Is mechanical engineering a dead-end career?

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<p>Actually, I would argue that it probably has more to do with the end of the dotcom boom. During the late 90’s, you could get a lucrative job at an Internet company if all you knew how to do is spell TCP/IP, much less actually having a CS degree. Software developers were earning literally millions a year - on paper - from their ever-rising dotcom stock options. It was easy money: so easy in fact that I recall articles discussing people quitting investment banking to become CIO’s or VP’s of Engineering. </p>

<p>Now of course we know that those paper millions were largely a mirage. Computer science has just become a regular job that pays decent wages, but isn’t a path to guaranteed instant wealth.</p>

<p>I never actually worked as a mechanical engineer per se, but i majored in it, and have friends who work as mechanical engineers now. I don’t think you should be worried about outsourcing, any job can be outsourced, it’s a global economy, everybody speaks english now, and I think there’s a fairly large demand for engineers in the US. </p>

<p>i chose not to be an engineer after getting the degree. reason is that there’s a lot of boring engineering jobs, in fact, most engineering jobs are freakin boring jobs where you just keep stuff running, and make sure everything is functioning right. There’s too much detail involved in your daily job functions that your skills don’t transfer to other jobs. </p>

<p>If you are very good at it, get your PhD, and finally are involved in the designing/research side of engineering, then your it’s possibly a great career.</p>

<p>the only real road to job security is building your career and your skills constantly so you’ll always be able to find another job quickly.</p>

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

<p>The growth of the Software/CS fields are better than nearly every other engineering discipline, with the possible exception of biomedical. Check the BLS. Outsourcing is not a problem for the majority of CS-related careers, and for those where it is, there are still more opportunities in that field (and will be until 2016) than in most other engineering disciplines.</p>

<p>(I know this because I was recently in a discussion where I was checking these facts. The BLS OOH has a lot of this kind of data.)</p>

<p>Lol, I popped back in here to see where this discussion went. No offense, but it is my <em>personal</em> opinion that anyone who thinks outsourcing and globalization aka. moving industry offshore is an idiot who has no firsthand experience.</p>

<p>I work at Boeing, I worked at Hewlett-Packard’s last US manufacturing plant before it closed. I have worked in factories since I was 15 starting at an early age in my father’s metal shop.</p>

<p>The bottom line is that moving industry offshore is a bad move. Why? SO MANY REASONS. Moron MBA’s who believe this are destroying our country. I could write a book on why outsourcing is a bad idea, but in a nutshell:</p>

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<li><p>Moving low end industry offshore (ie. steel foundries, welding, small parts fab) usually results in the higher-end stuff following (assembly, high-paying design jobs). It makes no sense to do all the manufacturing in Singapore but have all the designers and other highly paid professionals in the USA. That is why Hewlett-Packard is hiring more and more indian/chinese engineers. </p></li>
<li><p>When all the designers and engineers are working in Asia, we lose our competitive advantage technologically. At Boeing, the Wings are one of the most complicated and therefore closely guarded trade secrets. The 787 is the <em>first</em> plane where the wings are being made outside of Boeing. The japanese make our wings for this plane, and it is speculated that they will soon have aerospace companies which will do to the US industry what they did with automobiles.</p></li>
<li><p>When all the talented design work is done outside of the USA, who will train American engineers? Have any of you DRIVEN a US car? I drive a Jeep, my mom has a Lexus SUV. When I drive her car, I feel like what I own is a crude horse drawn-wagon.</p></li>
<li><p>Manufacturing creates wealth. Finance, Law, medical industries simply redistribute wealth. The recent global economic crisis is largely a result of over-reliance on the financial industry. GUESS WHAT? SLOSHING AROUND MONEY DOSEN’T CREATE MONEY.</p></li>
<li><p>America’s power was built on industry. Britain built it’s power on industry. Germany’s power was built on industry. Japan built it’s power on industry. China is building it’s power on Industry. Notice that for all these nations, when their manufacturing industry dies, so to does their spot as world power. Notice how the only european economic powerhouse is germany (debatable i know). They have a POWERFUL industry. Interestingly enough, Forbes magazine’s ranking of 10 best cities in the world to live in includes 7 cities from Germany and Switzerland (another economic powerhouse).</p></li>
<li><p>Manufacturing creates a huge portion of middle-class jobs. Without manufacturing, what jobs sustain the middle class? Medicine probably, programmers. Law is debatable since going to Law school is staggeringly expensive. My dad was a poor orphan, worked his way through college studying Mechanical Engineering and went on to found a large manufacturing firm. Without the manufacturing center, he would never have climbed the social/economic ladder.</p></li>
<li><p>Too many more to list. If you still think outsourcing is <em>healthy</em> and globalization is good for the America people you are obviously an idiot. Please shoot yourself now. >hands .45 pistol<</p></li>
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<p>Uh, why not? It’s no different from having all of the design and high-end business services performed in one area of the US and the manufacturing done in a different area of the US. That’s precisely the business model of Silicon Valley, which is by far the most technologically advanced and innovative region in the entire world. Note that the moniker is not “Computer Valley” or “Internet Valley”, but rather Silicon Valley, despite the fact that hardly any actual silicon manufacturing actually occurs in that region. Intel - the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world- has a lone wafer fab among its 15 total worldwide that is located in Silicon Valley, and a relatively small fab at that. All of the rest, including the company’s ‘mega-fabs’ are scattered in cheaper regions in the US as well as the rest of the world. Furthermore, Intel is I believe the only semiconductor firm that still runs a fab in Silicon Valley. Most of the hundreds of others in the Valley don’t even operate fabs at all - instead, yes, outsourcing the manufacturing to dedicated foundries. In fact, doing so allows them to become more innovative. NVidia, for example, makes arguably the world’s best graphics chips despite not owning any manufacturing facilities. </p>

