<p>After U.S. oilfield employment peaked at 860,000-plus in 1982, companies slashed more than 500,000 jobs over the next 18 years as oil prices per barrel plummeted to the low teens</p>
<p>Now, surely, I can agree that some of the layoffs surely were staff positions such as IT and finance. But surely when you lop headcount by over 60%, that must include quite a few engineers. After all, there weren’t that many IT, finance, or HR people around to cut.</p>
<p>Well, first off, to be fair, we have to parse what some of those job titles really mean.</p>
<p>Regarding the ‘Assistant’ job: To be an ‘assistant’ at Bain can be a rather cushy job if your ultimate goal is to be a consultant and you couldn’t get a formal consulting offer, as Bain is one of the elite strategy firms in the world. Sure, you’re not working as an actual *consultant<a href=“yet”>/i</a> but at least you’re hovering around the process and you will probably be given the chance to try again - perhaps after an MBA - while learning the recruitment process backwards and forwards. This seems to be akin to one of the ‘quasi-back-doors’ to getting into Harvard Business School which is to work as a *staff member<a href=“i.e.%20a%20research%20associate”>/i</a> at the business school for a few years in order to learn the school culture and obtain strong faculty rec’s. </p>
<p>{Note, if we were talking about an ‘Assistant’ job at some no-name firm, then I would be inclined to agree with you. But this is an assistant job at Bain. Lots of college grads would love to work at Bain, even as assistants. } </p>
<p>Regarding the ‘Intern’ job, I strongly suspect that the data is referring to the following guy:</p>
<p>As you can see, this is basically a guy who held a part-time internship at Lockheed for a year and a half while finishing his bachelor’s at Berkeley, whereupon he then entered grad school at Stanford. I would therefore hardly count this as a failure by any means. </p>
<p>Regarding the ‘computing technician’ job at Berkeley itself, I would argue that these are actually quite nice jobs for some people, but just suffers from misleadingly unglamorous titles. For example, here’s one example of a ‘computing technician’ job available at LBNL (which is part of Berkeley):</p>
<p>That’s a very nice job - heck, I would be surprised if many of the top EECS graduates were not qualified to take that job. {For example, how many EECS graduates have a ‘Combination of six or more years relevant technical experience or education in Unix/Linux computer operations.’?)</p>
<p>Now, regarding the ‘intro-level programmer’ job, this is regarding a video game developer. Let’s face it: we all know that it is the dream of a lot of EECS geeks to work for a video gaming house, particularly an extraordinarily ‘cool’ one such as 2KGames that makes groundbreaking games such as BioShock. Many engineers would happily take a pay and title cut to work for a gaming house, just like lots of journalism students would happily work for peanuts for the New York Times. </p>
<p>But in any case, all of that is neither here nor there. While I can certainly agree that some engineers - even at the top schools - may not obtain quality engineering jobs, the truth is, far more students who are looking for consultants or banking jobs will not obtain quality jobs in those fields. I would guesstimate that for every one student at a top school who wanted a consulting or banking job, there is at least one other student who also wanted such a job and didn’t get a single offer. I myself know quite a few people who went on the consulting/banking recruitment circuit and wound up with no offers (not even an offer to be an ‘assistant’ or ‘intern’). Heck, some of them never even got a single followup interview. </p>
<p>And that’s obviously just talking about the students at the top schools. I’m quite sure that plenty of students at mediocre schools would also like to be consultants and bankers, yet practically none of them will receive offers. Heck, practically none of them will even get to speak to any recruiters.</p>
<p>The point is that whatever difficulties there may be regarding obtaining engineering jobs, the difficulties within finance/consulting are clearly far worse. Engineers compete for engineering jobs with other engineers, or less commonly, with math or natural science majors. However, engineers compete with everybody for finance/consulting positions. Put another way, the MIT engineer is basically only competing against other engineers for a job at the local Google Cambridge office. But the MIT engineer is competing against the other engineers but also everybody at Harvard for the job at Goldman. </p>
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<p>Like I said, perhaps this story is anecdotal, but I can’t think of a single MIT engineering student (or Berkeley engineer for that matter) who took a consulting or banking job who didn’t also have at least one engineering offer in hand, or could have very easily obtained one. Now, granted, the engineering offer may not have been a good offer - I have no way to ascertain that. But at least it was an offer. On the other hand, there are plenty of engineering students who wanted consulting/banking offers, but didn’t get any, and hence had to resort to taking engineering jobs.</p>
<p>Now, there are indeed some students I can think of who obtained neither a finance/consulting offer nor engineering offers. But that’s a completely different category altogether.</p>
<p>Well, the truth is, plenty of newly minted college graduates in any major are still looking for work or are engaged in endeavors that may not really constitute work.</p>
<p>Compare EECS to physics or math, which I consider to be the closest non-engineering analogues to EECS. After all, it probably takes as much intellectual firepower to complete a degree in physics or math at Berkeley as to complete a degree in EECS. Yet the fact is, 45% of all Berkeley math graduates and a whopping 50% of physics graduates are seeking work or engaged in ‘other endeavors’ I would therefore argue that that 30% rate of EECS is looking pretty good.</p>
