<p>Likewise, I can vouch for a ton of civil engineers and a lot of mechanical engineers. They’re all doing quite well.</p>
<p>“They now have more money than 99% of doctors could dream of from their company’s stock options. Google. I’m sure the same goes for yahoo, ebay, etc”</p>
<p>Google and Yahoo are both outsourcing as we speak. The question is not the <em>short term benefits</em> of IT…the question is about the long term stability. Sure, some select few got richer than any doctor ever will…WHO CARES!! If YOU don’t make it, it doesn’t matter if Filo or Sergey are bazillionairs…</p>
<p>Golubb, you asked for examples of engineers that make more money than 99% of doctors could ever dream of, and I gave you them. </p>
<p>Secondly, just because they are also hiring engineers in India does not mean they aren’t also hiring engineers in the USA. Their industry is doing so well that there aren’t enough american engineers to meet their demand. How is having more openings than engineers bad for future engineers?!</p>
<p>Dude, let it go. Engineers can make as much money as they care to undergo the education and hard work for, and non-engineers can continue to not believe that the engineers make money. It’s not a big deal, just so long as the people that actually care about and enjoy engineering know that they’ll make plenty of money.</p>
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<p>Some ‘select few’? I would argue that almost everybody whos’ been working at Google since before the IPO (which was a fairly decent number of people) is quite wealthy, and the first several hundred are richer than most doctors could ever make in their lifetime. It’s not like only Brin and Page got rich. Lots of people got rich. </p>
<p>And that’s just one company. Hundreds of people, probably thousands, got rich from Yahoo (and when you consider that Yahoo has only 7000 employees, that’s saying something). The same is true of Ebay, Amazon, etc. Microsoft itself has been estimated to have spawned at least 10,000 millionaires, and Intel and Cisco have also spawned many thousands of millionaires. That’s far more than “just a select few”.</p>
<p>Besides, you talk about engineers who don’t make it? What about people who try to become doctors and don’t make it? Again, according to the AAMC, over 50% of people who apply to medical school get rejected from every medical school they apply to. Look up the numbers and you can see for yourself. And of course that doesn’t include those people who take premed courses and get bad grades such that they don’t even apply to med-school because they know they won’t get admitted. These people ought to be counted as people who don’t get in, but since they don’t even apply, they’re not included in the numbers. So you talk about engineers who don’t make it, so what about these people who try to become doctors and don’t make it?</p>
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</p>
<p>But it always has. Every time, throughout history, it has. Why would this time be any different? The US survived 2 nasty wars with the British, a Civil War which was the bloodiest in the history of the Western hemisphere, 2 traumatic world wars, and economic rises of the EU and Japan. Yet each time, the US has managed to find something. If the US can survive that, why can’t it survive this new challenge? </p>
<p>Look, right now, hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the biotech industry, an industry that didn’t even exist a generation ago. Back then, there was no such thing as a ‘genetic engineer’. Now there is. Obviously I cannot tell you what new jobs will crop up in the future, just like somebody a generation ago would have not been able to tell you about genetic engineering. But the point is, something has always come up. Why would this time be any different? </p>
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<p>Oh, I don’t know about that. I know people who have been engineering managers and engineering consultants for many decades now, and still going strong. Nor do they seem particularly stressed out to me. In fact, entire companies like Accenture and IBM Global Services are basically farms for engineering consultants and engineering managers. We have a lot of technology, but we don’t know what to do with it, and that’s what the engineering consultants and engineering managers do. It is these guys who take that technology and mold it to business practices. </p>
<p>For example, all the innovation in supply-chain management was really the work of engineering consultants and engineering managers. They realied that as computerization got cheaper, it became cheaper to source raw materials and parts from a wide network of suppliers, as opposed to doing everything in house. For example, it wasn’t that long ago when the American car companies like GM used to make everything in their cars, from the engines to the dashboards to the seats to the windshields. Now they just buy those parts from external suppliers, and coordinate it all through supply-chain computer technology. None of this would have been possible if not for the engineering consultants and engineering managers, and the optimization of supply chains is something that will employ hundreds of thousands of people for many years to come. Plenty of industries have yet to implement proper supply-chain technology, and even those that have, many have done so at only a nascent stage. </p>
<p>That’s just one example where the engineering consultant and engineering manager will find future employment. Another hot topic is the optimization of IT systems for, you guessed it, the health-care industry. The fact is, the health-care industry does not invest properly in backend technology. That is why many thousands of people die every year from being given the wrong medicine because somebody couldn’t read a doctor’s handwritten prescription, or a prescription was filled incorrectly (because of some transcription error somewhere). That is why the health-care industry wastes many billions of dollars in unnecessary medical tests that a patient has already undergone, but nobody can find the records of the results, so to be on the safe side, they perform the test again. </p>
