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<p>No, I implicitly include that fact. True, only a small percentage of lawyers will ever make it to big law. On the other hand, only a tiny percentage of engineers can ever dream of completing an engineering PhD at MIT. Heck, only a tiny percentage of engineers can ever dream of even being admitted to an engineering PhD program at MIT, let alone actually finish the degree.</p>
<p>But who makes more - the Biglaw associate, or the MIT PhD engineering graduate?</p>
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<p>That is just it. Who knows? I don’t know, you don’t know, none of us can definitively say for each individual. It totally depends. Could a brilliant computer engineer from MIT get a job with google and make more than a lawyer in big law? Certainly. The fact is the very top people in either field will make significantly above average. I can sit here and make up scenarios all day but again, it is all speculation.</p>
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<p>Let me make the example crystal clear.</p>
<p>Again, take ariesathena. She used to work as an engineer. But then she was admitted to a top law school from which upon graduation she would have a high probability of landing a Biglaw position. Clearly that means that she was an exceptional engineer, or at least an exceptional engineering student with the grades commensurate to earning admission to a top law school, which is an impressive feat considering how grade deflated engineering programs are (and that law school adcoms make little if any correction for such engineering grade deflation as ariesathena herself used to lament). </p>
<p>Then consider her other options. She could have stayed with her employer. However, in 3 years time when she would have graduated from her top law school, would she be making a salary comparable to a biglaw associate while still working as an engineer? The answer clearly seems to be “No”, as she said that even those top engineers with decades of experience at her employer were not making salaries that approached that of a biglaw associate. She also could have presumably entered a high-ranked engineering graduate program. Would that have provided with a biglaw-equivalent salary? Again, no. Like I said, even the average graduate from a MIT PhD engineering program does not make as much as a biglaw associate does.</p>
<p>Ariesathena was clearly an exceptional engineer (or, at least, an exceptional engineering student). So then the question is, why couldn’t the engineering profession provide her with top rewards for her excellence? Why did she have to leave engineering entirely for a law career in order to garner those top rewards? </p>
<p>So now the comparison is quite clear, or to use statistics-parlance, I am now performing a matched comparison by washing away all fixed effects. We are talking about the same person with 2 different career options. Yet I think there is little dispute that, on average, one pays better than the other. </p>
<p>The upshot is then, sadly, is that if you are an exceptional student, and your goal is money, then you probably shouldn’t be an engineer. Now, if you’re an average (or even below-average) student, then perhaps engineering is optimal. But the readership on CC is skewed towards the above-average. And certainly I don’t think that the engineering profession should be proud of its attractiveness to those who are merely average (and below-average).</p>
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<p>But we do know. Or, at least, we know the averages. Like I said, the average Biglaw associate made $160k to start, plus bonus. According to MIT’s career data, the average MIT PhD engineering graduate who went to industry (hence, not even counting those who took post-docs or academic positions) made around $100-115k, depending on discipline. And yes, that includes those graduates who left engineering entirely for high-paying positions in consulting and finance. </p>
<p>And while obviously individuals will deviate from average figures, we have to make decisions based on averages. The reason why we tell our children not to smoke is because the average smoker suffers from decreased health and lifespan. Granted, there are people who smoke several packs a day and nevertheless live until they’re 90. But do you want to take that chance that you’ll be one of them? We tell people not to drink and drive because those who do, on average, will suffer from a higher rate of accidents. Granted, you might become completely polluted and nevertheless safely drive home. But, again, do you want to take that chance? We tell people to exercise and diet because, on average, those who do will enjoy better health. Granted, you might exercise and diet and nevertheless drop dead tomorrow from a heart attack. But does that mean that nobody should exercise or eat right? </p>
<p>Individual idiosyncracies obviously matter, but so do the averages. We do things such as not smoking, exercise, eating right, not drinking and driving, not because they guarantee better outcomes but because they make better outcomes more likely. </p>
<p>Similarly, it seems to be clear that attending a top law school is more likely to land you a higher salary than will attending a top engineering graduate school, or being an exceptional practicing engineer.</p>
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<p>sakky, I didn’t realize that you had the ability to forsee hypothetical scenarios with complete certainty. Impressive. Again, we can sit here all day and talk about specific scenarios for certain individuals but the fact is you do not know which decision would earn ariesathena more money. You can speculate, but we will never know. What if she is unable to get a job in big law and graduates with a huge amount of law school debt? Again, who knows. What if that graduate degree in engineering would lead to an incredible job opportunity? Again, who knows. You can’t sit here and say either way if ariesathena’s decision was right or wrong.</p>
