<p>Engineering is no more “job training” than any other major. There’s a lot of theory learned in classes, and frankly, if one only is involved in their classwork, they won’t be able to apply what they have learned very well.</p>
<p>Engineers are NOT technicians. Studying engineering technology might be more akin to “job training.” Studying engineering is definitely an education.</p>
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Yes I realize this, and if you go back to my post I pondered where we would be if these people had instead pursued liberal arts degrees/education. That’s a key point. </p>
<p>Engineering degrees weren’t needed hundreds of years ago for innovations to occur, as they simply didn’t exist. But if those innovators in our history had instead spent their days reading Ovid or Shakespeare, the world would be an entirely different place (though not necessarily worse).</p>
<p>This entire argument is based on a false assumption, which is that engineers only get educated in the hard sciences and their applications. Every legitimate university in the country has a core curriculum made up of 1.5-2 years worth of education in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. I’m not majoring in a liberal arts subject and I have taken a broad spectrum of courses; everything including biology, chemistry, philosophy, logic, math, statistics, history, government, economics, psychology, sociology, english, american literature, communication, and accounting. Granted, a typical engineering major may not take quite that many courses outside of engineering, but in my state I know there is a required core curriculum that includes 42 hours of coursework in subjects that have nothing to do with engineering and most engineering degrees will require upper division electives in subjects unrelated to engineering.</p>
<p>I’d say that most engineering majors are engineering majors because they want a solid skill that will earn them money. If one is truly passionate about a certain area, then one would probably major in pure math, pure physics, or pure chemistry rather than major in an engineering field.</p>
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I’m going to have to disagree with you here. First off a lot of engineering majors don’t go into engineering. Second of all even if they do go into engineering I was never under the impression that the money is that great. </p>
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Why?</p>
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Okay? Here’s an example then of something similar…</p>
<p>You: So guess what I got for Chanukah?<br>
Me: I hate Jews.
You: wow, that’s really extreme. I’m going to go tell the principal
Me: No, please don’t. I love Jews! I just replied based on what I think a Nazi would say in my position. </p>
<p>I hope you see how reckless it is to argue things in someone else’s perspective, but not tell anyone that you are doing so.</p>
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<p>Is that a joke? What do they go into then… English teaching?</p>
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<p>You have to be joking… Go anywhere and search highest paid bachelor degrees or highest paid majors. Engineering majors will top the list. </p>
<p>If you want to support your claims, don’t make up evidence.</p>
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They commonly go into business, economics, law, teaching, and medicine. I wouldn’t be surprised if more engineering majors went into these fields then engineering. </p>
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That’s not the same as highest paid careers, which is what I was referring to.</p>
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I didn’t.</p>
<p>Engineering is definitely not job training and is probably not even career training. It is academic training that you try to put to use in the job or career that you end up in. Apprenticeships are for job training, you are taught all the things you need to know for that particular job. In engineering there are so many different jobs within every engineering branch that it would be futile to try to cover every possible job you might find yourself in. Engineering has to cover a very broad area but not in a lot of detail. You will find out soon enough that most things practical and useful in your job were not things covered by a university course. You have to pick them up on the job.</p>
<p>Really? I’m in a dilemma here. I am going to major in a type of engineering (or, most likely, computer science) because I think it will be useful. I am not too sure if I am interested in the subject, per se; but it’s not like I’m in love with another subject. Do you think that this is a stupid idea? Because I hear that engineers have the toughest course loads! And are the most antisocial.</p>
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<p>Which buildings are you thinking of? I don’t know of one that was designed by an engineer without a formal education.</p>
<p>Homer Gage Balcom - Civil engineering at Cornell University
<p>John Roebling - Architecture, engineering at Bauakademie in Berlin
<p>Gunvald Aus - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Technical University of Munich
<p>George B. Post - Civil engineering from NYU
<p>Are you implying that you don’t believe it’s necessary to have a formal education in order to be an engineer, especially one that designs buildings? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near a skyscraper designed by somebody like that, let alone step foot in it.</p>
<p>As inquired earlier, what exactly is a real/traditional education and how does that differ from engineering?</p>
<p>Theology could be considered job training depending on the students motives, no?</p>
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This is a false comparison. Were the Iliad and the epic of Gilgamesh written by college grad? Where did Shakespeare matriculate? For that matter, how many top novels of the 20th century were written by college graduates trained to do so? I would wager that success-without-college is far easier in non-scientific fields than in engineering.</p>
