would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
(OP)
i know i would. i find engineering one of the most unstable jobs. i work for EPC companies and they always mass hire and mass lay off.





RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
But, I would ask you how your job at Lehman Brothers is working out.
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
There's always going to be a need for engineers, but with India/China pumping out exponentially more of us it thins the available jobs out.
I love what I do, and would encourage my future kids to do what makes them happy first, and for money second.
James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Unless you're a specialist, you are not only a commodity, but also slaving away much more so than as an engineer.
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
We thought our son was going to be a doctor, but he is now in college to be an engineer. He has the brains for it. I encourage him to move on and guide him.
Some people go into eng and are not good at it. I believe these are the people that have the less stable jobs.
Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I don't know how many of my kids friends were PUSHED into fields of study that they weren't interested in and had no particular aptitude for. Most of this parental interference was because of the parent's perception of what the job market was going to look like in 4-5 years. When will we parents realize that the past is not a good predictor of future job markets? Probably never.
I think the best thing a parent can do is help a child understand their range of options (defined by ability and interest), and let them go towards it. On the other hand there is no need to be stupid. I have a friend who's daughter wanted to go to UCLA to "study" General Business and he paid out-of-state tuition for 4 years and now she can't find a job with a crap degree from a good school and a mediocre GPA.
I told my boys that if they wanted to go to some "special" school they had to show me a unique aptitude that could only be fulfilled at a particular school (I would have sprung for Julliard for a major musical talent, but not MIT for an Engineering degree since the MIT undergraduate Engineering program is just not THAT much better than New Mexico Tech to be worth the price differential).
I know this has rambled, but I really wanted to point out that our children rarely go in the direction we wish they'd go. We should be happy if they're interesting to talk to and not a burden on society.
David
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I think that you can be miserable in any job, and you can get laid off in any job.I agree with Dave that our children need to be doing what gets them out of bed in the morning and ready to go to work. Anything less really is work...
I'd question where the statistics are for salaries are coming from. Lawyers need to go to law school, which is not exactly cheap, and the median salaries are not that spectacular http:/
Yeah, sure, ALL of OUR kids are above average...
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I will have to see a true desire in my kids for me to put out money for college. I measure that desire by how much they have planned, executed, earned and saved towards that education. I have made this crystal clear to them.
I paid 100% of my way through college by earning grants, working hard, living frugally, and saving. There was no school loan. My wife did the same thing. A couch potatoe, Gameboy playing, lazy kid who has not done their homework to prepare for college will set off my bullshit detector big time and will not get a penny.
Good luck,
Latexman
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
It gives them an idea what dad/mom does for a living.
Filed trips to companies show a little, but they don't show the everyday BS that we see.
This could help them determine what they want as a profession.
Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
The only thing I will repeat from that discussion is that asking this question about "engineering" is meaningless, as the answer will vary tremendously from field to field.
Hg
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Regards
Pat
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
They should do what they like . . the witness to this is the number of people who get a degree in a field and then find themselves doing something else because their first choice didn't suit them.
An older engineer I knew used to say we send kids to college to make a living when we should really be sending them to college to get an education.
My education started after college in the Army, and it was a good one.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
My wife is a paralegal and I know some of the attorneys she works with quite well. The starting salary for an attorney is very comarable to that of an engineer. I have been working as a structural EIT for three years, one of the attorneys has passed his bar exam and has a total of 3 years experience. I am making about 2% more than him. The difference is the pay rate with 20 or 30 years experience, I do not look foward to discussing salary at that point in time.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Ctoper,
I like your bring your son/daughter to work days but what does someone like me do as a kid both of my parents did not have professional jobs and we did not attend church or any other organization where I could meet working professionals; so I did not know any professionals because we were very poor. We lived in a bad neighborhood where no professionals lived and kids from my school who had professional parents did not want to be around the poor kids. Therefore us poor kids stuck together and most of them never got an education and are working non professional jobs today. In face I am the only person from my neighborhood who went to college.
I therefore decided on engineering based on what I had the aptitude for. So I went down this road blind because that was all I really could do. Now I really do not like engineering. I am not sure I would discourage my kids from choosing engineering as a profession. My wife is also an engineer and loves her job. So I really think your personality needs to fit. I am a big thinker who like to think big picture. My wife can get lost in the details and does not mind not knowing why she has to do something a certain way, she just does it the best she can. I want to know the process and make sure it is running the best possible. Not a good thing for a young (4 years out of school) engineer.
SW 2007 SP 5.0
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I would never push him into anything, but maybe suggest career paths that I think might interest him depending on what he likes/dislikes during high school.