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<p>And yet the median average wage for engineers is only around $70-90k. </p>
<p>Now, regarding ariesathena, sure, some lawyers will not be able to get private sector jobs. But, judging from the school’s career reports, most do. Besides, I could just as easily argue that some engineering students are not going to be able to land good engineering positions. </p>
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<p>Really? As I’ve been saying, some of the most exceptional engineers I have ever known are PhD engineering students at schools such as MIT, Stanford, etc. They’re certainly not known for not working hard…indeed, quite the opposite. Furthermore, if anything, their educational credentials, once they complete the PhD, are more impressive than a law degree. </p>
<p>Yet at the end of the day, they’re paid significantly less than a biglaw associate, on average. </p>
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<p>Yes, let’s. Why is it that far more engineers choose to transition to becoming lawyers than lawyers who transition to engineering? </p>
<p>More poignantly, if your lawyer friend hates his job so much, why doesn’t he quit and switch to engineering (perhaps through a grad engineering program)? Presumably he’s paid off all his law school debts by now, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I guess he doesn’t hate his job that much. If he truly did, he would have left by now. </p>
<p>But I can think of many engineers - again, including ariesathena - who did leave engineering to become lawyers. Why is that? </p>
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<p>And once again, you’ve fallen into the (understandable) trap of not actually providing clear guidance, but rather recommending “everything”. To recommend everything is to recommend nothing. A clear strategy is not only to choose to do certain things, but to choose not to do other things. Nor are palavers such as “loving what you do” and “pursuing what fascinates you” useful strategy tips. This is not a Disney animated feature. The purpose of the discussion is to elicit non-obvious but actionable advice as to how to navigate an engineering career for maximum success. </p>
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<p>Allow me to make something perfectly clear. This is not about me. I have chosen my career path, and believe me, I am far from maximizing the money I am making. Without getting into my biography, trust me, I could be making far more doing something else. </p>
<p>No, this discussion is really for all of those engineering students (or aspiring such students) at top schools out there who are deeply concerned about their future career prospects, such as the Nicholas Pearce’s of the world. You know that they’re out there. They see many of their colleagues leaving engineering for other professions such as banking and consulting, and are wondering whether they should do the same. I’m sure that most of them don’t really want to leave engineering, heck, that is why they majored in engineering in the first place. But they are nevertheless concerned about whether they have made the right career choice. Hence, if there is indeed a clear strategy for them to achieve the sort of financial success that they could in other professions while remaining in the engineering field that they love, then let’s hear it. </p>
<p>**This is supposed to be a hopeful discussion that could attract back many top engineering students who would otherwise leave for other professions. Since those other professions do seem to offer a clear (if difficult) strategy to financial success, I hope that we can do the same for engineering. **</p>
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<p>Similarly, I can’t foresee exactly what will happen to people who smoke, don’t exercise, become obese, drink all day long and use heroin. But should we then simply throw caution to the wind and engage in all of those activities? I think not. </p>
<p>Every day we engage in activities not because they are guaranteed to improve our conditions, but because they are likely to. Why brush your teeth? Why buckle your seat-belt? Why wear a helmet when we bike? Nobody knows what will happen if you don’t do those things. So maybe we shouldn’t do it then?</p>
<p>What is indisputable is that, on average, biglaw associates make more than MIT PhD engineering graduates do. That seems to be far more convincing evidence than engaging in the anarchistic gambit that nobody ever knows anything.</p>
<p>The funny thing is that I know that you know this, and I know that you don’t really believe what you’re saying. You’re an engineer, so you surely understand what it means to have to make engineering process decisions based on limited information. As engineers, we’ve all had to do it. Obviously we’ll never know exactly what would have happened if ariesathena had chosen a different career, but based on the information that is available, it does seem that she will be making more money as a lawyer than as an engineer. Clearly it is always better to gather even more information if you can, but if that’s not forthcoming, you have to nevertheless make probabilistic decisions based on the information available to you at the time.</p>
