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Growing dissatisfaction among career engineers
The Raleigh News & Observer ^ | Thursday, December 26, 2002 | TERRY COSTLOW, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

Posted on 12/26/2002 2:03:20 PM PST by Willie Green

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

CHICAGO (CSM) - Paul Porter is closing the door on his engineering career - even though he's only 29. In recent weeks, his wife and five close colleagues were added to the more than 50,000 employees axed by his employer, Nortel Networks. That was the catalyst that prompted the New York native, already disgruntled with his choice of profession, to look into attending either business or law school.

"I spent seven years in school, and it resulted in a six-year career," says Porter, who feels his master's degree in engineering is little more than "a base."

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

Dissatisfaction with the field is growing rapidly. Layoffs, the influx of foreign workers, and offshore outsourcing of jobs have caused the pocket-protector set to either leave the profession in large numbers or seek new careers after being laid off.

And if that isn't enough to make engineers' neckties curl in Dilbert-style desperation, there's the nature of the work itself. In an era when high-tech gear becomes obsolete almost as fast as dairy products, many in the field feel they must advance at a steady pace or risk being cast aside.

It's a far cry from the era when engineering skills were a ticket to a lifelong salary and, some say, it raises questions about America's ability to remain at the forefront of technology.

"For people who view this as a career, engineering is in worse shape now than it's been in years," says LeEarl Bryant, president of the Institute of Electronic and Electronic Engineers, which represents 235,000 professional members.

The downturn in the profession has taken many by surprise. In the '80s many felt there was an engineering shortage in the United States to compete with Japan's dominance of technology markets. Then, the commercialization of the Internet created a hiring frenzy in which high-tech corporations gave huge bonuses to new hires and the employees who referred them. The IEEE-USA reports that such bonuses pushed the median salary for its members to $93,100 at the peak of the dot-com era.

But all that changed with the dot-com bust and the recession. This year, for example, telecommunications and computer makers have already slashed nearly 400,000 workers - and that's down from last year's 500,000 layoffs - according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Even Dilbert creator Scott Adams, himself a former engineer, has an eye on the trend. "The general balance of power has swung. Engineers had it for a while, now the bosses have it back," says Adams, whose comic-strip boss has hair shaped like a pair of horns on either side of his balding head.

Adding to the frustration of some engineers are the numbers of foreigners competing for jobs. In 2000, near the end of the high-tech boom, industry CEOs convinced Congress to nearly double the number of H-1B visas, allowing up to 195,000 skilled workers from India and elsewhere into the United States. Some engineers contend that those CEOs kept many of those H-1B workers while cutting higher-paid U.S. citizens.

"About 80,000 engineers were unemployed a few months ago. If you take out the H-1Bs who came in, you'd have jobs for all of them," the IEEE-USA's Bryant says. The organization is lobbying Congress to lower the number of H-1B visas issued.

But U.S. companies may continue to rely on foreign workers as the number of people entering the profession shows signs of decline. Demand for engineering courses is down in the United States, according to the National Science Foundation statistics. In 2000, there were just over 59,000 engineering graduates, compared to 63,000 students in 1996.

Not everyone is gloomy about prospects in the profession, however. "Salaries are up, and we're faring better (concerning layoffs) than many other professions," says Win Philips, chairman of the American Association of Engineering Societies.

Many engineers are facing a challenge of a different sort. Graying engineers who have decades of work experience are as rare as a black and white television. Even those under 40 are often considered old: A computer-science professor in California has statistics to show that programmers have careers not much longer than pro-football players.

"The half-life of engineering knowledge, the time it takes for something to become obsolete, is from 7 to 2 1/2 years. Lifelong learning is critical in this profession," says William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering. Still, he says, engineering is "an incredibly exciting and rewarding profession."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
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To: Cvengr
At U. of Pitt, E Phys is by far the hardest !Engineering! program offered, even without the Physics. It consists of the core courses of both EE & MSE, with 5 semesters of math and the rest Physics. Do you think 25 credits of EE + 25 credits of MSE is worse than 50 credits of either?
81 posted on 12/26/2002 8:04:02 PM PST by Krafty123
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To: Thebaddog
That is because we are SMARTER than you !!!
82 posted on 12/26/2002 9:26:09 PM PST by Pikachu_Dad
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To: fogarty
You must have had the same bosses as I have had.

Oh, and you left out 'very dangerous'. They think they know what they are doing, but often do not even understand the basic concepts.

83 posted on 12/26/2002 9:31:24 PM PST by Pikachu_Dad
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To: Willie Green
Good news for me lousy job market in everything but accounting for the last 2 years. I need some old farts to die or retire( or the economy to recover but that ain't gonna happen anytime soon).
84 posted on 12/26/2002 10:56:17 PM PST by weikel
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To: BlueLancer
They screw the whores right through their drawers

Only if your a frat guy at my school( I wanted to join AXP but got blackballed by some a**). I saw an ad for Fox's latest reality TV show which asked the question "What do you call 25 men chasing after one woman" and I immediately said WPI.

