My Career - CoasterBuzz

I remember when I was in my "I want to build rollercoasters when I grow up" stage... tisk tisk.

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Hey I'm 34 and I'm still in my "I want to build coasters or own a park when I grow up' phase.

Go for it kid. The worst thing that could happen is you wind up with an engineering degree and get a job in a field other than coasters. It's still a good career to get into.

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JOHN
RCT INSOMNIACS
KIMBERLY LAKE INC.

Thanks john!

Is there a way to contact any parks, or corporations, like roller coaster designing firms, or disney imagineering, and they would send me a packet of info for coming to work for them?

I wanted to correct something said above. The primary degree of a coaster designer is Mechanical Engineering...not Civil Engineering. I'm going to go to Purdue for an ME degree. Sure, it would be nice to design coasters, but it's hard as hell to get your foot in the door of the industry. Go for it, but be prepared for a disappointment if you can't get in.

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It's still me, here from the beginning back in 1999. Add 1500+ posts to the number I have in the info section if you care about such things.

I think we should start our own designing firm. Call it CoasterBuzz Creations Incorporated (CBCI). Then all the people with engineering degrees on this site get first priority for a job. We could probally make some sweet coasters. Well, that's just my two cents.

The_Lost_Phantom- Who is 15 and one day hopes to either design rollercoasters or be a pediatrician.

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My mind works in strange ways. Yeah with a chain driven lift hill and gravity.

I wanted to become a roller coaster designer just like you did but I gutess after a while I discovered other things. One thing that really pushed me away from becoming a roller coaster designer was choosing a college! It's highly recommended that you major in a subject like civil engineering to become a designer. There are like 4 school which had Civil engineering and Fencning so that's was off my list. One is MIT and I don't have the grades nor the money for that school. Oh, and if you not amazing in math, you better start working on it!
It takes a lot to become a roller coaster designer because of it's rare and it's not a big field. Now i'm looking at at becoming an Industrial Designer for a company like Apple or Nintendo. I love creating my own products and just looking at my iPod make we want to continue. Trust me, you may want to become one now, be don't be very suprised if you change your mind later on. Also, it was really hard for me, emotionally, to give up the dream of becoming a roller coaster designer but you get over it like a brake up with you girl friend......wait your 13 right? .....Oops, nevermind.

To actually design coasters, I believe that there are two good degrees to get: Structural and Mechanical Enginnering. Im going for Mechanical Engineering because if I dont get to design the coasters, I can still work on them. I did find something out over last season. If you want to be a maintenance worker on wooden coasters, its better to get a carpenders degree than mechanical. Now that I know this, it makes sense, but its just something you dont think about.

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SOB crew in twenty 02
111 SOB laps, and wishing the park was still open

Say you want to be a park manager, (hey maybe I'd get promoted to a CEO someday!) what kind of degree do you need to get?

Degree with that really isn't all that important. The type of degree will only get you the first few jobs - wether you get to be CEO or whatever will be dependant on your performance. If you demonstrate excellent leadership and the ability to learn (not necessarily know what to do coming into a situation, but know how to go find out how to do it) then you'll go far (altho an MBA won't hurt)

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Just don't be stupid. It's really not that hard.
Kumba's #1
-- Brett

PittDesigner said:
Pretty much any Big 10 school (the football conference) is a good engineering school. But big names and world renowned quality aren't the end-all either. Check out the Gravity Group's homepage, their one engineer has his degree from the University of Cincinnatti. Not that UC is a bad school, but its not recognized for its engineering program as far as I know. Same as Pitt (I would know that one )

Actually University of Cincinnati is known for its engineering department, as well as it architecture and design, and its musical/theater department. What, we made the first artificial heart, we designed the Golden Gate Bridge, and a few other things. (By we I mean past students) We as well started the internship program that many colleges use now, in the engineering department my I say. We also are one of the only schools now that even require we still do it in order to graduate.

Anyways, the type of engineering, civil or mechanical (structural is a certain field of civil), doesn't really matter, you will do both no matter what, its just tells what you "specialize" in.

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Wood Rules!

BeastFreak, I wasn't saying Cincy was bad for engineering, but more that they are more known for performance arts and design/arch. (my Mom graduated from there for design and my Dad was music for most of his career there before transferring to something else). The same deal as Pitt - we aren't known for engineering, more for healthcare, but our engineering program is still awesome. My Fluids professor was one of the guys on that artificial heart team, and our BioEng department is top notch (a lot of that has to do with their close association with the medical department).

When I made that comment, that was just what I was told when I was starting to look into changing majors (and possibly schools) and wanted to get into engineering (yes, I'm one of the few who actually transferred INTO engineering)

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Just don't be stupid. It's really not that hard.
Kumba's #1
-- Brett

A wise man once told me, don't be a coaster designer...be a park owner, or somebody that makes decisions at parks. Without the people buying coasters, your designs mean nothing!

Oh..the wise man that said this is Alan Schlke from Arrow Dynamics. He has tons of designs that nobody will buy and most are coasters that we all want to see somewhere in the world. But as I said, if nobody buys them, they are worthless.

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"...they came like a winged curse. A twin plague of demonic dragons!" - Dueling Dragons

It's meaningless to say "I want that job...now what degree do I need?" If you don't know what degree you need, then do you really know that you want that job? At 13, you're probably not past Algebra 1 if even that. Engineering is unbelievably complex from the few introductory books I've read and one must really have a passion for math to do it. And when I say passion for math, take at least through Calculus 3 and then make that decision. Good luck.

*** This post was edited by BlkJettaBoost on 12/31/2002. ***

Try Calc 4 - for MechE or CivE you need calc 4 (diff-eq)

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Just don't be stupid. It's really not that hard.
Kumba's #1
-- Brett

At UC your math requirements for engineering basically give you a math minor minus a few classes. Had the engineering requirements done freshman year. God I love high school AP classes! Almost done!

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Wood Rules!

I have to wonder how you got AP credit in the following things so you could have your engineering curriculum done your freshman year.

Thermodynamics, heat transfer, statics 1, statics 2, fluid mechanics, dynamics, controls.

All of which (plus some) are prerequisites for senior level Mech-E classes.

I never heard that about the ASCE, I'm going to make sure to find out more about that as I am in my first year of Civil Engineering. I find it tough, especially with over 30 hours of class per week, but as long as your willing to commit it shouldn't be a problem. My first year courses are pretty much the same as some of the one's mentioned above, but with the addition of programming with C, Java, and Autocad.

Not so much what you know... but who you know. :)

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Helping The Injured Defeat The Amusement Park Industry Day After Day.

I wasn't saying AP got me all the engineering credits, I was saying they got me all the math credits I needed. So once I got to college I only needed to take the other math classes to get the math minor.

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Wood Rules!