Shocking: More MIT engineering students now actually want to work as engineers

noimagination · October 11, 2009, 1:10pm

sakky:

My personal take is that if you were good enough to get one of those higher-end and higher-paying BigOil jobs, then frankly, you were probably also good enough to land an Ibanking or consulting job if you had attended one of the targeted elite schools, or to have successfully transferred to one of those targeted schools and then made your way to Ibanking or consulting. UTAustin is one of the target schools, and I don’t think it’s ridiculously hard to transfer to UTAustin.

As a case in point, I know one guy who graduated with an engineering degree from UTAustin yet who has never worked a single day in his life in engineering. Rather, after graduating, he spent 2 years at Goldman Sachs, then got his MBA at Harvard Business School, then joined a venture capital firm. Then went back to HBS to obtain his doctorate and now he’s a business school professor. Not once did he ever use his engineering degree for its purported purpose. Nor is he a lone exception - he recounts that quite a few of his UT engineering classmates never once worked as engineers, but instead became consultants or bankers.

Now, this is an interesting point because it directly relates back to nshah9617’s thought that

In response to that, you clearly stated that

sakky:

Well, I’m not sure that it is, simply for - as you already said - those schools (except perhaps for Caltech) do not have the inherent prestige associated with MIT or Stanford, which are seen as clearly on par, from a prestige standpoint, with the Ivies. In other words, the prestige matters more than does regional propinquity.

Let me put it to you another way. The SF Bay Area is not exactly a major Ibanking center - certainly not significantly more so than either Houston or especially Dallas. Heck, the tallest building in Dallas is the Bank of America Plaza, and the JPMorgan Chase Tower is one of the tallest, which demonstrates that the banking industry is indeed prominent in Dallas. Yet SF, Dallas, Houston - none of them can compare in terms of Ibanking hiring to New York. The vast majority of newly minted Stanford graduates who become Ibanking analysts do not stay in the Bay Area, but rather are assigned to New York.

Yet I think there is little dispute that it is easier for a random Stanford student than, undoubtedly a random TAMU student, and almost certainly a Texas, Michigan or Georgia Tech student, to get a NY-based Ibanking job. Heck, I suspect it is easier for a Stanford student to get an Ibanking job in New York than it is for a TAMU or UTAustin student to get an Ibanking job even in Houston or Dallas. {In fact, it may actually be easier for a TAMU or UTAustin student to get an Ibanking job in NY than in Houston or Dallas, again, simply due to the sheer number of Ibanking jobs in NY relative to Houston or Dallas. It is a general rule that if you want an Ibanking career, you first have to start in New York (or London) with only rare exceptions.}

So, which is it?

sakky · October 12, 2009, 4:40am

An MIT or Stanford student has the clearest shot, of all of the major engineering schools, for an Ibanking job.

Next in line would be schools such as Michigan, Texas, Berkeley, and a few others.

After that - far after that - would be schools such as TAMU or TTech.

sakky · October 12, 2009, 5:05am

Perhaps the problem is the confusion between the terms ‘supermajors’ and BigOil: I would agree that the supermajors are BigOil. However, we should also keep in mind that there are plenty of oil companies that I would not place anywhere near on the same category as supermajors, but are still considered Big Oil (that is, not just scrappy E&P’s or service firms). Plenty of smaller firms such as Valero, Hess, Marathon, and the like comprise BigOil, but are clearly not ‘supermajors’ by any stretch of the imagination.

I don’t think it is, although I’m certainly willing to be convinced by evidence. From what I’ve seen, the highest pay scales that tends to push up the averages almost always tends to come from the scrappy, but volatile, E&P’s and service firms. So certainly, I agree that if want to take a job at Devon or Apache or similar firms, you will probably be paid very well - but with the perennial risk of layoffs.

But in any case, if you say that 80k is truly the rate for facilities jobs, then that does indeed beg the question of why chemical engineers in 2009 were being paid a starting salary of only 64k nationwide. The plurality of chemical engineers are attached to the petroleum/petrochemical industry, and if those jobs truly pay 80k, that must mean that there must be plenty of relatively low-paying chemical engineering jobs out there.

