There are many pros and cons of being a mechanical engineer that need to be taken into account before venturing down this career path.

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Mechanical engineers can be seen in any location these days as their work is suitable to almost any kind of business. If you are a skilled engineer obtaining a job should never be an issue for you.

In order to obtain the best possible job/career, you should have a knowledge of everything encompassed in the study of mechanical engineering in your arsenal. To gain knowledge, you could take a post-grad study course within another type of engineering, you could also take an online course, such as those on LinkedIn Learning, you can try it risk free for the first 30 days!

Some of the pros of being a mechanical engineer:

Evergreen Branch

Mechanical engineers will always be in demand, if you are a truly skilled engineer you should never have a problem with employment and getting employed, especially if you are skilled in modern technologies like 3D CAD programs such as AutoCAD, Revit, Inventor and Fusion 360.

It Covers a Wide Range of Fields 

There are a vast range of sub-disciplines available in mechanical engineering, you can become a specialist in: automobile engineering, biomedical engineering, HVAC engineering, mechatronics engineering among others.

With such a wide range of career paths available you have a great chance to find something that suits your particular skill set.

Excellent Salary Potential

You will get paid handsomely if you are have experience and if you have great technical and management skills. Once you find yourself in a good company you won’t have to worry about the future as there are generally lots of opportunities for promotions, if that is what you desire.

Workplace Is Exciting

Working as a mechanical engineer can bring you to some interesting/amazing places such as deserts, the ocean, automobile industries and medical industries. If you are planning on specializing in designing you can count on spending most of your time in an office environment.

Opportunities All Over The World

Every company needs mechanical engineers and there are a good selection of mechanical engineering courses that will confirm that.

Future Innovations

Mechanical engineers are at the very front of future technology. Mechanical engineers are always creating new technology for an array of industries including transportation, HVAC, robotics, and many more.

You could research, invent, design and develop astounding devices if you are an accomplished mechanical engineer.

Respected Occupation

Mechanical engineering is a very well respected occupation. Mechanical engineers are looked at as an important aspect of the local community and without them advancement of the global community and improvement of the modern world is not possible!

Now, we will move onto the cons of being a mechanical engineer:

Competitive Atmosphere

Even though mechanical engineers are generally presented with favorable advancement opportunities, they don’t come easily! It is hard for recent graduates to get a place in decent company unless they are in very good colleges or have great skills/abilities.

The exception to this are mechanical engineers who are self-employed, and this can be very difficult without previous experience. The best paying jobs in the discipline come from large/multinational companies whose working environments are really competitive due to the current economy. A list of current mechanical engineer jobs can be found at indeed.com.

Recent graduates begin with titles like assistant/associate engineer. These engineers go thorough training and evaluation for one or two years, after that they may get the opportunity to be promoted.

Promotions are almost always performance based, as an engineer gets promoted to a higher level, competition also gets more intense. It is also very well-known that bigger companies do not like to recruit new engineers, they like to recruit ones with experience.

Educational Requirements

The bottom-line requirement for entering the mechanical engineering field is a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, or a degree in a closely related discipline.

Undergraduate studies must include mathematics, physics, chemistry, solid/fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, materials, process control and equipment design. These will help a recent graduate obtain a job, but they may not be enough to guarantee a long career.

Companies advise their employees to take graduate studies, often offering subsidies for tuition and promotion opportunities as an incentive them. This is done by guiding the engineers towards the relevant short courses, seminars, conferences and developmental classes needed to keep engineers up-to-date.

A Lot Of Pressure

With significant importance comes a lot of job pressure, the projects you lead as the mechanical engineer are sometimes huge in scope and budget.

Major failures can lead to losses for the company, or a raise in the companies insurance costs. Issues with your performance can bring down your employers reputation, or yours.

There are a plethora of costs and risks involved with the jobs. Therefore there is a lot of pressure and stress as liability can become steep with regards to errors.

Workload and Long Hours

Another “con” mechanical engineers face is the unpredictability of their work load. Work most likely will vary from one week to the next, for instance in a manufacturing plant, a mechanical engineer could perform routine maintenance and process control tasks one week. But the next week we could see them working on a different project on the same work site.

A very dynamic person may suit this working situation, but for someone who prefers a routine workload this may prove harder to become accustomed to. Also, it will not be a suit and tie job, you will be not be contently working in a nicely decorated office unless you are in one of the many designing fields.

Mechanical engineers typically work around 40 to 45 hours a week, though in some private industries/firms or during some project phases, weekly work may take up to 70 hours or more.

Coursework Will Be Hard

If you don’t have the ability for it, then you might find it difficult to complete the study phase. You can easily get sick of mechanical engineering if you are not interested in the field.

The amount of information you are subject to at university is generally negligible, compared to the engineering industry. While you are working in the industry you will more than likely be expected to solve an issue that has never existed before.

If you are planning on choosing this career route, consider the pros and cons of being a mechanical engineer, talk to some real-life mechanical engineers with experience and who are in the workforce. You can maybe try reading some engineering books or articles in order to try and get an grasp of what engineering life is like. Maybe some on this site! 😉

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