The career paths in engineering are incredibly diverse. For example, you could work as a…
Civil engineers and technologists team together to plan, design, construct, and maintain transportation systems, buildings, bridges, tunnels, and water and waste treatment facilities. They are the designers, builders, and custodians of society’s built environment as well as stewards of the natural environment.
Electrical Engineering opens the door to a wide range of job opportunities from designing microchips and circuits to controlling the generation and delivery of electrical power. Electrical systems and equipment are everywhere and Electrical engineers and technologists are constantly evolving the “electrical world”. Possible areas of employment include electrical utilities, communications companies, manufacturers of electrical, electronic and computer equipment, and consulting firms.
Mechanical engineers and technologists design ways to make materials move on demand. If you look around you for inanimate things that moves, like water, steam, vehicles, engines and machinery, the ‘how’ they move would have been designed and tested by a mechanical engineer or a mechanical engineering technologist. They research, design, develop, sell, and manage products, projects and processes in natural resources, manufacturing, construction, and transportation. Career opportunities for mechanical engineers exist in a variety of industry sectors, including forestry, pulp and paper, agriculture, fishing, food processing, mining, minerals processing, chemical processing, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, oil and gas, automotive, aviation, marine, bulk handling, communications,health, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and building maintenance, electrical power generation and distribution, water and waste management, natural gas distribution, road transport, rail transport, shipping and shipbuilding, and defense.
If you like chemistry and enjoy investigating problems, in two years you may choose to work in the research laboratory, engineering office or industrial plant as a chemical analyst or chemical process technologist. Your skills will find challenges on many fronts, from improving industrial processes to solving environmental pollution problems. Chemical principles form the basis for most industrial processes and products. Chemical science technologists can continue on after graduating from two years at BCIT to finish four years in chemical engineering at another university.
Environmental engineers plan, design and supervise industrial components and processes and are also often involved in regulatory procedures when reviewing facilities to ensure they are complying with environmental policies and guidelines. Many environmental engineers choose to specialize in a specific area, such as air or water quality or solid and hazardous waste management and may be found working in a number of industries, including pulp and paper, oil and gas, and manufacturing.
GIS analysts use digital mapping techniques that link computer-generated maps with various databases. They work to integrate biophysical, ecological, and socio-economic data that can be analyzed for purposes such as tracking wildlife, mapping erosion, monitoring air and water quality, or measuring logging rates.
Mechanical technologists work in the same industries as engineers, often together with engineers as part of an engineering team. Generally, technologists are more involved with the application of technology and the implementation of a project while engineers are more concerned with the development of technology and the overall scope of the project.
The world is trying to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, and Power Engineers use environmentally safer means like co-generation or waste-to-energy (WTE) recovery to provide safe and constant energy to maintain our lifestyles. Power engineers do technical and physical work in industrial control rooms to operate state of the art systems for generating alternative power like steam and electricity that supply communities and run factories. In every Canadian province and territory, only certified power engineers are permitted to operate such equipment.
You can use the following resources to further research engineering career fields: