<p>Yes, a lot of pre-meds major in biology because it is “convenient” in that the major requirements automatically include the pre-med requirements, but it is not necessary to do so (i.e. one can take the pre-med courses alongside some other major).</p>
<p>Many pre-meds do not eventually go to medical school. A pre-med choosing a major purely for careerist purposes (e.g… to provide a backup career path if s/he does not go to medical school) has a lot of other choices that have better job and career options at the bachelor’s degree level. Some of them (e.g. statistics and business administration) may also have use as supporting subjects in a medical career. Of course, not everyone chooses a major purely for careerist purposes.</p>
<p>Let’s not exaggerate the difficulty. If you attend a top school, either for undergrad or especially B-school, and don’t have terrible grades, you have a shot at (eventually) becoming a hedge fund manager. Additional qualifications beyond that point don’t help much, if at all. </p>
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<p>Actually, you seem to be talking about investment banking - indeed many people at hedge funds work less than 60 hours a week. </p>
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<p>Actually, I think the better way to look at available opportunities relative to the individual. I have always agreed that the average student at a mediocre school is well-advised to become an engineer, for after all, what else were you going to do? But if you go to a school such as MIT or Stanford, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to devise reasons for why you should actually become an engineer when alternative high-paying careers are readily available. {Note, such a student may still want to earn an engineering degree, but not actually work as an engineer. Such a student may also want to found or join an engineering startup company, but that means that your success is then largely predicated on your entrepreneurial skills rather than engineering skills alone. Startups are also not exactly known for light working hours.} </p>
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<p>True, but then we ought to be crystal clear about what sort of engineering jobs we’re talking about. Google, is notorious for long working hours. The old joke at Microsoft regards their “flex-time” policy: you are free to work whatever 60 hours of the week that you want. Electronic Arts was famously sued for forcing engineering contractors to work grueling hours while refusing to pay overtime. </p>
<p>*Hundreds of comments followed the initial blog posting, with a number of responders saying EA isn’t alone in the way it allegedly treats developers. “White-collar slavery is alive and well in the games industry,” one anonymous responder wrote.</p>
<p>The complaints echo findings from a survey earlier this year conducted by the International Game Developers Association. “Crunch time is omnipresent, during which respondents work 65 to 80 hours a week,” the association said. “Overtime is often uncompensated.”*</p>
<p>One can also look outside the computer space to find plenty of companies who work their engineers like dogs. I know mechanical and aerospace engineers at Boeing who have been assigned to the troubled Dreamliner project who aren’t given days off for months including weekends, and aren’t paid overtime either (as they are considered to be salaried employees). Nor can they easily beg off the project without severely damaging their professional reputations, as the aerospace industry is rather tight, and other companies in the field could find out that you choose to quit the project upon encountering difficulty. </p>
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<p>And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have to ask for some non-obvious but actionable steps that an average engineering grad from an average state school could take to find a job that doesn’t require long working hours, job mobility that allows you to find alternative jobs within a single day, and not require beating out numerous other applicants. In particular, what exactly should such a person not be doing?</p>
<p>What about NASA? It’s part of the government so they pay good overtime when people have to work long hours. There is somewhat limited job mobility, although I think there is some ability to work at an aerospace firm depending on one’s specialization. Also getting the job is not that competitive and most people went to state flagships for aerospace engineering degrees (which, let’s admit - are generally not that hard to get into).</p>
<p>Actually the paying of overtime hours is dependent on the contract details. Some contracts are bid fixed-price so that would limit overtime hours and payment. Some contracts are cost-plus or time-and-materials where there are provisions (and usually a cap) on charged overtime. </p>
<p>I remember working for a Philly-area consulting firm and I had just come off a project. Two account reps (folk who find new business) called me to find out my availability for their projects. One project was bid fixed-price and the other was time-and-materials. Unless I am “super” down on my luck…the Globaltraveler does NOT do fixed-priced contracts. I break into hives and get the shakes if I have to put in UNPAID hours.</p>
<p>Most of the NSA contracts are straight 40-hour weeks. One reason is because not all of the “bandits” (read: defense contractor firms) won’t pay overtime…some do. Of course, they would get all the good hires so making 40-hour work weeks levels the playing (hiring) field.</p>
