Is harvard engineering (Biomedical especially) famous?

sakky · October 14, 2005, 12:41am

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Pessimistic or optimistic is all in the eye of the beholders, what I'm suggesting here is what choice would be more 'safe', at this moment. You never know if in the future East Coast freeze because of freak weather and Berkeley become the only famous institution in the US. But AT THIS MOMENT, I would generally recommend Harvard over Cal, is anything wrong?

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Exactly, so you are basically agreeing with the point I made before - that Harvard in general is more safe than Cal (and especialy Michigan or Illinois) IN GENERAL. I based that on the fact that plenty of people switch out of engineering , and even of those that don't, plenty of engineering students choose not to be engineers.

Bottom line. You go to Harvard, worst case scenario is that end up studying engineering. That's really not that bad. That's my point.

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must say that I don't know much about the premium level in Ibanking. Nevertheless, have you compared the premium difference between MS and PhD in Ibanking?

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What does that have to do with anything? Associate level is associate level. If you have a PhD, it's inherently assumed that you are eligible for an associate level job. If you have an MS, it depends on other factors in your work experience. However, the point is, a PhD is often times seen as an 'alternate-MBA'.

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There's nothing wrong with US engineering companies. The thing is that, do you know what they study for PhD? The problem is that most PhDs are doing researches which are too theoritical and don't have marketing sense. I didn't say that PhD is useless since many of the technology today comes from PhD holders, but believe me, the number of those who contribute to the technology in the market is minute. By nature big engineering companies focus more on marketing and manufacturing than research (notably Intel [I did an academic survey during my grad study]) because they're profit driven.

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I would argue that there is something VERY wrong with the US engineering companies, at least in their rhetoric. You and I have both heard these company leaders lamenting how the US doesn't produce enough PhD and MS level engineers, and the ones that the US do produce are often times foreign-born. Surely you've heard people like Bill Gates and Craig Barrett pushing education reform in order to increase the level of science and math knowledge among American kids and increase the level of interest of Americans getting engineering degrees, including graduate-level engineering degrees, and how the US produces too many lawyers and consultants and business folks, but not enough technologists.

And my point is, what for? Right now, these engineering companies aren't hiring all those graduate-level engineers. So why should the US produce more? Specifically why should Americans study engineering more, if these companies aren't going to improve their offers? Basically, what I'm asking is, how exactly are we supposed to convince American kids to choose engineering over law or consulting or anything else when those other fields seem to offer better opportunities. The kids are simply responding to the incentives of the market.

If you really want more people to enter engineering, then you need to improve your offers. Otherwise, stop saying that you people to enter engineering. It's put up or shut up time.

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have to disagree with such generalization. It just happens that those presidents that Larry recently hires are from non-tech background. But it doesn't necessarily indicate the trend. We never know in the future if the next Oracle president comes from engineering background. To illustrate this uncertainty, consider the previous GE CEO, Jack Welch, who holds a PhD in chem. engrg and was 'truly' engineers, yet he make a great management skill. Should I say this give any signal or indication? NO! Also consider the many previous Intel CEOs were from engineering background

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You can say the generalization is correct or incorrect, but that's not the point. The point is that it doesn't send a good signal. It's like seeing the CEO of GM driving around in a Toyota. It's like seeing the CEO of McDonalds eating at Burger King. It sends a bad message when engineering companies promote non-engineers into the top ranks.

You said it yourself that perception is important. And you have to admit that perceptions are funny beasts. Let's face it. All companies are political. When you choose to promote somebody, you can't just worry about how good that person is. You also have to worry about the political ramifications of that promotion, and in particular, what sort of signal that sends to everybody else who dreams of getting that promotion. That's how company politics works.

The point is, when a conspicuous number of engineering companies are seen to be promoting non-engineers, that sends a strong signal to the market that maybe it's not such a good idea to be an engineer. You might say that that's a wrong perception, but right or wrong, it is what it is.

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I don't know about your interpretation of 'true' engineer. Many software engineers at Microsoft DO NOT DO PROGRAMMING at all, what they do is just manage the team despite the fact that their title is 'senior developer', 'product developer', etc. These are still engineers in my definition.

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My interpretation is somebody who still has a hand in creating or managing technical processes. For example, I think we can all agree that the guy who gets his engineering degree from Stanford but then becomes a Wall Street investment banker is not a true engineer.

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So you conclude that his job has nothing to do with engineering when he worked as a product manager. I must say that your definition of engineers is too narrow.

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For Ballmer at P&G? Oh yes. First of all, like I said, Ballmer does not have a degree in engineering. So are you saying that people who don't have engineering degrees can still be engineers (in the way you define engineering)?

Secondly, plenty of non-engineers, including many humanities majors, get hired as product managers at P&G. That's because that job requires a lot of marketing and soft skills. I've known engineers who've tried to get jobs at P&G as product managers and have been turned down in favor of non-engineering students.

But that only goes to proving something I've been saying before. You can have a perfectly fine career without an engineering degree, at least at P&G. People see that. People see that you can get an engineering degree and still lose out to a non-engineer. Therefore that only lessens the desire for people to get engineering degrees. People will inevitably ask "Why am I working so hard to get this engineering degree, if I may end up losing out to a non-engineer anyway?"

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it is not easy at all, perhaps harder than working in Ibanking as a start.

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Oh, I don't know about that. Do you know what you just said? You're talking about Ibanking right after B-school. That is probably THE most stressful job you can take.

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Companies make mistakes in hiring, believe me. Including, or maybe especially, investment banks. The difficulty in hiring from the Harvards and the Yales are that most of these people are really great, but some of them are just relatively mediocre alumni kids, star soccer players, tennis players, etc who got in mostly for those reasons. It is not always easy to tell these groups apart, because a lot of the "real McCoy" people there are also star soccer players, tennis players, senator's kids, etc. I've seen this firsthand.

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I agree, but compare that to the guy who graduates with an engineering degree from a no-name school and wants to work in Ibanking, and can't even get an interview. The Harvard guy might get hired and then get fired, but hey, at least he got his foot in the door. Plenty of other people don't even get that far.

rtkysg · October 14, 2005, 1:04pm

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I based that on the fact that plenty of people switch out of engineering , and even of those that don't, plenty of engineering students choose not to be engineers.

Bottom line. You go to Harvard, worst case scenario is that end up studying engineering. That's really not that bad. That's my point.

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That's why I am saying that the engineering grad students at Harvard are at risk of being more 'laughable' than the undergrad students who are often confused about what they really want to study.

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If you really want more people to enter engineering, then you need to improve your offers. Otherwise, stop saying that you people to enter engineering. It's put up or shut up time.

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They want the engineers, but not the theoritical engineers with PhD thesis in general since they are too costly.

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People will inevitably ask "Why am I working so hard to get this engineering degree, if I may end up losing out to a non-engineer anyway?"

