Anyone with friends in automotive engineering? Help appreciated

[sawyer]

Hi all,

I am a freshman at UNC Chapel Hill and am trying to figure out where my life is headed. People always tell me that the most important factor in a career choice is doing what you most enjoy. So, given this challenge, the one thing that I love most and would be happy spending my life working around is cars. I wouldn't mind working in a 4x4 shop or a tuning garage just to be around cars. But, since these are not very lucrative positions, and since I am interested in physics, it seems I would be more pleased with a position in engineering.

So, if any of you have friends in automotive engineering, which I am sure in this crowd is a good portion of you, I would greatly appreciate it if you could ask them if it is okay to give me their phone number so that I can ask them about the schooling route they chose and how they enjoy being an automotive engineer.

Thank you!

P.S. The Rusty's 2.5" kit is doing great on my '02 Limited and looks much better in the front after a clevis lift. The Libs also has 31x10.5r15 Wrangler Authorities, which are incredible tires, and good ol' Cragar soft 8's, which fit nicely over my brake calipers.

 

[profdlp]

First off, I am by no means an automotive expert. Remember how you felt the first week of classes your freshman year? That's how I feel around here. I'm here to learn, but still in awe of how much there is you need to know to be an expert.

Having said that, I just graduated from college in December at the age of 54 and feel like I may have some general advice which may be of use.

...People always tell me that the most important factor in a career choice is doing what you most enjoy. So, given this challenge, the one thing that I love most and would be happy spending my life working around is cars. I wouldn't mind working in a 4x4 shop or a tuning garage just to be around cars. But, since these are not very lucrative positions, and since I am interested in physics, it seems I would be more pleased with a position in engineering...

That's true to a point, but I saw a lot of people spend years getting a degree in a field they love and almost guaranteeing themselves that they will never actually get to do that thing as a career. For instance, I love reading and writing and started out many years ago to get a degree with a triple-major of Journalism, English, and Education. At the end of my freshman year the only thing I knew for sure was that I did not want to do any of those things and would find it difficult to get a job in those fields even if I did. I had a friend years ago who put himself through school working as an electronic technician/repairman. He got a PhD in Philosophy. Know what he does today? He works as an electronic technician/repairman. He decided that having a roof over his head was worth the sacrifice of taking his second choice.

You are in a far different position. Your choice is somewhere between awesome and really incredibly good. If you truly love the "really incredibly good" job of automotive repair you are not going to starve and will enjoy going to work every day. As for the automotive engineering field, I hope someone comes along with better advice than I am able to provide.

Lastly, as a guess I would say you are probably quite smart and have a lot of people advising you not to waste your life by settling for less than you are capable of. Listen to them, but keep your mind open and listen to your own heart. You are the one who is going to have to live with it for the next forty years or so. If you were asking about a choice between physics and medieval poetry as potential majors I would tell you to go for the physics and read all the daggone poems you wanted in your spare time. In your case, anywhere on the spectrum of options you are considering is going to provide you with a great career. In most college towns a top notch mechanic will out-earn most of the faculty at all but the most prestigious universities.

I hope someone with experience comes along to point you down the right path toward what you want.