<p>Before I say any more, I'd like to say that I am a high school senior. I want to be a CE or EE major. I want to do the aforementioned because I LOVE it. I love to disassemble things, put them back together in different ways, solve problems, deduce and create algorithms. Eventually I want to work with robotics (AI) or something similar.</p>
<p>My parents do NOT want me to do those because they feel it does not "pay enough". They already told me that I will receive no support AT ALL for my college finances (which really sucks). They want me to do a pre-med or pre-law route since those are supposedly my strong points and only then will they help me pay. </p>
<p>Thing is, I at least want them to acknowledge that EE or CE is an honorable degree. It really feels like they treat me as the family shame now or something. What do you think I should do? I've already tried and talked this over with them but it seems they don't really care about what I LOVE to do but rather look to me to take up a degree that can pay for their smooth-sailing retirement. It's not to say that I won't support them when they retire (it will go against my moral code and what I've been raised to do) but this paradigm just offends me greatly.</p>
<p>I figured I'd post this here since parents frequent this board and your insight will be of help to me.</p>
<p>If I, by any chance, offend anyone in this post, I apologize.</p>
<p>Engineers do quite well in the employment market. It isn’t a low paying career and is a professional career which is what your parents seem to want. I would work on letting them know how prestigious a career it is.</p>
<p>Engineering is a difficult major, but you can earn a good living in the field, usually with only a bachelor’s degree. </p>
<p>So if you major in engineering, you could actually be saving yourself and your family money because you would be going into the workplace earlier.</p>
<p>Another point: You could pursue your interest in engineering and your parents’ interest in having you prepare for the possibility of a career in law or medicine at the same time.</p>
<p>There is no pre-law “track.” A student can major in ANYTHING and still apply to law school. In fact, there are some specialties within the law where a technical background would be an advantage. (Patent law is the first thing that comes to mind here.) </p>
<p>Preparing for medical school while majoring in engineering is also possible. No specific major is required for admission to medical school, but students do have to take certain courses, mostly in science. Some of these courses (chemistry, physics, math) would overlap with requirements for an engineering major (especially chemical engineering), but others (mostly biology) would have to be taken as electives. Fulfilling the pre-med requirements while completing an engineering major would be a lot of work, but it can be done with careful schedule planning (and maybe a little summer school).</p>
<p>A person with an engineering background who goes into medicine might end up as a practicing physician, just like anybody else, but I think there might also be other career opportunities available – especially in specific areas of research where the two areas of expertise would overlap.</p>
<p>Can you talk to your parents about pursuing your own interests while at the same time keeping your options open for the careers that they think would be a good match for you? You could explain the ways in which you could do both and perhaps also offer to try some extracurricular activities that would help you test your aptitude for law or medicine (such as hospital volunteer work or job-shadowing a lawyer).</p>
<p>You could try to finesse it. Imagine, say, what a great patent attorney you could be with that engineering degree. Or what a great doctor you could be with a biomedical engineering degree?</p>
<p>Just tell them you are majoring in “premed”…you can major in MUSIC to be premed, or art, or just about anything so long as you take the prerequisite courses. Our DD did a double major in engineering and biology…certainly had all the prerequisite courses for medical school.</p>
<p>You can tell them you are doing pre-law (intellectual property law, which is typically done by lawyers with undergraduate in science or engineering), since law schools do not require a specific major (even though a lot of pre-law students do political science).</p>
<p>You can also do pre-med, but that may be harder to squeeze the extra chemistry and biology courses into a fairly well packed engineering major schedule. Medical schools do not require a specific major, even though many pre-meds do biology majors (which have poor job and career prospects if one does not get into medical school).</p>
<p>EECS currently has good job placement and pay levels, but note that most job titles are more CS than EE. Civil Engineering is doing poorly now because the recession now had a lot to do with the crash in real estate and construction.</p>
<p>Marian covered all the bases, above, but I’ll chime in to say I agree with her. CE and EE, as well as Computer Science (since you mention AI and robotics) do require staying current throughout your career to maintain your marketability, but that is true of just about any field now, including most medical specialties. </p>
<p>Even if your ultimate goal is law or medicine, engineering can be a great undergraduate degree. Believe me, a lot of lawyers are deficient in math/stat and have to pay consultants to help them prepare for some of their cases. Law schools are not going to hold your tech background against you.</p>
<p>Another thing for your parents to keep in mind is that graduate programs in EE, CE and CS are funded by research grants; students are not paying tuition or fees, and they are paid a stipend for being RA or TA. Your only cost is the opportunity cost of being a student instead of being in the workforce. Very different from medical or law programs.</p>
<p>My son is about to finish with a cs and math degree. He has had a job lined up since last summer. Starting pay is very high. </p>
<p>I’m sorry you have to go through this with your parents. Help them look up some information to put their minds at ease about the fields that interest you. </p>
<p>And calmom is right. Law school is no guarantee of a great job, and I don’t think the situation will be any better in 7 or 8 years.</p>
<p>Pre-med and pre-law aren’t majors. Do your parents know this? Engineers in general and especially CS/CE/EE have one of the highest starting salaries of almost all majors. It’s an employable field (even now) and it’s a major not everyone can be successful at due to the acumen required, the rigor, etc.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that you should do what ‘you’ want as a career - not the career your parents decide you should have. But in this case I don’t see why you can’t get your CE/EE undergrad that you want and THEN decide whether you want to go on to med or law school - perhaps even after you work a year or two.</p>
<p>Is this a cultural thing - i.e. are your parents immigrants from Asia or India? I’m only saying this because posts like this seem to appear a lot on CC and some of these immigrants need to be educated on the opportunities here in this country as opposed to where they’re from and the way colleges and degrees work here.</p>
