Engineering Careers and Salaries?

College Majors Engineering Majors
61

<p>Xcron, I have a few points you should seriously consider before you make any decisions regarding your major/career paths.</p>

<p>(1.) Don't think academic research as a Ph.D. does not involve alot of management type activities. For example, you are constantly required to apply for grants/funding. Keep your sponsers up to date with your progress. Also you may need to manage Ph.D students who may be part of your team. In all my years I have never heard of a one man research team. There are always at least a few assistants sometimes technicians, masters students, sometimes ph.d students, sometimes even ambitious undergrad students. Who do you really think does the dirty work. (Hint: Wink Wink !!!!!)
(2.) You seem to be bouncing around alot with which major you want to pursue. How about instead of being misinformed by some cocky undergrad students, ask some professionals in the field to have a one on one interview with you to learn some more detailed aspects about their job. Also you may be able to job shadow them for a few days possibly longer. I would also recommend applying for a co-op/internship position in a field that you feel is the most fascinating to you however you know the least about.
(3.) DO NOT LISTEN TO THAT Golubb/aehmo IDIOT. HE DEFINITELY IS MISINFORMING YOU AND HAS OTHER PLANS FOR HIS POSTS IN THIS FORUM. Like I said in my last point, talk to some professionals in person, job shadow them and learn more about their jobs first hand. Also appy to co-op/internship positions in the fields that you wish to pursue but know little about.</p>

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You're guaranteed a 55K job coming out with the engineering major but if you want to work for i-banks, it's very dependent on GPA.

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<p>No you're not. There are no guarantees. </p>

<p>I believe that Penn actually publishes its engineering salary figures somewhere. You will notice that plenty of Penn engineers do not make 55k. </p>

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It's also a bit risky doing business majors even at top schools like Wharton or Princeton because you have to maintain a very high GPA in order get recruited by the best i-banks. What's the point of graduating from Wharton or Princeton in econ. with a 3.2

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<p>This is also not entirely correct. Ibanking recruiting is not as dependent on GPA as you are implying. High GPA helps, don't get me wrong, but I have seen plenty of people get in with quite mediocre GPA's, but who had other strong factors, notably high charisma and personal confidence and, even more importantly, summer banking internships. </p>

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I think the illusion has become too far-fetched. Just pick an average ibanker from Citygroup and Goldman Sach and ask them their starting salary.

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<p>Ok, do it, and you will see that the compensation (salary+bonus) still tends to be higher than the average engineer. You even said it yourself on the other thread - there are plenty of mediocre engineering jobs out there.</p>

<p>Now again, look, I am not saying that you shouldn't pursue an engineering degree. Far from it. I still believe it is probably one of the better choices you can make as far as an undergraduate major goes. After all, if engineering is not a good undergrad major, then what's better? However, as it stands, you can get an engineering degree and then look to pursue other career paths, like consulting,banking, law, medicine, etc., and if they don't work out, you can just take an engineering job as a fallback. </p>

<p>What I think should be done is that engineering jobs should be made better so that people will no longer see it as a fallback to do if you can't get anything better. But that's the subject of another thread. As it stands right now, engineering as a career is actually very good for the medicore engineers - those people who quite frankly aren't smart enough or motivated enough to make it in one of those other fields. For those people, an engineering job is a pretty sweet deal - surely beats answering phones and making coffee for people, or being a security guard at a supermarket (something that I personally know some humanities graduates are doing). However, for those people who are stars, they may be better off doing something else.</p>

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<p>We can look up current salaries and blab about them all we want, but, looking into the future, I think that engineering will only grow as a discipline. Technology in general is becoming increasingly complex, and the demand for engineers continues to exceed the supply...as people become more-and-more dependenton this technology, I personally believe there will be a pretty substantial increase in the average salaries for engineers. It is such a skill-oriented profession where it takes certain math/science-oriented individuals to be successful...unlike business where seemingly anyone can snag a bachelors and make decent money. </p>

<p>In the end, though, no one on here can tell anyone else how much money they will or won't make in their careers (whether that be engineering or another discipline altogether)...if you are good at what you do, you will be successful and certainly make enough dough to function.</p>

