<p>Sounds like MM likes to cherry pick. From the Same USBLS handbook:
"Overall job outlook. Overall job opportunities in engineering are expected to be good because the number of engineering graduates should be in rough balance with the number of job openings between 2006 and 2016. In addition to openings from job growth, many openings will be created by the need to replace current engineers who retire; transfer to management, sales, or other occupations; or leave engineering for other reasons." My daughter graduated last year. Every engineering major that she knew at her school had a job or went on to grad school. She has many friends that were liberal arts majors with high GPAs that are still unemployed or work part-time.</p>
<p>There are no guarantees in life. You may graduate with a degree in whatever (engineering, Renaissance history, finance, math, English lit) the year that the bottom drops out of that particular discipline. I think that's why so many of the posters here are suggesting that if a kid studies something he/she loves, the kid is better off for the long haul than picking a discipline for its employment prospects (all things being equal of course... if your kid loves accounting, go for it. But don't major in Civil Engineering if you hate it just because you don't think that you'd ever find a job with a degree in History.)</p>
<p>The reasons why college grads end up with no job (or only a part time job) are complex- to make it a black/white situation (tech people get jobs upon graduation whereas liberal arts people don't) displays a shocking ignorance of the job market. In general, people who are willing to relocate, travel for work, obtain further training (whether certifications like a CFA or advanced degrees), etc. will do better, regardless of the particulars of the economy, than people who are unwilling to do those things. There are lots of underemployed and unemployed CS folks in Silicon Valley, for example, who won't leave California... the fact that a company would hire them for a job in Ohio tomorrow isn't really relevant if they're hanging on to a house they don't want to sell at a loss, and don't want to be shoveling snow in Cleveland.</p>
<p>So there are many more factors at play than the type of degree one gets. I've interviewed engineers who couldn't write a coherent paragraph, and English majors who can't calculate 20% of $100. Both of these folks will have more limited employment prospects over the long haul than an engineer who can write and an English major who can do fourth grade arithmetic.</p>
<p>A major factor is still the degree. Are you saying there are as many unemployed engineering majors as English majors upon graduation ? Yes, these people can find a poor paying job in some other field somewhere if they are willing to relocate. And I did not say Engineering majors don't relocate. There are many other factors. And getting a graduate degree in many fields is just delaying future problems. If you read threads on the Chronicle of higher education, it is a constant topic. I'm sorry if I ruffle any feathers, but this is just my opinion.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think Mr Payne is a new graduate, he is optimistic. I know a couple who both graduated from Stanford with a Masters degree and a husband had a undergraduate from Cornell Engineering. They have both been laid off for 3 times since 9/11. Don't count on the demand up, it's not for all engineering jobs and it still depends on the field. Right now Petroleum/Chemical Engineering is hot, and it may not be hot for long if oil prices continue to go downward. Structure/Civil Engineering will be the next hot field because of all the money that will be spend from the next administration.
[/quote]
As sakky has stated many times, engineering might not have great <em>job</em> security. It does have much better <em>career</em> security though. The simple fact of the matter is that to get laid off 3 times you must be <em>hired</em> three times.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In this forum rather than Buffett we're blessed with sages like Payne who disputes the work of researchers at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics whom apparently aren't capable of comprehending the labor market with the penetrating insight Payne possesses, and who deems advice paralleling the sentiments of Warren Buffett "Some of the worst advice of all time". Yeah, poor Warren, just never seems to get it right. Lucky us to have Payne here to set Warren straight, not to mention the dopes over at Labor. Choose your guide ... And given you see this advice as "off base", I guess you already have.