<p>I would actually challenge you on the notion that NASA is “not that competitive”: I can think of a number of graduates from top schools such as MIT who wanted jobs at NASA…and didn’t get an offer. It seems to me that, given the storied history of NASA, that NASA provides the opportunity to work on high-profile projects that are available literally nowhere else in the world, and that many young tech-oriented students grow up dreaming of working for NASA (whereas in contrast, how many kids actually dream of working in a petrochemical plant or steel mill?), and the competition would seem to be among the most intense of all employers. </p>
<p>Furthermore, government engineering jobs are not exactly noted for particularly high pay. Any ‘overtime’ pay that might be warranted could be avoided by simply not having you work those extra hours. I doubt that any engineer aims to work for the government for the pay. See below.</p>
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<p>Actually, the pay of overtime fundamentally depends on whether you even work for a ‘contractor’ or not, which most engineers do not and never will. The vast majority of engineers are salaried employees of regular firms who can never dream of overtime. Engineers at Google, Microsoft, Boeing, etc. are routinely required to work long hours for no extra pay. Electronic Arts (and presumably other gaming firms) famously settled its employment lawsuit by simply converting its contractors to salaried employees who can be stuck working 80 hours a week during deadline time for no extra pay. Indeed, the vast majority of engineers are stuck in such salaried positions.</p>
<p>So the relevant question now is: what are the non-obvious but actionable steps an engineer would take to obtain a noncompetitive job that also pays overtime?</p>
<p>I don’t know if the vast majority of engineers are “stuck” in those unpaid overtime hour firms because some of these firms are big. These are the firms that I have worked for:</p>
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<li>Westinghouse (big in Pittsburgh years ago)</li>
<li>Boeing</li>
<li>CACI</li>
<li>CSC</li>
<li>SAIC</li>
<li>General Dynamics</li>
<li>Lockheed Martin</li>
</ul>
<p>These firms employ engineers from all areas and computer scientists. Very rarely have I had to work overtime hours that I did not get “something” for…either payment and/or the ability to use as additional vacation. Of course, most of the time the hours were capped at 40 even if it meant changing the deadline.</p>
<p>By the way, I am an employee. It just that the sector/department/business unit I worked in each employer was more into working on contracts.</p>
<p>But to answer your question…As I might have pointed out before, consulting/contracting to the way to go for some of that overtime freedom. Now I do not know how that would work in all engineering areas.</p>
<p>Well then clearly you were an exceptional employee, or the people I know are doing something very wrong with their careers. As I said, I know plenty of engineers at Boeing who have been stuck working overtime hours for months now, with not a single day off including weekends, and for no extra pay whatsoever. I can think of several at Lockheed who have also had to work overtime for no extra pay. Indeed, that is precisely why some others actually quit working for the aerospace/defense industry for other endeavors (i.e. graduate school and to academia), because they didn’t want to become old men stuck working long hours for nothing extra in return and be fired if they object. {In contrast, once you’ve attained academic tenure, you can never be fired.} </p>
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<p>And that’s exactly the problem. Outside of the CS/IT space, how many engineers actually work under a contract basis? Pretty darn close to zero. For them, the notion of actually obtaining overtime pay is simply a pipe dream. </p>
<p>Heck, even within the CS/IT space, many, probably most engineers will not receive overtime. Google employees do not receive any over time, and the firm is notorious for long working hours. Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Cisco, HP, Dell, IBM, Adobe, Yahoo, Amazon, Sony, Samsung - I’ve never heard of any of these firms paying employee over time. </p>
<p>Heck, for years, I’ve been pointing out the irony that many engineers would probably be better off, at least financially, by working for an IT VAR that specializes in Cisco integration than working for Cisco itself. In other words, the engineers who simply implement the technology may actually be better off than the engineers who actually develop the technology in the first place. But of course that cannot be sustainable in the long term, for if all engineers were to quit the vendors to work for implementers, then the vendors would have nothing new to sell, and hence the implementers would eventually have nothing to implement.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, if contracting/consulting is indeed the best way to go, then that only shifts the question thusly: what are the non-obvious but actionable steps that an engineer could take to become a consultant/contractor? If we could nail this question, then perhaps all of the engineering students at MIT, Stanford, or Caltech (let alone the engineering students at the Ivies) wouldn’t feel as if they had to sadly leave engineering for other careers such as consulting or banking to enjoy financial success. Like I said, it has become increasingly difficult for me to devise reasons why those students should choose to work as engineers when they have those other choices.</p>
<p>You may be right about that. I have been advised by some ex-employees to avoid working for Oracle UNLESS you are gonna work at HQ out in California. There is an Oracle branch 10 minutes from me that is always trying to hire folks. I always wondered why this branch had to constantly advertise for interviews.</p>
<p>The bottomline is that an engineering/computer science degree holds the best cards,even at a top school.If you crack into Banking you will get a good salary.If you get a kicked out,you will earn more decent pay than those “other” majors.</p>
