<p>just to add my quick thought,
I was talking to my colleague at work and he was reading an article that indicates the value(salary$$) for computer engineers is going up. Things seem to be picking up. They still might not make as much as business majors, but it looks like its on the rise...now this is specific to computer engineers. Also, yes outsourcing is killing the profession, but they keep the more specialized jobs in US and move the low skilled to India/China etc. I always believe do what you like. But, if you don't know what you like and are in it for the money only, then i guess Business would be good.</p>
<p>A handful of companies like microsoft/yahoo/google are starting to match the banking/consulting salaries. Maybe this trend will continue? Maybe other companies will follow this trend? This doesn't seem likely after all the waves of outsourcing that have gone by and will soon go by. I don't think engineering companies will ever fully compensate top grads. Engineering is an extremely good deal if you go to a mediocre school because you will start out at a 50K+ salary. It's like going from a lower end spectrum to a solid, slightly upper middle class class salary by the age of 24. For the guy who was born in a farm and barely graduated high school, this is a sweet deal. But for those of us who get into top colleges like UIUC/Mich/Mudd/Cornell and work very hard, it's only fair that we ask for better options and a better pay but this isn't going to happen. If anything, I've heard of several Mich/UIUC engineers get very grade deflated GPA's who're now having trouble MATCHING jobs found by typical college grads in engineering. It's pretty scary actually. Today, I was talking to a guy who's graduating as a senior at cooper and he's struggling to get a job (he has below a 3.0 in chemE as does most of the graduating class).</p>
<p>Here's what I've seen:</p>
<p>Engineering is clearly an excellent deal for the vast majority students who go to no-name schools. Most engineers went to no-name schools. In fact, I believe I was one of the first people on this board to raise this very point. This is especially true if you happen to live and work in one of the cheaper parts of the country. For example. I think some of the people who make out like bandits are the average students from, say, the Deep South of the US who get degrees in chemical engineering and then go work in oil refineries in the Texas/Louisiana Gulf Coast. Not only are you starting at 50k, but the cost of living there is dirt cheap, so you can afford to buy a decent house and live very comfortably on that salary. For example, you can afford to buy a quite decent 2-bedroom starter house in Houston (the "oil-technology capital of the world") for less than 150k. And if you're willing to live outside the big city, then you can buy a dirt-cheap house. </p>
<p>Engineering is also a pretty good deal for the superstar engineers. This would include people who can get admitted into places like Stanford and the Ivies (except perhaps for Cornell). The fact is, these schools are grade inflated such that you won't ever get a truly bad grade. You might get better grades by studying something other than engineering, but it's unlikely that you will ever get truly horrible grades that will expel you from school, prevent you from getting a job, or completely knock you out of contention for a top professional grad school. </p>
<p>To a lesser extent, I would say that any engineers at the top tech schools like MIT or Caltech will also never turn out truly badly (unless they flunk out, of course), at least in terms of getting jobs. MIT and Caltech engineering students might be getting shafted in terms of getting into law and medical school, but they should have little trouble finding jobs. If they got mediocre grades, then they might not get the best jobs, but the pure prestige of the school will almost guarantee that they will find a job of some kind. Furthermore, to compensate, MIT and Caltech engineering students tend to do very well in terms of getting admitted to engineering graduate school and/or business school later down the line. I've known MIT and Caltech eng students who got quite terrible grades, but nonetheless still managed to get respectable jobs (then later got admitted to highly ranked business schools), and/or got admitted to quite respectable engineering grad schools. The major danger at MIT and Caltech engineering is simply avoiding flunking out. Those people, I agree, really do get screwed and would have been far better off studying something easier. </p>
<p>Then of course there are those rare folks who go to difficult engineering schools and pull excellent grades anyway. I've known some people who have taken the most difficult stuff at Caltech or MIT and got near-straight A's anyway. These people obviously would probably not have been better off doing something else. </p>
<p>However, I agree that there seems to be a 'gap' as to who really benefits from engineering. The less-capable engineering students are getting a sweet deal. The superstars also benefit a lot, at least in the sense that they would probably be no better off if they had done something else, and arguably worse off. But the people who are in the middle don't really benefit. Those people who go to high-ranked, but not superstar schools like Stanford or MIT or Princeton are probably not getting a very good deal. The people who flunked out of Caltech or MIT are obviously getting a very bad deal. </p>
<p>Speaking specifically about other career paths, one thing I might advise is, in the caes of law, is to try to take the LSAT early, perhaps during your freshman year, or perhaps even during the summer after you graduate from high school (I believe LSAT scores are good for 5 years). The truth is, the LSAT isn't something you can really study for, beyond getting used to the format of the questions and the time constraints. 4 years of college probably aren't going to make you much better at the LSAT. So at least try out one of the practice LSAT books, or even go in and take the LSAT for real. If you get a terrible score, then you know you're probably not going to get into a top law school anyway, so there's little point in trying to protect your GPA to get into one of those top law schools. But if you get a very high score, then you will know that law may be a viable option, and so you may want to shy away from difficult coursework.</p>
<p>I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this argument:</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, I agree that there seems to be a 'gap' as to who really benefits from engineering. The less-capable engineering students are getting a sweet deal. The superstars also benefit a lot, at least in the sense that they would probably be no better off if they had done something else, and arguably worse off. But the people who are in the middle don't really benefit. Those people who go to high-ranked, but not superstar schools like Stanford or MIT or Princeton are probably not getting a very good deal.
