<p>If someone has a business idea that has the potential to substantially lower the cost of doing something for a large number of people, they don’t need a degree to start the business. In order to grow that business, particularly in the face of greater demands on the technology, they may need to get engineering degrees (or hire people who have engineering degrees).</p>
<p>It should also be pointed out that several of the founders of the businesses you mentioned were considerably skilled and informed in the engineering required to create those businesses and at least bring them to the stage that they became attractive to investors. While this may not equate to what might be learned in an engineering degree, it’s a subset of an engineering education - these folks were not ignorant of the engineering requirements for what they created.</p>
<p>Finally, very few people, regardless of whether they have engineering degrees, are able to create multibillion (US) dollar companies. But people have to work for a living, and the criteria for getting hired to do engineering work by said companies is, more often than not, an engineering degree.</p>
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<p>This could be the result of specialization. I can’t speak to what mechanical engineers do, but it’s quite plausible that EECS students might not know how Internet technologies work. For example, how are you defining Internet technology? Packet-level technology? Web servers? Web browsers? Then there are people who work on these technologies but know little if anything about things not related to what they are interested in - for example, I know very little about gaming technology (graphics and such), and don’t really have time to spend on it, as there is more than enough to keep abreast of in my area (routing protocols). You could very well have someone who hires folks from GeekSquad to set up their WiFi because they’re too busy creating their gaming graphics engine.</p>
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<p>I never said that no engineers make high salaries just out of school (or at any other time). I did say that this sort of thing is not likely to occur as much because of the weakening (global) economy. After all, where do engineers’ salaries come from?</p>
<p>Hey sakky, do you think there’s a reason for law schools? I mean, you can pass a state bar exam without having ever taken any course in law if you want to.</p>
<p>And lots of people do work on things they’re interested in within engineering while an undergrad. I was part of a number of research projects while an undergrad, and still don’t know anything I could have done as an individual within my dorm room that would have been interesting to me. I mean, last time I checked, starting up a website is a lot cheaper than doing experiments that need a large neutron source or buying a $500,000 microscope.</p>
<p>And, like yagottabelieve said, just because someone doesn’t like to do something they’re stereotyped with doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in the subject. For example, my girlfriend is an EE, yet she loves working on her car and hates doing wireless networking of computers (even though she’s worked on wireless communications research). I’m in materials science, but I’m a total computer nerd, love networking, and used to do IT stuff as my summer job back in high school. Heck, the things you’re talking about liking are usually one level lower than what “engineers” work on. Mechanical engineers don’t work on cars, mechanics do. Electrical engineers don’t work on household wireless networks, IT techs do. Civil engineers don’t build roads and bridges, construction workers do.</p>
<p>And, yes, it’s true a great idea doesn’t require a degree to get going, but if you don’t have a great idea, then you’d probably want the backing that comes with a degree. Just because Dave Thomas was able to start a massively successful company without a high school education doesn’t mean that everyone could do the same. I mean, I don’t even want to start my own company or do those sorts of things.</p>
<p>Right, which is what guys like Gates and Jobs did: hired a bunch of people with engineering degrees even thought they didn’t have such a degree themselves. Interestingly, those people with engineering degrees ended up implementing the ideas that Gates and Jobs came up with. </p>
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<p>I never said that they were ignorant of engineering requirements. I am simply pointing out that they didn’t need an engineering degree, and more specifically, that you can do plenty of innovative and practical engineering work without actually having an engineering degree. </p>
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<p>I have obviously named only some highly famous examples that everybody knows. Surely there are plenty of other examples of people who aren’t billionaires, but were still reasonably successful in working in technology, despite not having engineering degrees. Again, it all gets back to what I was saying before: you can work on practical technology without actually having an engineering degree (or any degree at all, for that matter). </p>
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<p>Now you guys are getting to brass tacks. Good! Clearly a main reason that people get engineering degrees is simply because many companies want engineering degrees, but not because you really need such degrees in order to do the actual work. It’s an artificial requirement that only serves a market-signaling purpose.</p>
<p>Let me elaborate on what I mean by pointing out this irony. IBM used to be the dominant computer monopolist in the world. Bill Gates couldn’t get a job at IBM because he didn’t have a degree. But he, and a bunch of other people without degrees (notably his co-founder Paul Allen) were able to start a company that eventually overthrew IBM to become the dominant computer monopoly. {Even more ironically, in order to get a job at Microsoft today, you need a degree. In other words, Bill Gates wouldn’t be able to get hired at Microsoft. } </p>