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<p>Wow, now sakky is a mind reader. I’m impressed. Actually, you don’t know anything about me or what I do and do not know. I am an engineer and I know many engineers. I personally know several different engineers that have started consulting companies that have made more money than most lawyers make in a lifetime. I know technical experts that make in the ballpark of what you are saying big law pays. Are these outliers, sure but so are big law positions. Your entire argument is based on the idea that it is somehow “easier” to make big money as an exceptional lawyer than an exceptional engineer. My response has been and will continue to be it is impossible to say for any given person. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this seeing how this thread is entirely off topic.</p>
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I do agree to some of your points, but since those “best engineering students” are extremely bright how come they didn’t chose a path that lead straight to consultant/banker? Why would they even choose engineering if they wanted to do finance? I mean seriously why would you even want to burn your brain at MIT doing engineering if banking was your end goal?</p>
<p>But to answer your question it is much easier to transition from engineering into say a top business/law school than the other way around. I mean lets face it, if you earn a business/finance/law from Harvard the chance of your surviving graduate MIT engineering is almost zero to nil that too without proper background. </p>
<p>Also, engineers aren’t equipped with just technical skill set. They are expected to know basic finance/economic principles.</p>
<p>Finally, since you are talking about very minute percentage of people, why limit yourself to “big law”? You could just tell them to become actors/actress or even athletic superstar. They would be earning millions times more.</p>
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<p>Everyone should know that making big bucks as a lawyer essentially requires that you go to some of the top schools in the nation and be at the top of your class. These people usually start at 150K and can move toward 280K within 8 years because of the “lockstep” compensation method… So graduates from top schools who are able to get positions at large law firms do make big money, but what about the average law students at average schools? They have a much harder, and I dare say that is the majority of law school graduates.</p>
<p>One thing to point out is that law is not a secure career in any sense at all. As a result of the economic downturn, even biglaw firms have laid off thousands of lawyers and some non-biglaw firms have simply shutdown (e.g. Heller Ehrman) even though they were in business for nearly a century.</p>
<p>Overall, I do believe that engineers are underpaid because American society is putting less and less value into science and engineering, which will ultimately lead to our intellectual downfall when compared to other countries; but I think that engineering is more low-risk than other professions such as finance, banking, and law. Most secure is probably still medicine. Best money is still in acting and sports if you can make it.</p>
<p>It’s whatever society is willing to pay. Although society is “powered” by engineering in a sense, the ways the engineering businesses work attribute towards the salary I suppose. I guess even though there are shortages of engineers, the engineers are willing to work for that much. Sports stars would not get paid so much if people did not watch the games.</p>
<p>
Maybe there is a reason for this. Perhaps the only way to provide “strong answers” is to think that one path that worked for one person is the only path that will work for any person. If you have never seen even one path, how could you answer at all, and if you have seen more than one, what can you do other than note the common elements - hard work, luck, and talent?</p>
<p>
If you want to be only an engineer, but want to specifically focus on maximizing income, then yes, I agree. Of course, management jobs often like to see some manufacturing or operations experience, and during lay-offs it is the highly-paid researchers who tend to go first, and the guys who actually know how to make the product who go last.</p>
<p>
And all of those professions are in practice far smaller than engineering. Being an airline pilot also pays better than engineering, as does being a cornerback in the NFL. So what? If your point is that “engineering is not THE highest paying job” then I absolutely agree, but until I really learn to design a pyramid scheme or master electric guitar it is pretty darned good.</p>
<p>
Everyone wants wealth, the question is what routes are open to you and what costs are you willing to pay. You seem to be considering the bizarre case of the engineer who values only money - but people who value only money do not usually go into engineering, they go into those professions that value people who value only money, like, and investment banking. Most engineers are not suited to these jobs, and are not so interested in the increased money to suffer the specific hardships associated with those higher profits. And those who DO… transfer professions.</p>
<p>
Start by looking beyond MIT - the professional destination for engineers is also finance-skewed for Ivy League universities like Yale, Penn, and Harvard - basically any school with a really strong law or business school. Many of these people see their undergrad engineering degree as a stepping stone, and are willing to do the coursework to get where they are going. Many others go to places like MIT because they want to be an engineer AND want the high salaries advertised by the schools, only to find out near graduation that the highest salaries are not actually IN engineering… so they follow the money.</p>
<p>