I still think engineering, for the most part, is a stable career, and this from an automotive engineer in MI ;) Although, I do think some fields are much better than others. I would help him weigh the time/money spent in school vs. future potential/happiness etc.
Personally, I am not a big believer in the do what makes you happy, as I would be unhappy when I got home because I would have half the fun money, but I hope my son can have the best of both worlds and be happy, and make money. Don't get me wrong though, I do need to feel a sense of accomplishment in my job, have challenges, and be a part of something ;) Maybe what I ma trying to say is, I don't need to be happy, just not unhappy.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I don't think you will have to wait 20-30 years before you will see that 2% vaporize.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
For salary, compared to the other four year degrees, engineering has the highest start salaries and if you strive for it, you can get into the top 10% of the experienced salary range which gets into the six figures. I know this is true, because I am just a hair from it because I specialize, however, like I said in another post, I am now trying to ride out and doge lay off.
For the kids who are on that doctor and Lawyer track and find out that they don't like it or just could not convert to medical and law school and end up just with a bachelors in bio and political sci, they would be making less than engineers.
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I too believe the "do what makes you happy" can be taken the wrong way or applied incorrectly. Fundamentally (unless you inherited a bunch of money or are willing to sponge off society etc.) you work to earn a living. Now once you've reached a pay scale you can live on, then fine, making sure it's something you like is only logical.
However, taking a career you theoretically enjoy, but can't get by on the pay so that worries about that make you less happy, is just stupid.
Don't get me wrong, many of us could probably get by and be happy in the right job on less than we realize. I'm not saying be a complete wage slave if you can help it. However, either end of the extreme, be it working a job you hate just for the money even though you could live on less, or a job you supposedly love but with pay so low that worries about where your next meal will come from make you miserable, doesn't make sense to me.
HgTX, thanks for the link, I was going to try and find that.
The only careers I might discourage my kids from are ones I think they'd be completely miserable in/bad at, or that wouldn't pay enough/have good ROI on the college degree. Even then, I'd try to do it in a way that they discovered this by themselves rather than somehow coercing them.
Not sure how much we'll help our kids financially. My wife completely funded her self in the US, so kind of thinks they can do the same though she's hoping they'll do some prerequisites in the local community college so we can at least provide board & lodging. I did it in the UK so the government subsidized it (even a small grant that almost paid my rent - I was too young for the good old days when you could live off what they gave) and my parents helped a little (food money more or less) and my other costs were covered by government loans and summer jobs, so I'm a bit more inclined to help them a bit. However, I'm not sure I'd pay for out of state basket weaving or something.
KENAT,
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Some companies will allow kids from areas like where you gre up. Just have to ask.
Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I know that now but had no idea then. When I was in college I worked at the university and next door to me was the office of recruitment and retention. They went to underprivileged schools to talk about engineering and related fields. Which is great. I am sure programs like that will help future generations.
Kenat,
I think you are correct that maybe people like engineering but do not like the position they are in. That is my theory, I think I would like engineering, I liked engineering school, and have liked some parts of every job that I have been at, but currently hate what I do every day. But 4 jobs in 4 years (I have been at my current place 2 years) have made me scarred to try and leave especially with the economy. No matter what, unless I get laid off, I will make it here one more year. Maybe then I can see if my wife will give me permission to start looking again.
SW 2007 SP 5.0
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
A ruling is about to be published from a United States Court of Appeals that prevents the limitation of liability for engineers. Liability can be limited by a corporation, but the personal liability of an engineer cannot be limited.
The attorney who told me about this agreed that it was a bit "a$$ backwards"....he was one of the attorneys in the appeals case, so he knows about the ruling first hand. Apparently the major engineering societies tried unsuccessfully to block this.
This is going to make getting professional liability insurance more difficult, it's going to increase the cost of engineering services and it's going to weed out some engineers (that's maybe a good thing!).
I will try to get a copy of the ruling when it gets published, and post it to the forum.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
It sounds like the ruling is simply reinforcing the position that the State Boards have always taken. The way I read the enabling legislation in the two states where I'm licensed, the regulations already remove business-entity protection from a PE. I don't see the court's opinion as changing individual liability, merely reinforcing the Board position. I don't see how that case will change insurance rates, but it seems that everything always does and the change is always upwards.
David
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Yes, many states have severed the individual from corporate protection (mine, too!). I believe this ruling makes it more difficult to use a limitation of liability clause in a contract, which is one of the clauses most insurors insist upon. Many states have also limited indemnification clauses.