[Most</a> lucrative college majors - highest starting salaries - Jul. 24, 2009](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/highest_starting_salaries/index.htm]Most”>Most lucrative college majors - highest starting salaries - Jul. 24, 2009)

Let me put it to you another way. I couldn’t find the engineering salaries for Purdue, but I did find them for the University of Michigan. Michigan is one of the best chemical engineering schools in the country. Yet Michigan chemical engineers in 2008 made only $62k a year, and while this year may be a little higher, surely it is nowhere near the $80k mark. Surely you can understand the appeal for Michigan chemical engineers to instead opt for consulting or banking.

[Michigan</a> Engineering | 2007-2008 Salary Information](<a href=“http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/20072008.html]Michigan”>http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/20072008.html)

Don’t sell yourself short, my friend.

But on the other hand, see above. Clearly plenty of chemical engineers even from the top schools such as Michigan are not obtaining jobs paying anywhere near $80k.

Finance and consulting, whether we like it or not, have glamour. They also (usually) have the distinct advantage of being located in interesting cities and - especially in the case of consulting - offers numerous possibilities for travel to places that people actually want to go to. It’s appealing to be able to say that you worked on consulting projects that took you to New York, Toronto, London, Singapore, or Hong Kong, as several of my consulting friends have recently done.

On the other hand, let’s face it, nobody really wants to be stuck in West Texas. Or Bakersfield for that matter. And certainly when you tell people that that’s what you were stuck doing, many people begin to feel sorry for you. Again, perhaps that’s not the way it should be, but that’s the way it is.

But that is indeed what we are talking about. Not everybody gets to work for BigOil.

sakky · October 12, 2009, 5:39am

I already made this point.

The desk jobs don’t pay well, relatively speaking, for we both know (unless things have radically changed in the last few years) that most of the money is to be made out in the field. To take a desk job in Houston is therefore to be paid a relatively unremarkable salary. The serious money is to be made … out stuck in the boonies such as West Texas or offshore somewhere.

Hey, don’t get me wrong; I know of what I speak. Being onsite is cool…for a little while. Take offshore work: being offshore is indeed pretty exciting, for about the first 2 weeks. But when you hit week 8, you just want out. All you care about at that point is when your replacement is coming. That’s the only thing on your mind at that point.

It is hard to say these investment banks are stealing engineering talent when a number of berekely engineers aren’t really finding great engineering jobs and these investment banks are only taking a handful of engineers.

I’m afraid I have to disagree, for as I’m sure we’ve all seen, engineering productivity does not rise linearly, but probably exponentially. Let’s face it - at any engineering company, in any industry, the vast bulk of the work is performed only by a relatively small percentage of engineers. They are the ones who all of the other engineers come to whenever there’s a serious problem. Those are the ones who always seem to come up with troubleshooting solutions that leave the rest of the engineering staff baffled (or often times they can’t just be bothered to care). Or, if put in a product design/development, they are the ones who always seem to come up with the most interesting new innovations.

I would agree with you that if the Ibanks and consulting firms were each raiding a couple of random engineers, there would indeed be little problem. But they’re not. They’re raiding the very best engineers: the ones who are the most likely to have served as the elite engineering cadre that serves as the backbone of the nation’s technical strength and/or from which new innovations will tend to be generated. As a case in point, a few days ago, Charles Kao, an electrical engineer, was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of fiber optics, which is now an indispensable component of all modern telecommunications, including the Internet. Just imagine how much technologically poorer the world would be if, after completing his engineering PhD, he decided to become a consultant or banker instead.

Yet right now, plenty of top engineering PhD graduates do indeed opt out of engineering careers completely and instead take jobs in consulting or banking. If they had stayed in the industry, one of them would have likely invented the next great technological advance. That’s sad.

See below.

Then consider this figure: a whopping over 40% of all MIT students take jobs not in engineering, but in finance or consulting. That’s not a ‘drop in the bucket’, that’s a flood.

Nearly half of all accepted offers were from consulting and finance firms.

<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation07.pdf[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation07.pdf</a>

Now, to be fair, obviously not all MIT students are engineers, and in particular, it is not surprising to find that most Sloan management students opt for jobs in finance or consulting. Yet the fact is, the majority of MIT students are engineers, and 40-50% of all MIT students heading for finance or consulting is hardly a ‘drop in the bucket’ by any means.