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<p>"We can look up current salaries and blab about them all we want, but, looking into the future, I think that engineering will only grow as a discipline. Technology in general is becoming increasingly complex, and the demand for engineers continues to exceed the supply...as people become more-and-more dependenton this technology, I personally believe there will be a pretty substantial increase in the average salaries for engineers."</p>

<p>Although demand will go up, so will outsourcing. India and China have armies of engineers who will work for very cheap. No company will pay higher salaries when they can outsource so easily.</p>

<p>For example, would you pay 20k for a honda accord at your local dealer, or would you rather buy it for 3k in India and then ship it for another 2k? ....Companies are not dumb.</p>

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I believe that Penn actually publishes its engineering salary figures somewhere. You will notice that plenty of Penn engineers do not make 55k.

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<p>Speaking of Penn...
Penn Engineering grad starting salaries has been consistently higher than those of Wharton graduates. The graduating group at Penn with the highest average starting salary are Engineering double majors, at something like $59k. This starting salary is even higher than Engineering-Wharton double majors. Also worthy of note is that Penn's most prestigious engineering department, Bioengineering, fares low in starting salary, but that's a different story.</p>

<p>HOWEVER, the catch (according to Penn's data) is that over the long run, about 10 years, Engineers' salaries are eventually overtaken by Wharton grads by about $30k (101k for Engineering vs 130k for Wharton, the latter with average bonus of 100k), and matched by CAS grads. Neither wharton nor Engineering release data for salary based on specific industry. The college, however, does and it states in its 10-year out survey that graduates from the college employed in financial services average $480,000 per year, which is absolutely tremendous. Also from the college at Penn, the average salary for consulting is $140k, and $195k for law.</p>

<p>So what it turns out is that in the long run, in terms of pure salary, engineering is not better off than other majors at least compared to ivy league "liberal arts" grads. But many of the high paying jobs like finance, consulting, and law, are all pretty difficult, maybe even more difficult than engineering (i don't know).</p>

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<p>I should point out that "Engineering" refers to engineering undergrad and not necessarily engineering jobs.</p>

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Although demand will go up, so will outsourcing. India and China have armies of engineers who will work for very cheap. No company will pay higher salaries when they can outsource so easily.

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<p>Let's not forget that outsourcing can and will affect EVERY service job, not just engineers. Engineering outsourcing gets all the hype, but the fact is, business-process outsourcing in general is a giant trend. For example, instead of hiring a highly paid analyst, investment banks can just hire a bunch of cheap quant jocks in India to do all their grunt spreadsheet crunching and preparing of financial reports. Instead of hiring a whole bunch of low-level lawyers do your legal research and preparation of briefs for you, why not just offshore that? Have a bunch of Indians do all your company's tax returns and accounting books. All of these things are already happening. Basically, any job that involves the processing and manipulating of information, not just engineering work, but all kinds of business backoffice work, can be offshored. Heck, even a lot of medical services can be offshored. For example, if you need elective surgery, like plastic surgery, or LASIK, or ACL knee surgery, and your insurance won't pay for it, why not get it done in Asia for maybe 1/10 the cost? Medical offshoring has already become a booming business in India. Indian doctors are already analyzing Xrays, MRI's, CAT Scans, and the like for a fraction of what an American doctor would charge. </p>

<p>The point is, I don't see that engineering as significantly more threatened by offshoring than any other service job. </p>

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HOWEVER, the catch (according to Penn's data) is that over the long run, about 10 years, Engineers' salaries are eventually overtaken by Wharton grads by about $30k (101k for Engineering vs 130k for Wharton, the latter with average bonus of 100k), and matched by CAS grads. Neither wharton nor Engineering release data for salary based on specific industry. The college, however, does and it states in its 10-year out survey that graduates from the college employed in financial services average $480,000 per year, which is absolutely tremendous. Also from the college at Penn, the average salary for consulting is $140k, and $195k for law.

