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Aesur said:The only benefit to a masters degree now days is because the bachelors degree teaches little of what you need to know.
...in need of someone to run highfalutin dynamic analysis on their structures, that Engineer should be paid a salary commensurate with the work they are doing.
Aesur said:When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools.
dauwerda (Structural) said:Now I'm curious what others have to say about this, because this is not my experience at all. If I had left school without these basics I would be asking for my money back.Aesur said:When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools.
dauwerda said:Now I'm curious what others have to say about this, because this is not my experience at all. If I had left school without these basics I would be asking for my money back.
Aesur said:I graduated in 2009 (I don't think this makes me a case of "ageism" yet)
Aesur said:what I am trying to say is work experience is greater/better than schooling. This comes from my own personal experience.
Aesur said:When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools.
Aesur said:Many older engineers I have come across are tired of training so many new engineers because this field has lost itself, the fees are too low for the expected work, there is no recognition, it's a very high work stress environment with ever increasing complexity of codes
Aesur said:We can get as many degrees as we want, but that means little to nothing about knowing how to use that education and the attitude a person has in wanting to grow and learn. I have worked with all levels of engineers, from those without degrees who started as drafters and learned over time to PhD's. I have continually seen those engineers who had no degree or only a bachelors far outperform those with masters or PhD's and almost always at a cheaper salary
Aesur said:I know we are talking masters here, but I would love to see a PhD student with as many years experience in the education side of things as they wanted and little in working in the real world try to design a building, staying on budget, giving an optimized design and meeting the typical tight timelines.
Aesur said:My main point of all this is, structural engineering is not about the degree and more about the person wanting to do it and being willing to learn what they don't know, having the right attitude; and that is what I try to hire based on.
RWW0002 said:Why would we expect schools to pump out engineers ready to fully design without mentoring? I would rather schools have a harder course load to "weed out the field" a bit and get an engineer that is capable of learning tough subjects and that has some good background theory. I can quickly train them to do the easy parts..
RWW0002 said:I could teach a new engineer to apply ASCE-7 in a matter of days, why would you want to waste good money in graduate level education on something you can easily teach yourself?
STrctPono said:The problem is that your arguments seem to have frustration with new Engineers not knowing how to design elements of a building straight out of school. Not all of us Structural Engineers design buildings. I've touched one commercial building in my entire career. The theory that you learn in school needs to be able to be applied to all industries, not just buildings.
STrctPono said:Maybe the West coast schools just focus on this type of stuff more.... I don't know.
STrctPono said:What other professional career can claim that their freshly hired graduates are able to manage their own jobs, require no training, and make a profit.
STrctPono said:It baffles me that you would expect not to have to train new Engineers.
STrctPono said:No one ever said that education is a substitute for a person's character but your drafter with zero formal higher level education is going to have a real quick ceiling in terms of abilities vs the PhD hire.
I am very curious what you do as I don't see many avenues for building designers to be paid much higher than most are; especially considering the normal business structure of higher paid people marking and bringing in the work, but being to expensive to work on the project thereby requiring many lower paid minions to do the work generating the income to cover the higher ups. If you have figured out how to be more profitable when designing buildings, please share this info, we would all owe you! I do recognize that my market is very much lacking in exciting new projects, hence the expansion into other more exciting and faster growth markets.STrctPono said:Couple that with low pay and I am not going to stay long.
STrctPono said:BTW, It looks like you are in AZ. I am from AZ but left in 2009 after my BS due to the horrible job market for Structural Engineers.