Different Types of Engineering Degrees and The Job Outlook For Graduate Engineers

The government Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011, lists 17 different types of engineering degrees and the job outlook for graduate engineers.

These engineers develop solutions for the technical problems of industry by applying principles of science and mathematics. They are the link between consumers and scientific discoveries.

Aerospace engineers work with and often specialize in commercial or military aircraft, spacecraft, or missiles and rockets. They develop new technologies for guidance and control systems or structural design. They also work with production methods. Aerospace engineers will see about average growth in employment over the next 10 years.

Agricultural engineers design agricultural equipment and machinery. They also work with soil and water conservation, crop production and the processing and sales of agricultural products. Agricultural
engineers should have average or a little better employment growth.

Biomedical engineers will also need a background in mechanical or electronics engineering besides specialized biomedical training. They develop systems and products to solve health problems. Their
work ranges from prostheses to medical information systems. They design devices that are used in medical procedures and imaging systems. Employment growth of biomedical engineers over the next 10 years is expected to be 72 percent, much faster than the average.

Chemical engineers solve problems concerning the production and use of chemicals and chemical products. They design processes and equipment for chemical manufacturing. They work with industry in
the use of chemicals and the safety of workers and the environment. Growth in employment of chemical engineers is expected to decline to 2% over the next 10 years.

Civil engineers are needed to design and supervise construction of buildings, transportation systems, and water and sewage systems. They have to keep up with government regulations. Construction design has to take earthquakes and hurricanes and other hazards into account.

Civil engineers are expected to have much faster than average employment growth, 24 percent in 10 years.

Computer hardware engineers design and test any of the hardware components of computers. They're responsible for the manufacturing and installing of computers and computer related equipment.
Computer hardware engineers can expect slow growth in employment, 2% over the next decade.

Electrical engineers design, test, and supervise manufacturing of electrical equipment. This equipment includes lighting and wiring, electric motors, communications systems, and power generation.
They also design electrical systems of aircraft and automobiles. Employment growth for computer hardware engineers is expected to be only 4% over the next 10 years, slower than average.

Electrical engineers design and supervise the manufacture of many kinds of electrical equipment. Electrical engineers will have an employment growth of only 2% over 10 years.

Electronics engineers specialize in technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS), communications systems, control systems, and portable music players. Electronics engineers will have little
or no employment change in the next decade.

Environmental engineers develop solutions to environmental problems. They work with pollution control of air and water. They develop solutions for waste disposal and encourage recycling. They manage hazardous waste, garbage disposal, and waste water treatment. They protect wildlife and the environment. Environmental engineers will have a much faster than average growth of 31% over 10 years.

Health and safety engineers use chemical, mechanical, and systems engineering to prevent possible harm to property and people. They use specialized knowledge to prevent dangers from fires and toxic chemicals. They work with industry to anticipate hazardous products and manufacturing conditions. Health and safety engineers, excluding mining safety, will have average employment growth.

Industrial engineers coordinate materials, machines, energy, and people to make a product or perhaps provide a service. They control quality, efficiency, and productivity. They decide plant locations
and design distribution systems. Industrial engineers will have faster than the average employment growth of 14% over 10 years.

Marine engineers and naval architects design, construct, and maintain ships and boats, and marine equipment. They aren't involved in operation. Marine engineers and naval architects will have slower than average employment growth of 6%.

Materials engineers develop the materials used in manufacturing products. The products may be plastics, metals or ceramics. These engineers create new materials and processes to meet the needs of industry. Materials engineers will have about average growth of about 9%.

Mechanical engineers research and develop tools, machines and engines. They work on machines that produce power and machines that use power. And they design tools that other engineers need in their work. Mechanical engineers will have employment growth of 6% over the next 10 years, slower than average.

Mining and geological engineers and mining safety engineers work with anything concerning mining operations. They find deposits, design and construct mines, and transport the ore. They're
responsible for safety and environmental issues. Mining and geological engineers, including mining safety engineers, will have faster than average growth of 15% over 10 years.

Nuclear engineers work with nuclear energy to generate power and with radioactive materials used in equipment to diagnose and treat medical problems. They ensure the safe handling and disposal of
radioactive materials. Employment growth for Nuclear engineers is expected to be about average, 11% over 10 years.

Petroleum engineers develop drilling and recovery methods to extract oil and gas from deposits. They work with geologists to determine drilling methods. They design processes and equipment to recover as much as possible of the gas and oil at the lowest cost. Petroleum engineers will have employment growth of 18% over the next 10 years, faster than average employment growth.

Considering the different types of engineering degrees and the job outlook for graduate engineers, job opportunities are expected to be about average in the next 10 years with some specialties seeing more growth than others.

Sylvia Buetow is a retired teacher, writer, author.
She supports online education and the idea of continuing education.

GE's Immelt - An Opportunity to Actually Make a Difference

I read a story recently where GE's Jeff Immelt was quoted as saying about the nation, "We're not trying that hard; We haven't really tried as hard as we can to compete, educate, and sell our products around the world and I think we can do better."

