Engineering+MBA=Golden Ticket to success

<p>Engineering is cool in the sense that its possible to get additional degrees after setting up your career. But its never a good idea to just go around abusing that privilege.</p>

<p>Do a BS in engineering if you want to work at a job paying $40k-60k when you're 22-23, with mildly interesting work and potential to climb up the technical ladder to jobs paying up to and sometimes over $100k.
Get an MS in engineering (after the BS of course) only if you are interested in learning. Most people are burned out well before the end of their undergraduate degree, but some are particularly massochistic and take this route. This will not necessarily help you make more money, though it should help you secure more interesting jobs.
Get an MBA if and when you want to move out of technical and into business/management. You also can't get one of these until you have significant work experience.
Get a PhD... well, only get it if you really want one for some reason. It doesn't really compliment an engineering degree if you have the industry and corporate ladder in mind. You lose too many years and develop a sense of self-entitlement that may not pay-off in the competitive business environment.
I know a PhD-MBA who makes a heck of a lot of money (doing some kind of enviro consulting), but he never planned it that way. The guy always wanted to be a professor/researcher, and he did that... and eventually found his way to the MBA. He was in his forties when he completed the MBA though... and it wasn't until almost a decade later that he really started making serious money.</p>

<p>Electrifice, that's generally correct, but some fields require higher baseline qualifications than others.</p>

<p>You're right. I presented a bit of an oversimplification. Though I'm guessing you're referring to civil? I heard that an MS is the norm for civil...</p>

<p>i'm talkin about aerospace... just so you know...</p>

<p>More structural than civil, electrifice.</p>

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i'm talkin about aerospace... just so you know...

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<p>For JPLish stuff, you'll probably need more than a bachelors degree. My old officemate in grad school got his PhD and ended up working as an engineer at JPL doing Mars lander stuff, and recalling that leaky, smelly, moldy office we were confined to, I don't think he'd have spent upwards of half a decade there unless it were absolutely critical to his career aspirations to do so...</p>

<p>My girlfriend (an EE) interviewed at JPL about six months ago and she said most people there had MS degrees. She's not actually sure how she even got the interview since she didn't meet anyone during the day with a BS.</p>

<p>Probably had to do with specific job position, then... I have a masters and got that interview at Aero, and I ran across a lot of PhDs, and some masters, but no bachelors-only. Probably the same sort of deal.</p>