[/quote]
Could you elaborate on what you mean by the "Gap,"? ...especially with examples of what you consider to fall into this category.</p>
<p>The gap consists of people who go to top-ranked engineering programs, and flunk out. For example, those people who choose engineering at MIT or Caltech or Berkeley and flunk out would have almost certainly been far better off majoring in something else, or going to an entirely different school, or both. </p>
<p>This is incidentally why I support a policy of students being allowed to cancel bad grades in weeder classes they get that have nothing to do with the major that they are currently in. For example, if a guy goes to Berkeley EECS, gets horrible grades in the weeders, and so switches majors to, say, American Studies or something, then what do his old bad EECS weeder grades matter? After all, he's not getting an EECS degree anyway, so who cares what his grades were in those classes? The weeder classes have fulfilled their purpose by eliminating that guy from the major, so what purpose is served by tagging that guy's permanent record with a bad grade? Another method is to simply make all weeders pass/no-grade-recorded. Each student will be sent a private letter stating what their letter grade would have been if the class was graded normally, but for the purpose of the official transcript, the class is graded either P, or no grade at all is recorded if you didn't pass. Those people who didn't pass or who just barely passed would then receive the proper signal that maybe this major is not for them and so they would switch to something else. But their academic record would not be marred. </p>
<p>Another large aspect of the gap is those people who go to good schools, but not necessarily the very best ones (i.e. MIT, Stanford, Caltech, etc.), and don't do well at those schools. Like I said, anybody who graduates from the top schools like MIT or Stanford, even if they barely graduated, is going to have little difficulty in finding a job. It may not be the best job, but they can find a job. But that's not true of some of the schools that make up the next tier, like Cornell or Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Illinois, UCLA, and places like that. Perhaps even Berkeley. If you are going to a school like that and just barely making it (i.e. getting a 2.5 or less), you would have probably been better off majoring in something else, or going to a different school, or both. And certainly if you are flunking out of those schools, you clearly would have been better off going elsewhere. I know a guy who came in as a Chancellor's Scholar at Berkeley in EECS - and then proceeded to flunk out. He freely admits (and I agree) that he would have been far better off if he had gone to, say, UCDavis, or even a CalState. It's far better to graduate from San Jose State than to flunk out of Berkeley</p>
<p>Ok. I see what you mean and it makes sense. However, looking at the graduation rates, there can't be THAT many people who flunk out of schools - it would be a vast minority. And flunking out isn't exclusive to engineering too.</p>
<p>Another "bad deal," that I have in mind, are people who go to elite schools and do engineering mainly for the salary, in which case they would've been better off doing economics or buisness for the sake of the workload.</p>
<p>When you add up all of those people at the good (but not super-top-tier) schools who flunk out with the ones who don't flunk out but barely make it (i.e. GPA 2.5 or less), and that can usually turn out to be a significant chunk of the class. </p>
<p>I agree that if you go to an elite school, you could make a case that you'd be better off doing business or econ than engineering. That is, of course, unless you happen to be one of those super-geniuses who can get top grades in engineering while doing very little work.</p>
<p>However, if were a mediocre high school student and you go to one of those no-name colleges, then engineering is one of the greatest deals around. Those guys are making out like bandits.</p>
<p>I'm new to the board, and wanted to say how this thread is very informative. I am going to be transfering out of my community college next winter, into a bachelor program in either civil or mechanical engineering. </p>
<p>I'm mostly looking at state universities, because of the lower cost. I'm glad to hear that it's a better deal than killing myself at a well known engineering school.</p>