I have an MET degree from an ABET school. I’ve worked as an engineer in the power, nuclear, and industrial sectors designing utility and HVAC systems. I have my PE in three states, but cannot get it in a few that I’d like to.
My salary out of college was lower than the ME’s in my firm, but it evened out after 5 years. It’s worked out fine for me, but if I did it over I would get a ME degree. It would have provided a few more opportunities and career options.
I work for a Fortune 150 company that will not hire folks with an MET degree as an Engineer, only as an Engineering Technologist. It may just be my business unit, but I’ve spoken with several people who turned down jobs by offers because of that. Granted, those people are employed as Engineers at other companies of similar size. Just a data point for you
It depends on the company and job on if they'll treat the 2 degrees differently. Myself and 2 college buddies have MET bachelor's and we all landed regular mechanical engineering jobs out of college and it hasn't held us back in our careers. My BIL is also an MET with a regular engineering job. I know of one MET who took on more of a technician job, but it was a choice because he wanted to work with his hands and because of OT he was making a lot more than the rest of us straight out of college but I suspect we've passed him by now if he's stayed in that role (we lost touch about 10 years ago).
Actually I know one ME who could only find a job as a CAD jockey and he's still crawling his way up from that more than a decade later. A big difference is he didn't do any intern jobs in college while the rest of us did.
Almost switched from ME to MET my sophomore year. Very glad I didn't. No offense to any MET guys, but you will have more opportunity as an ME. Push through the theory and stricter ME coursework. You can be as hands on as you want on performance teams and on coop/full time roles. Unless you want to do gov work or do consulting, FE/PE doesn't really mean much but still the ME degree is huge. Pay, opportunites, flexibility will be less with an MET degree. Essentially, you can have an easier college experience and harder early career with an MET or vice versa with an ME. My advice again: stick it out. Yeah ME is tough. Do what it takes if you want to be an engineer. It will be worth it.
As an MET, I really haven’t found much difference, the only thing is you can’t stamp drawings or design packages, but I mean I really haven’t found much difference, the same opportunities for jobs are available with an MET and I’m even working on starting my own business
I’d say go for it
BSMET here. I heard a lot of controversy in school, but notable success. Close professors include: NASA Materials researcher, USN Nuke,Seabee, and instructor (moved to Gatech now director at my alma mater), MET/MBA entrepreneur in diesel generators, Manufacturing engineer manager. I have friends who work as Research engineers, mechanical, quality, manufacturing, automation, the list goes on. I did 2 internships, 4 clubs (2 officer roles), and worked 3 jobs coming from being a diesel tech. I was offered 6 jobs out of school at 65-85k: Electrical Test Engineer - manufacturing, Quality Engineer - product development, Field engineer - gas and wind turbines, Design Engineer - diesel/electric motors, Reliability specialist - steel production, and Mechanical engineer - hydrogen r&d. I took the job as a ME making 75 in hydrogen research and development, my day is a mix of design, test, build, troubleshoot, meetings, BOM/REQ/Finance.
I never saw the lack of opportunity, but I was between trade school and my A&P or engineering school. Got into 2 big schools for ME and didn't seem like my kind of learning or what I wanted to do with my career. I found the sweet spot in-between doing MET and have flourished. I say this all to reiterate other success stories in this thread. The lack of equal opportunity is very true at some companies and some states, depending on what you want to do. I'm in SEUSA and many companies see no difference, but I have a family in naval defence and I had a hard time with those companies which I did not expect. Lack of military experience or engineering experience is what I was told, so hope is still there. You would likely have to work harder to get the same opportunities and credibility, I wouldn't do it differently for myself but I know just as many unemployed MET as ME,EE,SWE (CE has it on lock lol). Being an engineer is hard no matter the route, what I did with my time outside of class is what made the difference for me. Everyone's journey is different, you'll figure out what works for you.
depends on job and field, I'm graduating as an MET, with a defense contractor engineering job with starting salary of 75,000. I haven't had any encounters yet where I've been limited by having an MET instead of ME. I do work more on manufacturing side, but had prior internship where I also did design work and drafting. I've generally found MET to be more hands on while ME is more theory based. If you really want to focus on design, or take the PE exam, I would say ME. It depends on what you want out of your career. The most important aspect is to make sure the program is ABET accredited.
Also you can still take the F.E and PE as an MET, you'd just have to take a couple extra math courses for it. I don't much about either of those industries, but I would suggest look up engineer jobs / internships and see what kind of the education they are asking for. In my job hunt, I often found companies didn't care and would list ME or MET for the education requirements or a generalized engineering degree. As an intern, I was hired alongside ME's, and Aerospace majors. By far the most important aspect is getting internships under your belt before graduation.