85 posted on 12/26/2002 11:02:29 PM PST by weikel
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To: Rome2000
Yeah Ive heard power electronics has a severe labor shortage. I made good friends with the Power Electronics Prof last term.
86 posted on 12/26/2002 11:04:35 PM PST by weikel
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To: jimt
EE has become a discipline with three main areas: electrical power, electronics and programming. Of the three, programming has had a very large share of the students. The huge surge of folks into programming, and their subsequent layoffs, have a lot to do with the "dissatisfaction" discussed in the article.

I am the rarest of animals. I am an EE working as a Software Systems Safety Engineer. Amazing, growing field as more and more systems take humans 'out of the loop'. I lucked into it. I can work as a systems engineer, a system safety engineer, a software system engineer or as a programmer. It is the age of the generalist....

87 posted on 12/26/2002 11:14:48 PM PST by Cogadh na Sith
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To: Willie Green
I remember reading an essay about why engineers don't make as much money as other professionals. The essay said it has to do with how easy it is for non-engineers to evaluate the quality of their work - did the bridge collapse? how long did the car last? Doctors and lawyers are harder to evaluate, plus they have the edge in jargon. FReegards Willie
88 posted on 12/26/2002 11:25:00 PM PST by 185JHP
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To: tortoise
No chimp off the street can "quickly learn" to be a software engineer, as it takes a huge body of obscure knowledge and practical experience that you aren't going to absorb in a matter of weeks or months. It takes years of experience to be usefully competent, and even then you have to have some natural ability

Wow, you hit the nail on the head!

I can finally say that I am honestly a software engineer... It's one thing to put your blinders on, your headphones on, get out your C++ dictionary and write a bunch of craptastic code, but when it doesn't play well with others, call me.

Antique ADA routines in the military with new embedded systems means job security to me...

89 posted on 12/26/2002 11:25:44 PM PST by Cogadh na Sith
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To: VadeRetro
Looks like it's becoming universal.
90 posted on 12/26/2002 11:29:23 PM PST by Aracelis
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To: Prof Engineer
"Hear, Hear! I have PE licenses in two states. Even in today's economy, I am constantly approached by employers looking to hire me."

I sure wish I knew who these employers were!

91 posted on 12/27/2002 12:12:48 AM PST by nightdriver
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To: Thebaddog
And the bosses do need to be in control whatever Dilbert thinks.

I'm guessing you never get the jokes in Dilbert.

92 posted on 12/27/2002 12:18:32 AM PST by garbanzo
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To: Prof Engineer
"I have PE licenses in two states."

How do you handle clients that only hire you to put your stamp on their work and then want to shove you out the door?

93 posted on 12/27/2002 12:22:22 AM PST by nightdriver
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To: Pikachu_Dad
They think they know what they are doing, but often do not even understand the basic concepts.

A lot like my soon-to-be ex-boss.

94 posted on 12/27/2002 12:34:13 AM PST by garbanzo
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To: jimt
They're being educated in what's trendy, and that can change overnight. The disservice being done to these folks makes my blood boil.

That's the key. Even in my field, straight chemistry, there's far too much focus on the latest flash in the pan, than on getting the kids well-trained in the fundamentals. Heck, I worked with a freshly minted ChemE who couldn't calculate a dilution to save her life...

95 posted on 12/27/2002 1:16:01 AM PST by Chemist_Geek
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To: shotgun
The have a mentality that because they are in the Consulting Engineering business, that they know more then their own people.

It's not just civil engineering, guy, where that occurs. (wry laugh) It's sad when the staff develops an idea, gets shot down over and over by management (even after we snuck the experiments in on weekends), only to hear our idea issued from management as the "Latest & Greatest" after the consultants visit...

96 posted on 12/27/2002 1:22:20 AM PST by Chemist_Geek
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To: AriOxman
I don't disagree that the substantive progtam is more rigorous. I've found that administratively, resumes and correspondence to apply for jobs get screened/sorted initially by administrative personnel who don't have a clue as to what engineering even is of itself. They're challenged enough to discern between Civil, Electrical and mechanical Engineering and if posed with a title like a Microsoft Network Engineer or a municipal garbage collector as a waste engineer, would probably not discern any cognitive difference between the titles.

Same with regards to the sciences and math. I agree the engineering discipline may be more rigorous, but what happens is that too many junior colleges offer the same title of degree, and since it might mot be ABET recognized in title, lacks a standard curriculum throughour the community. Worse, even if recognized, enough demand may have existed that many second rate students from les rigorous programs have dfamed the reputation of the degree title.