<p>But that all proves the basic point that you don’t really need an engineering degree in order to work on practical technology. If you want to work on practical technology, just do that. Now, I agree, if you want to work in an established tech company, you probably need an engineering degree. But that’s not the same thing as wanting to work on practical technology. </p>
<p>Now, RacinReaver, to your point about law schools, no I don’t think they’re really necessary either. Abraham Lincoln was a successful lawyer despite never having gone to law school - in fact, he never even graduated from high school, and is estimated to have had only 18 months of formal education in his whole life, yet was clearly one of the most eloquent and learned men in US history. The reason that people go to law school is basically because the ABA effectively requires that people go to law school. A few rare states such as California allow you to be admitted to the Bar without law school, but the requirements are onerous, i.e. you need to prove that you “studied under” a lawyer for a certain number of years before you can take the Bar, etc. But the point is, the law school requirement is an artificial barrier. You don’t really need it to actually work as an effective lawyer. The ABA is basically engaging in rent-seeking by creating an artificial barrier that doesn’t have to exist. </p>
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<p>I never said that *no *engineering students were working on practical technology while they were still students. Of course there are some. What I am saying is that many don’t. In other words, the desire to work on practical technology is not the same thing as being an engineering student. Let’s be honest. A lot of engineering students don’t really care about the practical technology and are interested just in the starting salary, or at least, in having a ‘backup career’. Or, put another way, if the starting salaries in engineering declined, we would have less people studying engineering. </p>
<p>Heck, speaking of student engineering competitions, I am sure you can think of some students who participated in them who weren’t even engineers. I seem to recall in my school’s Solar Car competition one year, the team leader wasn’t even an engineering student (I think he was a math major). Hence, again, that shows that you don’t really need to major in engineering to work on practical technology. They aren’t the same thing. </p>
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<p>Why do you need to spend this kind of money? This is where Amateur Science comes in. Just use some ingenuity and the resources of the burgeoning amateur community.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. There are kids who managed to build their own working nuclear fusion reactor while they were still high school students. One guy has actually laid out a parts list to do what he did that cost a total of less than $2000. </p>
<p>Now, to be fair, these are obviously not commercializable fusion reactors, as they consume far more energy than they produce. But hey, they’re still fusion reactors. And they cost a total of less than $2000 to build. True, you have to learn how to build them - but that’s the point. If you are truly interested in practical technology, then you should want to learn how to build these things.</p>
<p>Now, granted, these are extraordinary kids. I am not expecting everybody to go out and build their own fusion reactor. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that people can do something. If these guys could figure out how to build cheap nuclear fusion reactors while they were still in high school, then surely you can figure out how to build some piece of technology that is interesting to you.</p>
<p>I didn’t say anything about liking to work on certain technologies. I am talking about not even knowing how to work on those technologies. </p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. I knew a guy who was a star basketball player - he won the Division II College Basketball Player of the Year and played professionally in Europe for several years. But now he hates playing basketball, basically, because he’s tired of it. But at least still knows how to play. For example, when he went to get his MBA at the MIT Sloan School and Sloan was going to play HBS in an MBA vs. MBA game, he was basically cajoled into joining the team, where he was clearly the best player on the court by far, despite the fact that he hadn’t even touched a basketball in many months. </p>
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<p>Yes I know, and I think that’s a big part of the problem. Like I said, there’s a big difference between not working on certain “low-level” problems and not even knowing how to work on those low-level problems. Honestly, why don’t MechE’s know how to work on cars, why should only the mechanics know this? Why shouldn’t EE’s know how to build basic computer networks, why should only the IT techs know this? </p>
<p>Now, to be clear, I am not saying that the ME’s should know how to fix cars as well as the mechanics do. Obviously a mechanic who has been fixing cars for years will know far more details about how to do that more so than the engineer. But the engineer should at least have some basic knowledge of what is going on with the car. I mean, come on, it’s embarrassing when the engineer doesn’t even understand the basic parts of a car engine. It’s embarrassing when an EE student at a top school hasn’t the foggiest idea of how to even start to set up a simple home wireless network.</p>
<p>But, again, I would lay the responsibility for that at the feet of the engineering schools. They insist on forcing you to learn useless theory like the Maxwell Relations (which to this day, I still don’t understand what the heck they mean), rather than spending time teaching you useful topics. That’s why you end up so many engineering graduates who don’t actually have any practical skills. Sure, you ask them to derive a bunch of engineering equations and they can whip through them like pros. But ask them to build some practical technology and they are completely lost. </p>