[/quote]
And? You think Warren Buffet is some unfallable sage? He said the same thing that I've heard from countless others "follow what you love". That advice should be "follow what you love, provided that you can actually put food on the table and reach that minimum standard of living". Some of my theatre friends are finding this out the hard way.</p>
<p>In regards to the BLS estimates I'm sure it's just a wild guess (they'll have models to create this wild guess, but it'll be a guess just the same). They have to speculate changes in immigration laws, changes in graduation rates (affected by a whole multitude of variables in & of itself), changes in retirement rates (affected by stock market swings), changes in the structural makeup of the economy (near unpredictable). </p>
<p>What engineering has now is a severe demographic problem. Most industries are heavily top weighted with baby boomers & older Gen-X engineers. That just means better job security for the younger ones. My guess is different from the BLS, they must be predicted much higher immigration than I am.</p>
<p>Waterlogged, you are entitled to your opinion. However, there are millions of happily employed professionals with degrees in Comparative LIterature, Anthropology, Classics, or whatever, and to assume that they're all underemployed (or delaying the inevitable by getting more training) flies in the face of empirical evidence.</p>
<p>So- believe what you want. My company recruits at top LAC's (and Universities) and is delighted to find exceptional people regardless of what they studied. We pay all new employees the same (for the same job of course) and so an Electrical Engineering major starts at the same salary as your hypothetical English major. </p>
<p>During training, the engineers typically pick up the quant stuff faster; the English majors pick up the communication and analysis skills faster, and at the end of the first year, our top performers are distributed about evenly across the academic disciplines- except for the music majors, who for some reason tend to outperform every other category. Go figure. Our hypothesis is that years of rigorous and cerebral training makes musicians more elastic in terms of what they can learn and how quickly they can learn it... but of course, we have no scientific proof of that! </p>
<p>You are also incorrect in assuming that all "further education" involves going to graduate school. CFA, Series 7, CFP-- these all require studying on your own and taking a qualifying exam. You are not delaying future problems- in many instances, lacking these certifications is a huge barrier to career advancement. Yes, it is a pain having to do what's required to acquire new skills- but an English major with a Series 7 is more marketable to a brokerage firm than an engineer without it.</p>
<p>But go have your opinions.</p>
<p>This topic is something I have thought about a lot for my DS, who is a senior. He is strong in math and science and kept saying "I don't know what I want to do". And he kept saying, I can always decide to engineering later - but like the other posters said, I told him that if we wanted to become an engineer, he had to start as a freshman because it is tougher to get into than get out of (and that we wanted him to be done in 4 years).</p>
<p>I encouraged him to explore an engineering day at Rutgers last June and he came home saying "I want to be an engineer" But then his father had him take an aptitude test, and engineering came in at the bottom. It turns out that he is not a hands on problem solver. (And what he was really interested in at the Rutgers program was the Industrial Engineering degree with a 5th year MBA). And as he explored what he likes, we/he figured out that he has always been more interested in analyzing money related problems than stuff related problems- so he's moving into focussing on business/finance and has dropped engineering from consideration. </p>
<p>Some thoughts that I kept in mind as we have been though this that haven't been said yet in this thread.</p>
<p>Only about 50% of people who graduate with engineering degrees actually do engineering - If you look at the alumni news of engineering schools, they are doing all sorts of stuff later. That doesn't necessarily mean that engineering is a bad choice for their degree, just that a strong math/science background qualifies them for lots of stuff. (My nephew just graduated with an CE degree and is doing quality control - not engineering per se, but the degree got him the job. My husbands cousin has a masters in engineering and is doing very well at an insurance company.)</p>
<p>I also looked at the degrees that company recruiters are looking for, and the engineering degrees are in demand for jobs outside of engineering. (go the career services dept of a college and look at the firms that recruit and what they recruit for) I know the Wall Street firms were recruiting engineers to do advanced modeling for deriviatives but those jobs may be going away - or they may be in more demand as they try to figure out how to compensate for what went wrong.</p>
<p>I kept thinking that the fact that my DS wasn't geeky like many engineers meant that he maybe had a better likelihood to move into management - and good managers who understand engineering are in high demand. But I finally realized that because of his lack of hands on problem solving interest that he would be bored in engineering classes, and I didn't want him to be bored, because he wouldn't do as well as if he was interested. </p>
<p>I agree with the post that patent law is in strong demand - I work at a company that is very technical and the patent lawyers with strong chem background are hard to find - this may be true of other technical fields also. So law school after engineering is potentially a good plan, and not subject to the same kinds of varying demand as regular lawyers. Unless you graduate from a top law school or at the top of your class from a moderate school, lawyers have a tough time getting started - many can only get jobs working as paralegals or for an hourly wage - but that doesn't apply to patent lawyers. As our society gets more and more technical, patent lawyers become more and more in demand.</p>
<p>I sympathize with your dilemma.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Waterlogged, you are entitled to your opinion. However, there are millions of happily employed professionals with degrees in Comparative LIterature, Anthropology, Classics, or whatever, and to assume that they're all underemployed (or delaying the inevitable by getting more training) flies in the face of empirical evidence.
