One thing I never understood about OT: That everyone thinks engineering degrees are > *. WARNING: LONG POST W/ RANTING

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: TecHNooB
If you're trying to tell me I should have paid for less challenging courses, fuck that! I'm just paying for classes worth my while; I'll decide what I really want to do later..

This thread is depressing.. half the posters are engineers, the other half are people who pat themselves on the back everyday for outsmarting engineers.. goddamnit.

Funny... I thought that most people here were IT folks like myself.

Now, if you want to talk about lousy career choices.... ask an IT guy!

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Farang

Originally posted by: Safeway
Engineering degrees are > *. There are only two PROFESSIONAL undergraduate programs -- Engineering and Nursing. Engineering graduates are qualified to do anything any other major is qualified to do, AND their own profession. Business, law, medicine, communications, marketing, engineering ...

So yes, Engineering > ALL.

Engineering grads are glorified mechanics. Highly intelligent in a technical field, but often they'll be dumb as shit in anything outside their field.

not universal, of course.

I disagree. At least at my engineering school, you had to be highly competent in soft skills in addition to the technical ones. Writing reports, giving speeches, and even advertising and marketing were part of the curriculum. Engineers work hard, but in their technical fields I'd say their bested by a good science program. Scientists are truly the ones who are not well-rounded.

I got nearly 3/4ths of the way through an EE program, all of a physics program, and all of a computer science program, with a few minors along the way. The breadth and usefulness of what I learned in EE was more so than what I learned in the other two majors, but the technical skills not nearly as in depth.
It's primarily my CS degree that sells me to employers, but my experience as an EE gives an air of professionalism. Physics is just sort of a "wow, that must have been hard work, but we don't need those skill sets."

Still, while I do appreciate what I learned as an EE, had I stayed in the major, I would have been the valedictorian of a relatively unknown EE program at a small school. Right now, I've got a better job lined up than any engineer graduates from my school (that I know of, but I know all the top ones). Being the top EE candidate may have been enough to make me stand-out, but it was really my recommendations and hobbies (hacking hardware and CUDA programming) that sold me.


Anyhow, at least at my school, engineering was the most rounded of all majors, but also required a consistently higher credit load per semester than any other. Realistically, it should have been a 5 year degree at my school instead of a 4.

Highly intelligent people cannot be dumb as shit in outside fields. Engineers are good in law, finance, business, and fuck, even liberal arts and true arts. At least, the engineers I socialized with.

True. Being an engineering major is also like being half a business major.

Funny... I thought that most people here were IT folks like myself.

Now, if you want to talk about lousy career choices.... ask an IT guy!

Many EEs go onto IT. Heck, the job I'm going into isn't far off from it.

 

[soulcougher73]

Originally posted by: OILFIELDTRASH
Sounds pretty good to me. 100k a year. You did good for yourself be proud of it. You can't worry what others do and how much they make cause somebody always has it better. I bet everyone here works for a company that one of the big wigs has a friend or relative they hired for a 6 figure job and all they do is pick their nose all day for that 6 figure income.

My $50k/year job in Kansas City is better than a $100k/year job in CA. I gew up in CA. Its away to expensive to even think of living there.

 

[gwai lo]

Originally posted by: beer
dude, clearly you didn't read what I said because I clearly said this:

Well I only said what I said based on bits and pieces that I had read, I'll pick out the sentences that gave me the previous impression. I honestly didn't read the paragraph you quoted because part of me thought I had a pretty good idea of where you were going with it.

Originally posted by: beer

<snip>

Still with me? Good. So, why do I think this mentality is horse-shit, you ask? In a sentence, it simply doesn't give you the necessary training to get in with any of the A-level companies in silicon valley today, which is, or at least should be, the desire of most people here if they want to achieve prestige and wealth while at the same time doing fulfilling and potentially socially valuable work.