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Because you would have immediate safe and good pay career after graduation. You can always go into management or finance at some points later. Also, engineering background makes a good profile for MBA admission.

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Oh, I don't know about that. Do you know what you just said? You're talking about Ibanking right after B-school. That is probably THE most stressful job you can take.

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What I can say is that getting into Ibanking/Consulting may be easier than into tech companies management hirearchy right after B-schools.

sakky · October 15, 2005, 5:12pm

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That's why I am saying that the engineering grad students at Harvard are at risk of being more 'laughable' than the undergrad students who are often confused about what they really want to study.

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And again, I have to profoundly disagree. If anything, the reverse is true, that the Harvard undergrads would be laughed at more. Why? Simple. From what I can tell, the Harvard grad engineering students are generally there because they couldn't get into a better engineering school. For example, I don't know too many Harvard grad-engineering student who wouldn't rather be at MIT. They didn't get in. What more do you want them to say? Not everybody gets to go to MIT for grad engineering school.

Either that, or many of them are Harvard dual-degree students. For example, I know a guy who is 'picking up' a Harvard EE master's degree, but on his way towards getting his Harvard PhD in physics. I heard of budding tech entrepreneurs who did adhoc degrees, combining an MBA at Harvard Business School with a Harvard engineering master's. I even know of another person who is completing his doctorate his doctorate at Harvard Business School, specializing in the economics of Ecommerce, and he picked up his Harvard master's degree in CS along the way. Should we be laughing at these people? It seems like they know EXACTLY what they're doing. Hey, if you're at Harvard picking up some other degree and you can pick up a Harvard engineering master's along the way, what's wrong with that?

However, the bottom line is that it is probably easier to get into Harvard for grad engineering than for Harvard undergrad engineering. A Harvard undergrad engineer is more likely to have been able to have gone to a better school than a Harvard grad engineer.

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They want the engineers, but not the theoritical engineers with PhD thesis in general since they are too costly.

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Then you have to agree with me that companies who complain that the US is not producing enough engineering doctorates ought to sit down and shut up.

The way I see it is, you either want them or you don't. If you don't want them, fine, then don't say that you want them.

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Because you would have immediate safe and good pay career after graduation. You can always go into management or finance at some points later. Also, engineering background makes a good profile for MBA admission.

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But that's not good enough for a lot of people.

Look, I think you have some background in economics, and so you know that decisions are made on the margins. Decisions about what choices to make are never cut-and-dry, but are a matter of fine-tuning your choices based on the market situation of the day. The fewer incentives you give to people to become engineers, the fewer people will become engineers. When people see that non-engineers can beat out engineers for "engineering jobs" (according to how you define the term), then we both know that that means that, on the margins, some people will choose not to become engineers.

Look, again, my point is simple. If the business community really wants more engineers, whether they are BS engineers or PhD's, they have to provide more incentives for people to become engineers. The more incentives you provide, the more people will become engineers. I am sick and tired of the business community SAYING that they want more engineers, but not improving their incentives.

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What I can say is that getting into Ibanking/Consulting may be easier than into tech companies management hirearchy right after B-schools.

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I highly doubt that is a valid general statement. For certain tech companies? Sure. But in general? Let's face it. For every Google or every Yahoo out there, there are plenty of mediocre tech companies that are very easy to enter. What we should be comparing is the AVERAGE consulting firm/Ibank vs. the AVERAGE tech company.

rtkysg · October 16, 2005, 12:28am

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For example, I don't know too many Harvard grad-engineering student who wouldn't rather be at MIT. They didn't get in. What more do you want them to say? Not everybody gets to go to MIT for grad engineering school.

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But on the other hand, I am talking about some Harvard grad-engineering students who are also admitted to Michigan or Purdue.

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even know of another person who is completing his doctorate his doctorate at Harvard Business School, specializing in the economics of Ecommerce, and he picked up his Harvard master's degree in CS along the way. Should we be laughing at these people? It seems like they know EXACTLY what they're doing. Hey, if you're at Harvard picking up some other degree and you can pick up a Harvard engineering master's along the way, what's wrong with that?

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I completely agree with you on this case (i.e. dual degree with another 'heavy' major). But if the dual degree with major like Literature or no dual degree at all, it would be rather weak.

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Then you have to agree with me that companies who complain that the US is not producing enough engineering doctorates ought to sit down and shut up.

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I thought they say they want engineers, not engineers-with-PhD.

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I highly doubt that is a valid general statement. For certain tech companies? Sure. But in general? Let's face it. For every Google or every Yahoo out there, there are plenty of mediocre tech companies that are very easy to enter. What we should be comparing is the AVERAGE consulting firm/Ibank vs. the AVERAGE tech company.

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True, but many of those mediocre tech companies are unlikely to pay those PhDs as much as Google or Ibanking/consulting companies.

sakky · October 16, 2005, 3:25am

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I am talking about some Harvard grad-engineering students who are also admitted to Michigan or Purdue.

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And, again, that's the question for which neither of us have a good answer. Nobody really knows how many of these people there really are.

And again, how much difference are you really talking about? We're not talking about the difference between Harvard and MIT. Let's face it. There are the truly elite grad engineering schools, which I would take to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and maybe Illinois. Then I would say that there's a long list of maybe 20 very good, but not necessarily elite grad engineering schools. I would probably include Harvard in that list.

Think of it this way. Purdue is ranked #10. Harvard is ranked #20. Honestly, is there really that much difference between 10 and 20? I don't think so, not when there are literally hundreds of grad engineering programs out there. When we're talking about the difference between 10 and 20, we're talking about very small differences. When the differences are small, other factors take over. For example, geographic preference may take over - some people just would rather live in Boston/Cambridge. Things like stipend generosity play a role. Things like family restrictions play a role. For example, I could see somebody getting a grad Harvard engineering degree because his wife works in Boston and doesn't want to move (and he didn't get into MIT).

But again, I would point out what I said before, why laugh? If a guy chooses Harvard over Purdue, so what? That's his life, not yours. If the Purdue guy really is so confident that his school is better than Harvard, then he will inevitably get a better job than the Harvard guy, right? So there's really no reason to laugh.

To me, it's only the people who lack confidence in themselves who try to make themselves feel better by putting down others. Hence, that laughter only betrays your real suspicions.

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But if the dual degree with major like Literature or no dual degree at all, it would be rather weak

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Why? I am far far more impressed with somebody who can get a dual degree with Lit and engineering than somebody who just got a single degree in Lit. Heck, I am impressed with anybody who can complete an engineering degree from anywhere. Engineering is hard anywhere, whether you're talking about MIT or Fresno State.