But that migration can never be symmetrical - All of the programs you mention either require their own specific course of graduate education (like law) or include a series of training that is irrespective of any prior academic preperation (like investment banking). Engineering requires specific and focused study. This makes it far easier to transfer into the former than the latter, and considering that there is a pay increase one way and a pay decrease the other, why would it ever be symmetrical? </p>
<p>Now it DOES happen when you suck at your first choice, but that is not really what you are looking for, is it?</p>
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Some professions are designed that way - if your undergrad degree is unimportant to your work, why does it matter what it was? </p>
<p>As a comparison, before I was an engineer I worked in restaurants for a long time. To be a waiter requires a particular temperament and manner, but few skills that cannot be picked up in a short period of time. To be a cook requires a long period of study and work, but is very open to different temperaments. Being a waiter pays more than being a cook (unless you are a chef). If you are a cook with the temperament of a waiter, switching is easy with minimal training, and not uncommon (I did), and profitable. If you are a waiter, switching requires extensive retraining and a huge loss of pay, and hardly ever happens - the exception are those who truly love cooking enough to take the hit.</p>
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True, but there is much less variability. A “good” law position pays 10x more than a “poor” one, while the ratio for engineering is closer to 2x.</p>
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You think this has something to do with engineering, but it doesn’t. It has to do with being closer to the money.</p>
<p>At my company I have received individual bonuses for two things: One was for devising a new type of component that would significantly expand the capability of our major multi-billion dollar product line. The second was for writing a portion of a winning proposal on a “small” program bout 1% the size of the other. Want to guess which award was bigger?</p>
<p>Engineering success is no guarantee of financial reward - your invention could be superceded before anyone makes a profit, and it is difficult to determine which of a thousand engineers over a couple of decades really contributed the most to a particular final product. Conversely, writing that proposal involved only ten or so people, the result was immediate, and so was the profit. The larger award had nothing to do with talent, or merit, or how hard I worked or how smart I was. It had to do with how easy it was to justify the money, and how many other people could make a claim.</p>
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Several reasons, including family pressure, monetary constraints (like the mortgage on his big-ass house), and (most importantly) the fact that he didn’t think he would be any good at engineering. Plus, by the time he made such a switch he would be in his mid-30’s (assuming he could do an undergrad in 4 years, ignoring the possibility that a political science major could jump right into a grad engineering program), and he simply didn’t want to risk failing in another field that late in the game.</p>
<p>
The manner in which you have defined success is not one well suited for most engineers or engineering careers, or even most non-engineering careers. My wife is an archaeologist - what advice would you recommend for HER to become a millionaire (without jumping into management, law, or finance)? If this is your concern, why would you start in engineering in the first place?</p>
<p>For that matter, can you give a parallel? Advice as to how to navigate a (fill-in-the-blank) career for maximum success (by which I mean stellar pay)? And I want details, not homilies, and not benchmarks like “go to the right school” or “get the right job” or “get promoted”, but rather how to get into and master that school, how to score that perfect job, and how to then succeed so as to ensure my promotion to accolades and wealth.</p>
<p>If your point is that engineering pay is “unjust”, everyone thinks that of their career fields, and many are correct. Tragically, in a capitalist economy (and I don’t think communist economies can really work on large scales and long terms) “just” is a lucky coincidence, not a guarantee. In my family, the largest earner by far is my wife’s cousin - ten years as an NFL linebacker set him up quite well, but strangely, his plan of success seems unlikely to work for my unathletic self.</p>
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There is no one answer for them. There are no guarantees in life (I know, another homily), and the other path is pretty darned risky too. Is the possibility of increased pay in profession 2 worth the sacrifice of the lesser but ensured pay of profession 1? That depends on too many factors for any kind of general rule.</p>
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But it isn’t, and here’s why: your definition of financial success, and even your elevation of financial success as the sole type of meaningful success you have mentioned. How rich was Albert Einstein? Why didn’t Alexander Graham Bell go into finance? He could have been richer! </p>
<p>If Nicholas Pearce thinks that $125k a year is too little, and the other rewards too few, then he SHOULD change professions. Personally, I think he is a fool for realizing that so late - it’s not like relative incomes have dramatically changed recently! My goal is not just to be fabulously wealthy (although I wouldn’t mind!), but is a combination of income, outside life, and work fulfillment - for me the best balance of those is in engineering.</p>
