<p>Not really a surprise. Many of the better grads pefer going into non-eng. jobs. Not an eng. shortage--just a shortage of attractive jobs in eng.</p>
<p>From the COHE</p>
<p>"For as long as most people can remember, at least as far back as the Sputnik launch in 1957, Americans have feared that their nation's schools and colleges weren't giving companies enough good scientists and engineers.</p>
<p>But in fact the number of talented college graduates in the sciences is "quite in excess of the demand," said Harold Salzman, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University. In a new paper, he and a colleague argue that the real problem is at the employment end of the pipeline.</p>
<p>Fewer than half of all college graduates in science and engineering actually take jobs in those fields, with the percentage who do actually dropping in more-recent years among the top-scoring students. The United States could largely resolve any industry shortfalls by simply convincing more of those elite graduates just to stay in their field, they say."</p>
<p>...Their statistics support the stories of recent graduates like Abby M. Anderegg, who earned a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Iowa in 2001 and now works for Accenture, a management-consulting firm in Chicago, where she helps sell insurance software.</p>
<p>Ms. Anderegg says she always enjoyed science and technical problem-solving as a student, but made the career move because jobs in chemical engineering seemed too "factory focused." At Accenture, she says, she can travel and enjoy more excitement and variety than she saw during a semester she spent working in an engineering capacity for the agriculture company Monsanto.</p>
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<p>What about that implies that most engineers work outside of their field? It implies that the sciences as a whole (including engineering) work outside their field. It might still be true, but your title is misleading. It very well might be the case that 90% of science majors do something else and only 30% of engineers do something else, but it averages out to over 50% total.</p>
<p>I think part of the “problem” is that in order to get the really cool jobs in engineering, you need a graduate degree, but to get the high paying consulting jobs like that, you only need the Bachelors and a good GPA, and most people look for instant gratification.</p>
<p>Do cool engineering jobs really require a PhD? Most people don’t mind putting in 1-3 years for a MS. But possibly six years for a PhD sounds like a bit much. I would love to do cool engineering things, but I wonder, if, the only people that can do that, are those that are up for it {do not need the instant gratification} and are particularly smart. I feel that even if I somehow graduated with a 4.0 in ChemE, I just wouldn’t be cut out to be a true engineering innovator. My brain just doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>I never said you needed a Ph.D. I just feel that a lot of B.S.-level jobs within engineering tend to be fairly… boring. Most of the real innovative stuff goes on under the supervision of the guys with graduate degrees, and the B.S. guys doing that seem, in my experience, to just be doing mostly engineering grunt work, especially early on. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a very important job, it is, but it just isn’t the most “fun” stuff in my mind. That said, I would still much rather do engineering grunt work than work for a consulting firm or investment banking firm. Consulting just feels too much like solving new problems with recycled solutions to me, and banking bores the living bajeesus out of me.</p>
<p>Nobody said nor implied that you needed a PhD. I asked if you needed one.</p>
<p>Oh, right. No, though I suppose it is just personal preference based on the type of job you want. For me, I could find interesting stuff at the M.S. level, but what I really want to do is research, so that is why I have opted for going to get the Ph.D.</p>
<p>OP, the data may be correct. However, for CMU’s ME '09, 100% reporting:</p>
<p>[Post-Graduation</a> Survey Results - Career and Professional Development Center - Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/students_alumni/post-grad-survey]Post-Graduation”>http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/students_alumni/post-grad-survey)</p>
<p>In the year that DS '06, graduated, there were a significant number that went into the financial arena. Unable to google '06 data.</p>
<p>I would suspect that strong engineering schools get recruiters who want engineers. Schools that stress other skills besides engineering get recruiters who want something else.</p>
<p>Current career path of DS has been; undergrad unpaid gofer/research, refinement of a grad student’s project at living expense wage, engineering data entry at fair wage. Post grad school internship with product and research development at fair wage. Now, full time employment doing the same undergrad gofer/research with new development at fair wage.</p>
<p>End goal is an engineering business. If I was DS, I’d be doing a business in engineering, but that will another phase of his life. Thus your sited article and your analysis are correct.</p>
<p>I guess I will raise this question: Does it really matter if engineers and science majors choose not to pursue a career in their major? It seems to me that people should do what they want.</p>
<p>I think the only problem with it, boneh3ad, is that engineers are in short supply. If the people who have the background/aptitude to do it, aren’t doing it, who is?</p>
<p>I guess I feel like there are plenty of engineers right now, the issue is as more and more baby boomers start to retire, the demand will skyrocket. However, if what the OP posted is true, then we already have plenty, and at that point, engineering will be more attractive as the demand for it goes up, and thus the starting salaries.</p>
<p>Personally, I would rather have a low number of good, devoted engineers than a ton of engineers that get bored and do the bare minimum because it isn’t really what they want to do, and they just want the paycheck.</p>
<p>PhDs get all the girls and money.</p>
<p>Right?