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<p>Specialization may also be part of the problem. Again, I am not saying that everybody will be an expert on everything. What I am expecting is that every engineering student be able to graduate with a basic level of understanding of the important practical technologies of the time. For example, every ME should understand, at a basic level, how a car actually works. Will they be able to understand it to the point of designing their own car, or to be able to work as a mechanic on a NASCAR racing team? Of course not. But they should have some basic level of understanding of the principles of a car. Similarly, EECS students should have at least heard of the concept of an “IP address” (which, shockingly, many EECS students have never heard of). They should have at least heard of the concept of a route table. Now, am I asking them to understand the intricacies of how the Internet route tables are built, or understand what BGP updates contain? No. But they should have some basic level of understanding. </p>
<p>The bachelor’s degree in engineering is supposed to be a generalists’ degree that can be applied across multiple areas. It’s not like a PhD, or even a master’s, in which your level of expertise becomes more generalized. The bachelor’s degree is supposed to be general; it is supposed to signify that you have a basic level of understanding of the important knowledge within your field. But that’s not really true. Many bachelor’s degree recipients don’t have that level of understanding - and don’t care.</p>
<p>I’m afraid that’s really a nonsequitur. No matter what the state of the global economy, whether strong or weak, consultants and bankers will continue to make higher average pay than will engineers. The question is - why? Do consultants and bankers really create more value than engineers do? Given the current financial crisis, I would argue that many bankers actually create negative value. Yet they continue to be paid better than do the engineers? Why?</p>
<p>The true driving force is not economic but rather organizational, or in other words sociological. Organizations could pay engineers more. For example, they could simply stop paying those giant fees to consulting and banking firms and instead redirect that money to paying their engineers more. They just don’t want to. In other words, these companies have the money, they just choose not to use it to boost the pay of engineers. </p>
<p>I’ll give you a case in point. I know a guy who graduated with an engineering degree from MIT. He got offers from various engineering firms, but turned them down to take a higher-paying offer in consulting. One of his very first consulting projects was for one of the very same engineering companies who he had turned down because they wouldn’t pay him enough. Hence, this firm refused to pay him a salary that was competitive with what the consulting firm was paying him, but apparently had no problem in paying a whole lot more for that consulting firm to bring him in. In an even more ironic twist, while working on that project, he ended up befriending the engineering firm’s manager who offered him the job that he turned down, and that hiring manager asked how he could get a job at that consulting firm because he wanted more pay. Clearly what is happening here cannot be explained purely by economics.</p>
<p>You can combine both: tough problems that exercise the mind with practical applicability. And it can be cool too.</p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. If you’re a CS student, then how about a course that teaches you how to build a fully functional and robust database-driven Web/E-commerce application, with robust security, the ability to handle large and unpredictable loads, that can service multiple types of clients (i.e. Firefox, Apple Iphone Safari browser, etc.), and that offers open API’s via Web services (i.e. XML/SOAP). In other words, a student who completes such a course will be able to build the Amazon.com or Ebay website all by himself. </p>
<p>Ridiculous, you say? Such a course would be “too practical” and hence would be unworthy to be taught in a ‘real’ engineering school? Well, let me tell you that that is not my idea. In fact, this is exactly what MIT course 6.171 (Software Engineering for Internet Applications) is all about, and I think we can all agree that MIT is a pretty decent engineering school. 6.171 is consistently ranked one of the most difficult courses at MIT, but also one of the most highly praised, as after taking it, you have the skills to get an excellent job with an Internet company, or start your own. Heck, I’ve heard students describe this course as a ‘dropout magnet’ as, after taking this course many students who take this courses are tempted to drop out because their skills are now so marketable that they don’t really need to finish their degrees. </p>
<p>*The bottom line: we want one someone who has finished this course to be able to build amazon.com, eBay, or photo.net by him or herself. *</p>
<p>So the question is - why can’t more courses be like this? Why do other courses insist on forcing you to waste time learning things (like the M.R.'s) that are just not useful? One of the greatest complaints I have heard from engineers regarding engineering curricula is that they are chock full of topics you don’t really need to know, and also don’t teach you many things that you do need to know.</p>
<p>To answer this direct question, I think if you have read my posts, you will get the message that there, frankly, isn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason as to engineering salaries. It may well be because of what others have said: some people choosing to take lower-paying jobs in the public sector. It may also well be because aerospace firms simply choose not to pay UIUC grads a premium (just like how MIT ChemE grads get paid less than the national average). </p>
