Mechanical engineering is one of the most popular and oldest engineering branches in the world.
As a matter of fact in India out of 1,000 engineers 790 engineers graduate as mechanical engineers every year and 50000 mechanical engineers graduate in America.
Mechanical engineering is the second most sought after career options among the youth after computer science engineering in India but is it really worth it in today’s world.
So in this article let’s take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of choosing mechanical engineering as your career option.
So let’s get started..
Pros and cons of mechanical engineering
Pros of mechanical engineering.
1. Respected job
Mechanical engineering is one of the most highly respected engineering branches and career options in the society.
Because this profession largely deals with the designing and construction of machines and we all know the importance of machines in our daily life because they make our life more comfortable and convenient and solve our problems.
This is the reason why mechanical engineers are one of the most highly respected professionals in the society because they work for the betterment of the society and people by coming up with new machine ideas to solve the problems.
2. Good pay
According to bureau of labour statistics the average salary of mechanical engineers is 90000 dollars per annum which is 43 dollars per hour and according to pay scale the average salary of a mechanical engineer in India is 3.5 lacs per annum.
You can expect to earn more money depending upon you are more experience and from which college you have graduated.
3. Broad field & variety of career options
Mechanical engineering is a very broad field and engineering branch.
Essentially a mechanical engineering is the one who deals with designing and constructing cost effective machines or doing major and minor modifications in the existing machines to improve their relevance and performance.
In mechanical engineering branch you can find various career opportunities and options like,
- Aerospace engineer
- Automotive engineer
- Nuclear engineer
- Mechanical engineer
- Computer engineer
- Robotics engineer
- Control and instrumentation engineer
And many other options to get employment because at the end of the day every company and industry need machines to grow and wherever there is a need of machines there will be an automatic need of mechanical engineers to handle those machines.
Because there is a lot of diversity of career options in mechanical engineering branch you can choose any one of the career option and focus on that it and become expert in it so that you can charge more money or get higher package of salary.
4. Evergreen industry
Mechanical engineering is also an ever green industry.
Mechanical engineering will become extinct when people stop using machines in their daily life which is not going to happen hence mechanical engineering is a profession which is going to stay evergreen and remain in demand.
5. Exciting & creative career
Unlike other engineering branches mechanical engineering is very exciting and creative career option and you will not have any boring and routine life style with this engineering branch.
When you are present in creating machines you will have to use problem solving and creative thinking to develop new technologies and machines.
Mechanical engineers are the people who have invented a lot of things like mobile phones aeroplanes and printing press that we regularly use today and
we should all be grateful for the mechanical engineers for making our life easier and comfortable and we cannot even think of our life without the gadgets invented by mechanical engineers with their creativity and problem solving skills.
The daily life of a mechanical engineering is exciting because they will work in various places like oceans, oil rigs, middle of the ocean, power industries, factories, deserts, and in manufacturing unit of many companies, etc.
Everyday is going to be a challenge and if you are up to it, it can be very exciting career.
Mechanical engineers work on improving the technology of robotics, health care, transportation, etc for example in aerospace in industry there is a concept of reusable rockets which was thought impossible but spacex is the first company to launch reusable rockets due to the help of their creative mechanical engineers hard work which can save a lot of money of the company in sending the rockets in space.
And Mechanical engineering will teach you lots of Amazing skills you can apply in other professions like problem solving, creative thinking, critical thinking, advanced technical skills, academic writing, etc.
6. Work satisfaction
You can also have immense work satisfaction when you are busy with your work.
Mechanical Engineer can also have lot of work satisfaction because the machines and inventions they create will impact millions of people making the life much more easier and comfortable and also affect the future generations.
When you realise that your profession helps millions of people directly making the life easier it can give you a lot of inner satisfaction and happiness and it can also help you drive in your career and work as a motivation and inspiration everyday,
you should also know that money cannot purchase you happiness and the fact is that more than 60% of the employees today are not happy with their work and if you are getting happiness from your work, it is awesome.
7. Business opportunity
Mechanical engineering as a branch can teach you a lot of skills like problem solving, creativity critical thinking and analytical thinking skills.
You can use all the important skills in order to start any new business or start up yourself along with your partner of your college.
Because at the end of the day all you need to do in order to start a business is to find a problem in people’s life and solution for the problem and create a product or service as a solution for it and sell it to right people who are facing that problem.
For example Apple is currently a 2 trillion dollar company, but initially all they did was to improve the User experience of the products and services creating new products and services as solutions for problems, Tesla cars company is another good example.
8. Global opportunities
Graduating from mechanical engineering can give you lots of opportunities to work across the globe.