<p>Yet I don’t see any significant exodus of tech firms leaving Silicon Valley. If anything, the Valley is creating more tech firms. </p>

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<p>Will we really lose our technological competitive advantage? Again, many industry experts worldwide have agreed that Silicon Valley is the most innovative region in the entire world, such that numerous nations have spent decades trying to build their own Silicon Valley clones and have yet to succeed. Intel is the world’s dominant semiconductor firm, Cisco and Juniper control well over 95% of the worldwide Internet router market (with Cisco holding over 80% share), Oracle is by far the world’s dominant enterprise software firm, HP is the world’s #1 PC vendor, Google is by far the world’s strongest and richest Internet company, Facebook is the top social networking company in the world (such that if the Facebook user base was its own country, it would be the 4th most populous nation in the entire world), and Apple is probably the world’s hippest and coolest tech company. All of these firms, as well as hundreds of others, are located within a 30 mile strip of land that holds practically no manufacturing whatsoever. Cisco probably manufactures no more than 1% of its routers itself. Apple completely outsources the manufacturing of its Ipods and Iphones. Google, Oracle, and Facebook manufacture nothing at all. </p>

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<p>Pop quiz: name some popular Japanese corporate software companies. How about some Japanese Internet companies? I used to build computer networks for my job, and I can tell you that I’ve never seen a Japanese router or switch. </p>

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<p>I might agree with you about law. But medicine industries create plenty of wealth. 50 years ago, the average life expectancy in the US was less than 60 years. Now, it’s pushing 80, and it has been shown that at least half of that was due to improved medications such as vaccines and synthetic insulin, as well as the commercialization of medical devices such as pacemakers, CAT scans, and MRI’s. </p>

<p>Nor do medical advances comprise merely medical technology. The invention of entirely new medical procedures has also served to greatly enrich the nation, whether we’re talking about bypass surgery or advances in cancer screening and prevention have all served to greatly enhance the length and quality of life and thereby increasing the nation’s wealth through human capital. </p>

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<p>I would dispute this paragraph on several levels. First, and most importantly, as I had noted previously, the manufacturing industry in the US is not dying in the least. In fact, as measured by total output, it is thriving.To quote the leading economist Walter Williams:</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=“http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=81967]Is”>WorldNetDaily)</p>

<p>What is dying is manufacturing employment. But that’s true not only within the US, but in other countries as well. The world as a whole is losing manufacturing jobs. Again, to quote Williams:</p>

<p>*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>Historically speaking, what is happening in manufacturing is no different from what happened in agriculture, particularly in the US. Just 100 years ago, a whopping 40% of the US labor force were farmers. Now, less than 2% are. Yet US farms produce more food than ever before. Nor is the US an anomaly. There is probably a lower percentage of people around the world who work as farmers than there has ever been since man rose from the hunter-gatherer days, yet despite persistent problems of hunger in the Third World, the UN has estimated that there is a lower percentage of starving people in the world than there has ever been in history, and, as shown by Amartya Sen, those problems are rarely attributable to the unavailability of food, but more often to political problems that prevent food from being distributed to the right places. </p>

<p>The real cause of the loss of employment, whether in agriculture or manufacturing, is to improved technology. A farmer today, with modern machinery, fertilizers, and pesticides, can cultivate a swath of land that a thousand farmers of yesteryear could not. Similarly, a modern factory can produce unfathomable quantities of output with only a few workers, and futurists are already proposing cutting-edge manufacturing processes that have no workers: where the entire process is completely mechanized through advanced robotics, nanotechnology, or rapid-prototyping/“3D-printing”. </p>