So I'll put it to you this way. Guy A completes an English degree at Harvard. Guy B completes both an English and an Engineering degree at Harvard. {I know that's functionally impossible to do, but let's say it was possible}. Which guy is more impressive? I think very few people would say A. Guy B obviously has a highly well-rounded set of talents. True, maybe guy B is not as technically strong as a guy coming out of MIT or Caltech. But hey, he's obviously a lot more technically strong than the other humanities students at Harvard.

And even if just did engineering all by itself, hey, like I said, he's still getting an engineering degree that is far better than most other engineering degrees out there. And he still managed to get into Harvard which is a notable achievement in and of itself.

Like I said, Harvard isn't the best at everything. But that doesn't mean that people who major in its relatively weaker departments ought to get laughed at. As I said above, if you're really so confident that your degree is better than a Harvard degree, then you should feel no need to cast stones.

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I thought they say they want engineers, not engineers-with-PhD.

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And do they want engineers? So why is it that plenty of bachelor's degree engineers from MIT, Stanford and other top engineering programs run off to consulting and banking?

In fact, just today, I see that Bill Gates was touting more people to study computer science, and I believe he was referring to all levels of computer science (BS, MS, and PhD).

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/10/14/gates.minority.students.ap/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/10/14/gates.minority.students.ap/index.html</a>

I understand what he's doing - he wants to be able to hire more top computer talent into Microsoft. Yet the fact of the matter is, plenty of top computer talent right now chooses not to work in computer science. I happen to know several MIT EECS students who got offers from Microsoft and turned it down for consulting/banking. When I asked them why, they said they felt that consulting/banking gave better opportunities and better money.

Now don't get me wrong, I also know some other MIT people who turned down consulting/banking for Microsoft, but the point is, if Microsoft computer jobs were so good, then nobody should be turning them down for consulting/banking. Hence, my take is, if Bill Gates and Microsoft could get the computer science employees that it wants, if it just raised its offers and provided better opportunities. Why doesn't Microsoft cleanly beat the offers from the consulting/banking companies? We both know that Microsoft has the money to do it.

Furthermore, I would point out that actions speak louder than words. Instead of going on a roadshow trying to convince people to study computer science, why not just raise your entry-level salaries? For example, if every new Microsoft computer science employee from an elite school was paid 100k or 150k to start, I can guarantee you that a lot of more people will want to study computer science. A lot of people at MIT and Stanford will switch majors to EECS because they would want to get that Microsoft offer. And they will be far far less inclined to turn down Microsoft for consulting/banking. Not only that, but word of these kinds of salaries would became known worldwide, and that would cause more students to want to work hard and become strong at math and science so that they can go to MIT or Stanford or some other elite CS program.

So what's really going on is not that Microsoft and other tech companies really want more computer people. If they wanted that, they could get it by simply raising their offers. That's basic economics. No. They want CHEAP computer people. Basically, they want computer people, but they don't want to have to raise their offers, and so they'd rather just increase the supply of computer labor available which therefore dampens the kind of wages they have to pay.

Hence, what I have to say is that these companies should at least be honest about what they really want. They don't really want computer people. They want CHEAP computer people.

And besides, think of this. Why is it that Goldman Sachs doesn't feel the need to do a roadshow to convince more people to become interested in investment banking? Why doesn't McKinsey do a national roadshow to spur interest in management consulting? The answer is simple - they don't have to. They got candidates coming out of the wordwork who want to work for them. And it's because people know that they opportunities they provide are really good. Hence, if tech companies also provided comparable opportunities, they wouldn't need to be trying to convince more people to study tech. They wouldn't have to find people, people would find them.

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True, but many of those mediocre tech companies are unlikely to pay those PhDs as much as Google or Ibanking/consulting companies.

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Yep, exactly, but then you have to ask - why not? Why are these banks/consulting companies willing to pay more? I'm not talking about people who get PhD's in business or finance. I'm talking about phD's in engineering. Who is more likely to be able to utilize the talents of such a person - a tech company, or a bank/consultancy? You say that the tech company may not be able to really utilize the obscure talents of these PhD's in engineering, who often times studied esoterica that nobody really uses. But isn't that also true of the banks/ consulting firms? I would argue that that guy's skillset is far closer to what is required by a tech company than a consultancy/bank.

I'll put it to you this way. My friend's brother is finishing his PhD in EECS from MIT, completing a thesis on advanced computer networks. Is he going to work for a computer networking company like Cisco or 3Com or Lucent? No - he's going to work for as an investment banker at, I think, DeutscheBank. Why? True, his research was rather theroetical and may not have been directly useful to a computer networking company. But hey, it's a lot more applicable than to a computer networking company than it is to an investment bank. His research has NOTHING to with his position at DeutscheBank.

So why did Deutschebank hire him? Simple - he obviously is extremely hardworking and talented. But why can't tech companies adopt that same attitude? Why should banks be interested in hiring talented people, but not tech companies?

I'm a bit surprised that you keep pushing back at this point. I think I read before how you said you wanted to study a technical subject. So shouldn't you want tech companies to be making better offers? Shouldn't you want tech people to be making more money and doing better? It seems as if you don't really want that, and that mystifies me.

monydad · October 16, 2005, 11:04am

At the higest levels, mathematical finance is incredibly complex. Fischer Black (then of MIT, later of Goldman Sachs) received a Nobel Prize in economics for development of the theory of option pricing.

Companies are constantly trying to create exotic derivate securities, and then they have to figure out how much they should profitably be willing to pay for them. Plus they have to figure out what impact such a financial instrument will have on their overall financial portfolio.

The differential equations underlying option valuation are also seen in heat transfer theory, nuclear physics and some other exotic areas of the physical sciences and engineering.

Consequently, PhDs in engineering and some physical sciences are the people most likely to have training in the mathematics underlying this area of finance, and are also among the most likely by intellect to be able to tackle whatever else might come up.

The salaries reflect the securities industry generally. I think it reflects imperfect competition in this industry group. Most other industries possibly cannot compete and survive with this salary stucture; they have more competition for business and hence cannot pass on the costs so easily. Perhaps. Or their work is mostly not so esoteric so they do not feel they need the absolute brightest lights in the word in order to compete. I'm not sure which; haven't thought about it enough.

rtkysg · October 17, 2005, 1:28pm

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And again, how much difference are you really talking about? We're not talking about the difference between Harvard and MIT.

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Well, unfortunately, the difference between Harvard and Purdue is pretty far for graduate engineering school. You may want to ask your friends who are taking PhD in engineering right now.

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Heck, I am impressed with anybody who can complete an engineering degree from anywhere. Engineering is hard anywhere, whether you're talking about MIT or Fresno State.

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On the other hand I'm not impressed by those engineering programs which offer weak workload and training. Look, this is very subjective, of course the grads in Lit/Engrg would be better than the ones in Lit only. Nevertheless, I am making comparison within the engineering circle, and those who graduate in Lit/Engrg from Harvard don't have the better odds with a couple degree in Lit.

