I can use some advise and wisdom. DS23 will be attending Bama this fall. Declared major is Chemical engineering but he has done ACE for three years, loved it and is also interested in civil engineering. I am looking down the road at career prospects and employment upon graduation. At first glance, ChemE seems to be growing based on US Labor Bureau. But when I look carefully, there are ~3000 jobs and about 11,000 graduates each year:
I assume maybe 25-40% of the advertised jobs are for recent grads? In which case, this appears to be a very challenging environment.
By contrast, 15K graduating civil engineers (7% growth) have over 20K job openings. Once again, I will assume about half are for new engineers.
So, are these numbers accurate? In which case, I expect the market for job seekers to be quite tough. What am I missing here? Frankly, it looks pretty awful for some of the disciplines out there if one were to believe these numbers and projections!!
I’m not the one to answer - but we have lots of infrastructure projects coming.
On the other hand, there’s tons of chemical companies hiring - and my son is a MechE so these were MechE jobs at chemical companies and his highest offer was a chemical company based in Atlanta…but with plants in places a young, single person wouldn’t want to be.
I see lots of postings for both civil and chemical…and the civil ones include governmental agencies.
Your son should choose the engineering path he wishes to study. No one really can predict what will be the top jobs by the time he graduates from college.
Well, while that is true, the government is predicting. As I said, DS is interested in both but I think he should pay some attention to hiring trends now and what has been forecast.
My D is a chem E with a concentration in polymers and materials. The bulk of her friend group are chem Es but she knows lots of engineers both from HS and college. FWIW, not one of my D’s chem E cohort is unemployed. And they are across a bunch of different sectors, had various concentrations, and from different universities in different parts of the country. Interestingly the same can’t be said for her friends in civil. That said, I wouldn’t extrapolate from that very limited sample size.
IMO, I agree with Thumper that your child should follow their interest as it’s impossible to predict.
Another engineer who thinks he should do what he wants. Chemical and civil seem very different to me, although I know nothing about chemical.
When I was in school, petroleum engineering was all the rage. I’m sure PetE students thought they were going to make tons of money. Then oil prices collapsed in May 1986 (right when I was finishing up my master’s degree), and those kids couldn’t find jobs in their field for years.
No matter what the government says, it is VERY hard to predict what is going to happen. They don’t have a crystal ball.
Engineering is tough. You want to enjoy what you’re doing. I know there’s a shortage of structural engineers at this point. Even in Maine, we’re being told there’s just not enough of us. Our phone is ringing off the hook. But who knows, two years from now, we could be tapping our pencils. It’s a crazy business.
Yes, that is a daily convo in our household. Finding the right mix of classes.
True! It seems petroleum and mining engineers are making quite a bit of money now.
Re structural engineering – I did a search on LinkedIn after looking through the data, your kind is in high demand. Maybe you will need an apprentice in a year or two ?
Remember Paul Samuelson’s remarked back in the day. “The stock market has predicted nine out of the last five recessions.” Jamie Dimon just said all looks bright on the long term horizon for the US economy. Not even six months ago, it was apocalyptic doom. So, I’m with the rest. He should do what he wants to do and not try to predict the future.
My husband just turned 69 so he hopes to retire in a year or two! But it shouldn’t be hard to get an internship.
We almost didn’t survive the recession. There were weeks when we were thrilled to make $400. My husband ended up contracting with a forensics engineering firm in Texas and inspected many, many houses damaged in Hurricane Sandy. Soul deadening work. He almost accepted a full-time position with the company, but it would have meant closing our business and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. We decided to hang on a little longer and fortunately the economy improved.
I’m going to chime back in here and suggest your son look at the four year plan of study for these majors and the associated electives. He may have a distinct preference after doing a deeper dive.
At least at my D’s school, chem E isn’t a very popular major because of all the chemistry requirements (5 semesters worth), plus all the fluids, thermo, mass and energy, reactions, etc… classes. The kids who choose it seem a bit niche in their interests.
Fair enough: let him know- once!- what you think. Then back off.
I get it: we spend so long getting them up & on their feet, and we want so much to help them make the “right” or “best” choices. Learning to let go is hard. But: he has earned his way into a really great program, and no matter what choice he makes he will be well equipped to course-correct if the situation changes. You have helped him get this far, but It’s his turn now.
I’ve seen the job market for engineering change completely in 4 years. So, I am on the “you can’t predict the future” wagon.
Another point. Your success in engineering is largely based on your understanding and ENJOYMENT of the field. If you don’t like what you are doing, it doesn’t matter what the job market is, you won’t do well. He should pick the field that interests him the best. Do well in college and he’ll find a job.
Petroleum engineering employment is predictably tied to unpredictable oil prices.
Civil engineering employment is predictably tied to unpredictable construction volume. The classes of 2008 and 2009 were among the unluckiest classes of civil engineering graduates in a long time.
Graduating into an industry or general economic downturn tends to have long term negative effects on one’s career path and pay levels. Unfortunately, such things cannot easily be predicted, and are not necessarily easy to avoid even if you see it coming. A soon-to-graduate student seeing a downturn coming may try to hide out in graduate school for a while, but that is not always a practical or possible choice.
First, the BLS is rather restrictive in how it defines the field. Note this section:
In addition, chemical engineering will continue to migrate into other fields, such as nanotechnology, alternative energies, and biotechnology, and thereby help to sustain demand for engineering services in many manufacturing industries. However, because it is a small occupation, the fast growth will result in only about 3,700 new jobs over the projections decade.
Most ChemE graduates are going into these alternate fields. We also have an “older” population of engineers, who are retiring, creating more openings. Finally, we have engineers that move out of “engineering” positions into management, etc. There is a good amount of attrition to this pool of ChemE’s.
Your DS having a ChemE degree in no way limits them to this limited pool of 3000 jobs!
It may be more useful to look at current career outcome data. You can select for ChemE’s.
At UA:
I like UF’s, since it presents more data:
For example, it list which occupation and industry.
Several other schools also share “outcome data”. Search for “graduation survey results”.
I think the most successful engineer or really any profession are the one’s that can pivot when needed. Many subsets of most engineering fields. Many as stated go into mamgament of many different types of fields. To me, it’s the way one is taught to think that can be applied broadly to other occupations. But it seems being able to Pivot, is key.
This! In my personal experience, folks who were willing to pivot to other industries and move location, were easily able to find work after layoffs. Those that weren’t struggled. Engineering is a great degree for critical thinking and problem solving skills. Those skills can translate very broadly across multiple industries.
That’s why I think sometimes broader engineering degrees can be more versatile than niche ones. For example, chem E over nuclear, mech e over aero, etc… You can still work in nuclear or aero but can also pivot more easily if the job market changes.
Thank you for all these great suggestions! I like data and research, make a living doing those things. While no one can predict what the future holds, past and present trends can be used for estimation. Just as an example, US has infrastructure that will need to be refurbished and short by about 6 million housing units. On the other hand, biomanufacturing is pretty huge and pays very well around where I live. They are hiring a lot of process engineers with Chem E degrees and biomanufacturing concentration.
Finally, DS like both. Played a lot with chemistry sets and legos and as I stated, enjoyed civil engineering related activities through ACE. He has been looking through electives and upper level courses at UA. I asked him what sounded most appealing to him. His answer was “transportation.” We shall see.
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