Yet the concept of optimizing society for it’s lowest energy and maximum good is at odds to the individual freedom of the student. We could make the very same argument about dwindling nurses, the lack of medical scientists staying within academic medicine or even physicians who leave hospitals for private practice. To be honest, just because you graduate with a degree in X doesn’t mean you need to work in X. I know plenty of engineers who are so burnt out or demoralized by engineering programs that the though of an engineering career abhors them. Other students might go into engineering just because of the skill-set and career spring-boarding option. The point is that college is just an education and the student has all the freedom of choice to pursue any avenue they want. Ideally, they a top technical mind would revolutionize some scientific field but heck, if they would be much happier making origami, so be it.

Then we should run engineering curricula with the understanding that not every student is actually going to pursue an engineering career. I have often times wondered openly on CC - why does engineering coursework have to be so difficult? Why does it have to be graded so harshly? Why must there be so many requirements? If not every student is going to work as an engineer anyway, then why can’t the program be more flexible and more accommodating? After all, most history majors are run with the understanding that many - almost certainly most - students are not actually going to be professional historians. Most poli-sci majors are run with the understanding that most students are not going to become professional political scientists. So why does engineering need to be run under such assumptions?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating that engineering students not be provided with opportunities to learn whatever engineering toolsets they wish. For example, if some chemical engineering students actually want to learn how to use the Maxwell Relations, they should have the option to do so. But they shouldn’t all be forced to learn them, under penalty of flunking out.

sakky · October 12, 2009, 5:58am

Then I think we have to be more clear about what our disagreement is, if indeed one exists at all. I would agree that obtaining a design job at a good chip firm is indeed rather difficult, and it may well be true that some engineering students are unable to find such jobs and therefore turn to Ibanking. Similarly, I am quite certain that many CS guys would happily turn down Ibanking for a job at Facebook or Twitter, but just can’t get an offer.

On the other hand, I think we can agree that there are plenty of mediocre engineering jobs available, and those aren’t that hard to obtain. The engineering unemployment rate is lower than the nationwide rate, and I almost never meet an engineering student from a top school who truly can’t find any engineering job at all. He may not find a job he wants, but he can still find an engineering job, even if only a mediocre one.

On the other hand, I know plenty of engineering students, even from relatively high-ranked schools such as Berkeley, who desperately want Ibanking or consulting jobs but couldn’t’ get offers. They then worked as engineers for a few years and then went to business school essentially as a ‘do-over’ to try to find their coveted Ibanking/consulting position. Much of the value proposition of business schools is to provide that opportunity for career change. Heck, I know some engineers who are ‘working’ in industry right now but who seem to spend hardly any effort at all on working on their actual job, instead expending it on studying for the GMAT and editing his business school essay answers.

Yet I can’t think of a single banker or consultant who would spend time surreptitiously studying engineering textbooks on the side in order to go back to grad engineering school in order to make a ‘career change’ to pursue his dream of becoming a VLSI designer.

Hence, I think we can agree that while engineering jobs are relatively plentiful - certainly far more plentiful than are consulting or banking jobs - most of them aren’t that desirable. I can agree with you that the top engineering jobs may be very desirable, but there is certainly no guarantee you will ever land them even after decades of experience, and even if you did, they wouldn’t pay particularly well, relative to alternate careers. Given that, many of the top engineering students feel that choosing consulting or banking is a more reliable career path, for they offer both a higher ceiling and more portable skills.

Again, consider the laments of Melissa Gao and Nicholas Pearce:

*
Students at

sakky · October 12, 2009, 6:23am

Uh, I never said that Big Oil is a great deal for only the average American. In fact, I have always said that it - and all engineering jobs for that matter - are great deals for even above-average (but not elite) Americans. However, if you are an average American, then I think there is little dispute at all that BigOil is a fantastic deal.

Yet that does indeed beg the question of why don’t more people simply pursue the oil industry as an opportunity? Again, I ask, if facilities jobs in the oil industry truly pay $80k as has been claimed on this thread, then why is it that UMichigan chemical engineers in 2008 were making an average starting salary of only $62k? Why were UIUC BS chemical engineers in 2009 making only ~$65k? Why are Georgia Tech chemical enginers in 2009 making a median of only $68k? Again, these are not just some scrub chemical engineering programs, these are among the highest ranked engineering programs in the country.

