Mechanical Engineering is one of the broadest engineering disciplines. Mechanical engineers have the skills to support design and improvement of a wide range of products from supersonic aircraft to toasters and bicycles. Mechanical engineers may specialize in areas like combustion, thermal systems, machine design and robotics or crossover into advanced technologies such as artificial limbs and nanotechnology.
As a mechanical engineering undergraduate, you learn the science and engineering principles of designing and building machines, structures, components, power trains, pumps, compressors, turbines, engines, power plants, furnaces, refrigerators, air conditioners, and more.
Mechanical engineers are the general practitioners of the engineering profession and they are involved in essentially every engineering application. It is not possible to list all of the areas that depend on mechanical engineers. However, traditional areas include power plants and rotating equipment, heating and refrigeration, robotics, machine design, materials processing, process control and general manufacturing. Mechanical engineers are increasingly being called upon to improve the efficiency of processes so that they require less energy and production time and are sustainable, with reduced impact on the environment.
Professional Societies
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers
Society of Automotive Engineers
Career Opportunities
Career opportunities for mechanical engineers exist in a wide range of business and industry, including manufacturing, consulting engineering, product design, sales and research. Check out some information for the Bureau of Labor Statistics web site in related career fields.
Concentration Coordinator
Tarek Abdel-Salam, Ph.D.
abdelsalamt@ecu.edu
