<p>Yea. Seems like somebody secretly wants to be an engineer but fears the hard work that is needed to be put into it.</p>
<p>Seems like one of three possibilities: 1) Golubb is right and the VAST majority of College Confidential is wrong [in other words, no way], 2) Golubb has no idea what he's talking about, 3) Golubb knows engineering is great, but he is just crying sour grapes</p>
<p>It is also possible that 4) there are indeed engineers who are unhappy, but many are quite happy about their choices. I can't imagine a profession where the vast majority of practitioners is happy. Many doctors are unhappy, too.</p>
<p>As for unhappy engineers, yes, there are former engineers right here in CC who have switched into other fields. But think of it this way: engineers who are unhappy evidently can turn themselves into doctors and lawyers. It seems far less easy for an unhappy doctor or lawyer to turn himself into an engineer!</p>
<p>Yes, engineering degrees are some of the most demanding and time consuming degrees available. Yes, you will have to make sacrifices. If you're the kind of person who wants to go out partying on school nights and have wednesday morning hangovers routinely, stay away from the field.</p>
<p>But, of course, if you have a genuine interest in calculus, physics, and chemistry. Sure engineering requires sacrifices, but it's not as if my friends and I NEVER have any fun at college. You will make friends with your fellow engineering students, and you will have opportunities to go out together and celebrate major achievements AND drown your sorrows after tough exams as a group.</p>
<p>I don't regret my undergraduate decision at all.</p>
<p>Alibarr -- do you work for the state as a civil engineer? Civil's have it a little easier, but don't tell me you don't use a cookbook. Each city has different water tables, and different codes...you MUST use the codebook if you want to practice civil engineering.</p>
<p>"But think of it this way: engineers who are unhappy evidently can turn themselves into doctors and lawyers. It seems far less easy for an unhappy doctor or lawyer to turn himself into an engineer!"</p>
<p>....that's DEAD wrong! To become a doctor or lawyer, you NEED a GRADUATE degree + licensure!!! That is, there are barriers to entry!</p>
<p>To be a computer engineer, you don't need anything. Many people take crash courses as DBAs, SAP programmers, Application certification etc. to become computer engineers.</p>
<p>To be a civil engineer, you just need a BS degree (masters is not worth it). </p>
<p>To be an electrical engineer you just need a BS degree.</p>
<p>....see the pattern?</p>
<p>Oy. Golubb, what the person means is that if you've done your undergraduate degree in engineering, then med and law schools will accept you. You can't do pre-med or pre-law and then decide to go to graduate school in engineering. My dad went through aerospace engineering for his BS, mechanical engineering for his MS, and was ABD PhD in biomedical engineering before he ended up going to med school. That's what 4thfloor is talking about. Chill out.</p>
<p>I have done work for the Texas Dept of Transportation, the City of Houston, the Illinois Department of Transportation, and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. So, yes, I've done the civil servant thing as an engineer. I still love my job.</p>
<p>As to civil engineering masters degrees not being worth it, that's flat wrong. The ASCE is gearing up to move legislation through that would make the <em>masters</em> degree the first professional degree... IE, in about ten years, just getting a bachelors degree could be worthless. (Edit: Anyone who gets their bachelors degree before this goes through would be grandfathered under the old rules, so no panicking. Still, companies prefer that you get a masters degree before you come work for them. I know that Walter P Moore, a huge structural firm in Houston, won't even interview you if you don't have a masters.)</p>
<p>And then we'll talk about licensure: in order for me to be a licensed structural engineer, I need four to five years of engineering experience (residency, anyone?) and then I must take two to three state-administered Professional Engineering exams (Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering, and often a state-specific third PE exam). There's something like a sixty percent failure rate on those... they're <em>hard</em>. How's that for graduate degree plus licensure? As a professor of mine told us, doctors kill their clients one at a time, but civil engineers can take out hundreds in one go, if they do their job poorly.</p>
<p>I very much resent the implication that engineers require only minimal training to do their job.</p>
<p>Hunh, you changed your message after I posted. Have you <em>seen</em> those "cookbooks"? Hundreds of volumes published by hundreds of agencies, thousands of clauses and exceptions to clauses.</p>
<p>Someone once likened civil engineering to law. Sure, in law, all the laws are there. All the cases have been tried. Every trick is written down. The trick is in knowing where to look for all that information and in knowing how to put your case together.</p>