<p>These are forces that are, unfortunately, out of your hands. The only things you can control are that you are learning the things that you want to learn, and are (hopefully) getting internships, co-op positions, and projects that you want to do. But even after doing that, you may still wind up with a mediocre salary.</p>
I didn’t think you were saying that no engineering students were interested in practical technology. I was arguing against your idea that not many were interested. In my class, and the classes I knew, maybe 40% of the students were involved in at least one of the competitions. Then there are probably quite a few students who don’t have the time to devote to these competitions, but would be interested.</p>
<p>Which would mean that there are still many who are not interested and are just there for the marketability of the degree. And of course these are precisely the students who are most likely to end up jumping to other careers (i.e. consulting, finance) if given an offer. </p>
<p>But the point simply is this: I think we all have to agree that the relatively high starting salaries are indeed a driving factor in why engineering enrollments are as high as they are, or put another way, if engineers had no salary advantage over liberal arts majors, then far fewer people would major in engineering. Y’all keep invoking the example of these engineering contests, yet as I have pointed out, I seem to recall people who successfully participated in those contests but who weren’t majoring in engineering, which just shows that you don’t have to major in engineering in order to be interested in practical technology. </p>
<p>This all gets back to the point I was making before: why would people put up with the pain of an engineering degree if not for the potential salary? If you want to work on practical technology, you are free to do that coming from any major. Or, put more specifically, why the heck would anybody put up with the ridiculous pain and tedium of having to learning how to use the Maxwell Relations unless they wanted the high starting salary of a chemical engineer (despite the ironic fact that no practicing chemical engineers that I’ve ever met not only never uses them, they don’t even know what the M.R’s actually mean)? In short, you have to put up with a lot of impractical silliness in order to get an engineering degree, so why would you do that if the starting salaries were not good?</p>
I never argued that you have to major in engineering to be interested in practical technology, though I see the point you’re trying to make as a result of that.</p>
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Explain why you would spend 5 years getting a bachelor’s of architecture degree when the starting salary is relatively low, but the workload is pretty high (I think even higher than that of engineering based on what I’ve seen).</p>
<p>Because they’re much more interested in engineering than finance! Why did I know music majors that would spend hours practicing every day even though they knew they probably wouldn’t get that great paying of a career after graduation? Probably the same reason you get so many engineers that are willing to put in hours every night in order to get their problem sets done.</p>
<p>Also, what sort of trivia do you think I should be required to know as a materials engineer? Have the iron carbon phase diagram memorized? Know the diffraction patterns for a ton of different common materials? Know the mass of an electron? Know compositions of various concretes? Know the strain rate sensitivity of molten PETE?</p>
<p>Why should an EE interested in signal processing have to learn about TCIP and internet protocols? You’re the one that’s always complaining about how engineers are required to learn tons of theoretical stuff they don’t care about; what about engineers that would be forced to learn about “practical” things they don’t care about under your scheme?</p>
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<p>Could it be a case of perceived value where they think they’re getting more by bringing in outside eyes to look at their problems than they would get by just asking their own talent to look at things harder?</p>
<p>As I wrote in a previous thread, those colleges and universities that are relevant to the marketplace for certain types of knowledge will be successful.</p>
<p>Back in the late 1980s, when I was in a lot of angst over applying to graduate schools, I used to have debates with professors about what they did and did not teach. One guy told me that professors teach what is known. My guess is that whoever it is that is teaching Maxwell’s Relations feels they are important. But the students need to assess the quality of the information they are receiving. If Maxwell’s Relations are not practical, people will not bother to learn them. They’ll learn what they need to do what they want. This is why it’s a good thing IMO that sites such as this exist, so students have a chance to make informed choices about their futures. Before I started undergrad, I had very little knowledge of engineering, and much less of the field I wound up in, because it was research at the time.</p>
<p>That one is clearly due to personal interest. But engineering, as we can all agree, has a feature of high starting salaries and career safety (for a bachelor’s degree). Hence, I think it’s quite clear that engineering will attract people who are interested only in those features. </p>
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<p>I have never argued that some people aren’t interested in engineering. Of course there are. I am simply making the point that many others are not, and are only interested in the money. </p>
<p>Besides, you’re making the fallacy that others on this thread are making: that you have to major in something that you are interested in. Why? Just because I’m interested in technology doesn’t mean that I have to major in engineering. Bill Gates was clearly interested in computers, but he didn’t get an engineering degree. Heck, he didn’t get any degree at all. </p>
