<p>Ok I read statistic charts and jobs in engineering on the BLS website.</p>
<p>so I don’t get this at all. Everyone goes about crying about the decline of American manufacturing and getting computer jobs stolen by cheap indian workers but the BLS has stats about needing more engineers/programmers/computer scientists?</p>
<p>And even if they are only statistics, I’m sure the BLS is fairly accurate, I doubt they are lying.</p>
<p>Foreigners increase supply and thereby reduce demand to some extent. That’s inevitably how free enterprise works.</p>
<p>But if you compare engineering / computer fields to others, it’s really not so bad. You necessarily trade some job security for increased benefits.</p>
<p>Chem E? Unfortunately it’s too vague a starting point. It’s not a question about the field, it’s a question about the job. </p>
<p>You’re job as an engineer is always most reward, least cost (yeah it’s a mantra at this point). If you’re highest cost is people, and you can find a way to outsource it cheaper, then as of today expect it to be outsourced. Expect great creativity in finding a way to outsource.</p>
<p>So you need to target the job or the service, and try to either locate a niche or create a niche that needs to be local. If you’re a Chem E and you design distillation towers for petroleum plants, does your job need to be local? How about an engineer monitoring the city’s water supply, an adhesives designer etc.? </p>
<p>If I can get a talented, experience Chem E who has designed lots of distillation towers to provide a comprehensive set of spec’s to a team of talented engineers in Dubai, and they can design the plant cheap, why not? If I can get a set of monitoring stations into the city water supply that can send the results to a monitoring team in the Phillipines,… You can see where this is going. Now the upside once again is being that one talented, experienced Chem E who works with Dubai pays good, but the downside is where there once were many there now are few. Imagine being that engineer and being able to speak Arabic! Six figures at least.</p>
<p>To find the answer to the specific Chem E question go to other Chem E’s. Find their most popular trade journal for the given profession. These journals always provide an online source and almost always provide annual salary and profession prognostication. Read the articles, then read the comments. Try contacting a few directly, at least three. One will be the salesman about how great the profession is, one the doomsayer, and one if your luck will have been in the field only a few years and can give you a fresh look. Then decide for yourself. </p>
<p>Or better yet, create your own profession, shop the work to where it’s cheap and live and work wherever you want. It seems to be the way of the future.</p>
<p>a little talk back…</p>
<p>To Mr. Paynes point that Google has no trouble now paying top salary. Agreed, but the key word is “now.” You could have said the same about Yahoo a little while back. If Google starts seeing a change in its profit margin it will move operations to countries where the costs are markedly lower and the talent pool is highly educated and desperate for jobs. As long as you keep the profit margin high and the stockholders happy, who cares where it’s based? (oh yeah, the workers, maybe they should by stock ;-)</p>
<p>To jstar - I think this is a different thread. As to turning to BLS as the end all provider of all things knowable. This is a little like driving your car by looking in your rear view mirror. Can the BLS predict when a nation such as Japan, decides to dominate an industry through financially propping up financially loosing ventures as it did in the 80’s leading to the demise of so many involved in US floppy disk, vcr and chip manufacturing? Fast forward to today - can it predict the death of GM or the latest decree from China that Chinese buy only from Chinese companies. What if they actually force it to happen, and did the BLS predict it? The fall of the US economy, the war, fuel prices, my dentist retiring…</p>
<p>The BLS is a great source for relative information, and for historical information, spent many hours using it to design fair compensation schedules, but when you want today’s information or predictive information, you need to balance the numbers from the rear with information from the font lines. Read the trades of the profession you wish to join, the job boards, and by all means talk to people doing the work (oh god, not anecdotal information, my brain can’t handle it, where are the numbers! ;-). BTW - if you choose the BLS path, be sure you look to the most local information you can find for the place you wish to work. It’s typically more dated then the national numbers, but more directly applicable to any given situation.</p>
<p>To AuburnMathTutor. “Thinly veiled,” really? If that was thinly veiled then either I’m way more subtle then I thought I was, or you need glasses. Either way it wasn’t your argument. You can disagree with an argument without attacking the writer, but if someone attacks me I fire back. Also I clearly marked my information as anecdotal, and the information is completely valid as such. As is any information provided to the contrary such as the third generation engineer who’s having a great life (too bad he went into attack mode). Both expose sides of the profession that are equally valid to someone asking for an opinion.</p>
<p>interesting thread,.
didnt see that there were three pages though so my post is out of place:
PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST</p>
<p>Lou Costello, I’m from South Africa (a third world country). I’ve lived in the US since I was in high school. </p>
<p>According to your arguments, South Africa is the perfect destination for companies to outsource. I mean, why not?<br>
-The majority of the population is fluent in English.