It seems that the courts are eroding our ability to enter into reasonable and fair contracts. It's a similar tort reform issue that Doctors have faced in their malpractice insurance cases. Fortunately, we do have specific contracts for most of our work, which is different than the implied contracts of the medical profession.
As for raising the insurance rates....all it takes is an excuse, and this probably gives them one.
Ron
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
But the good ones bounce back. The ones always being let go every few years are usually not very good. Engineering attracts many people, some who do not really have enough talent to be an engineer. Add to this that there are many companies willing to hire them because they work for less. A good engineer has the natural ability towards engineering work to start with. They may have occasional layoffs, but they get hired quickly.
Do not be afraid of any profession. The lawyer field is flooded, as is engineering, medical, veterinary medicine, accounting, investment/finance. Many finance jobs are being outsourced. One should choose a field because they have the aptitude, not because it is lucrative. Engr is very appealing to many. But, not all of them really have the talent to do it.
It's all about talent. Your kid should major in what he/she is good at. BR.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
http://www
-Christine
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
By the way. If you'll post an eng-tips link like thread731-196487: Would You Encourage Your Kids to become Engineers? instead of the url people can navigate to your reference without opening a new browser window.
David
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
In the legal and medical profession, although they have their own issues, most seem to be able to stay put.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I second that. I'm expecting my 8th reloction soon in my 30 year career when the second owner of my original company sells the business I'm in.
Good luck,
Latexman
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I am a 3rd generation Civil (Structural) Engineer and have been listening to ways to improve the profession since slightly beyond the age of reason. Dad and Grandpa built roads and bridges. Two uncles taught engineering at the local university. I was not pressured into being an engineer - but it was a readily available example.
Through 7 jobs and 6 moves my experience echoes much of what I read above. Although I used to love my job, it has become more of a chore as we have truly become a commodity. Purchasing Agents with liberal arts degrees and more initials after their names than we have buy us like widgets and position us to undercut our competitors.
Companies bring in foreign workers under the phony BS that there are shortages of qualified people here. All of these things work to keep our wages down.
ASCE is pushing their agenda of 30+ credits beyond the BS (degree) to qualify for the PE. Funny I remember family discussions about limiting enrollments, like medical schools, to imporve the wages of 1960 era engineers, and I doubt that anything has improved.
My only consolation is that one son went into computers and the other is studying to be a Physicist. He has not yet decided on teaching or research, but my suggestion is work on making golf balls fly straighter and farther and he would probably make more money and have more fun.
Now that the job is printed and out the door it's back to reduced hours and nothing constructive to do.
GJC
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Neither is something to base your long-term future actions upon. In the height of the boom times, there were calls to become investment bankers, and now we know how that turned out, generating armies of laid off financial workers. People with short memories have forgotten that after the Vietnam War, the recession was particularly bad for technical people, to the point where PhDs were driving cabs to make a living.
And, again, we're in a grass is greener mode, thinking that doctors are not commodities. Really? The most common job in medicine is Family Practice, wherein if you can't manage to see a minimum of 4 patients an hour, you're a slacker. And if you don't keep up your quota, you will get fired. Does this really sound like a cush job? And so they get maybe $130K in LA, but they work their tails off to do that. My wife is easily putting in 60-hr weeks to do that, which means she's really only getting the equivalent of about $87K per year of normal hours.
And yes, there are doctors that make a lot more, but, for a surgeon, you have to go through a 7-year residency and a 2-year fellowship before you can get those big bucks. And, you can only do that for a limited time, until your eyesight and manual dexterity give out.
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I advised my daughter to go education; long vacations, etc. She went engineering because the eng students in first year science courses weren't any smarter than her. She did well; never made less than me after grad. Reached six figures very quickly.
I always encourage the med field. We need more doctors and nurses and less lawyers. [My in-laws include more than a few lawyers.]
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
The key question is if the engineering is unstable for jobs, what do you consider a stable field?
Be it engineering, sports, medicine,law or hair dressing, you need to be good at what you do. Otherwise any field you go into would feel unstable!
Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
In a word, yes.
Engineers are not given a level or respect by society that is even remotely commensurate with their contribution to it. Anyone who chooses engineering as a profession is condemned to a career life time full of disillusionment over how poorly engineers are regarded by their clients, by their employers and by the public at large.
If you want stable work, find a position in corporate accounting. (Always 100% busy and 0% billable.)