<p>I note again that this is not restricted to engineering - what about teaching? How should a teacher become a millionaire? Conversely, an engineering goal might be designing some substantial and enduring piece of technology - what clear strategy is there for a financier to accomplish that? An engineer cannot really compete against an investment banker using the banker’s standards any more than the anker could compete with the engineer using the engineer’s standards.</p>
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<p>Which only exemplifies the problem. A top engineering student, if he chooses to actually work as an engineer, will not make much more than will a mediocre engineering student. But a top law student can make substantially more than will a mediocre law student. And, in this subthread, we are specifically talking about top students. At least, I am. </p>
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<p>I would argue that it has much more to do with it than that. </p>
<p>As a case in point, consider the financial services sector. I think we can all agree that there is no sector that is ‘closer to money’ than them, and indeed, they are essentially equivalent to ‘the money’ by the very definition of the sector. Yet the fact is, it wasn’t really that long ago when the financial services sector didn’t pay significantly more than did other professions. Yes - imagine that - * there was actually a time in recent memory when financiers were not highly paid*. </p>
<p>Something has clearly changed within the past 40 years. Banking and asset management used to be perceived as fairly dull jobs, which did not attract a significant wage premium. But after 1980, financial wages started to climb much more quickly than those of engineers, another profession that ought to have benefited from technological complexity.</p>
<p>[Buttonwood:</a> Time for a rent cut | The Economist](<a href=“Time for a rent cut”>Time for a rent cut)</p>
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<p>Read more: [Are</a> Bankers Worth Their Big Paychecks? - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1933210,00.html#ixzz1A62WTT19]Are”>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1933210,00.html#ixzz1A62WTT19)</p>
<p>Yet presumably financiers before the 1980’s were also “close to the money”, certainly far closer than were the engineers before the 1980’s. Yet they weren’t particularly highly paid back then. So clearly only being close to the money is far from definitive. </p>
<p>Furthermore, even today, not all workers in the financial services sector - broadly defined - are paid well. Community bank officers are not particularly highly paid. Insurance firm officers are not particularly highly paid. Uncoincidentally, you don’t see a braindrain of top engineering students taking jobs at your local community bank or at insurance companies. Yet these firms are surely closer to the money than are engineers. The high pay packets that tend to lure the best engineers away are concentrated only within specific sectors of the financial industry: the VC/PE, hedge fund management, M&A, sales/trading, capital markets, structured finance, and similar such sectors. Again, the issue is hardly a simple matter of being closer to the money than are the engineers. </p>
<p>As Paul Volcker said: “The US had too many financial engineers and not enough civil engineers and mechanical engineers”. Yet the core problem is that, as long as the finance sector continues to pay far more than do the engineering employers, the best students will continue to prefer to enter the finance sector rather than engineering. </p>
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<p>But don’t you see - that’s yet another reason not to choose engineering. Why enter a field where your successful efforts may not be rewarded, especially if you can enter another field where your successes will be rewarded? Or, heck, where you may be rewarded even if you’re not successful? {For example, all of the financiers who designed the dodgy securities that ultimately failed had already been paid their bonuses in years previous, and they’re not giving any of it back.} </p>
<p>At the end of the day, people want rewards. Hence, they’re going to rationally prefer those industries that are going to provide them with the greatest rewards. If the engineering sector continues to refuse to provide as many rewards as do other sectors, then people will continue to prefer those other sectors. </p>
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<p>Regarding the risks associated with such a career switch, I’m afraid I have no sympathy whatsoever. I can think of several people in their mid 30’s - heck, even in their 40’s - who gave up burgeoning careers to join PhD programs in the hopes of starting a career in (relatively low-paying) academia. Some of them will surely fail, heck, I can think of some who never even got a single academic job offer. But at least they tried. If they can do that, your friend can surely do the same. </p>
<p>However, the assertion that he may not be good at engineering seems more apt. If that is the case, then perhaps he shouldn’t hate his job so much. After all, he’s probably doing the best he can with the talents that he was born with. And, again, he seems to be doing quite well for himself. If nothing else, like you said, he has a “big-ass house” - something that the vast majority of Americans don’t have. I know I surely don’t. And he was able to buy that house while still relatively young. So, I forgot, why should we sympathize with him again? </p>
