Do NOT major in engineering!

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>I really feel like I've been tricked into engineering, so I'm here to warn some off that think majoring in engineering is a good idea. In short, you will be working twice as hard if not more, for worse grades, and for about, key word, the same starting pay. Here are the main reasons (and believe me, there are many more) you should NOT choose a major in engineering.</p>

<p>(1.) You will, I repeat, will work much harder than your non engineering peers for lower grades. While you are competing against the best students who are already great at math for the maybe 20% of A's that engineering schools give, your buddy in literature or even business will be slacking off for an easy A, or maybe even, god forbid, a B. Engineering seems to draw the smartest kids, for whatever reason, and you are directly competing against these kids for your grade, which will be on a curve. Believe me, in some classes you will struggle for just a passing C, while the same amount of work will easily get you an A or B in most other major's courses. This varies somewhat from school to school, but 95% of the time, you are working harder for no benefit, and in fact, against yourself (lower GPA)</p>

<p>(2.) You will have a much harder time getting into graduate school with that low GPA mentioned above. Sure some kids will pull through the program with a 3.5+, but these are already the best of the best. The majority will be in the low 3's and 2's and will have no shot at law school, no shot at med school, and a minimal shot at business school. Meanwhile, you could have majored in finance, breezed through with a 3.5, and gone on to earn even more in after law/med/business school. </p>

<p>(3.) Your starting salary will not be all that different from anyone else's, and your salary down the line will likely be lower. You may start out at $60,000 while your friend in finance or marketing starts at $55,000 or even more. The difference is not worth it, believe me. If pulling all-nighters and studying all weekend for 4 years is worth an extra $5000 for you for the first few years, then go right ahead. For most however, it is not. Besides, their salary will surpass your own in a few short years anyway.</p>

<p>(4.) Working so hard for your below-average grades, you will have very little free time. Especially if you are determined to go to graduate school to actually make some decent money and get out of the engineering racket, you will be studying/going to class an enormous amount of time to maintain an acceptable GPA. This means less time for networking, interviewing, having a job during school, and other extracurriculars. All this translates into a harder time finding a job, finding no job at all, or having no ec's or work experience for grad school. </p>

<p>(5.) So now you are out of school, and you expect all your hard work to pay off. You will get a great, exciting, fun job where you command a ton of respect and are actually interested in your work. Wrong! 90% of you will be working some mind-numbingly boring job, no more exciting than a finance majors, or other business major. On top of that, you will be managed by some business major who has no idea what your work entails, and will treat you like a necessary expense, nothing more. </p>

<p>Please, for your own good, do not major in any engineering discipline. Major in Finance, or any other business. Major in literature, or even women's studies(high GPA=law, medical school). Sure you may be good at math, I was. It doesn't matter, take your talents and intelligence where they will be rewarded, and away from engineering. This is all my opinion but after 3 years as an engineering student, this is all I have learned that has been of any use to me.</p>

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<p>LOL wow</p>

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<p>I’m not even saying I am, but lets be honest with ourselves, it tends to. Take a look around any engineering lecture hall and have a look at the type of students there, you’ll see what I mean. Not to mention there are multiple studies done on the SAT scores of students entering different majors, and guess what the highest normally is, you got it, engineering. </p>

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<p>I was ready to make a smart aleck comment but thought you may be right in a generalized way. You sound like an International Baccalaureate student debating IB v. AP. Why do IB when you can do AP and get more college credit too?</p>

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<p>Um. So why didn’t you switch majors?</p>

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Law, medical, and business schools are not graduate school–they are professional school. Business school (for an MBA) is generally something you do after several years of work experience, and it is often paid for by an employer.</p>

<p>As for medical school, yeah, it’s not advised to study engineering since GPA tends to be lower and medical schools like to see high GPAs. Medicine and engineering are two very different things; I assume that after a year or two in college, most students have figured out whether they want to do one or the other, and should plan their studies accordingly.</p>

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<p>Your right, it would be nice if students could figure out after a year or two, but the fact is their GPA is often destroyed to the point where even if they did switch from engineering to say, biology, they would have no way to get the GPA up to where it needs to be for acceptance into medical school. By the time they realize they don’t want to be engineers, they really have no other option but to stick it out or settle for a lowered GPA, and a less intensive major. Either way it ultimately leads to bad options.</p>

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<p>Sorry to hear your time at UMD has been frustrating, I can’t say I’ve had a similar experience. I have found that appropriate time management and reaching out to peers for help on homework/studying to be a good way to alleviate some of the stress. </p>

<p>From an economic standpoint people are already taking your advice, Eric Bettinger at Stanford and other education policy analysts have a large body of documented evidence showing that one major influencer of people flowing from stem to non-stem majors/fields in America is expected earnings vs amount of effort (real or perceived).</p>

<p>That said, if a person’s motivations for getting into engineering aren’t strictly financial, it can be a more rewarding career and actually lucrative if your good at what you do.</p>

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<p>I am not going to knock you for expressing your opinion and your unique experience in Engineering but as someone who is much older than you, and someone who went back to school to get a 2nd degree in Engineering, all I can say is, you don’t understand much about the world and that is OK for someone who is probably 20 years old. When I was that age, I thought I knew everything about life, in fact, I did not know ■■■■.</p>

