4Truth

Has anyone here completed a degree in Engineering Technology who could comment on their experience and level of satisfaction with job placement?

It seems like there is a negative stigma attached to this degree -- like it is a glorified technician. Would you agree or disagree with this assesment? Have you experienced unprofessional arrogance or prejudice from engineering coworkers? Were you able to get your foot in the door of a decent entry level job fairly easily with this degree or was it a difficulty and frustration to find a job -- and you have since been left feeling as though you will always be limited in ability to advance as expected/desired?

Engineering Technology majors/graduates please speak up and let us know what you think of this degree. Any regrets?

Thanks much!

ExplorerCY

why not go into engineering?

ENGINEERING (not technology) FTW

4Truth

Sorry for the duplicate post. When I attempted to post this message the first time a window came up implying that it didn't send -- that I needed to log on again.... Don't know what happened.

nmt6789

I did MET for two quarters and it was exactly what I was told it was.

Basically, you are not an engineer although most of the students in the program like to think that they are.

Most ET programs don't require Calculus based physics.

It comes down to this; if you would rather have a job as a technician (engineering background and mechanical ability) go with ET.

4Truth

nmt6789,

It is not important to my son whether or not he is an engineer. It is just important that he will have job placement in a field that offers a decent living and advancement possibilities while doing something he enjoys. Being a team player in the design, construction, and/or trouble-shooting of new technology would meet his interest. Someone has to do the hands-on construction of the product and he is thinking he might be better suited for that than sitting behind a desk doing the figuring and working out of the theoretical aspects of the design We need to hear from someone who is involved in this capacity.

When you say you majored in MET for a while does that mean you got a technician degree? If so, what do you think about it?

Thanks for your reply.

father05

I asked a similar question last week with little response. My D is interested in EE or EET. She really likes a particular school near us that fits her in almost every way - except it only offers BS EET, not BS EE. It is a branch campus of a major univ that offers BS EE however. The branch requires the same Calc 1,2,3 and Diff E as the main campus EEs, they have the same course number, etc. It also requries the same 8 credits in Calc based physics. The EET major courses seem to be more geared as hands on lab related classes for real world problems, while covering the same topics as the main campus EEs. Now maybe this school is the exception, because another major univ nearby also has a branch that has both BS EE and BS EET. In EET, their first two math classes are technical alg and tech trig. They have 2 technical calcs and a tech diff e. The physics required are not calc based from what we can tell. There is almost no connection between the BS EET and BS EE degrees coursewise.

The first branch with the BS EET stated 100% placement for it's grads this past year with a very respectable average starting salary for this area. They also claim a decent list of grad schools for graduates furthering themselves in engineering, not just MBAs, that want to go that route. They also have over half the faculty with PhDs in EE. One state school we looked at with the same degree has the technical classes described earlier and the department chair was an MS EE. YMMV, apparently.

I can only surmise that this means that someone somewhere looks at the actual courses taken and not just the degree itself. I am not an engineer, but I can't see any reason for my D to shy away from this program if it will put her into a field she wants with options to enhance her education later, especially if it will give her a good opportunity to enter the workforce as well. My own company, an S&P 500 manufacturer, actually prefers EET over EEs because they are ready to work for us, and we don't design much in the way of systems. Our EEs and EETs just make them work and keep them running. That's what the head of HR has told me anyway.

rheidzan

I think ET is more hands-on compared to traditional engineering degree. Traditional engineering degree gives you more opportunity in terms of graduate degree, and is tend to be more specialized.

knightdragon115

so i was wondering, what is the ET salary range? and what do they actually do in their job?

scansmom

When S was applying to colleges we also had the Eng/ET debate. S definitely has the mechanical/spatial aptitude to do very well in ET but as he said, he really was not sure he had what it takes to "design." He has Asperger's and recognizes that as a result this may put some limitations on his career choices. In the end, he chose to pursue an engineering degree over ET, partly because he was most interested in chem eng and there does not seem to be many ET degrees offered in this area. But he also figured that he might as well give the engineering degree a shot and see how far he can go with it, since the eng degree may offer more varied career opportunities. No matter what, he sees himself doing something in the engineering field and although he has now completed 2 years of college, it has been a couple of tough years but at this point I don't think he will have any problem graduating - although he may still end up doing something closer to ET in the end, even with an eng degree. Which is fine as long as he is happy and enjoys what he is doing...