[/quote]
Where did he assume that?</p>
<p>I see a relative comparison between employment rates of engineers and non-engineers.</p>
<p>Yes and your company is hiring the "exceptional" people. What percent of the people you see are hired ? What of those other less exceptional people ? Of those currently unemployed in the US how many are engineers ? Again, I know many engineers and those with other backgrounds, recent grads and otherwise and I don't know any unemployed engineers. The people I know working in the field say they foresee an extreme shortage in the not too distant future for engineers due to retirement of Boomers. Other than maybe nursing, what other field may have this problem ? It's great that people have passion for other fields but people should go into them knowing their future prospects. Colleges should do a better job in relating prospects based on degree and what their recent graduates with such degrees are now doing.</p>
<p>Teaching needs a lot of good people, as do many of the health services--nursing, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, etc.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We pay all new employees the same (for the same job of course) and so an Electrical Engineering major starts at the same salary as your hypothetical English major.
[/quote]
That seems unusual. Are you paying the English major much higher than the norm or the EE much lower than the norm?</p>
<p>Same wage for the same job. That's the way it normally works.</p>
<p>(By the way, my mom was an English major at a nothing college, and, because of her people skills, she is now a VP for the fourth largest software company in the world. She makes way more than her sister, who is a program director at John's Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and was a physics major.)</p>
<p>Personally, my mom is less likely to hire engineers for sales/management because they tend to think in terms of the rules and what "can't be done" instead of persuading, adapting, and making exceptions to the "rules".--Her words, typed by me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Same wage for the same job. That's the way it normally works.
[/quote]
Sure but seldom are newly graduated English majors and EEs hired for the same job types. An English major can't perform an EE job but an EE can often perform what an English major is hired for but generally would be more interested in the technical position. An EE is a difficult major to attain hence fewer people are achieving them whereas an English major is one of the easier majors to pursue in college and requires much less work than an EE major which is why there's usually a difference in starting salary. I'm not disparaging the English major - just stating the way it is. My references to the jobs were for entry-level positions for new grads.</p>
<p>There are some assumptions about engineering that I'd like to address:</p>
<p>"Hands-on learning" -- my engineer husband and my child studying engineering both have no interest at all in anything "hands-on;" they enjoy theory. They are in different engineering fields and theory is a large part of the training at most schools.</p>
<p>"Geekiness" -- It's a common stereotype, but I think it's greatly exaggerated. It definitely doesn't apply to the many foreigners studying engineering here. In most countries, getting an engineering degree is as common as studying English is here and it's the choice of many "normal" people. Yes, there are some geeky people, but they are not in the majority at the schools I know.</p>
<p>Jobs -- I agree that many people are happily employed after earning degrees in many different fields. But over the last few years, I've certainly seen the engineering students having a far easier time finding jobs than liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>Of course, no one should study something that they hate! But the OP was talking about a student who was potentially interested in many things, including engineering. In that case, I think it made sense to encourage her daughter to think about engineering.</p>
<p>WARNING- THIS GOT LONG, AND WILL NOT MAKE SENSE TO THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW AND/OR LOVE ENGINEERS...</p>
<p>OK, I have to step in and defend geekiness!</p>
<p>Yes, some engineering types ARE "geeky." Most of the engineers I know have FAR more toys than the average guy. Model railroads and RC planes etc., etc. Coolest dads in the bunch. I used to think all grown men had lots of toys/hobbies like that, and then I realized that since I was an engineer, and married to an engineer, and hung out with mostly engineers, I had a somewhat warped worldview. :-)</p>
<p>Many engineers can get pretty single-minded when they are trying to solve a problem. Many of them really DON'T care about fashion and style. (actually, it's less than not caring. It's a lack of awareness that such issues exist.) One of the indicators that son#3 may be an engineering type is that at 17 he still wears the same style of skechers that he did in 6th grade (God forbid they ever stop making those!)</p>
<p>Some of this is tongue-in-cheek, but most stereotypes come from somewhere. The geeky engineer? Let's see.... nice guy, calls his mom once a week, makes good money at a steady job, puts on a pretty cool Christmas light show, has the only two oscilloscopes on the block (that we know of) and can fix just about anything that breaks in your house. OH NO, not THAT!</p>
<p>Funny (to me - wife of EE, and mother of soon to be ME) but long:</p>
<p>Engineers Explained</p>
<p>People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical people who have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations.
