<p>I don’t think anyone would disagree that for some professions the name on the diploma can be more important than the abilities of the applicant. However, I think those “chosen” professions are fewer than many people think.</p>
<p>Investment Banking and Certain Law Firms are definitely two of them.</p>
<p>Engineering and Education, are not.</p>
<p>I think the point, to me anyway, was that the “elite” or IVY label as the best choice gets applied to everyone in all fields and that is simply not true. It is not the way to go, if the costs are higher or even the same, in many fields nor is it a good choice for many individuals who prefer different atmospheres or cultures. </p>
<p>I thank the stars my kids are engineers and the hiring is much more democratic and less consumed by the elite label.</p>
<p>In Denmark and other Scandanavian countries the teaching profession is revered and ranked right up with that of a medical doctor. Smart people often want to live a comfortable life doing something they enjoy; if it happens to be something that generates a lot of income so much the better. My dad likes his job but makes less than 70k per year - but has great insurance and 28 paid vacation days a year along with a 35-40 hour work week and a 10 minute commute. It is public sector and very secure. He gave up being a CPA in the city to get out of the stressful rat race despite the income loss. Due to scholarships and a low family income both my sister and I go to top privates (Cornell, University of Rochester) with no loans and a family contribution of 6K per year. She has to do work study; I don’t even have to do that. We are pursuing courses of study we are passionate about with no regard to post graduation income or job prospects. Things tend to work out if you are passionate about what you are doing with your life. Would these institutions be worth it if we had to pay for most of it? My dad said to get into the best college of your choice that you can and we will find a way of making it happen because it is the biggest and best investment you will ever make.</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter what you say. Engineering is the top profession. Every reasonable person thinks so. There can be no argument. It is a quantifiable fact.</p>
<p>I still think the goal of life is satisfaction, not prestige. Yes, adults need to pull their own weight, but beyond that, it seems to me a happy life is invaluable; a life of “prestige” and material things more subject to fluctuations.</p>
<p>The great job may not be pink slipped, the McMansion may have lost half its value, but being educated in something that is fulfilling and trying to build a life around it remains a stable commodity.</p>
<p>Yes, there are some things that are seemingly impractical, like acting, but Meryl Streep is doing quite well, thank you very much. I am sure she never says, “I should have been an I-banker.”</p>
<p>My job has tenure and benefits to compensate for its fairly low pay scale. I chose it because I was born to pass on a love of literature and ideas to the next generation. And I have been able to do my job throughout my child bearing years and even when not in perfect health. It has been practical for me, although my parents thought a PhD in literature a very silly thing, indeed.</p>
<p>And yes, indeed, the school one graduates from does matter in my field. The “biographies” of the faculty are printed in every catalog of higher learning.</p>
<p>Most of the really smart people I know want to work in challenging and intellectually rewarding fields in which they can feel good about what their work is contributing to society, work in productive and supportive environments, earn a comfortable living, and have enough free time to enjoy their families, friends, loved ones, hobbies, and leisure time activities. Engineering provides all that for many of the smartest people I know. I don’t know a lot of I-bankers but the anecdotes I hear often suggest insane work hours, high-stress work environments, back-stabbing and insecurity—similar to the stories I hear about what goes on at the top (i.e., most remunerative) law firms. Many people bail from that environment after a few years, looking for more balance and less stress.</p>
<p>How exactly is engineering a top profession? What makes engineering so great. Are engineers smarter than other professions like teachers or writers, I severely doubt it. Beside engineering in and of itself is a low class profession. I mean there are so many perfunctory tech schools that produce “engineers” but are these people any smarter than someone who chooses say literature or political science? For example many people who are not the smartest are going to become engineers at my school, and got into top notch engineering programs like UT and Texas A&M. I even received almost a full ride to UT from the mechanical engineering department and the net result would be that I would have become a dispensable engineer that could easily be replaced for cheaper labor overseas. </p>