<p>When a doctor examines a patient, that doctor should be given a searchable digital dossier that contains a complete medical history that documents every single treatment and test that that patient has ever undergone, every reaction to treatment that patient has ever expressed, and which doctors have worked on this patient previously and why. Every doctor should also be able to carry around a small handheld device that serves as both a digital medical encyclopedia and a “digital medical newspaper” that is updated with information on new available medications and treatments every day, as well as updated daily information about any new disease epidemics that are sweeping across the country. For example, if there is some outbreak of West Nile virus or SARS, every doctor in the area should know about it, know the symptoms and know the available treatments. Not only that but the doctors themselves should be able to input patient data in realtime so that the CDC can know if there is some outbreak going on. If a whole bunch of doctors in Cleveland, for example, start seeing Ebola, then the CDC ought to know that as quickly as possible. </p>
<p>The point is, the information systems required to do any and all of these things are all going to be work for the engineering consultant and engineering manager. They are the ones that know how the technology can be used to create useful technology solutions. The regular engineers know how to use technology. But it is the engineering manager and the engineering consultant who understands why you should use it. </p>
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</p>
<p>And, like I said before, that’s a pretty big trick. </p>
<p>Again, look. I’m not saying that being a doctor is bad. In fact, I have always agreed that being a doctor can be pretty good (although not as good as has been sometimes suggested by golubb). </p>
<p>However, my point is still the same. If you are going to get your bachelor’s degree, you gotta major in something. So the question is, what are you going to major in. If you say that you shouldn’t major in engineering, then what’s the alternative? Art history? Film studies? With an engineering degree, you can do a lot of things, including, if you want, going to medical school. What exactly are you going to do with an Art History degree? You might say that you can go to medical school, but what if you can’t get in? Then what? A guy with an engineering degree who can’t get into medical school can go work as an engineer. I’m not saying that that’s the greatest lifestyle in the world, but at least it’s something. What exactly is the guy with the art history degree going to do if he can’t get into med-school?</p>
<p>So again, I’m not saying that engineers have the greatest life in the world. But hey, it’s better than what a lot of other people have. Again, I would ask, would you rather have an enginering degree or an Art History degree?</p>
<p>I am back from my 5 week hiatus due to my summer English class.
For new readers, I am 21 years old and will be transferring to UC Irvine. I will probably major in physics and minor in BME, & take some chem & bio classes as well. My end goal is to get into grad school for Biomed engineering. My backup will be nursing or PA (physicians assistant).</p>
<p>Now I will revive my unfinished argument with Sakky.</p>
<p>
By Sakky</p>
<p>No, I am not retracting anything. I never said that nurses never get laid off, but I did say that nurses have a MUCH LOWER chance of being laid off. So far you found two links for me, yet you never mention all the feature stories on the downsizing of engineering in America. I see these all the time on MSN, NBC, and etc (nice strawman fallacy)</p>
<p>This is what I actually stated in my post.:</p>
<p>
By unggio83</p>
<p>I only asked the reader to consider for him or herself the frequency which she heard of layoffs and hiring between engineering and healthcare.</p>
<p>
By Sakky</p>
<p>Actually, I see very well what youre trying to express to the reader. </p>
<p>Correct me if Im wrong, but this is my interpretation of your views on engineering:</p>
<p>You believe that engineering is a solid choice for undergrad, because it provides the highest starting salary relative to all other bachelor degrees. You also believe that it is possible to parlay this degree to go into IB (investment banking or consulting). You also believe that many of the TOP engineering jobs will continue to stay in america.</p>
<p>I will analyze Sakkys view a bit.</p>
<p>Its true that engineering provides the highest starting salary for a 4 yr degree, yet it tapers off very very quickly, in fact many programmers have shelf lives not much longer than pro foot ball players according to this link and many others. There is a study done by a uc davis comp sci professor that discourages people from going into comp sci.</p>
<p><a href=“http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html[/url]”>http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3165/is_2001_March_1/ai_73080041[/url]”>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3165/is_2001_March_1/ai_73080041</a></p>
<p>Also, you mistakenly assume that most people who choose engineering would be willing to parlay their degree to go into investment banking. Im not entirely sure about IB, but I would guess that a career in IB is very different than a career in engineering. </p>
<p>Now, my focus is a little different.