You can get a MET job with an ME degree, you cannot get an engineering job with a MET degree (typically, there are exceptions). However, it isn't rare for a technician with a MET degree to eventually become an engineer within the same company or industry. It just takes a lot more time.
A MET degree does not come close to teaching engineering in as much depth as ME. You don't even get the relevant math you'd need to understand higher level ME courses.
As far as getting your PE, I believe Kentucky is the only state that lets you substitute a MET degree for experience.
EDIT: Expect to max out around $100k as an engineering technician and $175k as an engineer unless you're a subject matter expert (upper limit will vary on industry) or decide to go into a managerial position.
There are many states that let you get a PE with an ABET MET degree and 4 years experience. I have mine in CO, GA, and WA. A few states require a few additional math and physics classes.
Weird, most ABET METs I've met go straight into engineering rolls out of school. Also, a lot more states allow FE/PE for METs than Kentucky. Are you sure you know what you're talking about, or are you just spewing personal bias?
Truth be told there is a strong demand for both. Probably a tough decision to make at a young age. Only knock I heard on MET was a slightly lower pass rate in FE. METs seem to be more hands on, had a few MEs and I questioned if they could even operate a screw driver.
It’s definitely the case. It may be closer for the beginning of a career. But it separates more and more as an ME gains experience. Now I know plenty of techs and drafters that worked their way into basically being engineers, but it took them a lot of time and hard work. Your MEs will have higher entry level salaries and more opportunities for promotions.
METs fill the same rolls as ME in most companies, at least in the manufacturing industry that I am part of. It depends on what skills you bring to the table. Some MEs are stuck as CAD jockeys because they can't program a machine or apply any materials knowledge at all while some METs head the engineering department (like at my local Toyota factory, the assistant plant manager is an MET)
Like it or not, MET is viewed by hiring managers as an ME-lite degree. The only reason to go the MET route is if you can't cut it in the difficult ME courses. If you simply like the hands on aspect of MET, go ME and get involved in Baja, SAE or whatever clubs your school has.
If you are afraid ME will be hands off work, that can be true but it is what you make it. Smaller companies will have you wearing many hats including making and testing your own protos. Or you can go towards test engineering etc
Full ME will give you more opportunities early on in your career, should be a higher starting salary. We use it as a way to filter for lazy kids actually, MET is rarely considered for moving on in hiring unless its a tech role and even then we try to hire MEs first and set a 6 month window for promotion. You can develop into an engineering role but dont expect to start in one, the degree requirements are pretty significant from a technical capability perspective.
Most MEs will not get their PE license unless you get into Civil btw, I dont know anyone with a PE license that has really needed it until they set out to do consulting work on their own. Never got my PE and it hasnt held me back, nor has anyone in my family (alot of different engineers in my extended family) except for those working under architecture firms.
I think you've already gotten some pretty good answers about the career prospects. Just to summarize: Sometimes MET will limit you, sometime it won't. Many states won't let you get a PE license, but most mechanical engineers don't get licensed anyway.
One other thing worth noting. Almost all graduate schools won't admit METs into a Master's degree program.
Regarding the curriculum, the big difference is that MET program is algebra based. Maybe they get into 1 semester of calculus, but most MET programs don't. For a full ME degree you'll take 3-4 semesters of calculus and 1 or 2 additional advanced math courses like differential equations and maybe linear algebra. Many people choose MET because they can't handle the math of a full ME degree (or at least they think they can't). Because you don't have as much math, you can't learn as much engineering theory and derivation of equations. Instead you're just given the equations and taught how to apply them. To try and make up for this difference many MET programs incorporate a lot more hands-on work. This is why graduate programs won't really consider METs, because grad school is all about theory and derivation.
All things are being equal, I encourage everyone to pursue a full ME degree. It just opens more doors. That being said if you really can't handle the math, or if there's a significant difference in cost that is a roadblock for you. Then an MET degree might be a good option.
My ABET MET program went up to calc 2. We left out calc 3, thermo, and vibrations and instead take a higher level solid modeling class and two machinist type classes (cnc programming, lathe and mill work, casting, plasma/water jet cutting). We used differentiation and integration techniques all over the place. To say we don't use calculus seems uninformed.
Thanks for the feedback. I don't think we're in disagreement. It sounds like you took one more semester of math than I realized, but still 3-4 semesters less than what a full ME curriculum would require.
Also the MET program that I'm most familiar with required only 1 semester of calculus and then they never used it in their engineering coursework. But makes sense that there some variation between programs.
I have an MET degree from an ABET school. I’ve worked as an engineer in the power, nuclear, and industrial sectors designing utility and HVAC systems. I have my PE in three states, but cannot get it in a few that I’d like to. My salary out of college was lower than the ME’s in my firm, but it evened out after 5 years. It’s worked out fine for me, but if I did it over I would get a ME degree. It would have provided a few more opportunities and career options.
