Which engineering degree is best for an aspe?

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Maybe I should move to Norway. It sounds like Norway is a good place to be an engineer. I'd say go for it. From what I have heard your country has one of the best educational systems in the world which is probably why there is such a demand for engineers.. The US has one of the worst which is probably why there aren't very many engineering jobs anymore.

Yeah right now it is extremely good to be an engineer. However, times change very much from what I've heard. After reading some old posts in some forums it seems that the demand wasn't that high some years ago, and people were unemployed. The last couple of years the oil activity has shot through the roof, and I don't really know what will happen when they stop installing so much offshore, because I've read(not sure if it's true), that many of the engineers are only employed for a couple of years while the project is going on.

How long has the situation been bad for engineers in USA? Is it something that can change in like five-ten years, or is it permanent?

It got really bad after 9/11. That pushed the US economy into a recession and it gave corporate America the excuse it needed to move as many manufacturing and engineering jobs to China and India that it possibly could. The jobs that were sent to Asia are never coming back. What few jobs that are left probably won't last much longer once the US slides into the next recession which is now starting to happen. Things may work differently in Norway than they do in the US. Enrollment in US engineering schools has declined rapidly. Employers won't hire a rookie just out of school when they can now hire someone with 20+ years of experience fo the same amount as a rookie. Now people are being told to go into health care but I don't know how much longer that will last when nobody has health insurance. We don't have government provided healthcare like Europe does. Here you are on your own.

Oh that sucks. I really understand your frustration. I have seen what can happen to people who are unemployed.

But the thing is, in 200-2002 the market wasn't good in Norway either. Engineers were unemployed for a long time, and it was allmost impossible to get a job unless you had good contacts.

So is it absolutely sure that this isn't just a phase in USA?, and that things might get better as time passes by?

Here's a little from my experiences of 30 years working as an engineer, for what it is worth.

1. Engineering is about a way of thinking and an approach to problem solving. It is not about a particular specialization. When you graduate you will be equipped to enter a particular field. That doesn't mean that you will know very much about it though. What your future employer does know for certain, if you have been trained at a reputable engineering school, is that you can solve a problem - ANY problem, because you know the problem solving methodology.

2. Forget the details - focus on the problem solving - if you are really an aspie that should come as easy as breathing.

3. The course is tough. At UQ we lost over 200 of about 400 students at the end of first year. Second year was a snip, and fun. Then it got really hard. Final year don't bother sleeping - there isn't time. You need to treat the course as if it were a job, just like any other bod getting up, eating breakky, going to work at 8 or 9 or whatever, working all day, coming home, eating, studying, and going to sleep. Then you do it all again, about 1500 times. Then you put on a funny hat, collect your peice of paper, and go to work. Do not come home during the day. If you have a break between lectures, study in the library. NT's can get away with a lack of discipline in their lives and still succeed at uni, but if you are AS you need to create and force a discipline like this, no matter how hard it is to do.

4. Any well trained engineer can solve any problem. I started as a mining/petroleum engineer and worked in the mining industry for the first 10 years. A gradual shift during this time into industrial instrumentation, computers, and research, eventually led to having my own business designing embedded control systems - this is a long way from mining!! ! So don't think that you have to pick a field right now that you will be in for the rest of your life. A smart approach may be to pick a field that generally emcompasses the areas that interest you, eg. if you have a passion for unmanned aircraft control systems you may study electrical or mechanical engineering - either will get you where you want to go.

5. Forget about reporting and report writing. AS does fine at this although the reports tend to be somewhat breifer than NT reports. The facts - that's what we are good at.

6. Interacting with people - yeah - lots of it in engineering - get used to it. There are plenty of resources on this forum and elswhere that will help you develop the techniques and coping mechanisms. If you don't want to do this, then become a scientist. Engineering is not science. It is the application of science and problem solving method. Scientists get answers, engineers get results.

7. Failures - get used to them. In 30 years of engineering I have had more disasters than I can count. Not technical ones - like most AS I an technically precise and competent. The disasters are in dealing with people. All the coping, the learning, the emulation - it only gets you through 80% of the time. I made mistakes with people, I annoyed many, it cost me good well paid jobs. Eventually I got a thick skin and it stopped worrying me (too much).