My post is dedicated to the AVERAGE science student, NOT somebody at MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley</p>
<p>I believe students should choose engineering ONLY if they like the subject. Choose engineering ONLY if you like logical thinking and problem solving.
DO NOT choose engineering because of the high starting salary. If you want to go into IB with an engineering degree, I would assume that you need to receive that engineering degree from a very TOP school, (MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley etc
) Sakky neglects to mention this key fact, while focusing solely on the benefits of IB when its probably inapplicable to most engineering students anyways. Also when you work on Wall Street in IB, dont you work a 70 hr work week? Kind of like IP (intellectual property)law, also 70hr work weeks. Big firms want around 2200 billable hours per year.</p>
<p>Sakky asks what is better (best?) than engineering as an undergrad major. There is no absolute best or better undergrad major. That is contingent upon the person in question.<br>
Take me for example, I like physics, engineering and science, thats why I will choose physics & engineering as a major. I did not choose my major just so I can get a higher starting salary. </p>
<p>If you like business, go major in business, but be aware of the possibility of layoffs and high competition. Thats why I provided backup options, nursing, or PA (physicians assistant), blue collar jobs (police).<br>
If you like biology, same options are still available. </p>
<p>Now if you majored in biology chances are lower that you can get an IB job. Yet, does that mean you should major in engineering? No, because if your dream is to get that IB job, major in business from a big name school or whatever. </p>
<p>Therefore if engineering as a career doesnt workout yes you can go into IB (assuming that you graduated from a VERY TOP school) as well as those other options I mentioned.</p>
<p>Yet the difference between engineering and business is the experiences you have or dont have during your undergrad years. Engineering will probably require close to 220 units, where business degrees require much less. </p>
<p>Engineers will work their butt off in college and get a slightly higher salary for a few years before having to update their skills or be laid off.</p>
<p>Business majors will have an easy time in college, with more free time to either slack off or to enlighten yourself with the wealth of classes offered at most universities, thus becoming a more well rounded person. Busin majors might start a lower salary, but factor in the predicted layoffs of engineering it kind of evens out in the end. Also as a business major, I would expect them to have good people skills, networking, and contacts. In time a sharp person who majored in business should be able to land himself a nice secure job and support a family. If not, theres a backup.</p>
<p>All in all, is that slightly higher salary about (10-15K) for the first few years as an engineer worth all the extra work in college, if you dont really have a passion for the subject.</p>
<p>My point is dont choose engineering as a solid career as a backup plan, there other backup plans that dont require so much sacrifice during the years in your prime. Read my previous posts on this subject. </p>
<p>Sakky mentions another backup for engineering is to work in engineering sales.
Actually most engineers do NOT work in sales, sakky frequently mentions the exception rather than the norm.<br>
In 2002 82,000 engineers worked in sales, yet there are 1.5 million engineering jobs. So less than 6% of engineers work in sales. There is very high pressure when you work in sales, I used to work in car sales. Not all engineers are accustomed to working under such conditions or even possess such a high level of people and interpersonal communication skills.</p>
<p>Also I would like to mention that Golubbs posts on the benefits of becoming a doctor are slightly extreme, kind of like Sakkys posts on how common (not really) it is for engineers to become investment bankers or consultants on Wall Street.</p>
<p>I will now try to find statistics on how many engineering majors, (not just at TOP schools) actually go into investment banking.</p>
<p>Lastly, Ive read that you do not post your personal bio in these forums. However, considering you probably post more about careers in engineering than any other person, it would make sense that we know where youre coming from. I know I did.</p>