<snip>

Note that I'm really talking a strict "EE" degree here; that is to say, if the degree has a computer focus, the computer focus is on low-level work, either digital systems design (verilog, vhdl), compilers, and computer architecture or optimization. Certain schools have the concept of an EECS degree, which I'm not necessarily directly referring to, because I think the material being put forth in CS programs is significantly more relevant and, judging from the career paths of my friends that have pure CS backgrounds versus though that have EE backgrounds, much more financially rewarding and enjoyable. Abstractly, EE teaches you hard work, and it does teach you complicated things that few others know about - but the reality of the situation is, they don't particularly care to know about what you know about because it's wildly useless and not worth the time spent at it.

<snip>

The reason why I don't think EE is a particularly good choice of a degree is that its curriculum teaches you things that have already been solved and are now in a mode where they are being solved in lower cost or more cost-efficient manners, which, effectively, makes your particular skillset a commoditized item, which makes more senior engineers, marketing people, and managers with engineering degrees just slightly older than you, that remember the dot-com days, more money. Yes, you *could* do a strictly research track. But I work with Stanford Ph.Ds that work weeks at a time at 12-13 hours a day to make $150K, maybe $175K, that have few hopes of escaping the reality of the situation which is that for the number of problems that have yet to be solved are far outnumbered globally by the number of Ph.Ds and other "really smart people" that are trying to solve them. That's not a lot of money in the top echelon of this country and these people are many orders of magnitude more textbook-smart than other people that are making more doing less, or at least less complicated, work.

...

aannddd...that's pretty much where I stopped skimming. So I suppose you can't see what I read because you wrote the whole thing, but from the first few paragraphs, that's the impression I got. *shrug*

FWIW i'm not an EE.

edit: Guess I should be more specific, I stopped reading because I didn't figure you'd change your stance so suddenly.

 

[AstroManLuca]

My brother is majoring in CE (computer engineering). Hopefully that works out for him.

 

[evident]

I think the computer engineering degree solves your complaint about EE. while you learn the important low level concepts which an EE does, you also get the comp sci aspects that an EE degree is missing. i rounded it off w/ a minor in CS to get additional CS theory, and now i am mastering in software engineering. my CS skills were what sold me to interviewers, but the fact that i had an engineering degree in my opinion gave me the edge over other candidates.

 

[RESmonkey]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Veramocor
I think his argument in summary is that the United States in particular values 9salary wise) professions that may be easier than engineering and don't really produce anything like Finance or business.

What an ignorant thing to say. It's entrepreneurs and financiers that allow ideas to go from paper/concept to shelf. They are the true talent and are very rare. You engineers are a dime a dozen.

What an ignorant thing to say. An entrepreneur may as well be an engineer with aspirations of big money. True talent? Every field has talented people, not just the big salary drawers. I have a few finance friends and they tell me about how some of the best in their mid-level classes are engineers. They tell me engineers get picked in their Entrepreneurship/Tech. programs over business/finance majors.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: RESmonkey

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Veramocor
I think his argument in summary is that the United States in particular values 9salary wise) professions that may be easier than engineering and don't really produce anything like Finance or business.

What an ignorant thing to say. It's entrepreneurs and financiers that allow ideas to go from paper/concept to shelf. They are the true talent and are very rare. You engineers are a dime a dozen.

What an ignorant thing to say. An entrepreneur may as well be an engineer with aspirations of big money. True talent? Every field has talented people, not just the big salary drawers. I have a few finance friends and they tell me about how some of the best in their mid-level classes are engineers. They tell me engineers get picked in their Entrepreneurship/Tech. programs over business/finance majors.

Entrepreneur and engineer are not mutually exclusive. But I wouldn't expect a monkey to realize that.

 

[Kev]

Interesting post. I guess I should feel lucky that I switched from EE to CS before even starting as a frosh.

 

[RESmonkey]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: RESmonkey

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Veramocor
I think his argument in summary is that the United States in particular values 9salary wise) professions that may be easier than engineering and don't really produce anything like Finance or business.

What an ignorant thing to say. It's entrepreneurs and financiers that allow ideas to go from paper/concept to shelf. They are the true talent and are very rare. You engineers are a dime a dozen.

What an ignorant thing to say. An entrepreneur may as well be an engineer with aspirations of big money. True talent? Every field has talented people, not just the big salary drawers. I have a few finance friends and they tell me about how some of the best in their mid-level classes are engineers. They tell me engineers get picked in their Entrepreneurship/Tech. programs over business/finance majors.

