Marianne Calabrese

This book was truly terrible, and I would not recommend it to any aspiring engineer. It was published in 2009, which by itself doesn't date the book too much, but doesn't explain why the book recommends using classified ads in a newspaper to find jobs, or classifies "internet" as its own category of career.

Among other ways this book is very dated: the book contains growth expectations in various industries and projections about where each branch of engineering is heading as far as percentage growth. This kind of information is not suited for a publication such as a book that does not get updated frequently. The book also said that “[c]hemical engineering is the highest paid undergraduate degree” which is just a horribly incorrect thing to say. The highest paid degree is cyclical. When everybody hears that chem-e's make the most money, people scramble to become chem-e's, saturating the field and driving down pay. In fact, petroleum engineers generally always make the most pay... but they also tend to get paid a lot for doing things that people don't want to do, such as live on oil rigs in the middle of vast seas and oceans.

On top of the horribly dated advice, there is also a disgusting amount of typos (such as "Rachel Carlson" founding the environmental movement with the publication of her book Silent Spring). One or two here and there I can understand, but the amount of typos that this book contained really distracted from the reading, and made me wonder how rigorous the engineers who wrote this book can truly be if they can't double check their own work. There were also just flat-out inaccuracies, such as that prisms work by acting via atomic emission. Which is untrue. It works because of dispersion, not atomic emission such as a gas discharge lamp.

As far as discussing the various fields of engineering, the book seemed to be all over the place. There were specialties of engineering that I've never heard of (hardware engineering and software engineering are not things... computer engineering and computer science, however, are). There were also some fields that were entirely missing (computer engineering). The book also didn't discuss until way later in the book that some fields of engineering are subsets of the main types of engineering. As an example: aeronautical engineering is a subset of mechanical engineering. Discussing the five or so main branches of engineering (mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, biomedical, industrial) would make for an easier flow of information, without making it seem like there are a million fields to chose from at the outset.

Choosing from different specialties? The authors provide a helpful list of items for each field, just about all of which are identical: good problem solving skills, communication, attention to detail. There are literally no differences between each as far as qualities that would make a good ___ engineer. The correct advice: take your first year of undergraduate classes, which are usually spread out between the main fields of engineering, and from the classes that you enjoyed the most, decide from there where you want to take your studies.

The authors never mention the possibility of saving money by starting at a two-year school and transferring to an ABET accredited school, which is especially a good idea for students who (a) don't have awesome grades out of high school (b) aren't really sure what they want to study (c) struggle with science and math and aren't sure if they can cut it in an engineering school or (d) don't have an unending pile of money to use to pay for a 4-year engineering school.

Also never mentioned is the fact that engineers should NEVER pay for grad school, whether they go for a masters or a PhD. If a masters is desired, the graduate should go into industry and have their company pay the bill to obtain a masters degree. If a PhD is desired, the grad student will work as a TA or RA and obtain a stipend on top of having their tuition paid for. Under no situation should somebody pay money to obtain an advanced degree in engineering.

Finally, there was an FAQ section just sort of shoved into the middle of this book. The questions were seriously the worst pieces of verbal diarrhea that I've ever read and the answers were even worse (and not helpful). I don't know why it was included in a book of this nature. Some of the questions were so oddly specific that I can't see how many people they would help. Many of the questions were exactly the same "I'm not good at math and physics and I want to become an engineer!"

Seriously, if you are interested in becoming an engineer, or you know somebody who is thinking of becoming an engineer, do them a big favor and do not buy them this book.… (mehr)