Growing dissatisfaction among career engineers

The Raleigh News & Observer ^ | Thursday, December 26, 2002 | TERRY COSTLOW, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

[El Sordo]

I know a structural engineer that was invovled in investigation. It's not too commonly known, but there is decent evidence that when the contrator made changes to the design he phoned the structural firm (contractor swore this in court, the firm denied it in court). The engineer that the contrator allegedly spoke with was a new kid. The kid signed off (again allegedly)on the change.

There were other failures, of course. The contractor was wrong to make such a change, the inspectors were wrong to not catch it. But the unfortunate young engineer played his part.

[RnMomof7]

Bump

[RnMomof7]

My EE son (out of school 3 years) expects to have to leave the field at some point..He had started his grad degre in engineering (completed one year) . He has now decided to possibly do a combination MBA and Law degree..

It is sad as he loves what he does

When the US no longer has engineers ..kiss what is left of our competitive edge goodby

[Incorrigible]

If he goes for the law degree he has a good career ahead. A very good friend of mine was EE/Physics undergrad and has a law degree from a school in New Hampshire. It doesn't have any courtroom drama but it's good work.

[Incorrigible]

Perhaps I should add he's a Patent attorney.

[KC_for_Freedom]

I am an EE working as a Software Systems Safety Engineer

Hey, I am an EE with a CSP. Many times my systems engineering moved me in the direction of Systems Safety too. About half the time we were worried about software initiating some high energy device. Many times I interfaced with the fine engineers at Sandia. You are in a great area. I am retired now, but there was no end of available work.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Many times my systems engineering moved me in the direction of Systems Safety too. About half the time we were worried about software initiating some high energy device.

Right on... Sotware System Safety is a helluva niche and it is really getting important now, as I said, as humans are being taken out of the loop.

I like the work.

[general_re]

A usable rule of thumb is that hand-tuned assembler will run twice as fast as code generated by a good C-compiler.

You need a better compiler. I highly doubt you can come up with enough examples of arbitrary code that will run "twice as fast" in assembler than they will in C to make anything resembling a rule of thumb....

[Krafty123]

Thank you for the honest appraisal. I am intending on getting a Masters in a "straight" engineering discipline (probably EE) so that I won't have the name problem :-)

[Krafty123]

Thanks for putting my mind at ease - I will get all the basic courses, but none of the more advanced electives. Math-wise, I am taking Calc 1/2/3, Matrix Theory/Analysis, and Complex Variables.

[edger]

The contractor made the change because the detail as drawn was impossible to build. The change was included on the shop drowings the contractor submitted to the architect and the structural engineer. Likely a junior engineer in the structural engineer's office was assigned the task of checking the shop drawings, but as a matter of record, the shop drawings with the detail change were approved.

Later some smartalec went through the Freedom of Information act and got the inspection pay records from Kansas City Building Department. During the construction of this $50 million building, the inspectors billed just eight and one half (8.5) minutes per week in inspections.

Don't blame the kid. It was a lousy design. If you want details, have got those too.

[edger]

The double channel box beam was the original design. The engineer's drawings called for a full penetration butt weld between the toes of the channels--an impossible weld to make. The rod support for this "box beam" was also an impossible detail to fabricate which is why the contractor suggested the detail change on the shop drawings he submitted to the architect and structural engineer for approval. And the shop drawings were approved.

Inspections by the Kansas City Building Department were also completely worthless---but then, those inspections usually are.

[pttttt]

It's a pattern that's recurring with surprising, and disturbing, frequency in a profession long known for job security.

The above is part of the big lie on engineering in the US. For the effort it takes to get an engineering credential, engineering is not a high-leverage career track in the United States; it's never been a ticket to heaven and generally not to major worldly success either (Lee Iacocca, a decent junior mechanical engineer who designed a working automatic transmission for his MS thesis, saw the light after 6 months at Ford and transferred to sales). A common phenomenon even during the well-paid Cold War days was the "tramp engineer" who never stayed (usually couldn't stay) in one place long enough to get vested in a pension plan and then couldn't retire. One thing you don't get in engineering is a dignified old age.

Anyone who tells a kid the old wheezes about employability, high salaries, etc. is misleading the kid. The only reason to pursue engineering of any kind is because you love it and can't imagine doing anything else. And even then you should be aware of its pitfalls. Most engineers who succeed in a worldly way do not do it as engineers - they do it on career switches such as business, finance, medicine, or patent law.

Major in chemistry. It offers more options (including chemical engineering graduate school, if you insist).

[El Sordo]

Points taken, I really cannot disagree.

Let's chalk my staement up to a flip comment.

[Krafty123]

What about Physics w/Engineering?