Just in general, I find Publisher’s remarks totally the opposite of what I’ve observed in the workplace.
I worked for over 40 years in big aerospace and can’t recall a single engineer who went for a business degree and then stayed in engineering. Anyone that I knew that went for a business degree then made a career shift out of engineering to make use of that degree.
@BertieMom : The thread was started by BertieMom
Maybe the thread was removed because it referenced another Blog. But it dealt with the career limitations of having just an engineering degree, the difficulty of, but need for, double majoring & additional non-engineering degrees.
It was deleted because it linked to a blog. I’m assuming I am allowed to give the title or the author for people to read themselves? I wish I could at least read the comments that were added. Anyway it was about why you should or shouldn’t go to MIT and was written by a guy with one more than one fish.
Career limitations for engineers are entirely dependent on the company and industry. For example, Boeing and IBM and other companies these days often offer a Technical Fellow path for engineers to advance to levels roughly equivalent to roughly a senior vice president based on technical merit rather than business credentials.
That blog was from March 2007 and as @BertieMom notes, it is primarily concerned with outlining reasons why someone should or should not go to MIT . It is not particularly focused on any need to double major, or limitations in engineering (although he does claim the market is flooded with PhD 's and engineers that can’t find jobs in 2007).And one commenter from 2009 seems particularly disgruntled about being pegged as a technical person and being eclipsed by all the Harvard MBA’s ! She’s probably still mad 9 years later.
If data science is your goal, make sure you have a couple programming and statistics classes. You don’t need to double major or even minor - just pick the classes based on your goals.
The comments were the most insightful part of that blog.
@MYOS1634: Great advice, but it is tough for a young, inexperienced person to know the precise courses to pick; that’s why a double major, or at least a minor, is valuable.
The most important goal is to graduate & get a job in your targeted field. Post undergraduate work experience is valuable. Double majoring is a luxury, but well worthwhile if affordable.
“The most important goal is to graduate & get a job that is in your targeted field.”
And that should not be a problem for an ISE grad, unless things like poor GPA, poor performance , or poor interpersonal skills get in the way. The OP can look into taking electives that would gel with his interest in data science/data analytics, and could highlight his main interests on his resume and target employers who might be interested in what he has to offer.
No it isn’t.
“Great advice, but it is tough for a young, inexperienced person to know the precise courses to pick; that’s why a double major, or at least a minor, is valuable.” - Students in need of guidance can review those minor/major course listings and then seek recommendations from their adviser, professors and campus career center.
I’m an engineer. But since I’ve only worked at one company (30+ years), admittedly much of my opinion on this topic comes from the very knowledgeable other posters on these threads. (I’ve been reading here a few years, and it’s a common topic).
Def not worth it to double major. It’s very hard to fit those classes into a 4 year plan while still getting acceptable grades. Plus you can only get one job when you graduate and it’s very unlikely two degrees would help you get that job. If it takes you 5 years to get the double major then you lose one years worth of income and the ROI for double majoring will most likely never catch up with you. You can have a very fulfilling career with out a masters too. Going off of one very large defense company my dad has co workers that are also directors and VPs with just bachelor degrees in engineering.
Yes it is. :))
@Publisher I don’t know why you won’t accept you’re wrong. Double majoring is generally not worth it in engineering. That’s been well establish. I’m a double major (math and CS) with two performing arts minors (still graduating in 4 years) and I understand exactly why engineers shouldn’t double major. It truly can be detrimental for them.
@Publisher - In other fields, there probably is good value to minors and double majors. In engineering, it seems to be the exception.
I’m actually one of those exceptions. I had a technical communications concentration (5 courses, so I’m assuming similar to a minor at other schools). It enabled me to get on a company’s interview list in a year the company was not interviewing Mech Eng. Yet still I advise that its’s usually better to just take a few electives outside engineering rather than try to fulfill the requirements for minor or 2nd major.
Technical communication is actual an area where extra studies would likely be pretty valuable. Engineers as a group generally come out of their BS with terrible communication skills and have to learn that on the job. I’ll be the first to admit I was no exception. Meanwhile, communication is a very important skill, especially written. If you can’t communicate and document the work you’ve done, how will anyone else implement it?
That said, I don’t know how much more valuable a formal minor or concentration would be as opposed to simply taking the courses and having them on your transcript.
@Colorado_mom: I respect your opinion, as I do of the other posters. Nevertheless situations vary and there is no universally correct answer.
Technical communication can actually be a major in some instances, depending on the school. My H had a female friend in college many years ago that majored in technical writing, but it was not within the engineering department. https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/undergraduate/bs-tw/index.html
Undergraduate engineers do seem to have minimal requirements / elective choices that could help with communication and writing issues, if they take advantage of them.