<p>zebes -- Your daughter might be interested in Engineers Without Borders.</p>
<p>
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My coworker--a senior who is graduating this year with distinction in Biology--was worrying today about the prospect of finding a job after college (I was secretly horrified that she hadn't already put a resume on Monster, etc., but I kept my mouth shut). If Biology majors with extensive lab work are worried about finding a job, my blood chills to think of my own job prospects in three years, with a liberal arts degree and multilingualism in geographically unrelated languages (German and Hebrew, oy vey).
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Seriously? Biology has been known to be oversaturated for years. That's why Biology wages are pretty low.</p>
<p>Reading some of this thread made me feel like I should plug my school...top-shelf northeast liberal arts + engineering: Union College.</p>
<p>I'm a junior at Union right now and while I never had any interest in engineering, I'm friends with a lot of current and former engineering majors. I know a decent number of people who started out freshman year in the engineering program, got a good taste of what it was really about, and decided that it wasn't for them...but luckily for them changing majors was not difficult and a full-spectrum liberal arts school was right there, now they're history/econ/political science/english/whatever they want to be majors. Also with the liberal arts program right alongside, engineering majors can take some out-of-major electives, add some breadth to their education and decide whether or not engineering was really for them. At a dedicated techy school you might have to transfer to find a good program in a different area.</p>
<p>Just shameless my-school promotion haha.</p>
<p>anneroku, </p>
<p>thanks we'll look that up! :) I've heard of doctors w/o borders but not engineers. Cool. Maybe something she and her dad can do together someday.</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>Sorry if someone's said this already (b/c the thread is way too long for me to sit and read), but has your daughter ever considered Patent Law?</p>
<p>As a student myself, my parents tried to convince me to become a doctor. Unfortunately, I've always had a passion for law and politics - I absolutely loathe anything to do even associate with math & science. But if your daughter wants the best of both worlds, patent law sounds like a perfect compromise. Besides, law schools don't look for any particular major, so if she wanted to do engineering for her undergrad, I don't think law schools would find that weird.</p>
<p>There are some schools where engineering is a pure science, math major with little time to do anything else. But there are also smaller schools that offer engineering that give a more rounded education. One that comes to mind is Trinity in San Antonio. Perhaps she can look into schools such as that...</p>
<p>from EETimes.com EETimes.com</a> - 'Change' needed in engineering education
"More calls for a change in engineering education surfaced at this week's International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) here.
James Plummer, Dean of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, warned that U.S. universities must change or reform engineering education to prevent further shortfalls in the discipline. "
"There is ''a real need for change'' in engineering education to survive in the ''increasingly global'' and ''flat world,'' Plummer said."</p>
<p>hi, im a newcomer bumping this cool thread</p>
<p>im not a parent, but i graduated from college 3 years ago, and i'd like to share my input. </p>
<p>i think the number one reason so many students are confused about majors and careers is because most parents and high school teachers and counselors do not expose them to the variety of majors and careers that exist. all the kids hear is "GO TO COLLEGE", but they almost never hear anything about what to do once they get into college. so first things first: if you are a parent, please educate your children about majors and careers EARLY (as in ninth/tenth grade). and i am NOT just talking about the usual crap like law, medicine, business, engineering. make sure they go through those career books that are found at any major bookstore and read through everything. and make sure these kids take those personality-career tests (also found in many career books) that can save them a lot of trouble and give them some direction. i would say this is way more important than pushing your kids to get into college without explaining to them why it's so important to go in the first place. perhaps some of you already do this, which is great. but from my experience too many adults neglect this crucial part of college preparation. they're too caught up in trying to get their kids into the best-name school, which i really think is the wrong way to approach education. </p>
<p>i was a social science major at a well-known state school, but i decided later in my college career that i wanted a career in healthcare (not premed, but a healthcare field whose graduate programs have tough entrance requirements). so while i studied social theory and the so-called easy cheesy courses, i was also taking rigorous science courses with all the other biology and chemistry majors. i would actually say it was a good thing i did not major in a biological/chemical/physical science because:</p>
<p>a) i feel like i got a very well-rounded set of classes every semester
b) my gpa probably would've been lower with a bio/chem major