That said, there is a certain magic in being able to make reasonably good money by solving equations and drawing pictures that turn into devices that work and do wonderful things. The "science" of engineering is very rewarding in that regard.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Engineering is very rewarding. I've done fine and enjoy it immensely, I just see a societal shift that is not going to be kind to the engineering profession. As IRstuff noted, it is similar in other professions.
I left the larger corporate engineering world for a small consulting practice (my own) and I'm glad I did. I enjoy respect from my clients and colleagues....there's not much more that one could ask. In the larger corporate structure, technical decisions were increasingly being forced to bend to financial dictates. I could get on a tall soap box about how that isn't right and there's no place for it in the engineering profession. Even many state laws require that that you stick with a problem to solution in spite of profit. Our ethics support that.
Yes, I recognize the need to make a profit in a business. The two perspectives are not mutually exclusive. I prove that every day.
As much as I support anything my children want to pursue, I have an obligation as a parent to give them the reality of the profession as I see it. I'm not directing them from an unlearned, external personal opinion. I've held local, state, and national positions in engineering societies and have over 30 years of experience. I have seen our profession decline first hand.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Doctors have become little more than overworked pill pushers, "What do you mean I need to change my lifestyle, just give me a pill or something."
Teachers, who used to garner great respect are now regarded as impediments to our children's education, or as potential pedophiles. Ditto, priests.
Society, particularly since Watergate, have become quite cynical, and no longer views any of the traditional societal icons with much admiration, or respects.
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I can't argue that. There is too much truth in it.
However, I do believe that other professions do a better job of marketing their value and what they do. Even civil suit lawyers are advertising their wholesome goodness on TV with such ads as:
"I'm Jim S------. Call me at 1-800-CALL-JIM. When doctors make mistakes, I make them pay."
(Hey, fair ball...it's in the public domain.)
It's a tad (?) cheesy, but at least they are appealing to the public that lawyers are "on your side" and are "a good thing".
I belive engineers could - and should - do better than that. We need more things like "Frontiers Of Construction" on Discovery Channel, so that people can get a better understanding of what we do and what we face and what we accomplish.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Your quote " . . . you need to be good at what you do. Otherwise any field you go into would feel unstable!"
strikes me as very naive. Somewhat surprising given that your record indicates 20+ years of experience.
The fact that I am a good engineer and good at reading people and situations has enabled me to survive all too many years in this profession.
I watched a 33 man structural engineering department be reduced to 6 people in the early '80's recession; at 33 years old I was the youngest person left; I ran prints on Thursday and was given Friday's off for well over a year.
I was present when a US industrial design/build consultant was purchased by a foreign competitor and the duplicate North American offices were systematically shut down, including the one I worked in.
I was forced out of a US Fortune 500 manufacturer that was purchased by a foreign firm that did not keep an in-house engineering department back home and saw no point in doing so here. They proceeded to pay more for "outside" engineering several of the years immediately thereafter.
This is not a cry for sympathy. I was never laid off even though a couple of times it was inevitable if I did not make the moves that I did.
But it did mean that most times I was not able to be fully vested. I did get 4 partially vested plans that in conjunction with that at my present job will have to be enough. When compared to the pension plans that my Civil Engineering ancestors recieved my retirement will need to be delayed and will be far less secure.
So maybe I sound jaded, but I prefer to think that I am being pragmatic.
GJC
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
There should be no debate that the more competent and valuable a employee you become, the less likely it will be that you get canned.
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
An engineer making 60k a year and billing at $100 per hour with a utilization 75% is perceived to be much more valuable at the corporate level than an experienced engineer making $100k per year and billing at $160 per hour, but is only 50% utilized. Young engineers do not develop clients, unless exceptional. Older engineers develop and maintain clients because of the confidence they give and the experience they bring to the issues. That is less quantifiable than billable time.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Or, you may wind up at a company that takes its engineering seriously, and will only slough off the least valuable employee, in which case, your competence will have a direct bearing on your longevity at the company.
Given that you do not know, apriori, which company, or companies, you'll work for over the course of your career, isn't it prudent, then, for you to be as valuable as possible, to minimize the probability of getting sacked? 50% probability of getting a layoff notice has got to be better than 100% probability of getting a layoff notice, no?
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
But No's. 26, & 27 weren't incompetent - they were just unlucky. The final cuts came down to splitting hairs as to respective +'s / -'s. Having kept in touch over the years, one is a VP of a company in the Twin Cities and the other has had a successful career with a manufacturing company for 20+ years (his 2nd position after the layoffs).
[And actually, only a handful of the first layoffs
were incompetent.]
