ABET's professional and technical societies are a great resource for learning about careers in the technical professions. Below, you'll find links to ABET Member Society websites, as well as to other websites where you can learn more about specific technical careers.
Aerospace
How to design and build artifacts that fly (airplanes, rockets, satellites, missiles, etc.), how to control them, and how fluids flow (how air flows around a car).
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Automation
Controlling and monitoring. Create and apply technology that controls and monitors the production of goods and services: save lives, prevent disease, reduce poverty, and protect our planet.
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Automotive
Mobility and the systems on which it depends: safety (air bag functionality), fuel economy, NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness), performance, aerodynamics, materials and durability, ergonomics, and many other aspects of vehicles in every shape, size, and purpose.
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Biological and Agricultural
Safe and plentiful food to eat, pure water to drink, clean fuel and energy sources, and a healthy environment – any process that is involved in producing agriculturally-based goods and managing our natural resources.
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Biomedical
Improve the quality of life through healthcare: medical instruments, devices, and software – everything from genetics to MRI machines, from artificial hearts to automated patient monitoring, and from lab design to sports rehabilitation equipment.
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Cartography and Geomatics
Determine how far a toxic spill will reach given wing and water currents; chart the path of a hurricane; assess a wetlands area's vulnerability; analyze the best location for a new cell phone tower; store and maintain data about global climate change – anything with a spatial component in air, land, or sea.
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Ceramics
Inorganic, non-metallic materials, as well as compounds formed between metallic and non-metallic materials, including glass, enamel, cement, and plaster. The glass face of an iPad, space shuttle tiles, fiber optics, cement for roads and bridges, anti-fogging windows for airplanes, and insulators for power lines.
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Chemical
Synthetic fuels, renewable energy sources, smaller and faster computer chips, reduced toxicity of pollutants, nano-scale medical drug delivery vehicles, less harmful fertilizers and pesticides, and the evolution of plastics, to name a few.
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Civil
Everything we build – bridges, roads, canals, dams, buildings, airports, marinas, railroads, bike paths – and all the systems and factors related to them: location, structure, soil, environment, materials, water, earthquakes, land erosion, flood defense, waste, utilities, and more.
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Computing
Computer hardware and software are used in almost every aspect of our lives: automobiles, video games, medical operating rooms, laptops, microwave ovens, music players, cell phones, televisions, DVD players, and supercomputers.
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Electrical and Electronics
Power, control systems, signal processing, and telecommunications – applied to anything requiring electricity, including cars, robots, cell phone systems, lighting and wiring in buildings, radars, and navigation systems. Some examples: global positioning systems that can pinpoint a car's location, giant generators that can power entire cities, or a new design for an airplane's electrical system.
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Environmental
Air pollution control, radiation protection, hazardous waste management, toxic materials control, water supply, wastewater management, storm water management, solid waste disposal, public health, and land management.
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Fire Protection
Protect people, property, and businesses from destructive fires. Design systems that control fires, alert people to danger, and provide means for escape. Evaluate buildings to identify risks of fires and the means to prevent them. Conduct fire safety research on consumer products and construction materials. Investigate fires to discover how fire spreads and to design better protective measures.
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Health Physics
Understand radiation hazards and their prevention and control.
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Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration
Indoor environmental control, ensuring comfortable and healthy indoor environments at home and work, in schools, hospitals, automobiles, and even space capsules.
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Industrial
Productivity and efficiency – figuring out how to do things better. Reduce and eliminate waste of time, money, materials, and energy. Some examples: shorten waiting lines for a rollercoaster ride, streamline an operating room, distribute products worldwide, and manufacture superior automobiles.
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Industrial Hygiene
Protect employee health and maintain a healthy environment for communities. Analyze and control environmental factors that might cause health and safety problems. Investigate potential hazards in workplaces, factories, and outdoors and find ways to protect against them.
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Information Science and Information Technology
Design systems that provide information for companies and the government. Combination of knowledge and practical, hands-on expertise to take care of both an organization's information technology infrastructure and the people who use it.
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Manufacturing
Design and improve products, high-tech tools, machinery (such as industrial robots), and advanced manufacturing processes for virtually all products that make life easier, better, safer, and more enjoyable.
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Materials
Develop materials used to create a range of products, from aircraft wings and hockey sticks, to artificial skin and golf clubs.
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Mechanical
Design and analyze engines, power plants, manufacturing plants, structures, vehicles, industrial equipment, transport systems, robotics, and much more – all things that require applying the principles of physics, materials science, production and use of heat, and mechanical power.
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Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration
Make use of the Earth, its processes, and its materials, to aid in the discovery of metals, minerals, and fuels; to identify geological conditions, hazards, and stability of mine sites; to remediate and reclaim mine and mill sites; and to process minerals for the production of both metallic and non-metallic materials. If it can't be grown, it must be mined.
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Naval Architecture and Marine
Enable and participate in the exploration, discovery, and use of our world's oceans and all they contain. Design, construction, and maintenance of ships, boats, and related equipment; the propulsion, steering, and other systems of ships; and oceanographic instruments and devices used to study the oceans and coasts, including underwater vehicles, satellite-links buoys and floats, and underwater video equipment.
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Nuclear
Harness the atom's power to benefit humankind. Develop designs for nuclear plants for electric power and ships; apply radiation in the diagnosis and treatment of disease; use radiation to produce and preserve food supplies; develop power plants to power satellites and deep space probes; and much more.
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Optics and Photonics
Study the behavior and properties of light and its interaction with matter. Design devices to perform a number of critical tasks that apply light – advanced communications, medical instruments, grocery store scanners, photocopy machines, cameras, space systems, computer monitors, LED readouts.
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Petroleum
Find ways to meet the demand for safe, affordable, clean energy. Design and supervise oil drilling operations, develop processes and equipment to optimize oil and gas production, help determine ideal oil recovery processes, estimate the number of oil wells that can be economically drilled, and simulate future performance using computer modeling.
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Safety
Protect workers, the general public, and the environment from injury and illness. Understand materials, structures, codes, and operations to find the best way to use resources to control hazards – those things which can lead to accidents, illness, fires, explosions, and more.
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Surveying
Map the world's terrain, explore new oil sources, investigate crime scenes — anything that requires measuring and analyzing angles and distances between physical features on land, under water, on a mountain, or in a city.
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Systems
Define, develop, operate, and maintain systems. Where other engineering disciplines concentrate on the details of individual aspects of a system (electronics, mechanics, ergonometrics, aerodynamics, software, etc.), systems engineering is concerned with the integration of all of these aspects into a coherent and effective system.
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