8. Remember to focus on the problem solving abilities. If an aspie just knows a lot of facts, nt's will just use him as a walking encyclopaedia. If he knows how to solve a problem he becomes infinitely valuable and for this nt's will tolerate quite a bit of eccentric behaviour.

Hope some of this helps.

ozbiker, thanks for your valuable post. i get the sense that you have a lot of experience behind your words. i have a question about the following

The answer to both 2 and 5 is similar.
I found over the years that most people I worked with were entirely capable of padding reports/presentations with extraneous stuff that did not contribute to the quality of the report. As an As I found this impossible to do. When I had written/presented what was required then there was nothing left to write, so I stopped.
Fat reports look good to those who expect them and in an AS unfriendly environment can contibute to the success of those who write them.
Don't think that as an engineer you will not have to write/present reports. No one is going to pay you to do a job and then not expect you to keep them fully informed of the progress of the job. Get used to it. In the right environment (when you find it) those around you will eventually get used to the fact that you are brief, to the point, and do not "beat around the bush". This is an advantage in goal oriented positions.
Same with problem solving. A good engineer is not blinded by the details. He can break a problem quickly into it's component parts, identify the key parts to focus on and ignore the remainder. It is a clarity of vision that leads to effective solutions, quickly.
Of course the correct solution is not always wanted. Most problems are not mission critical and often there is more corporate politics involved in the solution than there is real science. This is where I always had a problem. I remember once cancelling a contract with a large multinational corp because it was costing the company 5M a year in penalties and other hidden costs. No one had discovered this previously, maybe because they had never looked. The solution required a huge technological leap in our blasting operations, which was tedious to do but easy enough. So at the end of the day I was a hero for a while but had lots of corporate enemies that I did not discover until years later - seems everyone had something to lose by changing the status-quo. I lost many job opportunities over that despite doing precisely what I was paid to do.

Thanks for your reply. I think I understand the meaning of #5 now and know an area I may need to focus on.

But the idea that it takes alot for them to handle a tiny bit of eccentric behavior seems to me, rediculous. ><
I was told/read that computer programmers, engineers and physicists had the largest amount of aspie type tendencies. O.o
Well, on average of the different carreer types.

(sorry to over-reply to this, it's just that, engineering is a field I'm considering entering in college, and I therefore want to know as much about the actual "job" of engineering as possible.)

That being said, here's my list of possible college majors/carreers I'm considering (If I should make a seperate thread of this, someone, please say so):

Physics: Always loved this, for as long as I can remember.
Would like to go into research and teach at a university if I go into it in college. :3 I did research last Summer at UPenn in their HS Physics Program and loved it. XD It was hard...one of the hardest experiences of my life mind you, but I still loved it. And I even got the honor of most improved student. And believe me, it DOES involve lots of social skills.

Electrical Engineering: Ok, while, I'm more of a theory as opposed to hands-on person, I do like electrical stuff. :d (Gauss's law ftw. :3) I guess I would pick this field of engineering of them all because...well...yah...electrical things (well, ok, actually electricity itself) have just always fasinated me. That, and I think it would be fun to design electrical equipment (computer parts, bigger stuff, cell phones, etc)

Computer Science: Ok, I'm going to be honest with everyone here: I am HORRIBLE with computers...god help me, when my computer goes down, cuz I'll be helpless. >< Very odd for a physics/math person, I know, but...despite this, I LOVE computer science/programming. XD...well, when it's done in a more Ne project based fashion as opposed to examing every little part and not knowing what you can do with it, etc....ya' I tried learning C++ using C++ For Dummies 5th edition, and...yeah..got too bored with it to finish to the end of the book. >< XD

Math: actually, I WAS going to major in this along with phsyics, but after taking Calc 2, I've decided that upper level math is too...abstract for me...and shifted more towards physics/engineering, etc. :\

In closing, don't get me wrong, though, While, I AM horrible at said hands on/computer tech/maintanance/mechanical stuff...I'm sure I could and would get better and proficient (and maybe even self sufficient. ..that would rock) at those things if the program @ college I'm at involved formal hands-on training.
Same applies for social skills needed for such jobs.


So yeah...any input from anyone? ^^; I really really would like it.