Not that if I had been cut loose I would be a VP (never wnated to be management), but after the initial shock (and we 3 all had young kids about the same ages) they got on with their careers about 3 years before the office was closed in the first take-over I mentioned above. I got out on with my career when the handwriting was on the wall.
GJC
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
We just laid off 4 people in our group, and the rationale was based on competence, and overall value to the company. So, for every example you may have of capricious layoffs, there is probably and example of an agonizingly thought out one.
But, I was merely affirming, "you need to be good at what you do." The bottom line is still, that if you are not good at what you do, you will most likely get the ax sooner, rather than later.
Obviously, I can just as easily come up with examples where it made a difference, and examples where it didn't. So, it boils down to whether anyone can rationally argue that you should go through your career NOT being good at what you do. Regardless of what examples there may be, or may not be, is there any advantage to being incompetent?
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Engineering will always be a good gig for a few talented, passionate people. It ideally suits my personal interests and aptitudes. But for most, engineering education is a slightly souped-up science education masquerading as training for a real profession.
With only ~30% of Canadian engineering graduates working in anything related to engineering per the 2006 census, it would appear that the Canadian labour marketplace agrees with me. There is no generalized shortage of engineers, nor any dire need to recruit people into our "profession"- in fact, quite the opposite is true. Engineering has become the new liberal arts education- pretty much useless in and of itself, but providing training in logical analysis, problem solving etc. that businesses desire in young grads. That makes me very sad.
Engineering would be a far better career choice if we STOPPED recruiting, and educated only a number reasonably matched to what our labour force actually needs. Based on my observation of engineers' need for validation and a sense of self-importance, this is extremely unlikely to happen, ever. We're like the mutated scientists in the Far Side cartoon, offering a hit from the flask to the only normal guy left in the lab.
The observations about the "grass is greener" issues in other professions are of course true too. Our parents' admonition to "get an education so you can get a "real" job" appears to have been very popular! All I can say is that my high school colleagues who studied optometry took exactly the same amount of time in school to obtain their degrees as I did to get my co-op MASc, and to start they were making TWICE as much money- as associates, with no overhead to worry about. Anything even RELATED to medicine in Canada has a 99+% employment rate two years after graduation, while engineering grads have typically a lower employment rate after 2 years than the average Bachelors' level graduate- the average of ALL grads, including such stellar job performers as fine arts, journalism etc.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
GJC
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
OR as IRstuff says maybe it's more widespread, other 'professions' also at least claim that they aren't the career they used to be. I've heard stories about how many Doctors struggle to make a go of it due to high insurance premiums, insurance paperwork, some fields being paid less by insurance... I've heard stories about new law grads unable to find jobs because there is an over supply. I've also heard more recently of all the financial folks that are struggling and of course real estate agents with the house price bust.
To some extend this is slightly off topic, but does seem to be one of the most common reasons for people to discourage engineering.
With the current economy, and the cut backs in at least some areas of government spending, there are less and less careers that look fantastic in the short term. Long term, who knows, we can guess, try and spot trends and probably some of us will be right, but we can't be sure.
At the end of the day, you pays your penny you takes your pick. If the world around you changes, you either change as best you can to suit it, or you fall by the wayside. Darwin would approve.
I love that quote mtu1972. My wife calls me an Oompa Loompa because of the other part of that quote. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owk-zZt1y04
KENAT,
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I don't think the perception of low self-worth / low career-worth is more prevalent in Civil / Structural than in other disciplines. Mechanical sees it all the time, too. Typically, it starts with Clients saying, "There is so much fat in the design codes you don't need to look at the stress (here) or (there)."
Those kinds of comments come after a century of designing things that don't blow up or fall down; ergo, we must be doing things too conservatively and costing way too much money.
Personally, I like pressure vessels, buildings and bridges that don't move, and would like to think that most people would spend a little more to get them.
But, sadly, no...
As for my typical rebuttal to such Clients, it is often in the form of:
[BackSpace] [BackSpace] [BackSpace]
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
I never doubted your ability. What I stated is based on my experience and still stand by it. Getting laid off in one company is not a negative reflection on the employee personally. It has more to do with the business conditions or the company's. That is where being above average helps. There is always a need for good professionals. The world has not come to a stop because of the current environment in the USA. They may be a bit difficult but not insurmountable.
You could have been laid off even you were a doctor or lawyer or even a sportsman if the "business" was not doing well.
Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Maybe I should have said non-exempt instead but I'm sure I'd have still offended someone.
KENAT,
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What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Cabraham has it right, "there is always room at the top", if you excel at what you do, you will always have a place. This isn't to say that if you are great at what you do you won't be laid off, canned for political or some other trivial reason or underappreciated, but it does mean you will have the talent to move on to bigger and better things (where as if you are incompetent, it could be back to the labour pool.)
