Just as engineering affects virtually every aspect of our lives, a graduate degree in engineering can lead to career opportunities in nearly any field. Engineers are constantly researching and developing new and better ways to design and create the buildings, infrastructure, and technology that we use every day.
Depending on your area of specialization, skills, and interests, your degree could lead you to a career working on something as small as a single human cell or as large as the growth of an entire city—from the research phases to completion, or any stage in between.
A civil engineering degree can open the door to a career designing and constructing safe and cost-effective urban structures and facilities, from office buildings and arenas to bridges and levees.
If you're interested in more of a business environment, industrial engineering studies may lead you to a career overseeing quality control and effective work processes in manufacturing plants and facilities.
Students of one of the most popular engineering disciplines, electrical engineering, handle a wide variety of electrical equipment and systems, from designing the dashboard of a new car to wiring new buildings with the latest technological advances.
On a more human level, biomedical engineers work on the research and development of new medical devices and equipment.
Concerned about the earth's resources? A graduate degree in environmental engineering will prepare you for a career finding new ways to handle water treatment, air pollution, and recycling methods to help keep our planet healthy.
And for engineering work above that ground, aerospace engineers design and develop flight vehicles to keep people moving from country to country or even out into space.
For a comprehensive picture of the engineering careers available to students with graduate degrees, check out Internet job search engines that specialize in the field, such as ThinkJobs.com or Engineeringjobs.net.
Paula Andruss is a Cincinnati-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in publications including Parents, WomensWallStreet.com, Marketing News, Crain's Chicago Business, and Cincinnati magazine.
