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A coming engineering shortage ? ---- Who agrees ? 86

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Illbay said:
As a result of the "Obama economy" - now documented to be the worst in history
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At the risk of taking this thread off topic, I have to say

LOL WHAT?

I am no fan of the previous administration policies, OVER ALL, but I can certainly read. Worst economy in history? For WHOM?

Rate of growth of USA GDP:

and a more boiled-down explanatory approach here: who places Obama second to Clinton in "best to worst economic performance/strength" during presidential administrations since 1977.

For all the fault you can throw out a sarcastic "THANKS, OBAMA!" the economy is one that shouldn't be sarcastic. If you're to lay economic performance on the President, that is.
 
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there is little correlation between employment levels and stock market performances. often the working class has little to do or little ability to influence the markets but remember what Stalin said:
" death of one person is a tragedy, if many is only statistics "
 
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I wonder at times what does a young graduate that invested few good years in STEM education, has a nice loan to pay back and suddenly cannot get a job or a start in his/her chosen profession? How frustrating and demoralizing it must be. Any comments? advice,or real life stories ?
 
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Can't be any worse than a psych major in the same boat, particularly given that the median salary for psych majors is probably about half that of STEM majors, while the loans are probably about the same.

There are at least a couple of threads floating around ET from people precisely in the situation. However, there are so many factors both personal and corporate that ultimately determine whether interviews and/or offers come. "I went to a middling university and got middling grades, and now I can't get any responses to my resume," is not an unfamiliar refrain. Supply and demand theory says that only when there's a surfeit of demand will it be likely that all graduates will get hired for jobs they want. The majority of the time, employers are able to pick and choose, and they will often not choose anyone but the very best they can afford.

This is not that different that at the start of the college journey, when you get rejected by even your safety schools, and you start looking at whether CC is really where you'll end up for a couple of years and then hope to transfer to a 4-yr college. Or, do you start looking at the colleges that are still taking applicants, even after March 31. I recall a case where a girl failed to get into Stanford, and decided to go there anyway, attend classes, and con people into letting her sleep on their couches because of "housing glitches." She was eventually found out, but I never found out whether Stanford was her reach school or not.

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I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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I know many recent grads and cant say I know any with STEM degrees who were unable to find a job within several months, even in flooded small-town markets during the recession. I also cant say Ive noticed any short term morale or attitude problems amongst them, IME those only develop after years in industry. OTOH, I do know quite a few non-STEM grads who gave up on finding jobs within their field and moved on to others but that is nothing new nor I believe an increasingly common problem. Past generations have struggled with this as well but I believe had a significantly easier time transitioning to other well-paying careers for various reasons, less regulation, less technology, and a significantly better economy being key among many.
 
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"Any comments? advice,or real life stories ?"

I graduated into an awful job market, coming at the end of a recession and following the break-up of Britain's nationalised utilities. The market had a lot of experienced labour looking for work, and the area of the country where I lived was hit hard by major employers closing in mining, ship-building and hevay manufacturing. I took a job with a start-up company making about the same per hour as I had in the bar job I had through university. That job was a great place to learn how a company works and be involved in pretty much all parts of the business except the accounts, but the wages were dire. Took three job moves, a couple of relocations, three good relationships wrecked and two years living out of a suitcase to break into the industry I wanted to be in.

I guess the message is that if you want to succeed then you can, but you'll pick up a few knocks along the way. In hindsight was it worth it? Most days, I think I'd say yes.
 
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Being able to persevere and be stubborn is a blessing and curse. For every guy who has overcome great odds, there are 10 other guys who should have rethought their plan before grinding it to an obvious conclusion.

Something has to be said though about lazy people who are smart enough to avoid anything that is too much work. If you are starting a business, your goal should be to pick a specialty that allows you to be as lazy as possible.
 
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"your goal should be to pick a specialty that allows you to be as lazy as possible."

Supply and demand, again. I doubt there are that many specialties that allow you to be that lazy, as it's unlikely that you're the only person in the entire world that has stumbled upon such a gold mine.

Some people are simply not able to deal with failures; they wind up in the herd. Others might be too lazy to look for those mythical lazy opportunities. In between are the those that generate the 90% failures in the 1st two years and the 10% that get to fight on, and fraction thereof that succeed for any length of time.