Is engineering a declining profession that doesn't get any respect? Absolutely. But do we deserve respect just for being engineers? Absolutely not, respect is something that should be earned, not given with a title, unless the gaining of that title is and of itself a proving ground and more and more professions are abandoning the education as a proving ground. The Engineering program was tougher than the sciences or arts, but it wasn't like we were going through Harvard Med. I breezed through, as did most of my classmates, some of whom could not think their way out of a phone booth if they had a map. I recently had a conversation with a masters grad in electrical engineering who spent 10 min. trying to explain to me what a FAN was (YUP, the ones that go round-and-round), either he is a moron, or thinks I am a moron, but either way not the most respect inspiring conversation. The Universities are falling to the lowest common denominator accepting, and pushing through, anyone with the tuition and a slight aptitude for math and the whole profession is suffering from it. If we want respect, just for being engineers, then we need to make the program a mandatory masters, (6 years should do) followed by a mandatory internship (much like doctors) and crank up the difficulty and expectations. I know the associations make an attempt at it, but they need to get tougher and start making cuts.
As far as where your kids should go, for 99% of the population work is work (if it was fun, you would volunteer; ), but you should still do what you love. In the absence of loving anything use the algorithm of life selector. Make a list of all the jobs you would be good at, rate them for how much you think you would enjoy them, disregard anything below a 7, and then pick the one that affords you the lifestyle you want (Engineers make more money, but teachers get 2 months off in the summer, plus Christmas and spring break... tough call for me). Then if you find you picked wrong, never be afraid to abandon ship and try again.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Keith1029:
Well said.
The bottom line is that you cannot always blame other or other things for your status. May be temporarily. How you handle the situation is what makes the difference. How you emerge from difficult situation is solely dependent on you and your skills. Luck always plays a part but you cannot count on it.
I do not believe engineering is so unstable that I will pull my kids away from it, because there is no profession that guarantees stability. If you alone happens to be out of work, the rest of world's stability does not matter. Likewise a few people's bad luck does not make the whole profession unworthy.
In fact the grass appears greener on other sides because we are not aware of the causalities in those fields. Only thing we see are the successful people!
Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
When I got my degree, it was just after the massive defense recession of the early 70's; the next youngest engineer at most defense companies was in their early 30's. So massive numbers of engineers bailed out of the defense industry. Yet, it's proven to be remarkably stable in the last 30 yrs, despite party changes and whatnot. But, regardless, I wouldn't claim that it'll remain stable, either.
TTFN
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Forget about that. Forget about what you think it should be or was. How is it compared to other fields as they are now (and not how they're hyped up to be)?
As others have said, it's not like other professions are ideal either. Some years ago, my family was giving me crap because the neighbor kid, a decade my junior, had gotten a six-figure finance job and here I was at my dinky government job. Where was that kid working? Lehmann Brothers.
Besides, even if the finance sector had not gone through its current woes, does the fact that the neighbor kid was pulling $$$K mean that I chose the wrong field? Hell no. I would be dead of boredom before I ever finished my finance degree, let alone obtained the cushy job that I would also find dreadful.
Medicine? Not for the squeamish. And the education process is long and brutal. Law? Thought about it. But it's not all Armani suits and three-martini lunches. The real high-dollar jobs require almost as full-time a commitment as the priesthood, and the "noble" side of law pays very little. So for all of you who are dismissing engineering as a whole, I repeat what others have asked--what are these mythical jobs that are so much better and are so much more a guarantee for success and respect?
Moltenmetal, you keep bringing up how only 1/3 of engineering graduates in Canada are working in engineering now. Did that study get into any of the reasons for that? You tend to use that statistic as if it meant that 2/3 of them wanted engineering jobs but couldn't find them. But for some people, engineering school, either by plan or by change of plan, turns into a stepping stone for something else. They go off, by choice, to med school or law school or they decide to teach high school or they get their MBA and get into project management or they decide to be stay-at-home parents or they go into their parents' retail business. How many philosophy majors are philosophizing after graduation? How many English majors are writing for a living?
Hg
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Most math majors used to wind up as programmers.
TTFN
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
One out of two ain't bad, but it's not great either.
I have yet to see any evidence that staying at uni produces better engineers. The Australian engineering industry certainly doesn't think that a higher degree is worth paying for, judging by starting salaries.
After all, if university teaches you to teach yourself (which I think is the main aim) then once you know that then hanging around waiting for the slow ones to catch on is not very productive.
