Some students specialize early in their education because they have a firm understanding of what they want to do in the future. Other students are not so quick to zero in on an area of specialization, but settle on their particular area of study a little later in their studies. Today engineering has become a discipline that has changed from its early roots of military and civil engineering.
Aerospace Engineers
Many of today's top students are quick to study the field of Aerospace Engineering, which deals with many concepts including the design of aircraft and spacecraft. Students who choose this type of engineering are interested in concepts like propulsion issues, fuel systems, aerodynamic improvements, and design improvement. If a student is going to work with aircraft, they will be working as aeronautical engineers, and if they are going to work with spacecraft and the space industry, they will be astronaut engineers.
Research in this area of engineering provides some of the best engineering jobs and some of the highest salaries. Aerospace engineers deal primarily with the development and advancement of new methods and technologies to be used in the aviation, defense, and space industries. Some specialize in one particular area like passenger aircraft or military helicopters, while others work on general features, having different applications.
Civil Engineers
Today civil engineers often concentrate on construction design, and the construction could be roads, interstates, airports, tunnels, bridges or water and sewage networks. The work in this profession must factor in how well the designs will perform over the years as well as how well they will perform in many different kinds of adverse weather conditions. While some of these positions can involve local work, some travel is usually involved and many of these workers will be required to do a lot of onsite work.
Even in hard economic times, many of these engineering positions will be available and this is one of the reasons, the best engineering jobs USA companies advertise. Civil engineering salaries range from 50K to over 100K per year and there are currently over 250,000 civil engineers in the US. Some of these engineers work for the government and the military while others work for architectural, engineering or construction firms. The demand for civil engineers is going to continue to rise, and much of this is due to a larger population and increased demands on the nation's important infrastructures. Many of these systems, like our roads and highways, are beginning to need replacing and rebuilding.
Agricultural Engineers
Biological, or agricultural engineers, are able to apply their knowledge of technology to the science of agriculture to help farmers and others produce more products with less use of available resources. This is a field where the design of efficient machinery, sensors, and structures are critical to helping farmers harvest more crops in a safe and less wasteful manner. Through research and development, better ways are designed to help with the conservation of water supply, soil, and trees.
Computer Engineers
Another choice for one of today's best engineering jobs is those that deal with the development of computers and associated hardware or software. Usually, this class of engineers is considered as two separate groups. The hardware engineers are concerned with systems, circuits, computer chips and similar items, and the software engineers are the ones who work to produce the computer's operational software systems.
Petroleum Engineers
These workers have some great jobs that will pay them top dollars as they help in the search for possible location of areas of the earth that might yield oil or gas. A petroleum engineer will often work in tandem with other team members to devise an appropriate drilling system that would allow these natural resources to be reached and extracted in the most efficient and safest way possible.
Some of the methods used by petroleum engineers today include injecting steam, water or other chemicals or gases into the ground where the oil is located. The injection of these products can often help create better oil production from the deep ground reservoir in which it is found. One of the areas of intense study and research in this field is designing new and better ways of locating and extracting petroleum products from the earth.
Engineering students will need to have at least a bachelor's degree in engineering for an entry level position; although there have been some occasions where a graduate with a degree in a related science discipline has been given an entry position in engineering. There is presently a push in many colleges to recruit more students to choose engineering as a field of study. If students want to become instructors in this field, they should have advanced degrees, preferably a PhD.
