Whoa. Moment of clarity. First off, this is my third "real" engineering job despite them all being co-ops it's been a full 40-hour week, working as an engineer doing more or less actual tasks. I don't find much of it that impressive, others might but to me it's much harder to effectively manage people and projects compared to doing engineering tasks. What both of those things come down, which I just figured out is that I hate being confined by outside forces. That nicely ties up the resume, career, and workplace environment issues that I have. I guess I somewhat understand, but don't necessarily accept why work and outside life are partitioned from each other and don't easily become positive extensions of each other. There's not too many start-ups in the Chemical Engineering industry that I'm aware of, because that sort of equipment and initial investment is an absurd amount of money in order to do anything useful. Well, unless I do the bio thing or take up fuel-cell technologies that is. Both of which are strong possibilities.
I had more freedom as a co-op than I ever did as an engineer. It's a good gig. Aside from the pay. Which is still better than most liberal arts grads make for a good long time, so even that's pretty good. As far as "outside forces" you will never escape them. I'm a straight-up freelancer now and I still have political shit to deal with. All you can do is preserve your own autonomy. I've watched engineering schools chase fuel cells since '96. They aren't appreciably closer than they were back then. Wanna have fun as a startup-minded chemE? Biofuel, bitch. There's guys turning algae into fuel. There's guys turning chicken parts into fuel. Hell, there's guys turning chicken feathers into plastic. Save the world, get a big fat grant. Or come up with a biodegradable K-cup. Kickstart that shit.
Yeah, I just had one awful, awful experience that has soured me on the entire thing. This one isn't bad at all, but the management here is a resounding "eh". Oh I'm aware of that. It's one of those things that I know is the case and the way that things work but it's hard to accept, and something that I need to figure out how to accept. As for biofuel, I just saw that a biomaterials course opened up for Fall. Yes please.As far as "outside forces" you will never escape them.
The key to working with management is to understand that they often have different goals than you do. Understand what their motivating factors are, keep your name off of any "bad lists" and like you say, stay anonymous. A lot of people in the corporate world rightly try to establish their personal brand within the organization. This is great, however the best way to do it is to have your immediate boss singing your praises. For the most part, you don't want his bosses boss to know you exist. Early in my career I volunteered for every thing. I've since learned that it's far better for me to remain anonymous, always hit my numbers and keep my mouth shut. Also, I have absolutely no desire to ever end up in management. None. The pay increase doesn't justify the accountability increase in my opinion. I enjoyed being a "lone wolf." But then, I'm one of the bad guys in "sales"