Entrepreneur and engineer are not mutually exclusive. But I wouldn't expect a monkey to realize that.

That is exactly what I just said. Learn to read.

 

[bonkers325]

cliffs:
i got into this profession for the wrong reasons



unless you're in a cutting-edge field of technology, you will ALWAYS be re-inventing the wheel. thats what engineering is all about. it's not about making amazing technological leaps, its about using technology in an efficient manner.

you spent "a lot of time and effort" to get your EE degree. in other words, you did your 4 years of schooling. just like those other people you did better than. if you really spent "a lot of time and effort" then you would've been prepared for an "A" level company. guess what, a degree is just a foundation of knowledge for you to build upon. i dont know who told you these fairy tails about the engineering world, but nobody knows anything worth a damn about their professions coming out of college. you learn as you go.

an EE degree shouldn't teach you how to problem solve, or teach you about work ethic. you should have an innate ability to problem solve and damn good work ethic before you start any engineering program. if you have to have professors teach you how to solve real-life problems and how to conduct yourself in a work environment, then you arent fit to be an upper-level worker.

you seem to have unrealistic expectations of your work and your work environments. you make opportunities for yourself, nobody else will do it for you. just being hired and having tenure isn't enough to climb up the chain of command. you go up the corporate ladder by showing your prowess as an engineer AND as a manager. otherwise you're just another run-of-the-mill low-tier engineer that they hired out of college that can only do the task assigned to them, and nothing more.

 

[shopbruin]

Originally posted by: Safeway

Originally posted by: acheron
My wife and I both went to an engineering school for undergrad, and she recently finished law school. She said the same thing about other law school students who weren't engineers.

You may be being a bit optimistic about "5 to 10 times the average engineering salary", by the way, unless the engineers where you are get paid shit.

Depends, starting salary at most firms is 2 to 3 times the average engineering salary, and it scales very quickly. Within 20 years, you should be at or above $500,000/year. A guy I know in the field bring home (post-tax) $780,000. He isn't even a named primary partner. Once you become a stakeholder in a firm, a named partner, you hit the big bucks.

Not anymore.

Some lower ranked firms are actually doing pay cuts, and many are looking at or are seriously considering pay freezes, along with an end to lockstep compensation.

Not everyone is going to make partner. Many feel lucky nowadays to get through year one.

 

[Special K]

Originally posted by: bonkers325
cliffs:
i got into this profession for the wrong reasons



unless you're in a cutting-edge field of technology, you will ALWAYS be re-inventing the wheel. thats what engineering is all about. it's not about making amazing technological leaps, its about using technology in an efficient manner.

you spent "a lot of time and effort" to get your EE degree. in other words, you did your 4 years of schooling. just like those other people you did better than. if you really spent "a lot of time and effort" then you would've been prepared for an "A" level company. guess what, a degree is just a foundation of knowledge for you to build upon. i dont know who told you these fairy tails about the engineering world, but nobody knows anything worth a damn about their professions coming out of college. you learn as you go.

an EE degree shouldn't teach you how to problem solve, or teach you about work ethic. you should have an innate ability to problem solve and damn good work ethic before you start any engineering program. if you have to have professors teach you how to solve real-life problems and how to conduct yourself in a work environment, then you arent fit to be an upper-level worker.

you seem to have unrealistic expectations of your work and your work environments. you make opportunities for yourself, nobody else will do it for you. just being hired and having tenure isn't enough to climb up the chain of command. you go up the corporate ladder by showing your prowess as an engineer AND as a manager. otherwise you're just another run-of-the-mill low-tier engineer that they hired out of college that can only do the task assigned to them, and nothing more.

It sounds like the OP is saying a degree in CS would be much more valuable than an EE degree because then you could work for cutting-edge companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. or a finance company, consulting, etc. whereas the EE degree will only allow you to work in industries that aren't particularly innovative or growing. That was how I interpreted it at least.

 

[Regs]

I've known some very intelligent people who went to top notch engineering schools and had nervous break downs. Income class and compensation is one thing, but engineering is some challenging stuff. Not only is the field challenging, but it naturally inspires problem solvers and leaders instead of followers.