<p>But the question is not whether you should earn an engineering degree but rather whether you should work as an engineer. Like I said, regarding the top name-brand schools, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult for me to make the case that those students - including the engineering students - should actually work as engineers, given that they have other attractive career options.</p>
<p>Then that may be an entirely inappropriate question. The better question might then be: “Which major allows you to graduate with the least effort possible, thereby providing ample free time to learn marketable skills, such as IT”?</p>
<p>Well yes I am concerned about the money, but only between Engineering, Science (specifically chemistry), Business (economics) majors - things I would enjoy.</p>
<p>Another thing, I was first attracted to engineering because of that “solve the world’s problems” quality, but that realistically that doesn’t happen. So if you have an opinion about that for various majors…go on</p>
<p>“Another thing, I was first attracted to engineering because of that “solve the world’s problems” quality, but that realistically that doesn’t happen.”</p>
<p>Realistically it can happen. Become an engineer and join engineers without borders there you can “solve the worlds problems” through engineering. However that doesn’t sound like what your interested in. You want to make money. If your really smart go to an ivy school for business or finance. If your mediocore (ill be the first to admit i am) go into engineering or computer science for an average joe its great pay plus from what ive gathered, generally people are satisfied with this career choice. Thats just my two cents though.</p>
<p>Sakky,what is so beautiful about taking an easy major?.The only time i will ever get to read full time is in college.Why would i want to spend that time in an “easy” major,getting high every Friday in the name of developing “social skills”?Instead of taking an easy major so one can spend more time developing marketable skills like IT,y cant one just major in CS.He can have a shot at pulling off a Zuckerberg while simultaneously being marketable to employers</p>
<p>In my view, good programming skills are very undervalued as a general skill that all workers should have. I see lots of organizations solving problems manually that could be coded away. </p>
<p>In my experience, however, IT skills really aren’t that marketable for non-IT positions.</p>
<p>I majored in electrical engineering and got a job in engineering. My husband majored in accounting and got a job in accounting. My starting salary was greater than his. But over time his salary had a higher slope…in public accounting they have an “up or out” philosophy…if you are not being promoted, you are “counseled out” of the firm. So if you stay you end up at a higher position with a higher salary. You can’t just stay at senior accountant forever. With engineers, you can be a senior engineer for a long time with no problem. Some people will get promoted, of course, but you can have a career as an individual contributor…but that does not lead to astronomical salaries.</p>
<p>Obviously the idea would be that you wouldn’t do that, but rather would use your extra time wisely. </p>
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<p>Actually, I think Zuckerberg only demonstrates the point in that he never completed the CS major at all, but instead decided to spend his time doing something else (and we all know how that turned out). </p>
<p>The core issue, as I have discussed on other threads, is that the CS major (and engineering majors in general) requires you to learn difficult topics that, frankly, you don’t really need to know. The notable success of numerous software developers - including many of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world such as Zuck, Gates, Ellison, and Jobs - highlights this point, particularly in the world of CS. They chose to spend their time learning practical skills rather than worrying about completing the actual major. </p>
<p>And the same could be said for IT. The sad truth is that somebody who spent 4 years diligently learning and studying IT or software - derived from their spare time garnered from a creampuff major - is almost certainly going to earn more than somebody who graduated with a typical engineering degree. </p>
<p>I remember one guy who never even graduated from high school but who instead dedicated himself to learning IT skills and earned numerous top IT certifications. I will say that he is an impressively competent IT guy. By the time he was 21-22, he was already earning close to 6 figures. How many newly minted engineers can say the same? I will always remember him laughing at all of his ‘stupid’ former high school classmates who thought they were smarter than he was and earned degrees at top colleges, but who now make far less than he does. </p>
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<p>Sure, but there are is such a proliferation of IT jobs. Nowadays, every company needs IT. In contrast, not every company needs programming.</p>
<p>But to be clear, I don’t aim to discourage anybody from learning programming skills. Programming skills provide a high-variance payoff by opening entrepreneurial opportunities that may allow you to be the next Zuck, whereas IT does not. Both are solidly practical and marketable skills. </p>
<p>I wish I could say the same of engineering majors, yet the fact is, most of them require that you spend large swaths of time learning topics that you don’t really need to know. For example, to this day, I have never found a single employer who actually cares that you know how to derive the thermodynamic Maxwell Relations, or that you can derive any equations at all. Outside of academia, practically nobody actually does that for an actual engineering job.</p>