Fareed Naura, Sam Mazzola, Megan Wendel

April 09, 2018

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Table of Contents
Summary ........................................................................... 1
Background ....................................................................... 2
Methods ............................................................................ 3
Findings ............................................................................. 4
Discussion ......................................................................... 5
Recommendations ............................................................ 6
References. ....................................................................... 7

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Table of Figures

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Summary
This report compares 6 career paths all of which can be chosen by a Wayne State University
student with an Engineering degree after graduating. The team gathered in depth analytical
comparisons for each and reflected the best possible path based on the results gathered.
Secondary exploration has given our team more information to distinguish the 6 workforces
based on the criteria below.

 Average Salary
 Average Schedule
 School Curriculum
 Travel
 Miscellaneous

Empirical data and Secondary research helped the team come to these final recommendations.

1. Oil and Gas Industry

Average salary : $139,000

Work Schedule : 40-85 hours per week

2. Chemicals Industry

Average salary : $82,720

Work Schedule : 40-50 hours per week

3. Construction Industry

Average salary : $87,940

Work Schedule : 40-50 hours per week

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 Introduction
The team consisted of Fareed Naura, Sam Mazzola and Megan Wendel.
Fareed Naura, a student at Wayne State is pursuing the same degree that this report talks about.
Knowledge of this topic has been already searched and discussed. Spent a few years at Henry
Ford College and has talked to many professors and current day engineers about what assets to
regard highly post-graduation. During a interview for an internship at a Ford meeting he was
asked to look at graphs showing sales comparisons between the trucks and sportscars and discuss
why in some graphs, the total sales would go down in certain regions and up in others. In his
material science class he had to solo lecture about nanocomposites and involve charts and graphs
showing why certain metals are strengthened when they undergo that process. Extensive research
was conducted and information was verified via actual experimentation such as cold working
metal.

Megan Wendel, also a Wayne State student, is pursuing a degree in Nursing. Since Wayne State
is a research oriented school, she has some experience with research. She was very interested to
learn about this degree and what it entails.

Samuel Mazzola, another student at Wayne State is also pursuing a degree in mechanical
engineering. He has spent many hours with his close family friend who is the chief engineer at
American Axle and who was previously the chief engineer at GKN Driveline. These two
discussed the average engineering student leaving college through real world experiences of
others. As well as the mentorship that he brings, Sam also has researched a variety of different
topics throughout his college career. At Wayne, the research topics required extensive effort and
digging through sources to find the right data that fits.

This report was created because of an assignment in an English class. The report had two goals
that were required upon completion. The report must be for a Wayne State Undergraduate
student who is looking to soon enter the workforce or further their degree and to include data that
would aid in finding the best paths post grad backed by unimpeachable data.

Starting the data was the first step. What topic would be best situated for us as a team. Two of us
are pursuing a Engineering degree while the third is going for a Nursing degree. We decided a
report on Engineering would be best since two of our members could use the information highly.
The third group member going for nursing was interested in Engineering because they wanted to
motivate a family member to pursue the same degree. The article was best fit for post graduation
since that’s where most of the information would come. The report is very broad for an
engineering student and allows them to use it even if they aren’t closely relating to the same
degree.
There is so much paths that one could tank so we limited it to six. One of the biggest limitations
for our team was trying to categorize the many industries and first find which would be best. In
the time required the research became intensive and difficult since much information at first
seemed anecdotal based on the engineer themselves. Fareed Naura, one of the team members,

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flew to another state to retrieve data from written reports and discuss the best possibilities with a
Petroleum Engineer named Michael Havrilla. Michael
Fareed was taken into the work place of Michael and was able to discuss with varying Engineers
about career paths. Despite it starting with a Petroleum Engineer, in a company there is more
than one person needed to make things work. It’s a whole system with different parts would be
the best metaphor. Much of the discussion followed the same route that Petroleum was genuinely
the most appreciated and respected Engineering path with the best perks.

