<p>""A surgeon may be able to save a life with an implant but an engineer designed the implant." i agree. i never thought of engineers getting overpaid...i think any careers in the health field are...some of them, they don't even need much work and they get like 80K a year (like pharmacist), doctors are different, they work their a$$ off saving peoples lives, so i think they deserve their "overpaid" salary. engineers, i think almost everything here involves with engineering and life without engineers, the world would collapse...now..do you think those people with business majors are overpaid?"</p>
<p>Life without lawyers, medical researches, ect would collaps as well. So your point is mute. These people get paid less than engineers yet they have to go through more school and education. What they do is even more important I say. If the average salary of an engineer was around 40K, which I think it should be then there would still be a lot of engineers. It won't cause a major change in the number of people in the field. I find it hillarious how you alll think an engineer with only a B.S degree deserves to make more than a medical researcher who saves lives.</p>
<p>Starting engineers earn about $50k/year. That might seem like a lot, but, let me tell you, after suffering through the engineering curriculum, I felt that I was being adequately compensated - in short, I think that, after the schooling, I'm worth getting paid that much.</p>
<p>You stated, "Life without lawyers, medical researches, ect would collaps as well. So your point is mute. These people get paid less than engineers yet they have to go through more school and education."</p>
<p>For one, I believe engineering has more fundamental applications. Engineering came before law, medical research, etc. It's not like people started practicing law before the wheel was invented. Therefore, technically I would argue Engineering is more of a foundation than law/medicine. However, don't get me as one of those "ENGINEERING OMG ITS THE ONLY THING AROUND!!!111oneone!!!1" people. I believe in balance, yada yada. </p>
<p>Two, Lawyers and medical researchers DO NOT GET PAID LESS THAN ENGINEERS. You might be comparing high level engineers to low level lawyers. I am basing that off my experiences with friends' parents. However, I could be wrong. I'd be interested in seeing some sources that support your claim.</p>
<p>Anybody that goes into any field for the money is doing it for the wrong reasons and will be very unhappy when they have to wake up each morning and go to work.</p>
<p>Quote: "some of them, they don't even need much work and they get like 80K a year (like pharmacist)" </p>
<p>I don't know where you get your information (maybe guessing that pharmacists just count pills?) but Pharmacists do a ton of work and also work their fannies off in college with 18-22 hours per semester of work...and that's to get done in 6 years! Most pharmacists know more about any medication than any doctor...it's their specialty.</p>
<p>My son is going to study engineering and has known this is his passion since age six. He will come right out and tell you, he does not care if he makes 30G a year of 60, he wants to be an engineer. And THAT is why you should study a field...it should be an interest, a passion. If you do it just for the pay, you have a mightly long life ahead of you.</p>
<p>Engineers really don't make that much....
Only the MOST senior and the TOP engineers make anywhere near 100k</p>
<p>And the only ones who make more than 100k are businessmen who used to do engineering.</p>
<p>I don't know where you're getting your figures from...</p>
<p>A bunch of engineers I'd say are UNDERcompensated... think all the NASA engineers and the academics. Hell, academia in general pays poorly. And government work pays poorly.</p>
<p>VTBoy, your stats must be for new graduates only.</p>
<p>Yes, engineering BS graduates make more than any other BS graduates. But that is hardly the whole story.</p>
<p>Taken as a long term whole, the engineering profession has become about the least stable and least professional field. Bell Labs, IBM, Hewlett Packard - once the bastions of professional engineering employent, no longer exist.</p>
<p>Engineering has for the most part become contract and migrant work in the US. Typical commercial firms don't offer long term engineering careers. It's a job not a career now. You might start out very well after graduation, but by the time an engineer is 40 or 45, they are very rarely still able to find work. And it has always held true that engineers' salaries level off (flat) after 20 years of experience - while your business major classmates are going much, much higher.</p>
<p>How hard it is to study a field in college has nothing to do with salaries. How important the work is to human advancement has nothing to do with salaries either. You can ignore this or complain about it or accept it as reality.</p>
<p>Unless you own your own business, your salary will be a function of supply and demand and the the productivity of whatever work you are doing. If there was a huge profit to be made in implants, then the salary of those designers would be commensurate. Thats why the guys designing XBox games make more.</p>
<p>Oh, BTW, the highest paid engineering graduates out of MIT are the ones who go and work for investment firms on Wall Street; their work has nothing to do with engineering design at all. Wall Street hires them because they figure they are smart, hard workers, and used to pressure.</p>
<p>It depends on where you work too. I know engineers in major urban areas can easily make a nice amount, whereas an engineer in kansas will be making very little. I know engineers that are very wealthy and engineers that aren't so wealthy.. but they still manage to survive. If you're in the career path strictly for money... I advise against it.</p>
<p>I don't agree with your post, T990. Not every engineering facet is being outsourced or made extinct. Also, some newer fields of engineering are still evolving (the biomedical engineering boom/hype). Jobs are available and I can't imagine an engineer with 20 years of experience having a hard time keeping/finding a job. You don't have much supporting evidence for your claims and I still believe that engineering is a solid degree.</p>
<p>"Two, Lawyers and medical researchers DO NOT GET PAID LESS THAN ENGINEERS. You might be comparing high level engineers to low level lawyers. I am basing that off my experiences with friends' parents. However, I could be wrong. I'd be interested in seeing some sources that support your claim."</p>
<p>Actually they do make less. The average starting salary of a medical researcher is around 55K and that is for someone with a Ph.D. I am not talking about starting salary which is only around 40K. </p>
<p>It is a myth that Engineers face salary cap, they don't. They can advance and continue to make money. After 20 years the average Engineer with a B.S makes over 200K a year.</p>
<p>In my opinion most people who get a B.S or Ph.D degree in Engineering do it for the money, while most who get a Ph.D in one of the Biological/Life/Medical Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, or Physical Sciences do it because they want to help mankind.</p>
<p>I would argue that is untrue. I will say that people do in fact do it for hte money. But you say most people who get a B.S. or Ph.D in Engineering do it for the money. I just think this is false. It's too difficult a degree to get through if money is the only motivation, you have to like it.
