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05-11-2008, 05:30 PM
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#31 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: SoCal.
Threads: 5
Posts: 1,977
| Quote: |
Engineers have their place, and are paid well by middle class standards, but if you want someone to be your Fortune 500 CEO, hire a non-engineering LAC graduate with an advanced degree.
| Explain this please. | 
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05-11-2008, 05:33 PM
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#32 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: SoCal.
Threads: 5
Posts: 1,977
| Quote: |
No I'm not joking - why don't you read some biographies. As a scientist who has been heavily involved in engineering for >30 years, I can tell you that if you find other subjects so much easier than engineering, you're definitely in the wrong field. I don't know anybody who has been successful that doesn't find technical subjects easier. As a matter of fact, many had difficulties in meeting their humanities requirements in college. The people I work with find reading technical material easier and far more enjoyable than reading a novel. I remember an older colleague telling me as I started on my Ph.D., (somewhat jokingly) that unless I preferred reading science to reading Playboy, I was barking up the wrong tree.
| Umm, what are you talking about? Sure, at the highest level of engineering this might be the case. That's the minority though. I don't find your anecdotal evidence compelling at all. | |
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05-11-2008, 05:36 PM
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#33 | | Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Threads: 4
Posts: 412
| As an engineer, let me tell you.... I'm much more confused about art and history than fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. | 
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05-11-2008, 05:44 PM
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#34 | | Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Threads: 30
Posts: 365
| jmilton90/ "as an engineer"...
well, everyone here are engineers (or eng students). it's pretty much assumed. and there have been others in this thread already who said the exact opposite.
i guess we can just vote on it, if we can have a sample size bigger than like 50 students.
i suggest we do three different votes,
asking the exact same question to:
1 for group of engineering students,
1 for group of art history students
1 for group of random majors that has nothing to do with either majors.
there's a reason engineering majors get appreciated for working the hardest within school as compared to like, heck, i dunno...if you haven't noticed such appreciation, i wonder what eng school you're going to.
Last edited by xjis : 05-11-2008 at 06:04 PM.
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05-11-2008, 06:40 PM
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#35 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Bay Area, CA Gender: Male
Threads: 17
Posts: 1,305
| Quote: Quote: |
Engineers have their place, and are paid well by middle class standards, but if you want someone to be your Fortune 500 CEO, hire a non-engineering LAC graduate with an advanced degree.
| Explain this please.
| Some references: Introduction Fortune 500 CEO's believe that managers and CEO's of the future will need to be proficient in at least one second language and culture and comfortable in different cultural settings (Fortune 500 study and Hersh, "Intentions and Perceptions"). Welcome to AJC! | ajc.com About 18% of fortune 500 CEO’s received their degree in engineering. Campion College in Sydney “In fact, more than half of the Fortune 500 CEO’s have a degree in the liberal arts” (USA Today, 24 July 2001) College of Liberal Arts | Dean's Welcome Liberal Arts majors, too, seeking jobs immediately on completion of the bachelor's degree, are welcomed by many employers, as even a cursory examination of Fortune 500 CEO's educational backgrounds will reveal. College of Liberal Arts & Sciences :: University of Colorado Denver Many Fortune 500 CEO's have degrees in liberal arts majors like Philosophy, because these majors develop your interpersonal communication and organization. The University of Arizona Career Services :: Major / Career FAQ A recent survey of Fortune 500 CEO's found that over 40% had undergraduate degrees in something OTHER than business. Many had a Liberal Arts background. | |
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05-11-2008, 07:26 PM
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#36 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: SoCal.
Threads: 5
Posts: 1,977
| Quote: |
About 18% of fortune 500 CEO’s received their degree in engineering.
| And you do realize that Engineering is like 5% of the total degrees awarded in the US, right? One's chances to become a CEO are far better with an engineering degree... | |
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05-11-2008, 07:42 PM
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#37 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Bay Area, CA Gender: Male
Threads: 17
Posts: 1,305
| Another way to look at it is that the chances are better with a non-engineering degree...  | |
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05-11-2008, 07:54 PM
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#38 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Threads: 3
Posts: 163
| Qualities that make a good CEO transcend what degree you earned in college.