<p>I told people Im still a college student, but all my uncles are working in silicon valley and all are vehemently discouraging myself and their children from going down their path. This is not an ad-hominem attack, but how can anybody reading these posts fully agree with your opinions. I understand that you provide lots of links to raw data, but you draw lots of opinionated conclusions from your facts, and again I say it would make sense to know your bio. (i.e. college student, engineer, teacher etc…?) unless you have something to hide that is.</p>
<p>Awesome link (MUST READ)
<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?4/92368[/url]”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?4/92368</a></p>
<p>*I remember on what of your posts you found on that bls.gov site that comp sci is a hot field to go into that has a huge projected demand, I reply that all sites make mistakes sometimes. I can find countless other websites that will describe that decrease for programmers and comp sci majors in America, if you ask me to. </p>
<p>I await your responses Sakky.</p>
<p>to your earlier post about thousands became millionaires through engineering. say 10,000 / 1.5millino is still only 0.7%. so question is: are you that 0.7%. are you that lucky, talented? take into account the hiring process at google, yahoo, microsoft, it’s safe to assume that only the best engineers get to work for these companies. </p>
<p>medical is very hard to get into, but when you do get in, you’re pretty much guaranteed a secure future and employment. whereas in microsoft, they don’t pay you anything near a doctor’s salary. </p>
<p>Sakky, I hope you don’t mention exceptions. cuz i can do the same for plastic surgeons.</p>
<p>you also mentioned again that america can bounce back from the engineering downsizing, earlier in this same thread I put up a post that dealt specifically with that issue and why it wouldn’t happen.</p>
<p>you seem to be rehashing the same points over & over. including comparing engineering and art history or film studies. nobody in this forum asked you to compare engineering with film studies. it’s irrelevant since most people believe that is an esoteric major. </p>
<p>the topic of this thread was to compare engineering with pharmacy. or at least with other science or popular majors.</p>
<p>Unggio83, you continue to misunderstand what I am saying, to the point that I suspect that you WANT to misunderstand what I am saying.</p>
<p>I am talking about what you want to choose to major in as an undergrad. I am saying that engineering is a good choice to major in as an undergrad. Does that mean that working as an engineer is perfect? No, I never said that. Does that mean that the engineering undergrad major is perfect? No, I never said that either. I said that, given the other choices you might want to major in, engineering is a pretty darn good choice. You’re right - it doesn’t necessarily deliver the greatest career in the world. I never said it did. It doesn’t deliver the most stable income, I never said it did. </p>
<p>What I am asking is what other undergraduate degree delivers those things? Please, name one. You say you want to major in physics. Fine. Does the physics undergraduate degree deliver a guaranteed high income lifestyle? In fact, does it deliver any of those things that you complain the engineering undergrad major does not deliver? I don’t think so. </p>
<p>Hence, you could say that choosing engineering as an undergrad major is a matter of choosing the “least bad” of all the available options. The truth is that no undergrad major can, by itself, guarantee you anything. However, I maintain that engineering is one of the best of all available options. </p>
<p>The point of the thread is NOT to compare engineering with pharmacy. At least, that wasn’t my point. After all, you said it yourself, engineers can go and become pharmacists. And that’s fine. My point in this whole thread is, if engineering is such a bad thing to major in as an undergrad, what’s better? Please tell me.</p>
<p>…(Sarcasm)hey everybody be a nurse a firefighter a bum but don’t be an engineering.(Sarcasm/)You can say anything about your uncles employment status but my dad is an RN nurse and hey he is almost on welfare all the work is agency work and guess what no benefits and all that work in terms of satistfaction SUCKS! No one I do not care who you are can tell the future give me some sources the BLS has revised it’s standards like twenty times hence it is worthless and here the big one my some people LIKE engineering and all it’s greatness.</p>
<p>“is it true that pharmacists have better job stability than chemical engineers?”</p>
<p>From what I have observed this seems quite clear to me.