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<p>Again, that only exemplifies my point. You or I couldn’t play in the NFL. But a top engineering student from MIT could become an investment banker. The question then is, why should he still choose to work as an engineer when he has that other option? </p>
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<p>Good question. So then why do all of these students at MIT do exactly that…only to then become financiers? Heck, like I said, I know people who earned PhD’s in engineering at MIT…only to take jobs in finance. Presumably these people actually enjoyed engineering - for otherwise it is hard to fathom how somebody could survive an engineering program at MIT, especially a PhD - if they did not. </p>
<p>Yet the bottom line is that many of these students will choose not take jobs as actual engineers. </p>
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<p>Again, it is not how I have defined success. It is how other people have defined success. Like it or not, they do define success by money. </p>
<p>Besides, think of it this way. Presuming that you don’t receive extensive financial aid, the top engineering schools such as MIT, Stanford, CalTech, and the like will cost you a small fortune. Graduates from those schools are therefore justifiably concerned about paying back their loans or perhaps reimbursing their parents for the sacrifices they made. Now, you might argue that perhaps those students shouldn’t have paid so much to attend those schools, but be that as it may, that’s all water under the bridge. The costs have been incurred, and the only relevant question now is how to obtain a sufficient return on their hefty investment. So if you say that an engineering career is not the best way to obtain that return, well, then that’s all the more reason for them not to actually work as engineers, but rather to choose another career where they will obtain sufficient return. </p>
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<p>No, I think the onus is on you. After all, you were the one who posited the notion that people can indeed become financially successful in engineering. I am simply asking that you elaborate upon the claim that you made to provide a clear ladder for those who might want to pursue it.</p>
<p>Otherwise, like I said, we are going to continue to witness an exodus of our best talent to other sectors. I am searching for reasons as to why our best engineering students should actually want to stay in engineering. You seemed to offer exactly that, and I am simply requesting that you make your proposal concrete. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you can’t do that (perhaps because doing so is impossible), then, well, they will continue to believe that engineering does not really provide the types of opportunities that they’re looking for. </p>
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<p>Is it risky? Even those students who do flame out of consulting or finance know that they can get a rather cushy job in corporate management. Let’s face it: to have the title of an elite investment bank or consulting firm on your resume is a golden passport in the corporate management world. {Note, whether it should be a golden passport is a different issue, but it is indisputable that it is one.} </p>
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<p>And there you go again. ** Again, it’s not me**. Other people are utilizing their definitions of success, and have chosen against engineering and for other professions. Even if I said nary a word on this thread, they would still do it. </p>
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<p>Well, ironically, in their case, they actually became quite wealthy. Einstein received large speaking fees as essentially a traveling celebrity in his later life. Bell, as we all know, became exceedingly wealthy as the founder of Bell Telephone, which later became AT&T. So I’m not sure how these gentlemen, Bell especially, actually support your point that engineers should not define success by money. Bell certainly did. </p>
<p>Your example of Bell, interestingly enough, is precisely where I thought you would have directed the conversation. Bell was not just an engineer, he was, crucially, also an entrepreneur. His value was derived from patents that not only did he invent, but crucially, that he controlled (and hence whose rights were not surrendered to his employer, but rather to his own company). Which therefore leads to some possibilities which I thought you would have mentioned, but since you never did, I’ll do so now: </p>
<ul>
<li>Engineers should learn as much as they can about the patent system, and perhaps even become licensed patent agents if possible. Note, becoming a patent agent does not require a law degree, but can be pursued through (vigorous) self-study.</li>
</ul>
<p>*Every engineer should learn how to build his own home-lab with which he can tinker and develop patentable inventions. </p>
<p>*Every engineer should choose not to work for companies that legally require that they surrender the legal rights to all inventions they develop while employed there, even those invented in the engineer’s spare time in his home lab. {Unfortunately, this may not be a workable suggestion as most such employers enforce such a requirement as a condition of employment.} </p>
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<p>Well, actually, to continue the story, Nicholas Pearce actually chose neither an engineering nor a consulting/finance job…but instead chose to enter academia, which is even lower paying! </p>
<p>Hence, Pearce was talking not about himself, but about the other engineering students and the choices they face. If engineering students are offered higher-paying alternatives, then surely many of them (not all, but many) will choose those alternatives. </p>
