<p>"Phh...that's a myth. My friend's friend's dad is an engineer/doctor/lawyer and only started out w/ a $30k salary."</p>
<p>Fine...if you don't wanna be an engineer, whatever. But don't keep telling how our career or major choices suck. We don't wanna become engineers just for the money.</p>
<p>Personally, I like some job security in my employment. I LIKE…</p>
<ul>
<li>Not having to be asked “what Eng-School you attended?”</li>
<li>Competing against 100 folks for the same job</li>
<li>Going through 3 and 4 sets of interviews for the same job</li>
<li>Money from Congress being guaranteed to fund my area</li>
<li>Getting paid for EVERY second I work</li>
<li>And now…not having to go into management to make more money</li>
</ul>
<p>Methinks job security in engineering really depends on the company.</p>
<p>Anyways my point was that:
<p>In engineering, job-security is related to how in-demand and updated your skills are. Forget about A company. One cannot be “too loyal” to a company. Personally, I treat engineering like I am a hired mercenary.</p>
<p>401-K’s are vested in less years now and carry over. Pensions have all but disappeared so one should just work in “engineering”…regardless of employer.</p>
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<p>There are a few things people always lie about. One is their salary. People will usually either inflate it (to impress) or deflate it (to seem poor, show you how much they improved over the years, seem like a smart person for living so well on so little, etc.). What’s even less reliable is when someone tells you how much someone else makes.</p>
<p>Another thing people lie about? Their GPA. Students ask me for references all the time, and I always ask for a resume. However, I have a policy of pulling a student’s transcript before writing a reference (students apparently don’t know that professors can do that). More than 75% of the time, the GPA on the resume .2 or more above the actual GPA. One time it was an entire point. I also pull transcripts when someone requests undergraduate research (really just to see what classes were taken so far). Again, the GPA students tell me in an “interview” is almost always much higher than the actual GPA. People rarely lied to me as an employer (at least those that I hired - if I didn’t hire, I didn’t request a transcript), but they lie to anyone they think can’t verify it. </p>
<p>Along the same lines: SAT scores and college acceptances. When your “buddy” tells you that he has a 3.95 UWGPA, a 2300/2400 SAT score, and was rejected from Penn State - he’s lying, just like when your “friend” with a 2.9 UWGPA and 19 ACT brags about getting into Georgia Tech. Again, people lie both ways.</p>
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<p>Wow, are the guys down at GT getting slow or something? Haha. How ignorant. I can’t even imagine blatantly lying about my GPA. Sure, the GPA on my resume was higher than my overall GPA, but at least I labeled it as “Major GPA” and then supplied my overall if/when asked.</p>
<p>As I said, students don’t seem to lie when it can hurt them (to an employer), they just lie when they think it can’t be verified and won’t count against them. And it’s not at one school. I’ve seen the same phenomenon at multiple schools; it’s just more pronounced at higher ranking schools.</p>
<p>So when someone tells you that he just landed a $100,000 / yr job or got into Stanford Law with a 2.9 GPA and 120 LSAT, he’s probably lying. Just like in the other thread where someone claimed to be making $100,000 out of school with Monsanto. Monsanto’s average salary for a new mechanical engineer out of school as of two years ago was less than $63,000. So unless they promoted him to a “senior engineer” with “direct supervision of 2+ employees”, he’s not making that salary.</p>
<p>Yeah that is why I take everything everyone says on here with a grain of salt. It is a message board, and while it is a great tool, it has its limitation. In that anyone can day anything and it is nearly impossible to independently verify it, especially when it comes to individuals’ salaries and admissions statistics.</p>
<p>Still, I can’t imagine lying about something like a GPA, whether it is checkable or not. I just don’t see the benefit of starting out a professional relationship by lying to someone’s face. Maybe I am just old-fashioned.</p>
<p>Shoot, I freely tell people my UGGPA was only 3.33. It’s not really good enough to be proud of but why lie?</p>
<p>I never put my MGGPA on my resume. It wasn’t great at all so I waited until asked. Of course, after 5 years of experience, nobody asked my GPA. They were more likely to ask “Do you know PowerBuilder (hot at the time) and SQL Server?”</p>
<p>Now I was SO ready to blab my grad-school GPA but nobody would ask.</p>
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<p>What?? I’m totally serious when I say that I’m going to Harvard Med and Yale Law part-time in addition to being a structural engineer. I can’t believe that you wouldn’t believe me. </p>
<p>I’m going to be the first engidoctilawyer, and I will make MILLIONS.</p>
<p>^ You still won’t make as much as an IB, ergo, engineering is useless.</p>
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<p>Some people have a sense of identity associated with their GPA, as they feel it’s a proxy for intelligence. This is especially true in younger students (freshman and sophomores) that were part of the “brainiac clique” in high school (which comprise most of the students in a typical engineering college). They associate their intelligence (and therefore GPA) with self-worth, and feel inferior to anyone with a higher GPA, so they make up a higher GPA to increase the perception of their worth.</p>
<p>G.P., are you sure you aren’t a psychologist?</p>
<p>I’m an internet psychologist.</p>
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<p>Aren’t we all…</p>
<p>I am Spartacus!</p>
<p>Engineering: comfortable upper middle class existence with a BS degree. pretty good in my book :)</p>
<p>You do realize that 80% of the population believes they are middle class?</p>
<p>Engineering definately does not lead to middle income. It leads directly into upper income!</p>
<p>That depends on the definition of middle class and upper class. </p>
<p>If you go by…
</p>
<p>Then most engineers would probably fall into “the rich” at some point, mostly through retirement savings and their home equity. But that varies. Some people are good at investing, and some have gambling problems.</p>
<p>If you go by…
</p>
<p>Then most engineers are upper middle class. As stated before, most engineering households are about the top 2.5% - 5% of household income mid-career, so that matches the classifications above.</p>
<p>But at the end of the day, who cares? An engineering degree won’t buy you a Ferrari, but you’ll be very well off.</p>
<p>Reference: <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class</a></p>
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<p>All too true. Yet also, all too many quants think such.</p>
<ul>
<li>Upper-Middle Class Income</li>
<li>The ability to get a new job quickly (more openings that available people)</li>
<li>Rare occasions where you work over 40 hours</li>
</ul>
<p>All of those together is not bad to have for a career. Not one day have a questioned majoring in Math/CS.</p>