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As I said above, if you're really so confident that your degree is better than a Harvard degree, then you should feel no need to cast stones.

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Not necessarily so, I see a lot of 'jerks' in MIT who laugh at Harvard engineering, claim it as a toy program.

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And do they want engineers? So why is it that plenty of bachelor's degree engineers from MIT, Stanford and other top engineering programs run off to consulting and banking?

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Because the number of those who studied engineering exceed the number of those who really wanted to become an engineer. As you mentioned previously, engineering is indeed one marketable and pretty safe degree.

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I happen to know several MIT EECS students who got offers from Microsoft and turned it down for consulting/banking. When I asked them why, they said they felt that consulting/banking gave better opportunities and better money.

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This is perhaps a bogus perception of fresh graduates. Although I never work in consulting/Ibanking before, I heard from my very friend in the field that they have to travel a lot, working extra hours, and with many pressure. In fact, they said that divided by the working hours, the salary in consulting/Ibanking may turn out to be lower than those in tech companies.

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Furthermore, I would point out that actions speak louder than words. Instead of going on a roadshow trying to convince people to study computer science, why not just raise your entry-level salaries? For example, if every new Microsoft computer science employee from an elite school was paid 100k or 150k to start,

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Hey, the investment bankers are working extra hours while those Microsoft employees are going to gym at lunch hour, go home at 4 or 5 pm and still get something like 85K-95K. It's worth it.

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So why did Deutschebank hire him? Simple - he obviously is extremely hardworking and talented. But why can't tech companies adopt that same attitude? Why should banks be interested in hiring talented people, but not tech companies?

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Who told you that? I am working on my PhD in engineering and already get an offer from some tech companies when I run some trial interview. What I'm saying that those tech companies can hardly take all those PhDs but still there are more PhDs in engineering who work in tech companies than in investment banking/consulting.

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I'm a bit surprised that you keep pushing back at this point. I think I read before how you said you wanted to study a technical subject. So shouldn't you want tech companies to be making better offers? Shouldn't you want tech people to be making more money and doing better? It seems as if you don't really want that, and that mystifies me.

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Are you getting the wrong person? I am already a core techie (yeah, with Caltech and now MIT on my back) and I'm satisfied with my previous salary from the tech companies. Sure, I am thinking of taking MBA and work with a management position next time. But it doesn't necessarily mean Ibanking/consulting job.

sakky · October 18, 2005, 5:25pm

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Well, unfortunately, the difference between Harvard and Purdue is pretty far for graduate engineering school. You may want to ask your friends who are taking PhD in engineering right now

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Believe me, I know. The difference is small.

Again, I would reiterate that I believe that Purdue is probably a better engineering school than is Harvard. But it's not SO much better that I think people should always be choosing Purdue. Things like personal fit, financial support, and other factors start coming into play when you're comparing those 2 programs.

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On the other hand I'm not impressed by those engineering programs which offer weak workload and training. Look, this is very subjective, of course the grads in Lit/Engrg would be better than the ones in Lit only. Nevertheless, I am making comparison within the engineering circle, and those who graduate in Lit/Engrg from Harvard don't have the better odds with a couple degree in Lit.

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I don't understand what you just said? I think it is eminently obviously that a person with an engineering/lit double degree will have a better chance of getting an engineering job than a guy with just a lit degree. I think the latter's chances are about zero.

The point is, we don't go around laughing at a guy with a Harvard lit degree. And the guy with a Harvard lit/eng degree completed an even harder program. If anybody ought to be laughed at, it is the guy who completed the easier program, which would be the first guy.

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Not necessarily so, I see a lot of 'jerks' in MIT who laugh at Harvard engineering, claim it as a toy program.

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Oh, yes, necessarily so. I've met these people too, and guess what? They're jerks. Just like I said they were.

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Because the number of those who studied engineering exceed the number of those who really wanted to become an engineer. As you mentioned previously, engineering is indeed one marketable and pretty safe degree.

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Come on, now. It's not just a matter of people not wanting to work as an engineer. There is no fixed number of people who want to work as engineers. It's the basic laws of economics. If engineering jobs were better, then more people would work as engineers.

It is obviously true that some people study engineering who just see it as a backup career, and will do something else if something better comes along. But THAT's THE POINT. Why can't engineering be that 'something better'? Specifically, I am asking why can't engineering jobs be as good as consulting/banking jobs? If they were, you and I both know that fewer people would leave engineering. That's the point. All those people who got engineering degrees just as a backup career will realize that engineering jobs are better than the alternatives, so they will stay in engineering. Hence, you will see fewer MIT and Stanford engineering students leaving engineering.

That's basic economics. The better the job, the more people that want it.

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This is perhaps a bogus perception of fresh graduates. Although I never work in consulting/Ibanking before, I heard from my very friend in the field that they have to travel a lot, working extra hours, and with many pressure. In fact, they said that divided by the working hours, the salary in consulting/Ibanking may turn out to be lower than those in tech companies.

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But whether it's reality or perception, it doesn't matter. The truth is, for whatever reason, people are still leaving engineering for consulting/banking. If nothing else, that means that the perception is that consulting/banking is better than engineering. And a way for engineering to change that perception is to simply make their jobs better.

Look, again, I return to my basic point. Do these engineering companies want to get top engineers or not? If they do, then they have to realize that they could get many more if they are willing to compete against consulting/banking.

So maybe it's just a matter of perception that engineering is not as good as consulting/banking. I don't think it is just a matter of perception, but fine, have it your way. In that case, then it's up to the engineering companies to change that perception. They have to show why engineering is better, from a total package standpoint (money, prestige, career advancement, interesting tasks, etc.) than consulting/banking. If they're not going to do that, then they have nobody to blame but themselves.

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Hey, the investment bankers are working extra hours while those Microsoft employees are going to gym at lunch hour, go home at 4 or 5 pm and still get something like 85K-95K. It's worth it.

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But that's still not the point. For whatever reason, some engineers are still turning down Microsoft for the banks. If Microsoft doesn't like that, then Microsoft needs to improve its offers.

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Who told you that? I am working on my PhD in engineering and already get an offer from some tech companies when I run some trial interview. What I'm saying that those tech companies can hardly take all those PhDs but still there are more PhDs in engineering who work in tech companies than in investment banking/consulting.

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And think about what you just said. On the one hand, you say that tech companies cannot take all these PhD's. On the other hand, these same companies are also complaining that the US doesn't produce enough PhD's. So which is it? They have to decide. They can't have it both ways.

What that means is that you have to agree with me that you find it ridiculous to hear tech companies complaining that they can't find enough PhD's. If they really can't take all that are being produced right now, then what are they complaining about?

