So an engineering degree is a degree in story problems.

They start you out teaching you the math you need to work the story problems, then they teach you the different types of problems that are typically associated with different stories. Then you graduate to only hearing the stories and attempting to figure out what problems go with them, then eventually they decide you have a broad enough knowledge of stories, their problems and the ways to solve them that they let you loose unto the world.

It's a viable method because as with most things, the majority of it is routine and the minority of it is puzzling. The thing about an engineering career is that you have a specialized experience and body of knowledge about a particular set of problems.

I have no idea what you know about right now. Let's assume you've built a gaming PC or two, you have assembled at least one piece of Ikea furniture and you're a passable cook. Maybe your friends come to you asking advice on whether or not to go Socket 2011 or not - you have the basis of knowledge to give them an informed answer. That's engineering. Maybe you know to double-check the numbers, cruise by the spare parts bin and have a cracked beer before you assemble yet another Billy, which you've done enough that you don't need the instructions anymore. That's engineering. Maybe you feel like making chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast because you have the chocolate chips and you've made pancakes a few times. That's engineering.

The difference is the problems are more specialized. Maybe you know that an IAC sound trap will work better than ductliner because you've worked with this brand of air handler before and it's got a nasty peak at 315 Hz. Maybe you don't want to use an LPG-powered flame for your palm oil catalyzer because you had condensation issues with the tank last time. Maybe you know that SCR is better for power control than PWM in this implementation because the duty cycle is high. That's engineering.

Every now and then you get a puzzler - How do you water-cool a Xeon processor in a case that will be inverted? What parts will you need to scavenge out of the bin so that your shelf rolls? We're out of eggs - can we use mayonnaise instead? That's engineering.

And sometimes you'll get a WTF problem. Maybe you've found a haunted office. Maybe your solution would require more liquid helium than currently exists on the planet. Maybe you need to reissue a product but the chips you used last weren't RoHS-compliant so you need to redesign the D/A section without adding anything to the cost.

That's engineering.

A job is a job is a job. Some of them suck, some of them rule. You can find yourself a truly ghastly gig in engineering - I'm one of the few people from my graduating class that didn't end up picking parts out of a Grainger catalog at Genie Lifts or being the fourth, fifth or sixth set of eyes on some mind-numbingly tedious component at Boeing. Me? I ended up using calculus on a monthly basis and doing some pretty cool shit... but it was still a job. I know a guy, on the other hand, who manages the propulsion team at SpaceX. To me, that sounds like a supadope job. To him? Hard to say.

Old engineering joke. They give this dude the gold watch after 50 years and he retires. Then they call him back to the plant - the frammazamma is on the fritz! He looks at the mechanism, hems and haws, then draws a chalk mark on the rear panel and says "add 40 quatluus of ballast to the Nagus Valve. That'll be a thousand dollars." His old boss screeches in pain - I mean, WTF? All he did was make a chalk mark! I dare you to itemize that bill, you codger...

- 1 chalk mark: $1 - Knowing where to put the chalk mark: $999

That's engineering. The overwhelming majority of it could be done by anyone, but the tiny minority of it would unravel the universe if done by amateurs and the only people who know the difference are the ones with the training. Same with anything really - the whole gig is about knowing when to overthink it and when to buy something out of the Grainger catalog.

Hope that helped.

I'm a Chemical Engineering student in my fourth out of five years in university, and am currently working an internship in power electronics. I've also worked internships in oil/gas and chemical coatings R&D, among other non-engineering jobs that I've held, but I'll keep this to my current job. If you have any questions about what follows or of the other two jobs, definitely let me know. Even course work and other college things are fine.

I'm yet to have a math intensive job, schooling has been much more math intensive than work. Most math can be automated through spreadsheets and programs so after the initial set-up things get routine. But this makes sense because you don't want to spend all of your time doing the same calculations. Statistics have proven much more important than purer mathematics, as it allows us to model our processes and see if they are within controls and determine efficiencies.

My day-to-day tasks vary a lot in this job, varied a lot in the R&D job, and didn't vary much in the oil/gas job. In this job I do a lot of work with automating processes from a material perspective and also with new product development. I could be working on one project in the morning and another in the afternoon. It's been a good mix of hands on work, material research, and doing some of the more mundane paperwork. I've worked in anything from an analytical lab to a production line here, and it's definitely been interesting for the most part.

I'm not always challenged creatively, the greatest creative challenge has been when somebody has said "we need a material that can do x, y, z, and is from a company we like", that involves some research and imagination. The other creative side of things is doing root-cause analysis for when things go wrong i.e. issues with cores and adhesives on a well-established product, ratio issues with a two-component epoxy, or trying to remove an unknown substance from a batch of chips.

One thing that has held true of all three jobs is that meetings are plentiful and...occasionally...important. Meetings with engineers, managers, consultants, vendors, you name it and there's a meeting associated with it. Along this route, your technical writing ability becomes very important. I've learned how to take a week-long project and condense it to a single powerpoint slide while still getting results across. It's important because all the management I've dealt with loves concise summaries that tells them something. Your ability to communicate a technical idea to them and to non-technical employees is a good skill to have.

I'm sure kleinbl00 can give you a much more interesting answer than mine, as one of his many, many professions is MechE.

As a last thing, you appear to be from Ireland? If you are, I once met a PhD student from Cork who was studying at a university in France that I spent part of a summer at. Really great fellow, if you are from that part of the world there are conferences and gatherings all over the place should you get into the research side of things.

b_b is someone that got a degree in engineering and worked in the field only to decide to go back to school and switch fields/disciplines all together. He may have some good advice. I know he's traveling right now.