Is harvard engineering (Biomedical especially) famous?

sakky
Fri, 28 Oct 2005 11:01:10 +0000

Those ‘jerks’ may think that those Harvard grad engrg students made a wrong decision (instead of lack of capability) due to trivial reasons. It is not so hard either to find people who laugh at those desperates running to casinos for financial answers. It is not a proper analogy, but it should give some idea why people laugh despite their better form.



Exactly. So you admit that they are jerks. If somebody wants to go to Harvard to get a grad eng degree, that’s his life. It doesn’t affect you, so what do you care, unless you’re a jerk?

And I stand by what I said before. You should not live your life in fear of jerks. Just imagine the kind of world we would live in if nobody ever dared to do something because they’re afraid that some jerks might laugh at them.



Let me give some prior notes:

1. Being top engineers doesn’t imply that their best interest is engineering when they’re in college.

2. There is no evidence that cream engineering positions are less attractive than consulting/banking jobs. In fact I would argue that most Caltech/MIT engineers go into engineering positions.

Now with those in mind, it’s not hard to see that banking/consulting are better in terms of financial rewards than average engineering jobs, and for most practical people this gives better appeal; But it doesn’t show that good engineering positions at Genentech, Microsoft or Yahoo would be less attractive than consulting.



Which only leads to the next set of questions. #1 - why can’t engineering be made more interesting such that more people want to study it, and #2 - Why can’t there be more cream engineering jobs? Or in other words, why do there have to be so many crappy engineering jobs, and why can’t they be made into cream ones?



Despite of Bill Gates campaign for more engineers, getting into Microsoft is extremely difficult compared to the other tech companies. Nevertheless, you’ll see that many of its employees are internationals, which I suspect motivates his tour. Let me assert once again, there’re plenty Asians who could flood those tech companies if only they want to hire them. Given the number of international engineering students from top 10 engineering US schools who have to return home since they couldn’t find jobs in the US, engineering already seems to be a very good path on its own.



So you agree with me that engineering isn’t ‘really’ that good? After all, if it was, then all these top Asians (or top engineers from any ethnicity) would be hired, right?

Furthermore, if Bill Gates is already turning down many engineers, whether from Asia or anywhere else, then why is he complaining that he can’t find enough people? You have to agree that he’s obviously not being completely honest.



From my knowledge, 25-28 would have made you sit in management hierarchy, i.e. director or product manager (depends on your management skill) and obtain 300-800K.



If you’re talking about Microsoft, I know plenty of people who are 25-28 and on the management track and make nothing even close to 300-800k.

However, none of that is the point. The point is, why is Microsoft lecturing Americans to become more interested in engineering if Microsoft turns down most of the engineers that want jobs? If Microsoft was really hurting for engineers, then Microsoft should be trying to hire every engineer it can find. That’s not happening.



Perhaps these engineering companies that complain are merely posturing? They need political cover in case they are criticized for outsourcing?



Of COURSE they’re posturing. And that’s the point of my involvement in this thread. I am trying to tell people that there is no real shortage of engineers, that the US doesn’t really “need” more engineers, no matter what the companies say. If a real shortage of engineers existed, then the rules of economics would dictate the salaries would rise accordingly until the shortage was solved. Like I said, if all engineers were to get paid 6 figures, even at the mediocre engineering companies, people would be coming out of the woodwork to become engineers.