u/External_Body4740

I can’t believe this is really happening.

What’s your preference / go to?

I have just over 1 year experience working in the MEP field and am now looking to move to another firm.

At my current company, I do a ton of different things: mechanical, electrical, plumbing, energy, and forensic projects. The vast majority of my work (85%) has been electrical. I have the deepest knowledge in electrical and have done the most projects in electrical . Out of all the disciples I worked with, this is what I’m most comfortable with.

Most firms seem to not operate like my current firm, where engineers are assigned “whatever the hell” and rather there are mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, etc.

I feel most qualified for an electrical engineer given my current job. I would like to continue in the MEP field as an electrical engineer, but I don’t know if my mechanical engineering degree would hold me back.

Most jobs list electrical degrees as a requirement, and especially with things like applicant tracking systems, I’m afraid I’ll be filtered out immediately.

Do you guys foresee this being an issue?

I made a post asking whether I should switch jobs because my current company doesn’t use Revit or many other common engineering software packages. We also don’t really perform things like SCCR studies or heat load calculation (they legit just guess). Most of our projects are smaller renovations and existing buildings.

Most of you guys said I should move into a more technical role.

My only concern is that almost every MEP position I see is focused on a single discipline… mechanical, electrical, or plumbing (sometimes M/P combined). The majority of my experience is in electrical, even though I have a mechanical degree.

One thing that makes me hesitate is that my current company gives me exposure to a wide variety of project types, services, and clients across MEP. I’m wondering if that’s valuable enough to justify staying a little longer. Would specializing in one trade after only about a year of experience hurt me in the long run?

I’d really appreciate any thoughts. Sorry for posting about this twice. Thanks again!

Hello???? Why are the trains so empty today?? Rise and shine it’s time to work. Another day another dollar 😞. At least I got a seat today

A car was very close to changing lanes into me which made me brake really hard and try my best steer out of the way. The car maintained speed in front of me and the guy started to throw up hand motions. It was night and I couldn’t see them properly so I thought he was flipping me off. He slowed down and changed lanes so we could go side by side and he apologized 😭. I can’t believe a driver actually apologized to me and owned their mistake. Is the world healing?

I’m about 1 year into my first job as an MEP engineer at a mid-size architecture/engineering firm (~100 people). MEP team has 12 engineers. The firm focuses on retrofits, no new construction.

What I do day-to-day:
- Writing reports, evaluations, and feasibility studies
- LL87 energy audits
- Site visits (will soon be doing some solo during construction)
- I’m also partially on a different team doing building-wide surveys, due diligence surveys, and capital reserve studies
- Occasional minor AutoCAD tasks

All of this is done with the oversight of a senior engineer.

Here’s my issue: I have received virtually zero design experience. Barely any calculations, no real system sizing, no equipment selection, nothing deeply technical. The times I have done “design” I was just a glorified drafter.

We use AutoCAD LT (not Revit or AutoCAD MEP), and I’m honestly not even sure the firm has proper software for load calculations or anything like that.
I recently attended a technical training session and it hit me how much I’m not applying any of that knowledge at work. I’ve raised this with senior engineers and my manager and they acknowledged it, but said design work doesn’t come in steadily. When it does come, it comes fast and there’s no time to train someone on it.

I understand that, but it’s making me wonder if this is just how some firms operate, or if I’m genuinely being underutilized and falling behind where I should be at this stage.

I know the report writing and experience I mentioned isn’t worthless but I feel like I’m missing important design experience.

Is this normal for a junior MEP engineer? I’m tired of just waiting around being promised work and never receiving. Some days I spend literally 0 hours doing billable work. And I feel like if I try to find another job they will expect me to know basic things like CAD and some aspects of design.

I’m 23M and graduated a year ago. Since then I realized it’s wayyy harder to make friends out of college.

All of my friendships have died off and now my life is basically work, gym, eat, sleep. I’m literally craving social connection with people, aside from those short interactions I have on a daily basis😭.

For those of you who have built a social circle out of school, how did you do it? Everyone says “put yourself out there” but what did that entail for you?