<p>I keep hearing less demand for CivE.</p>
<p>What about EE?</p>
<p>ChemE?</p>
<p>MechE?</p>
<p>Which will be the hottest field?</p>
<p>BioE and EE/CS</p>
<p>ChemE will be huge as well</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm%5DEngineers%5B/url">http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm]Engineers[/url</a>]</p>
<p>According to that, demand for EE will fall.</p>
<p>??</p>
<p>I believe that demand for EECS (more on the CPE/CS side) will rise.</p>
<p>No way there'll be less demand for CivE.</p>
<p>Demand is supposed to rise about as much as it has been recently, and according to the department of labor, that means "faster than the average." I know even right now, in the middle of this housing thing, we're hiring like crazy, and we're in new building construction, which is supposed to be affected by this thing. Beyond new building construction, this country is facing a major crisis in the deterioration of its infrastructure, and it's starting to come to the attention of the public. Bridges and older roads will need to be replaced, and failing utility systems will need to be reworked. There'll be more and more attention given to this as systems continue to fail and the overall age of our infrastructure comes more clearly into focus. Then it'll be up to civil engineers to fix it... all of it. And all the old guys are retiring right now.</p>
<p>Plenty of opportunity for civil engineers.</p>
<p>CE, EE, ME are always in demand. 70% of engineers in defense contracting companies are all babyboomers and will be retiring in the next decade. I'm just going to assume the rest of the engineering fields are in similar situation. As you can see, you wont be short of a job in any of those engineering fields.</p>
<p>Chem and Bio engineering are def hot right now though and will be for a while.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Beyond new building construction, this country is facing a major crisis in the deterioration of its infrastructure, and it's starting to come to the attention of the public. Bridges and older roads will need to be replaced, and failing utility systems will need to be reworked. There'll be more and more attention given to this as systems continue to fail and the overall age of our infrastructure comes more clearly into focus. Then it'll be up to civil engineers to fix it... all of it.
[/quote]
You are absolutely correct about the need for reinvestment in civil infrastructure. The latest "ASCE Infrastructure Report Card" had an overall "grade" of D, down from D+ in 2001. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, there is one major obstacle to such reinvestment. Infrastructure improvements have traditionally been funded by the public sector (i.e., government). And government is, by and large, broke.</p>
<p>Back in 2001, the future did look bright for civil. The 2001 ASCE</a> report card stated:</p>
<p>
[quote]
To remedy America's current and looming problem, ASCE estimates a needed $ 1.3 trillion investment over the next five years and calls for a renewed partnership between citizens, local, state and federal governments, and the private sector...With a projected Federal budget surplus of $5.6 trillion dollars, our leaders in Congress have the funds needed to restore our ailing infrastructure.
[/quote]
Obviously it didn't work out that way. The surplus vanished, but it went to tax cuts, the Iraq war, and prescription drug benefits -- not to domestic civil works projects. Many civil engineers now feel that a historic opportunity was completely wasted. </p>
<p>ASCE now estimates that the investment costs have grown to $ 1.6 trillion, but it's a lot harder to see where the money will come from, now that the Federal government is deeply in debt and state governments are struggling to balance their budgets. Any bets as to when government will be flush with cash again?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Back in 2001, the future did look bright for civil.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree, that a historic opportunity was more or less squandered and things were spent on the wrong causes, from an American citizen's point of view. I don't think this means that work for civil engineers will be any less voluminous than it would have been. The scope's just different. Instead of building new structures, civil engineers' energy will be spent upon designing belts and suspenders to keep our infrastructure limping until the surplus is rebuilt and it becomes painfully obvious to the budgetmakers (and those that elect them... everybody's voting in those primaries, right? Just got back from my local polling place here in Houston...) that something needs to be done about our radically insufficient infrastructure.</p>
<p>There's gonna be plenty for us to do, and the less money we have, the more we're going to spend on engineers' talents to be superbly efficient in our repair operations.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Any bets as to when government will be flush with cash again?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ugh. Absolutely no idea.</p>
<p>i look at the outrageous number of aspiring Biomedical Engineers today, and I laugh. Ever since I was in high school, I've been told that Biomedical Engineering is going to be like the computer boom, but 6-7 years later, and there are still not enough positions around for a BS degree holder. I did Intel in high school and my research advisor, a college professor in ME sold me on BME. I bought into this hype but luckily switched out in time. With the exception of the very top BME programs like Duke, MIT, JHU, most BME majors will be dissapointed come graduation time at the career fairs, to find that only 10% of the companies there are recruiting biomedical engineers, and half of them want advanced degrees, and that most of the companies will be hiring mechanical engineers, computer engineers, electrical, and industrial engineers. There aren't enough jobs around for BME with just a bachelor's.</p>
