<p>starlight, then please enlighten us on the topic at hand</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>hadsed, regarding your comment to me, please review what I am responding to.</p>
<p>thanks</p>
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<p>Which is likely because those are the best types of career he can reasonably obtain. Let’s face it: if I’m just an average guy with average undergrad grades from an average school working in an average engineering job, I’m likely never going to have a career in a top consulting or finance firm. Obtaining an MBA from an average B-school to win promotion to engineering management at an average engineering company is probably the most I can aspire to having. If they had the opportunity, they would surely take it. On the other hand, not too many financiers or consultants dream of becoming engineering managers at average engineering companies. </p>
<p>Similarly, if I had the opportunity to become a professional baseball player, I’d surely take it. But I don’t have that opportunity. You have to work with the choice set that is actually available to you.</p>
<p>@sakky: </p>
<p>You are very likely incorrect. You assume an individual’s interests remain static throughout life. Perhaps that engineer wants to tackle different kinds of problems, live elsewhere, “scale up the ladder”, etc. For engineers, the move to middle and upper management is the next logical step: engineers perform certain administrative and financial tasks as part of their technical jobs. After years of working in any company, any half-decent engineer becomes familiar with the administrative and financial aspects of the company that engineer is working for. Very few people are shocked to hear engineer so-and-so obtained an MBA and became a manager at company XYZ; on the other hand, questions would be asked if engineer ABC switched careers and became a chef, for example.</p>
<p>Why get the MBA? For the same reason anyone gets any degree, that is, the degree is the “proof” that one successfully completed an educational/training program from an accredited institution. The hiring dept. at company XYZ is assured that the candidate, at the very least, knows how to balance a checkbook.</p>
<p>Many people voluntarily pass on great opportunities many times for a myriad of reasons. If I had the opportunity to become a great baseball player, I would not take it; even though it might bring me fame and fortune, the other side of it (constant training, media exposure, etc) is not appealing to me.</p>
<p>Most famously, George Washington was given the option of becoming king of the U.S. The man chose to pass up on that and preferred to serve just 2 terms.</p>
<p>sakky, literally every single post of yours has something to do with downplaying engineering and pointing out how much better finance and consulting are. You are making the same argument over and over again on thread after thread. Are you an investment banker? It seems that you talk about it all the time on here. Every engineer does not sit around all day and dream about becoming an investment banker. Not everyone is driven soley by money. Sure there are people in finance that make a lot of money but at what cost? Working ridiculous hours or sacrificing personal life? I love how you make engineering management sound like a terrible job that no financier or consultant would even consider. Engineering managers can do quite well even at what you might call an average engineering company. When you look at the grand scheme of things, engineers will do better than a lot of other professions. Just because someone is not making millions on Wall St. doesn’t mean they can’t find happiness or fulfillment in their personal or professional lives.</p>
<p>My dean of Engineering told my graduating class. If you want a MBA or JD, you must go to a top 20 school or you are wasting your money. He told us that flat out.</p>
<p>You dean is a teacher… need I say more?</p>
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<p>Actually, I think I am very likely correct, and for precisely the reasons you stated. I agree - an individual’s interests do change over time. What that means - and what I have seen more often than not - is that somebody may enjoy engineering for awhile, but then want to move to other things. </p>
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<p>If that is the case, then why do so many practicing engineers find themselves in a rut where they’re not allowed to advance. Perhaps some of them are not - as you say, ‘half-decent’, but surely many others simply aren’t provided career opportunities to advance. They’re not allowed to tackle the administrative and financial responsibilities that they want to have. </p>
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<p>Nor have I ever said that they do. Please point to the quote where I said that every engineer dreams of becoming an investment banker.</p>
<p>What I said is that a disconcertingly large proportion of engineers would rather be doing other things, such as finance or consulting, but are simply not provided the opportunities. </p>
