A $40,000 realization

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Disclaimer: I live in Canada, so College = Community College, and **** seems easier here.</p>

<p>I was a bright young highs cool student, like all university bound kids, who had a decently high high school percentage (we don't do GPA out of school) and who got admitted to every university I applied to. I ended up choosing University of Toronto for Electrical Engineering. For what reason, I do not know...</p>

<p>I enjoyed computers, was pretty good at physics and math, hated writing assignments although I was good at them, and had the perception that no other major will get you a job.</p>

<p>I went into my first year, nearly got on probation, but managed to pass by 0.4 of a percent, with a stellar 1.6 GPA. It was at that point that I should have sat down with my self, really done some soul searching, and made the realization that maybe engineering was not right for me. But I did not. I arrogantly accepted my "accomplishment" of barely passing, and made a "commitment" to do better the next semester. I went in, following my same old habits, and general lack of interest in the subject matter, did poorly again, dropped a course, failed another one, did summer school, and ended up with about a 1.8 for my first year. </p>

<p>At that point the doubts started to hit. At first I thought I was just suffering from the freshman 15 (15 percent drop in grades, but really it was more like 25) or that I just needed to adjust to University life. </p>

<p>I had the opportunity to switch, but of course I did not. I was still arrogant, and still convinced of my destiny to be an engineer. So I got a summer job working in IT, made some money, and went back for my second year. </p>

<p>The same story again, I said to my self "this year is gonna be different, this is the year I change". Long story short, same **** happens for 3 years straight.</p>

<p>Now I am in my 4th year, and just miserably failed 1 midterm, and barely passed another. I am among some of the most intelligent people in the field, who are bound to become star researchers and academics or at the very least very well paid employees of some gigantic world changing corporation.</p>

<p>Am I jealous, a little. Am I upset, very. Am I discouraged, all too much. Do I care...that is where I can't seem to get a straight answer. </p>

<p>My GPA sits at a 2.1, and I have been getting by for the last 3 years. I was too stupid to realize that I do not belong in this program, but after a few internships with some decent employers (UofT for one, and Department of National Defence), I became complacent. I said to my self I can get a job even with the ****tiest GPA in the world. </p>

<p>Here is the deal for all you future engineers. Make sure you really love what you study. And I mean really love it. You may hate that probability class, or that PDE's class, or that electronics class for you CE's. But the reality is, you have to be able to do well in the subject, even if you hate it and think its useless. </p>

<p>The fact of the matter is your education means ****. You will get high grades, and high paying jobs, but make sure you love those jobs. Make sure you are doing it for the right reasons and not for the pay cheques.</p>

<p>The sad reality is, you do need a high GPA to work for Google after you graduate. But even if you do not have it, you can slave away for a few years getting paid a little less, and work your way up. This will only happen if you care about what you are doing.</p>

<p>So the point of this is to answer all of you "should I go into engineering" people. Only go into it, if that is what you want to do. And the moment you say, "I hate this ****" about every single course you do...switch out. The earlier the better.</p>

2

<p>IMO, this is a good “heads up” post on a very important matter.</p>

<p>I think the OP is admitting that his poor academic record was a combination of “following my same old habits” along with the “general lack of interest in the subject matter” that he is warning about.</p>

<p>But I think it is a good, fair warning. Engineering may be one of those majors with a high likelihood of a pretty paycheck soon after graduation… but that is not reason enough to choose it. Nor to stick with it if you realize it is doing little or nothing to hold your interest once you are there.</p>

3

<p>I’m going to disagree. Let’s say we have a hypothetical HS student who really likes history and political science, but probably isn’t a strong enough student to get high grades and get into a decent law school or phD program. I think that his best option is slugging through an engineering program and getting a decent paying job or becoming a history teacher. There are practical bounds on how much a person can study something that they are really interested in.</p>

4

<p>I was yet another scenario. I like doing engineering and mathematics, but was more of a B- student doing undergrad. I do think it was more of HOW I studied, because my M.S. Engineering GPA was 3.8.</p>

<p>Then again, I had also worked in engineering before grad school so maybe that helped. The passion was there. The pay DOES factor in but not totally because over the years, I have turned down offers (with more money) if I felt that the job was not going to really benefit my career and/or be stressful for me.</p>

5

<p>Agree. One of my brilliant friends has 3.8 GPA(undergraduate) and 4.0 GPA(Master) for Chemical Engineering at a top 30 engineering school. Most people including me believe he will easily find a job even in this economy. The truth is he is complaining to me he has NOT got one phone interview or invitation for any internship/full time positions he applied(he is class of 2011). The number of jobs he applied? 50+ </p>

<p>Grades at some point do NOT reflect intelligence, capability and interpersonal skills which many employers request.</p>

6

<p>I have to say, virtually every time some newspaper article about unemployed college grads come up, IF they mention somebody with an engineering undergrad degree, it’s always been a chemical engineering major.</p>

