Find a Job You Really Want In
Sometimes one of the hardest things about being interested in engineering can be deciding exactly what kind of engineering you should specialize in.
After all, there are dozens and dozens of existing branches, and the number grows every day as new engineers continue to find unexplored areas of study. These divisions of engineering can split off based on a number of criteria, from material (such as petroleum or ceramics engineering) to function (such as sewage or traffic engineering), and can even break off based on their interaction with hard sciences like chemistry or nuclear energy.
Engineering also happens to be one of the most popular industries in America for people to look for work, so it makes sense that people all over the nation would be looking high and low for engineering careers in all of the currently known engineering branches and beyond.
But have you ever wondered if the states themselves had any particular job search preferences when it comes to engineering?
We certainly did. So we put together a map of some of the engineering disciplines that people search for jobs in more than any other, separated by each state.
Aerospace Engineering is remarkably popular in Tennessee, for example. People in Florida search for Marine Engineering jobs, which makes sense given the fact that Florida is one good melted iceberg away from being totally submerged.
The Square States and the Mojave Desert are almost totally absent from the map, while New York is the top searched state for fourteen different engineering branches. New Yorkers themselves are searching for Environmental Engineering, Oregonians for Control Engineering, and Louisianans search — perhaps unsurprisingly — for positions in the field of Petroleum Engineering.
People are looking for engineering jobs all over the nation, but the state with the most varied job search is New York — it was top state for no fewer than 14 different engineering disciplines, including transportation, broadcast, and financial engineering.
How We Figured This Out
Google offers a tool called Google Trends that lets you input a search term and see how popular that term is relative to other places.
For example, search for Applied Engineering and click on the map of the US to see that Texas searches for that term more than any other state.
So all we had to do was put a little over a hundred search queries into Google Trends to find which areas of engineering were searched more in, say, California than any other state. We used the last five years as the parameters for our search and, like magic, the map above was born. When we searched for each discipline, we also made sure to tack the word “jobs” onto as many searches as possible, though the word was left off for entries where little data was available.
We’ve listed the winner for each state below, along with a few other options that we didn’t go with. As we mentioned, New York was overwhelmingly the top state for different engineering disciplines, with Texas and California pulling in close behind. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few surprises to be found below.
Check it out:
- Surveying
- Ergonomics
California
- Biomolecular engineering
- Traffic engineering
- Engineering psychology
- Reliability engineering
- Metal Forming
- Nanoengineering
- Structural engineering
- Optical engineering
- Climate engineering
- Chemical engineering
Florida
- Marine engineering
- Electronic engineering
- Agricultural engineering
- Molecular engineering
- Building engineering
- Construction engineering
- Materials engineering
- Aeronautical engineering
- Acoustical engineering
- Mechanical engineering
- Architectural engineering
- Petroleum engineering
- Signal processing
- Neural engineering
- Geoengineering
- Performance engineering
- Welding
- Network engineering
- Automotive engineering
- Biochemical engineering
New York
- Environmental engineering
- Biological engineering
- Structural engineering
- Transportation engineering
- Broadcast engineering
- Computer engineering
- Financial engineering
- Value engineering
- Engineering management
- Security engineering
- Audio engineering
- Forensic engineering jobs
- Naval architecture
- Software engineering
- Control engineering
- Geotechnical engineering
- Biomechanical engineering
- Tissue engineering
- Genetic engineering
- Mechatronics
Tennessee
- Aerospace engineering
- Process engineering
- Systems engineering
- Nuclear engineering
Texas
- Applied engineering
- Astronautical engineering
- Urban engineering
- Cost engineering
- Fire protection engineering
- Engineering economics
- Safety engineering
- Metallurgical Engineering
- Ceramic Engineering
- Mining engineering
- Human genetic engineering
- Integrated engineering
- Civil engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Systems engineering
- Industrial engineering
What The Hell Are These?
Many of the engineering disciplines on this list are relatively well-known, but a few are a little bit obscure. Here’s a short primer for some of the more notable items:
Tissue engineering
Tissue engineering is focused on repairing and replacing tissues in the human body including materials like blood, bone, cartilage, skin, and muscle.
Signal processing
Signal processing is all about how to analyze and modify signals, which are usually defined as anything that conveys information, such as images or sound.
Engineering psychology
Engineering psychology is a branch of engineering that examines the way that humans interact with machines in order to streamline both the machines themselves as well as the manner in which they’re used.
Reliability engineering
Reliability engineering focuses on making products last for the long haul. The branch focuses on making products that are dependable, which is to say that you can be reasonably sure they’ll work as long you’re still within a predetermined period of time.
Mechatronics
Mechatronics is a portmanteau of the words “mechanics” and “electronics” — and originally, the combination of these two fields was all that the word denoted. Nowadays, given how sophisticated car technology has become, the field has grown to encompass other more technical aspects of mechanics as well.
Wrapping Up
That’s all for this one, but there’s more to see here at Zippia.
Are you looking for more articles like this one? Take a look at which anime movies and TV shows are the most popular in each state.
Or are you a young college grad on the job hunt? Find out how to ask someone you know for a reference.
Author
Ryan Morris was a writer for the Zippia Advice blog who tried to make the job process a little more entertaining for all those involved. He obtained his BA and Masters from Appalachian State University.