Being an art history major does not make you creative or a good communicator by default, just gives you three years experience in writing about art.
I also STRONGLY disagree that if one finds LAC electives easier than their engineering courses, they are in the wrong field.
If you find driving to class easier than engineering, should you be a bus driver? Certain things are inherently easier than others.
In my creative writing course I had to write a few poems and read short stories. I found this much easier than my fuel cells course where I had to write a fifty page paper on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Should I have been a creative writing major? No. I was the top of my fuel cells class. | |
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05-11-2008, 07:54 PM
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#39 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: SoCal.
Threads: 5
Posts: 1,977
| Quote: |
Another way to look at it is that the chances are better with a non-engineering degree...
| That would be wrong.
Engineering: 5% of graduates. 18% of F500 CEOs.
Nonengineering: 95% of graduates. 82% of F500 CEOs. | |
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05-11-2008, 09:16 PM
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#40 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Houston, Texas Gender: Female
Threads: 10
Posts: 1,963
| I just wanna know what makes you think that speaking more than one language and majoring in engineering are somehow mutually exclusive.
This is all devolving into ridiculousness. I'm going to go pour myself a drink. | |
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05-11-2008, 09:58 PM
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#41 | | Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Threads: 7
Posts: 390
| i didn't read every post in this thread, but this is ridiculous. Engineering is one of the hardest majors in college, and art history is quite possibly one of the easiest majors. The amount of work required for each degree simply don't compare.
Now you can be very intelligent and major in art history, ie. the Harvard art history majors, but there's no denying that engineering is a way harder degree to obtain.
As for thinking outside the box, engineers are trained to solve problems with outside the box type of thinking.
Frankly, this type of argument is frequently used by humanities majors to say that their majors are just as useful and difficult as engineering. But the fact is, you can write a 10 page mediocre essay on development of renaissance art, and you will get a C at least as long as you give some effort the night before it's due. In engineering, you can study for weeks for an exam, understand 80% of the concepts, but if you don't apply it well on exam day, you fail. | |
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05-11-2008, 10:34 PM
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#42 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Bay Area, CA Gender: Male
Threads: 17
Posts: 1,305
| I'll have a double, but after I hire one of the 95% of non-engineers to be my CEO so that my company is more closely aligned with 82% of F500s. As an engineer who speaks German and toddler Chinese, I think I'm in the minority of foreign-language-speaking engineers. OP's friend's uncle is generalizing, speaking of averages. Of course there are exceptions, that's why 18% of F500 CEOs are engineers. It's all about how different minds work. Gin and tonic, thanks, and mine won't work as well.  | |
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05-11-2008, 10:54 PM
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#43 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: SoCal.
Threads: 5
Posts: 1,977
| Quote: |
I'll have a double, but after I hire one of the 95% of non-engineers to be my CEO so that my company is more closely aligned with 82% of F500s.
| Irrelevant to the point at hand, ie: Engineering is a better major if you want to be an F500 CEO. Quote: |
As an engineer who speaks German and toddler Chinese, I think I'm in the minority of foreign-language-speaking engineers.
| Anecdotal. I'd think it's the other way. Quote: |
OP's friend's uncle is generalizing, speaking of averages.
| No, he's speaking from anecdotes. Those have zero credibility. Quote: |
Of course there are exceptions, that's why 18% of F500 CEOs are engineers.
| All F500 CEOs are exceptions, the fact that engineering is overrepresented is very telling. | |
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05-12-2008, 04:13 PM
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#44 | | Member
Join Date: May 2006 Location: Cambridge, MA --> Baltimore, MD Gender: Male
Threads: 4
Posts: 595
| I'm a major in History of Art at Johns Hopkins University. We have the #1 top program in the nation. Its difficult major, no joke here at Hopkins. | |
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05-12-2008, 04:29 PM
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#45 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Threads: 9
Posts: 171
| ^^^
I would think that an engineering programs at MIT, Stanford, Berkeley would be no joke either...
In fact, I think that all respectable engineering schools are no joke. | |
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