-Education is based on the British model. Specifically, the country is a signatory of the Washington Accord, which recognizes its engineering educaiton as comparable to international standards.
-Colonial past means that the society operates very much like the US.
-Wages are lower than the US. </p>
<p>So why are people not rushing to outsource jobs there? </p>
<p>Answer: Third world countries operate fundamentally differently than America.</p>
<p>Like most other third world countries (like China and India), South Africa has a significant diaspora, who are made up of mostly educated professionals. So there are extreme skills shortages. Coupled with the countries “past” (most third world countries have a past), very few students are able to recieve an education comparable to US standards.</p>
<p>So you have these third world countries that are developing extremely fast. South Africa alone is adding 50,000 people to the middle class every month (population ~47 million). This means that there is more work than there are engineers to do the work. Its even more noticeable in places like China or India.</p>
<p>So what does that mean? Well, firstly, it means that wages are going to rise quiet fast. And this is happening. It also means that its easier to get a promotion is you have good qualifications because there is less competition due to the skills shortage. Its not uncommon for big companies in South Africa to have senior level executives in the late twenties. Now if you were an employee, which would be your choice? Working for a local company where you can be promoted into management, or working for a foreign company where you will really only be cheap labor for them?</p>
<p>Most of the companies that outsource at this point in time only use the third world for labor. The part of the company that makes the management and strategic decisions are usually found in the West. So you often have limited growth with those companies. </p>
<p>Just a side note, you are forgetting that national pride is becoming increasingly important to newly industralized countries today as it was during WWI when Europeans became confident and cocky because of their new found wealth. The third world is not going to want to accept “America’s scraps” forever. If you look at India’s or China’s growth rates, they won’t have to. Also, the third world is making big improvements to working standards. The same thing happend when the west industralized.</p>
<p>"To jstar - I think this is a different thread. As to turning to BLS as the end all provider of all things knowable. This is a little like driving your car by looking in your rear view mirror. Can the BLS predict when a nation such as Japan, decides to dominate an industry through financially propping up financially loosing ventures as it did in the 80’s leading to the demise of so many involved in US floppy disk, vcr and chip manufacturing? Fast forward to today - can it predict the death of GM or the latest decree from China that Chinese buy only from Chinese companies. What if they actually force it to happen, and did the BLS predict it? The fall of the US economy, the war, fuel prices, my dentist retiring…</p>
<p>The BLS is a great source for relative information, and for historical information, spent many hours using it to design fair compensation schedules, but when you want today’s information or predictive information, you need to balance the numbers from the rear with information from the font lines. Read the trades of the profession you wish to join, the job boards, and by all means talk to people doing the work (oh god, not anecdotal information, my brain can’t handle it, where are the numbers! ;-). BTW - if you choose the BLS path, be sure you look to the most local information you can find for the place you wish to work. It’s typically more dated then the national numbers, but more directly applicable to any given situation."</p>
<p>The BLS makes predictions about the future based on the past. They make predictions up to the year 2016… that’s 7 years in the future. How accurate these figures are is up for debate, but at least they have some methodological basis for coming up with them.</p>
<p>Anecdotes are fine as long as you realize that they are susceptible to not showing you the whole picture. Statistics are fine as long as you understand that they may overgeneralize some results.</p>
<p>But one thing that is not fine is using personal stories from strangers as a basis for making life decisions. Anecdotes can be found from reliable sources; they are called “case studies” and they are routinely published in various sources. This makes them much more valuable sources of information than talking to family friends, relatives, or disgruntle former post office security guards, or the cat-lady down the street.</p>
<p>On internet forums like this, nobody has any real credibility. I advocate the use of verifiable sources of information so that people can have at least some assurance that some of the stuff they read isn’t complete crap… in any event, they can look at the primary sources and draw their own conclusions.</p>
<p>For instance, this might be a valid source of information for this kind of discussion:
[Two</a> Positions: The Offshore Outsourcing Debate | Cutter Consortium](<a href=“http://www.cutter.com/research/2005/edge051220.html]Two”>Two Positions: The Offshore Outsourcing Debate | Cutter Consortium)</p>
<p>Whereas the following may be less valid:
[Outsourcing:</a> Is It a Threat? | Engineering](<a href=“http://engineeringblog.experience.com/2009/02/outsourcing-is-it-threat.html]Outsourcing:”>http://engineeringblog.experience.com/2009/02/outsourcing-is-it-threat.html)</p>
<p>I would not recommend using such well-intentioned but useless sources of information as the following, regardless of how much it might appeal to one’s sense of pride in the American work ethic etc.