You also have to remember they're different fields of study in engineering. Aeronautical, chemical, civil, mechanical, electrical, industrial, forensic, environmental....

Most owners of large businesses in the industry started out as a engineer. How can you sell a product you know nothing about?

 

[Babbles]

Originally posted by: Fox5
. . .Writing reports, giving speeches, and even advertising and marketing were part of the curriculum. Engineers work hard, but in their technical fields I'd say their bested by a good science program. Scientists are truly the ones who are not well-rounded.

As a scientist I would like to take a moment to say blow me.

The gross over-generalization that is going on in this thread is getting beyond silly. Sure some scientists, perhaps more so in academia, do get crazy specialized but that is not something found only in science.

As an analytical chemist I had to do a shit-ton of various things. I've had to route copper tubing to plumb compressed oxygen, helium, hydrogen, and air lines. I have had to work with ferrules and Swageloks more times than I can remember - I cut tubing and rig up needle valves in my sleep. I have broken down some crazy ass electronics and troubleshoot things with a multimeter and re-solder as needed. Then I have had to write technical reports - I have had stuff submitted to the EPA and FDA; write up project quotes, deal with clients in person, via email, and on the phone. Somewhere in there I also extracted analytes, analyzed them, and worked up the math. Granted the exact technique I specialed in (GC and GC/MS) is a bit "specialized" in the field of analytical chemistry, but in terms of the scientific industry as a whole, we typically have to wear many hats.

From my ten years in the industry and working at a few companies in different parts of the country I would say that my experiences are not necessarily isolated or just merely anecdotal, but are rather par for the course for scientists in the industry (as opposed to academics, I can't speak on what their daily life is - I'm sure it can not be that different, though).

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Babbles

Originally posted by: Fox5
. . .Writing reports, giving speeches, and even advertising and marketing were part of the curriculum. Engineers work hard, but in their technical fields I'd say their bested by a good science program. Scientists are truly the ones who are not well-rounded.

As a scientist I would like to take a moment to say blow me.

The gross over-generalization that is going on in this thread is getting beyond silly. Sure some scientists, perhaps more so in academia, do get crazy specialized but that is not something found only in science.

As an analytical chemist I had to do a shit-ton of various things. I've had to route copper tubing to plumb compressed oxygen, helium, hydrogen, and air lines. I have had to work with ferrules and Swageloks more times than I can remember - I cut tubing and rig up needle valves in my sleep. I have broken down some crazy ass electronics and troubleshoot things with a multimeter and re-solder as needed. Then I have had to write technical reports - I have had stuff submitted to the EPA and FDA; write up project quotes, deal with clients in person, via email, and on the phone. Somewhere in there I also extracted analytes, analyzed them, and worked up the math. Granted the exact technique I specialed in (GC and GC/MS) is a bit "specialized" in the field of analytical chemistry, but in terms of the scientific industry as a whole, we typically have to wear many hats.

From my ten years in the industry and working at a few companies in different parts of the country I would say that my experiences are not necessarily isolated or just merely anecdotal, but are rather par for the course for scientists in the industry (as opposed to academics, I can't speak on what their daily life is - I'm sure it can not be that different, though).

My apologies, I was referring to the undergraduate education.
I did both science and engineering majors as an undergrad. The science majors focused almost solely on the core disciplines, whereas nearly every engineering course was an exercise in management, documentation, and presentation as much as it was (or perhaps more so) focused on the technical side. An engineering degree seemed to be better preparation for going out into the working world, whereas a science degree seemed to be preparation for grad school.

 

[swtsuziq]

I look up to engineers.

I am a teacher and I have heard from friends how neat it is to be an engineer.

 

[HopJokey]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
My brother is majoring in CE (computer engineering). Hopefully that works out for him.

This is what I majored in for my undergrad and loved it. It combined both EE and CS stuff along with the EE stuff slanted towards computer/digital systems.

A lot of my peers did not enjoy the EE parts, especially analog electronic circuits.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Regs
I've known some very intelligent people who went to top notch engineering schools and had nervous break downs.

