<p>I get the feeling that on CC.com, getting a degree in Engineering technology is akin to the cc forum users' perception of going to a community college-- inferior.</p>
<p>Kinda bums that you spend the same 4 years as a real engineer in college, but you end up working for the engineer and doing his dirty work instead. Looking at the course catalog for my school, E Tech curriculums definitely look easier. Fluffy classes like "group decision making" and the like.</p>
<p>My plan was, if I can't hack it as a ChemE, I'd switch to E Tech (not ChemE Tech, that doesn't exist where I'm going) and double major in a more practical liberal arts like Math or Econ.</p>
<p>So what's your view of E Tech? I'd like to think that E Tech, while cannot earn one the high salary of an engineer, at least have more job prospects that a liberal arts major?</p>
<p>It is not the same but, I know graduates from my school who got a degree in EET and landed jobs making as much as their EE counterparts. That’s not always the case though and I don’t believe there’s as much mobility with any ET degree.</p>
<p>CC’s are not inferior to 4-year universities. They exist for a different purposes. Similarly, while it is true that ET degrees and engineering degrees are inherently different (an ET should not call himself an “engineer”), that’s not because ET degrees are inferior, but rather because they emphasize and teach different material with different expected career outcomes. (Let’s not get into the “My neighbor/brother/sister/cousin/etc has an ET degree but works as an engineer” mess.)</p>
<p>Think of it like a chef and a maitre d. They have different goals and jobs, so they are trained differently. However, at the end of the day, if the food tastes terrible, the restaurant fails, and if the customers aren’t happy, the restaurant fails. I wouldn’t call the maitre d inferior to the chef because he can’t cook, just like I wouldn’t call the chef inferior the maitre d because he doesn’t know how to design the front of house. </p>
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<p>You don’t spend the same four years in college. You might both spend four years, but the experiences are different. In engineering programs (which are often 5 years these days), the issue isn’t the length of the program, bur rather the difficulty.</p>
<p>Engineering technology is not a bad degree and it isn’t inferior, per se. It does, however, have a different focus and in general doesn’t go as in-depth into a lot of material as the full-blown engineering courses do. The reason ET’s often end up working for engineers, as you put it, is that the more in-depth knowledge is required to properly do all the design work and similar tasks that the full engineers typically perform.</p>
<p>For example, looking at the ET programs at Purdue, they seem to only take two semesters of calculus, which, based on the title, may be a more applied version of calculus to begin with. They don’t take differential equations, which limits their ability to really model a lot of real world problems (differential equations pretty much explain the mathematical basis of everything) and they only take two semesters of physics, which generally means no modern physics/QM (which may or may not even be useful). Additionally, the ET analogs of the straight up engineering courses tend to be more applied when you look at what is covered, so rather than going into the real mathematical basis of it all and getting as in depth, they learn the basic physical concepts and how to apply them. In some respects, they probably even learn how to do the applied side of things better than typical engineers do. However, ET curricula tend to be a lot lighter on theory, as evident by the light calculus and physics loads and lack of differential equations.</p>
<p>Basically, ET isn’t inferior, it just has a different focus with a different expected outcome. There is a lot of overlap in that the core concepts are the same, but the way they are taught and the reason they are taught are different.</p>
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<p>I would argue that it would be useless. A lot of times engineers can get the same jobs ET’s can (rightly or wrongly) but not the other way around.</p>
<p>In the world of “engineering related positions”, there are engineering positions (work that actually requires an engineering degree and uses engineering principals), technical positions (work that uses technical problem solving to achieve a goal), and technologist positions (work that uses skills learned in technologist courses). </p>
<p>Obviously, engineering positions require companies to go to engineering programs to hire. Technologist positions require companies to go to ET programs to hire. However, technical positions are not as clear cut. </p>
<p>In some cases, for a “technical position” (say, project management or control system maintenance), an ET (or Math major, or similar) might work as well as an engineer. So, the company will interview both ET’s and engineers, hire one, and pay the same regardless of whether that person is an ET or engineer. However, only some people hiring for a “technical position” will realize that fact and hire an ET. Some will insist on an engineer.</p>
<p>So this creates a situation where you have engineers that can work in engineering positions and all technical positions, and ET’s that can work in all technologist positions and some technical positions. Since there are many more engineering positions than technologist positions, this means that there are many more positions and options available to engineering majors.</p>
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<p>To be fair, you’re talking about an unaccredited EE program.</p>
<p>The problem is the perception Western society, and increasingly Eastern society, places on certain professions and careers. We tend to think some careers must be more “prestigious” than others, generally based on the amount of money that career earns.</p>
<p>Society needs all sorts of careers and professions to function properly. Cops enforce the law while judges interpret the law yet both professions operate within Law. You can also think of it as a body; the brain has one function while the heart has another, can you say which organ is more important? One has a simple function (pump blood) the other has a more complex function (act as a organic computer) yet you need both to live. Imagine if your brain also acted as a heart, every time you had a headache you’d also have a “heart” attack!</p>