<p>In that regard, civil engineering is exactly like law. If you claim that civil engineering is cookbook, then you're going to need to apply that to law, as well. Yes, there are equations and limits that are specified by the government, but the thing is, you have to <em>know</em> them all. You also have to know where they come from.</p>
<p>And while we're at it, how many doctors see something truly unique that hasn't been documented before? I think we should really get back to the scope of this thread: Is engineering a social life killer? Short answer: No, engineers have to work harder but it's not the end of the world.</p>
<p>Thanks, aibarr, for clarifying what I wrote to golubb_u. That is exactly what I meant.</p>
<p>I'm going into engineering next year, and I've heard all the skepticism from people like golubb_u already.</p>
<p>An engineering degree is great to have! You're not permanently locked into the field of engineering. My dad works on wall street and a lot of his co-workers (doing finance work and whatnot) have engineering degrees. Sure, you may never use all the stuff you learned in college as an engineering major, but it trains you to think analytically, a skill considered valuable by many companies. An engineer does makes a decent salary (maybe not millions) and has decent job security. Not every engineer is outsourced or laid off for turning 35. I turned down a 7-year accelerated dental program to pursue engineering. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't have a passion for engineering or if I thought it was a dying field.</p>
<p>ENGINEERS RULE!</p>
<p>Simply put: engineers are a huge part of human civilization. Look around you: from your cell phone, to your computer, to your house, to the electrical system that lights up the night, to the roads you drive on, to the airplanes that fly above you, to the refrigerator you get your food out of--all of it was designed by engineers.</p>
<p>There's nothing quite like it. =)</p>
<p>"... and I've heard all the skepticism from people like golubb_u already."</p>
<p>You should listen to them, especially if it coming from your parents or other elders....they know what they're talking about.</p>
<p>"Simply put: engineers are a huge part of human civilization."</p>
<p>Dude, you keep defending yourself....it seems as if you're already decided on being an engineer. That's fine, but mark this thread on CC -- In ten years, you may wish you'd listened to a reasoned voice.</p>
<p>And in ten years, you can tell me if you've dropped out of med school because it's not so easy anymore. ;-)</p>
<p>"And in ten years, you can tell me if you've dropped out of med school because it's not so easy anymore. ;-)"</p>
<p>hmm...so basically you're saying that medical is theeee toughest field out there. I can make it anywhere except for medical? I.e., in your view, becoming an engineer, scientist etc. are much easier, and should I go that route, I will succeed, but not the medical field??</p>
<p>I think you're right! The other people going into engineering will get paid accordingly, which is why doctors are so much highly sought after. In ten years, if I'm not a sub-specialist, I'm sure I can be a lowly Internist making 150k ;-)</p>
<p>I'd rather work hard the first 8 years and have a cushy rest-of-my-life, than have it easy the next 4 years and put up with meetings and presentations the rest of my life, all the time playing corporate politics and hating my cube-mates.</p>
<p>Ugh, this is why I heartily dislike premeds.</p>
<p>Being wealthy is not a life goal for everyone. I'm going to go into academic biology research; I could apply to medical school easily, but I have no desire. Being a doctor just doesn't light the fire in me that studying protein-protein interactions does.</p>
<p>For my boyfriend, nothing in the world compares to the joy of designing airplanes. If he had the choice between medical school and a masters in aerospace engineering, he would pick the masters without even thinking about it, because he loves what he's doing. The money doesn't matter to him; he'd be an aerospace engineer for free if he had to.</p>
<p>For godssakes, just let different people have different affinities and let that be the end of it.</p>
<p>someone wanna slap this guy in the face? golubb.... you seriously need to just shutup. if this is how you argue with people in real life, you're in for a hard life. i'm just at lost for words to describe how utterly moronic you sound. i would counter your arguments against the engineering profession, but it really isn't worth my time... or anyone's time for that matter.</p>
<p>I hear ya, opspeed.</p>
<p>And golubb, I was referring to that you will probably not succeed if you're doing something you hate purely for monetary reasons. Being a doctor is not impossible and does not have the ultra-cushy life you have somehow been blinded into. But don't take my word for it, I'm sure you'll find that out in the next few years.</p>
