Why do engineers encourage people to become engineers 10

[owg]

If supply and demand is a major determinant of salary levels, why are engineers so keen to encourage people to become engineers? I also notice that engineers are keen to encourage under represented groups to become engineers. Are we really so altruistic?

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[SomptingGuy]

Really??

I've never, ever encouraged someone else to be an engineer. Not even my own engineering course-mates (accountants, lawyers now). Not even my own kid, who is smart, but prefers thea arts.

- Steve

 

[oneintheeye]

I don't and wouldn't. It would be immoral of me to actively promote engineering.

 

[NomLaser]

If someone was inclined and already looking at Engineering as a possible field, then why not give them the extra boost of "this is why I love doing what I do"? I hope that my kids grow up and enjoy their jobs as much as I do mine, which ever their path takes them. I don't want to push them one way or the other but I will sit them down and explain what I do and how it affects the world around them when they start asking me what I'm doing and working on.

 

[dvd]

I don't encourage engineering for the masses, either.

I think that there is a lot of corporate and academic misinformation involved. The corporations want cheap engineers and the universities want to fill their classrooms. So keep the university classrooms full and fresh new faces showing up on the job and then burn those new faces out on their careers and bring in the next batch.

Another aspect that I think smells is that universities are cranking out product that does not produce the desired results. Companies want engineers who can produce practical solutions. Universities are mostly run by academes who have no concept of performing an engineering job in the workforce. The result is frustrated new workers who think that they are not doing the work they were "trained" for and company leaders seeing little value from hiring degreed engineers.

I think that engineers need to demand more say in the quantity and quality of engineers entering the workforce; and, for that matter, the quantity and quality of work we perform.

 

[NomLaser]

DVD, I couldn't agree more. I think that an internship should be required as a part of the curriculum. I worked in New Product Development at a company in the last 2 years of my education and I was amazed at how much more I understood the courses (and could find where the professor was BS'ing) after getting some real world experience.

 

[KENAT]

Don't get this started. I got in trouble a while back for questioning the premise of 'encouraging women into engineering'. Why should we expect engineering to be a proportional representation of all sexes, ethnic groups, sexual orientation...

I'm not saying we shouldn't check for inappropriate discrimination etc. stopping any group but I'm saying it should be up to the individual to decide if they want to be an engineer.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[cranky108]

I think part of the problem is universitys tend to train people in what they know. However in several fields there are an excess number of people.
In other fields there just isen't enough people, so companies have to train people from a simular field. Example: electronics firms do pay well, but then try to burn out engineers (not to say how they treat the fab people). In the power system field, we have to train people, although we don't seem to pay as well, and have fewer burn outs, and layoff's.

So to me I do encurage people to become power engineers, because of the lack of good people and with my years of experence I have very little to worry that a younger will take my place.

 

[zdas04]

The profession is set up to provide a certain amount of training in University, then spend a supervised internship with progressively increasing responsibility. I always shudder when I see someone right out of school expected to independently do engineering--we see them on eng-tips.com every day and they are a scary bunch.

Co-ops really help shorten the internship, but many colleges hate them. My son was an ME student at a state University and I told him that he needed to start looking for a position early in his first semester. His $^#^@ "advisor" told him that the school did not allow co-ops or internships until the summer between a student's junior and senior years and didn't encourage them then. I called the guy and asked him about the view of the world through his belly button and he had the gall to tell me that my thoughts on co-ops were "old fashioned" and that today employers did not value them.

With that kind of advice I don't see how anyone gets through and becomes productive.

David

 

[ornerynorsk]

Too bad more professors don't spend about 30 years in industry before hitting the classroom. We'd all be a lot better off.

 

[btrueblood]

I had several professors who had industry, or at least practical (they built stuff and tested it on a regular basis in the real world) experience. I called them "teachers", as they had a lot to teach. Any fool can "profess" knowledge, and I had many courses in college whose figurehead I addressed as "Professor".

 

[rb1957]

it's either (or both) ...

1) we really enjoy our work and want to share the joy, or
2) we really effing miserable and want to share the pain.

 

[zdas04]

I've changed careers 4 times, and the only times I've been happy is when I was in a really technical Engineering role (to my way of thinking, Management is a horrible place to be). I can't imagine being happy doing anything else.

Both of my sons have inherited whatever it is that makes me have to be an Engineer, and neither one went that route. The oldest is a bomb disposal guy and in addition to the problem solving he gets the added "benefit" of the real potential of getting blown up, he seems really happy. The other son quit college to get married and is working as a field tech, and has zero latitude to make things better. He is much less happy.

Those two are the only people I've ever tried to convince they should come into this profession (and you are really obligated to try to do what is best for your kids). Other than them, when someone tells me they want to "go into Engineering" I start quizzing them on why they would do that. I try to make sure that no one who drops out of Engineering school can blame me for "making" them go in the first place.