Now, on the surface, this sounds reasonable; how can we sell more US products abroad, and in the process, create more jobs? But, I remain skeptical about Immelt's motives, especially considering that GE, under his leadership, and like many other large corporations, have shed thousands of jobs rather than look for creative ways to utilize displaced employees and help address the current unemployment picture.

Immelt tries to assuage the overall feeling of frustration and anger by many US citizens by saying, "It is natural to assume that people are angry and I think we have to be empathetic and understand people are not feeling great."

OK, great again, but there are probably many former GE employees who would prefer a paycheck over empathy.

Immelt does acknowledge there might be something to the notion that there's a huge discrepancy between an average worker's pay and that of CEO's by saying, "The discrepancy (the gap between the pay of CEO's and average Americans) is certainly one of the problems today, in terms of why people feel the system is unfair." But, he then downplays what most feel today by saying, "It is a symptom but it is not the problem."

It's also revealed in the article that GE expects to generate more than 60% of its revenue outside the US this year. So, why wouldn't Immelt want all of us to "try harder" to sell more products across the globe?

Finally, Immelt says, in response to criticism that he (as a republican) is working in concert with President Obama, "People need to try; I'd rather be in the arena trying than not doing what I can to help."

So, to all of this I say; how about GE trying harder to put more people back to work? For once, instead of waiting for the economy to try to miraculously recover on its own, how about Immelt and other top-level CEO's around the country stop the lip service and actually do something creative and different that might actually work? For example, I just looked at GE's profile at the Yahoo Finance site and saw that the top 5 executives listed had combined compensation of $27.5 million for 2010, or an average of $5.5 million each. At the head of the pack? Immelt who brought in roughly $7.7 million, with no stock options showing as exercised during the year.

Let's say, for example, that the 5 top execs at GE agreed to put 25% of their earnings into a pool so they could bring some employees back to work. At an average of $50,000 per employee, they could rehire 137 people. And, they could do it without spending one more dime. Now, this would mean that each of the top five execs would "only" end up taking home an average of $4.1 million, but come on; they could survive.

Now, imagine if this were to happen at the top 100 companies in the US, and assuming similar figures. Then we would see an additional 13,700 people back on the payroll instead of having to collect unemployment checks and draining the US financial system.

Before anyone gets riled up let me be clear; I'm all for hard work, ample reward and letting the market dictate the value of the work force. I started working when I was 13, I work as hard as any other guy out there and I'm always happy when my hard work pays off. But, this doesn't mean that there isn't a place for creativity from those who have blessed to be at the top of the economic food chain to help jump-start our moribund economy.

Immelt talks a lot, and maybe he thinks that his words are soothing to those who find themselves on the flip side of the economic equation. But, I can tell you from the perspective of someone who's much closer to the average man on the street than in the proverbial ivory tower, his words ring rather hollow.

NVIDIA's New Processor, Tegra 3

New Processor from NVIDIA

NVIDIA has come up with a new processor based on System-On-Chip technology specially designed for smartphones tablets and other hand held devices. The new NVIDIA tegra 3 is given the codename "Kal El". NVIDIA said the processor would be quad-core in the beginning stages but they denied revealing any of the finer details of the processor. A couple of days back NVIDIA published white papers pertaining to the architecture of the processor. The papers reveal that the processor actually has a fifth core running parallel with the other four cores. The secret fifth core is called "companion core". All the five processor are ARM Cortex A9 processors and can be separately activated or deactivated based on work load. NVIDIA designed a special circuitry called Tegra 3 logic controller to do this task.

Technology in tegra 3

In the paper NVIDIA mentions that the new processor, Tegra 3 is going to work on Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing (vSMP). vSMP technology can be used for optimising the CPU in multi-threading scenario and also introduce multi-tasking functions for efficient performance and better power utilisation. The companion core ie., the fifth secret core is built transparent to the OS which means that the OS and the applications running will not be aware if the fifth core but can take advantage of it during run time.

More on companion core

The operating frequency of companion core is limited to 500MHz while all other four main cores are left to function at their full throttle of 1.5GHz. The companion core is mainly meant for less demanding applications that run in the background like animated background, twitter app, Facebook, push mail service, background apps etc. Thus the architecture leaves the four main cores to do their work at full potential for maximum results while doing system heavy tasks like gaming, video editing, image processing etc.

Test results of Tegra 3 performance

The new technology has been shown to perform more efficiently with less power consumption than Tegra 2. Results show that Tegra 3 utilises 61% less power during video play and 34% less during gaming functions. NVIDIA expects the new Tegra 3 to astonish smartphone and tablet manufacturers with its incredible performance. ZTE T98 is the first tablet which is running on NVIDIA Tegra 3 and is is produced by a Chinese company ZTE. The tablet with 7-inch screen would run android 3.2 HoneyComb.