[Michigan</a> Engineering | 2007-2008 Salary Information](<a href=“http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/20072008.html]Michigan”>http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/20072008.html)

<a href=“Careers | School of Chemical Sciences at Illinois”>Careers | School of Chemical Sciences at Illinois;

[2009</a> Career & Salary Survey (Spring)](<a href=“Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page”>Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page)

Now, certainly I can agree that some of those engineering students may not have wanted to work for the oil industry. However, let’s keep in mind that the above statistics pertain to chemical engineers for whom the oil industry has historically been a natural destination, and around which much of the modern chemical engineering curricula has been built around. {For example, I would argue that if you truly won’t consider working for the oil industry, then maybe you’d be better off majoring in a related engineering discipline such as MechE or Material Science.} I suspect that many Michigan, Illinois, or Georgia Tech engineering students who are making only $60-ish would have loved to take a oil job paying $80k+, and would certainly be willing to move to the Gulf Coast if necessary.

Which therefore leaves two possibilities:

<h1>1) Oil jobs are not that easy to obtain, especially if you graduate from an engineering school that - however highly ranked - is not well connected to the industry, possibly for geographic reasons.</h1>

<h1>2) Many oil jobs pay nowhere near $80k.</h1>

Either way, I think we can understand the appeal of consulting or banking. Given the choice of a regular chemical engineering job paying ~$65k or a consulting/banking job, I think many engineering students would gladly take the latter…if such a job were available to him. {But they clearly are available to MIT students, for as I said, a whopping 40-50% of all MIT students take jobs in finance or consulting}.

nshah9617 · October 12, 2009, 4:32pm

“To take a desk job in Houston is therefore to be paid a relatively unremarkable salary”

No. The salaries I reported were mostly desk jobs in Houston and mainly from my experience/colleagues experience.

Which therefore leaves two possibilities:

<h1>1) Oil jobs are not that easy to obtain, especially if you graduate from an engineering school that - however highly ranked - is not well connected to the industry, possibly for geographic reasons.</h1>

<h1>2) Many oil jobs pay nowhere near $80k.</h1>

It’s mainly #1 and a little #2.

First, if the oil companies DO NOT recruit at your university, you are going to have a very hard time getting a position regardless of your major/school. I have only met a handful of MIT graduates but no Caltech/Purdue/UIUC graduates. As I said before the oil and gas companies recruit heavily in the South (Texas, TAMU, LSU, OU, Mines and Tulsa) and to a lesser extent the west coast (Berkley, Stanford and USC).

Second, the average engineer won’t be able to get a 80k+ job at the major integrated oil companies. Even at Texas, one of the highest recruited schools for the industry, only 10-15 slots are available per major and per oil company. The people I know who got said offers were top talent and by no means your average engineer. Just like the average finance major won’t get a job at Morgan Stanley or Credit Suisse, the average engineer won’t get a job at XOM, CVX or other major integrated oil companies.

To reiterate point #1, you mentioned that the average ChemE @ Georgia Tech/Illinois earns around 60ishk. Just like within banking/consulting there are certain schools that have much higher recruiting. Yes, chemical engineering might have heavy overlap within the oil/gas industry but that doesn’t mean those schools will have heavy recruiting.

Looking at GAtech @ CVX
[Recruiting</a> Events](<a href=“http://careers.chevron.com/students/schedule/default.aspx?School=Georgia+Institute+of+Technology]Recruiting”>http://careers.chevron.com/students/schedule/default.aspx?School=Georgia+Institute+of+Technology)

You’ll see there are NO recruiting events there. Compare this to Texas or A&M and you’ll see much more opportunities.Texas ChemEs are heavily recruited in the oil industry and from the salaries statistics

[Full-Time</a> Salary Survey](<a href=“Career Services”>Career Services)

You can see that the UT mean/average are around 70ishk. Naturally the PetroE salaries are astronomical but are expected since schools in the south are usually the top programs for petroleum engineering.

So reiterate my point, just like with consulting/banking or hell any industry, if the recruiters don’t attend your school you’ll have a significantly lower chance of entering the industry.

I still don’t think that 40-50% of MIT students leaving for financial/consulting industries is a cause for alarm. Yes, it is tragic that students from a top school like MIT are deserting but this is a localized problem not a widespread epidemic among top engineering programs. In fact if we are concerned about the USA’s technology development we should instead focus on graduating more native USA PhD engineers and keeping them in R&D roles.

jma · October 12, 2009, 5:46pm

Just out of curiosity, how would you guys compare the raw existing numbers of elite engineering jobs vs. elite finance jobs.

