Originally Posted by verc

a lot of people go into mechanical engineering b/c they like cars or machines, airplanes, and end up doing HVAC since being ME you have a good background in fluids and dynamics. IMHO a person doing ME who wants to do the exciting (not saying HVAC isn't, I'm sure designing a complex system for a large skyscraper or something would be really fun!) should really try to get a master's so they can get into the thermosciences, or learn to do FEA (that's really fun, if you want I'll sne you a copy of FEMlab, you don't need to know finite element math to use it but it's really, really cool. You can model, say, the sound a muffler design will produce or the temperature distribution in a brake rotor undergoing braking, damn near everything in the world), or get into MEMS.

it's the same with EE as well. Undergrads usually (even if you go work for say Intel or Analog devices) end up doing hardware verification or designing test boards. Gotta get a pHD to do the cool stuff...

Originally Posted by verc

yeah, don't misinterpret what I said by any means; most all jobs available to engineers out of college aren't super-cool but definately, I think it's all just paying your dues. Either a few years of grad school or a few years of work experience, then hopefully on to that dream job

I had a friend who worked for Ford out of college graduating with an BSME. Did dumb crap for a couple years but then he got to work on the GT40, GR1, and now new Cobra/Shelby Cobra, complete with hot lapping the GT40 for "scientific tests"