<p>And US oil production in terms of barrels per day is down 40% since 1982. Most of the people working in the actual oilfields are not engineers. If you an engineer working for one of the majors, you have a pretty secure job. I don’t get why this is so hard for you to believe.</p>
<p>And domestic oil production will probably continue to decline. That implies fewer jobs for all oil workers - including engineers - in the US.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t matter. What matters is that engineers clearly comprise some proportion of the total oil workforce and their population would therefore be slashed just as everybody else in the industry was. </p>
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<p>It is ‘hard to believe’ because all of the evidence points in one direction. The history of the industry is replete with large layoffs - including engineers. I have seen no evidence, apart from simple assertions by posters here, that engineers enjoy special privileges. Another possibility is that the proportion of engineers relative to the rest of the workers in the industry would actually be increasing - but why would that be? I have seen no evidence that that is the case.</p>
<p>Again, if you have hard evidence to back your case, then present it. Otherwise, I think we have to agree that the evidence is on my side.</p>
<p>"PetE has almost nothing to do with ChemE. "</p>
<p>Chemical engineering has A LOT to do with Petroleum engineering, specifically the downstream operations in refineries, lubricants, pipeline, flow assurances and other facility engineering positions that are largely populated by Chemical engineers. In the upstream sector, chemical engineering has a heavy role in production engineering within tracer, surfactant and acidizing work overs. Specifically, chemical engineering modeling (multiphase flow and porous flow) is the closest thing you can get to reservoir engineering and a significant incoming class of reservoir engineers (in the majors) have been my experience, chemical engineers. </p>
<p>You are however right about Berkley’s UG petroleum engineering program–I did misspeak about the faculty’s affiliation. </p>
<p>In terms of engineering and consulting, I would argue that by all means engineering isn’t the most “efficient” route into the business HOWEVER a strong engineering student will of course have an advantage over another major. While this might be an oddity, I remember when I interviewed with a few consulting firms that my engineering background let me bypass some of the initial quantitative tests and helped immensely with the case competition. I know that some firms will actually pay an entry analyst with an engineering background a slightly higher salary but this might reflect the industry group you work for. </p>
<p>While I am not sure about Bain, I know that McKinsey doesn’t have an official “Assistant” position and that beyond an MBA or reapplying to an analyst position, lateral moves into the consulting department aren’t common. In fact, I’m not really sure what this “Assistant” role entails–if it is likened to a Summer analyst then it does have potential to eventually become an analyst. However, I feel that this “Assistant” was probably obtained through networking or other connections, since most MC firms either hire you as an analyst or they don’t.</p>
<p>does anyone know if Bain offers a summer internship for a MS candidate? I know they offer it for undergraduates…but what if you’re currently working on your MS?</p>
<p>MS candidates typically are staffed as Associate Consultants along with recent undergraduates–try looking into the ACI (Associate Consultant Internship) program. </p>
<p>In consulting (for recent degree holders) you typically have the following hiearchy–keep in mind that job nomenclature varies by firm.</p>
<p>Undergraduate/MS majors: Associate Consultant or Analyst </p>
<p>MBA: Consultant/Associate </p>
<p>Advanced Degree Holder (MD, JD PhD): Varies but most likely a consultant/associate in a specific industry group</p>
<p>Why are we continuing to talk about ~500 engineers a year that go into finance. Literally. That’s the volume we are talking about. Utterly irrelevant. Much more important is the lack of per capita production of engineering degrees in the US (at 50% of the rate of other 1st world economies, or worse).</p>
<p>I would argue that the topic at hand and the one you bring up parallel one another.</p>
<p>Broadly speaking, both deal with the structure of incentives in this country. The lack of prestige, coupled with a relatively low variance in salary, plus the rigorous coursework is enough to push many students away from engineering. Even at the mid-tier level, where is the incentive? Yes, the starting salaries for engineers are the highest, but the variance of those salaries over time is almost non-existent. The level of difficulty getting through school is exponentially greater than most other degrees. On top of this, massive movements in the direction of individuality have taken a hold of much of the youth. Critical development years are spent idealizing people living lives that are tremendously different from that of an engineer. Show me one single T.V. show that highlights an engineer? One T.V. show that highlights the drama inside of NASA’s closed doors? (After all isn’t this the premise for HALF of T.V. programs out there within the medical field, the forensic science arena, investigation, law, countless programs and specials highlighting high finance and glamorizing it, politics, etc., etc., that’s not to mention HALF of the programs that pre-college teens actually watch, which involve love, sex, music, drugs, being popular, sports, sex, love, sex, love…) Do engineers even have sex? T.V. tells me that doctors do, forensic scientists do, politicians do… rock stars and sports players do. I think we need to run some programs about NASA engineers that have flings while working on the next big thing. </p>
<p>In my opinion(keep that in mind here), the bottom line is that most students in this country grow up in a plush environment – unlike the majority of students in other countries. Where does this come into play you might ask? I say everywhere. Why on earth do I work so hard in school to go into a field that gets next to zero recognition? We are not talking about small differences in the amount of work that you have to put in, at least in my opinion. Engineers at my school work tremendously harder than anybody else – have very little time for social life (which, in this country is put on a pedestal – whether that’s right or wrong I can’t say). But the international students here, namely Middle Eastern, Asian, etc., do not share in this view. </p>