Engineer Identification Test</p>
<p>Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth.</p>
<p>You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You...
A. Straighten it.
B. Ignore it.
C. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron.
The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing."</p>
<p>Social Skills</p>
<p>Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction.
"Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:
*Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation
*Important social contacts
*A feeling of connectedness with other humans</p>
<p>In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions:
*Get it over with as soon as possible.
*Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant.
*Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects.</p>
<p>Fascination With Gadgets</p>
<p>To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1)things that need to be fixed, and (2)things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.</p>
<p>No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.</p>
<p>Fashion and Appearance</p>
<p>Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste.</p>
<p>Love of "Star Trek"</p>
<p>Engineers love all "Star Trek" television shows and movies. It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the participation of other life forms.</p>
<p>Dating and Social Life</p>
<p>Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function.
Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor a desire to mate with them, thus producing engineer-like children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity.</p>
<p>Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions:</p>
<p>*Bill Gates.
*MacGyver.
*Etcetera.</p>
<p>Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day.</p>
<p>Honesty</p>
<p>Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth.
Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below.
"I won't change anything without asking you first."
"I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow."
"I have to have new equipment to do my job."
"I'm not jealous of your new computer."</p>
<p>Frugality</p>
<p>Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?"
Powers of Concentration</p>
<p>If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.</p>
<p>Risk</p>
<p>Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something.
Examples of Bad Press for Engineers:
*Hindenberg
*SPANet(tm)
*Hubble space telescope
*Titanic
*Corvair
The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:
Risk: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people.
Reward: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain.
If that approach is not sufficient to halt project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much."</p>
<p>Ego</p>
<p>Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:
*How smart they are.
*How many cool devices they own.
The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal - a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature.
Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex - and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved.
Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems."
At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem.</p>
<p>OMG! This was great! Star Trek & no risk with a swiss army knife always at hand. brilliant!</p>
<p>You just described the characters on "Big Bang Theory." I didn't know that was reality TV.</p>
<p>This was really funny! But I have to say, out of the many, many engineers I know, I can only think of a handful that match this description, though it is the stereotype. The engineers I know are all very interested in their work, but... they are also interested in and knowledgeable about other areas like art, music, film, literature, history, sports, etc. My engineer husband has never taken anything apart and doesn't know how to fix a thing -- definitely not handy around the house!</p>
<p><a href="And%20what%20he%20was%20really%20interested%20in%20at%20the%20Rutgers%20program%20was%20the%20Industrial%20Engineering%20degree%20with%20a%205th%20year%20MBA">quote</a>. And as he explored what he likes, we/he figured out that he has always been more interested in analyzing money related problems than stuff related problems
[/quote]
So what's wrong with picking IE as a major. I went to an engineering school and picked Industrial Engineering / Operations Research because of similar reasons ... and then went to B-school about 10 years into my career.</p>
<p>OK, now some of that was definitely copy/pasted from Dilbert...</p>
<p>I would say have your daughter major in whatever she wants to! If she goes to school for something that is not her passion, she wont enjoy it as much and will probably do it well but not as much as the person who has a true passion for engineering and will do a fantastic job. Even if what she loves wont pay much, shell end up earning more money for it still if she is doing what makes her happy. If she doesn't know what to do I would suggest having her take the Myers Briggs test (free online or administered) and then searching careers + (whatever her type comes out to be). Good luck deciding! :)</p>