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<p>And the same problem is roiling the teaching profession as well. For decades, the teaching profession has had an issue of only being able to attract relatively weaker students who couldn’t find better alternatives. {Note, that’s not just me saying so, as many education scholars, and even Secretaries of Education including the current one, have said the same.} Attracting better people to become teachers probably means offering higher pay, and the educational reforms being pursued right now aim to do exactly that. </p>
<p>As a case in point, the teachers in many Asian countries are paid extremely well (relative to the average wages in those countries), which is why teaching is considered to be a high-demand profession in those countries that tends to attract the very best performing graduates. But not so in this country. </p>
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<p>Yet at the end of the day, the debt load is the same. You take on loans to attend MIT or Stanford which you then have to pay off, one way or another. Your creditors won’t care whether you chose a high-paying profession or not. All they care about is that you’re able to pay your debts. They’re not going to provide debt forgiveness just because you chose a lower-paying engineering job. </p>
<p>So what advice do you have for those students from those schools carrying that debt burden? Should they work as engineers or bankers?</p>
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<p>Strong answers don’t have to work for every person. It is sufficient that they work for just the bulk of the people within the popular in question.</p>
<p>I’ll give you some examples of “strong” (albeit obvious) answers. If you want to improve your health, you should exercise. Granted, not everybody will benefit from exercise. Indeed, maybe you’ll take up jogging tomorrow and get hit by a bus. But the bulk of people do benefit from exercise. </p>
<p>Here’s another one regarding things you should choose not to do. If you want to improve your health, you should not eat junk food. Granted, there are obviously some people who do benefit from junk food. If you’re a starving person in the Third World, then eating junk food is clearly better than eating nothing at all. But surely for most average Americans, refraining from junk food would improve their health. </p>
<p>That’s precisely the sort of thing I’m looking for. Do X, don’t do Y, and by doing so, you will improve the odds of success. No guarantees of course, but your odds are improved. Good health is not simply a matter of luck and talent. It is also a matter of choosing to do certain things and not others. </p>
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<p>The difference is that those professions are actually available to the top engineering students. They can’t (easily) play in the NFL, they can’t (easily) become airline pilots, but they can take jobs in finance. </p>
<p>Put another way, why would a guy continue to date a woman who isn’t particularly nice to him, who isn’t much fun, who doesn’t really care about any of the activities that the guy cares about, and who he may not even be particularly attracted to, if he actually has the opportunity to be with another woman who is all of the above? {Female readers can swap the genders in this example.} Now, of course if he lacks that alternative opportunity, then sure, he has to work with the choices that are actually available. But if he does have that opportunity, why wouldn’t he pursue it? </p>
<p>It is for that same reason that I certainly agree that anybody who actually has the opportunity to play in the NFL should certainly take it over practically any other profession. The question then is, do you actually have that opportunity? The top engineering students do have the opportunity to enter finance, so why wouldn’t they take it? </p>
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<p>Bizarre, you say? You yourself invoked the example of A.G. Bell - who was an engineer who liked money. A lot. That’s why he started Bell Telephone. </p>
<p>One can also consider men such as Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg - all of whom are engineers (yes, I consider CS to be engineering) - but who all clearly enjoy making money. {They may also enjoy giving their money away, but they nevertheless still enjoyed making it in the first place.} Larry Ellison even explicitly stated that he entered the software profession with the specific intention of becoming become rich. Steve Jobs is a brilliant engineer who is also, frankly a sociopathic megalomaniac. </p>
<p>But the key to all of these men was that they weren’t solely, or even primarily, engineers. They were also entrepreneurs. In other words, engineering * by itself* does not provide wealth. </p>
<p>But that hardly means that it is bizarre that engineers want money, as plenty clearly do. The question then is, how do they become entrepreneurs? Certainly, the engineering schools aren’t teaching them such skills. {Which may lead to another piece of advice: choose not to learn the advanced engineering coursework topics that are not highly useful, and instead learn entrepreneurship skills. It seems to not be a coincidence that none of the aforementioned men even graduated from college at all.} </p>
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<p>See, cosmicfish, now we’re getting somewhere. That’s a useful, actionable, yet not obvious piece of advice:</p>
<p>*If you want to maximize your engineering salary in a risk-adverse manner, then obtain some manufacturing/ops experience - perhaps a few years- but more than that is not useful. You just need enough to convince management that you know something about ops * </p>
