Posted on 12/20/2005 2:01:37 PM PST by Sonny M
And if one stands and one falls, is it half-right?
sheesh, engineers
Neither does engineering. You have to hire a contractor. He has to hire illegal aliens.
Thanks for the ping!
Where to start.
First off; of ALL the engineering degrees; you are taking the HIGHEST paying Engineering discipline as your base point. This is a false data point. Consider Mechanical, Electrical, Software, Manufacturing, Agricultural and Civil; the truth is closer to $51K. This yields a difference of about $12K between the Business and the typical engineer.
How secure is a job with a Business degree? These tend to be managment types, bank jobs, or dealing in the HIGHLY STABLE economics sector. How many banks have layoffs? How many Wall Street brokers have whole sale layoffs? Care to compare the difficulty in classes between Business or Economics with Engineering? Engineers work for BIG companies, and unfortunately this is where the big layoffs hit the hardest. Boeing, Ford, GM, Hewlett Packard to name a few. Can you name a similar scale of layoff-prone industry for the Business orientated graduate?
Your assertion with regard to the Chem Engineering going to the top is a false one. How many senior managers and executives of the Chemical company of your choice are Chemical Engineers? I'll wager that a bulk of them are Business degrees, or Chem Engineers with an MBA. Michael Dell does not have a degree, and his second in command has a degree in business; NOT ENGINEERING. Engineers as a whole do not tend to migrate into the managerial ranks at the rate one would expect. In fact, more often than not the Enginering Manager of a company is not an Engineer himself.
I do agree that getting an Engineering degree as a platform from which to diverge into Law, Business or any other field is a wise decision. This backs up my assertion that staying in a technical field (ie. engineering) is simply not a smart thing to do.
However, rest assured that I do manage more than one Rice graduate and an MIT grad. If they stay focused on Engineering (without regard to their pedigree) they will likely stay in a cubicle (aka tomb of the unknown bureacrat); however if they augment their degree with something else, and move OUT OF ENGINEERING, the sky is the limit.
Some people are Engineers because they love technology. These are not necessarily dorks or nerds; just people who love what they do. Unfortunately, there is a salary cap for this talent. H1-B Visa's create an artifical limit on the pay these individuals can get; by modifying the law of Supply and Demand. A brilliant designer rarely makes a good manager; conversely a medicure engineer may make an excellant manager; odd though it may seem.
Congratulations are in order.
A Chemical Engineering degree should be high paying, and hopefully a stable field to go into. I'm an Electrical Engineer, and MY area has been very unstable since the late 80's. I hope your daughter never experiences a layoff; and as a lot of Chemical Engineers tend to work in the energy areas (ref Petrolium Engineering), I hope she has a high paying, stable job until she retires.
After she has worked for a year or two; ask her how many members of management are ex-engineers; and how many of senior management are engineers. I think the answer will surpise you.
you do not get high pay, and the requirements placed on you to graduate with the engineering degree are higher than in almost any other area of study. Why bother?
I disagree on the low salary. Most of the guys I work with make six figures. If you really want to make $200,000+ as an ordinary non-management engineer you can always work in Dubai, Saudi, Iraq, Alberta, Australia, etc.
One of the reasons I became an engineer was because my skills are transferable to almost any industry in any place in the world. Can't say that for any other profession.
Hmmmmm, I'll have to ask my wife about this part. I'll pass on Iraq, probably Saudi; however Dubai and Australia have a definite appeal.
True, the skill sets are transferrable; but let's put things in perspective. How many engineers do you know that were laid off, have decades worth of technical experience; and left the tech industry to do something totally different? I know engineers who became commercial truckers, pilots, a medical doctor, opened a photography studio, a couple bought a Starbucks franchise, a Subway franchise, one opened a store that sells lamps.
Part of the reason we have these people leaving the technical field is the artifical competition created by the H1-B Visa. A great number of engineers become disgusted with the stress and pace of the technology sector, and leave. This exodus of technical talent is TEMPORARILY met by H1-B Engineers; however these people are NOT AMERICANS and will leave the country as soon as the money is better elsewhere. Not leave a company, city or state .... the USA.
If you had it all to do over again, would you still be an engineer? I think I would have chosen something different.
Chemical Engineering - $54,256
Business Administration - $39,448
Thats about right. Electrical Engineers are at around $50,000US on average for first year earning on a standard 50 hour work week.
I do not plan on being an engineer for another 30 years. No one stays in the same field their whole lives anymore. But what engineering does is open doors for you. Loan Officers love engineers. Franchise owners love engineers. Most mortgage companies will give you better rates and/or higher limits if you are an engineer because statistically they are great credit risks.
I do not know what area you live in but engineering is a very geocentric field. You have to be where the action is. Chem Engineers do well in Houston.
BTW, the negative stereotype for engineers is mostly an American/British thing. Even in Canada engineers is much more respected than in the US. Relative salaries in Canada for engineers vs. business majors is much higher for engineers. Management opportunities for engineers is better in Canada than for business people. Problem there of course is that overall salaries are very low compared to the US hence the migration to the US.
The "problem" isn't that the US underpays its engineers, it that lawyers, doctors, and brokers make so much more money in the US than anywhere else in the world.
Its a wrong assumption to think that someone with a 3 year diploma is inferior to someone with a 4 year degree. The economy in that part of the world is different. People with 3 year degrees do the same job as people with 4 year degrees.
The article also fails to mention that many of the engineering schools have high foreign student enrollment and so those folks get counted as part of the degrees awarded in the US but they will more likely go back to China or wherever they came from. So those are not really American degrees.
The USA students are every bit as good and sometimes better than these Indians, but the Indians are the majority.
Fortunately, most of these Indian students want to stay here. So we are "brain draining" India.
I wish I could do the math and be an engineer. I also wish for hair on my bald head and a green sky. :)
"If one is a dork who is content to sit in a cubicle with your pocket protector and star trek memorabilia, than yes, you are only going to go so far, but if one has the social graces and verbal ability (she had a verbal SAT of 740 and has nothing but A's in English classes) of a typical Rice graduate, one is not going to be confined to a cubicle for very long."
That's what you think.
The reality is, promotions, etc. in any corporation is based on your ability to gain peer support, your boss support, etc. It's far more political than you think.
An engineer can rely on his/her ability to move up in the technical track, mainly, or he/she will switch to a different company. A manager/MBA, however, relies far more on networking than anything else to get him/her move up on the field.
BOTH can get stuck at a job they don't want, but only if they allow it to happen.
"It seems that many/most American graduate students need tuition assistance, teaching assistantships, and/or government loans."
Largely due to the fact that so much money is taxed and given to the useless and unambitious. I'll admit I've said it a million times, but it is true.
"I don't have the data to make an informed judgment about our relative numbers, but if we are falling behind, I tend to believe that it is primarily because of the policies of our own government (state and federal)."
I agree. Our culture also degrades people who seek to better themselves through education and due to societal dysfunction many, many kids are unable to concentrate on academics.
"Let there be no mistake, we are in economic competition with China, India, and the EU. And many of our state-sponsored universities are educating the competition."
I agree with you there. And we're wasting most of our learning on uselesss things that will NOT help. Studying lesbianism, black culture, etc. will not teach us the practical things we as a nation need. Furthermore, the corporations are single handedly sending our manufacturing jobs, therefore creating our economic competition.
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