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<p>So then ask yourself why is it that, before the recession, around half of all MIT graduates who entered the workforce took jobs not in engineering or science, but in consulting or finance? (And even during the recession, around 1/3 of them still do so). Similarly, a large percentage of engineering students at Stanford also choose careers in finance or consulting. These are the best engineering schools in the country, and probably the world. Yet even at those schools, a strikingly high percentage of students clearly do not really want to work as engineers. </p>
<p>Why? Is it because I told them to do that? I think not - they made those career decisions all by themselves. </p>
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<p>Nobody is denying that engineering is a better career than most - I’ve even explicitly stated that myself. The real question is, whether engineering (or engineering management) stacks up well compared to other careers that one could have. </p>
<p>*Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: “It’s marketed as–I don’t want to say dead end but sort of ‘O.K., here’s your role, here’s your lab, here’s what you’re going to be working on.’ Even if it’s a really cool product, you’re locked into it.” Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. “If you’re an M.I.T. grad and you’re going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day–as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that–it seems like a no-brainer.”</p>
<p>Read more: [Are</a> We Losing Our Edge? - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1156575-6,00.html#ixzz0mcteeSSI]Are”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1156575-6,00.html#ixzz0mcteeSSI)</p>
<p>To take another example, the best business school for which to obtain your MBA in engineering management is surely the MIT Sloan School of Management, having been ranked #1 in most engineering management disciplines such as information technology, manufacturing, and supply chain management for numerous consecutive years. Yet even so, far more Sloan MBA graduates enter the consulting industry rather than the manufacturing industry, to say nothing of those choosing investment banking or other financial services. The top 4 largest employers of new Sloan graduates in 2009 were consulting firms, not engineering firms. </p>
<p>[MBA</a> Class of 2009 Employment Report - Career Development Office](<a href=“http://mitsloan.mit.edu/cdo/class09.php]MBA”>http://mitsloan.mit.edu/cdo/class09.php)</p>
<p>Hence, even in the best engineering management school in the world, many students apparently do not really want to become engineering managers. Ask yourself - why? </p>
<p>Look, ME 76, the evidence doesn’t lie. As long as engineering career paths do not provide the same opportunities as other career paths do, then many people will continue to prefer those other paths. I wish engineering companies would provide better opportunities, but for whatever reason, they do not.</p>
<p>Could you argue that those engineers who end up doing master’s and doctoral level work DO get those advantages that you wish would happen for all engineers? I mean, engineering isn’t like other majors, but there’s only so much you can learn in just three years (freshmen reqs. and humanitarian reqs. take up I’d say about a year’s worth of classes, maybe less). It seems to be this way in most fields of science, arguably in most majors even.</p>
<p>I mean… what’s so hard about kissing ass and making powerpoints for 16 hours every day? I’d be fairly confident in saying that if you’re skilled in the field, graduate work in engineering and science will get you far enough to live better than just comfortably with giving you the job you’ve always wanted. Granted, not many jobs compare to powerhouse financial jobs, but if getting filthy rich isn’t one of the requirements, then that wouldn’t be so bad, especially if you like engineering (though I suppose it wouldn’t work very well if you weren’t very research oriented… darn these loopholes).</p>
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<p>I’m not so sure about even that; master’s and doctoral engineering graduates also seem to be consigned to cubicles and labs with relatively constrained opportunities for advancement. Granted, it’s usually a more powerful lab, and you have greater responsibilities within that lab, but it’s still a lab. Even that wouldn’t be particularly problematic if you were provided opportunities to quickly move beyond that lab - but you often times don’t. </p>
<p>Again, as a proof of concept, consider the employers of the engineering PhD graduates from MIT, as seen on page 20 of the accompanying pdf. While obviously many engineering employers will be found, you will also find a nontrivial number of graduates heading for such employers as McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. </p>
<p><a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation08.pdf[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation08.pdf</a></p>
<p>Again, bear in mind what the stakes are. We’re not talking about some mediocre engineers at some scrub no-name school. We’re talking about PhD engineers. From MIT. They are among the most brilliant and dedicated young engineering talent in the world. Yet evidently, even many of them do not really want to take engineering jobs, preferring consulting or finance jobs instead. </p>
