Hands-On Electrical Engineering opportunities

[BreakerBreaker]

Which branches and specialties/rates would offer hands-on electrical engineering opportunities?

I've read here that quite a bit of engineering after commissioning is pretty hands-off, managing contracts and budgets more than design or engineering. Are there particular paths that would lead toward a career that is more hands-on engineering? Does it differ from branch to branch?

 

[kpmom2013]

Check out USMMA. You will have hands on engineering opportunities while on campus, during sea year, and everyday of your career on a merchant ship.

 

[OldRetSWO]

Check out USMMA. You will have hands on engineering opportunities while on campus, during sea year, and everyday of your career on a merchant ship.

The Engineering that is done at sea on a merchant is operating someone else's design. I teach a lot of engineering students in my day job and when they talk about an Engineering Job, it is designing and/or testing, not operating/running. Think of someone who wants to major in Automotive Engineering. In most cases they want to design and/or test cars (esp race cars) not drive them or work in a repair shop.

For the OP, in general, military officers are not going to be used as design engineers. They might end up in Program Offices that manage design projects but they are just not the folks that are going to be designing much "stuff".

 

[BreakerBreaker]

Thanks for the replies. This will be helpful for my son who is a HS junior this year and will be applying for ROTC scholarships this summer, but is trying to get a picture of what his course after college would look like so he knows where to apply now. He says he's pretty content with the idea of serving how and where he's needed, but would like to be closer to design engineering if possible. I'm kind of out of my area of expertise when I try to help him navigate because I am neither military nor an engineer. So, thanks again.

 

[USAFA10s]

The closest you'll get in the Air Force is probably as a 62E with a specialty in electrical engineering. That is the AFSC for a "developmental engineer" which falls in the acquisitions corp, and while it is possible to get an assignment that is pretty hands on (the research labs, some test units), it isn't guaranteed. I am an acquisitions officer (61D, physicist) but I actually spend about half my time coding/doing technical work myself. This is rare, but possible.

The key advantage of going the Air Force route, is that you can get some pretty cool experience under your belt right out of undergrad. The big disadvantage is that you will likely be a program/project manager of some kind in your first couple assignments. With a few exceptions, in most of those cases if you work at it, as a Lt - Capt (O-1 to O-3) you can probably also do some technical stuff, but there is no guarantee.