Is mechanical engineering a dead-end career?

<p>And also, with the outsourcing, you are forgetting that you will always need engineers to solve problems in the US. Most of the design comes from this side, while the production of the design/product comes from India/China etc. So while our factories are moving abroad, we are still designing our cars and products in the US.</p>

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isten buddy, if you learn anything from this financial mess on wall street and from outsourching in general, it should be that nothing in this life is certain.

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my thought, exactly...</p>

<p>I work for Boeing, and we employ very few REAL engineers anymore. My job title is “Manufacturing Engineer”, but I spend all of my time dicking around filling out forms.</p>

<p>I used to work for Hewlett-Packard, at their last manufacturing plant in the USA. Management fired everyone and moved our production to singapore.</p>

<p>I am troubled by the state of this profession, and for the USA. I recommend going into Defense if you want to do ME, since they cannot outsource that.</p>

<p>I have worked at a utility company and now an oil company, virtually every engineer that I met (in senior positions) had their PE. My current mentor got his EE degree two years ago and passed the FE test…will take the PE when he can qualify.</p>

<p>I’m just going to recommend anyone doing ME to NOT pursue a design related position. The future generation gets smarter and smarter … high chances that you can be replaced unless you are an exceptional good at design work.</p>

<p>No. It’s really that simple.</p>

<p>"Mechanical engineers are projected to have 4 percent employment growth over the projections decade, slower than the average for all occupations. This is because total employment in manufacturing industries—in which employment of mechanical engineers is concentrated—is expected to decline. Some new job opportunities will be created due to emerging technologies in biotechnology, materials science, and nanotechnology. Additional opportunities outside of mechanical engineering will exist because the skills acquired through earning a degree in mechanical engineering often can be applied in other engineering specialties. "</p>

<p>Mechanical engineers
2006: 226,000
2016: 235,000
change: 9,400</p>

<p>This is all from the BLS OOH. Pretty straightforward.</p>

<p>Well Obama is supposedly about to do something about taxing companies that outsource jobs so this problem may be entirely different in the years to come. </p>

<p>But then again i know i would be doing the same exact thing even if i didn’t get paid for it. So if you are good at it, there will always be a job for you.</p>

<p>Outsourcing is healthy and should be encouraged.</p>

<p>What we should be doing is becoming skilled enough that it is not profitable to outsource our jobs. That’s what people are doing in these fields who still have stable, fruitful careers.</p>

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<p>This… this doesn’t even make sense… Who’s going to <em>teach</em> the future generation? You don’t walk out of school knowing everything.</p>

<p>Stop making sense, aibarr.</p>

<p>“Most of the design comes from this side” - true, but they are outsourcing design work too. I saw a piece on auto engineering design being done in Vietnam, for example.</p>

<p>If one were to major in biomedical engineering, would it not be wise to go into the biomechanical aspect of it then? My son really wants to design things like prosthetics and biomedical instrumentation, but is also gifted at computers, so I was suggesting the biocomputing option of BME, but thought biomechanics may make him more employable, ie, if no BME available, maybe could do just ME until prospects open up.</p>

<p>You know, there has been a lot of hype for quiet a while about outsoucing and other aspects of globalization. Not even the experts can correctly predict whats going to happen - so I highly doubt a bunch of people on an internet forum can.</p>

<p>Anyway, globalization has worked quiet well for us so far. It has shared knowledge, and has shipped jobs off to third world countries that has helped them industrialized. In turn, these countries have provided us, the west, with capital to finance our ventures. This has been a good deal so far.</p>

<p>The things to remember are:</p>

<ol>
<li> not all jobs can be outsourced. there are still a lot of mom and pops out there where it won’t make financial sense to outsource.</li>
<li> third world countries produce very few graduates with qualifications comperable to an american education. China and India produce huge amounts of engineers per year on paper, but when you look at their schools and curriculium quality, much of it is severly lacking. That explains why it often seems that <em>all</em> graduate students are from China or India.</li>
<li> Adopting an isolationist attitude toward any aspect of our economy - even our labor market - will kill us in the long term in todays global enviroment.</li>
</ol>