<p>That’s indicative of the problem that engineering firms, for whatever reason, simply do not provide the career opportunities that other firms do, to the point that even many of the best engineering talent feel that they should not work as actual engineers. I wish this wasn’t the case, and in fact, I have always advocated that if engineering companies were to spend less on consulting or financial services fees, they could spend more on their engineering workforce and thereby attract the best talent back into engineering. But as it stands now, they don’t seem to be interested in doing so.</p>
<p>sakky, here you go again like a broken record. You say evidence doesn’t lie yet the only evidence you supply is MIT graduates this and MIT graduates that. Forget about MIT and investment banks. MIT graduates should be bright enough to succeed in practically any field. This is by far an exception, not the norm. Wall St. positions make up such a small percentage of positions. I won’t argue that they pay more than a typical engineering job. Just because a tiny, tiny fraction of engineering graduates take these jobs, it doesn’t mean that the other 99.9% get dead end jobs.</p>
<p>You are making huge generalizations about engineering companies and career paths not providing opportunities. I guess we shouldn’t count all those CEOs that started in engineering and moved up. It seems they were given ample opportunities to advance. All engineers do not sit in a cubicle either. How many engineering companies have you worked for? You can’t make a blanket statement that engineering companies don’t offer opportunities when you have probably only worked for a few. Your narrow experiences don’t reflect the nature of all the engineering companies in the world. I get the feeling that you are a discruntled engineer that envies investment bankers. Your infatuation with finance and consulting is evident as every post of yours has something to do with it. The companies that I have worked for offer opportunites for career growth and have engineers all the way to the top of the organization. From my experience, engineers are usually respected more than other professions in organizations and are very capable of advancing to the highest levels.</p>
<p>Stop making generalizations when the only evidence you supply is that top students from MIT go into invesment banking. Your utopian vision of finance and consulting is misguided. A bright engineer can advance in a company and end up doing just as well, if not better than someone in consulting or finance. Are you an investment banker or an engineer because I am interested in your perspective. The grass isn’t always greener, so unless you have first hand experience in finance, I don’t know why you always insist that it is so much better. Again, I will say that money isn’t everything. There is a lot to be said for enjoying your job and balancing it with the rest of the things in life.</p>
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<p>ME 76, here you go again like a broken record. All you ever do is complain about my posts. </p>
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<p>Yet that’s precisely the point: we’re not simply talking about a random tiny fraction of engineering graduates, but rather that tiny fraction that comprises the very best of the engineering graduates. When even the best engineering graduates often times do not want to actually work as engineers, that is highly indicative of a problem. </p>
<p>Nor, is MIT the only school that exhibits this attribute. One could take a gander at the engineering graduates at Stanford and note, once again, that many of them do not actually take engineering jobs. Ask yourself - why? </p>
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<p>There you go again, claiming something I never actually said. Not once have I ever claimed that engineering jobs were ‘dead-end’ - indeed, I’ve freely admitted that whatever their problems, they’re still better than most other jobs available.</p>
<p>However, we should not be satisfied with merely having engineering jobs that are better than most, for the simple reason being that, frankly, most jobs truly are mediocre, dead-end jobs. We should strive to have engineering jobs that are competitive with even the very best jobs. </p>
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<p>No, it is the top engineering graduates who are making the generalizations. Why don’t you ask them why so many MIT engineering graduates do not take jobs in engineering? Is it because I told them to do so? I think not - they made that choice all by themselves. Maybe you should berate them for not taking the engineering jobs that you claim offer them so much opportunity. </p>
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<p>Again, it is not I who is doing so. Nearly half of all MIT undergrads who enter the workforce chose jobs not in tech but in finance or consulting prior to the recession. Exactly how is that my fault, and how is that simply a product of my ‘supposed infatuation’? Again, did I instruct all of them to take those jobs?</p>
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<p>Again, I am not the one insisting that it is better. They are insisting it is better, by voting with their feet. Surely you would agree that MIT (and Stanford) engineering students should able to obtain top engineering jobs. Yet why do so many of them chose something else? </p>