Longevity is not necessarily a bulwark against eventual failure, Montgomery Ward was in business over 100 years and even though they attempted to survive as a purely on-line merchant, they still could not overcome their issues. Sears, which is likewise 100+ years in operation is teetering on the brink, although it's managed to last slightly longer than Montgomery Ward. Even Macy's is struggling.

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I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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I graduated within the top 5% of my class, from a top tier university in Canada. I had two years of co-op work experience, and a Master's degree. And it was no picnic for me to find my first job.

That was back in 1991, when about 70% of engineering grads in Canada worked as engineers.

As of 2011, only about 30% of engineering grads work as engineers.

I'd estimate that in Canada, roughly 1/2 the overall graduating class is falling into that disappointment category. They just had to find a job, so they did and moved on. Regrettably though, after two or more years out of the profession, your chances of getting back into it are near zero. Engineering education has a short shelf life.

The universities don't even bother to collect the stats on how many of their grads are appropriately employed- they don't care. The ask grads if they're employed, 6 months and 2 yrs after graduation, but don't ask if they're working in the field they were trained for. Instead they ask them a much vaguer question: whether or not their education was "relevant" to their job. Engineering grads are about as likely as the average of all university grads to be employed 6 months or 2 yrs after graduation. Of course that average includes such job magnet programs as fine arts, journalism etc.
 
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The universities don't even bother to collect the stats on how many of their grads are appropriately employed- they don't care. The ask grads if they're employed, 6 months and 2 yrs after graduation, but don't ask if they're working in the field they were trained for.
Click to expand...

Sadly we live in a society driven by statistics of low value, so long as the headline looks good the general public is pleased. If you want a real chuckle investigate how universities are "ranked" by the media, things like the pass rate and reputation among college professors all seem like grand ideas but IMHO are rather irrelevant vs bottom line returns like percentage of grads employed in their field within X months of graduation and starting salaries. Having attended the tiny inexpensive local campus of a large state chain system for my undergrad I am rather amazed by the number of folks anymore who correlate attendance cost and university prestige amongst the media to education quality. Sadly I've known quite a few with a MS from a major university who wouldn't have lasted freshman year at "lesser" schools, some schools pass the chaff along with the wheat, others cull it.
 
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It's not even clear that any of us could get into the schools we originally matriculated. UC Berkeley's statistics show that accepted students' GPAs has steadily increased over the past 2 decades.

GPA_blhder.gif


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I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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It's called grade inflation. Sort of like getting a trophy for showing up, you pass if you show up.

After all the students expect something for the money someone pays.

Make what you want of that comment.
 
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CWB1,

I don't know if you end up even with a better engineering workforce if all universities culled a good chunk of their class. There is a huge disconnect between academia and industry. I don't know if a prof. is the best person to weed out all the people who would be better off in something else. I probably would have been culled in my undergrad if the classes in my undergrad that I didn't have any interest in were used to weed out bad engineers Would I have been better for it? I don't know but I doubt it.

I do think older engineers have better horse sense. Computers have made people stupid to the point that a lot couldn't tell you what will sort of happen without running a simulation. Be able to run a software package has some how been given the same importance or value as general understanding. I don't know why this is. Maybe, universities should be hammering the basic concepts harder and not go into as much depth. All the deep stuff is forgotten quickly if the foundations aren't understood completely.
 
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"if all universities culled a good chunk of their class."

I don't think that's a good answer. Some of the best students suck at doing actual, real-world, problems. Other of the best students are simply driven by tiger-moms and will suck at engineering, because they have zero passion for it. Early in college is possibly a very poor point in time to determine someone's lifelong fate. My best friend in college didn't decide on his final major until he became a super-senior. Even given all of that, people change and adapt. I don't do anything related to what I majored in, but I'm still happy and I'm very good at what I do now. And, I might actually be sucky at what I majored in.

And, I don't see that having more people trained in STEM is necessarily a bad thing. Ignorance of science and engineering can lead to bad or ignorant decisions and decision-making.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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When I did my engineering studies, the university did cull intake and entrance was competitive. What I think happens for some after years of hard work, and not being able to enter the desired field us that it builds frustrations. For sure success is determined by many other factors beyond the degree, like location, field of study, demand, contacts, opportunities and luck. For many, even if they start as engineers, they realize that many and better opportunities are somewhere else and adapt. Maybe that is why I never completed my MS although I did my coursework and have no regrets except for time spent. I was considering a PhD at the time though.Years later I did an MBA and felt I learned something new going beyond engineering.
 
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