<p>The so called “intelligence” of engineers seems to be vastly overrated. The salary is abysmal, and prospects for promotion are more contingent on business acumen rather than pure engineering talent. So yes I would say definitely that engineering is NOT a top profession anymore than teaching is a top profession. Engineering is more like a trade than an academic profession. </p>
<p>I am an intellectual by any standards. Just the way I’m made. I’m a poet, novelist, college professor and give papers on obscure topics at obscure conferences on occasion.</p>
<p>I must say that I tremendously value engineers and their contributions to society. Anyone who can build something, design something, and make sure I don’t fall into the sea when I go over the 59th Street Bridge is awesome in my opinion.</p>
<p>I adore math. I am just not hardwired to be able to get the right answer all the time. I can’t say what intervenes. I understand the theory and have good scores on all “objective” measures.</p>
<p>I have accepted the fact that I could never be an engineer, physicist or any professional who must have mathematical precision every time. However, I respect those who can.</p>
<p>I do find it sad that my language skills aren’t as respected as someone else’s numerical skills, and I will never earn as much money as number people, but that is not the fault of engineers.</p>
<p>Many of the engineers I’ve met don’t respect what I do, and many of the Brookhaven scientists, primarily physicists, don’t either.</p>
<p>However, the most intelligent folks of both sides of C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures do respect their doubles across the fence.</p>
<p>I find nothing “low class” about engineering.</p>
<p>And what is “low class” about any profession? Do we want a hierarchy of human beings? I think not.</p>
<p>Dbate, I think what you will find in life is that people pursue what interests them and their eventual success or failure will depend heavily on a myriad of qualities in addition to whatever inate intelligence the individual has. There is no hierarchy where the smartest do this and the next smartest do that and so on. You will find that “compensation” is more often connected more closely to revenue streams than necessarily what skill set is necessary for the job. You will also find that compensation is often tied to supply and demand and now in many cases, to global supply and demand not just North America. Finally, it is my humble opinion that the “playing field” is much more level than many would like to believe once the education portion is completed. Enployee engagement or employee satisfaction has many components only one of which is compensation.</p>
<p>Smarter than everyone. But teachers (math and science) and writers (I mean technical writers) are not far behind. Surprisingly, most lawyers are also very smart.</p>
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<p>I know it seems strange, but it is true. All objective measures say so. Later I will post a link to the data.</p>
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<p>You must have received a bad grade in an engineering class or something, but please don’t feel badly. I’m sure there is a future in whatever you ended up doing instead.</p>
<p>I personally believe our engineers drive the future of the country.</p>
<p>They will determine our economic future in many ways. We had better hope many of our best are choosing that profession. Based on my many years as a Science Teacher I see many of our very best students entering Engineering fields. That is a good thing</p>
<p>Engineers are not smarter than everyone, that is just conjecture. For one talent in disparate academic fields means that direct comparisons are always going to be insufficient. I mean sure MIT people have top math SAT grades, but how many have top literature grades when compared to say a school like Brown or Yale. Being good in math does not make an individual smarter than someone who can disseminate the intricacies of political hierarchy in a good work of fiction. The two simply are incomparable. </p>
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<p>No actually I just had to turn down my near full ride in mechanical engineering at UT to attend Yale.</p>
<p>My grandfather was an accomplished mechanical engineer (with patents) and also a very talented artist, specializing in oil painting. He valued his art creations over his engineering accomplishments and said engineering was just making a living but that art was making a life.</p>
<p>At both of my sons Universities the Marching bands and Pep Bands are composed of over 50% engineering majors. Seems many math and science people are also extremely talented in the arts. Both schools have pianos in the engineering student lobbies with signs saying play me on them.</p>
<p>After visiting with many engineers the idea that it is a dead end career is foolish at best. If you feel the need to measure the value of a career by what it pays then go ahead. However, many who desire to chase what they love to do will judge the profession by the standards that really matter and not just material wealth or perceived foolish notions of “elite”</p>
<p>Pal, you are naive.