<p>For what its worth, ANY field can be performed at some basic level by just about anyone. My 8 year old could write a sonnet, build a bridge, heal the sick - she just would not be very good at it. She could probably figure out how to dig out a canoe, although it might take her a few tries and would not be impressively seaworthy, but I think an ocean liner or submarine are going to be beyond her.</p>
<p>There is no point looking at those times when an appropriate engineering education either didn’t exist or was so young as to be uncommon. Plus, it is a little facetious to cite the inventions of the handful of modern untrained engineers without acknowledging that they built their inventions using a foundation of technology and technique pioneered almost entirely by college-educated engineers. I would also recommend applying to the companies started by those non-college entrepreneurs without a college degree and seeing what they say.</p>
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It is all a balancing act between making stuff and knowing how stuff works. If you just want to make stuff, become a technician (but you own’t know why it works), if you want to know how stuff works, become a scientist (but you will not usually be able to make stuff), if you want to know both, become an engineer.</p>
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Most engineering majors DO go into engineering, although that can vary considerably by school. For example, engineers at Harvard are more likely to go into non-engineering fields like finance or engineering-related schools like patent law or engineering management. Conversely, at my alma mater (PSU) the vast majority of engineering students are going directly into engineering. You can usually tell simply by looking at the focus of the school - strong engineering schools create engineers, strong liberal arts schools produce engineering-trained people for non-engineering jobs.</p>
<p>Also, engineering pays exceptionally well out of school, and has very strong prospects in the long run. Most jobs that outpay engineering in the long run either require additional specialized education (MD, JD) or else provide a more direct route to finance or management - the best money is ALWAYS going to go to the people who control the money. Regardless, engineering is a terrible job to have IF YOU DON’T LIKE ENGINEERING, and a great job to have if you do.</p>
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<p>Strongly disagree. My passion is for spaceflight. I want to work in the spaceflight industry. Honestly, I don’t care about the money. Majoring in pure theory won’t give me the kind of job that allows me to work in the field that I want though.</p>
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It was very clearly meant to be a witty response. Plus your analogous hypothetical situation does not illustrate any coherent point that you were trying to make.</p>
<p>Anyone here who hasn’t gone through an engineering book, attended/viewed some lectures, or looked at some problem sets shouldn’t be saying that engineering is just a trade. The colloquial definition of ‘trade’ runs along the lines of mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, that sort of thing. The common thing between these occupations is that generally the problems faced while doing these jobs don’t differ much. Also, there is almost never any purely theoretical or mathematical basis for how they solve their problems. Engineering, however, takes a lot of justification in the mathematics, and researchers in engineering do lots of theoretical and computational work, which is almost no different than what a physicist does except that they are applying their skills to create machinery/structures/computers/whatever. Engineers working in industry also have to apply their skills in physics and mathematics to solve varying types of problems all the time.</p>
<p>If you’re going to say that engineering is a trade, you must also include medicine, law, and whatever other occupation that doesn’t involve research. You can make a case for liberal arts majors who write philosophy or works, but the thing about the arts is that they are relatively subjective and the ideas that come from the artist may be brilliant or may be hogwash, and it all depends on who’s listening. Of course, writing is also a trade in some respect because you are continuously dealing with the human mind on macroscopic scale (usually) to change or introduce ideas. You could argue that there exists a limited number of designs for air conditioning units, refrigerators, automobiles, and septic systems, but there also exists (to a good approximation) a limited number of ways you can reach out to an audience with your ideas.</p>
<p>Also, this argument is completely useless. It’s just semantical nonsense.</p>
<p>The whole concept of engineering vs liberal arts as “real” education is debatable. It really spends on what kind of focus u have. If u want to pursue engineering, then engineering is “real” education. Vice versa with Liberal arts. Also, to add to the comment that Ivy Leagues focus on liberal arts more than engineering. I totally think that is correct. Especially, since most Ivy League Universities have a strong approach to linguistics studies.</p>
<p>Engineering is “real education” AND job training. Engineers gain a theoretical background in their field through calculus, physics, and other science courses. In their Engineering courses, they gain more theoretical background AND practical skills that can be used on the job. Engineers are capable of performing technician-type jobs, but they are also capable of doing research and design based on mathematical/scientific concepts to create new technologies. That’s what makes an engineering degree such a versatile one: it signifies both theoretical and practical knowledge.</p>
<p>I don’t think an engineering education is job training at all. Sure, maybe you learn the fundamentals for a specific job with an engineering degree, but the majority of degree plans are not composed heavily of real-life applications. For any particular job, there will always be a period of time to learn the skills you need for it (e.g. think about the process to obtain a P.E.) An engineering education just gives you the fundamentals, and exposes you to the process of critical thinking (which is needed due to lackluster H.S. education in the U.S.)</p>