Perhaps we ought to face facts and accept that the great engineers of the past operated in a different environment, where seeing the practical implications of an equation, even if they couldn't solve it exactly, was (and still is) a skill, largely negated now because now we can solve the equation numerically. I don't want to encourage hundreds of monkeys to type Shakespeare, but given spell checkers and so on even that job has got quicker, by several factors of infinity.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
When recommending engineering as a career to a young person, shouldn't this be the FIRST thing you mention? "If you survive the educational program and graduate, you will have about one chance in three of actually working in the field for which you were trained". Wouldn't that give you pause to recommend it as an educational choice?
By the way, the 1/3 includes engineering project managers, engineering managers etc.!
Forget about the philosophy, English lit or fine arts grads- how many law, medicine or architecture grads choose to go on to do something else? Some, certainly- I know a few myself- but is it anywhere nearly 2/3 of the graduating class? Surely this begs the question: what's wrong with working as an engineer in Canada, such that a majority of those educated to become engineers end up "choosing" something else?!
The last stats I saw for engineers in the US were far better, with a much higher fraction of engineering grads actually working as engineers. I've got plenty of supply-side data which I believe to explain that difference, but I suspect that we Canadians are just a bit ahead of the curve on this unfortunate trend.
Indeed I've observed years where a large fraction of the graduating class of even the best engineering schools in Canada CANNOT find engineering work- and not for lack of trying.
I'm not denying that some enter the program and persist to graduation despite having no intention of ever actually working as engineers- but a great many are denied entry to the profession due to pure oversupply. It's wishful thinking that the other 2/3 of eng grads are all medical researchers or patent lawyers, intent all along on using engineering as a mere stepping stone!
Quite a few grads do what good engineers are trained to do: once they graduate, they rationally examine the effort and risk to financial reward ratio of our profession and find it lacking, and go on to do something else- a job for which they're often recruited fresh out of school, rather than having to pound the pavement to find. Those lost to the profession early are usually lost to the profession permanently. Fast forward ten years, and suddenly there's a "shortage" of engineers with 10 years experience to handle some boom time in some industry or another, and the hue and cry of "shortage" is raised yet again.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Since employers are all pretty much the same, nuff said about getting respect there. Doctors are simply revenue machines to most medical systems.
As for public respect, that'll never happen, at least, not in the US. Getting a masters makes you an egghead, nuff said there as well. Watch a few episodes of Eureka on SyFy, and you get an idea of the stereotype of higher-educated technical people; basically, the "dumb" sheriff is the one that usually solves the problems created by the "geniuses." This is, and has been. the perception of higher education in the US since pretty much the beginning of the republic. A perusal of popular culture, in movies and cartoons, will likewise give that idea, Mr. Peabody's history, the bald, thick-glassed, labcoated scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. No, Independence Day, etc. The last one is of particular interest because the majority of the scientist are depicted as wild-eyed geeks, but one of the heroes is a genius who rejected academia to be a technician.
The reason doctors get respect is because they have direct, and immmediate, impact on people's lives. Since that can never happen to the average person with an engineer, that avenue can never be pursued.
The only engineering discipline that might come close to the level of respect that doctors get are probably prosthetics engineers, but even those are usually not in contact with the patients.
TTFN
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Perhaps most people should NOT be going to college. Everyone and their dog feels they deserve a college education so they can get the best jobs and have the easy life. Well... there's no reason a janitor should require a college education. Same goes for most jobs out there. Its why my friends who majored in RTF (Radio, Tele., Film), Physical Education, and everyone who went to the diploma Mills, are still jobless because there is no market for the degree they were peddled.
Then there are the people who do go for the engineering degree just because. All that happens is they end up diluting the rest of the population who have talent and enjoy the field (I apologize for being one of them... sorry!). There are too many people going to college, and not enough people entering the trades, or construction, or any kind of industry that actually builds something but has a hard days physical labor involved.
I hear it a lot from contractors that the trades are simply dying off, because the Vo-Tech schools aren't "hip" and all the high school grads are going to college.
Im not sure I am going to stay in the engineering profession. My game plan is to work as much as I can until I have enough money for a 50% down payment on a nice reasonably sized house, then bail on the industry and get a job with a reasonable stress / work week / expectations.
(my original post was 4 times longer so if it seems to jump around I apologize for that, just cut out the fluff.)