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Are you getting the wrong person? I am already a core techie (yeah, with Caltech and now MIT on my back) and I'm satisfied with my previous salary from the tech companies. Sure, I am thinking of taking MBA and work with a management position next time. But it doesn't necessarily mean Ibanking/consulting job.

[/quote]

But to others, that is what they are going to do.

So I was fiddling around with the MIT Infinite Connection website (the MIT alumni database) the other day, and I see that they revamped it so that you can search by employer. So I typed in such words as "McKinsey" and "Goldman Sachs", and I found a long list of MIT alumni who are working there. Obviously many of them are Sloan management students, but many others are engineering students, even PhD's. The database is incomplete because alumni have to voluntarily state where they are working, and many don't bother. Still, the list of consulting and banking people who came from engineering is extensive.

And you have to ask why? You and I both know that if engineering companies paid more, they would get more people. If engineering was more prestigious, then they would get more people. If engineering was a better career path, then they would get more people.

My takehome point is simple. Think of a guy who complains that his house is dirty, but doesn't want to clean the place up. Or a guy who complains about being out-of-shape, but doesn't want to go the gym. That's not a valid complaint. If you want to be fit, you have to work out. If you don't want to work out, then don't complain about not being fit.

Similarly, we have these engineering companies that complain that the US doesn't produce enough engineers (BS, PhD, whatever). But at the same time, they don't want to improve their engineering job offers. It doesn't work that way. You want the US to produce more engineers? Then improve your offers. That's how it works. If you don't want to do that, fine. Then don't complain.

rtkysg · October 18, 2005, 6:36pm

[quote]
Believe me, I know. The difference is small.

Again, I would reiterate that I believe that Purdue is probably a better engineering school than is Harvard. But it's not SO much better that I think people should always be choosing Purdue. Things like personal fit, financial support, and other factors start coming into play when you're comparing those 2 programs.

[/quote]

Well, I have to disagree with your opinion on the difference level. Would you agree if I said that the history program at Harvard is not so much different from UT Austin? Well anybody can say a lot about fit or specialization. But generally Harvard engineering is deemed much weaker than Purdue in engineering circle. Purdue for its credit, have the best signal processing dept. in the nation together with MIT. Yeah, I know it's too specialized, that it shouldn't be taken generally. Nevertheless, I would just want to point out that for people in the know Purdue engineering is much stronger overall than Harvard engineering (for graduate study).

[quote]
I don't understand what you just said? I think it is eminently obviously that a person with an engineering/lit double degree will have a better chance of getting an engineering job than a guy with just a lit degree. I think the latter's chances are about zero.

[/quote]

I'm saying that having an additional Lit degree doesn't help the image of Harvard engineers on the risk of being laughed at/undermined in engineering circle.

[quote]
Oh, yes, necessarily so. I've met these people too, and guess what? They're jerks. Just like I said they were.

[/quote]

I agree, but even many more jerks are also laughing at those who study Park & Recreational study. I think we couldn't turn the world upside down for the utopian view, could we?

[quote]
But THAT's THE POINT. Why can't engineering be that 'something better'? Specifically, I am asking why can't engineering jobs be as good as consulting/banking jobs?

[/quote]

Well, since you bring up the economic perspective, you certainly realize that the supply for the consulting/banking jobs is lower than the demand. First lemma, if consulting/banking jobs are proliferating at the speed of engineering jobs, you'll see consulting/banking jobs give less rewards. Furthermore, as I said, the jobs of engineering vary from the worse to best in terms of reward. Consulting/banking being a smaller field has less of this variation, hence while the ones having the lower end engineering jobs struggle to get into banking/consulting, the one at the top tier engineering jobs may not be enticed by the nature of banking/consulting jobs.

The problem with your view is that you take engineers as those who wear white coat, get into the lab, and date with electronics equipment. But hey, those engineers are aspiring to manage that lab and get further into management position later on. And yes, along the way, they are working as engineers.

[quote]
But that's still not the point. For whatever reason, some engineers are still turning down Microsoft for the banks. If Microsoft doesn't like that, then Microsoft needs to improve its offers.

[/quote]

It's an unfair comparison, believe me, there some consultant/Ibankers out there who're stressed up and want to move out from the fast pace working style. Unfortunately, there's no way they could return to the tech jobs afterwards and hence you won't see a single comeback.

[quote]
What that means is that you have to agree with me that you find it ridiculous to hear tech companies complaining that they can't find enough PhD's. If they really can't take all that are being produced right now, then what are they complaining about?

[/quote]

As I said, I know those companies are saying they have not enough engineers, but I never know they want engineers-WITH PHD so badly. Do you have any link on that?

Sam_Lee · October 18, 2005, 7:53pm

[quote]
Again, I would reiterate that I believe that Purdue is probably a better engineering school than is Harvard. But it's not SO much better that I think people should always be choosing Purdue.

[/quote]

In reality, most who are good enough to get into Harvard would have options to go to Stanford, MIT, and CalTech or JHU's BME. I can totally see how anyone serious about engineering would choose all these over Harvard. That's probably why the engineering departments are so small at Harvard; those students represent the minority of those who are serious about engineering but forgo schools like CalTech/MIT/Stanford. I'd imagine most of the cross-admits that Harvard win over MIT are not the engineering type but the general science type who are happy to be in either pure science or engineering. Many perspective engineers also just apply to MIT/Stanford without applying to Harvard. The scenario of having a dilemma of choosing between Harvard and only Purdue almost never exist.

rtkysg · October 18, 2005, 8:27pm

[quote]
In reality, most who are good enough to get into Harvard would have options to go to Stanford, MIT, and CalTech or JHU's BME. ....

....The scenario of having a dilemma of choosing between Harvard and only Purdue almost never exist.

[/quote]

Not for graduate study.

sakky · October 20, 2005, 3:55am

[quote]
But generally Harvard engineering is deemed much weaker than Purdue in engineering circle. Purdue for its credit, have the best signal processing dept. in the nation together with MIT. Yeah, I know it's too specialized, that it shouldn't be taken generally. Nevertheless, I would just want to point out that for people in the know Purdue engineering is much stronger overall than Harvard engineering (for graduate study).

[/quote]

Again, I have to disagree. It depends on how you choose to define 'much'. I don't see Purdue as being 'much' better than Harvard at grad engineering, at least not to the point where a Purdue engineer would hold a decisive edge over a Harvard engineer for a job. They are both strong engineering programs.

Is Purdue stronger than Harvard? Yeah, probably. But I don't think the difference is that large. We're not talking about MIT vs. Harvard here. Now there, I would say that that is 'much' better. Purdue vs. Harvard is not that huge of a difference.

But again, fine, have it your way. If Purdue really is that much better than Harvard as you say it is, then there should be no reason for a Purdue guy to laugh, right? After all, he's going to have a decisive edge over the Harvard guy anyway. So why laugh?

