<p>I saw on another thread that engineers basically get fired after a couple years because they make "too much money", and are replaced by freshman grads. </p>
<p>The major I chose was Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (current high school senior accepted ED to Johns Hopkins) -- and I don't have to "declare" a major per say until end of freshman year. If this is the case, should I just go to Chemistry/Neuroscience and go for Med school or something? </p>
<p>I am not concerned about my salary as long as it's decent...I just don't want to find new jobs over and over and move around. I prefer to stay in one spot really...</p>
<p>I have never heard anything about an engineer being fired because he was making too much money and they wanted fresh blood; there are cases where younger grads are recruited if the industry as a whole is aging (like Nuclear) but in most cases being older, having experience and working up the ladder speaks volumes more than being young.</p>
<p>As for the Medical/Engineering question which is quite common and might be of concern since you attend probably the most competitive Medical school in the nation. </p>
<p>It is in my opinion that an engineering degree is great pre-requisite for medical school (unless your passion is Chemistry--than by all means pursue that) given that you are willing to accept that your course work will be difficult and you will need to work harder than the average engineer. At the end of the day you'll ace the MCAT due to your engineering curriculum and still have a very strong degree to enter the work place.</p>
<p>I wouldn't worry too much about instability since you would be graduating from a Top Notch BME/ChemE school (assuming you maintain a decent GPA).</p>
<p>Try out BME for a year and if its too hard or your heart is rather in Medicine--switch.</p>
<p>I am currently working in industry as an engineer and I have never heard of anyone getting fired because he/she made too much money. If you do well in school, you will be just fine in industry. If you are good at what you do, you may even want to seek new jobs that pay even more. The engineers I know that move from job to job are the ones seeking higher positions, not because they were fired.</p>
<p>Both of my parents are engineers, and they have never had this happen to them, or heard of it happening. In fact, they are encouraging me to become an engineer because of its stability.</p>
<p>we have a family friend who owns an automotive company and he has the most problems with young engineers who expect to make too much and want their own window office from the beginning. he says it's all about paying your dues and working your way up the ladder. but otherwise, engineering is a very good, upper middle class, family raising career. you make good money, live in one place, work 40 hours a week with constant opportunities for overtime, and the longer you stay, the more stable your job is.</p>
<p>The "age discrimination" you suggest is more myth than reality. However, engineering does, like many other things, have economic risks relating to employment. For example, if you are a civil engineer in the construction business, you can face the risk of lay-off when the construction industry falls into one of its cyclical funks, likewise the airline and aerospace industry, and many electrical, computer, and computer science engineers experienced that problem when the tech market took its big hits early this century.</p>
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Is Engineering an unstable profession?
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<p>Well, the real question is, relative to what standard? Clearly engineering is not perfectly stable. If you're comparing engineering to, say, being a tenured (and therefore unfireable) professor, or, say, working for the government (which makes you 'almost' unfireable), then engineering is clearly relatively unstable. I would also agree that other professions that you can get with other professional degrees, i.e. medicine, law, pharmacy, and so forth are probably more stable. </p>
<p>That said, I would also say that engineering is still one of the more stable jobs around, and is clearly one of the most stable jobs a person can get with just a bachelor's degree.</p>
<p>If people are getting fired because they are overpaid, then why is there an anticipated shortage of doctors, and especially pharmacists?</p>
<p>I think thats total garbage about them being paid too much. Engineers have to do soooo much stuff, and I think they're the most underpaid people in the world.</p>
<p>I posted the following in the thread on age discrimination but it applies here as well:</p>
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Let me provide another viewpoint. My company just today went through yet another round of layoffs of their R&D staff (mostly electrical and software). Were they laid off because of age? No. Were they laid off because they make too much? Well, yes when you look at who will be replacing them. Our company now makes no secret that they want to move most of their R&D headcount off shore where the labor is much cheaper. This means that R&D staff in the US will continue to shrink.</p>
<p>As to age discrimination, I would guess that most companies are very concerned about laying off older people and keeping younger people - the statistics resulting from this would invite a court case. However, once you are laid off and then try to get re-hired, if you are a gray hair, your chances of finding a new job in engineering will be very difficult - at least based upon the experience of colleagues who been through this.
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<p>If doctors and pharmacists can be outsourced to India and China and Eastern Europe, they too will be in the position that many engineers in this country are in. Its good for them that they, for the most part, can not be outsourced.</p>
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If doctors and pharmacists can be outsourced to India and China and Eastern Europe, they too will be in the position that many engineers in this country are in. Its good for them that they, for the most part, can not be outsourced.
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<p>But again, I would reiterate that being a doctor or a pharmacist takes a graduate degree. Hence, it's not fair to compare them to engineers. A person can get an engineering bachelor's degree, and then go on to medical or pharmacy school. I've seen people do that.</p>
<p>The point is, engineering is still among the most marketable degrees you can get at just the bachelor's degree level. Let me put it to you this way. If you think engineers have it bad, what about those people who majored in psychology? </p>
<p>I heard about that myth too. My godfather was an aerospace engineer working for Boeing, and got fired in the early 1990s. He made a good living, had almost half a million in stocks, nice house, and everything. He couldn't get a job as an engineer so he went into real estate. He recommends that I don't pursue engineering, he says that there are alot of oversea engineers from India and China that are being hired for lower pay than American engineers.</p>