…</p>
<p>Right???</p>
<p>Perhaps… but I really just did it for the lulz</p>
<p>A lot of engineering jobs suck, simply put. I cannot imagine more than a handful of people would find such jobs interesting, but people take these jobs because the pay is good enough to offset the forty hours a week of boredom. Realistically, most people are not going to find jobs they actually like so why not just work at the highest paying job that is still tolerable. I am not advocating working at a job you hate, but rather why settle for $35k/year doing something you kind of like when you can make $70k/year doing something you can tolerate, but don’t necessarily like. When 5PM Friday rolls around each week you’re going to have the same attitude at both jobs, “It’s about time, I can hardly wait to get out of here.”</p>
<p>There’s going to be a lot of business jobs that suck just as much. Some people will prefer business-type jobs. Personally, I plan on getting into business in the somewhat near future as I prefer the extremely open ended nature of a lot of the challenges in the business world. While engineering has room for creativity, the end result is often abundantly clear and the work is in obtaining that goal. Engineering does not really hold my interest and I find myself somewhat bored at work and approach new tasks with an increasingly apathetic and annoyed attitude. I still get stuff done, but I am sure I would work harder/faster/better if I enjoyed what I was doing more.</p>
<p>Man, it must really suck to be an EE, PurdueEE. While the jobs I worked weren’t perfect, I at least enjoyed the end result of what I was doing, just not some of the intermediate steps.</p>
<p>PurdueEE, would you have gotten a different degree if you could go back to college at 18?</p>
<p>I don’t know if I would have gotten a different degree or not. My guess is that I would have went for a different engineering degree if I did not get an EE degree. Unfortunately, most other degrees are rather useless when it comes time to actually finding a job so the choices are rather limited.</p>
<p>The one thing I would probably change is giving the military more consideration after college graduation. Everyone I know who has military experience really enjoyed it and is glad that they got to have those experiences when they were young. By comparison, I have a relatively boring and unexciting job.</p>
<p>I view having to work as an engineer as a means to an end. It’s something I have to do to get to the next step. And it’s probably helpful to actually get some experience as an engineer so I can relate better when I have a business-type position. I’d prefer to get into the business world sooner rather than later, however, but unfortunately the general consensus is that you need a few years of experience to move on.</p>
<p>It’s not THAT bad being an EE and I also like seeing the end results. However, the amount of time spent at the end of one project is minimal and I quickly move on to another project. I would just prefer to be working on other things, mostly business related, instead of the things I presently work on. </p>
<p>Could I get a new job or my current job change and my perspective on engineering change? Sure, it’s possible. However, at this moment in time business is the most attractive thing.</p>
<p>Well this just sounds like your career goals don’t match your degree perfectly. Despite your personal feelings, there are many more people that I bet you realize who actually do enjoy engineering work. I would put money on the idea that as you get a higher level of degree, there is more and more job satisfaction as well since you can, in general, do more interesting things. On the other hand, there are people like you who ultimately want to end up in business, in which case you aren’t REALLY going to enjoy your engineering job no matter what. It isn’t your ultimate goal. However, saying that MOST engineers don’t enjoy their job is a generalization that really doesn’t seem to hold a lot of weight, as I have met many engineers who love what they do.</p>
<p>PurdueEE, then why didn’t you just get an undergrad business degree in the first place?</p>
<p>Undergrad business degrees are not always the best routes into business, especially if you want to be a manager in a technology oriented company.</p>