OT: What's your job/career??

[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.

[Thermodyne]

I’m a network specialist with a state government agency. I work with almost nothing that I covered in school. Its 90 percent picked up on the fly as you bump into the hardware/software. Right now it’s a state wide domain migration, but nothing close to what was covered in any of my courses. After that it’s IP security cameras and building access control. Then we move to IP trunking (all of which we are testing as we now). Then toss in 300K worth of new desktop systems for December and another 50K for January along with an Exchange Server upgrade and an Office 2003 deployment just to make sure we stay busy. Also toss in a couple of new office setups just to make sure that no one makes all of their deadlines.

If you want to break into this line of work, study WAN IP data systems. Frame Rely and PVC know how will get your foot into a lot of doors. VOIP or IP trunking skill will some times get you hired on the spot. If you want to work server side, then being able to develop scripts is becoming a must have skill. Not to mention that a few good scripts can turn an 80 man hour project into a few hours of easy work. And if you are in school, stay there and get your Masters. Do an internship some where, anywhere, even if it’s unpaid. It’s getting imposable to break into this line of work. A company I work with advertised a 28K a year Helpdesk trainee position and got 1500 apps with about 20 percent of them being people with master’s degrees. And incase you don’t already know, first tier helpdesk sucks big ones! In this line of work everyone has to do some of it, but it is not something that most people will want to do 40 hours a week.

[Alneyan]

On an almost, but not quite, related topic: is university the best education you can get after high school? (In Canada or in the United States for example)

University is actually seen as the worst in France (with the exception of a few courses, like medecine, and where university is simply the only way), and has a pretty poor reputation, so I was wondering at the differences with other countries. I would expect the situation to be quite different, since that's a common criticism against France, but I would prefer first-hand opinions.

[Droplede]

I'm a newspaper editor on the Foreign Desk at The New York Times. The specific job is called "backfield editor" here, and I basically work with reporters before and after they write stories, making sure the big questions get answered and that the writing style is good/appropriate. In the past couple years, it's been way too much about war and way too little about understanding other people. Here's to a change in that.

Got into the newspaper thing early -- started writing sports for the local weekly in high school. But it's something you can get into later. A journalism degree in college isn't necessary, though the college education generally is. The best thing is just to jump in somewhere. Start writing for the student paper or magazine. Clips (jargon for the stories you've written in the past) get you a job in this business much more than your degree.

Alneyan: Yeah, a university degree in the is your best option for higher education in the U.S., as well as being pretty much mandatory in order to get any sort of decent job. It's become de rigeur, though there are always exceptions.

[Will]

re: where to get best education after high school?

Well, it's my personal opinion that the best education you can get is teaching yourself. But, in the current marketplace in the US, a degree is pretty much essential. I know a lot of companies will toss out a resume that does not have the letters "B.S." or "B.A." somewhere on it, barring something insane like 10+ years of industry experience in something the company is looking for. It usually doesn't even have to be in the same field, unless the position is highly technical (engineers, architects, pharmecutical, etc.). So someone who got a B.A. in Classics can get a job as an advertising exec, or something else that is basically unrelated. The big thing that companies want to know is if the person can make it through a university education, what the student learns is largely irrelevant. All that matters is that the student learned SOMETHING.

[Gandalf Parker]

Will said:It usually doesn't even have to be in the same field, unless the position is highly technical (engineers, architects, pharmecutical, etc.). So someone who got a B.A. in Classics can get a job as an advertising exec, or something else that is basically unrelated. The big thing that companies want to know is if the person can make it through a university education, what the student learns is largely irrelevant. All that matters is that the student learned SOMETHING.

Exactly true. Ive been on the hiring end in the computer networks field and I dont know how many times I heard "but I know all this" from high schoolers. Sometimes we would hire them into the intern program. Many of them DID know more than the college grads on the latest stuff but 99% of them ended up getting fired. For us.. college degree or military service was essential in a resume. I was sorry for some of the applicants but it just kept us from wasting our time.

[Slick]

Agreed. We have found also that another important thing that we look for on interviews is if the person worked while going to college. It shows that the person has some amount of responsibility and time management skills.

Slick.

[deccan]

Alneyan said:
University is actually seen as the worst in France (with the exception of a few courses, like medecine, and where university is simply the only way), and has a pretty poor reputation, so I was wondering at the differences with other countries. I would expect the situation to be quite different, since that's a common criticism against France, but I would prefer first-hand opinions.

Heh. That's because universities in France and Germany are full of young people who have no clear idea of what they intend to do in life and keep studying and studying and studying because it's free and it frees them from needing to do any actual work. At least that was the impression I got when I was studying in France.

I believe that in the U.S. and to a lesser extent, the U.K. students are more career oriented. I don't believe that any companies recruit on university campuses in France and Germany, except for the most elite institutions, but I believe that it is commonplace in U.S. and U.K. Also, I believe that in the U.S. a university student typically has a lot of different types of part-time work experience already, while in France and Germany, most young people get into paid work only after they graduate from university. This prior work experience helps, I think, to temper them and IMHO gives U.S. students a clearer idea of what they want out of university education based on what they know of the demands of the job market.

I believe that in France, university education is generally considered a time-waster by companies, but IIRC, some specialist institutions, e.g. IUTs, art and design schools, etc. still have a pretty good reputation.

[Ruatha]

I'm a physician ( that's the english term for doctor I think), now working at the radiology department to become a specialist in radiology, preferentially vascular intervention.

Also spending alot of time in the Swedish armed forces (joint resource for army, navy and air force) as a reserve officer. We're setting up a Role 2 hospital for UN/EU service and I'm working on the radiology part, and am also out in the forest some weeks with the conscripts healing simulated wounds. (It's quite different from when I was a conscript 1989, now there are alot of girl soldiers!! Every soldier has individual protection wests and sleeping bags and all kind of techy things, vehicles instead of skies etc!!)

From the fun part and the good life part I can recommend life as a radiologist in Sweden, don't know how it's like on the american continent.