<p>Not an exhaustive study, sure, but may be pointing towards something.</p>

7

<p>Employment is available, its just for some reason engineering grads feel entitled to the best and highest paying positions in the world and have no sense of reality.</p>

<p>Its fair, school was no party, but I think we are trained to be arrogant above all else and think we are somehow special and immune to the realities of life.</p>

8

<p>"Employment is available, its just for some reason engineering grads feel entitled to the best and highest paying positions in the world and have no sense of reality.</p>

<p>Its fair, school was no party, but I think we are trained to be arrogant above all else and think we are somehow special and immune to the realities of life."</p>

<p>4+ years of physical, mental, and emotional challenges entitles an individual, arguably, to a high paying position. Imagine a medical doctor, going through 10+ arduous years of academic and technical training only to be rewarded with an average salary.</p>

<p>Considering the knowledge and skills required to become an engineer, the process one must go through to acquire said knowledge and skills, and the nature of the work performed by engineers, engineers are grossly underpaid.</p>

<p>Less than $100k/year for some woman who designed your bridge? Highway robbery!</p>

9

<p>so how much are you expecting to get for your first job?</p>

10

<p>wow. Thank you so much for this. I think me and my best friend are on this same exact path. Going through the same exact things. The difference is that he doesnt want give up on engineering but fails at pushing himself to work, while I dont 100% want do engineering (as majors i mean) but have tried everything and cant find a suitable replacement or a something to match its challenges, also I kinda sorta had to drop alot of classes to keep myself off of probation. I think I have a good system in place now, but yeah Im kinda scared.</p>

<p>but anyway enough about me. @ raiiki6</p>

<p>How are you handling it now? Are you still going to stick it out since you’re far into it?</p>

11

<p>“so how much are you expecting to get for your first job?”</p>

<p>That will be determined by geographical location, market conditions, my technical skills, my negotiation skills, etc. I can assure you I will not be accepting anything below $60k for engineering work in the Northeast (US).</p>

12

<p>@Magneto:Ya, I am sticking it out, but like I mentioned I do have a low cGPA at the moment, 2.1/4 and hopefully I can bring it up to about a 2.4-2.5 this year, since it is going just a little better, minus the failed midterm. I have made great connections, have had some stellar internships, and have an easy time getting jobs I like, so its not all bad.</p>

<p>Otherwise, I really just don’t care anymore. I have other passions, and I am upset that it took me 40,000 dollars and a bad transcript to realize that maybe I am in the wrong field/major, so my intention is to tell students to come to this realization before its too late and before you waste your/parents money.</p>

<p>Life is what you make of it of course, and even people in the worst situations (not me at all, mind you) can overcome tough obstacles.</p>

<p>@Enginox: I have to disagree with you and tell you that the sad reality of the world today is it is competitive, and there is plenty of supply and a reduced demand. Even if you have to suffer a little at a lower paying job, it is always about how you demonstrate your capability. So although you may be in a position to hold out for the 60k position, the majority of engineers are not and are coming out of school with a nice debt that needs to be paid. I am not sure how the market is in the Northeast US, but in Canada I think it is a little saturated. I agree we are underpaid, but life isn’t fair. You also can’t compare us to doctors/lawyers who already have to spend years in school and a fortune on education, and have competition to get into those professional schools far worse than competition to get into an engineering college out of high school. </p>

<p>@Homer49: thanks for the link…just helps my point!</p>

<p>@all: Once again a fair warning to all you HS students and future engineers, the job market ain’t pretty, the program is hard, but if you really love it…and I mean are willing to marry engineering kind of love it…don’t go in because you think its a guaranteed paycheck.</p>

13

<p>"@Enginox: I have to disagree with you and tell you that the sad reality of the world today is it is competitive, and there is plenty of supply and a reduced demand. Even if you have to suffer a little at a lower paying job, it is always about how you demonstrate your capability. So although you may be in a position to hold out for the 60k position, the majority of engineers are not and are coming out of school with a nice debt that needs to be paid. I am not sure how the market is in the Northeast US, but in Canada I think it is a little saturated. I agree we are underpaid, but life isn’t fair. You also can’t compare us to doctors/lawyers who already have to spend years in school and a fortune on education, and have competition to get into those professional schools far worse than competition to get into an engineering college out of high school. "</p>

<p>This comment qualifies as one of the stupidest I have read in the last 4 months.</p>

<p>So you are telling me that an individual who goes through 4+ years of difficult academic work must settle for whatever she/he can get, because “life is unfair, competition, etc?”. If that is the case, what is the point of becoming an engineer, or anything that requires sacrifice, for that matter?</p>

