Engineering is a good-paying profession and one that comes with a certain prestige and sense of accomplishment. It offers respect, a sense of challenge, and excellent job security to those who decide to take that path. And the field is so broad that you can work almost anywhere in the country and with nearly every organization. These are only a few of the reasons why engineering is viewed as one of the most fulfilling fields you can enter. Here are seven of the most rewarding engineering careers you can follow.
Petroleum Engineering
Petroleum engineering did not only make this list simply because it is one of the highest paid engineering disciplines; it also stands out for giving you the opportunity to be paid to travel the world.
Whether you want to visit Canada or Dubai, you can leverage your expertise to be paid to live there. You could work on offshore oil rigs, working several weeks on and having several weeks off. There is work in natural gas fields around the country, and you could find steady employment in refineries in many major cities. Knowing that you are helping fuel whole communities while developing better, more efficient ways to extract and utilize fossil fuels can be quite rewarding as well.
Electrical Engineering
Electrical engineering has a number of points in its favor. Forget worrying about how to remain at the forefront of artificial intelligence, and focus on designing supercomputers that will run the advanced software others develop. You could help design electronics, turbines or power grids. There are many different applications of electrical engineering skillset, so you will always be able to find a good paying job.
You could follow a program like the Michigan Tech electrical engineering degree online that will allow you to work in more advanced roles after completing it, all from the comfort of your home. Their program has coursework specifically geared towards signal processing and communication. This prepares you for work designing wireless communications systems or the sensing and data processing that literally drives robots.
Aerospace Engineering
As an aerospace engineer, you’ll get the chance to become an actual rocket scientist. A degree in aerospace engineering opens the door to working on the space program, whether with NASA or a private company in the space race. You could do everything from designing airplanes to helping develop space telescopes. Best of all, the average salary for aerospace engineers is around $100k a year.
Computer Engineering
In computer engineering, you work with both hardware and software development. This engineering degree puts you at the forefront of the IT industry. Computer engineers are paid very handsomely as well. You could work for Big Tech companies, or you could maintain server farms for a mid-sized firm.
Because IT is at an all-time high and is expected to remain strong for years to come, this is a great engineering discipline to start out in. If you want to work with software, then you could be a software engineer. This profession merges creativity and programming. You’ll have a hand in developing everything from operating systems to apps, to business productivity tools and games.
Demand for software engineers is driven by the need to continually migrate software to new types of hardware or move it from servers to the cloud. They also help develop the next generation of software with required new features as well as patches. The average pay for software engineers is just over a hundred thousand dollars a year, while demand for them is going up at several percents per year. Software engineers with expertise in cyber-security are in especially high demand.
Chemical Engineering
Chemical engineering is a combination of physical sciences like chemistry and engineering. Chemical engineers transform and produce chemical elements, and they help produce materials.
They often work in the energy sector. You could support the sustainability movement by overseeing recycling operations or renewable energy generation via biofuels. A related discipline is materials engineering, and it often overlaps with chemical engineering. Materials engineers are needed to invent new materials. Whether they allow us to use less energy or simply make buildings safer depends on the application. Both chemical and materials engineers earn around ninety thousand dollars a year.
Biomedical Engineering
If you wanted to be a doctor but did not want to go through medical school, biomedical engineering is a good choice for you. Why learn how to be a surgeon to do organ transplants when you could design an artificial kidney that helps millions?
Biomedical engineers design artificial limbs and 3D printed dental appliances custom-made for each patient. They also create the new medical technologies that improve and even save lives. Biomedical engineers may develop the first real cybernetic interfaces or nanobots for medical use. If you want to improve patient care, consider going into biomedical engineering. The average pay hovers around ninety thousand dollars a year. Demand is growing steadily as well.
Civil Engineering
Civil engineers design and oversee the construction of roads, sewers, water systems, homes, offices, schools, and stadiums. A growing population drives demand for new construction, but civil engineers also work maintaining, repairing and replacing existing infrastructure.
This means civil engineers can find work almost everywhere. You could maintain the roads or public buildings for the small town, or you could oversee the construction of a new apartment building. This is why civil engineering is considered a recession-proof discipline. When the economy slows down, they decide not to build a new building and renovate the existing ones instead.
Civil engineers are positioned at the forefront of transforming society as we move towards a more sustainable lifestyle. The green buildings you build, the environmentally friendly retrofits you supervise, and the mass-transit lines you put in making a massive difference. Improving wastewater treatment or increasing the efficiency of water delivery networks has a real impact on the environment. Civil engineers may also work in land-use management, civic planning, and disaster relief. Projects like dams and flood mitigation can save lives.
Average pay hovers around eighty-five thousand dollars. Employment in this profession is slowly growing, but as we already said, it is incredibly stable.
The most fulfilling engineering jobs offer more than high pay and advanced challenges. They allow engineers to work with innovative technology, make a major difference in the world, and offer adventure.