One of my favorite sites re engineering/ET/math/science careers which provides career overviews, salary info, school choices etc.:

The Sloan Career Cornerstone Center

silverbullet

errr MET, EET, CET, etc graduates are not technicians. They are engineers. I dont think i've ever met any ET grads that only became technicians. There are def firms out there that will not hire an xET over an xEngineering degree so the opportunities is a little less but the job market in general is huge.

job placement depends on the individual. I've notice there are some students in ET rather than normal engineering because they just simply suck at life, while majority are competent student who could have done either.


Our school statistics show that average and starting salaries of MET vs ME were close to each other (with in $1000 difference- keep in mind the students who were just getting by are averaged in as well, which is impressive still).

One of the professors that I personally favor, told us that from his years of exp working in defense, the ET graduates were more formilar with real world engineering work and were better suited for the majority of jobs than their engineering counter parts who have a really in depth concept of the theory but wasn't too efficient at doing things where it honestly didn't matter if he could tell if its infinite series converged or diverged off the top of his head or doing five integration techniques at the same time. Not to say the engineering student is useless, because that is defenetly not the case. They have shown that they have gotten through some very tough courses and would be better suited for graduate level studies and researching/developing new technology.

None of this is carved in stone BTW. Thousands of ppl graduate annually and have a wide variety of jobs in all sorts of fields.

JoeJoe05

silverbullet,

You are saying that traditional engineering majors are less hands on than engineering technology majors and are less capable of solving real world problems? This is laughable to me. Isn't that the definition of an engineer, to solve real problems in a practical way? I don't know where you went to school but at my school we spend more time in lab than in lecture.

An engineering tech major being better suited to solve problems? Say that around here and you'll get laughed at. The EE grads at my school can do everything an EET grad can do and more so. Your school must have a shoddy engineering program if your engineering tech grads are outperforming their engineering counterparts!

silverbullet

No, i clearly stated thats what my professor said in the opening sentence of the paragraph. Some sort of biased statement on his part perhaps? I dont know. You can email him if you want. Also, read the last sentence. Not everyone does the same thing.

My point was to answer KnightDragon's question.

father05

JJ,

While that profs statements and implications may seem laughable to you and your schoolmates, as I said above, my company's HR department has told me directly they more often than not prefer xET to xE degrees specifically for that reason. xET often starts hands on lab classes in the first semester of classes. One school that my D is looking at has 15 credits of EET classes alone in the first year which includes 3 labs. The xET major is definitely hands-on.

Again, my company, which has literally hundreds of xEs and xETs in a variety of disciplines may be the exception, but I doubt it. And again we design very little by ourselves, we install and utilize other companies' equipment to manufacture our own products. Some of our top people work with the companies building our stuff to tailor it to our needs, but that is a handful of our "engineers" The rest are charged with making it work once it shows up on a truck. I think, and I certainly could be wrong, that most engineering jobs are actually better suited to the classical description of ET. I mean how many engineering jobs are really 100%, even 75% design oriented and how many are putting someone else's design to use, with a tweak (or a dozen tweaks) here and there? I saw somewhere where there was a suggestion/push to rename engineering technology to applied engineering as a more accurate description of the responsibilities. But, perception is reality, and for many the perception is that you need an engineer to do these applied engineering jobs. For others, that's clearly not the case.

Maybe the above does not apply to your school or your field, but it would if you were applying to my company.

Treetopleaf

Does anyone know the history of these xET degrees - whether employers asked for them, for instance?

Are xET degreed engineers fully eligible for EE grad school?

I don't doubt that an ET degree would be more useful to some employers, btw.

JoeJoe05

I'm not saying ET is less useful. But a solid EE program should provide the same application knowledge of ET along with theory and design capabilities. I'm not sure what schools you hire from father05 but around here the EE program is very highly respected and changes its curriculum quite frequently to match industry needs. The EE program here placed 100% of its graduates last year and the EET placed 90% of its graduates.