<p>boneh3ad, congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Very exciting. I do agree with Enginox - it’s just shocking how much it takes to house, feed, and clothe a family of five! We have NO car loans - we bought a used 2007 Focus and are still driving a 2001 Tahoe that we paid off within a year. What we spend a ridiculous amount of money on is things we HAVE to purchase - medical insurance ($1,000/month, even with a $5,000 deductible), medical bills, dental bills, orthodontics, auto insurance, umbrella insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, public school fees (since the schools budgets have been cut, parents are expected to pay for more and more, including participation in sports), mortgage, taxes (over 30% of our income goes to the state of Maine and the federal government), etc. We’re NOT living high on the hog, by any stretch of the imagination. We did take one nice vacation to Arizona this summer, but that was to celebrate our son’s graduation from high school. We probably won’t take ANY trips next year. We have a strict budget, but it’s still hard.</p>
<p>You should save your post about not needing much money and look at it in, say, 20 years! You’ll get a chuckle out of it. Unless you decide not to have any kids, in which you won’t need as much.</p>
<p>pick medicine if you want long hours. they work for their high salary. my md friends regularly put in 70+ hour work weeks with one 36 hour shift a week</p>
<p>Oh I never said I won’t need more in the future. Kids obviously throw in a huge added financial responsibility. Buying a house does. A lot of stuff does. My only point is that $100k per year is plenty of money in almost any area of the country, even some major cities. I make barely 20% of that, and while I don’t have really any room for discretionary spending, I am not going hungry either.</p>
<p>The real issue is that once you reach a level of financial stability you start getting used to the associated lifestyle. If you are smart about what debt you take on and how you use your money, you can live very comfortably on a $100k income in most geographic locations and a large number of cities. Of course if you have a family of 4 and only that much, you will be stretching it a bit, but let’s be honest here, most families have two working parents these days.</p>
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<p>Except for the 36 hour shift, I can relate.</p>
<p>A family of four would be easier, for sure. That’s a good thing to think about when you decide how many kids you’d like. I’m glad we have three, because our youngest, a girl, is the light of our lives, but I also realize life would be much simpler if we were not paying for three college educations in the next ten years! Yikes.</p>
<p>Well, my two cents is that it’s absolutely true that being a mother could devastate your career as an engineer. You have to stay current with technology, knowledge, practices, the industry, etc. Dropping out for five years until your kid is in kindergarten could mean that 50% of the knowledge you’ve accumulated is obsolete. Same can go for law, and other professions. This is why you tend to see women concentrated in professions like teaching or nursing where it is feasible to drop out for a while and come back with most of your skill set and knowledge still valuable.</p>
<p>Obviously, once you have a kid, raising that kid right is top priority. Maybe you could marry a stay-at-home dad?</p>
<p>You should major in Engineering because if you decide to go to Medical school there is no “right” major to choose.</p>
<p>Just curious but what kind of engineer is the female that you are talking about? Hard to believe she would discourage you from such a great field that she regrets choosing.</p>
<p>“public school fees (since the schools budgets have been cut, parents are expected to pay for more and more, including participation in sports)”</p>
<p>you don’t need to send your kids to school once they know how to read and you don’t need to send them to participate in sports, they can get more efficient exercise even without the use of gym.</p>
<p>Gag me Servo. We usually agree but here I have to call you out on your draconian views of ‘raising a kid the right way’. As the smart boy you are, clearly you have read the decades of studies showing no difference in whether mom is stay at home or not. Give me a break. Every single professional woman I know- who ‘gasp!’ has had young kids while working!- has had very happy, well adjusted kids who now at college age are still happy, well adjusted, succeeding. </p>
<p>Time to put away the mythologies that are not proven by science, but primarily bind women to limited career options (you don’t see men doing the same calculus do you?).</p>
<p>Sorry to say but your family’s comments sounded VERY old school 1950s.</p>
<p>The whole notion that engineering is done mainly by immigrants because of language skills seems a throw back to the days of immigrants coming to the US to build railroads because they can’t do anything else. </p>
<p>If you look at the future of the US economy, and other fast developing economies like India, Brazil, China, etc., they are all driven by innovation in technology and engineering. Without great engineers and scientists, the US economy is over. Fast growing companies that shape the future of the US and create huge amount of new wealth, companies like facebook, google, Tesla electric cars, etc. are all technology/engineering companies. Some of the most handsomely compensated professionals are engineers at these promising companies.</p>
<p>So with that said, I don’t see how being an engineer is going to ruin your life. And why is an engineering career is especially bad for women? Going to medical school means 4 years of undergraduate + 4 years of medical school + 3 years of residency, you won’t get out until you are late 20s or early 30s. So isn’t that bad for your plans of getting marry and having kids?</p>
<p>Besides, you can still go from engineering school to medical school. </p>
<p>I say if you want to be an engineer, immigrant or not, girl or not, do it. It is a noble career that actually improves the world by creating real world innovation.</p>