would you discourage your child to take up engineering in college? 20

[westheimer1234]

i know i would. i find engineering one of the most unstable jobs. i work for EPC companies and they always mass hire and mass lay off.

 

[IRstuff]

This question has been asked and answered before. Your mileage may vary. I've been working for 32 yrs in engineering and have never been officially laid off in that time.

But, I would ask you how your job at Lehman Brothers is working out.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[DesignerGuy16]

Medical school will probably be the safest employment bet in the near future. There's a huge need for general physicians even now.

There's always going to be a need for engineers, but with India/China pumping out exponentially more of us it thins the available jobs out.

I love what I do, and would encourage my future kids to do what makes them happy first, and for money second.

James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP

 

[Ron]

I have discouraged both of my sons from pursuing engineering as a career...not because of the instability of jobs (that is less so in my area of practice), but because the profession of engineering is slowly being killed off by its treatment as a commodity rather than a profession. It is being undermined by less qualified individuals and the public perception that should have been raised by the engineering societies is probably no better than it was 20 years ago, maybe worse.

 

[IRstuff]

I hate to burst someone's bubble, but being married to a Family Practice doctor, I can tell you that it's not a glam job. After putting in 8 hrs trying to keep up with her quota of 4+ patients per hour, she puts it another 2-3 hrs doing charts.

Unless you're a specialist, you are not only a commodity, but also slaving away much more so than as an engineer.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[GTstartup]

I would (and am) discouraging my children from working in the engineering field. There are too many engineers making it not worthwhile by accepting pay in the 50K range. For the amount of study, work and talent required we should be not accepting pay less than lawyers or similar professions.

 

[ctopher]

If engineering is what he wants, and has the aptitude for it, don't stop him.
We thought our son was going to be a doctor, but he is now in college to be an engineer. He has the brains for it. I encourage him to move on and guide him.
Some people go into eng and are not good at it. I believe these are the people that have the less stable jobs.

Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[ash9144]

I always tell the children get a job that lets you carry a gun. No matter what it is if you have to carry a gun it will be fun sometimes.

 

[zdas04]

With two sons on their own path, I've observed that: (1) children will often go in some direction that they are not being pushed; and (2) if a child has an aptitude for a particular field they will not be happy anywhere else.

I don't know how many of my kids friends were PUSHED into fields of study that they weren't interested in and had no particular aptitude for. Most of this parental interference was because of the parent's perception of what the job market was going to look like in 4-5 years. When will we parents realize that the past is not a good predictor of future job markets? Probably never.

I think the best thing a parent can do is help a child understand their range of options (defined by ability and interest), and let them go towards it. On the other hand there is no need to be stupid. I have a friend who's daughter wanted to go to UCLA to "study" General Business and he paid out-of-state tuition for 4 years and now she can't find a job with a crap degree from a good school and a mediocre GPA.

I told my boys that if they wanted to go to some "special" school they had to show me a unique aptitude that could only be fulfilled at a particular school (I would have sprung for Julliard for a major musical talent, but not MIT for an Engineering degree since the MIT undergraduate Engineering program is just not THAT much better than New Mexico Tech to be worth the price differential).

I know this has rambled, but I really wanted to point out that our children rarely go in the direction we wish they'd go. We should be happy if they're interesting to talk to and not a burden on society.

David

 

[IRstuff]

Well, we have my wife, a doctor, and myself, an engineer, and our oldest, a junior in high school, who is leaning toward engineering, and not medicine, because he's "not into it."

I think that you can be miserable in any job, and you can get laid off in any job.I agree with Dave that our children need to be doing what gets them out of bed in the morning and ready to go to work. Anything less really is work...

I'd question where the statistics are for salaries are coming from. Lawyers need to go to law school, which is not exactly cheap, and the median salaries are not that spectacular

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Attorney_/_Lawyer/Salary.

Yeah, sure, ALL of OUR kids are above average...

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Latexman]

Nope! If they desire it strong enough (see below), I won't say a word. If they are wishy-washy, I'll tell and help them to research the options and let them decide.

I will have to see a true desire in my kids for me to put out money for college. I measure that desire by how much they have planned, executed, earned and saved towards that education. I have made this crystal clear to them.

