OK, I have a degree in mechanical engineering and have worked in the field for 25 years or so.
My father worked construction and maintenance and I grew up with tools in my hands . . . I spent most of my summers in high school and college working at a maintenance machine shop, rebuilding machine tools and other industrial equipment, lots of heavy, dirty work. Most of my cars were bought as projects. I was really good at math and science in school, so I decided to go to college, rather than go into a trade. I went to a big-name engineering school did well there. The engineering work I do is sort-of interesting and the pay is good. Most days, I'd rather be wrenching than mousing though. Gotta love that cubicle. At least my job lets me do troubleshooting out in the plant.
My experience is that most engineers are pretty handy. They fix their own cars, appliances, computers, do their own home improvements, etc. Maybe it's because the company I've worked for during the last 20 years makes a point to hire down-to-earth practical people . . . or maybe it's because many of the folks here come from farming backgrounds with lots of hands-on exposure. I work in manufacturing engineering . . . dealing more with the production equipment than the product itself. We don't have very many dogmatic textbook types. We listen to the folks in the factory and the machine shop and learn from them. We try lots of unconventional approaches and have come up with a lot of unique ways of doing things that have let our company pretty much dominate our particular market.
Our engineering staff mostly drives well maintained older vehicles. . . much older and a lot less showy than the cars that even some of the factory folks seem to drive, and certainly less showy than what most of the other office folks drive. Most of us are fairly outgoing family types, active in our community, churches, etc. and all of us enjoy time with friends and a good laugh. For some reason I haven't been able to figure out, a number of our engineers, myself included, also are involved in music, composing, playing instruments or singing . . . maybe it is because of some sort of drive to be creative.
Maybe my experience with other engineers is biased, or maybe we have an unusual group here. I just thought I'd babble on for a while. Thanks for putting up with me.
Al