<p>“I feel like I have been tricked into Engineering”- This is a false statement, you chose to major in Engineering and you should have done your research if it was not something for you. Blaming others for your failure is a bit immature, basically no one tricked you, you tricked yourself.</p>

<p>Regarding # 1, what is wrong with working hard? Engineering made me a much better problem solver, it literally changed the way I look at things. I don’t think easy classes would have had the same impact. I think you are unable to see any benefit because you are still young but there is a reason why Engineering is hard and it is not because they get a kick out of people struggling.</p>

<p>Regarding #2, you seem to believe that grad school is a ticket to making big money. Do you know anything about law school? Do you even understand how many lawyers are underemployed or unemployed? I have seen people who graduate from law school and are forced to take jobs a clerks making probably half of what an engineer would make, some of these people have 200K in student loans. Do you know how much the average med school student carries in debt at graduation?</p>

<p>Regarding $ 3- Marketing or Finance majors starting at 55 K? Very unlikely! I have a degree in Econ and even though I think it is a great degree, you HARDLY ever make 60K right out of college. I can say the same about any type of business/social sciences degree, most Business school grads start at about 35-45K, that is when you are lucky enough to find a job.</p>

<p>I could refute each one of the points you made but I will finish with #5.</p>

<p>“Fun, exciting job”- Once again, this show your immaturity and lack of real life experience. I have been working since I was 16 and I don’t remember ever having a “fun, exciting” job. </p>

<p>After working my ass off for almost 20 years, I have to say, I will be very happy to get an Engineering job at 60K- It definitely beats working a very stressful job at 30K/year.</p>

<p>Anyways, I hope you find your calling in life! </p>

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<p>Da6onet, I agree with you exactly. The effort vs. reward ratio is very off, at least in terms of financial compensation. Honestly, I thought I did like engineering for more than the money, i.e I liked building things, taking things apart to figure out how they work, always tinkering and building circuits etc. But after realizing what a pain the major is and how little you are rewarded, all the fun and interest has been sucked out of me until I’m at the point where I just want to sell out and work in finance.</p>

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<p>Actually, that is wrong:
IQ by major: <a href=“http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/”>http://www.statisticbrain.com/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major/&lt;/a&gt;
“Smartest” students by major: <a href=“These Are the Smartest College Majors”>These Are the Smartest College Majors;

<p>But, this assumes the fallacy that highest SAT score is a gauge of one’s talents in all disciplines is true. Someone who just can’t get real analysis does not mean they will not be a good engineer, likewise, someone who just has no intuition for mechanical engineering does not mean they won’t be a fantastic theoretical physicist. There are different talents and skills that make someone a great mathematician, physicist, engineer, doctor, lawyer, etc. and the intersection of the skills and knowledge of those in the top of their field is non-existent amongst those professions.</p>

<p>Engineering is still one of the safest majors to have. Business is one of the most common majors, and if one does not graduate from a top school, then they’re practically destined for a life of underemployment. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of business graduates will not ever get a job that pays 60K/year. They will be lucky to get a job that pays 35K/year that is in their field. In engineering, this is not the case. Also, mathematics and physics majors don’t have it much easier (our course schedules are often as jam packed, but it’s easy on the labs), and we are also graded on a hard curve and the number of A’s are controlled. All the while, you need at least a 3.3 GPA to be competitive anywhere these days. Unlike engineering graduates, we practically unemployable by the time we graduate and need up to 7+ years of education (master’s then PhD) before we could even have the privilege of applying for a research fellowship that often pays less than 30K. Once the funding for the research fellowship is finished (5-7 years, no more than 8) and if you don’t have an offer of a permanent academic position (less than 10% of PhD’s get such an offer), you are pretty much forced out of academia and must now retrain for a completely different career.</p>

<p>Engineering is starting to sound a lot better now, isn’t it?</p>

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<p>you could always take a second major in humanities to boost a GPA after engineer school. besides, if you get near perfect scores on MCAT with a engineering degree you still have an alright chance to get in mid tier medical schools or lower-high tier. and most engineers (outside of bio medical) probably wouldnt enjoy a doctors work, and in the long term make just as much if not more than a doctor. and not to mention a higher life time earnings with less stress in school. Also your pre requisites for med school courses cumulative GPA is also highly considered</p>

<p>some people would prefer an engineering desk job to punching numbers in accounting all day.</p>

<p>and besides with stellar work performance, most MBA programs dont rely heavily on GPA, especially if they are getting paid by your employer. </p>

<p>although an easier major is better for med/law school, it is not required.</p>

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<p>Well, OP, I have a bit more experience than you. I have a BS and MS in engineering, plus many years of experience as a structural engineer. My husband and I run our firm out of our home office. Our commute is a walk across the house. Our windows overlook beautiful woods. If I want to go for a run at 11 am, I don’t have to ask permission. We create REAL things - we don’t just shuffle paperwork. We have designed hospitals, houses, pipe bridges, schools, top secret structures, etc. We have donated our time to design a community building in the Dominican Republic, and persuaded a truss supplier to provide the trusses at cost. My husband performed lots of inspections after Hurricane Sandy to help people get reimbursed by their insurance companies.</p>

