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<p>I must strongly disagree, for while I agree that there are relatively few management consultants, you said it yourself - they are highly paid, often to the tune of 7 figures and up at the partner level. The elimination of just such one partner would result in at least a $50k/yr salary gain for 20 engineers. Heck, the salary of even one relatively low-level management consulting associate would be redirected to vastly boost the salary of several engineers. </p>
<p>Nor do I see why it matters whether only a few people - engineers or otherwise - might be able to attain highly competitive consulting positions. After all, only a small handful of tech entrepreneurs will become billionaires, but that fact clearly hasn’t deterred people from starting a proliferation of tech companies, particularly nowadays. What matters is the opportunity that you might one day become such a billionaire. </p>
<p>But far more importantly, to this day it still remains extraordinarily difficult to pinpoint exactly what social value-add that consulting (and finance) actually provide to the world, where I doubt that anybody would dispute that engineering provides significant value-add. We live in a clearly far more technologically advanced world than we did even a decade ago. Much (probably most) of consulting and (especially) finance seems to be parasitic in nature, extracting revenue generated by a de-facto oligopoly. Imagine if we could shift that revenue towards boosting engineering. </p>
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<p>Well, look, it’s not my subjective notion of value that is at stake. The truth is, salaries of everybody are subjectively determined. The reason why Jeremy Lin was recently offered a salary from the Houston Rockets that apparently engendered discontent amongst his (former) Knicks teammates to the point that Carmelo Anthony described it as being “ridiculous” is because the Rockets subjectively determined that Lin was worth that salary. Management consultants and bankers are paid highly because the business world has subjectively determined that they are worth what they are paid. Raising awareness of the value of engineering would therefore surely improve their subjective standing. </p>
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<p>Harmful to who? To consultants and (especially) bankers? Sure. But given the economic carnage of the last few years and that continues to occur - witness the unfolding LIBOR scandal - I don’t think most people exactly feel much sympathy towards them. Do you? </p>
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<p>Actually, it is precisely the fact that CC is an unrepresentative forum that drives home my point. I have always agreed that the average engineer is living relatively well, and for that reason, I have always recommended that average students should consider becoming engineers. </p>
<p>But, as you alluded to yourself, the readership of CC clearly tends to skew strongly towards the exceptional. While only a vanishingly small percentage of people in the world would ever be able to attend a top engineering school such as MIT or Stanford, a disproportionate percentage of them can be found on this forum. They are also precisely the types of people who have evidently been attracted by the siren song of consulting and banking (for, before the crash, nearly half of all MIT students who entered the workforce took jobs not in sci/tech but rather in consulting or finance). </p>
<p>So, noimagination, I would agree with you that if the membership of CC was indeed representative of the entire population at large, then my posts would indeed be relevant to few of them. But that’s simply not the case, as you stated yourself. </p>
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<p>I give you credit for being honest…and might I then recommend that whenever you receive a raise, might you send that money to me? Furthermore, perhaps you could recommend that all of the engineers that you know to send their “excess” salaries to me as well? After all, since you’ve just admitted that you don’t want higher wages, hey, I’ll help you take that money off your hands. </p>
<p>But to be less facetious, I never said that the salaries of all engineers should necessarily increase. I have always stated that the guy who graduates from a 4th tier engineering school with a 2.0 GPA who nevertheless obtains a $50k/year salary is obtaining an excellent deal. Good for him. Perhaps his salary doesn’t need to be increased. My discussion has always revolved around the top engineering students from the top schools…the very population that is disproportionately represented within the readership of CC. And frankly, the competition for spots in schools like MIT and Stanford is already harsh - it’s hard to see how they could become much harsher. And even if it did, I doubt that that would be a bad thing. As a case in point, the competition to enter the PhD EECS program at MIT is surely one of the harshest of the entire realm of engineering education, but I don’t see anybody advocating that MIT lower its standards. Those who aren’t admitted are free to apply to a lower-ranked Phd program. </p>
<p>I must also ask why - if salaries decrease global competitiveness - why exactly consultants and bankers don’t seem to share the same sentiment. For better or worse, the United States has by far the most prominent consulting and banking industries of any nation in the world, despite the supposedly ‘uncompetitive’ high salaries that they paid. You never hear of Wall Street bankers lamenting that they ought to be paid less for fear of becoming uncompetitive relative to the finance industries of other nations. Why is this a concern specific to engineers? </p>
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<p>They represent lost human capital that was trained for engineering and should optimally be working in that field. It is quite clear - at least to me - that the world benefits from the greater technological innovation that the top engineers disproportionately provide. Imagine if we could produce a viably clean and cheap energy source or a suite of medical devices that could perfectly replicate the functions of any damaged organs (e.g. a prosthetic eye for the blind, prosthetic limbs for the paralyzed), or a lightweight long-lasting battery that allows you to use your Iphone uncharged for months at a time. That is the promise of engineering. </p>
<p>On the other hand, like I said, it is far from clear exactly what value the consulting and banking industry provides…and indeed, whether the finance industry actually subtracts value from the world through ever-more-ruinous and common financial crashes necessitating widespread taxpayer bailouts. Yet, like I said, those are precisely the industries that are attracting away many of the best engineering students. Instead of helping to produce wondrous technological discoveries, they are instead exploiting loopholes in the financial regulatory system or bamboozling executives with fatuous talk of ‘core competencies’ or ‘hedgehog strategies’ that could ultimately result in Enron-style scandals fostered by former McKinsey partners. </p>
<p>So you ask how it hurts you, and I think the answer is clear. Less technological innovation along with more financial scandals. Haven’t we all been hurt by the financial crash, started by the banking industry, that has precipitated the loss of millions of jobs, thrashed the net worth of millions of Americans, and continues to exact a dreadful toll in Europe while necessitating unprecedented taxpayer bailouts? Wouldn’t the world have been better off if banking employees, or at least the former engineering students, had instead been developing technologies instead of contributing to the world’s largest financial catastrophe in 80 years? I don’t know about you, but that seems like a clear win to me.</p>