Resource Guide For Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Majors at Penn State

Prepared by: William DelGiorno English 202C February 7th, 2014 1

Table of Contents
Preface3 Contents/Scope of the Guide..3 Intended Audience..3 Assumptions of the Audience.3 Organization of the Guide..........4 Tips For Using the Guide...4 Mechanical Engineering Resources Within the Guide..5 Internet Resources..5 Penn States Mechanical Engineering Website..5 Career Cornerstone Center.6 Wolfram Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine.7 Career...8 Published Resources...9 CRCnetBASE9 Statistical Abstract of the United States...10 Catalog of U.S. Government Publications11 Journal of Engineering For Gas Turbines and Power12

Preface

Contents/Scope of the Guide

The Resource Guide For Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Majors at Penn State is a booklet of websites and published works that mechanical engineering majors at Penn State would find extremely helpful as an undergraduate. The material ranges from specific engineering tools only found at Penn State to online computing tools to help solve that math problem youve been stuck on for hours. Each resource, when utilized correctly, can make your time, as a mechanical engineering major, just that much easier.

Intended Audience
The material in this guide is specific to undergraduate mechanical engineering majors who attend Penn State. While all of the matter in this guide can be useful to all ME majors, this guide can be applied more for upperclassmen since some of the information discussed is beyond the knowledge of what underclassmen have been taught yet.

Assumptions of the Audience

As the writer of this guide, it is assumed that those reading this are either prospective mechanical engineering majors or current mechanical engineering majors at Penn State. Prospective students will not understand a lot in this guide but some resources are perfect for them because they thoroughly explain what being an ME major is all about. Also, since you are an ME major here at Penn State, you are assumed to be well educated and will utilize all of the resources to your own advantage.

Organization of the Guide

This guide is organized so that you can efficiently find exactly what you are looking for. A concise abstract is written for each resource, which gives a general, but information summary of what to be expecting on that resource. The Table of Contents lists every major heading in the guide and lists each of their page numbers for quickly identifying what you are looking for and getting to that page.

Tips for Using the Guide

-To get the best out of this guide, I suggest you know exactly what youre looking for. Look at the Table of Contents and try to find the heading that is most closely related with what you are trying to find. -Different sections are more helpful to others depending on your class here at Penn State. Upperclassmen will find everything useful on here. For underclassmen I highly suggest looking into all of the Internet sites because they have information about engineering at Penn State that everyone needs to know about and also information on careers.

Internet Resources
Penn States Mechanical Engineering Website
www.mne.psu.edu Abstract: This is a conjoined site for students whose majors are Mechanical Engineering or Nuclear Engineering at Penn State. This site has a wide palette of information that is extremely useful to engineers in these majors. Major uses for this site include advising information, a list of the curriculum, career services, undergraduate and graduate information, and much more. Even if you dont need information for yourself and just want to know what is going on around the school, this website comes in handy. Two topics on the top bar include research and news and events; both providing great articles about recent news in the ME department of Penn State and what types of research is happening on campus.

Tips for using this site: -The bar at the top brings you to the important parts of the site. Use this to navigate around and find your desired information -Utilize the Undergraduates tab on the top bar. This is where all information pertaining to undergraduate ME majors exists. On the left side of the screen, there will be a blue box that has all the necessary tools to help find what you need ranging from prospective student information all the way to clubs related to ME. -Lastly, take time to read the scrolling stories on the home page. Some of the stories are very interesting and its nice to see the things our school has accomplished!

Career Cornerstone Center

www.careercornerstone.org/mecheng/mecheng.htm Abstract: From this websites name you may think its strictly for careers, however there is a wide variety of useful knowledge on it. Even though mechanical engineering has a broad spectrum of principles, this website neatly presents and explains to you what the job is all about. It gives you solid information on all the different fields of the major such as fluid dynamics, heat transfer, robotics, etc. Whats even more useful is that it gives you all the necessary knowledge you need for the real world including ME job statistics, salaries, preparation for real life, and even interviews with actual mechanical engineers! Any information that needs to be known for ME majors can easily be found on this site.

Tips for using this site: -I suggest scrolling right to the red box towards the bottom of the site. All topics pertaining to the major will be highlighted in red. Just click on any of these to find more and more information. -I know when I began my college career I really had no idea what an ME major did outside of college. By clicking on Profiles of Mechanical Engineers you will discover dozens of interviews with real mechanical engineers. This information is highly valuable in that they explain to you exactly what they do and even tips for prospective mechanical engineers. -Lastly, you should check out the Day in the Life tab where general information can be found about what mechanical engineers do in the real world. This is very useful information in such a broad major.

Wolfram Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Abstract: This website is one of the most useful websites I have come across not only for ME majors but all engineering majors. The home screen is just a single search bar where you can type in any math problem you want solved or even anything you would like to learn more about including unit conversions, thermodynamics, chemistry, etc. As an ME major, math, physics, and engineering problems will be your main use out of this site. All you have to do is type in the exact problem given and hit enter and, depending on the problem, the answer will show. For example, if you type in derivative x^2 the answer of 2x will appear and even the graph of x^2 appears. Its very useful when you need to check if your math is correct on homework problems. Another major use is if you have a question that needs to be answered. You directly type your question into the search bar and subcategories will come up. Just click on exactly what youre looking for and all your questions will be answered.

