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

 

[FeX32]

.... but some do, and do so very very well.


Fe

 

[jenofstructures]

maybe your professor never practiced engineering on the field. There's also some of engineers whose good on theory but never work outside the school so they don't have enough knowledge in practical sense

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

 

[TPL]

Slightly off topic but....I'm surrounded by nurses and teachers, all in their late 40's/early 50's and they are all looking forward to taking early retirement as soon as they can as they just hate their jobs - too routine and beaurocratic. Me...? I cannot contemplate retirement...I just love what I do and will never completely stop unless my body (or more likely my mind) gives up on me.

Might go part-time or consult, but couldn't possibly turn my back on this much fun....

 

[moltenmetal]

TPL: great that you love your job so much. I do too. I know teachers and nurses (and engineers) who feel the same way. I know others who don't- some who never had it, and others who got bored after a time. What you're talking about is a highly desirable match between person and profession, rather than the state of the profession itself.

What I see is the vast majority of people that my country educated as engineers (their education subsidized in large part by tax dollars), working outside the engineering profession. Most never enter the profession, leaving right after graduation. Some leave after a few years of work: some by promotion, some out of boredom, some because of economic necessity after a lay-off. Some join later in life. Their reasons are as diverse as they are. But the steady state in Canada as of the 2006 census was 2/3 outside versus 1/3 inside- including engineering managers etc. In this case, the average tells the story far better than the anecdotes ever could.

These facts will not deter those who are truly passionate about our profession- I'd argue these are the people we really want as colleagues.

 

[cranky108]

If pay was all I ever wanted, I should have choosen politics. The pay is much better than engineering, and they always seem to be able to find another job.

 

[JAE]

My son is an architect - so I encouraged him to be a client, not a competing engineer!!!

 

[jenofstructures]

"If pay was all I ever wanted, I should have choosen politics. The pay is much better than engineering, and they always seem to be able to find another job."



This is actually the best advice that you can give to those who want to have a great pay in their job LOLZ



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

 

[KENAT]

Funny, I keep hearing politicians claim their underpaid compared to industry. Hmm.

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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[mauricestoker]

I try to encourage msishapen, stupid, odoriferous, and unpleasant people to be engineers, same as in personal life hanging with ugly, anti-social reprobates. It makes me look better by comparison.

 

[KENAT]

Kind of like misery likes company?

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(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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[mauricestoker]

More like, "I may be butt ugly, but look at the guy next to me."

 

[owg]

cranky108 wrote - "If pay was all I ever wanted, I should have chosen politics. The pay is much better than engineering." That is what our chem eng prof told us when we started. Of course we all knew better and stayed the course.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[owg]

I also wanted to thank you all for your posts. Now moltenmetal and I don't feel so alone.

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[SWmechE]

I had the opportunity to do a high school presentation about engineering and what it was like. This was aimed at a class of students interested in engieering and wanting to know more. I told them that if you are interested in problem solving and/or find yourself watching shows on TLC and Discovery alot then engineering MAY be right for you. As for what types of engineering they should research this before university, as all universities do not have all the options available. I told them that engineering is in general a profession that requires you to constantly be working in groups and that people that try to carry the burden by themselves are usually burnt out after the first year of classes.

Regarding money I told them that if they are thinkng of it so that they can be rich they're miss-guided and there are plenty of easier ways to make money. At the same time I stated that engineering pays a comfortable salary which if they wanted to do the minimal reasearch they can easily get information on and see on average what an engineer at different points in their careers make. I also stated that with this comfortable salary comes a high professional responsibility to public safety, especially if you become a PE. This responsability to many may be deamed too high compared to the compensation that you receive.

A co-presenter (older eng.) at one point when I was describing how many of my first year friends disappeared over the first two years of school commented that I shouldn't scare them. The teacher (a former eng. grad) said that it was the truth and it's better they know it now. I then proceeded to tell them about how one of my friends who got 100% on the grade 12 math final failed one of our first math classes and that high school marks mean little after getting accepted. I also failed that math class but taking it the next time we both had A's... I blame it on flakey theoretical profs that can't tie down formulas to reality.

Finally when I was asked why I like my job I stated that I wanted to know how things work and how to make them better. My curiousity is rarely bounded to any specific subject and engineering felt like it would best feed that curiousity. Throughout school I took a broad base of topics and now with work I interact with many different groups of people.

 

[byintuition]

As a junior engineer being laid off immediately 1 year after college, I still remember very clearly the whole 'there's not enough engineers' saying throughout my years in college. Now, I've been out of job for about 8 months, and I seriously see no hope in landing a job in the near future. Seeing so many engineers got laid off in the industry, I find absolutely no reason why our fellow engineers are still encouraging people to become engineers and glorifying the prestige of our industry (apparently they're still employed so they have no idea how miserable it is out there). Engineering nowadays is not about a dream, let's get realistic here. Being an engineer is just a job. A job - the most basic necessity of surviving on Earth. Stop encouraging people to become engineers!