[quote]
I'm saying that having an additional Lit degree doesn't help the image of Harvard engineers on the risk of being laughed at/undermined in engineering circle.

I agree, but even many more jerks are also laughing at those who study Park & Recreational study. I think we couldn't turn the world upside down for the utopian view, could we?

[/quote]

I'm saying there's nothing we can do about jerks, so let's not worry about them. There's always going to be jerks in the world, but does that mean that somebody should choose a school just because some jerks might laugh at him? While I agree that we cannot get rid of jerks, neither should we bend to them and let them dictate what we choose to do with our lives.

So a guy wants to do engineering at Harvard, or study Parks & Rec, and some jerks laugh at him. So what? Is that a good reason not to do it? If nobody ever did anything that would make jerks laugh at them for doing, then a lot of things in history would never have occurred. For example, I remember reading that when the Wright Brothers were trying to build the first airplane, jerks were laughing and scoffing at them. They built it anyway, and the world benefitted.

[quote]
Well, since you bring up the economic perspective, you certainly realize that the supply for the consulting/banking jobs is lower than the demand. First lemma, if consulting/banking jobs are proliferating at the speed of engineering jobs, you'll see consulting/banking jobs give less rewards. Furthermore, as I said, the jobs of engineering vary from the worse to best in terms of reward. Consulting/banking being a smaller field has less of this variation, hence while the ones having the lower end engineering jobs struggle to get into banking/consulting, the one at the top tier engineering jobs may not be enticed by the nature of banking/consulting jobs.

The problem with your view is that you take engineers as those who wear white coat, get into the lab, and date with electronics equipment. But hey, those engineers are aspiring to manage that lab and get further into management position later on. And yes, along the way, they are working as engineers.

[/quote]

Wait a minute now, you get me wrong. I'm just using consulting/banking as an example. There are plenty of other examples. Like law. Many engineers go to law school, and not just for patent law, but just to become general lawyers. I know other people with engineering degrees who have taken a wide myriad of jobs. For example, I know guys who have degrees in EECS but now have sales jobs - one of whom now works as a real estate broker, another as a travel agent, another as a salesman of high-fashion mensware. I know a guy with an ME degree who now works for ESPN as a producer. I know a couple of former engineers who've just opened their own Bar & Grill, and another who's trying to become a Hollywood actor, and another girl who's trying to make it in show business (and at one point was a San Francisco 49ers cheerleader).

In all these cases, these people got engineering degrees from elite schools - Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, etc. All of them got engineering job offers. And in fact, some of them even took those engineering offers for awhile before quitting to do what they do now.

So why are they out of engineering, despite having elite engineering degrees? Simple. They found something better. For example, that guy who is now a real-estate agent has a degree in EECS from Berkeley, and he worked as an engineer for several years, and he basically said that he quit because he found that real estate offers more opportunities. He's probably making more money now than he ever could as an engineer.

But THAT's the point! Why can't the engineering jobs be better and more interesting? If they were, then less people would want to leave. That real estate guy freely admits that he doesn't really 'love' real estate. He does it because it gives him the opportunity to make very good money. But that just begs the question of why engineering couldn't offer those kinds of opportunities?

The point is simple. If engineering jobs were to be improved, then less people would leave engineering. That's a basic statement of fact. I agree that some people will leave no matter what. But it would be LESS. The better that engineering jobs are, the less interested people will be in leaving.

So you have these companies who complain that they can't find enough engineers, yet choose not to see all these existing engineers leave engineering. Again, take that real-estate guy. If a company really wanted to hire an EECS guy, and made an offer that is better than what he's making now in real estate, he'd probably go back. But they want to make that offer. And then then complain that they can't find people. The people are there, it's just that you don't want to improve your offers to entice them to come.

So when company exec's wonder why they can't find enough engineers, I tell them to look in the mirror. Taking it back to economics, the better your job offers, the more greater the supply of available labor.

[quote]
It's an unfair comparison, believe me, there some consultant/Ibankers out there who're stressed up and want to move out from the fast pace working style. Unfortunately, there's no way they could return to the tech jobs afterwards and hence you won't see a single comeback

[/quote]

Oh really? Can't make a comeback? Why not? I've known former consultants and IB's who got burned out and came back to work as regular engineers. Not at a high-flying engineering job, but a regular one. For example, I know one guy who worked at in consulting for several years, but then found the woman he loved, married her, and quit consulting to take a regular engineering job. His wife is in graduate school (law school I think) in some small town, and he wanted to be with her in that small town, which meant that he couldn't consult, so he took some low-level engineering job around town just to be with her. I believe the plan is that when she graduates, they will move back to a major city and he will probably resume his consulting career (he is on leave-of-absence right now).

Maybe you should tell him that there is not even a single comeback.

And besides, a more common theme is that a guy gets burnt out of Ibanking of consulting, so takes a regular corporate job where he ends up MANAGING the engineers. Like Jonathan Schwartz of Sun. He worked at McKinsey for 2 years after undergrad, then quit, probably because he was burnt out. Was he now screwed? I don't think so.
He got hired as a manager at Lighthouse Design, a software company, and in a few years became CEO of that company. That company eventually got acquired by Sun, and he's now President and COO of Sun.

So what would you think if you were an engineer at Lighthouse Design? Here you are banging out code and this dude from McKinsey gets handed a sweet management job that allows him to get all the way to the top of the company?

And that's generally what happens. Obviously not all McKinsey people are as successful as Jonathan Schwartz. But the point is that Ibanking and big-time consulting experience are considered to be great plums in getting good management jobs in the corporate world. I've known plenty of people who, as you said, got burnt out in IB and MC, but then slid right into plum managerial jobs. People see that and figure, why work as a grunt engineer to try to get into management when I can accelerate my career by doing a stint in IB or MC and then slide right into management?

In fact, that's precisely what several MIT engineers who are going to MC said to me. They said, sure, they got offers from top engineering companies. But they feel their career will progress faster if they do MC. A management job that might take you 5 years to attain as an engineer might take you only 2 as a consultant.

Now, you might say that they're wrong to think that. But even if they're wrong, it's still a problem of perception. It means that engineering companies have to demonstrate that the path of advancement in engineering to get into corporate management is just as fast as it is in MC or IB. If not, then again, some people are going to leave engineering.

sakky · October 20, 2005, 3:56am

[quote]
As I said, I know those companies are saying they have not enough engineers, but I never know they want engineers-WITH PHD so badly. Do you have any link on that?

