<p>Each year a number of undergraduates in Chemical Erngineering at Notre Dame receive job offers from financial firms. Does it happen at your school? Does anyone have details about these jobs offers?</p>
<p>Oh no, here it comes.</p>
<p>Heh heh heh</p>
<p><em>opens bag of popcorn</em></p>
<p>dis gunna be good</p>
<p>paging sakky.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard of this happening. Promoters of certain work visa (ie: H-1B) like to promote the view that “Wall Street” firms are sucking up talented engineers and using them as financial analysts or “quants”, but actual evidence on the ground, of this happening in any significant numbers with ungrads is scant. Makes for good press though.</p>
<p>Of course, some undergrads, in software engineering/computer/electrical, may receive offers to join financial firms as software developers. </p>
<p>The post-graduation surveys always show a few people from the engineering programs joining financial firms directly. So it does happen. But I suppose there are people who graduate to exotic dancer jobs from engineering school as well, given the high rates of unemployment endemic to engineering and science programs in general.</p>
<p>Exxagerations. Take a look at the UCB graduate surveys, from EECS for instance.</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a></p>
<p>or CS:</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm</a></p>
<p>There’s a few financial sector employers in those lists. They hired for programming jobs, not investment banking.</p>
<p>As I told you, a few firms like to make a big deal that they employ a few engineers, but engineers going into investment banking straight out of school is not widespread. That you can’t find any from the UCB graduation survey.</p>
<p>You’ll see the same in the Cornell surveys as well. Despite all the exxagerated claims (that you did a good job at quoting), claims that the top students from the top schools are eschewing the tech sector, for investment banking, are exxagerated.</p>
<p>As I told you in other threads and here, there are very powerful people who have an interest in pushing the view that Americans aren’t studying math, science, or engineering, and that foreign workers are necessary to fill a labour gap. </p>
<p>BTW, just for fun, check out:</p>
<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Math.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Math.stm</a></p>
<p>Someone even listed their “employment” out of a UCB Math program as being a Starbucks Barista. UCB graduates aren’t dummies; fewer than 1 in 10 are even admitted! But some of the math grads did djoin firms in roles (ie: Analyst) that could reasonably be judged as being investment banking related.</p>
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<p>Well, as regrettable as it is to say, the fact is, Berkeley is not really considered an ‘elite’ recruiting ground for investment banking in the way that MIT and Stanford (and certainly the Ivies) are. What impressed (and shocked) me was that, during the boom, nearly half of all MIT graduates who entered the workforce took positions in finance (or consulting), and even after the crash, about a third continued to do so. </p>
<p>But to your point, I agree that on an absolute scale, not many engineering students join finance. After all, the nation does grant tens of thousands of engineering bachelor’s degrees every year - the vast majority from no-name schools. The real problem is that the very best engineering students are disproportionately drawn to finance, that is, those students who come from the very best engineering schools (i.e. MIT) and who have the highest grades. </p>
<p>If the finance industry was drawing the 2.0 GPA engineering students from 4th tier schools, then it probably wouldn’t matter. After all, they probably weren’t going to be top engineers anyway. The problem is that the finance industry tends to draw from the very best of the engineering talent pool.</p>
<p>Those who look to investment banking as the ultimate career goal may want to read this:</p>
<p>[Warning:</a> Banking May Be Hazardous to Your Health - WSJ.com](<a href=“Warning: Banking May Be Hazardous to Your Health - WSJ”>Warning: Banking May Be Hazardous to Your Health - WSJ)</p>
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<p>Sleep deprivation, drug/alcohol addiction and escapism, insomnia, emotional instability, misplaced anger - wait, were we talking about workers on Wall Street or about engineering undergrads? After all, I can think of plenty of the latter who suffered from the exact same problems that the article described. Plenty of working engineers I know will think back to their student days and are simply relieved that those days are over, with the widespread sentiment that an engineering major is a traumatic experience. </p>
<p>*"Engineering educators “are very attached to the concept that engineering education is painful, dry and difficult.” [Olin College Vice President for Research Sharra Kerns] recalls that earlier in her career, when students told her that they liked her course, a colleague said to her, [“</a>; ‘You must not be teaching it right.’ ”](<a href=“http://www.prism-magazine.org/women/feature_competing.cfm]“”>http://www.prism-magazine.org/women/feature_competing.cfm) *</p>
<p>The main difference is that at least Wall Street workers receive generous pay packets, gourmet meals on company expense accounts, and free car service. Engineering students get none of that. Heck, many of them are living on Ramen and the McDonalds Dollar Menu.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://econ.ucsb.edu/~babcock/College_time_use_NBER.pdf[/url]”>http://econ.ucsb.edu/~babcock/College_time_use_NBER.pdf</a> (table 6) indicates that, in 2003, engineering students average 18.6 hours of study time per week. Assuming 15 to 21 hours of class time per week (15 in a no-lab semester, 18 in a one-lab semester, 21 in a two-lab semester), that comes out to be 33.6 to 39.6 hours total spent on classes per week, which is less than the 40 hour week in the work force, and far less than the 80+ hour weeks described for investment bankers.</p>
<p>Sure - for the students who are content with earning average engineering grades (or who are so monumentally talented that they can perform well without needing to study hard). </p>
<p>What about those students who want to earn above-average engineering grades, but who perhaps aren’t monumentally talented? How hard are they studying? I can tell you that plenty of them are easily hitting that 80+ hourly rate.</p>
<p>Based on this and your previous posts, you do seem to have a knack of knowing the hardest working but least successful engineering students. From what I saw, 80+ hour weeks were very unusual, only occasionally seen for those in project courses when projects were close to the due date (and not every student in such courses; those who managed their time well and did not procrastinate kept the weekly hours reasonable even as projects came due). And that was years ago when (according to the paper linked above) average number of hours per week was higher for various reasons.</p>
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<p>Um, when did I ever say that they all weren’t successful? Indeed, many were highly successful (if I don’t say so myself). But they nevertheless toiled endless hours in order to be successful. </p>
<p>Let’s not forget the differentials in living standards. Sure, investment banking analysts work endless hours. But at least they enjoy gourmet meals, enjoy door-to-door car service, surely live in a nice apartment, can afford to buy luxuries as necessary. Contrast that with those engineering students who are also working endless hours because they want to succeed…but who are consigned to living in dingy apartments ,no car, stuck eating Ramen and at the dollar- Chinese restaurant because that’s all you can afford. </p>
<p>As I said before, sure, if you’re content with just being an average eng student, you can study the average number of hours. But if you actually want to be above-average, you have to study far harder than does the average student.</p>
<p>^I worked hard as an engineering student, but I certainly didn’t struggle. I partied a lot, actually! I had a core group of friends. We studied hard, then had fun. I loved studying, anyway, so it wasn’t a sacrifice for me. I graduated with high honors, too. My work got me a paid fellowship to grad school that gave me plenty of discretionary income.</p>