Coaster Engineering Salary

First off, I'm and ME with over 30 years of experience.

I've found that most engineering majors are of about equal in difficulty with the exception of industrial engineering which is not really engineering in the same sense as the others. I say this despite the fact that I give the ChemEs I work with a lot of grief about being "Comical Engineers".

It's correct that the total number of engineers designing roller coasters is very small. Roller coaster companies are also generally very small organizations. Most are located in other countries. Several things follow from this. 1)It isn't easy to get a job in coaster design. 2)You will probably have to get related experience somewhere else first. Small companies can't generally afford to hire and train fresh grads. 3)Salary and benefits with small companies are generally lower than with large companies. If you want 6 figures, you will need to own the company. 4)Language may be a barrier to employment.

It you want to get an idea what it takes to get in to the field, go to the FAQ on Consign AG's website. http://www.consignag.com/questions.html

Paula: don't let him get out of college too quickly. For many, it's their last chance to explore anything and everything. Once you get to grad school (or worse, a job) your advisor/boss expects you to actually do something for her/him most of the time!

Brian-- Don't worry, he's not rushing through. He's actually looked into triple-majoring. (Ugh! I tried the same thing many years ago -- what's wrong with this gene pool?!) He loves learning; can't get enough.

Paula

Well, since nobody's brought em up yet...
JOKE 1
The Engineering major asks, "How does it work?"
The Philosophy major asks, "Why does it work?"
The Economics major asks, "How much will it cost?"
and the Liberal Arts major asks, "Do you want fries with that?"...

JOKE 2
Definitions:
Mechanical Engineers build weapons,
Civil Engineers build targets...

JOKE 3
Civil Engineers are the ones that couldn't pass Dynamics (Theory of Mechanical Motion) or Physics II (Electromagnetic Field Theory)...

JOKE 4
You can't spell "GEEK" without a EE.

JOKE 5 - Rebuttal
You can't spell "LAME" without a ME.

JOKE 6
You ask why engineers are so conservative? When they do something really good, they get a neat little plaque with their name on it. When they do something really bad, people tend to die (i.e. Titanic, Challenger, Hindenberg, etc.).

On a more serious note, for any aspiring engineers, I would highly recommend the auto industry. I find my job pretty challenging and interesting, and where else am I going to get paid well for playing with $50K trucks all day?

Later,
EV

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EchoVictor said:
and the Liberal Arts major asks, "Do you want fries with that?"...

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Ha! Talk about stupid stereotypes!

-Jeff, BA, makes more than most engineers, proving that degree has little to do with what you can achieve in the long run

Those first 2 jokes are some of my favorites...:)

...and joke 3's not really a joke. hehe

A bit off topic, but for what it's worth, Jeff Pike, Vice President of Great Coasters has been a coaster nut since birth. We have some of his drawings from pre-school that my mother-in-law saved, he's been riding ever since he was tall enough, and was a ride operator at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. How's that for dreams coming true?

I've always admired Jeff for his unwavering determination to be a part of the industry, and his committment to quality designs and an outstanding, superior ride.

Itwasn't the potential salary but the drive that got him where he is today, and it's the desire that he still has that keeps him with Great Coasters.

Ok, I'll stop flattering him now :)

Andrea

I'm with CoasterWife. All of this realism brings me down. The truth is, as unlikely as any dream is and as important as it is to be realistic at times, there's nothing better than having vision and following through.
I decided when I was a sophomore in High school that I wanted to go into my field. As a sophomore in college I decided what company I was going to do it at. They had 9 employees at the time. When I was hired 2 years out of college I was employee number 120. We got up over 200 employees twice. Now I'm one of 18.
It's been hell at times, truly, but I can say without a doubt that passion has carried me through some bumpy times.

Nothing wrong with following a dream, but in high school, the only thing I was really sure of is that I liked boobs and had bad skin.

You should go after what you want, but you also need to be open to alternate paths as they come up. Pike is an exception, not the rule.

Agreed Jeff. I was the same in high school (although I thought I was Eddie Van Halen). Although my dream of replacing Eddie ( ;) ) never came to be, I have gone further in my "career" than I could have ever dreamed.

I guess the moral or the story is follow your dreams, but stay grounded and realistic as well :)

On the other hand, do you really want your passion to become your career? A career comes with deadlines, stress, responsibility, unpleasant duties, long hours, etc., etc. To me, a day at an amusement park is an escape from all that. I don't want those things anywhere near my hobbies.

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Den said:
On the other hand, do you really want your passion to become your career? A career comes with deadlines, stress, responsibility, unpleasant duties, long hours, etc., etc. To me, a day at an amusement park is an escape from all that. I don't want those things anywhere near my hobbies.

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Well, I can see if maybe he walked the grounds of a park all day, or worked on site somewhere, but I think Jeff is able to separate as well as combine work from his passion because he's rather balanced and doesn't actually work at a park or on a roller coaster every day.

And although careers usually come with deadlines, long hours, responsibility, etc. etc. etc, they also come with fulfillment, pride and success. I know I'd be miserable in a career if all I thought about were the deadlines, stress, responsibility, unpleasant duties, and long hours, etc., etc.

During the summer, Jeff and Andy and I are at Knoebel's about once a week, and he loves the clacking of the tracks and the smell of the funnel cakes just as much as he did when he was a kid.

I think it's a great chance for him to combine his passion with his career, and I plan on doing the same in a few years. (Combining a passion and career of my own, not roller coasters ;)

Andrea *** Edited 3/24/2004 6:29:59 PM UTC by CoasterWife3***

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Anyway, I am almost sure that sophomore year of any good engineering program will weed out people who choose engineering solely for the money. You have to have the passion in order to suceed, which means many nights staying up trying to finish an Aerodynamics project, or trying to finish your DiffEQ homework.

*** Edited 3/23/2004 12:52:43 AM UTC by Antuan***

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Amen to that. I eventually found that out.

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Den said:
On the other hand, do you really want your passion to become your career? A career comes with deadlines, stress, responsibility, unpleasant duties, long hours, etc., etc.

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I'll have to remember that next time someone asks why GTTP sucks so bad and has gone unchanged for years. :)

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Brian Noble said:

igron: It's interesting to me that your degree is the "hardest". Also, I don't know where you get your numbers, but $25K for a CivE/ME degree is off, and potentially way off.

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1) Wasn't supposed to be "interesting" it was suppossed to be funny and stir debate.

2) I have personally hired ME graduates to load trucks for $8.00/hr because they couldn't find one of those 57k jobs they were promised by university salary surveys. They all eventually moved on, but I promise you 25k is common for a recent BSME grad (at least in Indiana-Ohio-Penn-Virginia area).

On the topic of hard work to get into the industry, I know a little about I belive his name is Chad Miller from the gravity group. He was a coaster nut who lived and went to school a few miles from me in Lima Ohio. According to one of his proffessors at Ohio Norther University, all he ever wanted to do was work with roller coasters. Anyways, upon graduation from ONU, he tried everything to get into a coaster company. He also refused to take a real job untill he got his dream coaster job. He worked at the Cinibon store in the Lima Mall as a manager for two years. Then he got hired into Custom Coasters, as their most recent engineer. So there is a small possiblity that you will ge the job you want as long as you work at it, and are willing to take some lack luster jobs.