[/quote]

How's this:

"...computer industry leaders, defend the use of foreign talent and suggest the drop in doctoral degrees is a sign the country's tech leadership may be in jeopardy. Intel CEO Craig Barrett has weighed in on the issue to say that "the U.S. is basically complacent" about education and research. "

<a href="http://builder.com.com/5100-22-5299911.html%5B/url%5D">http://builder.com.com/5100-22-5299911.html</a>

""The level of graduating Ph.D.s is concerning to us," said Pat Gelsinger, chief technology officer for Intel. "If we don't have the most talented people, we won't be the leaders long-term." "

<a href="http://news.com.com/Tech+doctorates+decline+7+percent/2100-1001_3-979385.html%5B/url%5D">http://news.com.com/Tech+doctorates+decline+7+percent/2100-1001_3-979385.html</a>

So here's Intel talking about how the US needs to produce more PhD's, yet Intel isn't willing to hire all the ones that do get produced. What's up with that? Pat Gelsinger finds it 'concerning'. Well, if it's really so 'concerning' to Intel, then why doesn't Intel hire more PhD engineers and pay them better? I guess they're not THAT concerned about that.

monydad · October 20, 2005, 11:05am

"Many engineers go to law school"

???????????

4thfloor · October 20, 2005, 11:18am

I think you are right on target when you suggest that employers who complain about the lack of engineers could solve the problem in a snap by just paying more. Someone should tell politicians and journalists the same. Recently, in a widely publicized news release, "a panel of experts" convened by the National Academies wailed again that the US is falling behind China and India in its production of engineers -- and their policy recommendations of more college financial aid targetted to engineers, subsidized broadband access, and more foreign student visas are just more of the same old tired dubious formulas (China and India did none of those things). The sure-file solution is to make engineering and scientific careers more rewarding than careers in finance, consulting, law, medicine, even entertainment (doesn't pay much on average but sure has glamor in the media). If they can make that happen, throngs of people will do whatever it takes to become engineers. If they can't, then nothing else will provably make much of a difference, and we may only get engineers who are engineers for the love of it, which is very nice, but not enough.

Or is it enough? Let me play the devil's advocate. If we really do need more engineers, then why isn't the labor demand market willing/able to pay them more? The argument of "we must have more engineers or else we won't generate enough patents" has a similar ring to the argument, earlier this century, of "we must have more farmers or else we won't grow enough food". That was at a time of major demographic movement form rural to urban areas. In the end, America ended up with a farming population of less than 3% -- and we are still a food exporter. China and India both have more farmers than the US -- is anyone worried? Maybe we can thrive with even fewer engineers, albeit of a very special kind, perhaps.

I am not saying I believe in this, but for those who believe we don't have enough engineers, the burden is really on them to show what the other professions are doing right to command higher compensation that the engineering profession can't do -- and more importantly, WHY. Until then, the claim that we don't have enough engineers may just be a blind article of faith, one that a free mind should question.

rtkysg · October 20, 2005, 1:27pm

[quote]
I don't see Purdue as being 'much' better than Harvard at grad engineering, at least not to the point where a Purdue engineer would hold a decisive edge over a Harvard engineer for a job. They are both strong engineering programs.

[/quote]

While I believe the Harvard engineering grads (with only a bachelor) have a better edge for a job over the Purdue grads on the average, I would argue that on the graduate level, Purdue engineering PhD would have a better advantage ove Harvard engineering PhD in getting an engineering job.

[quote]
So a guy wants to do engineering at Harvard, or study Parks & Rec, and some jerks laugh at him. So what? Is that a good reason not to do it? If nobody ever did anything that would make jerks laugh at them for doing, then a lot of things in history would never have occurred. For example, I remember reading that when the Wright Brothers were trying to build the first airplane, jerks were laughing and scoffing at them. They built it anyway, and the world benefitted.

[/quote]

Unfortunately, many of this jerks end up as people hiring for new employees. I could easily find a Caltech friend who would choose Michigan grads over Harvard in engineering because this 'jerks'' perception. Look, I don't claim that Harvard grad engineers are significantly at the disadvantage edge. But if someone indeed want to go for engineering, i.e. the grad students, I would say choosing Michigan over Harvard would be a safer bet.

[quote]
In all these cases, these people got engineering degrees from elite schools - Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, etc. All of them got engineering job offers. And in fact, some of them even took those engineering offers for awhile before quitting to do what they do now.

[/quote]

Look, in general people are more interested to get more money/reward than choosing a typical job for their own. Heck, if I can get a high management position at Google or Citigroup, I would leave my PhD at once. At some point of time, people would try different jobs to see opportunity, it may be a career in law, finance, consulting, real estate, brokerage, etc. But it doesn't necessarily imply that one job has more appeal than the other. Similarly, consulting doesn't necessarily have a better appeal than engineering, or real estate or brokerage. The rising hype about consulting is because they are paid pretty well in general, but it doesn't have anything to do with nature of the work. Okay, you said that if engineers get something like 150K, it would prevent the outflux from engineering to consulting. True, but firstly the principal engineers in big companies are indeed paid in the range between 100 -200K, secondly 85-95K salary may be enough to prevent the flux if they're already familiar with the exhaustive nature of the work in consulting/ibanking.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that people are more interested in the reward rather than the nature of the job in general. An offer of 85K from a tech companies may have the appeal as much as an offer of 100K from consulting companies. The higher compensation is for the extra work hours. I didn't see any proof where consulting jobs turn out to be more appealing than cream engineering jobs (well, consulting jobs are as scarce as cream engineering jobs).

[quote]
""The level of graduating Ph.D.s is concerning to us," said Pat Gelsinger, chief technology officer for Intel. "If we don't have the most talented people, we won't be the leaders long-term." "

[/quote]

They are afraid that all the PhD students are all foreigners which may eventually go back to their own countries and hence hamper the growth of US based companies. But the number of PhD available for hiring is huge (regardless of their nationality). This is their real concern. While most Americans think that consulting/banking jobs in the east are more 'cool', many foreigners deem the technical jobs are more useful for their resume (which partially comes from Asian culture, where technical jobs are regarded as 'elite'). Eventually, US may lose its grip in technology to foreigners, this is why they say they lack engineers.

wingardiumLeviosa · October 21, 2005, 10:26pm

[quote]
If we really do need more engineers, then why isn't the labor demand market willing/able to pay them more? The argument of "we must have more engineers or else we won't generate enough patents" has a similar ring to the argument, earlier this century, of "we must have more farmers or else we won't grow enough food". That was at a time of major demographic movement form rural to urban areas. In the end, America ended up with a farming population of less than 3% -- and we are still a food exporter. China and India both have more farmers than the US -- is anyone worried? Maybe we can thrive with even fewer engineers, albeit of a very special kind, perhaps.

[/quote]

I never looked at it that way. Is the US economy really going to suffer because of a lack of engineers when compared to other countries? I believe the answer lies in technological advancement. Regardless of how many engineers we have in America, this country keeps up on the newest tech. advances. The minute we fall behind, we're done for but the trend shows that we may possibly never fall behind. Simply comparing the ratio of engineers of this country to another may give us an incorrect formula for the prediction of tech. advancement and consequently the future economic trend.

sakky · October 22, 2005, 12:26pm

[quote]
While I believe the Harvard engineering grads (with only a bachelor) have a better edge for a job over the Purdue grads on the average, I would argue that on the graduate level, Purdue engineering PhD would have a better advantage ove Harvard engineering PhD in getting an engineering job.

