Mayra Escobedo / Roundup
Bill Beard, a representative from UCLA, spoke to students Thursday about “The Future of Engineering” in the Career and Transfer Center.
This event is one of many that are being hosted by the Career and Transfer Center as part of “Engineering in April” and had a turn out of about 20 people.
Beard has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Stanford and has 35 years of industry experience having worked for ARCO where he did a lot of college recruiting and hiring of students.
He is liaison to industry for the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCLA, helping students with resumes and finding internships as well jobs.
Beard spoke to students about salary differences within the different fields of engineering.
He told students that chemical engineers make around $64,902 a year, which is one of the highest paid fields, while civil engineers make around $52, 048 a year.
He also spoke about different job opportunities for each field of engineering.
He told students that there are not a lot of green jobs out there and that most jobs that are available are with new companies that don’t have a lot of money and only want to hire people that have a lot of experience in that field.
Beard told students to “look before you leap” and to “look at how the industry works” as some fields are more susceptible to economic swings. An example he gave was aerospace engineering and how it was susceptible to government spending.
Beard gave some insight to students about what companies are looking for when hiring.
He said that companies are always looking at GPA’s when hiring but that big companies can be picky so they only take applicants with a GPA that’s around 3.5 while small companies, that aren’t really known, might hire someone with a 2.8 GPA.
He spoke to students about which fields of engineering are the most and least popular.
He said that civil engineering is most popular but that there are not a lot of major companies looking to hire civil engineers but there are a lot consulting firms that are and that the demand was reasonably high.
As for the least popular branch he said that it was chemical engineering “because it’s difficult.”
Beard also gave advice to students about what field they should look into based on their interest.
Monica Cochran, 31, who is considering majoring in chemical engineering, attended the event in hopes of understanding how engineering works in this country since she is from Brazil.
Cochran said that she found Beard to be “very helpful” and that hearing what he said motivated her to continue with her dream of becoming an engineer.
Edgar Aguilar, 21, who was considering engineering as a major, said that after hearing what Beard had to say he was now considering mechanical engineering as a major.
Aguilar said that he liked that he got to ask Beard more personal questions about what he would look for when hiring, after the event.
Casey Covello, 21, engineering major, said that he found the event to be “pretty enlightening for the most part” and that he “found it more helpful than he expected.”
Covello said that after hearing what Beard had to say he was “heavily leaning towards mechanical engineering.”
The next event for “Engineering in April” is an engineering transfer panel with engineering representatives from UCLA, USC and CSUN it will be Thursday at noon in the Career and Transfer Center.
For more information on upcoming events check http://piercecollege.edu/webapps/calendar/