<p>Secondly, not to be overly harsh, but look at where the manufacturing in the US is generally located: in those areas that, frankly, people don’t really want to be. Such as Detroit. (Sorry guys, but you know it’s true; Detroit has been losing population for decades). On the other hand, those regions of the country that are on the leading edge of wealth and innovation are also coincidentally(?) those regions that have relatively little manufacturing. Such as Silicon Valley. Such as the Technology Highway around Boston. </p>

<p>Thirdly, I would dispute the very premise that manufacturing serves as the basis of world power anyway. I would argue that technological innovation serves as the basis of true world power. The US is not the superpower of the world because we out-manufacture the rest of the world, but rather because we have better technology. That is, we produce more scientific advances and we have the means to quickly commercialize those advances in a way that other nations cannot. The US university system and the R&D apparatus that it supports is far and away the best in the world. The US has by far the most aggressive and savviest venture capital industry in the world and the flexible capital markets that quickly adjusts to accommodate new entrepreneurs and strong ideas. Other countries look on and marvel at the fact that the US can grow a $100 bn market cap powerhouse such as Google in a mere 10 years, as most large firms in Europe or Asia are decades, and in some cases, centuries old. </p>

<p>Those are the real strengths of the US. Not manufacturing. The sad truth is that the US does not hold competitive advantage when it comes to manufacturing - the best and most efficient manufacturing systems in the world are in Japan as epitomized by the Toyota Production System and Lean Manufacturing, which operates at levels of efficiency that US plants still cannot match even after decades of trying. Countries should retreat from those industries in which they do not hold comparative advantage. </p>

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<p>I would argue that the entire innovation industry would support the middle class. That is, scientists, engineers, industrial designers, software programmers, educators, venture capitalists, Web 2.0/3.0 programmers, IT workers, marketers, technology consultants, and so forth. </p>

<p>Again, I would point to Silicon Valley, which, at $63k a year, has one of the highest per-capita income levels of any region in the nation despite housing almost no manufacturing. Fabless semiconductor firms employ hundreds of thousands of Americans despite, by definition, not owning any manufacturing facilities. NVidia alone, employs over 5000 people. </p>

<p>There’s also plenty to be said for the entire health-care system. Not just doctors, but also medical scientists, nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists, optometrists, etc. As the Baby Boomers age, they will need a lot of people to care for them and invent new treatments for them, which means lots of high-paying jobs. </p>

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<p>I wouldn’t sell your father short. If he’s the motivated entrepreneur that he seems to be, then he would surely have still founded a firm, but just with the manufacturing outsourced. </p>

<p>Why not? That’s what Henry Nicholas and Henry Samueli did in founding Broadcom, a firm that is one of the largest vendors of communications microchips in the world yet I believe has never owned a single manufacturing facility in its entire history. Doesn’t seem to have hurt Nicholas or Samueli, who are both billionaires. </p>

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<p>I would argue that those who would decry all outsourcing are themselves the ones who are shooting themselves, or ought to. Now, do I think that outsourcing should always be employed? No, of course not. But to argue that it should never be employed is going too far. Outsourcing should be available as an option.</p>

<p>Look at it this way. How many of the fabless semiconductor firms might not have even been founded at all if not for outsourcing? Imagine if Nicholas and Samueli actually had to build their own wafer fab before they could even start to ship any product. They probably wouldn’t have even been able to get the company off the ground. Similarly, right now, if I come up with a brilliant new chip design, I can start my own company right now. I don’t need to secure the financing to build a $5 bn fab (which is what modern fabs cost today). I can design the chip, tape and spec it out, run simulations on it, then hand it off to an outsourcing foundry, probably located in Asia, who will perform all of the manufacturing, testing and assembly. Is there something wrong with that? </p>

<p>Now, granted, if I grow my company to the size of Intel, then I may indeed choose to build my own fabs. But I should have the option to outsource. Without that option, I probably can’t even start the company, as no VC firm is going to hand me $5bn worth of financing. </p>

<p>Secondly, globalization is absolutely fantastic for the American consumer, for it provides a greater variety of products. You said yourself that the Lexus drives better than a Jeep. Well, how exactly are you able to drive a Lexus at all, if not through globalization? Similarly, I happen to enjoy Swiss chocolates, for I think they are better than American chocolates. How am I able to access Swiss chocolates, if not through globalization? </p>