One major difference between the two, is that, I don’t know of many “non-elite” finance jobs. The only consulting or ibanking jobs are all relatively prestigious however that is defined.

If given the choice between prestigious finance vs. prestigious engineering job, I think a good number of engineers would choose the prestigious engineering job. I just happen to think that getting a job with google or facebook is a good deal harder than getting a job with a random ibank. At the end of the day however, there are only a few engineering firms that offer the “prestige” of that random ibank.

Another issue is that, while I don’t have the raw data, I’d assume that the average salary of an MIT engineer who works in engineering is not more than an SD above the starting salary of an average engineering graduate from a top 50, but not top ten, school. Similarly, I’d assume that the average salary of the top 5% of engineering studnets from MIT that go into industry is not all that higher than the salary of the bottom 5%. You might claim that starting salaries have a similarly small spread in finance, but I’ve heard of some wide disparities in both starting salaries, and of coures in bonuses. The rewards for the “elite” in engineering are largely nonexistent, relative to the potential rewards “elite” students get if they go into finance. Well, not nonexistent, but I’d assume that the potential for actually getting those rewards is far higher in finance than it is in engineering.

Sadly, I’ve seen sakky making this point for years, and while I largely agree with the content of his message, it does not appear as if a “change” is any likelier to occur, despite the fiasco of the past couple of years.

monydad · October 12, 2009, 6:40pm

“Sadly, I’ve seen sakky making this point for years,…”

[ deleted ]

jma · October 12, 2009, 9:37pm

For the record, not trying to take a shot at sakky in stating I’ve seen his point over these years. I’ve certainly benefitted quite a bit from much of the information he has posted and think it’s important that he get the message out, and hopefully, the appropriate changes are made. My only point is that unfortunately it does not seem particularly likely.

sakky · October 13, 2009, 2:38am

Then things truly have changed drastically - if you are indeed implying that the Houston desk jobs actually pay comparably to the field jobs offshore, North Alaska, or other harsh environments. That then begs the question - why the heck would anybody work offshore if they could just park themselves in a cushy office in Houston all day long?

I find it hard to believe. It would then imply that all of the offshore boys are either outdoor-philes or just being stupid. The whole point of going offshore is (or at least was) to make more money in return for a clearly lower quality of life.

They still recruit at Berkeley? Berkeley killed its undergrad PetE program years ago.

More importantly, they still recruit at Berkeley for the ‘$80k’ oil jobs that have been claimed on this thread? If so, then I’d better tell all of the Berkeley ChemE’s I know that they’re clearly getting screwed.

Exactly as I suspected and said, which harkens back to the point I made before: if you really are good enough to get one of those BigOil jobs that has been discussed, then you may also be good enough to get a consulting or banking job as well. The top engineers at UT have a variety of employers to choose from.

Now, to be sure, the overlap is clearly imperfect. Surely there are some engineers at schools such as TAMU who can obtain a top BigOil job who have little chance of obtaining a consulting/banking job, simply because TAMU is not a target school for those industries. However, I suspect there is more overlap than people think. Like I said, a top engineering student at TAMU could almost certainly transfer to UT and then potentially find a consulting/banking job that way.

I don’t believe it is a localized problem, but a symptom of a greater one. To wit:

*While I don’t have the data, I strongly suspect that a significant percentage (i.e. at least 1/4) of all Stanford engineers also don’t take engineering jobs, instead opting for consulting or banking.

*The problem of PhD engineers is interrelated with this one. Many of the MIT (and Stanford) engineers who left the discipline for consulting/banking probably would have stayed if engineering opportunities were improved. Again, these aren’t just a bunch of mediocre MIT or Stanford engineers; these tended to be the better engineering students that MIT or Stanford has produced. {If you earn straight C’s in engineering at MIT or Stanford, you’re not going to be offered a consulting or banking job.} In other words, much of the best engineering talent in the country doesn’t really want to remain within engineering, either within industry or academia. That’s problematic for society. Like I said, what if Charles Kao or Jack Kilby had become investment bankers rather than engineers?

sakky · October 13, 2009, 3:16am

I suppose one could argue that commercial banking - which does represent the vast majority of jobs in the banking industry (broadly defined) is rather ‘non-elite’. For example, during the housing boom, plenty of regular people with average educations became mortgage brokers or corner bank loan officers. Heck, some of them didn’t even graduate from college at all, and certainly don’t have to graduate from a top school, however defined. Some of them made excellent money during the boom.