<p>Consider the mordantly sad words of Nicholas Pearce, a former chemical engineering graduate of MIT:</p>
<p>Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: “It’s marketed as–I don’t want to say dead end but sort of ‘O.K., here’s your role, here’s your lab, here’s what you’re going to be working on.’ Even if it’s a really cool product, you’re locked into it.” Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. “If you’re an M.I.T. grad and you’re going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day–as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that–it seems like a no-brainer.”</p>
<p>[Are</a> We Losing Our Edge? - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1156575-6,00.html#ixzz0mcteeSSI]Are”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1156575-6,00.html#ixzz0mcteeSSI)</p>
<p>Note, I am not the one making any generalizations here. Nicholas Pearce is making the generalizations. Furthermore, I have never met Pearce. It’s not my fault that his opinions are so. If you don’t like what he’s saying, take it up with him. </p>
<p>All you seem to want to do is ignore the evidence. The fact is, engineering graduates from the top schools such as MIT often times do not take engineering jobs, and it is legitimate question to ask why. If generalizations are being made, they are being made by those students, for after all, it is their careers that are at issue. Whatever we may think about engineering vs. other careers doesn’t really affect us, but it profoundly affects them. </p>
<p>Or you can continue to shoot the messenger. The problem is with solely with me - is it not? I must be lying and there is no problem: that many of the graduates from the top engineering schools do not actually choose other careers. The evidence demands an explanation, but you don’t want anybody to provide one, or even to present the evidence at all. </p>
<p>But I would simply make one recommendation: if you’re not actually interested in the evidence, then why not just say so? Then we could all move on, understanding your true stance. But if you do actually care about evidence, then let’s discuss the evidence. Let’s talk about why Pearce has the opinion he does. Let’s talk about why so many MIT students choose other careers. Let’s talk about why so many Stanford engineering students choose other careers.</p>
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<p>Shall we count all those CEO’s who earned engineering degrees, but never actually worked as engineers, but rose to the CEO position through other (faster) means?</p>
<p>Frankly, I’m shocked that you take the position that you do. I believe engineering careers should become more desirable by offering the same sorts of opportunities that consulting and finance can offer. But that argument only holds water if we can agree that those other careers do indeed offer superior opportunities. The first step towards improvement is admitting that something needs to be improved. The other 31 NFL teams have to admit that the New Orleans Saints outplayed them last season, and they henceforth need to raise their game. Similarly, if engineering careers were more desirable, than surely a higher percentage of MIT students would actually choose them. {That is, unless you wish to contend that MIT somehow inculcates an anti-tech bias within its students, a most daft proposal as MIT is arguably the most tech-centric school in the country.} </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you’re simply not interested in having engineering careers improve, then why not just say so? Frankly, this is the morbidly cynical position that I would expect engineering managers to take: to continually claim that engineering is a promising and problem-free career, but without actually increasing pay or enhancing the career track. I suppose it is cheaper to tell people that the job is just as desirable as other careers rather than making it as desirable as those other careers.</p>
<p>sakky, I’m not trying to pick on you. I respect your opinion but I don’t see how quoting one cheme grad from MIT supports the entire claim. That is his viewpoint and I repect that but this is still just one person’s experience. There are many paths to financial and professional success and every person will find a path that is best suited for them. I’m not disputing that finance and consulting can offer great opportunities but engineering can also. The insinuation that there are no opportunities for advancement for engineers is not completely accurate. The fact is that there are CEOs of large engineering companies who started out as level 1 engineers and moved up the ladder. I have listened to several CEOs give presentations that followed this path and I know several high level managers that came right out of engineering. All I’m saying is that many engineering companies do provide opportunities and I don’t think it is fair to make a claim that engineers don’t have opportunities to advance, especially if you have not seen how all of these companies operate. Every company is different. I realize that there are some boring engineering jobs that don’t involve much responsibility but there are also jobs that do.</p>