<p>Globalization is simply the ability to buy and sell products in an integrated world market. If Americans think that the Lexus is better than the Jeep, then they should have the freedom to buy the Lexus. Should we deny them that choice and force them to buy Jeeps because Lexus is somehow “stealing” jobs from Americans who work at Chrysler/Jeep? Hey, if Jeep doesn’t make a competitive product, then Jeep deserves to lose the sale. </p>

<p>Now, if we can agree that US consumers should be allowed to buy foreign products, then why is that different from US firms buying foreign parts? For example, the best optical lenses in the world are made in Germany. So if I, as an American entrepreneur, invent a device (i.e. a new type of camera) that requires high-end lenses, am I not allowed to source my lenses from Germany? Should I be forced to use only American-built lenses? Should I be forced to manufacture my own lenses? If I am allowed to procure my lenses from Germany, then I’m now outsourcing. I could choose to make my own lenses in-house and hire Americans to do that, but instead I choose to outsource that work to Germany. Why is that bad? After all, if I need the best lenses, and Germany makes better lenses than the US does, then it is entirely rational for me to buy from Germany. </p>

<p>Furthermore, Americans greatly benefit from globalization through insourcing. That is, many foreign companies hire hundreds of thousands of Americans. I know some American engineers who work at Siemens, which is a German company. I know some others who work at Shell, which is a British company. I know some at Toyota, which is obviously Japanese. I know some at Nokia, which is Finnish. I know some at Samsung, which is Korean. Are these Americans “stealing” jobs from foreigners? </p>

<p>What’s fair is fair. If American companies should not be outsourcing work to foreigners, then foreign companies should not be outsourcing work to Americans. What that also means is that all of those Americans who work for foreign companies should all be fired immediately, because they are holding jobs that should be going to foreigners.</p>

<p>haha.(10 char.)</p>

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<p>You do know that Silicon Valley originally got it’s name from all of the computer chip (made of silicon) manufacturers, right? I thought this was common sense…</p>

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<p>Of course it’s common sense: in fact, that’s the point. Silicon Valley has lost almost all of its original manufacturing base, and yet is clearly the leading locale of innovation and entrepreneurship in the entire world, as well as being one of the most affluent. That shows that you don’t need manufacturing in order to remain on the cutting edge of technology.</p>

<p>I thought that was common sense…</p>

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<p>Many of those companies have their plants elsewhere in the U.S. to manufacture those parts for them. Do you think Silicon Valley is some type of self-sustaining super pseudocountry or something? I’m not siding with either one of you, but this example is a little ridiculous to use as a point in your argument. Cute closing statement though, it was a clever way of putting the frosting on the cake.</p>

<p>Lets get ready to</p>

<p>rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumble.</p>

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<p>Oh? Exactly how many US Silicon Valley-headquartered semiconductor firms own their own plants elsewhere in the US? I think there is only a single one: Intel. And even Intel is a hybrid case, owning a bunch of fabs overseas as well.</p>

<p>Compare that to all of the completely fabless Silicon Valley chip firms that rely on overseas foundries - almost all of which are located in Asia - for their production capacity. </p>

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<p>I hardly see what is ridiculous about it. Nobody is claiming that Silicon Valley is an autarky. Name me a single successful region in the world that produces everything it consumes, meaning all of its own food, all of its own industrial output, and all of its services. </p>

<p>The point is that, even if I was to believe the notion that US manufacturing is declining (which is demonstrably false, as total US manufacturing output has actually increased in every non-recession year for many decades), it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing anyway. We don’t necessarily need manufacturing. What’s so terrible about obtaining manufacturing goods via the trade mechanism?</p>

<p>That US firms will lose their innovative edge by not owning US manufacturing capacity is an argument put forth by some, including certain posters here. But is that really true? Many of the most successful US high-tech firms do not operate manufacturing facilities in the US, and some don’t manufacture a thing. Apple has been named the world’s most innovative firm according to Fortune Magazine for several years straight now despite the fact that Apple doesn’t actually manufacture anything, and hasn’t done so for years. Rather, it outsources all of its production output to Asian contract manufacturers. The same is true for Cisco. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook: exactly what do they “manufacture” in-house? Xbox you say? Microsoft outsources all Xbox production to the Singaporean contractor Flextronics. If the lack of in-house manufacturing somehow hurts the ability of companies to innovative, well, apparently they didn’t receive the memo.</p>

<p>At the same time, right now, we have certain US firms that hold extensive US manufacturing facilities yet haven’t exactly been on the forefront of innovation. Nor have they been particularly successful - in fact, they’ve been so spectacularly unsuccessful that they’ve stuck the US taxpayers with the bill. Whatever you want to say about companies such as Apple, Google, Cisco and Microsoft, at least they’re not asking for a taxpayer bailout.</p>