Also, I don't think there is anything wrong with doing something just because they know they'll get paid well (I'm not talking about being greedy). I mean, I could personally absolutely LOVE egyptology, but never go into it because I want to actually have a job (note: I don't know anything about egyptology). You're making it sound like a crime for people to do something because they can get paid well for it. If there was some job that paid 500,000 a year everywhere that you couold get right out of college with a B.S. I guarantee you an exorbinant amount of people would do it. Just accept the fact that people are going to do things for financial security.</p>
<p>Although I still will not agree that Engineers do things for the money as a whole. That is bogus.</p>
<p>Ok, this is right from your source:
"Median annual earnings of chemical engineers were $72,490 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $58,320 and $88,830. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $48,450, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $107,520."</p>
<p>"Median annual earnings of medical scientists, except epidemiologists, were $56,980 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $40,180 and $82,720. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $29,980, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $114,640.
"</p>
<p>Those numbers are very similar. The ceiling is a little higher for your side of the argument as well. AND, not every medical scientist is finding the cure for cancer might I add. Many engineers are tackling the problem through nanocapsules. So I guess engineers seeking to cure cancer do it for the money, but scientists who seek to cure cancer don't?</p>
<p>"Those numbers are very similar. The ceiling is a little higher for your side of the argument as well. AND, not every medical scientist is finding the cure for cancer might I add. Many engineers are tackling the problem through nanocapsules. So I guess engineers seeking to cure cancer do it for the money, but scientists who seek to cure cancer don't?"</p>
<p>Big difference is that the chemical engineer has only a B.S while the medical scientist has a Ph.D.</p>
<p>"In my opinion most people who get a B.S or Ph.D degree in Engineering do it for the money, while most who get a Ph.D in one of the Biological/Life/Medical Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, or Physical Sciences do it because they want to help mankind."</p>
<p>If engineers wanted to make money, they'd take their brilliant minds and move to Wall Street. And they sometimes do. Lots of math/physics majors do as well.</p>
<p>I'm sure all the engineers that are building hospitals and making better microscopes and nicer wheelchairs are in it allllll for that beautiful yummy green cash.</p>
<p>Have you ever thought that people might go into a career because they love it? I've never met someone who wanted to do math to save mankind... he just likes math.</p>
<p>Not every 'medical researcher' or biochemist is inventing a cure for cancer. Plenty of them are just making collagen injections and botox or some other frivolous little thing. And as someone else stated, quite a few engineers are working on surgical robots and medical devices such as MRIs... but of course, they're only in it for the money, right? They can't POSSIBLY be developing medical instruments for the good of mankind. We all know that defibrillator design is just a huge goldmine.</p>
<p>And what's this obsession of BS versus PhD? A guy still has to work for years to get to the end, and the statistics indicate that the 'end' for either tracks leads to the same place: 100k and some change. </p>
<p>Again, if you want money, you go into business. If you love to do something, you do it.</p>
<p>Everyone has value to add to society. Well, almost everyone. I'm starting to wonder what stock brokers and used car salesmen are for. But engineers sure as hell aren't just a bunch of money-grubbing vultures. The only thing that separates them from people majoring in Math/Pure Science/Medical Science is the fact that they are APPLIED scientists. What difference does that make? Hmm.</p>
<p>If you really wanna claim that someone is useless, I'd say go yell at the business school board.</p>