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<p>Pearce’s statement is merely one piece of evidence among many. Before the recession, nearly half of all MIT undergrads who entered the workforce chose jobs not in technology but in consulting or finance (and even during the recession, about 1/3 still do). How do you explain that? Surely, they could have obtained jobs in the tech industry, having graduated from the top technology school in the nation. Yet each one of them has channeled Nicholas Pearce by voting with their feet and choosing a non-tech career. </p>
<p>Similarly, the MIT Sloan MBA program is the best technology & engineering management MBA program in the country. Yet the fact remains that more Sloan MBA graduates choose positions in consulting or finance than in technology/eng management. Again, why? </p>
<p>The same is true at even the PhD level; many newly minted MIT engineering PhD graduates take jobs not in engineering but in consulting of finance. They are some of the best young engineering talent in the world, yet they choose not to stay in engineering. Why? </p>
<p>Is the problem specific to MIT? Doubtful. The same story could be said about Stanford; many Stanford engineering students similarly do not take jobs as engineers. Why? </p>
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<p>Again, not once have I ever said that no opportunities within engineering exist. Obviously there are many. </p>
<p>But the issue is regarding the relative preponderance of those opportunities, or at least the perception of them. As long as consulting/finance offer faster and more flexible opportunities for advancement - or at least appear to offer them - then many of the best engineering students will continue to prefer those jobs over engineering jobs. </p>
<p>Again, the real problem is that engineering companies, with the exception of a few, don’t seem to realize or care that they are now pitted against the top consulting and financial services firms for top talent. If they want to entice that talent to join, then they should improve their offers, whether that be with higher salaries, better career development, more exciting and glamorous responsibilities, etc. {Now, if they’re not really interested in enticing that top talent to join, then that’s a different story altogether.} Those other firms are offering those types of opportunities, so why can’t you? </p>
<p>This entire situation can be analogized to guys that I know who want to find girlfriends. On the other hand, they don’t lose weight and get in shape. They don’t learn how to dance, cook, or engage in other activities that woman enjoy. They don’t take their dates to romantic sojourns. And then they’re ‘surprised’ when they can’t find women who want to be with them, instead preferring other suitors who do offer them what they like. Engineering companies who refuse to improve their salaries, work conditions, and career opportunities will similarly find that many engineering students don’t really want to work for them. </p>
<p>Happily, there are a few engineering companies such as Google and Facebook who do compete intensely for top engineering talent, to the point where many such students will turn down consulting/finance job offers for them. I wish more engineering firms were like them. For example, 2 years ago, Facebook was reportedly offering $92k for the best people right out of undergrad, and Google was offering $95k (and up to $130k for those with master’s). The average petroleum engineering BS graduate this year made about $86k a year. Why don’t other engineering firms pay those types of salaries?</p>
<p>Engineering firms will not be offering better opportunities to US engineers as long as Chinese and Indian engineers are willing to work for less than what a US engineer demands. This will vary by field and industry.</p>
<p>Yet I’ve often wondered why management consulting and (especially) financial service firms don’t outsource more of their work to cheap Chinese and Indian workers. Let’s face it - a Wall Street investment banking analyst right out of college does little more than manipulate reams of valuation spreadsheets, and is paid shockingly highly to do so. Why not just ship all of that work out to a bunch of cheap Indians? </p>
<p>But be that as it may, the fact remains that as long as those other industries continue to pay more than engineering firms will, then many of the best engineering students will continue to prefer to work for those other industries.</p>
<p>They probably don’t outsource these financial jobs because whichever company first does it is going to take a huge hit in profits. These Wall Street folks who pay huge money for these financial analyses would likely not be too keen about their jobs being outsourced to India if they got word of it, and with more firms waiting to take their business that still had domestic grads, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a firm who outsourced these things would lose the lion’s share of their business. It is a high-stakes game, and the Wall Street suits want their money being handled by graduates from tried and true sources (in their view), not some IIT that they haven’t heard of.</p>
<p>bones you are correct on this matter</p>
<p>I agree with boneh3ad. When it comes to money, clients probably want to deal with local individuals that will be subject to the American court system. Or on a more sinister manner, being able to travel no more than 4hr cross-country to punch them in the face.</p>