The way it used to be, you would leave university with an engineering degree, go to work with one company, and then retire with a healthy lump sum. But nowadays, this is seldom the case, and the freelancer life has proven to be more popular, mainly because of the sheer diversity of options. But when you have an engineering degree, can the two marry together well? In fact, there are many industries that require freelance engineers, especially due to various workloads, meaning that you can go from company to company without ever having a break. But, what are your options for a freelancer that happens to have an engineering degree?
The Design Industry
A degree in engineering provides you with a base level of knowledge when it comes to design. The fact is, there are so many areas that require deft design skills. From factory layouts, experiment designs, or computer-aided design (CAD), all require engineering knowledge. As far as a hands-on approach to utilizing your qualification, the design industry and its various offshoots provide numerous challenges and opportunities.
Consulting and Management
As a way to get your foot in the door, providing support in management and consulting roles can help to develop proposals, manage costs, or lead appropriate teams in various projects, from common variants of a civil engineering project to being a go-between between the client and organization you’re working for, someone with the right amount of knowledge can prove to be invaluable, especially in a middle management role. It’s also a great way for you to climb up the career ladder. So, you may not even need to be a freelancer for the rest of your life.
Writing and Content
It’s a world of content, blogs, articles, videos, and podcasts. It’s not just entertainment anymore, and the person with diverse experience, such as the freelancer, can tip their pen towards any industry. You can work as a freelance writer, providing insightful information into trends, or you can be an advisor on the media side of things. As far as civil engineering and breaking new ground as far as public structures are concerned, media relations are one of the most important skills to have now. Someone with a freelance engineering degree may be able to simplify some of the complex terms and condense them into something that can be digested by the general public, or various media outlets.
The modern working world has highlighted how much of a growth industry the freelance way of life is. People are capitalizing on their unique experience, and when you are a qualified engineer, there is so much complexity to the role, that as soon as you find a niche for yourself, this means you could, potentially, never be out of work. Whether you want to lead, create content, or design the structures that we see every day, the freelancer has numerous options. But this is only the beginning, once you have acquired a degree, you have to put in the legwork, and, unsurprisingly, freelancing is the best way to get experience now.