David

 

[TheTick]

I prosyletize neither my religion nor my career. If my example is not enough to spur interest, I have nothing to talk about.

 

[moltenmetal]

We're in the Far Side comic, with the lab full of mutated scientists swarming around, offering the only normal guy a hit from the flask they all drank from.

Misery loves company!

We know what we do is important to society, but we feel misunderstood and undervalued. We feel that promoting the profession to others as a job option will make us somehow more important to society at large- when in fact, the exact opposite is probably true.

To some degree, the profession and engineering academia also buy the same non-sequitur that governments buy- that since engineers are important to the economy, more engineers will make the economy better. In reality, we train too many engineers and many end up working outside the profession not by choice but by default. That makes engineering an increasingly commodified pseudo-profession, and an engineering education is reduced from training for a true profession to "the new liberal arts education". Sad, really.

For the top 10%, this is still a great profession offering plenty of opportunity, decent compensation etc. My advice to anyone entering engineering is to figure out if they have the interest and aptitude to be in the top 10% early, and if not, consider bailing to something which offers a better reward to risk ratio. Apparently this is what 2/3 of Canadians with engineering educations do. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

[NomLaser]

Molten

Hard to compare Canada to the US when they (Canada) has no exempt industry. They require everyone with an Engineering title to be a registered PE, correct me if I'm wrong Canadians (I swore I heard someone state that recently). So if you did the same in the US and classify everyone in an exempt industry as non-engineers then you would find that the only ones left are those in the top 10% with PE certs. It's not that those in exempt industry have any less education, it's just that they haven't taken a test and paid for insurance. Should we require PE to be classified as an Engineer? That has been debated to death already.

 

[zdas04]

NomLaser,
This really is not a P.E. vs. non-P.E. discussion. When I worked for a Major Oil Company, we had a job function (in addition to other duties) that they called "Technical Authorities". This group was the companies "top 10% of engineers" and only one of us had a P.E. The group was people who understood the business, understood the physical world, and were able to contribute to a geographically diverse set of projects. It was the company's way of leveraging experience (much like eng-tips.com).

The thing about the Technical Authorities was that every single one of us loved Engineering and were excited to see the next opportunity to contribute. That kind of commitment has nothing to do with the choice to get a P.E. or not.

I am in total agreement with MoltenMetal's last paragraph. Life is really good at the top of your profession (regardless of what that profession is), and if you don't have the fire in your gut to strive for it then maybe you should look for something you can be passionate about. Passion is a far more important component to success than skill with arithmetic.

David

 

[jenofstructures]

When I was in my second year of my engineering studies i carry a "T-Square". Im kinda embarrass to have a lot of loads when going to school. Actually I nearly drop my studies then because im already stressed. One time as im riding at the public vehicle, there's a little boy who looked at me during our trip. When we jump off the bus i heard the boy saying to his mother, "mom when i grow up i want to an engineer like her". Its kinda amusing, this boy actually changed my mind. He encourage me to continue my studies.

When a young person ask me if its good in my field, i would say yes because it is what I feel. But when they ask me if its ok for them to take my course, i let them think first if its what they want at first. You can't do the job well if you are not happy on it. Yes, jobs are stressful even if you do like it but there's a big difference on doing your job because you love it and doing your job because you need to.

Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. engineers creates wonderful buildings, but only God can creates wonderful minds

 

[moltenmetal]

Not that I want to encourage thread-jacking, but I do need to clarify something:

NomLaser: current "capture rate" of Canadian-educated engineers into the licensed profession (i.e. the % of grads who obtain a P.Eng. license at some point) is about 20-25%.

We have no "exempt industries" per se, aside perhaps from government, but the most populous provinces all have industial exemption clauses. These exemptions are written very narrowly but are not enforced as written. We also grant firms a Certificate of Authorization which permits one signatory engineer to have as many non-engineers and unlicensed engineers working under their responsibility as they feel they can handle. The result is that it is rare for an employee engineer in anything but structural engineering to actually require a license to do their job. Some employers use the license as a "minimum employee quality standard", whether truly required or not.

The result is little different than what you see in most states in the US: the only real determinant of whether or not you need a license is demand-side legislation. Certain other acts and regulations require an "engineer's stamp" on certain documents. Aside from wishing to act as a guarantor on someone's passport application, these acts and regs determine whether or not you actually need to be a P.Eng. to do your job.

End of thread-jacking...move on, continue the conversation about what madness prompts engineers to promote engineering as a profession to others- there's nothing to see here!

 

[NomLaser]

Good to get a good explanation, sorry wasn't trying to jack the thread.