Uni Stuff > Engineering

Mechanical or Civil engineering

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Collin Li:
Interesting, do you have any evidence for that?

Anonymou5:
Of course I can't find any documentation stating those exact words. However, from what I can gather, I am not too far off target. In publications released by professional bodies (APESMA for example), I frequently see summaries of industry surveys stating that employers would have actually offered more graduate positions if they had found the 'right' people. The constant 'skills' shortage due to a lack of suitable graduates can't be an academic problem seeing that many people average over the widely used academic prerequisite of 65. I don't believe that it has anything to do with teaching material not being relevant enough to industry either. The fact is that most of the stuff that is taught in university has never been used in the workplace; you're going to be using FEA packages, not deflection and stress equations. It can't be expected that universities will invest in every possible software package that is used in industry. Universities can only teach the fundamentals and encourage the right type of thinking.

On top of all that, comments by careers advisors and responses from company reps about what they look for in graduates all point to the importance that firms place on cultural fit. I haven't seen anything which would suggest that there has been a consistent lack of graduates with the necessary level of technical aptitude over the last few years.

As for the topic: Most people I've spoken to say that civil is easier than mechanical.

bucket:
what do you mean cultural fit??
I was planning to do civil engineer but :S
I want to be able to get a job after I finish my course!

Anonymou5:
You will (hopefully) learn the meaning of terms like 'cultural fit' as you progress through your course. I don't want to give a definition since people have different interpretations of the term. If you want to know now then just ask people in the industry or career advisors.

But basically as long you have good interpersonal skills, decent marks (no, a pass average is not decent, you need at least a 65 average which isn't exactly hard to attain), participate in extracurrcular activities and can BS a bit you'll be fine in terms of getting a job. On a personal level I'm not exactly a big proponent of the extreme lack of emphasis (IMO) on academics but that's just how it is.

rubiks:
Didn't want to start a new thread so I thought I'd bump this one.

Which engineering do you guys think offers the broadest career opportunities?  I've read everywhere that mechanical is the broadest of the two but it seems civil offers the most in terms of job availability. Which one would be easiest to get a job?

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