<p>I had a 3.8+ GPA in undergrad, and got a full fellowship to grad school. Yes, I worked hard in college, but I had a blast, too. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t change anything.</p>

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<p>MaineLonghorn: I applaud you for starting your own business. I’m not arguing that it is impossible to be successful in engineering, you obviously have been. What I am saying is that for most, all that hard work will not pay off. Most will join companies much like any other business or humanities major, and most will make a comparable salary. And to the poster who said that business majors normally don’t make 55k+ to start, that is just plain incorrect. Check the averages for finance majors. Not to mention the higher paying jobs like Investment banking, consulting. Sure you can get into those from any top school with an engineering degree, but you also need a high GPA to get past the front door, something most engineers wont have. </p>

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<p>Points number 1 and 2 are just hilarious. If you aren’t willing to go up against the best out there, then I would suggest finding a major where you can have your hand held the entire way. </p>

<p>Personally, I like to think I’m not in middle school anymore. The thought of being gifted my degree
is just disgusting.</p>

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<p>I get to go to work at a nuclear power plant every day. My manager is an engineer. His manager is an engineer. The guy above him is an engineer. The next guy up is the VP of the plant. </p>

<p>I was in containment today supervising fuel assembly offload from the reactor. I think my job is awesome, and there are plenty more engineering jobs out there that are just as exciting. </p>

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<p>I’m only a freshman college student. I agree with the fact we have to work harder to get a certain GPA that’s so much easier to obtain from another major but personally I majored in Engineering just because I really liked the work. I loved math and art and hated to read (or at least the English class styled readings) so I knew I couldn’t be a lawyer and I know I wouldn’t find much happiness going into any of the med-fields with the years of schooling, biology/chem classes + having to deal with blood, needles, people’s body parts, and all the stress that comes with it. Business is something I would consider, but I’ve been told unless you’re aiming to be an accountant, you don’t need a business degree to work in the field.</p>

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<p>That’s because such statistics only track the people actually working in the field, and they come from “target” schools (Ivy League and other top schools). These are not the average finance majors, but the graduates from the top schools who did plenty of internships during undergrad, have at least a 3.5 GPA, and networked extensively to get their job. </p>

<p>You need a reality check if you think the average finance major from a decent, non-target state school will ever be doing as well as an engineering major from the same school. The former will much more likely be serving fries to the latter than working a 55k+ job. Not even most entry-level analyst jobs on Wall Street pay that much. This further demonstrates how out of touch with reality you are. </p>

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<p>The problem is, Engineering has now become the “sexy” degree. It used to be every parent wanted their kid to be a doctor. Now parents are pushing their kids into engineering. Yes, it does rank among the best ROI of any degree, but it is NOT for everybody. I’ve been wondering just how many of the kids in D’s graduating class have figured that out. So many of them went off as freshmen to major in engineering. There are some I believe were meant to be engineers, some who can probably make it through (but may end up feeling like the OP) and some who are no way going to make it through the freshmen classes. I just hope they figure it out early enough, and their parents can deal with them transferring out of engineering. Just being good in math and science is not necessarily enough to be successful - and happy - as an engineer (says the former engineering major who transferred into Math/Computer Science and never regretted the switch - it was the right more for me).</p>

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<p>Typical â– â– â– â– â–  thread.</p>

<p>Also, somebody needs a tissue. Maybe if you spent as much time on your studies as you did writing this nonsense you would find it easier to get better grades. Suck it up buttercup, it isn’t THAT hard. If it is for you, then engineering may not be for you, there is nothing wrong with that. I would hate life if I was forcing myself to drudge through something that didn’t click with me…but this does, so I do well with it.</p>

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<p>The bottom line is that it appears that @Terps93 is one of those people who got into engineering for the wrong reasons and now regrets it,</p>

<p>[ul][li]If you are getting into engineering to become super rich, the odds are against you and you didn’t know what you were getting into in the first place. Of course, the odds are universally against getting super rich in the first place, so you are no less likely to get there with engineering than in most other professions.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]If you did engineering already “determined to go to graduate school to actually make some decent money and get out of the engineering racket”, then I question your sanity, as only a crazy person gets a degree that he or she never intends to use and is not particularly helpful in attaining the original goal.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]If you did engineering because your mom/dad/grandma/cousin/aunt/uncle/dog/shaman/anyone else told you to despite your own desire to do something else, that is your own fault, not the fault of engineering as a discipline.[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>Engineering is a solid ticket to the middle class, and generally provides a perfectly high quality of life compared to most other jobs that you can get with only a bachelor’s degree. That’s one of the major strengths of engineering. In the OP’s complaint, he only compares it to the top earners within one other career path: finance. By all means, neglect the solid data showing that engineering majors still tend to out-earn all other business majors on average, even if the odds of striking gold as a finance major are higher.</p>

<p>Nothing else to see here, folks. Move along.</p>