<p>Especially if the stigma of the difficulty of STEM degrees in the USA persists.</p>
<p>Engineering is a high skill level job – which means that you’re not easily replaceable. Yes, outsourcing happens, but the positions that are outsourced are usually low skill level positions.</p>
<p>Why do you think that companies like Google and Apple go through so much trouble to hire and keep the best engineers they can find? They even bring in talented engineers from other countries. My company (Qualcomm) brings over tons of engineers from India and else where.</p>
<p>A career in engineering can be tough for people who either have low aptitude or little interest in their chosen fields. Those are the kinds of engineers who will probably be replaced by a bright, recent college grad who loves what he or she does. No company wants to pay a senior engineer a senior engineer’s salary if a young college grad can do a better job for less money.</p>
<p>I too was considering a career in engineering. They say that job growth for it jobs is supposed to sky rocket and is probably one of the fastest growing fields in the country. However, there are companies that will inevitably value cutting costs over your job security and it will happen to some engineers unfortunately. I don’t really like the whole it business because you have to be willing to compete with fresh new graduates who are educated in all the newest platforms and hardware whereas you’re running on older information. You can keep up with the trends in technology but that means that you are not special and have no valuable traits vested in your seniority at a company. However, the best field in engineering imo is oil engineering and biomedical engineering. Those two have huge growth and pay quite well (biomeds can easily break six figures and oil engineers practically start at six figure and can work that up even higher).</p>
<p>During a down economy more students and parents turn to engineering to insure that the kid has a marketable skill when he/she graduates. You will see enrollment at engineering schools are way up right now and enrollment at “underwater basket weaving” schools is way down. What will that mean 4 years from now. First off lots of these students will fail because they were pushed into somethng that wasn’t a good fit for them. Some of them will go into the workforce rather than move to another college. Therefore there will be a glut of “technicians” available for full time work pretty much immediately. That will make it hard for engineering students to get co-op jobs at medium and small companies. Those companies are better off hiring perm techs and training them once and paying them less over their lifetime to hande the easy stuff. So if you are going for engineering make darn sure you can graduate. Graduate with the highest gpa you can get because competition is going to be tough between all the extra students who also graduate and all the technicians who only got through 2-3 years. And keep your self up-to-date and watch for management positions. If your company will pay for your MBA (I’m told not many are doing that now, but it will come back.) Get the MBA and learn to deal with the politics. Because if you get too comfortable the new grad will know more than you do and you will be out. Most bachelors level degrees have to get a masters to move along. Don’t think for a minute that an engineer doesn’t.<br>
As far as running out of jobs, it isn’t going to happen. New technology creates new sectors. The problem I see most engineers dealing with is they can’t easliy switch sectors. Here is a dumb example: after 15 years in the sliderule industry it is really hard to get a new job when all the new jobs are in the cell phone industry. So you either have to go back to school to learn cell phones or you have to have already proven that you can manage other engineers and get a job as a manager in the cell phone industry. (That really was horrible, but I trust you can see the pattern as intended.)</p>
<p>DH is an engineer. He has worked for the same company for almost 30 years. Unheard of today, I imagine, but he will most likely retire from that company. He is in the technical track of the company (a Fellow Engineer, if that means anything to anyone). He’s made himself an expert in his area, so he’s kind of difficult to replace in terms of a younger person coming out of college with less experience (even though they would be paid less). He feels, although who can ever know for sure, that he’s in a stable position, as far as them “quitting him.” Who knows about him “quitting them,” lol, depends on the day you ask him. Our d, who’s her dad to a “T” when it comes to math/physics skills is a junior studying chemE. (not a total chip off the ol’ block, as he’s MechE). She will graduate with a ChemE degree, biomolecular minor, and essentially a chem minor and a math minor. We don’t fear she’ll be marketable. Will she be able to remain in the same company? Who knows … he’s an anomaly today, isn’t he? But, she will always have the “skill sets” to adapt and change to what’s needed. It’s hard-wired into her brain. (probably won’t hurt that she’s been involved with research since she was a freshman, and she carries a 4.0 engineering GPA, either). But her major “fits” her like a glove. And, I couldn’t see her being anything else, except a physican, except she relates to what pre-med Paris Gellar said on Gilmore Girls, “Sick people freak me out.” </p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>I plan on studying Industrial and Systems Engineering, and getting a minor in Sales Engineering…not too concerned about a lack of jobs after I graduate, nor about being replaced by a recent graduate later in my career. IE is a field in which there are infinitely many career possibilities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not predictable. 30 years ago, how many people predicted the crash of 1987, the dotcom boom, the housing bubble, and now the EuroZone turmoil? IMO, what you should do is limit your exposure to times of un- or underemployment by not racking up too much debt, avoiding extravagant spending, etc.</p>
<p>There are certainly many recent engineering graduates who have had problems finding engineering jobs because older engineers have deferred retirement.</p>