Many Material Scientists are only associated with metallurgy or testing procedures of materials, even amongst professors in academic environments.

The point I want to communicate, is KISS, Keep It Simple S*****, the Civil, Mech and Elec degrees in Engineering are well recognized over several generations and the business community is able to handle a substitution of those skillsets between one another. Too frequently a fringe degree, although perhaps an order of agnitude more rigorous, is discounted or disregarded entirely 90% of the time as being an insufficient match. This tends to happen because of social educational levels of the layman rather than those who have the skills.

Likewise, the same institutions needing those skills frequently have allowed non-science/engineering background managers to rise within their ranks. They also lack the ability to ask the right questions to discern skillsets between the engineering disciplines to identify the good catches. Frequently they will wordsmith job descriptions to 'better manage' personnel and where previous job descriptions might have preferred say a Materials Sciencce Engr major or a Engineering Physicist or Physical Engineering student, the wordsmithing has reduced the title to General Engineering because that is the title available in their metric of recognized degrees say from a SAT or GRE table of possible degree titles.

Then to make things worse, a lessor capable candidate who had a higher GPA because of less rigorous curriculum, outscores the more rigorously studied graduate, especially between lessor schools and most competitive institutions.

Unless you already are known by your future employer or are the very top of your class, I found the more successful candidates come from state supported schools with good curriculums majoring in the major engineering degree curriculums. Frequently they only master perhaps one of 4 sophmoric disciplines the ABET curriculum has introduced to them, but it's sufficient for them to be marketable. Those who have the more rigorous skills, frequently aren't even made aware of the problems which demand their skills to solve.

This is part of my frustration with the electronics industry which has evolved, unfortunately from more greedy middle managers who have curtailed the enginering professions into a lessor category which they associate with mere 'technical skills'. Most of them are clueless to rigorous professinal engineering standards.

97 posted on 12/27/2002 3:34:59 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: weikel
The shortage in the power industry is more focused on high voltage distribution and transmission work.

Especially with deregulation and socialization of the industry marketing, the past powers that were to maintain the reliability of the grid, no longer hold the authority. Today you get bozos like Grey Davis implementing new political beasts without a clue to the damage they are causing the entire industry.

There are lots of transformers installed in networks of past robust grids which aren't even mapped or even maintained by linemen who even know how to read a meter. The characteristics of the power networks are much more close to failing in many states than even a decade ago.

Before it gets better controlled, failures will place even more pressure on professionals and when there is already a shortfall of seasoned personnel and a increased workload, the tendancy will be for 'nonengineering management' to solicit advice from tradesmen rather than professionals, resulting in short term fixes, but possibly creating worse system reliability by orders of magnitude.

Just emphasize to the future generations for historicity sake, 30 years ago there was a time where public utilities were well engineered and controlled to produce the cheapest service for mass distribution by a seasoned cadre of professionals. That is not the framework of today's and I fear tomorrow's utility industry.

98 posted on 12/27/2002 3:49:13 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: AriOxman
In regards to splitting betwee Mech/Elec or focusing on one.

I found the math needs to be kept current through 4 yrs of study. Once one masters partial DiffEQ and graph theory, or say, Morse & Feshbeck, Methods of Theoretical Physics, through quaternions and tensors or 2nd rank, and masters the associatd equations and mathematical form, it's obvious that most undergraduate and master's level problem solving techniques in Electrical and mechanical disciplines are understood (solvable/approachable). So keep the analytic math going. Next, stretch out to some other mathematical domains such as optimization, graph theory, set/group theory, etc. These help tremendously in understanding compsci techniques and computer assisted problem solving. (digital domains),

WRT the engineering disciplines, most problem solving in the real world os focused on sophmoric level courses. An intuitive understanding of those sophmoric skills might entail learning the subject three times, which more advanced coursework in one of the disciplines tends to produce, but I have found the mastery of sophomore level courses by memory along with memorization of units of measure, and a handful of formulae does much more to assist in the identification problem, to frame problems in the field so that they might receive professional treatment,...is far more fruitful than some more advanced coursework.

99 posted on 12/27/2002 4:04:30 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: nightdriver
The way to handle that type of client is simple. Provide them with a design so generic that it is costly yet defends your professional design ethic. Don't give them the cheaper solution, that is, that type of client, because when it is afforded they won't appreciate it anyways. Conversely, when they are faced with the more costly solution, it properly regulates the marketplace to remove economic authority from those lacking in wherewithal to respect professional consideration.

There do exist good managers other than engineers (albeit rare). Those good men will respect fellow professional product. There are also those who simply seek an authoritative approval as a bureaucratic hurdle to overcome. Until they focus on the service they actually render, or industry weeds those out who fail to compete in industry's standards, this issue won't get solved.
100 posted on 12/27/2002 4:18:00 AM PST by Cvengr
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