 

[FeX32]

jeeze "a job' ???
There are many jobs that can make you money. I feel the pain of someone who wants work, but falls short for political or the like reasons. I see too many bums on welfare taking our hard earned dollars...
I like this quote:
"If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking." - Lyndon B.

I thought "we" as engineers were doing the thinking....at least we are supposed to be.


Fe

 

[Twoballcane]

Sorry that you feel entitled to an engineering job in the middle of a recession (sounds like you’re from the entitlement generation). In my 15 years of experience, I have seen when the economy was good to great there where many Mechanical Engineering jobs with one whole page ads, and now in this recession the wanted ads for Mechanical Engineering is close to nil. Your only two years into this job market and I think it is unfair for you to make such an arrogant statement to tell passionate engineers to stop encouraging others to join. Yes, I agree that a job is job, but this is a job I would rather do during my 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, and 46 weeks a year. You have to find out what you like to do in engineering that you have passion. For me, it is analysis and test, for others, it could be design, project lead, field engineer, …etc. And, if it is the money, you have to really specialize in something in your field to get into the top 10% of the salary range (six figures).

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[SNORGY]

I could not with clear conscience encourage anyone to enter engineering. it is not like any other "profession".

If your chosen profession is law, then when you graduate, you invariably end up with a job where you use the stuff you learn in school and actually end up practicing law.

If your chosen profession is to be a doctor, you invariably actually end up in a job where you treat patients.

If your chosen profession is a teacher, you invariably actually end up in a job teaching students.

If your chosen "profession" is engineering, you learn quickly to forget everything remotely theoretical or interesting that they taught you in university because in the real world, none of that's important as long as you are billable. In other words, in engineering, it's got nothing to do with science and everything to do with billing. Anything that resembles "engineering" is actually discouraged because it is perceived as needlessly expensive to pay somebody to draw stuff or solve equations - or else it is perceived that one who does so is re-inventing the wheel. So, the collective "we" perpetuate a "profession" where things are sized on the basis of "I dunno but that's what someone did before" rather than on the basis of a calculation; where things are built but not designed; where designs are stamped (under pressure to meet a schedule milestone) without the fundamentals behind them being even remotely understood. It's a pretty sad state of affairs, if you ask me. One can always make the argument that those (yes, like myself) who are determined to not fall into that idiotic mode will ultimately do well and enjoy what they do in the long term, but it will be at the expense of being perceived by their employers and by society at large to be more of a constant irritant than a respected professional.

Not that I am in any way bitter...

A tad cynical, perhaps...

The solution for me has been to just refuse to do things that don't fit my criteria for what constitutes proper engineering. Where I work now, it's quite clear that people need not trouble me unless they actually need - and want - something calculated or designed. They'll get tired of me and fire me eventually, but in the interim, as long as I have anything to do with it, the things I that design will work and people won't die.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[FeX32]

SNORGY has some good points.
I too experienced this to some extent back as an intern.

"Hey boss my CFD calcs indicate that we are loosing 22psi on this bend....if we reroute it like this we only loose 4psi. "...."But sunny, WTF is CFD???, and stop calculating and start printing drawings.....its worked like that for years..."
LMFAO.

But, it still is a 'silent' profession, and in the R&D field things are much different...stick up for what you believe in.


Fe

 

[Twoballcane]

The doctor and lawyer analogy is a very weak argument to compare with a person who graduated with bachelors in engineering (which I would guess most of our engineers have). Please let’s compare apples to apples (that is what us engineers do right?). The last I checked a bachelor in engineering still has the highest starting salary compared to other bachelor degrees. Most doctors have a bachelor in bio or chemistry and most lawyers have a bachelor in political science. Jobs in bio/chem and poli sci (which I would take a leap and say that these jobs are less than engineering jobs) I would guess would have the same career track as engineers as in learning the ropes of how a real business is run first (still wet behind the ear work) and then with some real experience get to actually do the work that they learned in college. You are in charge of your career. After five to 10 years after college (as long it would take to become a lawyer or doctor) and you’re still doing things that you feel are not real engineering work, I have to say it was your decision to do so not the industry. I have yet to see a job description for a Mechanical Engineering position that said “no engineering knowledge necessary” if you have a degree in Ancient Art, yes you can do this job too. If you want to make more money, for me it was to take theory and use it in practice. To see what other engineers (and designer who think they are engineers which is my other pet peeve) don’t see, quantify issues, and find potential issues.

Check this out (

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29408064?slide=1)

I don’t see bio/chem or poly sci majors on this list!! ME start is almost $59K compared to I would guess for bio/chem and poly sci would be in the $30k range.

Start salary of $60K plus four or five years from now for a BS in ME, I would encourage kids who just want to do 4 years of school to get into this field.


Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."