Posted on 09/28/2012 6:55:00 AM PDT by golux
Consider having him get an MBA rather than a master’s in aerospace engineering. An engineer with an MBA should have lots of opportunities even outside the aerospace industry.
I suggest that he pull up stakes and move to Everett, WA or another city where Boeing is BIG. He’ll have a job in jiffy, I can almost guarantee it.
Bonus skills are: 1)Computer Aided Design using CATIA and/or Solidworks. 2) Manufacturing processes especially composites. 3) Six sigma.
He can apply online. www.boeing.com
Good for you for helping the guy out...
First, have him look at the unemployment rate of aerospace engineers. With the shutting down of the space shuttles, I predict he will find employment hard to come by in aerospace. Encourage him to look at structural engineers, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers. All of these fields are much broader and even overlap into the aerospace fields.
What I would suggest is a dual-major in math and physics. Math and physics are the foundation of engineering. They are the hard part. If you know the math and physics, the applications are a piece of cake.
With good enough grades he could get an aerospace job with that alone if NASA is resurrected.
If not, he has a lot more flexibility with that combination. Any field of science or engineering would be within his grasp.
Grades would be everything.
Don’t look at the Eglin area. It’s nice, lovely country, but there aren’t jobs here. The company my husband worked for laid off several hundred people back in April, we’re trying hard to get something somewhere else. If there are any jobs here, there’s plenty of local unemployed engineers trying to get in.
Hmmmn.
Surprised NOBODY has said apply to USN as Engineering Duty Officer (USN Nuclear is advertising for junior engineers in ALL of the engineering technical/student magazines I have subscriptions to (Tau Beta Pi (engineering honor society), ASME, Nuclear News, Texas A&M alumni association, corps of cadet association, etc.). My older brother went to USN Officer Training School (90 days) with a degree in physics, that’s another option for a 6 year commitment; I was NROTC and a direct enrollment right after school. I was nuclear construction, nuclear repair, and submarine repair. Wasn’t on sea duty, lots of shipyard days.
USN is advertising for aero engineering duty officers, see www.navair.navy.mil They won’t fly, but do maintenance and design and weapons analysis and support.
My younger brother just retired from the USAF with duty as (non-flying) communications, computers, flight scheduling, crypto and intercept, aero maintenance squadron officer, and NATO duty, etc.
There are unemployed engineers all over the country. But as someone who used to supervise dozens of what I consider to be the “best and the brightest” in the DoD, I can tell you that not all engineers are the same, and not every unit and/or contractor is looking for what you might assume they're looking for in an engineer.
I'm sorry to hear that husband lost his job. But the fact is that Eglin is exactly the type area it sounds like this young man might be looking for. And if he's as sharp as his “friend” indicates he might do very well for himself.
I doubt that he'll be moving his furniture before he's received a job offer anyway. So why not advise him to look to the best option, rather than the “safest” option?
Most of the aero-engineer jobs in Phoenix have gone to India.
True, many have but Phoenix still has some good jobs. It’s one of the major cities for aerospace. On the aircraft avionics front, many jobs are coming back as the foreigners have really made a mess of things.
Last I heard, Honeywell had screwed Boeing so badly and so often that Boeing will no longer even accept bids from Honeywell - and Boeing was half the revenue base for that business group.
Try the Army or Navy as an Engineer or Seabee.
That being said, he can also try Huntsville, Alabama. Great place to live and work:
Elon Musk wants to die on Mars (Just not on impact, he says).
Between his ego, his drive, his billions and his government contacts, I fully expect it to happen. And he's going to need a LOT of help.
Had my heart set on going to Georgia Tech.
Then I got their brochure and they had no classes on how to operate a train.
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