<p>ME/EE 10char</p>
<p>^^^
ME/EE job prospects are “generally” considered the best?</p>
<p>Well, I’ve hear civils are having tough times with the downturn in the economy. AeroE’s have always had less opportunity just because they’re a more narrow specialization. Ditto NucE’s. EEs and MEs are pretty broad and can probably do most of the eng. jobs out there. I’m surprised that ChemE’s are having a tough time, and I don’t know whether IndSysE’s ever have a particularly easy time of it. CS and SoftE are doing spectacularly but these may not count as engineering for you. BioEng from what I hear requires grad training.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At least here, I don’t know if IEs ever have a hard time. In good times everybody gets jobs, in bad times companies hire IEs to save them money. I hardly know an IE with a decent GPA who’s had even a remotely hard time finding a job, even in this economy.</p>
<p>Is the job market for chemical engineers really this bad?</p>
<p>I didn’t have a problem finding something after getting laid off the first of the year. However, many guys I am interviewing seem to make it sound hellish, but many of them are green. Experience is the winner in this economy, and it’s not a time to switch industries or specialties.</p>
<p>May I ask, and you may not have to specify the name of the company where you work at. Although that would certainly be great, but by no mean. However, can I ask at least for the mechanical people who are mentioning great opportunities, in which field or industry are you refering too. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Mine were defense contractors. General Dynamics and Rolls-Royce for example.</p>
<p>I’m pursuing a PetE PhD at UT this fall, but it is not b/c of a lack of other options (I have wanted/debated entering the industry for 7-8 years -> my parents were both in it).</p>
<p>I found defense, govt (mainly defense), operations roles with conglomerates (United Tech, AT&T), healthcare tech (ex McKesson), software/hardware integration (ex National Instruments, Texas Instruments), and Oil (Exxon, Chevron, Hal) to all be looking for people… I will stress govt as the easy ones, but there are openings in a wide variety of areas.</p>
<p>PS- Chemicals are prob having a little difficulty (not very much) b/c: 1) they cost a little more, and 2) there are so many graduates relative to those in the field (it’s popular).</p>
<p>I would also like to stress that I have seen few competent engineering students (especially ones with some internship experience or econ/business background) to have difficulty finding good internships/jobs.</p>
<p>I am graduating this spring with a BSME, and the job situation is quite bleak at my university. I go to what is considered a Tier 1 Engineering school, and is usually ranked around 40th-55th in the US News report for various engineering departments.</p>
<p>~80% of the graduating class in ME found jobs last year, but it seems to be only around 30-40% this year. There are about 80 people graduating in undergrad ME with me, 8 of which are females. All 8 females have found a job, but only a small handful of the males have found jobs. I luckily happen to be one of them.</p>
<p>I think the most important thing to have besides good grades now is relevant work experience during your years in university. For the past two summers I interned for the NASA Space Grant program at my university, and I think it helped me find a job. Most universities have a Space Grant program, and at universities that don’t have an Aerospace Engineering program, it is usually unknown by most and easy to get into for the summer. Everyone that I talked to that has found a job, has previously interned for jobs that are relevant to mechanical engineering… while people that did nothing over the summers (or flipped burgers, etc) have no job offers.</p>
<p>BTW my GPA is 3.2 and I also got a minor in a difficult foreign language (and studied abroad too, definitely a recommended experience). I also applied for about 25 jobs and only heard back from 3 of them.</p>
<p>Just my .02 cents.</p>
<p>To what extent is the current trend - in the USA - for outsourcing operations to cheaper places such as India and China impacting engineers ? I think I saw a stat somewhere that India and CHina produce X times more engineers as the USA, and the rule goes on to say that their compensation is 1/3 of an American’s.</p>
<p>I come from business application computer programming (big FOrtune 100 Insurance co.) whose job was replaced by cheaper Indian outsourcing firm. In fact, my company just outsourced the whole IT dept to India (1000s). My company is following a trend in USA IT shops.</p>
<p>I also found this sister conversation on this subject</p>
<p><a href=“Engineering Outsourcing.”>Engineering Outsourcing.;
<p>
</p>
<p>Very similar story. At my university, about 1/4 of the graduating seniors have full time offers. Most if nearly all of them were offered the position because they interned in previous summers at the same company (ex. Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing). A handful of ME graduates are doing consulting (ex. Deloitte, Bain, McKinsey, BCG, etc.) . Another 1/4 of the students have no idea what they are doing next, or they will take a vacation before applying for jobs. The remaining half of the senior class will be going to graduate school. Out of these students, about 80% are doing terminal M.S programs while 20% are doing PhD programs.</p>
<p>I find that entry level positions at defense companies are very difficult to get into without prior summer internships/co-ops at the company or connections with hiring managers. I have heard that cryonism is very popular in these companies.</p>