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<p>And the question then is why isn’t the money to be found in engineering? Let’s face it, if engineers were paid as much as Ibankers, people would be coming out of the woodwork to be engineers. </p>
<p>But what you’re saying leads to another snippet of nonobvious, yet actionable (if sad) advice: *If you want money, and you go to a top school such as an Ivy, or even MIT or Stanford, then don’t major in engineering. MIT has an excellent undergraduate business major, hence more students should choose that. *</p>
<p>That’s unfortunately the sad conclusion that I arrived at a long time ago. I was hoping that you would disabuse me of that notion, but you only confirmed my worst fears. </p>
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<p>Yet that both exacerbates and exemplifies the problem. You say that engineering requires extensive prior training that can only be obtained through years of study, whereas investment banking can be entered with minimal prior knowledge from a wide range of educational backgrounds…and yet investment banking pays substantially more?. If anything, shouldn’t it be the other way around? After all, if investment bankers don’t actually have a core group of skills honed by years of training, then exactly why should they be paid as well as they are? What value are they really adding to society? </p>
<p>One can also look at it the other way: what a wonderful profession that investment banking is, where you don’t really need to develop a particular body of rigorous knowledge gained only after years of hard study, or indeed, don’t really need to know much of anything about the job at all …and yet can make high pay anyway. </p>
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<p>And other professions evolve that way sans design. As I discussed in my previous post, investment banking didn’t use to pay as well as they do now. Only a few decades ago, they paid comparable wages to most other white-collar professions. It has only been in the last generation that financial services pay has skyrocketed, even for entry-level workers. Nobody “designed” that, it just evolved that way. </p>
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<p>And your story seems to indicate that only people who truly love engineering should become engineers. </p>
<p>Yet doesn’t seem to be universally, or even mostly, true about engineering. I can think of plenty of ‘average’ engineers who got average grades at no-name schools. Many of them will freely admit that they don’t really love engineering. They’re engineers because, for them, it’s the best paying job they could reasonably obtain. Like I said, they didn’t go to MIT. They didn’t go to Stanford. Nobody was offering them any consulting or finance positions right after college. Nor do they have the grades to get into a top law or business school. For them, engineering is the best job they could get, and it is indeed a fine job for them, relative to their constrained set of other options. They don’t love the job, but it pays the bills. </p>
<p>But this subtopic is not regarding those engineers, but rather about those who do have other options.</p>
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<p>I agree that sports stars would not get paid as much as they do if people didn’t want to watch them play.</p>
<p>But what about the players who are not stars? Let’s face in, no matter what team you’re talking about, the vast majority of players are not stars, but rather are role players. People may pay to watch Kobe Bryant play basketball. But is anybody really champing at the bit to see Jordan Farmar play? Is anybody really saying: “Well, I wouldn’t normally watch the Lakers, but because Jordan Farmar is playing, I’m so there.”??? </p>
<p>Let’s face it. Nobody really cares to see the non-stars - who compromise the vast majority of all pro athletes - play sports. Yet the fact of the matter is that the non-stars still make plenty of money, even though nobody really cares about watching them. Jordan Farmar will be paid $12 million over the next 3 years. Are there really $12 million worth of extra viewers for the NBA because he’s playing? I would submit that the value of the extra viewers that he adds is far closer to zero than to $12 million. Like I said, who really cares about watching Jordan Farmar? He’s not a star. But Farmar is not giving any of that money back. </p>
<p>Similarly, while I might agree that the top financiers might possibly be worth the million dollar pay packets that they make, why would somebody fresh out of school with a humanities degree nevertheless be able to make 6-figures as a first-year Ibanking analyst? Did he really add 6-figures worth of value? Heck, I’ve known many former Ibanking analysts, and they freely admit that they’re not sure that they really added any value to their companies while they were there. But hey, they made their money, and they’re not giving any of it back.</p>
<p>Haven’t this thread drifted far from the original question?</p>
<p>^I agree. I also doubt that many people are reading these lengthy posts to this once interesting thread.</p>
<p>Guys, this isn’t that hard. Nearly all engineers earn a good, but not exceptional salary. Many lawyers earn low salaries that would be fairly easy to earn without any college education. A substantial number are unemployed. However a minority of them earn very high salaries.</p>
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It seems to me that you need to define the characteristics that make a professional engineer good at what they do and/or valuable to society and then prove that these characteristics are best located at the most selective engineering programs. Otherwise, there really isn’t any impact at all to those students choosing finance instead.</p>