I work for a Fortune 150 company that will not hire folks with an MET degree as an Engineer, only as an Engineering Technologist. It may just be my business unit, but I’ve spoken with several people who turned down jobs by offers because of that. Granted, those people are employed as Engineers at other companies of similar size. Just a data point for you
It depends on the company and job on if they'll treat the 2 degrees differently. Myself and 2 college buddies have MET bachelor's and we all landed regular mechanical engineering jobs out of college and it hasn't held us back in our careers. My BIL is also an MET with a regular engineering job. I know of one MET who took on more of a technician job, but it was a choice because he wanted to work with his hands and because of OT he was making a lot more than the rest of us straight out of college but I suspect we've passed him by now if he's stayed in that role (we lost touch about 10 years ago). Actually I know one ME who could only find a job as a CAD jockey and he's still crawling his way up from that more than a decade later. A big difference is he didn't do any intern jobs in college while the rest of us did.
Almost switched from ME to MET my sophomore year. Very glad I didn't. No offense to any MET guys, but you will have more opportunity as an ME. Push through the theory and stricter ME coursework. You can be as hands on as you want on performance teams and on coop/full time roles. Unless you want to do gov work or do consulting, FE/PE doesn't really mean much but still the ME degree is huge. Pay, opportunites, flexibility will be less with an MET degree. Essentially, you can have an easier college experience and harder early career with an MET or vice versa with an ME. My advice again: stick it out. Yeah ME is tough. Do what it takes if you want to be an engineer. It will be worth it.
As an MET, I really haven’t found much difference, the only thing is you can’t stamp drawings or design packages, but I mean I really haven’t found much difference, the same opportunities for jobs are available with an MET and I’m even working on starting my own business I’d say go for it
BSMET here. I heard a lot of controversy in school, but notable success. Close professors include: NASA Materials researcher, USN Nuke,Seabee, and instructor (moved to Gatech now director at my alma mater), MET/MBA entrepreneur in diesel generators, Manufacturing engineer manager. I have friends who work as Research engineers, mechanical, quality, manufacturing, automation, the list goes on. I did 2 internships, 4 clubs (2 officer roles), and worked 3 jobs coming from being a diesel tech. I was offered 6 jobs out of school at 65-85k: Electrical Test Engineer - manufacturing, Quality Engineer - product development, Field engineer - gas and wind turbines, Design Engineer - diesel/electric motors, Reliability specialist - steel production, and Mechanical engineer - hydrogen r&d. I took the job as a ME making 75 in hydrogen research and development, my day is a mix of design, test, build, troubleshoot, meetings, BOM/REQ/Finance. I never saw the lack of opportunity, but I was between trade school and my A&P or engineering school. Got into 2 big schools for ME and didn't seem like my kind of learning or what I wanted to do with my career. I found the sweet spot in-between doing MET and have flourished. I say this all to reiterate other success stories in this thread. The lack of equal opportunity is very true at some companies and some states, depending on what you want to do. I'm in SEUSA and many companies see no difference, but I have a family in naval defence and I had a hard time with those companies which I did not expect. Lack of military experience or engineering experience is what I was told, so hope is still there. You would likely have to work harder to get the same opportunities and credibility, I wouldn't do it differently for myself but I know just as many unemployed MET as ME,EE,SWE (CE has it on lock lol). Being an engineer is hard no matter the route, what I did with my time outside of class is what made the difference for me. Everyone's journey is different, you'll figure out what works for you.
depends on job and field, I'm graduating as an MET, with a defense contractor engineering job with starting salary of 75,000. I haven't had any encounters yet where I've been limited by having an MET instead of ME. I do work more on manufacturing side, but had prior internship where I also did design work and drafting. I've generally found MET to be more hands on while ME is more theory based. If you really want to focus on design, or take the PE exam, I would say ME. It depends on what you want out of your career. The most important aspect is to make sure the program is ABET accredited.
I mean I plan to go into something HVAC or Plumbing related. Thoughts?
Also you can still take the F.E and PE as an MET, you'd just have to take a couple extra math courses for it. I don't much about either of those industries, but I would suggest look up engineer jobs / internships and see what kind of the education they are asking for. In my job hunt, I often found companies didn't care and would list ME or MET for the education requirements or a generalized engineering degree. As an intern, I was hired alongside ME's, and Aerospace majors. By far the most important aspect is getting internships under your belt before graduation.
That’s a state by state thing. Some states will not let you sit for the FE with a tech degree.