<p>And doing BME for med school in my experience is also a terrible decision. While taking Organic Chemistry, you will also be taking other hardcore engineering classes, while your liberal arts premed aspiring classmates are going to enjoy some philosophy free elective. Yes, the acceptance % for BME is higher, but for a reason, and hardly worth it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Materials engineers are involved in the development, processing, and testing of the materials used to create a range of products, from computer chips and aircraft wings to golf clubs and snow skis. They work with metals, ceramics, plastics, semiconductors, and composites to create new materials that meet certain mechanical, electrical, and chemical requirements. They also are involved in selecting materials for new applications. Materials engineers have developed the ability to create and then study materials at an atomic level, using advanced processes to replicate the characteristics of materials and their components with computers. Most materials engineers specialize in a particular material. For example, metallurgical engineers specialize in metals such as steel, and ceramic engineers develop ceramic materials and the processes for making them into useful products such as glassware or fiber optic communication lines.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is actually one of the best descriptions of MSE I've ever seen; I might wind up stealing this.</p>
<p>Shame they say materials engineers don't have the best prospects. I don't know anybody that had a difficult time at all obtaining a job in the field upon graduating last year.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Any bets as to when government will be flush with cash again?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>On the bright side, at least some of the presidential candidates are acknowledging the infrastructure crisis. Clinton is proposing to invest $10B over the next 10 years on critical infrastructure repairs. Obama is proposing $60B over the next 10 years. Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Schwarzenegger, and Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania have formed a bi-partisan coalition (Building America's Future) to fight this crisis. Whether or not this will actually produce any results is another matter...</p>
<p>That doesn't mean there'll necessarily be a surge in civil engineering hirings, but it surely won't drop. In terms of sheer numbers, there are more civEs and EE's in this country than any other type of engineers. Biomedical engineering will be likely be the hottest if you consider growth, but it's still a ways away from civE and EE.</p>
<p>I don't trust an association of civil engineers to accurately determine how much of our infrastructure needs repair. There is a large incentive to be pessimistic (and therefore inflate the dollar amount of what needs repairing).</p>
<p>Dude, look at some older bridges next time you drive underneath them. We're hosed. I'm serious.</p>
<p>I'd be skeptical, too, if I weren't a structural engineer with a background in failure analysis, and perhaps the number's pessimistic, but we're seriously hosed.</p>
<p>Meh, 1.3 trillion isn't exactly pocket change.</p>
<p>Agreed. =)</p>
<p>And I agree with you, that that's a huge and really unreasonable number, and to be fair, I think that number is for if we were to repair <em>everything</em>, right now. Realistically, it's known that this isn't possible to do. My grad research was in retrofit prioritization of bridge networks. The knowledge is out there that things are in really bad shape, but the reality is that the money is just not there to do anything about everything that's sucking. My research was in identifying the most critical bridges within the context of a network and to determine which ones were most in danger of failure (in my case, it was due to the potential for seismic damage due to the presence of the New Madrid Seismic Zone), and to figure out what to do about each case. One thing that's stressed to us is that "do nothing" is always an option, and we choose that option when it's necessary to conserve resources for higher-consequence failures. So, for the most part, we <em>can</em> be fairly realistic about what actually needs to be done...</p>
<p>(...but not when we're talkin' with Congress. IIRC, that's who that report was for, and you have to ask for the hippo when you're asking for funding from the feds.)</p>
<p>If you read the Infrastructure report card carefully, it's not $1.6 trillion more that is needed. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Most recently, ASCE estimated that the U.S. needs
to invest $1.6 trillion in federal, state and local
funds over a five-year period to bring the nation’s
infrastructure to a good condition—one that meets
the needs of our current population. It is not all
new money. Much of it is already allocated in existing
budgets. **However, existing funds have been
repeatedly raided to pay for other programs. **We
estimate that approximately one-third of the total
current investment needed will be new funding. It
is also important to remember that the $1.6 trillion
does not account for future population growth.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So it's $500B more than currently allocated.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't trust an association of civil engineers to accurately determine how much of our infrastructure needs repair.
[/quote]
If you don't trust civil engineers to accurately evaluate the condition of dams, bridges, or tunnels ... then who do you trust with the job ?</p>
<p>Actually, you don't have to be a civil engineer to recognize many infrastructure problems. Just find some experienced commuters -- in virtually any major US city -- and ask them whether the long-term improvements in their local roads and highways have kept up with the growth in traffic. Or find some experienced business travelers, and pose the same question about airports.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you don't trust civil engineers to accurately evaluate the condition of dams, bridges, or tunnels ... then who do you trust with the job ?
[/quote]
I don't trust anyone to do it. :)</p>
<p>what do you guys think about aeronautical engineering?
i like the field in general...how do prospects look for someone with phD in aeronautical?
-MS in aeronautical?</p>
<p>also, how do these compare with Mechanical E?</p>
<p>THANK YOU!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Shame they say materials engineers don't have the best prospects. I don't know anybody that had a difficult time at all obtaining a job in the field upon graduating last year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's good to hear. My D1 has been admitted as a first year in MatSE at UIUC and engineering at Purdue (honors programs and merit $ at both), and still waiting to hear from Cal as an OOSer and Northwestern. She's concerned about job prospects. All of the departments she's spoken to indicate that their grads have multiple job offers. I'm hoping your post confirms this.</p>