<p>MatthewM04, I agree with you and opspeed... and would like to add that should I, God forbid, ever need neurosurgery, for example, I'd hate to think that the dude or chick cutting open my SKULL and hacking away at my BRAIN cares more about money than me!!</p>
<p>Golubb, drop us a line when you're out of residency so we can avoid partaking of your services...!</p>
<p>(Somewhere, Hippocrates sighs and rolls his eyes...)</p>
<p>"I'd rather work hard the first 8 years and have a cushy rest-of-my-life, than have it easy the next 4 years and put up with meetings and presentations the rest of my life, all the time playing corporate politics and hating my cube-mates."</p>
<p>Not everyone can be a doctor. Assuming you are talking about the pre-med to med school for 8 years, not everyone who works hard succeed. Some people just aren't fit for certain positions. Just like you, who seems to hate meetings and presentations.</p>
<p>Look golub, you are missing the point here in a big way.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don't WANT to be a doctor. I HATE biology. I don't even like chemistry that much, I just tolerate it. What I do ENJOY is physics and calculus. Every person has different tastes. I would have been miserable if I had spent the last three years of my life working on a biology degree.</p></li>
<li><p>It's preposterous, rediculous, and flat-out wrong to say that the job outlook for engineers is abysmal. Yes, outsourcing is occuring, but I can quote the Department of Labor as saying that "Despite this, 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 over this period." -- <a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, the outlook is not all rosey, but then again, the current economic state of this country is not all roses. But that quote from the department of labor doesn't sound like the Department agrees with your claims that the job outlook is terrible, despite the fact that the same source has validated your claims that outsourcing is occuring.</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes, Doctors have a very nice lifestyle. My uncle is not only an M.D., but a specialist. He lives quite comfortably. But if you think Engineers don't live comfortably, you are wrong. Yes, doctors generally have a higher salary. But having a higher salary is not the be-all-and-end-all. First of all, you havn't considered things like mal-practice insurance, which in my own state are quite high. You also havn't considered DEBT. Medical and Law students pay for there graduate school all on there own, often times taking on 60, 80, even 100 thousand dollars worth of debt. And what about the opportunity cost of going to medical school rather than hitting the work force? While the Med student is taking on 20 grand a year in debt, I'll be making 50 grand a year. At the end of four years, that puts me 280 thousand dollars ahead. You'll have to work a long time to make that kind of money up, and if the engineer WANTS to go to graduate school, an employer generally helps or even pays in full for the degree, so after 4 or 5 years, I can go to grad-school at a much cheaper price and after graduation get promotions and better job offers. The department of labor reports that engineering managers are right around the 6 figure mark. Finally, you havn't acknoledged other factors like your homelife. Lawyers routinely have to bring there work home, and often times work 70 hour work weeks. Doctors work long hours also, and even when they arn't working, they have to carry a pager around because they're "on-call". "Don't get too comfortable with the kids, and don't stray to far from the hospital, because we may need you to come in at a moments notice." Boy, doesn't that sound like a happy lifestyle?</li>
</ol>
<p>So to the typical medical student I say: go ahead, take on all of that debt if you want too, while your bills are piling up, I"ll be starting out with the highest starting salary possible on a bachelor's degree (because that's what engineers make... top dollar of anyone with only a B.S.), getting married, starting a family, and purchasing that house and car that I want. Then, after 5 or 6 years, if I want to accelerate my career and make more money, there will be a lot of different options available to me (M.S., M.B.A., J.D., ect) and I almost certainly won't have to pay for all of it.</p>
<p>But if you love biology, and you want to help people, then by all means, go the Medical route. It's a noble profession, and if that's what you enjoy and makes you happy, then that's what's for you.</p>
<p>But don't come onto an engineering board and paint the picture that we're all making a big mistake by going into engineering, because I personally hate biology, I love calculus, and I would have been miserable working on a B.S. in microbiology or something like that.</p>
<p>I don't have all of the answers, and have come to this board looking for some career advice, but I have also done my own homework, and I don't regret my undergraduate decision one bit. You are mistaken in implying that majoring in engineering is a big mistake.</p>