Who invented the Bomb that ended WW II. Who put people on the moon? Definitely, not lawyer, wall street bankers. Look around if you see recent law school and business school graduates who actually find a big-buck job now. I just know a friend who got a decent job as patent lawyer because she was an electrical engineering prior to law school. Engineer does not always end up in engineering. A lot goes to law, medical, business etc for advanced degree.<br>
In fact, IMO, the loss of US leading positions in many technological fields is probably a result of people like you, extremely talented person but decided to go to law, finance where you can get rich quickly. I see many talented HS kids doing this. Engineers do not outsource our jobs, it’s the CEO and CFO who are typically not engineers.</p>
<p>Please don’t feel obligated to explain. No one here is judging you. I believe they probably have some nice majors at Yale as well, and I know a few people from Yale who have done just fine.</p>
<p>Coming from a family of engineers (not including me), I would say engineering is an excellent and rewarding profession. If somebody is judging it by income alone, they’re way off base. But considered in another context, take a close look at the career origins of CEO’s in medium and large corporations. A very substantial percentage of those CEO’s (and a large percentage of MBA’s btw) come from an engineering background. They’ve got insight into product development, they’re excellent with numbers, and they may know an industrial or economic sector a lot better than somebody who comes purely from a management or financial backgound.</p>
<p>This is the first time I’ve ever posted, but this discussion was so amazingly identical to the one I’ve been having in my head for the past year or so I just had to get involved. I have a daughter, [name removed by Mod], who also (believe it or not) has been counting on going to NYU since she was about 10 years old. Most of it was based on loving the city atmosphere, especially the Village. As time went by the more we learned about [name removed by Mod] and about NYU, it made more sense than ever that this was the right place for her. She is a junior in high school, and has worked very hard throughout her school career, has great grades, captain of the debate team next year, ombudsman for the newspaper, 31 ACT, etc. Guess what? There is no way we can afford $52,000 a year. The fafsa said we could pay a lot more than we really can, and I understand from the Director of Admissions that’s what they go by when decidinig on financial aid.</p>
<p>Any advice, other than looking at state schools (which the price is not low for the “good” ones), which we are certainly doing? What kind of merit based scholarships has NYU given, if any, or should we just give up now? We were going to apply and see how it goes, but I’d appreciate any feedback. My angst has nothing to do with prestige; it is about having to deny my daughter something that she absolutely deserves and has worked hard for; just breaks my heart.</p>
<p>I assume you are trying to be condescending, but you are just doing a terrible job and I’ll leave it at that. </p>
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<p>Many talented people choose not to be engineers because engineering is a dead end career. The successful people who are engineers are usually engineers+something else. I.e. management which is not engineering. But age discrimination as well as an earning ceiling prevents a good salary in engineering. That coupled with outsourcing and the merely provincial as opposed to groundbreaking work that many engineers preform leads me to conclude that engineering is a dead end career. </p>
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<p>The intially statement that someone made was that engineering was a top profession and I still maintain that engineering is not a top profession at all. Pay is only one component of a top profession, and a speculative one at best. What I consider to be a top profession is one that has not only societal prestige, but top earning potential and some degree of autonomy. Within the traditional top professions i.e. business, law, and medicine. Each has a large degree of prestige, earnings, and autonomy (although managed care has lessen medicinal autonomy). </p>
<p>The point is that engineers have little “prestige” in terms of social perceptions, for the most part if you told someone that you were an engineer that would yield a fairly apathetic response in terms of awe. Likewise the earnings are not nearly as comparable even for the most talented engineer has a ceiling unless they transition into business. And certainly autonomy is fairly limited as each engineer inherently has certain constraints to maintain such as time and cost for each individual project.</p>
<p>And another reason that engineering is not prestigious is the fact that it has a low barrier for attainment, only a bachelors. The aforementioned all require graduate school (excluding business which still typically requires a MBA for business advancement), therefore engineering also does not have the academic association of top profession and therefore is insufficient as a top profession.</p>