However, it is generally understood that a significant divide exists between the remit of Ibanking and other realms of high finance and that of commercial banking. However well paid the latter had become, surely the former was far more so, on average. Furthermore, there was certainly no mass exodus of MIT or Stanford (or UT) engineers leaving engineering to become retail mortgage brokers. They might have joined the structured finance departments of the Ibanks in order to synthesize and hawk radioactive mortgage-backed securities and CDO’s, but rarely would they actually originate the mortgage in the first place.

I agree, such that the notion of an ‘elite’ engineering firm is almost an oxymoron in terms.

Granted, there are a few that might qualify as being elite - the Microsofts, Facebooks, Googles and Twitters of the world - but, interestingly, they seem to occupy the IT/software space which therefore revives the hoary question as to whether IT/software is really ‘engineering’ (it is to me, but others would disagree). And while obviously some engineering firms are more respected than others - ExxonMobil being respected most of all within the oil industry - nobody outside of the industry is highly impressed if you work for such a firm.

But more importantly, like I said, the migration seems to be one-way. I know many engineers from highly regarded engineering firms such as even Microsoft or Intel who were or are desperately trying to find a way to switch careers to finance or consulting, including studying diligently for the GMAT and preparing B-school essays. But I highly doubt there are many consultants or bankers who are desperately trying to switch careers to engineering. To be fair, they might want to shift to work for engineering companies, but not actually take on engineering roles. Engineering, sadly, is now seen by many of the very best engineering students as a mere waypoint that you pass through onto bigger and better things.

As a case in point, consider Ankur Luthra, Berkeley’s 2003 University Medalist (essentially equivalent to 'valedictorian) and Berkeley’s first Rhodes Scholar winner since the 1980’s, and who seemingly swept every single engineering award that Berkeley had to offer. Yet the fact is, he’s barely ever worked a day in his life as an actual engineer. (He did work for a few months at Microsoft, but as a Program Manager, not really as an engineer). After finishing his MSCS at Oxford as part of the Rhodes, he then got his MBA at Harvard and then became a venture capitalist.

[Ankur</a> Luthra’s University Medal Speech](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/05/15_luthraspeech.shtml]Ankur”>Ankur Luthra's University Medal Speech)

Guys like Luthra are emblemetic of what I’ve been discussing. Luthra is arguably the most talented undergrad engineer that Berkeley has produced in his generation, and arguably the best in the school’s history. Yet he clearly doesn’t actually want to be an engineer at all. I’m quite certain that his ilk would never seriously consider working as an engineer for BigOil. {Just think about it: how many Rhodes Scholars do you think are working as engineers for ExxonMobil? I’m going to guess ‘zero’.}

nshah9617 · October 13, 2009, 12:21pm

“Then things truly have changed drastically - if you are indeed implying that the Houston desk jobs actually pay comparably to the field jobs offshore, North Alaska, or other harsh environments.”

Well those harsher environment jobs do pay more than the cushy Houston jobs, especially global mobile positions. As I have said, I know a few guys who broke/flirted with 6 figures (pre-tax and with signing bonus of course) when they worked for BP Alaska. Once again the caveat is that these engineers are VERY qualified (good gpa and past internships) and by no means are your “average” engineer. Independents are much more volatile with their pay and I have seen a gamut of wages from 70ishk to 110k for BS graduates. However once things go south (like the economy) they typically cut recruiting down and therefore only do the majors really have staying power in their compensation, particularly XOM.

"They still recruit at Berkeley? Berkeley killed its undergrad PetE program years ago. "

There is still a handful of Berkley grads but mainly graduate students. While Berkley often starts/stops their petroleum engineering program, the core faculty usually just get reabsorbed into Chemical engineering.

jma · October 13, 2009, 4:42pm

Another factor is that I tend to believe that a lot of the engineers who go into consulting/ibanking had no intentions of ever working in engineering and every intention of going into finance. Many of these students know that certain companies like engineers, and recognize that an engineering major could give them a leg up over english majors.

