in Australia for the past month...I called my brother and told him he was AN ABSOLUTE IDIOT for wavering on the opportunity to take a position in the I.T. Department of GM Holden in Australia. 3 Week Flyback every 6 Months, killer salary, and secure position on one of the only profitable segments of GM in the world...what a fool! The only thing I can add from that is if you are offered international assignments, TAKE THEM! The rewards in your career will be many because of it. You won't have that expansion opportunity at a local distributor, generally. That's OEM Level Stuff.

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Dangerous question to ask Challenger.

 

Anyhooo, the Germans, who almost ruled the world, had hands on engineers.

 

They would drive the race cars and even fly a V1 bomb (had guidance problems).

 

America was built on the principals that Tony talks about, the current way of doing things is killing us.

 

Kinda like the saying, you can give a man a fish to eat (formal education), or teach a man to fish and feed him for a life time, (hands on education).

 

I don't know if I mentioned this before:

 

A wise Jesuit who taught a GU, father Schoenberg (SP), bonified photographic memory, wrote many books, said once, "When I was young you could teach collage kids 80% of the the worlds knowledge in four years, now your lucky if they know 10%.

 

It's not the teachers fault, nor the students, it is just the "data base" of the world is that BIG!

 

In some ways, even somewhat specialized, you really will only know very little about a whole lot of stuff.

 

Just wish the teachers would pass this along to there students, (NOT ALL) just most.

 

Most teachers do spend alot of time making sure there "self esteem" is VERY healthy witch, subsequently, compounds the problems.

 

No I'm not a english professor, however, I always loved it when they would marval at abusive use of grammer skills by some nut, I mean some poet. Well life gose on.....

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Because, maybe he dose maybe he dose not.

 

Some of the comments made in this tread and that other one speaks to your question by various angles.

 

Quantifying education of a person by a school attended 20-30 years ago can actually be insulting.

This is in part due to an overall preconceived notions of paperwork, not character.

 

School is a stating point, I'm sure Tony could teach kids starting points on many subjects, not only because he went to Harvard, but because he has out grown it in so many ways.

 

Funny thing is, it reminds me of those funny arguments of:

 

I know (or have a X friend) so I can't be a X.

 

If I said I came from a extremely wealthy and powerfully family, dose that make me.

 

IT is what I done, do and are doing that defines me in my entirety.

 

Done: screwed up

 

Do: learning from screw up

 

Doing: correcting screw up

 

Repeat....However, hopefully a little wiser.

 

Funny thing, isn't that what is expected from members?

 

If I asked you how much did you know when you came on this board, would that be a good gage of who you are now?

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What is Woldson talking about?

 

Asking someone what their education background is shouldn't be a problem based on a post or comment made.

 

Thank you!

 

Dose it matter or does it really matter?

 

Some people don't like to talk about personal accomplishments or educational background in a public forum, this is one of the reasons why we have PM.

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Dose it matter or does it really matter?

 

Some people don't like to talk about personal accomplishments or educational background in a public forum, this is one of the reasons why we have PM.

__________________

 

 

 

 

Yep.

 

Long winded but that is what I was making a point about, as well as, others. ;)

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