<p>Thought I’d comment on a bunch of posts here. No disrespect intended. </p>
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<p>This is definitely not true. Good professors earn plenty through private consulting on top of their permanent tenured job, and faculty jobs are among the most difficult to get, and the most difficult to do. Most junior profs work 80+ hours per week before tenure, and most senior profs I know work 50-60 hours after tenure because their research groups are run like businesses and they must keep generating grants to keep the research going. </p>
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I don’t buy it. Most engineering firms who are designing new products hire on talent. Often H1B students have it and are willing to do engineering work. I agree that firms treading water looking to maintain existing products often hire H1B students on price, but those are commodity jobs anyway that they could just as soon ship overseas entirely. Even H1B students with talent don’t want those. Many of those H1B students with talent become permanent residents, entrepreneurs that create jobs, and are a net plus to our economy. </p>
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I did and I question whether this is a good thing. It’s 4 whole classes. Seems like a waste of precious time. Classes are a scarce resource. I don’t think future chemical or electrical engineers need to study mechanical engineering topics and many people are drawn to a particular type of engineering because they like the science underlying the engineering. I think it’s fine for those who want to sample different engineering disciplines, but delays getting down to business. </p>
<p>Given how many requirements there are in engineering discipline to get a degree, I question whether these type of “engineering first” programs are a good thing at all. I know Brown had that when I was in HS and it turned me right off. I wanted to be an Electrical Engineer not an Engineer. If I knew which engineering, I would have preferred to dive right in and get more and deeper electives on the back end. As an employer, I also like to see more and deeper electives on the back end too. </p>
<h2>In all of my 25+ years as an EE, I’ve never had to use MechE concepts. </h2>
<h2>Co-ops are the way to get hands on. I think they are terrific. Most schools offer them.</h2>
<h2>Not sure about Olin. I think the experiment is still running, and I haven’t been overly impressed with the results. These were the cream of the crop students going in. IMHO, the jury is still out on how well their graduates fare. </h2>
<h2>Not a huge fan of UMASS Lowell. The standard of excellence isn’t that high there. </h2>
<h2>In general, for those that can handle it, I recommend the top schools, including Harvey Mudd. For those that need more nurturing, places like WPI and Rose Hulman seem like the ticket. Northeastern is an excellent coop school. </h2>
<p>I think the solution to the issues raised by the NYT and WSJ is to better prepare our kids in math. Math needs to be correctly viewed as the most important subject by a lot, not just one of many subjects.</p>