<p>Aries, I studied the female portion of my fellow students but all too often the class was completely theoretical with no lab work.</p>
<p>Maybe I should have phrased that differently... </p>
<p>such as studying the behaviour of your fellow students. :)</p>
<p>aries -- although I agree in principal that engineering is a good option for females, I would have to disagree strenously with the part about easy hours. Prior to moving to Germany, we rarely saw my H. It was very common in his company and apparently most others in his field. The engineers who insisted on working "9-5" were considered to be not pulling their own weight. There were no part-time or job-sharing engineers, except the retired guy who came back as a consultant. The trend was to follow "the GE model" of squeezing every bit of life out of their workers. He remains convinced to this day that the reason none of our children have been willing to consider engineering is because they saw how hard he worked. One of the huge advantages to his current delegation in Germany is the easier hours! We dread our return to the rat race.</p>
<p>He is a mechanical engineer. Perhaps it is different in other fields.</p>
<p>Binx,
Interesting that you brought up this point. I have a D who has said that she wanted to be an engineer in the 4th grade. My H, a ME himself worries about the time demands that engineering presents and how that would affect our D. </p>
<p>I do not want to discourage my D in any field that she wants to pursue but I do admit to reservations.</p>
<p>Aries, I dunno about engineering for guys who want to "be there for their wives and kids."</p>
<p>I know a fair number of engineers and recently the following came my way, much as a cat will share a dead bird or mouse, and I immediately trans-shipped it to my various engineering friends:</p>
<p>Three men were discussing whether they preferred a wife or a mistress. </p>
<p>The architect said, "A wife, because it sets the foundation for a satisfying long-term relationship."</p>
<p>The artist said, "A mistress, because of the passion and mystery."</p>
<p>The engineer said, "Both." </p>
<p>"Both?" chorused the architect and artist.</p>
<p>"Yeah," said the engineer. "Because each will assume that you're spending time with the other and you can go into the lab and get some work done."</p>
<p>=======</p>
<p>The general reception to this was: "Ain't that the truth!"</p>
<p>LOL, TheDad! Heard it before, but it is true.</p>
<p>I've spent about five years in a small engineering firm, and people work very reasonable hours. It's truly a 40-45 hour/week job... nothing like Binx described. Come 6 pm, most cars are out of the lot. Then again, the company also does have a larger-than-normal percentage of women; whether or not the female presence influences the culture or the culture attracts women is debatable.</p>
<p>Most engineering jobs are "big corporation" jobs, and the couple places like that I've been a part of have typically had 8-5 cultures.</p>
<p>The more exciting jobs, in the "fast lane" may not be like that. They may be all-encompassing.</p>
<p>The bigger issue with the conventional corporate job is that some of the best opportunities may require frequent travel, or temporary re-location. I know a number of corporate types who have lived various places in the world due to relocation. It's almost like being an "army brat" for their kids. When I was an engineer, the best opportunities were to send someone "in the field", which could be some god-forsaken construction site in the middle of nowhere, for a year or two, as needed.</p>
<p>And of course other corporate jobs require no travel whatsoever. It all depends on where circumstances take you.</p>
<p>There are definitely differences in corporate cultures and expectations out there. Sometimes you may be able to pick the one you want, and other times you may not have that luxury.</p>
<p>I think at this point in the discussion it's important to start distinguishing what type of engineering you mean. ChemE is completely different from MechE etc. In each engineering discipline there is the mature phase of work and the innovative phase of work. The mature phase of work will be performed by the low cost center that has the appropriate skills. Telecommunications and financial infrastructure now makes that inevitable. Where capital costs are a large part of the work, i.e. ChemE, there may be less shift of labor as low cost labor centers are frequently high cost of capital places, although that is changing i.e. China's policy.</p>
<p>But the innovation phase requires highly educated people usually. And highly educated people are mobile. So far, they like to come to the US, and especially to nice places like Austin or Boston or Silicon Valley. Biotech and advanced software systems still innovate primarily in the US. </p>
<p>However, and this is a big however, the shift of manufacturing to Asia will have a huge impact on the location of innovation. Because innovation requires not only the educated work force but a set of customers. And if the customers, i.e. the manufacturers and the consumers of consumer devices, are in Asia, our hold on the innovative engineering for these products will wane.</p>
<p>I work for a company based in China with software engineers coding as we speak. Kids here should still become engineers, if they are good at it. It's like any other profession. The average lawyer doesn't make a lot of money. The good ones make scads. There is no such thing as an average management consultant, they fire them. The average engineer will be average. The really good one still has a great chance to make it big. May have to travel to Asia some:), but can still make it big. </p>
<p>I think the problem is just that engineering education is harder. It's harder to major in engineering than in English or Economics. More homework. So in the US you have to love it. In Asia, it is seen as the biggest opportunity for students, so kids who don't love it but are very bright do it anyway and they get a bigger pool.</p>
<p>IMO.</p>
<p>Agree that you have to love it here, but not so sure I agree with why.