If tomorrow, these students were told that ibanks/consulting firms loved english majors, I’d be surprised if a decent amount of those 25% of MIT engineers didn’t jump at the chance to sign up for Shakespeare and poetry courses. Well, maybe not the MIT engineers, but certainly many of the students at IVY engineering schools who go into finance, and probably a decent number of the Stanford engineers that go into finance as well.

Regardless, that doesn’t change the central issue, which is not that students might be majoring in engineering to get a leg up into finance ,but rather, that top students aren’t duking it out to major in engineering to get jobs with engineering firms.

In other words, it’d be nice if those top MIT engineers were basing their major choice on what would give them the best chance of going into certain engineering professions rather than what will strictly give them the best chance of going into finance.

(Assuming major is chosen based on future career, etc. If people want to choose a major strictly based on what their intellectual interests are, thats obviously fine, but this advice applies to those thinking ahead to a career)

UMEE11 · October 13, 2009, 9:07pm

Another possible factor in Michigan ChemE grads not having high starting salary…the oil industry is just not as “sexy” as say pharmaceuticals, alt energy, etc. Locations are not great if you are from the Midwest or Northeast like most Michigan students, because you pretty much have to move to Houston or the Gulf Coast.

As to salaries, I worked for one of the “smaller” integrated companies, and I would say that starting salary for a ChemE at the refineries was about $75k, with a ~10% bonus pretty much guaranteed. Add in bonus for turnarounds, etc. and expect to make about $90k out of school. I interned for 8 months, and if I would have stayed for a full twelve months, would have made about $70k for the year (and not eligible for bonus.)

I don’t know about hiring right now…but I’ve interviewed with Chevron, Exxon, Halliburton and have upcoming interviews with Shell, Conoco, and Schlumberger. I’d say that I will definitely lean to the majors - they won’t eliminate positions like the service companies do in harder times. The comment about nobody with more than 10-15 years of technical experience is totally laughable. I thought that the average age of the workforce was pretty high, with a lot of people eligible for retirement within the next 5-10 years.

And they layoffs that you cited for the oil industry were kind of ridiculous…layoffs that occurred after the massive wave of consolidation a decade ago, likely a lot of IT, HR, accounting, finance, etc. jobs that got eliminated. I doubt that there were very many engineering jobs eliminated.

jack63 · October 13, 2009, 11:46pm

Sakky, I read thru some of your posts and responses. I’ll agree that it is annoying that investment banks come and snatch the better students…the engineering students that actually had a chance at some of the non-mediocre engineering jobs out there. It is not a good sign. I think we agree that many of the engineering jobs out there are pretty mediocre and encourage students to look into finance too.

Sometimes I think these conversations about investment banking companies taking engineers miss the very large elephant in the room though. Even at Berkeley these engineers had trouble getting engineering jobs. I’m not saying they had to settle for engineering jobs that were mediocre, I’m saying Berkeley students could not find engineering jobs in the middle of Silicon Valley. Look at this list that you brought up

<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a>

In 2007 for the EECS undergrad class at Berkeley, 16% were unemployed at graduation, 14% were pursuing other endeavors(many of which won’t be legitimate). Of the 50% who had jobs I read jobs like office Assistant, technician, Intern, and intro level programmer. These aren’t engineering jobs…This will be much worse in 2008 and 2009 too with the economic problems in this country.

It is just kinda tough for me to be too concerned that Investment banks pull off a few engineers, when the engineers can’t find engineering jobs. The problem is just more complicated than big finance coming in and grabbing engineers away from companies who would actually hire them as engineers.

I also think that these MIT students may be fooling themselves to think that engineering jobs are going to be “easy” backups to finance.

nshah9617 · October 14, 2009, 12:52am

I feel that the a vast majority of engineering students just “stick it out” with their major either due to the time commitment or just a hedge against indecision for choosing a career.

For example, after a brutal junior year I can easily see how engineering students are jaded with engineering in general and would switch to another major if they weren’t just a year away from graduation. Maybe due to the costs of tuition or just the promise of “one more year” students stick with engineering because at the very least, they’ll be qualified for a wide range of jobs beyond just the typical engineering jobs.

One mention was a complete retool of the engineering curriculum to help facilitate transition and retention for engineering jobs. I have mixed feelings about this. On the plus side, anything that helps funnel talent towards engineering or graduate school would be a boon to society.