Tips for using this site: -A highly useful tool is the Examples tab underneath the search bar. Click this for a wide range of topics that your question will most likely fall under. It provides helpful examples and information that can be used for almost every class. -Wolfram Alpha now offers Wolfram Alpha Pro. Although you must buy this program, there are many pros to it. I suggest using it for practice problems. In the Pro version, you can click on a topic that you want extra problems in and it will generate thousands of similar problems all with hints and step by step solutions that you can solve on your own.

eCareer
https://eng-psu-csm.symplicity.com/students/

Abstract: eCareer is a Penn State operated career website for all engineering majors. This site is extremely important if you are looking for a job, co-op, or internship. Basically, companies tell Penn State job positions that have opened within their company or new positions that they would like to hire students for. You can then upload your resume and cover letter, search for jobs that match your major, and all corresponding job opportunities will appear. Once you have found a job you like, you can simply hit apply and it automatically sends the company your resume without you having to do any work at all. It is convenient and saves you time because you dont have to search all over the Internet for jobs. Along with finding jobs, you can also find all information sessions and recruitment events that companies have on campus.

Tips for using this site: -The first thing I suggest is immediately using the Documents tab on the home screen and uploading your resume and cover. This will be the resume/cover letter all the companies will receive. -Next you want to click on the Jobs tab and enter ME as your major and your desired job (fulltime, internship, etc). This will bring you to all jobs that you are eligible for. -The Events tab should be utilized to find all information regarding companies doing on campus lectures and information sessions o get to know more about them.

Published Resources
CRCnetBASE
www.crcnetbase.com/action/showPublications?display=bySubject&category =40001644&collapse=40001644

Abstract: This website is an index to literatures related to the mechanical engineering field. In this field alone, there are 615 different articles all with pdf links of the proposed literature. The literatures are organized by alphabetical order so it is very easy to find what you are looking for. On the left side of the screen there is a list of many other related engineering fields which could be useful when looking for certain information that may not pertain specifically to mechanical engineering.

Tips for using this site: -I suggest coming to this site when looking for a specific topic in mechanical engineering such as the dynamics of mechanical systems, or vibration theory. Even though some of the pieces of work are advanced, they can still help you out. -Use the search bar to your advantage. Type in key words that you are looking for and the website takes care of the rest. There is a plethora of literature on this site, so use it all to your advantage!

Statistical Abstract of the United States

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical_abstract.html

Abstract: The Statistical Abstract of the United States is a summary of statistics of the social and economic occurrences of the United States for the specified year you are looking for. Even though, it has stopped publishing since 2012, it has a lot of useful information. To use the abstracts, you must select the year(s) you are interested in, and then select the department you want to learn about. For us ME majors, we are likely going to choose the Science and Technology department. In this you will be able to find all types of information including: government expenditures in science, civilian employment in the science field, occupational growths, engineers by demographics, doctorates awarded that year, etc. These examples are just a small percent of the other information that can be found here.

Tips for using this site: -If you are using this information for research, then I suggest it be the 2012 abstract. This is the most recent and would contain statistics that are more relatable to present day statistics if you are trying to get accurate information.

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Catalog Of U.S. Government Publications

http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo27456

The report below comes from the Catalog Of U.S. Government Publications and is shown as an example of what can be found on the catalog. The catalog is a site where all government publications are stored and are free to the public to use. It can be used to search for articles pertaining to mechanical engineers and these articles can be very specific. While this article is specifically about corrosion, any keyword can be searched and articles can be obtained in a matter of seconds.

Title:

Multiple Corrosion-Protection Systems for Reinforced Concrete Bridge Components Publisher: McLean, VA. : U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Research, Development and Technology, TurnerFairbank Highway Research Center, [2011] Abstract: By simply typing corrosion into the search bar on the catalog website, 802 articles were found relating in some way to corrosion. Although the report is lengthy, it provides plenty of information on experimental processes and the different ways to prevent corrosion on concrete bridge components. Corrosion causes bridge and building failures all the time and that is why it is important to analyze ways of protecting metallic members from corrosion. This report tells you step by step what they did in the experiment. From the actual experiment, to the test results, all the way to the analysis of the test results, everything about corrosion is included in this report. Tip for using this document: -Using the table of contents is key because this document is very long. Use the table to find the exact page to what you are looking for. -Utilize the list of figures page. Looking at pictures of corrosion helps to reiterate what is going on in the text and better your understanding.

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Journal of Engineering For Gas Turbines and Power

http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/journals.aspx

Abstract: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has a digital collection site which lists all of the journals related to ME majors. Each journal gets a new issue every month that provides all new publications that have been produced in that month or the previous month. You can even look at all the previous issues that were released. So if you wanted to see what was published in January of 2014 for gas turbines and power then that can be searched for directly on the site. To use this website correctly, you should know exactly what you are looking for. A lot of the material is extremely advanced, so searching for a broad term like hydrogen gas turbines is just going to give you a lot of useless results and what you are looking for will take forever to find. However, if you search for something like curved design of jet engine turbine blades then fewer articles will appear and it will be easier to find what you are searching for.

Tips for using this site: -The website is very organized so use this to your advantage. Everything has a date on it and lists the specific issue that article was published in. Use the background information of what your looking for (date published) and it will be easier to find the article. -I suggest getting on the email list for this site. A lot of the information may be meaningless to you but once in a while you get an article that is interesting and can help you later on in your profession.

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