I know there are quite a few ME's on here, Egaeus, etc etc. I'm graduate next semester with a B.S. in Information Technology. I'm not particularly happy with my degree. I wish I could have learned more.

I was thinking of pursuing a 2nd undergrad in Mechanical Engineering. I LOVE designing/building/wrenching on things.

I wanted some advice from ME's on the site as to what kind of career/job I could be looking at.

Other things to consider about me. I'll have a B.S. in IT and I have military training as an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers.

Thanks guys. 

You could team up with pastrami and make some high-tech love gadgets for women.

An,
that was good.

i was going to go with .... a Mechanical engineering company

well, if you buy it and it ain't electronic.... a mechanical eng had something to do with it.

All of my mech eng friends work either in Detroit (auto industry) or Seattle (Boeing).  And it's mainly CAT/CAM/CATIA type of work.  Remember, the grass always looks greener yada yada... 

I'd strongly suggest, if possible, finding a job in IT first and learning as much as you can, and maybe changing companies, growing your experience and expertise a little hopefully discovering what part of the industry you'd really like to be part of prior to doing a purely academic career change at this stage.

mech engineers also do building systems engineering, usually as consultants for architects.

I have been in automotive, industrial hydronics, material handling & storage, and now the tooling for plastic injection molding. The list could be endless. Options will depend on the industry in your area and if you are willing to relocate.

If you want to keep a job, do not get one in the auto industry....eventhough it is booming in my area., mostly from BMW and Michelin.

I have friends who are very happy at places like VW's ERL or BMW's Palo Alto design center.  Also have a buddy at Tesla Motors.  There are suppliers too, such as Honeywell Turbochargers or sports car tuners.  Or racecar teams, from Callaway to Cosworth.

Aerospace industry:  big companies like Boeing or Lockheed Martin all the way down to smaller startup-like firms such as SpaceX or Scaled Composites.  Also NASA, such Kennedy in Florida, JSC in Houston, or Jet Propulsion Lab in LA.

Computer design:  chip and case cooling, hard drive design and manufacturing, laptop hinges and latches, etc.

Manufacturing:  Pretty much any company with a factory, from food companies to cosmetics to light switches to backpacks to alarm clocks.  This includes quality control (how do you make sure that the machines stamp out GS gas tanks within some fraction of an inch, every time).

Sports.  Baseball bats, golf clubs, tennis rackets, athletic shoes, and more.

Design.  Companies like IDEO or even in-house design firms that figure out where to put the buttons in your car, how hard it should be to press them.  Designs of cell-phones, remote controls, computer interfaces, etc.

Finally, a lot of my friends go into non-engineering fields with it.  Consulting, investment banking, etc. 

Most of these fields have specific majors, like automotive engineering or aerospace engineering.  But mechanical engineering programs give you a broad enough background and enough choice in electives to pick whatever interests you.  That's why I chose it, at least.  Plenty of other MEs around here, especially those in college or fresh out, to chime in.  I'm probably forgetting lots.

I personally do a little bit of CS, EE, and ME in my job.  More and more ME's need to have computer skills to do their jobs, since there's so many sensors and circuits in most modern mechanical devices. 

To me there's too many options to decide, IMO.  To add a couple industries to Sanjay's list:

Utilities:  Working at a power plant usually to maintain or startup power plant equipment

Hydraulics:  Designing hydraulic systems... from hydraulic systems on machinery to water/steam and HVAC design

Quality:  Engineering for more efficiency and less scrap/errors/rework nevermind, Sanjay got that one

last I checked you can get a job with basically any company with a ME degree.

I'm in school for EE & every company I've come across has MEs employed as well.

Everything.... Raytheon, which specializes in radars, & other big government contractors employ mainly EEs, but need MEs do break their stuff & make it stronger. 

My uncle owns a company up here that specializes in millimeter wave applications (mainly EE stuff with TINY-ass circuits), but there is always a place for the ME in the company. MEs play a huge role in the actual design of the components, excluding the circuitry inside. They build the products to comply with the buyer's strict guidlines, including the military.

A classmate of mine works for another company up here that makes components for all the major cellphone companies. Again, a lot of circuits & mainly EE stuff, but all these companies also employ MEs to make their technology suitable for the real world.

My best friends father has a ME degree & worked for Stone & Webster for a long time, then eventually started his own company building Nuclear Power plants overseas. BIG money.

My sisters BF just graduated from Union College with a BS in ME & landed a job with Shaw (previously Stone & Webster) upgrading Coal plants in the country & slowly switching the US to Nuclear.

If IT is the direction you want to go then good luck! there is definitly a lot of interesting work in that field as well, but I wouldnt go as far as to count out the ME degree just yet. Do a little bit more research into what kind job you are thinking of getting when you finish college & take it from there.

ME is such a broad degree & you can do basically anything with it, from designing & building the space shuttle, to making designs for a fence company. Find your place in whatever degree you choose & you'll be MUCH happier with it.

I also have found that some of the best & most informative classes, that apply directly to jobs after college, are engineering ELECTIVES. Pick them wisely.

good luck

oops I read it wrong & thought you were thinking of switching from ME to IT....

I'd choose ME over IT any day, but that's just me.

I  would say go for it. The more you know about computers and networking the better. I do aerosol instrumentation design and the amount of programming and network stuff i use every day is ridicules. I wowed everyone I worked with when I installed a simple VNC server on one of our instruments and showed them the "remote" capability of it now, they then gave me a $500 bonus for doing. The more you know, the easier it is to get a job.

I'm a Mechanical Engineering student working in the natural gas transmission industry.  Excellent.  I'm currently hoping for a career with an automotive supercharger company, as I graduate in May.

Boo ya.

-Turd.