<p>Quote:
“I’m an electrical engineer and I can’t count how many fellow electrical engineers I’ve seen get laid off and their jobs sent to China, India, etc… As for mechanical engineers, I think it’s been worse for them.”</p>
<p>No, it’s NOT worse for mechanical engineers. from my experience and the people i know, mechanical engineers pretty much have a broad knowledge of everything from what civil engineers know to simple electrical engineering basics. thus, you encounter mechanical engineers all over the industries, from semiconductor manufacturing, civil construction projects, automotive, aerospace and defense, etc.
so i recommend the OP do undergrad with mechanical engineering, which is pretty much civil engineering in the microscale. you pretty much need to get a master’s degree to be involved in any structural design work anyway. just take the requirements you need for going to grad school in civil engineering.
if you get a civil engineering degree, it’s pretty much a dead-end street for you. but if you do undergrad in mechanical engineering, you’re more versatile and thus, have more doors open for you in either grad school or industry.</p>
<p>Quote:
“The nice thing about civil engineering is the difficulty of outsourcing it. Sure, some of the functions can go, but someone needs to visit the job sites. Also, there is an abundance of municipality jobs for civil engineers. When was the last time you saw a township hire an electrical or aerospace engineer?”</p>
<p>Dude, all types of engineers work for the city (township). the municipality has to hire electrical engineers to maintain and develop the electrical infrastructure. the civil engineers don’t know jack about electrical wiring, HVAC stuff, or least not as much as the EE’s and ME’s do.
Also, you just can’t count on the municipality to do most of the civil engineering hiring. perhaps that’s why civil engineering grads are suffering so much in the unemployment line. dude, most of the engineers that work for the municipality are old people anyway who ain’t gonna retire any time soon to free up openings for the younger folks, and even if they do, it’s not enough to compensate for all those grads out there. fyi, it’s very difficult to get an engineering job in the municipality because the supply is greater than the demand.</p>
<p>and all that talk about outsourcing is mostly untrue. manufacturing jobs are outsourced to places like China and IT jobs are being outsourced to India. most of the design and development are still being done in the US. look at the way semiconductor companies are operating these days - the status quo is “fabless.”</p>