Mining Engineering

Mining and engineering have always gotten my attention. I have never known of the career of mining engineering. When I heard this, I knew I would be interested at once. One of the good things about mining engineering is that if the worker knows a foreign language, then they will have a chance to go across the sea to other countries to help the miners. I was disappointed with the fact that there are some bad things abut this job. One of them is that the worker may have to go to the mining site and it could be dark, musky, and possible cave-ins! I knew that this job would be difficult to get used to, but enjoyable after I got the hang of it.

I saw an entire category on what classes and majors to take and I was very happy. According to the Careers in Focus: Engineering, the classes very recommended by many mining engineering projects, are math and science (Ferguson 101-108). Also, the book states that a bachelors degree in engineering helps, but not as good as a masters in mining engineering. People have to get these in an accredited mining program to be noticed by many places, and to get a leg up on the competition. In all of my school subjects, math and science are my absolute favorites.

The number of hours that a mining engineer works surprised me. A usual week has the normal number of hours of forty hours per week (Ferguson 101-108). Sometimes, one has to work more than this number under stressful conditions.

The work environment is a very unstable place. The worker could be working at one location one week, and move across the country another week. One either works outside or just researches inside, but has to be flexible to the location (Ferguson 101-108). It would be as if I worked in a North Carolina office one week, and moved to a mine site in California the next. As a comparison, one usually works at the mining site more than just in an office.

There are many ways to climb up the top of this cooperate ladder. One must start out with in-house training and will gradually increase (Ferguson 101-108). After the beginning work, one will then learn as an apprentice, and help the mentor with the jobs. Then the apprentice will start working on his own and will become more independent on the mining engineering jobs. Once they get the hang of it, they will then start directing specific mining projects, head research projects, or even work as technical specialists on other jobs.