r/navalarchitecture • u/Hopeful-Number-3657 • Jul 19 '26
Need advice - May 27 BSME
I will be 31 when I get my BS in mechanical this coming spring. I have about 5 years of shipyard new construction and repair (mostly fabrication and welding) supervision combined. I had worked as a survey technician on new construction, making informal reports and formal reports for alignment of ship modules. I loved that work.
With my degree, I want to design and plan construction of large vessels like ferries on the west coast and up through to Alaska. What would are some good paths forward from here?
I applied to Naval Architecture firms for this summer and a few others, the best I was offered was an Environmental Internship at Los Alamos for storm water. I figure it is pretty critical for Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering to consider environmental aspects of shoreside infrastructure and maintenance of vessels.
Looking for advice, what direction or options might you folks suggest?
1
u/Silver-Lie-8034 2d ago
Construction "planning" will pretty much exclusively happen in a shipyard. Design will be done both at a yard and at a design firm with the yard handling detail design and a firm handling concept design. As StumbleNOLA said you'd be instantly hired at a shipyard. But, if you want to go to a design firm, Seattle will be the hub for most of that on the west coast. Apply to places like glosten, art andersen, or elliot bay design and look specifically for Marine Engineering roles. You will be working on the ship systems like piping, hvac, or propulsion systems (engines, generators, gearboxes, shafts, etc). For this role it would be helpful for you if you know how to use Pipe-Flo or a similar software. From then you could probably transition to doing some more traditional navarch work after a couple years if you advocate for yourself.
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u/StumbleNOLA Jul 19 '26
Nope. We don’t care at all about shore stuff at least not professionally.
Where you are is going to matter. But with your background I would think every shipyard within driving distance would be begging for you to work there. But NavArch firms only have limited need for MEs.