Education for Marine Industry

I am a nineteen year old junior college student in the San Francisco Bay Area. I plan on transferring to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to obtain a BS in Industrial Technology. I am interested in pursuing a career in the Marine Industry, particularly working with power boats. Would having a BS in Industrial Technology be beneficial in the Marine Industry?

Along with attending school, I also race power boats with the American Power Boat Association. My hope is that I can combine my knowledge of power boat racing and my college education to make myself more marketable in the Marine Industry.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Mike Holmes

 

Powerboat design is becoming very technical. Powerboats have very sophisticated structures and are made of complicated materials - i.e. composites. The hydrodynamics are also complicated but are beginning to be approachable with computers running CFD, provided you have a good technical background. Note, for example that one very important paper on planing powerboats has the line

"applying the Biot-Savart law on the boundary and solving the resulting system of equations..."

You will beed a good engineering background to do other than styling. Plan on graduate school in engineering.

 

You do not need a masters in engineering!

There are plenty of industrial designers in the marine industry. Look towards the bigger companies (Glastron, Four Winns, Sea Ray) They typically hire from the same schools as the car companies. The biggest issue is that many industrial designers concentrate on product design (ie toasters, etc) and do not have enough experience in working on larger parts where more ergonomic issues can arise.
Work hard, graduate well and have a portfolio that shows a potential employer that you can integrate a complete design, not just a small part.
With an industrial design degree you will not design the running surface or engineer the structure but you can be a vital part of a (larger) boat building company

 

Actually, a number of yacht designers/naval architects have ME degrees from Cal Poly.

What is the difference between IT and engineering? Is it really worth the difference in pay and opportunities? You go to school once but work all your life. Putting out more now may well be worth it in the long run.