<p>This thread caught my eye because my S is just starting in civil engineering and is thinking of getting a certificate in engineering project management along with his BS. He thought that this along with coop or intern experience would help him get his first job and also help him thoughout his career. After reading about MBA’s I’m wondering about thoughts about the advantages or drawbacks of going for the certificate.</p>
<p>I think the main issue the previous posters brought up was that there needs to be experience. There needs to be hands on experience. You need to know what’s up and what’s down. You can’t have a succesful engineering manager who has never been an engineer.</p>
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<p>Engineering managers often make more than $150K, and $200K is not at all unreasonable. </p>
<p>The short and simple answer is don’t be average, be excellent. The salaries for top performers are much, much higher. It’s a meritocracy through and through. If you can create more value by being faster, smarter and more creative, and can also be a leader and communicate, then you are worth a lot more money than the average engineer. </p>
<p>The school that you go to matters if you intend to be a top performer because top schools set a very high standard of excellence. Even the average engineer isn’t aware of the discrepancy. </p>
<p>It’s often difficult for someone 18-20 to realize the value of the investment of time that they make in themselves to absolutely master their craft and be a top performer.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add something to this thread. A lot of uninformed people make fun of Industrial Engineers but I have no regrets about choosing IE. </p>
<p>In reality, a good Industrial Engineer with a solid understanding of Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing can be way more “useful” as a manager than someone who is strictly tech with a MBA but has no people skills or management experience.</p>
<p>I have heard of IE teams that have saved companies hundreds of thousands of dollars simply by implementing very straightforward lean strategies- many of these people have moved to upper management simply because they bring in a set of skills that most engineers do not have.</p>
<p>I’m not downplaying the success of IEs or the usefulness if them, but who’s to say that ChemEs, CEs, or any of the other engineer don’t have personal skills or management skills? There are so many factors that can go in a situation but, come on, really?</p>
<p>spectrum2;</p>
<p>If your son is looking at a dual degree in CE and project management, have him look closely at the content of the project management part of it. The main objection I had to the dual degree issue was that a lot of the coursework for an MBA doesn’t apply to engineering. You don’t need a lot of something like “international finance” to figure out the load paths in a structure!! The people that I hired figured because they had all this “business” background that they were immediately “management” material. Two totally different concepts.</p>
<p>Civil Engineering projects will many times involve a lot of project management and those skills may be useful to know. Just have a realistic expectation that he may not be using those project management skills until he demonstrates to the company he works for that he can handle the engineering part first.</p>
<p>@spectrum2,</p>
<p>Typically the certificate would only require 4, 3 credit (total 12 credits) classes(at TAMU for example), some of which also count as your engineering electives (check the program at your S school). For CE it makes sense, as he can get it out of the way now, before he graduates and he will, at some point be involved in projects.</p>
<p>Also remember that salary depends on your location. While you make $130k in DC, the same job will pay you 90k in lets say Tampa,FL. Making 120k+ at 35 is not rare at least in the DC area. We are in what the DoD calls highly skill jobs.</p>
<p>It really depends on the industry you go into as an engineer. I work in the oil and gas industry and work for a supermajor oil company. Doesn’t really matter what type of engineering degree you have because they’ll train you for your hired position so they hire electrical/civil/mechanical/chemical/petroleum etc for all types of positions. Anyways… at my company engineers out of school start ~$120,000 (with bonuses) while the managers make $400,000+. But if you go work in the field as an engineer or overseas I’ve heard of $500,000+ jobs. Obviously these are in very undesirable places (Iraq, Yemen etc) but you make more money than you know what to do with. So from my experience $80-$90k is very low for an engineer and $200k for a manager is also extremely low.</p>
<p>You’re in oil and gas, though. That’s a bubble of its own and not the best to compare with.</p>