OT: What's your job/career??

[DarkAnt]

I'm just a highschool student, but I hope to become a computer engineer so I can do cool stuff with robots.

[Atrocities]

If had to give any ten peaces of advise to a high school student they would be:

1. Never get fat
2. Trust No One At Work
3. ALWAYS get it in writing
4. Document everything you do
5. Buy Property, not sports cars
6. Enjoy life while your young if you can
7. Plan for your future by saving money now.
8. NEVER spend your money before you have it.
9. AVOID the Credit Card trap and always pay them off.
10. Read the fine print, and keep your lawyers card in your wallet.

[TerranC]

Atrocities said:
If had to give any ten peaces of advise to a high school student they would be:

1. Never get fat

Poppycock. Getting fat is fun and fulfilling.

[Kamog]

Another thing is, you should exercise at least three times a week.

When I was in high school, I didn't exercise. I took gym class until Grade 10 because it was mandatory, and that was the only exercise I got. After Grade 10, I participated in no physical activities at all. I just sat in front of the computer or read all day. Many years later, I was completely out of shape. It wasn't until partway through university that I started exercising. It's difficult to develop strength or flexibility when you're older if you didn't do anything when you were younger.

[Aiken]

Graduated as a manager.
Current work - lawyer in town administration (twas second education).
Taking post-grad course for doctor degree (economics).

[Grauzone]

PhD student (do research in distributed control algorithms for self-reconfiguring module robots)

[Makinus]

hey, cool, 3 lawyers already! what about we make a lawyer/advocate shipset? with special weapons like "civil lawsuit", intelligencce projects like "habeas data" that give all information on an enemy empire and special engines like "habeas corpus" that allow free movement? (just kidding)

My post was a little shorte previosuly (had a court audience in a few minutes and had to hurry), but i do love my profession, even being a little overworked at this time, and in today´s courts a lawyer needs to have a very good grasp of computers, bacuse toay, computers is and indispensable tool of every law office...

And i love to play strategy games in my (very short nowadays) free time...

[TerranC]

Best as in the most preferred way or best as in the best form of tertiary education that one can get?

I believe both ways apply, but then again that might only be me.

[tesco samoa]

dark ant that would be mechanical engineer
Systems engineer would be good but not for that line of work.

if You really wanna do some cool stuff with robots I suggest you start looking at the big manufacturing companies. especially the automotive industry if you wish to do cool stuff with robots.

And learn lots of PLC , fluids and electrical.

I also suggest a minor in chemistry or biology to round off your education.

If you get into GM or any large company like that ... After a few years inform them that you wish for them to pay for your MBA. And round off your education that way.

Professional Degrees are very important and will help you later on in life when you need a change of pace from the world of manufacturing.

But you will learn more about robots there than anywhere else.

[Will]

Actually, Comp Engineering is a field you can go in for robotics... as long as you're only doing research. Right now, the "real" jobs in robotics are in manufacturing, like tesco said, companies like GM, Toyota, Honda... car makers, pretty much. There are a few others, but I don't remember them at the moment. Basically, they make robots for assembly line manufacturing processes. But these are mostly Mech Engineers, who have gotten a little extra training in computers, basically MEs who took CS courses for tech electives at university.

As I said, Comp Engineers going into robotics are usually doing research, and there are only a few places in the private sector where this is currently done (mainly in Japan, with companies like Honda and Sony), a few places in government (NASA/AMES, ESA), and... academia. Unless you're really stellar or become the protege of someone, you'll most likely either end up in academia, or decide you want to do something else. Academia means four years at least for the BS, plus one if the university offers a 5-year master's program, plus 1 and a half to 2 if the university doesn't or you go somewhere else for grad work. Then there is usually about 5 more years doing PhD work, then about 7 years in a rush to get tenure somewhere. So, conservatively, you're looking at 18 more years of "school" after high school. Although some people have done it in about 10. YMMV.

For now, most of the "cool" stuff with robots is happening in Japan, and at universities. Japan has Asimo (Honda), and Aibo and its ilk (Sony). Universities mainly have government defense grants, for things like little black helicopters to look in windows, distributed "bug bots" for mapping a building (before storming it), and a bunch of projects focused on active vision (processing visual data in real time and acting on it, rather than recording for human operators) happening at my school specifically.

Academia could be the best place to go -- if there is an explosion in the robotics industry, where all of a sudden someone comes up with the working killer app for robotics (such as Asimo becoming feasible to care for the elderly, both in performance and in cost). If/when that happens, there will be lots of companies grabbing to get anyone from university robotics departments that they can, and paying very well for them to do... well, basically the same stuff they were doing in academia, only applied a bit more to a specific product.