<p>Furthermore, there are also plenty of engineering topics that basically no one is interested in, but that an engineering curriculum forces you to learn them anyway. Again, I will invoke the example of the Maxwell Relations - believe me, nobody that I know was interested in that. I haven’t found a single practicing chemical engineer in industry who actually cares about the M.R.'s. They don’t even know what they mean, and they don’t care. It has nothing to do with their jobs whatsoever. But they were forced to survive them anyway when they were students. </p>
<p>What that shows is that the engineering job and an engineering curriculum are 2 different things. Just because you enjoy the former doesn’t mean that you enjoy the latter. </p>
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<p>Nowhere have I ever said that I expect that trivia should be “memorized”. However, to follow your examples, I think it is entirely fair to at least know that concepts such as phase diagrams actually exist and have some general idea of where one might find them and how to read them. I do not expect you to know the mass of an electron, but I expect you to at least know that electron has mass. I do not expect you to know the specific compositions of concrete, but you should know the fact that different kinds of concrete will differ by composition, and where one would be able to find information about these different compositions. </p>
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<p>Oh, so what you are saying here? Are you conceding that many engineering students don’t learn practical things and know only theory? Exactly. That’s my point entirely and that’s the problem. </p>
<p>More specifically, I think students should be given great freedom to construct their own curriculum. If they want to take massive numbers of theory courses, let them do that. If they want to take massive numbers of practical courses, let them do that. </p>
<p>However, if you’re going to force engineering students to take any courses, those courses should be practical. After all, why not? Engineering is supposed to be practical. That is what distinguishes engineering from a pure science. If you want to be a pure theorist, fine, then just go major in physics or chemistry. Engineering is supposed to be different from a pure science. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than a glorified science degree.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’m asking for much. Just one required practical, introductory course that teaches you the basic practical applications of your engineering discipline. For example, the ME’s will learn the basic principles of how a car or a plane work. A chemical engineer will learn the basic principles of how an oil refinery or brewery operates. Believe me, that would be a heck of a lot more interesting than forcing people to learn the M.R.'s - something that nobody wanted to learn and nobody cares about. </p>
<p>Nor do I think I am saying anything particularly radical. Consider the following quote:</p>
<p>*Moreover, Olin could provide a ray of hope to engineering education experts who fret that too many U.S.-born students are leaving the curriculum for a variety of reasons, including inaccessible professors, excessive emphasis on theory and too little hands-on design experience. *</p>
<p>Well, let me put it to you this way. You talk about the perceived value in bringing in outside eyes. Well, isn’t that another name for outsourcing? After all, outsourcing is by definition using outsiders, right? </p>
<p>Yet, last time I checked, companies used outsourced engineering services in order to save money, not spend more money. Companies would ship off engineering work to China or India in order to cut costs, not to increase them. And certainly the engineers in China and India are not getting paid more than their US counterparts. </p>
<p>But something funny happens with respect to consulting and banking. These are also “outsourced” services in the sense that firms that pay for these outsiders so that they don’t have to run their own internal consulting and banking divisions. The major difference is that firms will pay more for these outsourced services. Not less but more. Bringing in McKinsey or BCG is tremendously expensive, sometimes by an entire order of magnitude, compared to using in-house consultants. </p>
<p>Hence, we have quite the interesting phenomenon where firms will look to cut costs via outsourced engineering services but will pay dearly for outsourced strategy consulting and financial services, which is even more ironic when you consider that they may all make job offers to the same engineering graduates.</p>
<p>I agree that in the long run, those schools that are relevant in the marketplace will eventually replace those that are not relevant. </p>
<p>The basic problem is that, as Keynes once said, in the long run, we’re all dead. Hence, we have to deal with the institutions that exist today, and these institutions can serve to actively block reform. Sure, if those institutions stubbornly refuse to reform, they will eventually decline as the structure of the discipline eventually changes, but that fact doesn’t help you because you have to deal with the disciplinary structure as it exists right now. A tremendous amount of inertia exists in the system to block reform.</p>
<p>If you have any ideas on how to bring about radical education reform, I’m all ears. However, keep in mind that “persuasive argument” is not always enough to change people’s minds (even if the arguments are or turn out to be correct). Often, there has be some kind of value-add to what is proposed.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that I am going to successfully bring about radical change. </p>
<p>But at least if I can present my ideas, then some people may be convinced, and ultimately one day, change may happen. Probably not, but at least there’s a chance. On the other hand, if nobody ever says anything, then there will definitely be no chance for change.</p>