Mechanical engineers are always in demand in worldwide because every country needs the machines and countries are always looking to innovate and
design better machines which work efficiently reducing the costs & expenses so that they can use it for manufacturing the products and grow the economy or transportation, etc.
9. Knowledge of lot of subjects
In mechanical engineering you can learn about a lot of subjects and have knowledge about a lot of things like, Engineering Service and Statistics,
Engineering Economy, Materials Science, Technical Writing, Design & Automation, Thermodynamics, Mathematics, Engineering Analysis, chemistry, physics and computer applications, etc.
Because of this you can develop knowledge about wide variety of subjects by graduating from mechanical engineering branch.
These are all the advantages of mechanical engineering.
Cons of mechanical engineering.
1. Jobs
Unfortunately the jobs have been decreasing and not meeting the predictions.
According to the bureau of labour statistics average growth of mechanical engineers jobs is 7% from 2020 to 2030 but the average growth of mechanical engineers was 9% from 2010 to 2020
so we have seen a decline in the average percentage of the jobs but the supply of the graduates kept on increasing.
And according to the same report of bureau of labour statistics the average predicted growth of engineering jobs is 4% & expected growth of mechanical engineers employment is 5.3% from 2014 to 2024.
2. Competition
Competition is one of the biggest disadvantages of mechanical engineering branch.
According to some data more than 15 lakh students graduate from engineering branch every year in india and as per statista out of 1,000 engineers 782 engineers are from mechanical engineering branch in India.
So you can imagine how many mechanical engineers graduate in India every year.
The problem is with there is limited number of jobs and the supply of mechanical engineering graduates is getting more and more every year and there is a clear mismatch between the demand and supply which is causing the conflict and higher unemployment rate.
3. Huge responsibility
With great power comes great responsibility and because as a mechanical engineer you will be dealing with improving and innovating new machines.
You will be having a huge pressure and responsibility on your shoulders as a mechanical engineer of your company because there will be a great deal of investment of money that takes place for the manufacturing of the product.
If you find any errors in planning or designing for manufacturing the product then it can lead to huge losses to the company and you can have immense pressure upon the failure of the machine and it can also hurt the credibility and confidence of the product from the people.
For example there is a popular mobile manufacturing company of China called Xiaomi and unfortunately there mobile phones of redmi series have received bad reputation and
credibility because of frequent blasts and explosions of the phone because of bad designing of the machine which is one of the main reasons why the mobile phone has not attracted majority of the users in Indian market despite having lots of Amazing features and benefits.
This is just one of the examples of the immense responsibility and pressure you have as mechanical engineer when you will be working on the project.
4. Keep updated with technology
Mechanical engineering is one of those career options which will constantly change with the changing technology.
Hence you need to keep yourself updated with the right knowledge and skills in order to succeed with the changing technology and new ideas.
You should know for a fact that the problems and situations are changing and you should keep yourself updated and adapt with changing situations and conditions and work accordingly.
5. Long hours of work
According to bureau of labour statistics large number of mechanical engineers work more than 40 hours a week.
Most Mechanical Engineer spend large amount of time working on designing the Machines and 3D object on their desktop.
These are all the pros and cons of mechanical engineering career.
Is mechanical engineering good career & worth it for future?
Mechanical engineering is definitely a good career option and worth it for some people.
Mechanical engineering can be a good career option for you if,
- You like mathematics and physics a lot
- You have creativity and problem solving skills
- You like to work abroad in different conditions
- You want to bring a change and contribute to the society with your ideas and innovations
- You are competitive person
If you like all these conditions then mechanical engineering can be a good career option for you in future.
Here is an important note:
Because mechanical engineering is the second most popular branch after computer science engineering in india,
there is immense competition in the real world among mechanical engineers for jobs, if you really want to graduate from mechanical engineering in India I would recommend you to consider preparing for getting admission into IIT and NIT colleges,
the average package of Mechanical Engineer from IIT in India is 8 to 12 lakh per annum, at the same time you will have better professors and better infrastructure and labs in IIT compared to other colleges in India which is why,
if you want to graduate from mechanical engineering you should consider IIT, you can read my guide about pros and cons of IIT in detail here.
If you cant get an admission in IIT or NIT or top 10 Government and private engineering colleges in your state, please don’t consider mechanical engineering because it has gigantic level of competition outside, and it can be literally impossible for you to get a job off campus in mechanical engineering if you graduate from lower grade engineering colleges.
Because the fact is that only 7% of the engineers in India are employable and majority of the engineers do not have any technical skills to get employment opportunity and you can learn more about why engineers in India are unemployed here.
With that said Let’s conclude the blog post.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about mechanical engineering as a career and is it good for the future.
Do let me know your thoughts about the mechanical engineering branch in the comment section below.
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