<p>ok guys, let’s see some actual source that the job placement at your school is 25% or 30-40%…that’s very low. For the 2008-2009 academic year, my school’s college of engineering is 92% for undergrad and > 92% for M.S. and Ph.d. </p>
<p>source
<a href=“http://www.engineering.iastate.edu/vital-statistics.html#c12696[/url]”>http://www.engineering.iastate.edu/vital-statistics.html#c12696</a></p>
<p>Seriously, if it is a reputable engineering program I don’t see how the job placement could be that low. I also don’t believe that half of the graduating class is going to graduate school. There is no way, even in this economy.</p>
<p>Hey, I wanted to weigh in regarding both recruiting statistics (plus nepotism) and outsourcing… Remember this is just one person’s experiences</p>
<p>Regarding recruiting, this may only be my school (~60 graduating Bach MEs), but I cannot recall a person who has not gotten an offer by now in my major-> there are probably a few, and I can understand them not wanting to share; however, I have not really noticed a significant change over the “boom” years of 2004-2007. This said, not everybody got their top notch job offer (more mid tier consulting/engineering gigs than Bain/Microsoft, etc). Also, more people seemed to get their offers later than I would have expected (~60% of those entering industry have received their offers in the last 1-2 months).</p>
<p>Regarding defense and nepotism, I have def noticed some Nepotism in certain firms (Lockheed especially, but also Grumman and others). Nepotism is especially prevalent for internships, as it is much harder to get internships via non-connection routs than full time positions… With this said, 1) use family/friend connections to get internships, I cannot stress this enough (and for internships, $10-15/hr for a first internship doesn’t really harm the company if you know your stuff-> if they are small/mid sized they probably don’t even have a stated intern recruiting program and could gain from having another intern). 2) connections is the way it is done in the real world (via referral and recommendation), so it is impossible to complain too much about Nepotism-shaded characteristics.</p>
<p>As for graduation statistics at my school (BEME seniors), I would say they go as follows: 60-65% industry/govt,
5% law school,
10% headed to their home country (they have to as a condition of their scholarship to come here),
15% grad school (non-law),
a couple who are unemployed by choice (have offers, want to travel<- hippies ;),
and maybe 5% with no offer (just a guess, I don’t know of any).</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Likewise, regarding outsourcing: I hate it when people consider outsourcing when making a decision regarding a potential career. As a nation, we cannot refuse to compete with foreign nations/skilled employees (and whether directly or indirectly, we all compete with them). Further, the Indians, Chinese, etc are joining these fields because these are places where they see the most value as potential employees. I feel that this is indicative of the fields that we want to join, not the fields we want to avoid.</p>
<p>In addition, I equally hate the assertion that we cannot compete. I have a parent who works with HP, and she associates with employees throughout the world. In comparison to most regions, US employees are already cheaper. More importantly, US employees are very efficient and understand processes=> they get it right the first time, or if they make mistakes they acknowledge it (both important). In many fields, the cost of an employee is far beyond mere salary compensation. Opportunity cost, timeliness, societal characteristics and mistakes all cost companies significantly.</p>
<p>To further add to the competitiveness of US employees, salary costs are increasing very rapidly in other regions. I recently read about 15-21% raises passed on to employees at the biggest Indian outsourcing firms. This is in addition to raises 9-12 months ago… Us engineers are getting much closer in cost to these employees on a salary basis (again, salary is a small element of an employees cost/worth).</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>"a couple who are unemployed by choice (have offers, want to travel<- hippies "</p>
<p>lmao</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I tend to agree with this. It is, for starters, highly unlikely that half of any graduating class could get into grad school. If that was really the case, then grad schools would be admitting far more people than they usually do, and that is highly unlikely.</p>
<p>Half of my graduating class in my major from a few years ago got into grad school, though the overwhelming majority were for MS programs.</p>
<p>How about showing some proof to back that up. What was your major? Engineering? If it was engineering and unless your class was a huge exception, this is justy not likely. A lot of people might say they are going to graduate school but never follow through. If you look at the number of graduate students, there is just no way that anywhere near 50 percent of engineering graduates go to graduate school, even in a bad economy. I guess your class could be an exception but I highly doubt this. It is a bad idea to go to grad school just by default. You have to really want to do research and take higher level classes or you will be miserable. From my experience, the last thing that most graduating engineers want to do is take more classes. Liking the idea of a graduate degree and actually following through with it are two different things.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how that is so hard to believe. As I said, most went for MS programs, meaning no research at all. To get into a grad school, you generally just need a 3.0 GPA.</p>