<p>Let’s be honest here: nearly all of us want employment where we are challenged on a daily basis, work a reasonable amount of hours/week, and are remunerated according to our skills. So why should we accept lower salaries, more work hours, and more disrespect? Because some wealthy ***<strong><em>bag said so? The same *</em></strong>**bag that reaps the fruits of your hard labor? Life is not unfair for him/her, is it?</p>

<p>Thanks to this kind of attitude, engineers and other professionals are overworked while their salaries do not keep pace with the work demands. Only an idiot would put him/herself through 4+ years of very expensive sacrifice, only to be rewarded with peanuts at the end.</p>

14

<p>Don’t get me wrong. I whole-heatedly agree, and the value of a good engineer is generally rewarded. But engineers are working in a free market. </p>

<p>What you are saying is what is ideal. We do not live in an ideal world. The fact of the matter is your education does not stop after the bachelors, or even the masters (PhD is a whole other story).</p>

<p>You have to learn to deal with the politics of your job, gain the necessary technical expertise to do your job in a timely and costly fashion (trust me, you ain’t learnt **** in school and they expect you to be able to pick up fast, which is the benefit of an engineering education), deal with people who are potentially much stupider, less qualified or much smarter than you, and work ridiculous hours to get projects done.</p>

<p>Its basically just school, but now you can at least get some money for it. Rarely will you get hired for a high paying position unless you have some sort of ability to demonstrate, and I have had friends with high/low GPAs get rejected simply because they are not suited for the job. Even if you get a high paying position, you are on probation for the first 3 months and can get fired for any reason, including the company doesn’t have money to pay you.</p>

<p>A lot of engineers also do contract work, and that could be highly rewarding in the short term but jobs can be scarce. </p>

<p>Plus a lot of the work you do end up doing you will hate. Think report writing, long boring meetings where nothing gets accomplished, incompetence all around you, especially if you are a PM, and angry, loud and obnoxious customers who don’t know what they want. </p>

<p>I have seen it all and the **** engineers deal with during my work terms. Its not fun, its not easy, but if you like it, it can be rewarding.</p>

<p>But I will end the conversation with this, good luck on your job search and I hope you find that perfect job that pays $60,000+ a year, right after you graduate. Its rare in today’s market but it is out there…</p>

15

<p>It seems I was not clear enough, and you misunderstood me. My apologies.</p>

<p>I’m not looking for a “perfect, ideal” job. Those do not exist. However, that does not mean I will not search for (or create) a job that approximates those ideal or perfect conditions. </p>

<p>What I am against is this notion that people should accept whatever they are offered because “life is unfair.” That is not a business plan.</p>

<p>Take a look at some Wall Street operators. Whenever these WS operators invest large amounts of money, they take on risk. But, these WS operators work diligently to minimize the risk they take on while simultaneously maximizing their returns. To the point, that the biggest WS operators were rescued (bailed out) effectively reducing their overall risk to zero. Life is unfair? Not for them. Who honestly thinks these operators would run their businesses on a “life is unfair” business plan? They’d be out of business in a day! That’s why they use their $ to influence the outcomes in their favor as much as possible.</p>

<p>The main problem here is the “roll-over”, “victim” mentality many professionals, including engineers, display. This idea that one needs to eat the two little balls of ***** one is handed because “life is unfair” is dangerous.</p>

16

<p>I would ask what’s the quality of this fiber optics engineer that the only job he could obtain was a service job at Target.</p>

<p>If a person voluntarily accepts a low-paying job, after carefully reviewing the advantages and disadvantages, then there is no problem. Unfortunately, many people accept or remain in crummy jobs out of fear and/or acceptance that there is nothing they can do to fix their situation. And it is this sense of helplessness that employers, especially nowadays, take advantage of to reap higher profits.</p>

<p>What is that guy at Goldman Sachs doing to earn $120k/year and what do I need to do to get in on the action? If his preparation and training are less demanding than mine I should have no trouble displacing him from his job. </p>

<p>This “life is unfair” m</p>

17

<p>Your post can be roughly translated into “wah wah wah.”</p>

<p>Very few people are forced to take lower-paying, miserable jobs (those who are forced are normally called inmates). If you are an ex GM or Chrysler engineer, you are supposed to use the knowledge you hopefully have acquired throughout your years of academic and professional training and move on to another job that pays a similar salary. If you will not move because “that is hard to do” then you truly deserve to be in whatever situation you may find yourself. Lots of people do migrate to other places in search of a better life, sometimes at great peril (eg. undocumented workers).</p>

<p>Again, this victim mentality, this sense of helplessness.</p>

18

<p>I keep telling you folks that a TS/SCI + Polygraph clearance is worth $30,000 to $50,000 more that an equivalent job in the private sector. Has the work been as “cutting edge” as the private sector?..Maybe not, but damn-near guaranteed income…based on defense funding THAT IS NOT SUBJECT TO REGULAR DEFENSE CUTS is better than unsteady income.</p>