At corporate "info" sessions, students learn that all big engineering companies are the same. Take Lockheed Martin. They have a handful of sexy projects that make for really cool CGI animations (and that a tiny elite of the company get to touch), then a vast array of mundane defense programs that actually return profits. All of these companies allow flexible work hours, diverse promotion tracks, tuition reimbursement and fantastic benefits. They all pay well. They consistently show up on those "Best places to work" lists. The information's all identical to that on their employment websites, so they bribe students with free pizza (tip: Fortune 100 companies usually are the most generous in that regard; avoid the no-name info sessions if you're hungry). That's why I went.
Their programs and departments are so huge though that it's a rare day when you feel you're contributing valuably to anything. With projects of this complexity, most of engineers' time is spent checking numbers on minute components or working on tools that may augment existing procedures that may be used during the next product test if they are approved and they feel like using a new tool instead of the stuff they've used for twenty years. Everything is overengineered and checked twenty times over because that's the only way we can ensure these massively intricate machines work well, and do not (unintentionally) kill people. Big engineering isn't a problem; it does solve things. The U.S. today is the only country that can singlehandedly support the development of a
modern, heavy fighter aircraft, because it has the money and army of engineers to scour every dark corner of an awesomely difficult design task (Europe unioned, Russia's fighter tripped and fell, India and Israel abandoned theirs, while China and Sweden opted for light fighters). For the individual engineer though, the person dragged along and perhaps
never thought of, this type of work is seldom fun. It's a job. Near graduation, most students accept this, and I wonder what college (and the world) does to toss cold water on all of their freshmen ambition. They don't start out like this.