<p>This is not the first time our country has been “threatened” or “confronted” by challenges that threaten our standing in the world. What sets us apart from other countries is our unparalleled ability to innovate. This helps explain why we are the most successful country in history. People have been predicting our collapse for decades - yet we are still here.</p>

<p>Bottom line: the third world is not our enemy – they are not out to steal our jobs. They should be viewed as our “baby brothers and sisters” - one day they will grow up to be our equals. So we need to learn how to work with them now, and make smart decisions that work for EVERYONE. Thats the question we should be asking, not wasting our time talking about outsourcing which is only one small aspect of globalization.</p>

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Haha, my point is that … it’s a little difficult to explain … but there will be brighter people in future generations … and brighter people outside of the U.S. to “compete” with.</p>

<p>Being a designer for the entire career will not the best option … that’s what my professors say and I believe it … that was the message I was trying to convey.</p>

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<p>Well, actually, Obama is proposing is taxing US companies’ foreign earnings that were formally not subject to US taxation until the point of repatriation (which might be never). </p>

<p>Yet it’s unclear as to whether that would actually decrease outsourcing. It might actually increase outsourcing by simply encouraging US firms to sell their foreign subsidiaries, who would then offer outsourcing services to their former owners. After all, a foreign organization that sells to a US firm but doesn’t actually run any operations in the US is not subject to US income taxes. This would also mean that US firms would become less competitive compared to foreign firms based in low-tax nations.</p>

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<p>While this might be a semantic point, it is not true that little manufacturing is performed in the US, and US manufacturing output has increased nearly monotonically throughout modern history.</p>

<p>In each of the past 60 years, U.S. manufacturing output growth has averaged 4 percent and productivity growth has averaged 3 percent.</p>

<p>[Is</a> U.S. manufacturing base really shrinking?](<a href=“WorldNetDaily”>WorldNetDaily)</p>

<p>What has declined is manufacturing employment, but that’s not because of the decline of manufacturing output, but rather due to tremendous productivity gains. In fact, most of the top manufacturing nations have lost manufacturing jobs. Many US pundits have tried to blame China for “stealing” US manufacturing jobs, while conveniently ignoring that China too has lost millions of manufacturing jobs. What has happened is not that some countries are ‘stealing’ manufacturing jobs from others, but rather that those jobs are disappearing due to improvements in efficiency.</p>

<p>*The decline in manufacturing employment is not limited to the U.S. Since 2000, China has lost over 4.5 million manufacturing jobs. In fact, nine of the top 10 manufacturing countries, which produce 75 percent of the world’s manufacturing output (the U.S., Japan, Germany, China, Britain, France, Italy, Korea, Canada and Mexico), have lost manufacturing jobs, but their manufacturing output has risen. *</p>

<p>[Is</a> U.S. manufacturing base really shrinking?](<a href=“WorldNetDaily”>WorldNetDaily)</p>

<p>I don’t think so…outsourcing of engineering and computer stuff is exaggerated.</p>

<p>[College</a> Degrees in Most Demand: 2009 - Slideshows - CNBC.com](<a href=“College Degrees in Most Demand: 2009”>College Degrees in Most Demand: 2009)</p>

<p>According to these guys its the number 2 in-demand major, also the number 2 highest paid major.</p>

<p>Degrees like engineering/ computer science/ accounting will always have demand…I’m surprised chemE isn’t on that list.</p>

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<p>From [CRA</a> Bulletin » Enrollments and Degree Production at US CS Departments Drop Further in 2006/2007](<a href=“http://www.cra.org/wp/index.php?p=139]CRA”>Computing Research Association - CRA)</p>

<p>CS programs have dropped like rocks due to outsourcing.</p>