We guided our interviews and research based on our criteria above

 Average Salary
 Average Schedule
 School Curriculum
 Travel
 Miscellaneous
Keeping in mind every one of these aspects which were not too difficult to do since information
regarding these would usually come up as a first section. We also factored in that this is
supposed to be for a Wayne State University Student.
After doing fundamental research about each industry we started forming tables which better
showed comparisons and differences between each. Allowing us to conclude the best fits easier.
The following industries are ones chosen.

 Aerospace Industry
 Automotive Industry
 Chemical Industry
 Construction Industry
 Oil and Gas industry
 Materials and metals Industry.

When we established which industries we’d cover, we went onward with our research to start
analyzing the criteria and making comparisons. We then transferred this data category into a
chart to better separate explicit information.

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Methods
The first step in the researching process was realizing the problems we could face. Things like
false data and hard anecdotal information that would downgrade other categories. One step we
took to avoid that would be to grab information from certain interviews and use it somewhere
else. We’d ask the same question that was answered to us by someone else and see how another
Engineer would respond to it. In our conclusion there was no information that was only justified
for one person. Much of what we gathered stayed constant and valid throughout the research
process. The second problem we possibly could come across and did was time. We were not
given too much time for this project. Articles that are properly done sometimes take years of
research. That is not to say ours isn’t valid, the time we were given is still a just amount for a
great article. As a group we understood this and worked in overtime to meet our deadlines. We
decided the biggest step in the beginning after the obstacles were looked at, was to find the
categories of the industries we’d be talking about. This was rather difficult because Engineering
is such a broad thing that you could basically say ant research and that would be a category we’d
have to consider. Instead of being that specific, it made it much easier to just make our
comparisons and contrasts in broad categories. To better explain, saying ‘’Mechanical’’ would
deal with all those relating to engines. Car Truck and Boats would be summed up into this
category. Aerospace while it does deal with engines itself, has an excessive amount of
differences and follows a completely different curriculum. It is very easy to confuse some of the
degrees because of a few similarities but they would be much more different than one would
imagine.

We wanted to tackle our interviews and articles we’d retrieve data from with certain questions.
Some of these questions were specifically chosen to tackle self-observed opinions.
We did keep in mind the major questions that helped us analyze our data better such as

1. What advice would you give to students who are undecided and don’t know what to do
while going through an Engineering Curriculum?
2. What made you fully decide to lock on a certain industry?
3. What are you looking for post-graduation and which quality would be the most important
for you in a job?
4. Are there any certain likes or dislikes that would change your direction in helping you
decide what your industry you’d want to go into?
5. What degree are you actively pursuing or in the past pursued and what was the first thing
that made you do this?

Because Fareed Naura and Sam Mozalla being two members already in an Engineering
curriculum, this made asking questions and retrieving information much easier. We chose
three students in an interview and separated them from the others as their responses were
the most genuine. The interviews conducted with them will be found in the Discussion
section of the report.

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We chose to interview engineering students who are actively pursuing their degree to get a better
idea

1. The diversity that’s currently in the same classes industry wise

2. Explore the thoughts of other engineering students and get their opinion based on
their experiences or knowledge.
3. There isn’t a better degree of people to interview more than current engineering
students for the sake of the report.
4. To provide anyone reading this report with answers to questions such as

1. What field do you currently work in and what made you realize you wanted to
work in X as opposed to Y.
2. What route led you to that field of work.
3. Who or what led you to picking the industry you wanted to work for post
graduation.
4. Did you determine that you are best fit for this industry or did you have any
regrets.
5. What advice would you give for current students who have concerns about the
industry they’d like to work for post graduation.

Aside from the interviews, we gathered secondary data from sites pertaining to the following
criteria.

 Average Salary
 Average Schedule
 School Curriculum
 Travel
 Miscellaneous

We used sites such as Forbes, Prospects, The institution of ME, Department of Labor, Quora,
Work Chron, Study.com, Glassdoor.com, Allaboutcareers.com, and Engineering Scape.
Of course, we realized not a single website would answer every question we had nor give us all
the information we needed. We gathered more resources to provide more than one stand point on
the criteria.
The secondary data we retrieved from the sites above gave us a good direction with ranking the
industries. The 6 industries we chose were then compared and contrasted ( mainly contrasted
since comparisons don’t do us any good when looking for ‘’the best’’ outcome.)