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<p>Plus three for usage of obscure vocabulary! Now you, gstein!</p>

<p>Manufacturing has fled to the south and overseas because government regulations, unions, and worker attitude of “entitlement” has made it impossible to successfully survive as a manufacturer here. To survive high tech is fleeing California and Massachusetts, and no amount of government programs and subsidies will overcome the hostile regulatory climate for businesses.</p>

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<p>To clarify - high tech manufacturing is fleeing California and Massachusetts. </p>

<p>But like I said, so what? California and Massachusetts remain the two leading centers for high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship in the whole world. More venture capital investment is directed to firms in California and Massachusetts than in the entire rest of the world combined, and generate the bulk of the nation’s patents. That proves that you don’t really need local manufacturing capacity in order to innovate. Heck, many of the most creative and successful high-tech firms, such as Apple and Cisco, own no manufacturing capacity whatsoever - local or otherwise. Rather, they outsource all of their production to (usually foreign) contract manufacturers.</p>

<p>If mechanical engineering is dead-end career what would you call IT?</p>

<p>There will always be a need for mechanical engineers. And those horror numbers like 500k+ engineers coming out of China and 700k+ coming out of India are baseless. Or rather, they are based on a definition of “engineer” that is very different from the definition in the US. Plus, even if they are technically “better”, it doesn’t mean they’ll be able to get jobs in the US. There’s a reason US companies like to hire US engineers, and it’s not just because of convenience. US engineers have been trained according to US practices and procedures, with the technical jargon used in the US industry, and therefore they will fit in much better and be productive more quickly than a foreign engineer who needs to learn all that stuff.</p>

<p>Mechanical Engineering is very useful today, especially through its numerous interdisciplinary applications in biomedical engineering, robotics, nuclear systems, wind nd solar-powered systems, and manufacturing. </p>

<p>And yes Hawkings, many of those graduates in India and China do not have labs or even classrooms in thier one-building colleges, although graduates from top schools in India and China do have good labs and the students are hands-on. There will alwys be a need for meche’s because development of other engineering specialties implies a need for mechanical engineers.</p>

<p>My husband is an ME in a capital equipment company. His early years were spent much of the time at the computer, but with much travel thrown in to the on site locations for the jobs. He is now the VP and works hardm but loves it and make a wonderful living for our family. the down side has been that he does have to travel quite a bit still, but it has worked out over the long term.</p>

<p>Best of luck</p>

<p>I am a mechanical engineer by profession and in the work force for last 6 years. From my personal experience, I can say that it is a very broad discipline and job opportunities are unlimited but the down side is when you get experience in a certain field related to mechanical engineering; (design, manufacturing, HVAC, oil and gas, Plastic, automotive, aerospace etc) you become slave to that particular field and it’s very hard to get a job outside of your expertise since ME has so many different disciplines that require completely different skills and experience. I got into manufacturing right out of college and now all of my experience is in manufacturing. If I try to get a job in my favorite disciplines of HVAC or aerospace; I will have hard time because employers look for 5-10 years of experience that is directly related to the field to match the skills they are looking for or they would hire young, fresh graduates who they can train and invest on. So if you are an ME, your first job right out of college is very important because that’s what you will most likely end up doing for the rest of your career unless you change jobs within 1-2 years after graduation.</p>

<p>I would like to mention the following. I was encouraged to attend college (due to my grade point average and because I was not sure what to do at that age). I have a high IQ but was not a very good student. I told my guidance counsellor that I liked math and science so he said why not go into an engineering program that has a general first year. So I did that. Then during that year I needed to decide on a specialty. At that time I was told that Mechanical Engineering was one of the better ones for finding employment on graduation. So I entered that. I studied hard although I did not really find that coursework that interesting. I graduated near the top of my class in the 1982 recession and found no engineering work. In ended up working as a short order cook as I needed money to live. I think the issue here is that I am not by nature an engineering type. Employers can tell what they need. I used to blame my school. I thought engineers were incredibly narrow minded people. However the issue is one of fit. Later I studied computer science in an MSC and then was eventually able to find applicable work. I have been doing software development for 17 years now and am well paid. What I am saying here is you need to find what matches you. People study philosophy and then become CEOs. Carly Fiorina has some sort of PhD in medieval Italian politics (history major) and became CEO of HP. The world is a strange place. Do not obsess about if this field is good for jobs. Think about if ‘you’ fit the field. Does it feel comfortable. Or do you feel like a fish out of water? Highly intelligent people can force themselves to do a lot of things. But it may not be a fit. And ‘a fit’ is what employers look for.</p>