Naval: The Navy deploys a lot of different ships, and someone has to be able to service them. A marine engineer will be able to provide all the services that the Navy requires in this area, so obviously this is a career that is in high demand.
Offshore: This is essentially where an engineer works just off the shore, servicing supply vessels and working on oil rigs. Oil is very important, it is currently the life blood of our country and it is important that we have people who can do the maintenance.
Leisure: Have you ever taken a trip on a cruise line? If you have then you probably know that hey are equipped with state of the art facilities and even swimming pools. Did you ever stop to think about who actually services and maintains those behemoth ships? Marine engineers do! They make sure that the ships stay afloat, and they make sure that the ship is generally safe for the thousands of passengers that will be walking up and down its boarding ramp every single day.
Merchant: Passenger vessels and trading vessels that travel the high seas bringing goods and services to people all over the world.
A marine engineer has a lot on his plate, from repairing ships, to making sure that all is safe on the high seas. Water plays a very important role in our society; it always has. Water is what brought us to the state that we are in now, it has taken us everywhere from the chain of islands in the Caribbean, all the way to the new world that is known as America.
In order to break into this field you're going to need a background in physics, math, and a number of other things that you will find out as you go along. You will also need to go on a few internships so that you can get the hands on experience that you need. Hands on experience is necessary even at the entry level when you consider what exactly you will be doing.
If this is a field that you want to get into you're going to have to do a lot of work, but if you think about it just about every other field requires some work as well. At the beginning of your career you may be making about $50,000 per year, but down the line you could make as much as $70,000 per year and it will just keep going up from there. If you like water and mechanics, then this is definitely the career for you. Start looking around today for colleges that offer courses that deal with marine engineering. You should be able to find something that goes well with both your budget and your schedule.