I paid 100% of my way through college by earning grants, working hard, living frugally, and saving. There was no school loan. My wife did the same thing. A couch potatoe, Gameboy playing, lazy kid who has not done their homework to prepare for college will set off my bullshit detector big time and will not get a penny.

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[ctopher]

I wish companies would "bring your son/daughter to work" days.
It gives them an idea what dad/mom does for a living.
Filed trips to companies show a little, but they don't show the everyday BS that we see.
This could help them determine what they want as a profession.

Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[jorton]

I would not encourage my kids (when they get here) to become civil/structural engineers. Many states are adding graduate degree requirements for licensing, and the testing requirements for licensing keep going up. I don't see the point of them paying for two degrees then taking multiple tests just to be rewarded with a mediocre salary and endless BS. If they want to do it anyway then they had better figure out how to pay for it. They won't be able to get much help from their structural dad and civil mom. Hopefully I'll be done paying for my education before they have to start paying for theirs.

 

[HgTX]

There was a long, long discussion about exactly this topic in thread730-60310

The only thing I will repeat from that discussion is that asking this question about "engineering" is meaningless, as the answer will vary tremendously from field to field.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[patprimmer]

They are what they are just as we are what we are. To try to change that is folly. We are better off overal if we do what we enjoy and excel at. They are invariable the same thing.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

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for site rules

 

[diarmud]

parprimmer is correct. If they want to be engineers, give them the encouragement.

They should do what they like . . the witness to this is the number of people who get a degree in a field and then find themselves doing something else because their first choice didn't suit them.

An older engineer I knew used to say we send kids to college to make a living when we should really be sending them to college to get an education.

My education started after college in the Army, and it was a good one.

 

[DWHA]

GTstartup

My wife is a paralegal and I know some of the attorneys she works with quite well. The starting salary for an attorney is very comarable to that of an engineer. I have been working as a structural EIT for three years, one of the attorneys has passed his bar exam and has a total of 3 years experience. I am making about 2% more than him. The difference is the pay rate with 20 or 30 years experience, I do not look foward to discussing salary at that point in time.

 

[Bester2]

Good discussion. Latexman you are spot on and I never thought of education that way. I went into the Army for 4 years in order to fund my education. My wife is now 8 months along with my first child and I thought the first thing I would do is start a college fund so my child did not have to serve in the military just to get an education. NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH MILITARY SERVICE. Looking back the kids that had to pay their own way and really work for their education did the best.

Ctoper,
I like your bring your son/daughter to work days but what does someone like me do as a kid both of my parents did not have professional jobs and we did not attend church or any other organization where I could meet working professionals; so I did not know any professionals because we were very poor. We lived in a bad neighborhood where no professionals lived and kids from my school who had professional parents did not want to be around the poor kids. Therefore us poor kids stuck together and most of them never got an education and are working non professional jobs today. In face I am the only person from my neighborhood who went to college.

I therefore decided on engineering based on what I had the aptitude for. So I went down this road blind because that was all I really could do. Now I really do not like engineering. I am not sure I would discourage my kids from choosing engineering as a profession. My wife is also an engineer and loves her job. So I really think your personality needs to fit. I am a big thinker who like to think big picture. My wife can get lost in the details and does not mind not knowing why she has to do something a certain way, she just does it the best she can. I want to know the process and make sure it is running the best possible. Not a good thing for a young (4 years out of school) engineer.


SW 2007 SP 5.0

 

[cksh]

I would not discourage my son, but he is only 5 so we will see in 10 or 20 years how things are going.

I would never push him into anything, but maybe suggest career paths that I think might interest him depending on what he likes/dislikes during high school.

I still think engineering, for the most part, is a stable career, and this from an automotive engineer in MI Although, I do think some fields are much better than others. I would help him weigh the time/money spent in school vs. future potential/happiness etc.

Personally, I am not a big believer in the do what makes you happy, as I would be unhappy when I got home because I would have half the fun money, but I hope my son can have the best of both worlds and be happy, and make money. Don't get me wrong though, I do need to feel a sense of accomplishment in my job, have challenges, and be a part of something Maybe what I ma trying to say is, I don't need to be happy, just not unhappy.

 

[GTstartup]

DWHA,

I don't think you will have to wait 20-30 years before you will see that 2% vaporize.