[/quote]

Yeah, I agree that the Purdue grad engineers are probably better off, on average, than the Harvard grad engineers. So if that's true, there's no need to laugh. Michael Jordan didn't go out and publicly laugh at his competitors. He just went out on the court and beat them. So I ask again - if you really think you're better off than the Harvard guy, then why laugh at them?

[quote]
Unfortunately, many of this jerks end up as people hiring for new employees. I could easily find a Caltech friend who would choose Michigan grads over Harvard in engineering because this 'jerks'' perception. Look, I don't claim that Harvard grad engineers are significantly at the disadvantage edge. But if someone indeed want to go for engineering, i.e. the grad students, I would say choosing Michigan over Harvard would be a safer bet.

[/quote]

Yeah, but I would turn that around and ask do you really want to work for a jerk anyway?

Look, I agree with you that the Michigan grad eng program is better than the Harvard grad eng program overall. However, what I'm saying is that I don't think Michigan is SO much better that it will automatically win in every case.

Again, this is not MIT vs. Harvard. That's a pretty decisive rout. This is Michigan vs. Harvard. This is a case where the situations are fairly close. Yes, I give the edge to Michigan, but that means that you still ought to consider things like personal fit and other factors. Choosing Harvard over Michigan is not the extreme choice the way that choosing Harvard over MIT would be.

Hence, comparing a Michigan vs. Harvard grad engineer, I think you have to look deeper to make an intelligent hiring decision. You can't just categorically always pick the Michigan guy.

That is, unless you're a lazy jerk. And if you're really that lazy and that obnoxious in your hiring decisions, I would say that you're not going to last very long in management anyway. For example, what if I told you that a big-name technology company, who the top engineers from MIT and Stanford are lining up to recruit at, used to have a guy who was the manager of the engineering department who not only had no similarly elite engineering degree, but never even graduated from college at all? Is this a stupid company? Well, let me explain. Wayne Rosing was the longtime VP of Engineering at Google (just recently retired) and is something of a legend in Silicon Valley. Wayne Rosing never graduated from college. Is anybody prepared to say that Google was stupid in hiring him? I'm sure there were lots of people who had elite engineering degrees who wanted to be VP of Engineering, but Google turned them all down for Rosing. This isn't the difference between Michigan vs. Harvard, this is the difference between Michigan and no degree at all.

Now of course you might say that Google didn't care that Rosing had no degree, because he had a lot of proven knowledge and experience. Yes, that's EXACTLY the point. So given the choice between a Michigan and Harvard grad engineer, I would make a decision on knowledge and experience. I wouldn't categorically decide that the Michigan guy is always to be hired over the Harvard guy, just like Google never categorically decided that a guy with no degree must always be no good.

[quote]
Okay, you said that if engineers get something like 150K, it would prevent the outflux from engineering to consulting. True, but firstly the principal engineers in big companies are indeed paid in the range between 100 -200K, secondly 85-95K salary may be enough to prevent the flux if they're already familiar with the exhaustive nature of the work in consulting/ibanking.

[/quote]

You know I meant 150k to start. Do principal engineers make 100-200k? Sure. On the other hand, principal consultants make over 500k, and principal investment bankers make in the 7-8 figures.

That's the point. The wage scale is higher in consulting/banking than in engineering, across the board. Let's not kid ourselves, money has something to do with why consulting/banking are so desirable.

And it's not just money. It's also career advancement. Like I said, people see that the consultants/bankers are progressing to top management faster. Hence, many of them figure that, sure, the hours may suck, but I'll only be doing it for a few years just to turbocharge my career.

[quote]
Similarly, consulting doesn't necessarily have a better appeal than engineering, or real estate or brokerage

[/quote]

I think you're just trying to deliberately not understand what I am saying. Look, I never said those other career paths are always better than engineering in all cases. However, they are competitors. They will compete for the talent. If engineering wants to keep that talent, then engineering will have to make itself better as a career choice. Otherwise, there will always be some attrition away from engineering.

It's like this. If GM wants to sell more cars, then GM will have to make their cars more attractive, and in particular, more attractive than the cars made by Toyota, Honda, and everybody else. If Toyota makes its cars better and GM doesn't, then GM will lose customers. That's how competition works. Is that really surprising to anybody?

Similarly, if engineering companies want more engineers, then they have to improve the engineering career track. Otherwise, some people will always drift away to other career paths, and that should surprise nobody. The fact is, other career paths (notably management consulting in the last 20 years) have improved their offerings, and engineering has not kept pace. Hence, it should not be surprising that more people are being drawn away from engineering. That's competition.

[quote]
They are afraid that all the PhD students are all foreigners which may eventually go back to their own countries and hence hamper the growth of US based companies. But the number of PhD available for hiring is huge (regardless of their nationality). This is their real concern. While most Americans think that consulting/banking jobs in the east are more 'cool', many foreigners deem the technical jobs are more useful for their resume (which partially comes from Asian culture, where technical jobs are regarded as 'elite'). Eventually, US may lose its grip in technology to foreigners, this is why they say they lack engineers.

[/quote]

Yeah, but you haven't answered the question. If Intel was really so concerned about that all these PhD's are foreigners who will go home, or that America will lose its grip on technology, why doesn't Intel simply hire more American-born PhD's and pay them better? Answer the question.

Furthermore, if the problem is that Americans consider consulting/banking to be more 'cool', then why doesn't Intel make its engineering jobs cooler? Answer that question.

Look, these companies are in a position to do something about these problems that they are complaining about. But they don't. It's like a guy who complains about having a pot-belly but choosing not to go to the gym to work out. So these companies complain about the problem, but they don't want to actually contribute to solving the problem. You don't see something wrong with that?

sakky · October 22, 2005, 12:28pm

[quote]
"Many engineers go to law school"

???????????

[/quote]

Are you saying you don't believe it, monydad? Maybe we should ask ariesathena about it.

sakky · October 22, 2005, 12:36pm

[quote]
While most Americans think that consulting/banking jobs in the east are more 'cool', many foreigners deem the technical jobs are more useful for their resume (which partially comes from Asian culture, where technical jobs are regarded as 'elite').

[/quote]

Oh really? I would submit that consulting/banking jobs are considered pretty darn cool in Asia also. Last time I checked, Asia had 3 of the top-tier finance centers of the world (Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore), and several middle-tier ones that may soon be top-tier centers (Seoul, Shanghai). Being an investment banker in Hong Kong or Tokyo or Singapore is a highly desired job. The same holds for consulting.

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