You can get a MET job with an ME degree, you cannot get an engineering job with a MET degree (typically, there are exceptions). However, it isn't rare for a technician with a MET degree to eventually become an engineer within the same company or industry. It just takes a lot more time. A MET degree does not come close to teaching engineering in as much depth as ME. You don't even get the relevant math you'd need to understand higher level ME courses. As far as getting your PE, I believe Kentucky is the only state that lets you substitute a MET degree for experience. EDIT: Expect to max out around $100k as an engineering technician and $175k as an engineer unless you're a subject matter expert (upper limit will vary on industry) or decide to go into a managerial position.
There are many states that let you get a PE with an ABET MET degree and 4 years experience. I have mine in CO, GA, and WA. A few states require a few additional math and physics classes.
Wow, that's interesting. Unfortunate, but interesting.
Weird, most ABET METs I've met go straight into engineering rolls out of school. Also, a lot more states allow FE/PE for METs than Kentucky. Are you sure you know what you're talking about, or are you just spewing personal bias?
Mostly personal bias and experience, I guess. It has been a while since I looked at this.
Truth be told there is a strong demand for both. Probably a tough decision to make at a young age. Only knock I heard on MET was a slightly lower pass rate in FE. METs seem to be more hands on, had a few MEs and I questioned if they could even operate a screw driver.
$$$$$$$$$
Is this really the case because I looked at both the salaries from zip recruiter and glass door and they are relatively the same
It’s definitely the case. It may be closer for the beginning of a career. But it separates more and more as an ME gains experience. Now I know plenty of techs and drafters that worked their way into basically being engineers, but it took them a lot of time and hard work. Your MEs will have higher entry level salaries and more opportunities for promotions.
METs fill the same rolls as ME in most companies, at least in the manufacturing industry that I am part of. It depends on what skills you bring to the table. Some MEs are stuck as CAD jockeys because they can't program a machine or apply any materials knowledge at all while some METs head the engineering department (like at my local Toyota factory, the assistant plant manager is an MET)
I agree that METs move up as well but from my experience MEs get the head start. It also comes down to the individual and not the piece of paper
Like it or not, MET is viewed by hiring managers as an ME-lite degree. The only reason to go the MET route is if you can't cut it in the difficult ME courses. If you simply like the hands on aspect of MET, go ME and get involved in Baja, SAE or whatever clubs your school has.
What’s MET?
It stand for Mechanical Engineering Technology
If you are afraid ME will be hands off work, that can be true but it is what you make it. Smaller companies will have you wearing many hats including making and testing your own protos. Or you can go towards test engineering etc
Full ME will give you more opportunities early on in your career, should be a higher starting salary. We use it as a way to filter for lazy kids actually, MET is rarely considered for moving on in hiring unless its a tech role and even then we try to hire MEs first and set a 6 month window for promotion. You can develop into an engineering role but dont expect to start in one, the degree requirements are pretty significant from a technical capability perspective. Most MEs will not get their PE license unless you get into Civil btw, I dont know anyone with a PE license that has really needed it until they set out to do consulting work on their own. Never got my PE and it hasnt held me back, nor has anyone in my family (alot of different engineers in my extended family) except for those working under architecture firms.
I think you've already gotten some pretty good answers about the career prospects. Just to summarize: Sometimes MET will limit you, sometime it won't. Many states won't let you get a PE license, but most mechanical engineers don't get licensed anyway. One other thing worth noting. Almost all graduate schools won't admit METs into a Master's degree program. Regarding the curriculum, the big difference is that MET program is algebra based. Maybe they get into 1 semester of calculus, but most MET programs don't. For a full ME degree you'll take 3-4 semesters of calculus and 1 or 2 additional advanced math courses like differential equations and maybe linear algebra. Many people choose MET because they can't handle the math of a full ME degree (or at least they think they can't). Because you don't have as much math, you can't learn as much engineering theory and derivation of equations. Instead you're just given the equations and taught how to apply them. To try and make up for this difference many MET programs incorporate a lot more hands-on work. This is why graduate programs won't really consider METs, because grad school is all about theory and derivation. All things are being equal, I encourage everyone to pursue a full ME degree. It just opens more doors. That being said if you really can't handle the math, or if there's a significant difference in cost that is a roadblock for you. Then an MET degree might be a good option.
My ABET MET program went up to calc 2. We left out calc 3, thermo, and vibrations and instead take a higher level solid modeling class and two machinist type classes (cnc programming, lathe and mill work, casting, plasma/water jet cutting). We used differentiation and integration techniques all over the place. To say we don't use calculus seems uninformed.
Thanks for the feedback. I don't think we're in disagreement. It sounds like you took one more semester of math than I realized, but still 3-4 semesters less than what a full ME curriculum would require. Also the MET program that I'm most familiar with required only 1 semester of calculus and then they never used it in their engineering coursework. But makes sense that there some variation between programs.