A good friend of mine is a pharmacist. He has job offers waiting for him all the time. He recently quit a situation he didn’t like, knowing full well that he would have a new job within a month. And he did.</p>
<p>Many engineering jobs are corporate jobs. They are subject to the whims of corporate life (downsizing, mergers, etc). They can be quite cyclical. There is far less certainty that something better is waiting down the road if your current position disappears.</p>
<p>There are other issues though. First of all you have to like the subject matter, and the work environment. </p>
<p>Secondly it appears from this guy that pharmacists have a hard time getting paid much, and can work long hours under stressful conditions. You’d think that if there’s a shortage of pharmacists they would have to pay the people more, but they don’t. The pharmacies can’t raise the prices of their product easily to pay for higher salaries, due to insurance company payment arrangements. Apparently. So instead they just work to death the people that they already have, until they get fed up and quit. When they quit they frequently wind up in the same situation someplace else. Or this guy does, anyway.</p>
<p>I heard that there is a trend showing that not too many chemical engineers are out there are graduating and companies need more chemE’s. As a result, chemE’s salaries will increase.</p>
<p>I said it before, I’ll say it again. Of all the types of bachelor’s degrees you could get, engineering is arguably the most marketable and most flexible. For those who disagree, I would ask, what bachelor’s degree is better?</p>
<p>dsafadsfasdfsadfsadf</p>
<p>I would point out that chemical engineering is arguably one of the least offshoreable of the all the engineering disciplines. The only chemical engineering job I can see being easily offshored are the R&D jobs. However, by and large, chemical engineers have to work where the plantsites are, and as long as the plantsites are in the US, that’s where the chemical engineer has to be. Surely you’ve heard of the talk about the US building more oil refineries, more oil production capacity, more natural gas processing plants, all in the US to deal with the burgeoning energy demand. Since these things are going to be located in the US, they all have to be manned by US engineers. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that I think that chemical engineering is the greatest thing in the world. I’m just saying to give credit where credit is due. Engineering in general, and chemical engineering specifically, are more marketable than the vast majority of other undergrad degrees out there. All this talk about how boring and how insecure the engineer’s lifestyle is lacks the proper perspective that almost all white-collar jobs are boring and insecure, whether you have an engineering degree or a standard liberal arts degree (like English, PoliSci, History, Mathematics, etc). And that presumes that you can actually get a white collar job with a liberal arts degree. Plenty of people graduate with liberal arts degrees and can’t find a decent job at all.</p>
<p>I live in Canada and I’m wondering whether Canada will experience something similar as the US?</p>
<p>Not only will Canada experience that, I would argue that Canada already is. For example, I have read how Alberta, which is the oil center of Canada, is absolutely booming because of high oil prices. Labor is especially tight to develop the Athabasca Tar Sands </p>
<p>"…So many projects are happening at once that it’s difficult to find both skilled and unskilled labor, engineers and pipe welders. And with several more oil-sands projects being developed, everything from tires for the gargantuan trucks to metal pipes for scaffolding is scarce. Consequently, prices for everything are soaring.</p>
<p>And because of their remote location, oil-sands operators must pay high wages.</p>
<p><code>I managed to pay more than three-quarters of my student loans in the nine months I worked just outside Fort McMurray. And they were some hefty loans because I had four years in university,‘’ boasted Amanda Hogg, 23, who just left a job as an oil-company chemist.</code>They’re paying big bucks."</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/13129849.htm[/url]”>http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/13129849.htm</a></p>
<p>Now keep in mind that the Athabasca Tar Sands are located IN Canada, and they’re obviously not going to move away. So unless somebody is proposing to fly in engineers from China and India to develop the sands, I don’t see how those jobs can be easily outsourced.</p>
<p>Sakky- I have to disagree. Sure if the plant is in Tuscaloosa, the engineer cannot be in China or India, but the US and European chemical industries are offshoring their production as fast as they possibly can. It is not just gram and mg scales getting send abroad – all scales are affected. Unless the raw materials come from the US and the value is low relative to the weight, it will inevidibly be sent abroad. Forget about people/salaries/healthcare – the environmental and legal issues alone are enough to drive production abroad. In effect, we are exporting our messes.</p>
<p>There still is a relatively safe haven – those who are extremely creative in finding faster/cheaper or IP-clear synthetic routes that can be used anywhere in the world.</p>
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<p>That’s bogus. If anything, the demand for chemE’s in america will continue to increase due to the increased pressure to use our own oil resources instead of constantly depending on other countries. </p>
<p>Also, we manufacture and produce a lot of the pharmaceuticals / other products in this country and I have a VERY hard time believing we’re going to pay someone all the way in India/china 10K a year so he can optimize and mass produce pharm. drugs at merck in new jersey. ChemE is quite safe from outsourcing.</p>
<p>Jobs like computer programming / comp. engineering / electrical eng. - these are in danger of outsourcing because they don’t require that production to be set at a certain location and place. Instead, these jobs place more emphasis on things like discovery / tech. advance.</p>
<p>CivE / environmental E/chemE focus more maintaining and analyzing the efficiency of production / safety / design of structures; jobs like these require workers in the US and outsourcing targets workers outside the country that can be hired from out of the country (this is not the case for the latter mentioned jobs).</p>
<p>I have a VERY hard time believing we’re going to pay someone all the way in India/china 10K a year so he can optimize and mass produce pharm. drugs at merck in new jersey. </p>
<p>This is happening as we speak.</p>