<p>My main point is that the incentives are skewed – which is precisely the bottom line of Sakky’s argument, and I believe it is the bottom line of your concerns as well.</p>
<p>Sakky is talking about how engineering pales in comparison to investment banking. I say that’s an irrelevant argument simply based on numbers.</p>
<p>You are saying engineering pales in comparison to most other careers. That’s just flatly false. Simply put, my financial situation could not be better except for working in high finance at my age. I actually prefer that people don’t like engineering because it puts such a higher premium on engineering in the US.</p>
<p>I really don’t think a comparison to career objectives and TV-shows are really appropriate–I doubt serious students hinge their career aspirations based on TV shows. If that was so, one would expect more nurses do that ER spin off Hawthorne RN and maybe more mathematicians due to Numb3rs. </p>
<p>Anyway, high-finance jobs have been around for quite some time and I’m curious as to whether the anti-Wall Street sentiment has been rekindled by recent (and to be honest, well warranted) financial news. However, while high-finance claims a small fraction of engineers from top-schools, should we be concerned about other sources of non-engineering sinks for students–perhaps medical/dental school, start-ups, law school or those who simply don’t want an engineering job?</p>
<p>My take on this is the lack of US engineers entering graduate school and R&D jobs–some of these programs have a high number of very motivated/intelligent F1 students who return back to their country after their studies. I feel that while the US has an edge in technology, other countries are quickly catching up.</p>
<p>With all due respect, I think that you may have missed my point and while I cant speak for Sakky, I believe you may have missed the point there as well.</p>
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<p>I am not saying that engineering pales in comparison whatsoever. Im in engineering, if I thought this were the case I certainly wouldnt be here. Not only that, but I work very hard every day to stay here, because its where I WANT to be.</p>
<p>With that said, my point was more in line with why you dont see more people going into engineering, which if Im not mistaken is what your last post asked. Sakkys point, if Im not mistaken, was making reference to something that very closely follows what I believe is the answer to your question.</p>
<p>The comments about the T.V. shows were only to highlight a very real and unmistakable point that in this country there is very little recognition or publication of any of the work that engineers do. </p>
<p>If you are seriously trying to consider why more people dont go into engineering, and why top students leave engineering then I dont see how you can possibly negate this point?</p>
<p>To me, this is not some enigma. The countries that are dominating the engineering landscape and graduating engineers by the masses offer a wildly different setting for their youth who are coming to maturity. In these countries, engineers are held in prestige. Here this is not the case, like it or not this is true.</p>
<p>“The countries that are dominating the engineering landscape and graduating engineers by the masses offer a wildly different setting for their youth who are coming to maturity. In these countries, engineers are held in prestige. Here this is not the case, like it or not this is true”</p>
<p>Some of the reasons have more to do with economic landscape of those countries. I feel that many of these countries value engineers because of their job stability and secure source of income, something that might not be readily available in their home country. My parents were immigrants and went into engineering because it was stable and paid well, relative to their dirt-poor life back at home. In some countries with heavy US engineering presence, such as oil companies in Nigeria, the native population are employed in the industry and hence the youth see engineering as a stable job. Another consideration is that in many of these poor countries, beyond being a physician, an engineer is a very practical degree that can be applied to better the village community. I think the common trait I have seen in foreign born engineers or graduate students is that they don’t want to make a ton of money but instead want a lifestyle that wasn’t available to them at home, or they want to return to better their home community. Perhaps students born in the US are already used to a quality of life and hence want a higher one then was previously available and thus seek higher paying jobs.</p>
Well, I guess I do because it just comes down to numbers. In other countries you can’t make a good living <em>unless</em> you are an engineer. However, in first world economies you have better options. In the top first world economy (the US) you have a lot more options. I’m fine with it though, as we fade in economic prominence the relative value of the engineering degree in the US economy will only increase.</p>
<p>I completely agree. However, on top of this - even in countries that have a high quality of life such as Germany, engineers are just held in a much higher esteem than they are here in the States. I think that it really involves a wide array of reasons that all seem to come down to the basic theme of misplaced incentives.</p>
<p>Because the U.S. enjoys a high quality of life even at the lower end of the spectrum, relatively speaking, we must then employ greater incentives to gain the same advantage. If we continue to fail at this, we will continue to lose our top students to other industries - and many others as well</p>
<p>Yes I go with Mr Payne. But what about the cost of living? 60K a year in NY is nothing. 60K in the middle of NJ is a lot. You have to look at the cost of living too.</p>