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
KENAT,
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What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Anyways, The main proponents for the continuation of education can all be found in the academic field, based on my observations and life experiences to date, but the entire education process is flawed to begin with. I use 8, maybe 10, classes in my daily actives at work. So much of what I learned was wasted. In fact, 8 is a fluffy number, because Im including Calc and Physics in that count, simply because I needed an understanding of what they cover and the theories behind it for the 2-3 classes I actually did use.
The education has become so broad, that you truly gain nothing from the time you spend there. You learn good work habits, responsibility, dead-lines, etc... but that's no excuse for gaining no useful knowledge after you leave College/University. The courses should be focused on a particular industry, and based on real jobs and projects. Engineers should be Marketable strait out of college. If college prepared students, we shouldn't have to hit the ground running... we should have been running already before we left. There is simply too much out there to learn everything about every single field of engineering. And so, classes get watered down and the purpose of education is lost and dissolved into nothing more then "an experience to teach you the life skills needed to work". Far to often I left a Class with a solid A(+), and still didn't feel like I knew anything about what I was taught or knew enough about it to do something with it.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
SW 2007 SP 5.0
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Some people when they start a degree aren't even sure what general course of engineering they want to follow, yet alone whate niche within that broader field.
KENAT,
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What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
However, if a lot of those people develop other interests along the way or entered to begin with "just because", then perhaps the shortage is real, because engineering schools lose 2/3 of their students upon graduation to other fields even though there are jobs available.
There's a difference between "although I would very much like to work as an engineer, I just don't see it as a sustainable future" and "there are other things I would rather do than work as an engineer". The former means there are too many engineering students. The latter means there may not be enough.
Hg
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RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
No worries. Never an offense taken here.
When I get tired of being treated like scum in my engineering career, I just take time off (like the past 2 months) to train and play with my dogs. Doesn't pay as much but it's way more fun.
My wife figured that out 30 years ago.
Regards,
SNORGY.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Well, for most us structural guys, that is a matter of what architects from which you can generate work. What does this mean?
Well, firstly, who you know and networking are all the more important. This is not something I expected when I chose engineering as a profession.
Secondly, it is not about how good of an engineer you are, it is about how good of an engineer the architects think you are. We all know that their views can be diametrically opposed to reality at times. This is frustrating because I hold my technical background to be of great importance, yet it is disheartening to realize that it doesn't hold the weight in your value as an engineer that it should.
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
However, the point about "it is not about how good of an engineer you are, it is about how good of an engineer the
architectsclient/management think you are" holds almost entirely true anywhere you have some kind of boss or client.Humans tend to be poor at being objective about our or others performance. If we like a guy that's an average performer, we may rank him as high or higher than a very high performer who's more difficult to get on with and similar. Obviously if someone's too difficult to work with that may be fair but generally I'd say that's the exception.
Some people take this too far to the point of brown nosing, others never accept the idea and suffer because of it. I assume there's a cheerful witch somewhere in between the 2 extremes but I'm not sure I've found it yet.
Anyway, this is going to be common to many professions/jobs, not just engineering. In fact, one might suppose this is more of an issue in other fields as Engineers tend to be slightly more objective than the average, or so I've heard claimed. So again, why is this a reason not to take engineering compared to other courses of study?
KENAT,
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What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp
However, I'm also going to encourage my child to pursue entrepreneurship too. Fortunately, engineering is one of the professions where the skill set allows one to make money in their sleep.
ht
For example, the guy who invented the SuperSoaker is a scientist/engineer that attributes the eureka moment to solving a problem at work. This is not uncommon in engineering. Ever since, that gentleman has made money in his sleep...to the tune of approximately 5% of $1 billion (i.e. $50,000,000).
http://e
Heart surgeons only makes money while he is actively performing surgery. The inventor of the pacemaker or stent makes money on every heart surgery. Lets not forget the new surgical robots...can you say doctor outsourcing.
http://i
Think of Dyson, Bill Gates, Hewlett-Packard, Ford, Dean Kamen, etc...they all come from a technical (science/math/engineering) background. Engineering provides a great foundation and skill set for creating "things" that can create money while you sleep, so long as you have entrepreneurship skills too.
Lastly, stop worrying about outsourcing. On a percentage basis, we (US) pumps out 2x as many engineers as China. Locally, there will always be technical problems to solve.
http
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
No one has a crystal ball, and can predict how anyone will succeed in any market or in any career at any point in time.
Do what you are interested in, and do your best. It works out how it works out.
Charlie
www.facsco.com
RE: would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college?
Some movie director once said (early period of cinema): "who the hell wants to hear actors talk".
Those were the days I guess. Boy, how times change.
Try to lead kids toward tomorrow's trend instead. Whatever that is.