<p>I agree with all the previous posters, but nobody has brought up the obligatory but correct [ul][<em>]It’s your life, not theirs, and they should let you live it (whoops, cross-posted with ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad)[</em>]If they’re not going to help pay for your undergrad anyway, then they have NO right to dictate anything about it.[/ul]I majored in CS and my son will do the same (by HIS choice). I am having a satisfying, moderately lucrative career.</p>
<p>ucsd…ucla…dad - I was thinking the same thing about immigrant parents.</p>
<p>GeekMom, the OP said his/her parents would pay ONLY if he/she went pre-med or pre-law.</p>
<p>With the cuts in healthcare and sky-high malpractice premiums on top of student loans from 8 years of college and medical school, a medical degree is not a guarantee of success or prosperity - not any more. And lawyers are being laid off, and new ones are having a hard time finding a job. (I know a Harvard educated lawyer who worked for the same corporation for 20+ years who was laid off last year).</p>
<p>You will probably have much better opportunities much sooner as an Engineer. My son has several friends who are graduating this spring that are engineers - I think almost all of them already have job offers. Some have more than one offer. There’s nothing to say they can’t go back to school again later if they want to, either.</p>
<p>Your parents are not living in the reality of the USA of 2011. It shouldn’t be too hard to find newspapers to back you up. (But if it’s a cultural thing they may never be convinced, and you’ll have to tell them you plan to be a patent attorney until you get your bachelor’s degree, then you can say you need to work a few years before law school to be a more marketable lawyer, then you can just “forget” to go to law school.</p>
<p>Marian covered your possible arguments quite well. A strong technical undergraduate degree is a nice base to go into law or medicine. Law is already over-saturated with people unable to find jobs, but specialty niches like patent law require special skills that companies continue to find hard to fill. Getting a medical degree doesn’t necessarily mean you have to become a doctor – a huge amount of money is spent by hospitals and clinics for cutting edge medical technology: there most certainly is an intersection point where medicine and engineering meet and robotics will certainly play a larger and larger role in health care in the decades to come. </p>
<p>Just get your parents to consider the bigger picture and you should be fine (at least until you get that first degree).</p>
<p>Or better, say that you have to work a few years as an engineer to save up money to attend law school so that your parents won’t have to pay the tuition. Then “forget” to go to law school.</p>
<p>[Law</a> schools do not have any specifically required undergraduate courses or majors.](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Law/LawAcad.stm]Law”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Law/LawAcad.stm) So you can major in engineering or anything else of your choice and be pre-law (or at least have the option open to apply to law school). And if you do not go to law school (or do not get into law school), you are likely to be able to enjoy doing engineering while getting paid reasonably well for it.</p>
<p>I suggest that you provide some info to your parents about what is necessary as an undergrad to prepare for law school or med school. As others have said, pre-law or pre-med aren’t majors themselves. </p>
<p>Law school doesn’t have any undergrad course requirements. However, the patent law field requires a technical degree. Med school, on the other hand, requires a lot of pre-reqs be taken as an undergrad. It is possible to fit those in with an engineering degree, but it isn’t easy. </p>
<p>My advice would be to research the patent law field, and educate yourself and your parents about it. With an engineering degree, you will have the option in the future to decide whether or not you actually want to pursue law school. (You don’t have to tell your parents that.) Students change their minds all the time about what majors/careers they want to pursue, so I think it is good to keep as many options open as possible.</p>
<p>Are you a citizen? You can join the armed forces and then get whatever degree you wish on the GI Bill. You could explore that alternative with your parents.</p>
<p>I agree with others - you can major in engineering and then go to med school. I worked with two degreed software engineers who went to med school after a few years of work. One of them went into a combined MD/PhD program. You could offer that option to the folks, knowing that by the time you’re out of school you’ll have an offer in hand and can just go to work in the field you were meant for. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your input. This has really helped me develop a new argument and research more facts to back me up. I’ve already brought up the point that it is my life here we’re talking about but they dismiss it with a simple wave of the hand.</p>
<p>I’ve already brought it up to my parents that I don’t have to take Bio or PoliSci to go to med or law school but they’re hell bent on me taking that route. They also seem to be overconfident that I will definitely make it to med/law school (which I think I won’t since I don’t like it).</p>
<p>To answer some people’s question here on this thread, my mother is an Asian immigrant and my father is a European immigrant. They both graduated from their respective countries with their needs fully met by their government. They’ve also been here in the U.S. pretty much all my life but never really cared to look more into the U.S.'s university system; they think all university systems of the world are the same. It really irks me but I can’t force them to read up on those things, really.</p>
<p>Start accumulating some printed information and leave it lying all over the place. Sometimes parents read things as they pick them up to clean off the surfaces.</p>
<p>I recommend patient persistence. Of course, I don’t know your parents, or what might work with them.</p>
Given this I wouldn’t stress at all about how ‘they’ want to map out your life without regard for your input. If they’re truly not going to provide any support at all then simply do what you want that you can manage financially. This means you’ll need to look for programs that provide you with good financial aid or are low cost to begin with.</p>
<p>You need to understand that in your parents’ mind they’re doing what they think is best for you despite their ignorance of the USA society, colleges, and opportunities. But while you can be understanding of that, don’t let them coerce you into doing something you don’t want to do - you need to do what ‘you’ want to do and you happened to already select an area that provides one of the best financial opportunites going. In addition to the high starting salaries and ongoing salaries do your parents have any idea of how many thousands of software developers/engineers have become millionaires due to stock options, companies they started, lucrative consulting, patent rights they have, etc.?</p>
<p>bakkara, in post #1 you state that you are a high school senior. Have you already completed the application process? At many schools, prospective students apply directly to the engineering programs. Entering later, if it is an option, can mean graduating late.</p>
<p>Where do you stand at this point, if you don’t mind saying?</p>