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<p>I would like to see this data you are referring to. However, I think you are neglecting a key aspect of the data - namely that many Penn engineers don't work as engineers but themselves go into finance and consulting. I know quite a few who've done that. </p>

<p>Hence, it seems to me that you have a strong aspect of self-selection here. Sure, I agree that those CAS who get into financial services do very well. But the question is, how many are able to get in, and what happens to those that don't? I have a very hard time believing that the average Penn Art major manages to catch up to the average Penn engineer. I agree that the few Art students who get into consulting or financial services do very well, but what about all those that don't or can't? </p>

<p>Furthermore, as a point of reference, I would direct you to the salaries of graduates at MIT. Note specifically the kinds of salaries that bachelor's degree graduates in engineering make. Now, I think we can all agree that MIT is a better engineering school than is Penn (does anybody seriously care to dispute this?). Yet the fact is, there are a significant number of MIT engineers who don't make 55k. Many do, but many don't. </p>

<p>Hence, I highly doubt the notion that Penn engineers are guaranteed to be making 55k to start, when even the MIT engineers don't make that.</p>

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I would like to see this data you are referring to.

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<p>SEAS: <a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/seas/seas_surveys.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/seas/seas_surveys.html&lt;/a>
College: <a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/college/careersurveys.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/college/careersurveys.html&lt;/a>
Wharton: <a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/wharton/surveys.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/wharton/surveys.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Actually, I'd like to retract some of the material that I wrote. It turns out that I was looking at the 15-year out data for the College rather than the 10-year one. But the salary on SEAS is accurate.</p>

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Furthermore, as a point of reference, I would direct you to the salaries of graduates at MIT. Note specifically the kinds of salaries that bachelor's degree graduates in engineering make. Now, I think we can all agree that MIT is a better engineering school than is Penn (does anybody seriously care to dispute this?). Yet the fact is, there are a significant number of MIT engineers who don't make 55k. Many do, but many don't.

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<p>It isn't as simple as the US News engineering ranking makes it out to be. Penn has a very renown Bioengineering department. But again, its starting salary is lower than those of other departments at Penn. </p>

<p>MIT's salary data seems wacked: the salary ranges from $12 to $9999999. Something must be wrong there. Anyways, Penn Engineering's starting salary for the class of 04 was also higher than Cornell Engineering's. I myself turned down Cornell for Penn's SEAS because I think Penn will give me a more flexible background.</p>

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<p>I neglected to post the actual MIt link. Here it is. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/salary/04bycourse.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/career/www/salary/04bycourse.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Anyway, I'd like to know what you mean by the MIT salary data being wack. </p>

<p>And besides, I believe I can deal with your concerns about BioE. The truth is, the bio and health-care industry pays all its bachelor's degree holders low, even the BioE guys. Whether that's fair or not fair, that's how it is. BioE grads from the best schools like Berkeley, Stanford, Duke, or whatever, don't really make that much money. In other words, even a Petr E or ChemE grad from a no-name school can often times nab a higher salary than a BioE grad from an elite school. </p>

<p>Your salary figures serve to prove what I've been saying about Penn engineering salaries. I see that in 2004, the average salary for Penn engineers was about $54.7k Hence, it is clearly must be false that a Penn engineering degree will 'guarantee' you a 55k salary. Some will get that kind of salary, or even higher, but some won't. </p>

<p>Furthermore, they also show that on a 10-year comparison, the Penn engineers still have a slight edge in salary over the Penn College graduates. What you are pointing out is a phenomenom that is well understood in the engineering field which is that engineering salaries tend to top out rather quickly, something that mystifies me and others greatly. However, it should again be pointed out that engineering starting salaries do tend to be higher than that of College grads, and if you've ever studied finance, you should know about the time value of money. Money earned earlier in your life is more valuable than money you get later. So while I agree that College grads catch up in salary, the engineer enjoyed all those years where he should have been building up a decent nest egg.</p>

<p>Finally, I'm not tremendously surprised that Penn engineers can make more than Cornell engineers. Just from a pure geographic standpoint, Penn engineers tend to take jobs in the Mid-Atlantic/Eastern seaboard, which is a higher paying (but also higher cost of living) place to be than the upstate New York/midwest places that Cornell grads tend to go. By the same token, I wouldn't be surprised to see that San Jose State engineering grads make quite high salaries when you figure that most of them end up working in Silicon Valley, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the entire country.</p>

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<p>What are the averages for those with engineering degrees from 1st tier schools (like Berkeley, for example) becoming analysts/consultants?</p>

<p>I'm a bit lost on what career path/degree to focus on, and am considering an engineering degree for it seems to be the most adaptable (if ibanking doesnt work, I could try med school, or just work as an engineer, etc right?). I like math/science, helping people, solving problems, and most importantly making alot of money with somewhat job-security.</p>

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What are the averages for those with engineering degrees from 1st tier schools (like Berkeley, for example) becoming analysts/consultants?