First of all you have to be really good at math & science, and interested in these subjects. A lot of people just aren't.</p>
<p>A lot of the people who are really good at math & science have other career prospects available to them here besides engineering. The health professions for example. Computing. These other fields seem as likely to be remunerative as engineering is, in this country, so there's no bias towards engineering here from the perspective of financial rewards.</p>
<p>Engineering study requires a lot of work, but most of the people who undertake that work are well suited to this task. A not insignificant proportion of these same people are completely unsuited to success as an English major, IMO. One can see this from the disparity between the English & Math SATs of entering students at virtually all but three or four engineering schools. I have seen it in person. I don't think an English major would be easier than engineering for many people who study engineering. Less total hours of homework, perhaps, but much lower success on average. IMO.</p>
<p>So I personally don't think the loss of potential engineers here is so much to "easier" majors as it is to other majors that may be more remunerative or more interesting to particular students. Whether they are easier or not. Many of these other majors are not much easier. I majored in Physics as an undergrad, and the courses I took in the engineering college were on the whole easier, to me, than many of the courses I took in my own college (Arts & Sciences).</p>
<p>One thing I noticed when attending an MIT college roadshow in past years: A lot of the alumni who attended were asked to introduce themselves to the group and tell us what they were doing today. Of the engineering grads, not that many were still in engineering. They were dentists, lawyers, etc.</p>
<p>And ariesathena is an example of an engineer who is in the process of switching to law.</p>
<p>LMNOP - you bring up an interesting point. I wonder how many of us are still working directly in our undergrad major. I am not. H is. (Both graduated 1980.) Anybody else?</p>
<p>Binx--
I know that I am not working directly in my undergrad major. I was a microbiology major, completed a 1 year internship to get my medical technologist license. Worked in a hospital laboratory for 6 years and switched to law.</p>
<p>Why switch? Probably like the MIT engineers, after 5 years, the work got pretty mundane and less challenging. Only career roads that continued forward were management and I wasn't interested.</p>
<p>Worked as a lawyer for 5 years and no longer practice. Now I'm an at home mom who is hardly ever at home. Best job that I've had yet!</p>
<p>Hi, Ellemenope!</p>
<p>Just a stat - roughly 20% (yes, 20%) of the incoming class at my law school have technical degrees.</p>
<p>Sure, my school probably has more than the average number (mostly because they are very willing to forgive a low GPA, which is usually a part of the science courses, if the student has a high LSAT), but that's still a fair amount of people every year who are fleeing the technical fields and going into law.</p>
<p>Ariesathena:</p>
<p>I found the theoretical chemical underpinnings behind chemical tests fascinating. But actually running the chemical tests (which is what my job entailed) was like a factory job--feeding samples into a big machine which did all of the chemical tests. </p>
<p>I'm sure there is an engineering equivalent. . .</p>
<p>Having said that, my brother is a petroleum engineer and loves it. He's stalled out salary-wise, but isn't interested in switching careers.</p>
<p>Ellemenope:</p>
<p>Sounds familiar. :) I realized that all of the classes which I loved theoretically (such as surface/colloid chem) were deathly boring in practice. There are many engineering equivalents to what you are describing, such as looking through tables to find the appropriate diameter pipe for a factory... ugh. Not for me.</p>
<p>The original question had to do with what career made the most money with a Liberal Arts degree compared to Engineering.</p>
<p>I've got to believe that it has to be sales. Many salespeople make 6 figures in the high tech industry and elsewhere. Heck even real estate sales pays in that range for the most successful. I know of some of the most successful salespeople making $200k+ which is way more than even their managers make.</p>
<p>That said, it's a risk/reward job as many people aren't good at it. It does have a ton of fringe benefits like travel, flexible work hours and the potential to work from home.</p>
<p>I've been in sales for 20 years - hate the job lately but it pays too much to quit. Should be able to retire in early 50's though and do something fun.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I realized that all of the classes which I loved theoretically (such as surface/colloid chem) were deathly boring in practice. There are many engineering equivalents to what you are describing
[/quote]
Very true. To get an EE degree, for example, you take tons classes based on applied math (often pretty advanced math, such as differential equations in operator notation, fourier/Lapace/z-transforms, etc. But in industry circuit problems are solved by using a computer program, Spice. Sure, its important to have an understanding of what the circuit is doing, but just like in the examples given earlier the day-to-day work often is quite different from what you did in school.</p>
<p>I advise everyone, not just engineers, to find out what jobs are like BEFORE they get too far down the path. Prospective lawyers (to give one example) ought to work in a law firm; many kids turn to law with a liberal-arts degree not because they've always had a longing for the work, but because its perceived to pay well and they don't know what else to do with their degree. </p>
<p>The ironic thing is that while exploring careers can be easy in college ar too few take advantage of it. Here is where a little (or big) parental nudge can be so important. College bring speakers to talk about career fields, offer free testing, have alums willing to talk about careers with students, and help students find internships. There is a well-known book, "What Color is Your Parachute" that champions the idea of figuring out your interests and doing informational interviewing to find out what people do in various jobs.Nobody is threatened when someone calls up and identifies themselves as a college student wanting to learn more about a career area; try that in your 30's and there's more reluctance to meet since people are afraid its a pretext to get your foot in the office so you can pump them for job leads. </p>
<p>The problem with vocational degrees (accounting, engineering, etc) is that you have to make a committment at such a young age! Engineering is impacted at most state U's so the only way to get into it is to apply as a frosh. A 17-year-old kid has to make this decision so early. And even if they like the academic challenge the job itself is usually quite different from what it was like in school. That's why internships are so important early on to check if the field is really a fit.</p>
<p>I can't agree more strongly. I can't tell you how many ex-lawyers I know. And once you get down a career path, with a graduate degree etc., it can be hard to back up. Ironically, you may turn out to be good at something you don't really like, and by the time you are 40 the pay is too good and the cost of switching too high. Experiment a lot when young, everything from travel to odd places to jobs in different fields.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>many kids turn to law with a liberal-arts degree not because they've always had a longing for the work, but because its perceived to pay well and they don't know what else to do with their degree.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>So true--the law also attracts people who can write well, but who want a more sure career path than that of an author. </p>
<p>Have you noticed how many ex-lawyers are novelists and screenwriters?</p>
<p>micmac great article. Thank you for posting it. My sister is a life coach, it sounds like her!</p>