<p>There’s a very heated discussion over a recent article by an ExxonMobile executive that has got recent graduates and veteran but unemployed engineers angry.</p>
<p>Not only is it the argument over importation of lower paid foreign professionals (that’s an old debate). Mostly the debate is about whether or not college applicants should even consider majoring in engineering. Many engineers say they wouldn’t recommend the profession to their children. Others say that it’s not easy getting a job, but with a little sweat, perseverance and the right company, an engineer can be very satisfied and enjoy a long career.</p>
<p>Since the 60’s there has been a lot of boom and bust in various engineering disciplines. Sometimes there is a dearth of chemical engineers, and schools can’t turn them out fast enough. Then there aren’t jobs for chem E’s. Ditto for aeronautical engineers, petroleum engineers, mechanical engineers and civil engineers. I think the job market has been more stable for software engineers, but it has most definitely been a rocky road in some of the other areas. </p>
<p>There’s also the issue that once you start working, you get shoehorned. Guys that were specialists in one aspect of aircraft design were considered useless for any other area, as if five or six year of doing that somehow tainted them for the future. </p>
<p>Similarly today you see jobs requiring X years of language Y and software development environment Z – when a good software engineer should have little to no problem picking up a language similar to one already known, and even less problem learning to work on a new development environment. But today they might not even be considered.</p>
<p>Emenya, you can find various opinions on BME education here on CC. More than a few folks have said that they advise against an getting an undergraduate BME degree. They’ve said that it’s better to major in one of the traditional engineering disciplines and then get a master’s in BME. That’s their opinion.</p>
<p>Depends. If your plan is to go to Med school but have a backup in case that doesn’t work out, then you better get into Med school. If you really want to work as a BME, major in EE or MechE in undergrad and get a masters in BME is the conventional wisdom. The prospects for just a bachelors in BME are not very good. </p>
<p>Some quick background, Exxon is currently spending millions on a “Be an Engineer” campaign, they are committed to hiring domestic engineers. It’s the reason behind Ken Cohen’s post. </p>
<p>Every field has it’s booms/bust periods. Even Computer Sciences (which is currently hot), boom/bust in 1985 and then again around 2000-2003 (the dot.com bust). No one, including engineers are immune to the business cycle. All you can do is prepare for the down periods and ride them out.</p>
<p>I"m fairly certain most engineering parents (like myself) would advocate engineering for our children. Sure, med school may be great, but we wouldn’t recommend the none STEM majors (we’re clearly biased!) for our STEM inclined children. Engineering is also an effective path into management, for those with the skills and desire.</p>
<p>Structural engineering has been a good career for my husband and myself. We run our “mom and pop” company out of our home office (we built an addition a few years ago). 2013 was rough, but otherwise we’ve done well. We hope we never have to work for anyone else again!</p>
<p>S is an electrical engineer. He graduated in 2010 and has never had a shortage of job offers to date. He’s not all that excited about engineering, but has just taken a robotics job that starts in November. We will see whether that rekindles his interest in EE. He also has a hobby, which makes him more than his full time job and is toying with switching to that full time.</p>
<p>A former supervisor and now good friend was one of the few ChemE majors to land a job related to his major from his graduating class in the late '70s. </p>
<p>He and others who lived in that period mentioned there was a glut of ChemE majors/graduates who weren’t able to land field-related jobs due to a downturn in that area. Many ended up working as taxi drivers or waiters while waiting for the market to improve/retrain. </p>
<p>Said supervisor ended up moving into CS after finding working as a ChemE wasn’t for him despite his relative success. </p>
<p>Ironically, by the mid-late '90s, there was actually a shortage of ChemE majors/graduates so it was a hot high demand field by then. </p>
<p>Speaking of Exxon, the former supervisor/friend tried getting interviewed by them during his junior/senior year. However, the representative’s abrupt curt manner in announcing that they only were interested in applicants with 3.5+ ChemE GPAs and others shouldn’t bother applying was so off-putting he enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude when the company was embroiled in the Valdez scandal in the late '80s. </p>
@Gator, “boomed” implies a bunch of hiring demand. Raiders may have spawned more anthropology majors, but i suspect they were equally unemployed in archeology.</p>
<p>I can only guess, but I would think that the demand for ChemE professionals particularly will grow because the U.S.A.'s need for renewable energy sources. I understand that oil companies like ExxonMobil are funding research into electrochemical projects, i.e. advanced battery technology. </p>