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<p>It's the same as for anybody else who gets such analyst/consultant job. For example, McKinsey pays the same to its analysts regardless of where they come from or what degree they have. </p>

<p>Hence, if you want to know what exactly those firms are paying analysts/consultants, you can go pick up the latest copy of Vault Reports (which should be available at your schools career center). Or just ask around on CC.</p>

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<p>"I'm a bit lost on what career path/degree to focus on, and am considering an engineering degree for it seems to be the most adaptable (if ibanking doesnt work, I could try med school, or just work as an engineer, etc right?). I like math/science, helping people, solving problems, and most importantly making alot of money with somewhat job-security."</p>

<p>lateregistration -- you could be a great doctor! ...you solve problems all day long, make a lot of money and have great satisfaction and job security!</p>

<p>IB'ing is for salesy, shmoozy type of folks who can sell ice cubes to eskimos.</p>

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<p>Anyone know what the average starting salary for aerospace engineers (BS) in Southern California is? I am particularly interested in the big aerospace companies, like Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrop, etc. (Or if you know a good resource to find recent data on this, that's be great too. Or better yet, if you have a friend who was recently hired and they'd be willing to share?) Thanks!</p>

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This is also not entirely correct. Ibanking recruiting is not as dependent on GPA as you are implying. High GPA helps, don't get me wrong, but I have seen plenty of people get in with quite mediocre GPA's, but who had other strong factors, notably high charisma and personal confidence and, even more importantly, summer banking internships.

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<p>I honestly hope so Sakky. I wouldn't want to be closed out of i-banking because I can't pull over a 3.2 w/ my current, ridiculously hard engineering major.</p>

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I honestly hope so Sakky. I wouldn't want to be closed out of i-banking because I can't pull over a 3.2 w/ my current, ridiculously hard engineering major.

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<p>I'll put it to you this way. I know a guy who barely had a 3.0 who got several Ibanking offers. He wasn't even an engineer, he majored in "Political Economy of Industrial Societies". I know several other guys with quite modest GPA's (often times below a 3.0) who also got strong Ibanking offers.</p>

<p>Look, obviously a high GPA doesn't hurt. But it's not as necessary as some people seem to suggest that it is.</p>

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<p>And did he have a ton of connections to compensate for his sub-par GPA?</p>

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<p>How do you get into Engineering Consulting? And what exactly is it? What are the salary prospects?</p>

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And did he have a ton of connections to compensate for his sub-par GPA?

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<p>No, not at all. That was the surprising thing about it.</p>

<p>On the other hand, it is definitely true that this is a tall, handsome and charismatic guy. And the truth is, that has a lot to do with who gets hired. Plenty of star 4.0's can't get banking/consulting offers because they don't have the right 'look'. </p>

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How do you get into Engineering Consulting? And what exactly is it? What are the salary prospects?

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<p>It's somewhat similar to management consulting. You generally fly around to various companies and help them with their business problems. Since it's engineering consulting, the problems you will see will tend to be technical in nature. </p>

<p>As far as how you get in, it's fairly similar to how you get into management consulting. You have to practice your speaking skills. You have to know about business trends. You have to look sharp. </p>

<p>Salary prospects are somewhat higher than for regular engineering, although the hours are far more grueling.</p>

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<p>Concerning the subject of being an individual contributor at an older age, I presently work for a company (ChemE degree) that has a dual path, providing opportunities for advancement without getting into the management side. At one time, I worked for a company that had no such opportunity. Oh sure, you could be an individual contributor. But everyone 'knew' you were there at age 40 only because you weren't management material. I'd rather not post my salary here but it is above what one on the board feared was a ceiling - well above it. I've done the management thing in the past and it had its plusses also. But now, I can really 'do the work'. By the way, I've got the 43 year old individual contributor beat. I'm over 50. So, who says he's being laid off soon! One more thing - I live in the South and my salary goes a long way. Money isn't everything to me but the person who had the concern needs to know his plan can come together.</p>