<p>So I have received a couple internship offers for my final internship before grad and was hoping some guys/gals with a bit more engineering experience than me could chime in.</p>
<p>Background: I'm a Masters Industrial Engineering student with one previous 5 month internship with the IE dept of one of the top Railroads in the US. I have a good GPA from a good engineering school and will graduate this December.</p>
<p>I have a few offers but two that I am debating right now, and they lead to completely different paths: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Technology consulting for one of the Big 4: Basically they work with major financial institutions to fix problems and give them strategic advice. In these roles you are treated just like another member of the team. You travel 80% M-Th, and hours are 50-60/week. The pay is crazy good (~7k/mth depending on overtime).</p></li>
<li><p>Operations development program for engineers at major manufacturer. They span a lot of different business areas and would give me a lot of hands on exposure to a lot of things In my specific industry such as supply, op ex, manufacturing, quality and so on. I would assume hours would be the norm 40/wk and pay is still good (~4k/mth) but nothing like the above.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Both these lead to full time job offers in rotational programs that expose you to a lot of areas in the company. I am just not sure about the consulting one because I feel that it would pigeon hole me out of engineering jobs and I honestly don't know a lot about the industry. Regarding full time, a couple things I have considered are:</p>
<p>Money wise they seem to be similar for full time: 5-6 years out both make manager and break the $100k mark
Work/life balance: I'm married and the consulting life is guaranteed 50+/week and being gone M-Th, that seems like it might be rough on life. Even if the engineering job has a lot of hours, which I don't mind, at least I would be able to physically go home more.</p>
<p>So...Anyone have any insight, personal experience, or anecdote to share? Do you think if I took the consulting gig that It would be hard for me to get an engineering job at grad? Anything else you want to chime in with is cool too. Thanks.</p>
<p>I would go with #2. I worked in Finance many years before deciding to go back to school and I could never imagine doing anything directly related to Finance ever again.</p>
<p>The way you describe #1 sounds like a typical high stress, burnout Finance consulting job. </p>
<p>Obviously these jobs pay well because they will expect a lot from you-the high pay also reflects the usual high turnover rate for these type of positions and traveling all the time gets old after a few months.</p>
<p>One thing I never forget from my Econ days is the law of diminishing returns. I have read some interesting research on salaries and one in particular points to the fact that a salary of about 75K/year is considered “ideal”</p>
<p>People who make more than usually are not any happier than people who make about 75 K/year and often are way more stressed and have less time to do the things they enjoy.</p>
<p>Once again, this is only my OPINION but it is based on real life experiences.</p>
<p>I’m currently a civil engineering intern working at a large infrastructure firm. Typically 40 hours/week (~2k a month), but during submittals (such as this week), I go over 50 hours a week. I’m fine with working late every once in a while, but if I had to do this every week, I think I’d quit. A healthy work and life balance is what I strive for. Especially since you’d be out of town for 4 days a week, that would be especially rough. </p>
<p>The high compensation comes at a huge price. Not worth it in my opinion, unless you really need the extra money (just beware lifestyle creep!).</p>
<p>4K a month (unless that’s take home pay, in which case your 7K a month for the other job starts to sound extremely good) doesn’t sound very good… 48K a year?</p>
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<p>No. That 75K thing was just from some Gallup poll that asked people how much they make and how happy they are. Additionally, they found that people who made more were happier on average, even above the 75K limit. All they said was that at 75K, you’re pretty close to the same amount of happiness as someone making 160K. The basic diminishing utility from money that everyone knows. Additionally, people aren’t all the same. People will have different functions of utility from money from each other. </p>
<p>Normally I’d say since you’re married a more traditional 9-5 go home every day job would probably be the best bet, but the difference in pay is HUGE. I don’t think this is an obvious decision and I don’t think anyone else can tell you anything much that’s useful. </p>
<p>Just to clarify. Those figures are for the internship- for the summer. Once full time the pay is ~65k for the manufacturing and ~70k for the consulting, thats why I said they would monetarily be the same 5 years out. Yeah, I wouldn’t take 48k/year either to be honest.</p>
<p>Big 4 firms have their own corporate culture which I personally abhor. It is a very cut-throat environment, I have heard someone describe it as a “tank of sharks”. I would rather work with a bunch of IE nerds all day in some type of collaborative work than work in an environment where people are encouraged to sabotage each other.</p>
<p>While working in Finance, I saw so many shady and disgusting things. I got out simply because I have morals and values and there is so much more to life than money. Like Seirsly said, the high compensation comes at a high price sometimes.</p>
<p>You will get sick of spending your night in a hotel room by yourself typing away on a laptop until late at night. Then you will want to go down to the hotel bar to have a drink and you will meet a lonely businesswoman at the bar. Before you realize it, she is inviting you to her room and it all goes downhill from there.</p>
<p>People under high stress will drink more, some will start doing drugs and before you realize, you cheated on your wife, you lost your family and your life is spiraling out of control right before your eyes. A bit of a dramatic spin but ask people who travel constantly on business and you will understand that what I am describing is not all that far fetched.</p>
<p>Maybe you should look for an Option #3 but definitely keep your options open!</p>
<p>Well, I do like my bourbon…haha.</p>
<p>Yeah, I decided to take 2. I just figured there is no sense in working more hours to ultimately make the same money. Work to live vs live to work and all that mess.Thanks for the input everyone</p>
<h1>2 sounds better to me. Bu know thatt once past the first year, many companies make the engineers “salaried” (no overtime pay). Some companies will expect more than 40hrs/week, particularly at busy times and/or when interfacing with contacts in other time zones,</h1>