Often it isn't the work that does it, but the bureaucracy that you have to put up with when working with a corporation. Engineers can create some damn fine stuff if the people without a clue would get the hell out of the way and just let us do our job.

I loved to create and design circuits and write programs but I hated having to answer to someone who couldn't turn on his tv without reading the instructions on how.

 

[EKKC]

you don't go into engineering (CivE, CompE, ChemE, EE, ME, BE, whatever) for money.

/thread

 

[beer]

Originally posted by: Special K

Originally posted by: bonkers325
cliffs:
i got into this profession for the wrong reasons



unless you're in a cutting-edge field of technology, you will ALWAYS be re-inventing the wheel. thats what engineering is all about. it's not about making amazing technological leaps, its about using technology in an efficient manner.

you spent "a lot of time and effort" to get your EE degree. in other words, you did your 4 years of schooling. just like those other people you did better than. if you really spent "a lot of time and effort" then you would've been prepared for an "A" level company. guess what, a degree is just a foundation of knowledge for you to build upon. i dont know who told you these fairy tails about the engineering world, but nobody knows anything worth a damn about their professions coming out of college. you learn as you go.

an EE degree shouldn't teach you how to problem solve, or teach you about work ethic. you should have an innate ability to problem solve and damn good work ethic before you start any engineering program. if you have to have professors teach you how to solve real-life problems and how to conduct yourself in a work environment, then you arent fit to be an upper-level worker.

you seem to have unrealistic expectations of your work and your work environments. you make opportunities for yourself, nobody else will do it for you. just being hired and having tenure isn't enough to climb up the chain of command. you go up the corporate ladder by showing your prowess as an engineer AND as a manager. otherwise you're just another run-of-the-mill low-tier engineer that they hired out of college that can only do the task assigned to them, and nothing more.

It sounds like the OP is saying a degree in CS would be much more valuable than an EE degree because then you could work for cutting-edge companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. or a finance company, consulting, etc. whereas the EE degree will only allow you to work in industries that aren't particularly innovative or growing. That was how I interpreted it at least.

This is the best summary of what I intended to say. I'm not going to piece-wise respond to the posts that tell me i'm wrong, etc. etc. - but these few sentences right here sort summarize my general idea a lot better than I, myself, could have.

 

[Mani]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Veramocor
I think his argument in summary is that the United States in particular values 9salary wise) professions that may be easier than engineering and don't really produce anything like Finance or business.

What an ignorant thing to say. It's entrepreneurs and financiers that allow ideas to go from paper/concept to shelf. They are the true talent and are very rare. You engineers are a dime a dozen.

Much of the top talent in VC firms are engineers, as are many of the most successful entrepreneurs (ask the EE Google guys).

 

[nerp]

Two words in the OP stuck out for me and make me glad I'm a writer:

"Sterile Environment"

Reading about what you guys do on a daily basis. . . I would seriously be depressed in that environment, even if I was making a million a year.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: Mani

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Veramocor
I think his argument in summary is that the United States in particular values 9salary wise) professions that may be easier than engineering and don't really produce anything like Finance or business.

What an ignorant thing to say. It's entrepreneurs and financiers that allow ideas to go from paper/concept to shelf. They are the true talent and are very rare. You engineers are a dime a dozen.

Much of the top talent in VC firms are engineers, as are many of the most successful entrepreneurs (ask the EE Google guys).

Exactly, but they are no longer engineering, they are business-ing, and are now in "business." And guess what technique they use to invest in a company? Finance.

 

[Safeway]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Mani

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Veramocor
I think his argument in summary is that the United States in particular values 9salary wise) professions that may be easier than engineering and don't really produce anything like Finance or business.

What an ignorant thing to say. It's entrepreneurs and financiers that allow ideas to go from paper/concept to shelf. They are the true talent and are very rare. You engineers are a dime a dozen.

Much of the top talent in VC firms are engineers, as are many of the most successful entrepreneurs (ask the EE Google guys).

Exactly, but they are no longer engineering, they are business-ing, and are now in "business." And guess what technique they use to invest in a company? Finance.

It takes a certain type of person to complete an engineering degree. They will always be engineers merely applying the principles of finance.