Engineering - Does School Matter?

I understand you not wanting your kids to work in a tech bro environment, but what do you have against plastic surgeons?

Excellent discussions here as a father of a kid at Michigan I am learning a lot from the pros here. @hebegebe nice catch… Lol.

@blossom great insight as always etc et AL…

My son did the ace mentoring program https://www.acementor.org/affiliates/illinois/chicago/about-us/ in Chicago as a high school junior to get a better idea about how engineers work together. Great program and he’s was never interested in Civil but the program showed how one teams decision can affect another Teams (type of engineering) ability to move forward on a common project.

The program was cosponsored with some international companies in this field. The “mentors” were actually just graduated from college. Working in the same firms side by side were graduates from UIUC, UIC, Northwestern, IIT, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Purdue, Berkeley, and the list goes on. Over 30 mentors from like 30 different program and a lot of T 20 programs from all the name brands and a few colleges no one ever heard of.

I found this very interesting as a parent.

Also as far as being happy but challenged. I think that’s doable for lots of students. As my son keeps telling me “engineering is tough”. Good. It’s supposed to be challenging. If it was that easy then everyone would be doing it… Lol…

I just think students need to have real expectations. This isn’t high school anymore. I am in the camp that learning is more important then grades at this point. I think he realized that getting all “A” 's… Isn’t happening anymore but learning at school is amazing. So I think he took that pressure off of himself and think that is good mentally also.

Also I have some friends at Microsoft locally and a large biotech firm in Georgia. My Microsoft friend went to UIUC and will definitely want to recruit from there and locally first. The Georgia guy recruits from GT since they do research with them but many on the board went to Purdue so they definitely want them as recruits.

Our culture favors instant gratification. That gratification is almost always measured in dollars. The success in engineering, and even more so in sciences, generally can’t be directly and immediately measured in dollars, unlike in financial services or entertainment sectors. There’re quite a few exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, we need to change that part of our culture so more of our scientists and engineers will stay in their chosen fields and be better compensated for their contributions.

I have seen CS mentioned in a post or two. This is a thread about engineering. Computer engineering would fit but computer science is an entirely different field, think as in a comparison between chemistry and chemical engineering. Or hardware vs software. I liked chemistry, no way chem E. The jobs for engineers are very different than for the sciences. I’m sure people in this thread are sophisticated about the differences, btw.

@wis75 I was talking about software engineering.

The Berkeley reference was for Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering & Computer Science major, which is by far the most popular major within Berkeley’s College of Engineering. Many other colleges offer a major that groups EE and CS together. MIT offers two such majors that group EE and CS – one that places EE first and one CS. There is a lot of overlap between CS and engineering, so most engineering colleges I am aware of choose to offer a CS related major in their college of Engineering, including Stanford, where I attended. A large portion of my EE major specific courses were crosslisted among CS major specific courses. After graduating from such colleges, the vast majority of CS major’s first job includes the word “engineer” in their job title.

Yes, EE and CS are different fields, but the same could be said for almost all fields of engineering. EE and CS are probably more similar than EE and CE, or EE vs the vast majority of other engineering fields. A similar statement could be made for post graduate employment.

That is like saying that a HYP graduate who does not go into Wall Street or management consulting is making a poor career choice, based on the assumption that the only good career choices are those which maximize money and/or prestige, as opposed to interesting work that pays enough to stay out of financial worry.

Note that Thomas Stanley, author of The Millionaire Next Door did find that engineers are more likely to be frugal than those in most other jobs. Combine that with engineer pay levels that are often good (but not Wall Street or management consulting level) and you may find many engineers who are financially satisfied and have other motivations for job choice, like interesting work.

@MaineLonghorn yes I remember having a great four years in college getting my EECS, it’s interesting about humans, we tend to forget the hard stressful times and remember the good times, it’s part of our evolution/self preservation. Most engineering grads don’t think on graduation day, yea, I’d like to do that all over again.

@ucbalumnus i did use the word “almost”

Can’t agree with that one. If someone took a NASA job back in the day and stayed the requisite # of years, they’d have a sweet government pension (the “old” pension) and the government health insurance. Thats quite a benefit.

As an aside, DH was on the NASA track when he was in the military. Someone (ahem, can’t imagine who) came into the picture and diverted him from his military career. The NASA stuff would have been cool. But he has no regrets.

There are a lot more high paying fields than finance or management consulting: law, medicine, accounting, upper corporate management, and engineering can all be lucrative, depending on your role. I would encourage anyone smart enough to get admitted to HYPMS and graduate with a high GPA in a challenging major not to embark on a career path where their income will peak at $150k. The HYP grads with trust funds may be the exception, with the luxury of not having ever to worry about money.

Not everyone goes/went to HYP to make mega-millions. Some actually want to go to benefit from the learning environment.

I agree the original CSRS was a good benefit, but you had to be hired in 1983 or before, not applicable to anyone entering the work force today or in the past 35 years.

True… but many of us here are from that era… or before. And the newer pension option, while not as good, is still a benefit that many, MANY employees only wish for.

And FWIW, this says the pension changed in 1987 https://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/csrs-information/

My friend would have graduated right around 82-82, but I don’t know if she went directly to NASA (I think so) so she might have CRS instead of FRS. Government jobs are great, steady, flexible.

The pension was changed in 1987, but anyone hired after 1983 had to convert to the new system.

As I said in my original comment, anyone who signed on back in the day and worked the requisite # of years… I also know someone who started in a federal job, left for several years, but ultimately returned and was able to continue the old plan and complete the 30 years. And the federal health plan, which they were able to continue to have for their spouse and disabled child after retirement, is coverage most of us could only dream of.

Missing the point of reply #86, which is that some people do not prioritize maximizing income beyond what is needed for them to live comfortably without financial worry.

But then maybe the forum demographic of people with $250k+ incomes who find it difficult to save for retirement and kids’ college because of their high spending habits may find it hard to imagine living comfortably with plenty to spare on $150k.

Many of those $250K+ income people who are not saving live in high tax states with high costs of living. In NYC, for example, income, state, city, and SS taxes consume would nearly 60% of their income. They may have student loans from grad or professional school too. Add on the crazy housing pricing, say $800K for a small home/condo, and there isn’t much left.

Of course they could move to a lower cost state and fix the problem readily. It’s amazing how much better people live on 40% less income in places like Indiana and Texas.

Even in “high cost of living” areas, most people live on much less than $250k. In your example of NYC, the median household income is about $58k, according to https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/newyorkcitynewyork .

Someone with $250k income living like someone with double the median, meaning $116k, should have plenty to save for retirement and kids’ college.

Also, most people overestimate taxes when complaining about them. https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#qQJZehLu5V estimates $96k single or $78k married for federal, state, and local income taxes in NYC plus FICA. This is 38% or 31% of the $250k income, not 60%.

I’m very happy to be married to an engineer who didn’t feel money was the ultimate goal in life! We really enjoy our family time and have no interest in trading that for more money. H loves his job. He owns the company, so I suppose if he didn’t love some aspect about it he could change it.

We’ve never encouraged our lads to choose a career based upon the money, though we did caution them to be sure it paid enough for what they wanted their standard of living to be. We like seeing them do things they love. At that point, it’s rarely “work.”