However, I’m not sure how much cuts in the curriculum could be made without jeopardizing the overall engineering education. The curriculum is largely a product of what the collective body of professors feel an “engineering education” should be. Of course we can argue about the “real world” application of any engineering concept, from tensors to Maxwell equations. Yet on the same hand, one could easily argue that NO undergraduate degree really prepares you for the industry. Just as a recent finance major won’t likely be asked to calculate WACC or an engineer will have to integrate functions all day, for the most part UG degrees don’t really give you “real world” skills. Heck, if we wanted to tailor engineers for the industry I would just make sure they have basic math/computer skills and then focus on public speaking and more importantly how to deal with people. So just as the Maxwell relations in thermodynamics have little “industry value” the same thing could be said about determinants in linear algebra or even turbulence in fluid mechanics–you’ll probably never see it again if you work in the industry but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are integral to the general education in linear algebra or thermodynamics. I feel that college isn’t a vocational program and therefore however tragic it might be, students shouldn’t have to enter their chosen professions based on a degree. While it really isn’t practical or likely that someone studies engineering “just for the hell of it” it can be likened to someone majoring in mathematics just because it is interesting.

Anyway this would shift to how to keep students from becoming jaded or increasingly agitated with engineering jobs. One answer would be to lower the stringent grading requirements that haunt most engineering programs and stop “weeding” out students.

grdschoolhopeful · October 14, 2009, 2:32am

nshah, I 100% wholeheartedly agree with ALL of your previous post. Obviously our curriculum does not prepare us for the industry; but at the very least, it’s an education we receive to develop our problem solving skills, repertoire of knowledge, and soft skills such as time management, teamwork (with peers of equal intelligence and maturity), and communication. I think I get your point — it’s an education we receive…kinda for the sake of receiving an education/having a degree under our belt, irregardless of what degree it is. I could be wrong since I kinda skimmed your post, haha.

Just curious, from the examples you mentioned, it sounds like you might have been a mechanical engineer? I was too, just graduated my B.S.ME, and am now working on my MS in structural engineering (which in contrast is actually necessary/useful to the particular industry)

sakky · October 14, 2009, 5:06am

Wait, they ‘often’ start/stop their PetE program? The undergrad program has been stopped for a decade now, the grad program has never stopped.

Uh, no, I think not. The core faculty was absorbed - and still remains - in the Civil Engineering department. PetE has almost nothing to do with ChemE.

sakky · October 14, 2009, 5:37am

Well, I’m afraid I have to disagree with the very premise of that logic, for I rather doubt that engineering is the most direct way to garner entry into consulting or banking. Speaking of MIT specifically, I would argue that by far the clearest shot would be offered through the management major at the MIT Sloan School. Not only is the management major easier than are the engineering majors - a fact that surely even the Sloanies would freely admit - but you also gain entree to the all-important Sloan networking events that include current Sloan MBA’s and alumni, and gain extensive coursework experience in the ‘language’ (i.e. the ‘buzzwords’) of management. The salary figures bear this out: Sloan management majors actually earn higher starting salaries than do most of the MIT engineering majors. Why major in engineering where you will study harder and be paid less when you can just shift to Sloan where you study less and be paid more? Nor does the Sloan School restrict its enrollment as many other undergrad business schools such as Haas and Ross do. If you’re an MIT undergrad and you want to shift to the Sloan School, you are free to do so anytime. Nobody will stop you.

Yet the fact remains that while the popularity of the Sloan management program has increased recently, it is still relatively small compared to the rest of MIT. MIT confers more bachelor’s degrees just in mechanical engineering alone than the Sloan School does every year, and MechE isn’t even close to being the most popular engineering discipline - EECS being the clear #1.

Regarding the Ivy-ish schools that may lack undergraduate business programs, I nevertheless find it unlikely that engineering would be the most efficient path towards a career in finance or consulting. A far easier path would be to major in economics or (if targeting consulting) sociology or psychology. {In fact, I would argue that sociology or psychology are actually more useful than is economics if you aim to be a consultant.} We’re all engineers here, so we know how it is. Why subject yourself to the gauntlet of engineering if you don’t have to?

Now, what I can believe is that some students major in engineering for a ‘backup career’ in case they don’t obtain a consulting or banking offer. Heck, I myself know some people who have followed this very strategy. But that then leads to the question: why does engineering have to be a backup career? Why can’t it be the first choice career?

Shocking: More MIT engineering students now actually want to work as engineers

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