c) i really enjoyed my major and i am sure i can use it eventually in healthcare in the future</p>
<p>ultimately the major itself is not that important, unless you need a certain major for a certain career, such as engineering or accounting. it's the specific career choice that matters, along with work experience, other marketable skills you may have (like computer skills), your personality, connections, and good ole-fashioned luck. so let your children major in anything they like. it really doesnt matter in the end.</p>
<p>Just a warning. Engineering is the toughest major, much more difficult than, for exmaple, science majors or pre-med majors. Kid also need to love it. I have gone to engineering and was holding a job for 11 years, and I absolutely hated it. Not in school, school was fine, I hated my job. Yes, it is a good idea to intern or do something else to find out. I was lucky to switch in my 30s to another field - IT, which I am completely happy about.</p>
<p>^^ In which branch of engineering did you hate your job and why? What's different now that you're in IT?</p>
<p>Electrical engineering. It just needs to be a match. I love everything about IT, I have worked on many platforms, wrote programs in several languages, in many different industries, huge international companies, tiny local ones, I loved them all. My H is an electrical engineer and he loves his job also. Overall, I believe that engineering is much more challenging.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP makes a good point. Major in something you enjoy. Don't major in something just because it's the 'safest' financially. People change careers in their lifetime. Not everyone is cut for engineering.</p>
<p>miamidap:</p>
<p>I agree with your points about engineering being a more difficult major than most and that it's not for everyone for a number of reasons including that the individual might just have no interest in it, might not want to do the work required for the degree, might not be able to do the work required for the degree, etc. </p>
<p>Regarding EE - it's such a variable that I think an individual could hate their EE job at one company or function and love the EE job at another company or function. There's such a variance in what they might be doing from designing digital circuits, analog circuits, working in the computer field, the RF and cellular fields, the power supply field, the power generating field, the defense industry, and on and on. They might also be at the circuit design level, the project design level, project management level, development management level, and so on.</p>
<p>I'm just trying to indicate that EE, CS, and most other engineering degrees are much broader than some people unfamiliar with engineering might think.</p>
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[quote]
Regarding EE - it's such a variable that I think an individual could hate their EE job at one company or function and love the EE job at another company or function. There's such a variance in what they might be doing from designing digital circuits, analog circuits, working in the computer field, the RF and cellular fields, the power supply field, the power generating field, the defense industry, and on and on
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The part about the wide scope encompassed by EE is true BUT...My engineering friends tell me there's not complete flexibility coming out of college in choosing a branch of EE, and that once you've started down the road in a field its even more difficult if not impossible to enter a significantly different branch. The quote above, at least to my reading, makes it sound like a person can easily float between disciplines of EE.</p>
<p>As an undergrad EE in addition to the courses everyone must take for the degree people commonly choose an emphasis; one may take extra courses in digital design, which means you're unlikely to be hired to do analog or RF design because you haven't taken the extra courses that teach you those sub-disciplines. For an example of the courses offered for the differing major branches of EE, see ECE</a> Illinois - Undergraduate Curriculum Technical Electives</p>
<p>And so even as the path might be limited leaving college, it becomes more so once you're out in the working world. Analog people are pretty bright and can probably pick up digital, but it's pretty unlikely for someone to go the other way. Neither is likely to get hired for a job doing RF or microwave such as antenna design or radar work. Or to work on a high-voltage power network. Someone with a few years experience in designing power supplies isn't a good candidate to be an ASIC or computer designer. And so on.</p>
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[quote]
...makes it sound like a person can easily float between disciplines of EE.
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That isn't what I was stating or meant to imply - I was stating that there are many different disciplines one can enter upon graduation and if a person has a particular preference they should choose that discipline. After one starts down their career path it's still possible to change major technical disciplines but obviously becomes less likely the further into a specialization one goes. However, even within a particular discipline (example - digital logic and microprocessors) one can move around and do different things. </p>
<p>I don't think the path is that limited upon leaving college since the EE upon leaving college just has a basic foundation anyway and will embark on a learning curve once they enter a particular discipline.</p>