“I think you son might become burned out if he studies both classics and engineering.”
Maybe. I kind of doubt it.
“2. If he graduates with an engineering degree from Harvard, he will not have a career as an engineer. Most of my friends, and my brothers, and me, each with a degree from an engineering school at a top ranked university, do not work as engineers.”
Is it that 1) you wound up with bigger and better (more exciting, or whatever) opportunities, 2) you decided you didn't want to work as engineers or 3) you couldn't find work as engineers?
sitetest
“Is it that 1) you wound up with bigger and better (more exciting, or whatever) opportunities, 2) you decided you didn’t want to work as engineers or 3) you couldn’t find work as engineers?”
Just to clarify: I am a big fan of the engineering degree, and I think your son will do fine with any of the options available to him. I would estimate that less than 30 percent of the engineering graduates from my generation (at the category of schools I attended) work in an engineering field. Most in this category have a masters or a doctorate in engineering. The specific reasons for leaving the field vary from person to person, but I can honestly say that category 3 was not the reason. Engineering jobs opportunities do fluctuate, but if one is willing to be flexible with specific area or location, there are many jobs available, especially after getting a PE license.
Again, why did people leave engineering? There are dozens of different reasons, but in almost all such cases the next step was a graduate school.
I think my point is that if your son is one who can handle both an engineering degree and a classics degree (taking graduate classes, on top of that) at a place like Johns Hopkins, whatever the job prospects are for an undergraduate engineering major may be entirely irrelevant to him. Even if he stays in engineering, I would think the odds are better that he ends up as a professor at a top engineering school.