<p>The basic idea is separation of labor. Don’t allow others to belittle you simply because your function may require less rigor, skill, or talent in certain areas. Even janitors are important and don’t get paid enough for the job they perform.</p>
<p>Banjo,
I wasn’t referring to the SPSU EE counterparts. I don’t even think that that program has had any graduates. I was actually referring SPSU EET vs. GaTech EE starting salaries. I know that pound for pound GaTech obviously has higher average starting salaries. I was just trying to point out to the OP that though some do think of ET in a negative way, I personally know guys who got an EET degree making in the 60’s right out of school. This is not the norm but in those cases, the salaries are comparable.</p>
<p>Personally I would recommend you stick engineering out. ET is a fine degree for what you’ll end up doing, but engineering is just the better option at the end of the day. Of course I’m only making an analogy from my experience of the difference between IT and CS/SE, which may be more marked than that between ET and Eng.</p>
<p>mamaroneck, you don’t actually spend 4 years as a real engineer in college because, as you said, the curriculums are totally different.</p>
<p>To reiterate what others have said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with an ET degree but you must be aware that it will not qualify you for most engineering jobs.</p>
<p>“They don’t take differential equations, which limits their ability to really model a lot of real world problems (differential equations pretty much explain the mathematical basis of everything)”</p>
<p>First I would love it if someone could give an example of a real world problem where a differential equation would be easier or the only way to solve a problem.</p>
<p>I just want to chime in on the debate, I mostly agree with what others have said but Im also still a year away from graduating. I’m an MET student and landed a summer internship and I have to say after my interview I left feeling like the MET classes are much better suited to the company I’m working for. Yes I realize it’s 1 company out of thousands but it seems like a pretty normal engineering company, they design parts, manufacture them in-house, calibrate, test them, etc. None of these things are hard to pick up on the job but the fact that I had a lot of hands on experience definitely helped in the interview.</p>
<p>It’s also kind of ridiculous to even be comparing an ME to an MET degree when talking about “real engineering jobs” because most of the real design work for Nasa, Boeing, etc requires a PHD anyway. Ive said it before that as far as just getting a bachelors and going out into the workforce I doubt any employers are going to see a difference between the degree but if you want to R&D work your only option is the standard engineering degree and then going on to a PHD in most cases.</p>
<p>“First I would love it if someone could give an example of a real world problem where a differential equation would be easier or the only way to solve a problem.”</p>
<p>You have a cubical metal box with known potentials on each of the faces. Find the electric field inside the box.</p>
<p>You have a door that you want to close automatically after it has been opened by some sort of spring mechanism. How much do you damp the spring to get the door to close quickly without slamming?</p>
<p>You have a CPU heating up due to Joule heating caused by running a process. What will the steady-state temperature of the CPU be after running the process for a long time, or how long will it take the CPU to overheat running that process?</p>
<p>aarons914, my experience has shown me that companies absolutely do see a difference between the two degrees. I won’t disagree that there is some overlap but most engineering jobs require an engineering degree. To suggest otherwise is not really accurate. Like I’ve said a thousand times, the T in MET stands for technology. Every company that I know of will not consider METs for engineering positions, they hire METs for technology/technician positions.</p>
<p>And saying that only PhDs do design work is also not accurate. I don’t know why people make claims when they clearly have no experience to back them up.</p>
<p>I need to figure out the drag on an airplane so that I can size the engines accordingly and it can actually take off.</p>
<p>I need to figure out how much fuel a rocket of a certain weight weighs in order for it to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.</p>
<p>I need to figure out how much to damp the suspension on my car so that it doesn’t go into a resonant bouncing when it hits a couple bumps (a very real phenomenon).</p>
<p>I need to determine how long it will take for my sand casting to cool.</p>
<p>Want me to continue? Nearly every physical phenomena can be described with a differential equation.</p>
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<p>Better suited for the company you are working for or better suited for the position you are working at? Don’t get the two confused. I don’t know what company you work for, but I assure you that anywhere that has ET’s working will also have engineers working in different capacities.</p>
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<p>That is a patently false statement. Most design work is done by holders of a BS or MS in engineering. Most R&D work is performed by holders of a PhD and sometimes and MS in engineering or hard sciences depending on the job.</p>
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<p>If that was true, the two degrees wouldn’t typically lead into different sets of jobs as they do in real life. The two are different degrees with different competencies that lead to different, albeit related careers.</p>
<p>To piggyback on what others answered. Any of their examples may need to be simulated by way of a computer model and computational methods and algorithms of differential equations (usually partial DE’s) will be needed in the computer simulation.</p>