Engineering Career Advice

I know that asking r9k for advice is risky and that I might appear to be a normie, but /adv/ is slow, so here goes.

I've been out of college for three years. I have a degree in EE and Physics. I'm stuck in a city devoted exclusively to defense and aerospace contracting, which I don't want to do. I need the work, but with every year, I pigeonhole myself further into a defense engineering role. Recruiters only see my past experience. It's also severely affecting my already poor mental health.

Any advice on breaking into another, more consumer-oriented, industry (audio tech or VR)?

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I'm an idiot and posted on the wrong board. Feel free to delete. sage

get a job first and then look for a better one

you can delete your own threads (button in bottom right)

Post in places such people are likely to be, they will sympathise and might give you leads

What's wrong with defense engineering?

get an MSF and go into finance, you have experience in defense so get in at a big place like lockheed for northrop or raytheon something like that

become part of corporate strategy or corporate development

If you're desperate then go for an unpaid internship in a sector that suits you better. Considering your current employment you probably have savings.

just say youve been taking some time off to hone your skills or for family reasons.

Absolutely learn PHP or css.

Controls Engineer. You can probably find a job with your EE degree alone.

what is a good way to learn how to code? even though i likely won't be going into tech, unless it's m&a, i would still like to learn the basics

Why are you stuck? Move to Houston and get a job at NASA, be baller af

Definitely start with a framework like cake or bootstrap. Copy paste stuff over

any good websites for that type of stuff? i have heard of one called codeacademy, and another called treehouse but i think the latter one costs money

I hate NASA.

Literally takes acts of Congress to do new stuff, "new" technology is over-budget and years old, but mostly it's that I can't hold something in my hands and say "I/we made this". It doesn't feel like I'm adding any value to the world

Those are good. But i'd start with html 2.0. Everything 1.0 is old now

I've been taking time off for almost a year now. NEETdom is not for me. I've got until next Wednesday to accept an offer from Lockheed. It will be doing the same things that made me have a mental breakdown and quit my job.

ok you lost me now I have no idea what you are talking about =/

man just switch fields, is there anything you are interested in?

Best chance is always to move internally in a firm user, can you get yourself into a company which specializes in multiple fields? any large corp nowadays is always keen on showing career progression, you could get on board and then go for a transfer

Try to get into a start up or a company like SpaceX. They don't carry dead weight, you'll be expected to innovate and make stuff.

Audio technology and video games. My city is an engineering Mecca, but there is nothing here in those two fields. I don't have it in me to move to another, probably more expensive city, without a job lined up.

Now you know why I meant to put this thread in r9k, since I seem to be wallowing in self-pity.

I seriously can't find one like that in town. Internal moves are from missiles to radar to UAV's, etc. Still in defense or aerospace.

what part about audio tech and video games? do you want to be a programmer of somesort? or do you want to continue being an electrical engineer?

I think I'd rather be in hardware. Acoustics, mic simulation, VR audio and immersion, video game sound design and music. I build my own guitar pedals, amps, etc. I've had some programming experience, but it's been in highly specialized capacities, so I can't really say if I like it or not. I've taken some courses on it, but I haven't really made an informed opinion on it.

Not to judge, but you may be suffering from millennial syndrome. See:
Also, not judging here, but you could be suffering millennial syndrome.
youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU

If you're already good at physics you can probably pick up coding very easily.

Learn yo program there are plenty of jobs out there for that.

have you ever worked?

>Lazy
Maybe, but not when it's something I'm interested in.
>Impatient
Yes
>I'm special
No I'm not. I have to be the best
>Facebook stuff
Not on Facebook. I like being alone, and autistically working on a project.

Thanks for the video, I'm watching it now.

Webdev here. Ignore that "php and css" and "html 2.0" (lol...) guy. Go to freecodecamp and learn full stack javascript by building projects. Eloquent javascript (book) and Harvard cs50 (mooc intro to compsci course) are also your fantastically free friends.

pepe

Yes. Several typical fast-food and part time high school jobs. Four summers for the U.S. Army (civilian engineering aide, not a soldier) in high school and early college. Two years in defense contracting in the real world. Quit after several mental breakdowns, psych wards. Unemployed for almost a year. I spend my time now looking for jobs and wallowing in self pity.

If you want to feel like you're actually building stuff take a look at web development. Web applications are like car engines--lots of moving parts. You can build something massive all by yourself with 0 funding.

It's very satisfying.

You can also leverage your increased programming knowledge for hardware hobby projects later.

Any suggestions on forcing myself to learn programming or web development? I've done Coursera courses, but they're always Project 1: for loops, Final Project: text entry matrix, etc.

I'm making a website to highlight some of the projects I've done outside of my job. It's WordPress, so it's really cheating, but maybe I could branch off from there.

Figured I'd throw it out there.

But in all seriousness, if you are only out of school for 3 years and are doing something technical, it's pretty normal to be dissatisfied with your job, and millennials seem to catch that angst worse than gen x did, from my experience. It takes nearly 10 years for most people to achieve mastery at whatever they do, before that its a struggle.