A diverse profession such as engineering offers many specializations to choose from as it naturally allows you to branch out into many industries. Each specialty of engineering contributes to our daily lives. That is why picking the right one remains essential because it will not only affect you but the people around you too.
It’s about time you figure out which master’s degree will eventually lead you into a sustainable career. Here are some tips to figure it out.
Identify Your Passions and Competencies
The best way to lead a fulfilling professional life is to pinpoint your passion and the relevant skills.
Starting with the simplest tips:
- Think about how you spend your free time and what do you enjoy the most: do you design? Calculate? Upcycle? Analyze?
- Filter social causes that matter to you and which you think you can participate in. Is it global warming? Health and biotechnology? Enhancing the quality of life with smart cities? This is very important. Why? Especially after Covid-19 and the rise of environmental issues and infrastructure changes, engineers are the front-liners when it comes to facing challenges and dealing with adversities that are impacting our daily lives. Whether it’s improving medicine, protecting and managing data, start where you see yourself thriving.
A desire to help people through technology, products, and infrastructure also contributes to becoming a good engineer.
Moreover, having a set of defined areas of passion often sheds light on skills that can help guide you towards an aspect of engineering at which you might excel. Many future engineers, including yourself, usually have strong attention to detail and tend to show an interest in learning how things work at a young age, usually by solving puzzles, complicated riddles, deconstructing things just to put them back together again, or try to find immediate solutions to complex topics. If that rings a bell:
- Make a list of the skills you already excel in
- Determine those that you’d like to improve or acquire
- Cross-reference and see how they align with your passion
- Research which engineering roles require the skills on both of your lists, or just keep on reading!
Set Your Goals
To set the best goals, engineers must think like managers, and think SMART by making your goals:
- Specific: dissect each word; what.do.you.want.to.achieve?
- Measurable: define a physical way that helps you see you’ve achieved your goal
- Achievable: attainable for each period of your academic and professional journey
- Relevant: make sure the goal matters to you and the world at large
- Time-bound: setting a deadline to avoid unnecessary procrastination
Of course, one must keep in mind that life happens and unpredictable events occur. As much as you are flexible, reviewing the plan allows space for adjustments.
Explore Your Options: Curriculum and Accreditation
It’s important to explore the curriculum of any prospective school before applying. Engineerings syllabus can vary in terms of core topics and practical experience. Make sure that the program covers topics that interest you and will help you excel in your chosen specialty after graduation. You should also only consider engineering programs that meet global educational standards within specific professional fields.
ESILV engineering school in Paris is the only engineering school in France to include a true transversal approach throughout its programme with 11 majors in total and 9 among them taught in English. Let’s go over them:
Fintech
Brief Overview: Fintechs form a new financial industry, which deploys technology to improve financial operations.
Career roles: blockchain developer, blockchain architect, cryptocurrency trader, data analyst, scientist, assurtech project manager, cryptocurrency consultant, r&d engineer, developer banking applications, security engineer, and cryptography.
IoT & Security
Brief Overview: The major trains computer engineers with a strong culture of systems and objects security, from their design phase to their integration into business ecosystems. The training is labeled SecNumedu by ANSSI.
Career roles: hard & soft IoT engineer, connected products project manager, security engineer, information systems security manager (RSSI), risk management consultant, IoT developer, security analyst, and auditor, IT engineer, mobile technologies engineer, secure IoT architect.
Data & Artificial Intelligence
Brief Overview: The engineers of this major are specialists in data, from its collection, modeling, and storage until analysis and interpretation.
Career roles: data scientist, data engineers, data officer, big project manager data, big data developer, analytics consultant and visualization, and AI engineer.
Modeling & computational mechanics
Brief Overview: It rains engineers to design, develop, and size new products and complex systems, in particular in aeronautics and the automotive industry.
Career roles: design engineer, business engineer, engineer measurement/test and control, design office engineer, process project manager manufacturing engineer aeronautics, engineer scientific computing, engineer modeling, and fluid mechanics engineer.
Industry 4.0
Brief Overview: The Industry 4.0 major trains engineers who design and implement modern industrial systems natively integrating the tools and technologies of the digital revolution.
Career roles: production engineer, quality manager and maintenance, engineer in industrial risks, process project manager and methods, r&d engineer, 3d printing engineer, cobotic engineer, head of digital transformation project, and predictive maintenance engineer.
Energy and sustainable cities
Brief Overview: The training is based on mastery of energy issues, development sustainability, and on three scientific pillars: physics and energy management, digital technologies and city modeling and buildings.
Career roles: energy efficiency engineer, bim project manager, engineer fluids and environment, loaded renewable energy project manager renewable energies, engineer r&d on-board systems, certification project manager environmental, data analyst photovoltaic, engineer electric mobility consultant, responsible for CSR missions.
Health Engineering & Biotechnology
Brief Overview: The major trains engineers able to evolve in the multidisciplinary ecosystem of technology for health.
Career roles: telemedicine and IoT engineer, health information system project manager, biostatistician engineer, health data project manager, r&d engineer, quality and regulations engineer, product and process development engineer, medical device design engineer, and data scientist.
Brief Overview: This major presents the profession of “Creative Technologist” which consists in inventing new products or new uses based on cutting-edge scientific knowledge and technologies.
Career roles: creative technologist, CEO / CTO startup, research and development engineer, designer and product engineer, expert consultant in innovation, the practice of Méties d’Art and Science.
In which major do you see yourself?