any engineers here?

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How's your job? And how is your typhical day? Are you able to use math and physics in your job?

My father is a nuclear engineer, been doin it for 30+ years and even got sent to 3 mile island in 1979 to assist with the computer errors.

Currently he is a boss at the second oldest nuclear facility in the US. He spends his day cozy at his home office writing manuals, and plans on his computer, he attends meetings VIA the telephone. He does this all day, makes his own hours (usually) and only on occasion has to go in to assist with problems or outages.

Engineering = math and physics. Even sitting at home on a computer all day his manuals and instructions he types up are nothing but drawings he renders using physics and math skills.

Not sure if this is what you want, ill asume u want to become an engineer or are studying to become one. My father will retire in a few years and has made his way up the ladder to do what he does, and when u start out obviously you will be at the bottom. I suppose if you stick with a company most of your life (my dad works for GE) you will someday maby do what he does, from home.

My husband is a chemical engineer. He has worked for an environmental engineering consulting firm, a different consulting firm (doing more practical stuff than the first company), and may go to work for a national lab in the near future.

He uses math in his work on a daily basis. The first job was spent basically predicting whether or not things like acid rain or mercury would adversely affect parts of the country in which utilities owned the land. Lots of charts, working with clients, writing proposals, finding potential clients, etc. It was a great job because you were always working with very bright people -- many who didn't have awesome social skills, they were purely appreciated for their brains. The work dwindled down to nothing in later years, though. Now he's doing the same kind of work, but it's more reality based type of work.

With both jobs he has spent the lion's share of the time working from home. This is great in terms of family life -- not so great in terms of working with peers, getting in on contracts, etc. If you like working from home, sometimes engineering consulting can be the way to go. But you will always have to socialize to some extent -- the beauty part is you're socializing with other bright, nerdy types.

Kris

I am an engineer and have experience in labs and the semiconductor business. Yes, we use math and physics quite a bit, but you have to be careful these days. For example, the semiconductor business has been atttracting people who only want to use it to make money. It has been increasingly common to do work directed at manufacturing tasks rather than interesting discovery and/or analysis. As said in the above post, you will probably enjoy the geek/nerd interaction, but in some industries, the marketing types control the shots, and they are well..... not my cup of tea.

Be mindful of these things, and it will enhance your enjoyment of life.

I am transitioning to image processing and other work, since it is possible to do that in a good Aspie mode: home alone. Also, you can build up an arsenal of analysis techniques and 'take them with you' from job to job.

What kind of job in mechanical engineering would you say is best for aspies?

If I was a math person I would definitely go into engineering. It's one of the best possible jobs.