[Outsourcing</a> sucks, dude](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2b1D5w82yU]Outsourcing”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2b1D5w82yU)</p>
<p>And Lou Costello:
If you felt that what I originally said was an attack on you, I’m sorry. Not for my behavior, but because you must be a very insecure person. I would recommend that if you can’t respond maturely to criticism - well-deserved or otherwise - then perhaps you should take some time off from visiting internet forums and go get some growing up out of the way.</p>
<p>Yeah. Real men post on internet forums.</p>
<p>tru dat.</p>
<p>(10 char)</p>
<p>Why do all these topics get this ridiculous…Can everyone please get over themselves?</p>
<p>“Why do all these topics get this ridiculous”</p>
<p>Usually one person shows up making ludicrous claims.</p>
<p>Whether that’s me or Lou I leave for the philosophers to decide.</p>
<p>to carnelian</p>
<p>"According to your arguments, South Africa is the perfect destination for companies to outsource. I mean, why not? "</p>
<p>You’re right. I will try to find the time to pin down an NPR interview that took place recently between a couple of the big new venture/outsource winners in India, China and I think it was Indonesia. When they were asked if they feared America rising back up and re-taking lost jobs they all said “no.” They universally said they feared South Africa, for pretty much all the reasons you listed. </p>
<p>Which means? </p>
<p>Get there first. Add any sort of entrepreneurial coursework possible to your education. Get in contact and stay in contact with friends in South Africa. Look for the best alignment you can find between your skills and the skills in South Africa and do it! I would add learning Chinese and possibly a European language, because you’re going to be outsourcing their labor, not US labor, for the most part.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>to the world</p>
<p>why do the post get ridiculous?</p>
<p>usually because someone decides to get personal and attack rather then respond.</p>
<p>feel free to disagree, just do it with some class.</p>
<p>i’m gone from this one.</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding a discordant note, I would say that the threat of outsourcing is deeply overplayed. Far more dangerous is simple technological obsolescence. I believe I read somewhere that for every one job that is lost through outsourcing, 10 are lost through changes in technology (but compensated for with new jobs in the replacement technology). For example, I know guys who used to work at Eastman Kodak as analog film engineers; they’ve all lost their jobs. Nobody is really using film cameras anymore. Analog film engineering skills are, frankly, obsolete these days.</p>
<p>I see this problem within engineering programs also. For example, you don’t really need to know calculus to become a highly successful software engineer. All you really need is algebra combined with (maybe) some discrete mathematics and some computation theory. You certainly don’t need to know differential equations. But most CS programs will force you to learn them anyway, at the expense of far more useful knowledge such as router or server configuration. {I’m continually appalled at the number of software developers who have never even seen a router, much less know how to configure it, even at a simplistic level.}</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This makes no sense. The only way I can see this logic reasonable is if someone was in for a “certificate in router or server configuration” and had to listen to instructors spewing “garbage” about integrals half the time.</p>
<p>There are FAR too many applications of software to say point blank that math in general isn’t useful. IT is just one of those applications. Just because IT requires little math does not mean schools should stop teaching it.</p>
<p>In engineering the term for “Software engineer” in the manner you used it is a Technician. I think a more appropriate description would be programmer. Since when did programmers require CS/SE degrees?</p>
<p>Then by the same argument, when do programmers require knowledge of calculus? I can agree that some programmers may indeed need to know such a topic, but certainly many (probably most) do not. In fact, I would argue that more programmers need to understand how routers work than how do compute integrals. </p>
<p>Hence, whatever you might think about my proposal, it makes more sense than the current arrangement that forces many students to learn something they don’t really need and don’t want.</p>
<p>Now, let’s be clear. I am not preventing anybody from studying calculus or any other unnecessary mathematics. Those CS majors who desire such knowledge are perfectly free to take any and all such coursework. What I question is why they should be forced to do so.</p>
<p>By my logic programmers don’t need to know calculus. They don’t even need a CS degree. </p>
<p>The problem with your proposal is the question of where the line is drawn. Do instituitions decide that most Electrical engineers will never have to use serious math/physics after they graduate so math should be removed from curriculum’s or watered down? What about the engineers who work in R&D? Most if not all of the developments in technology come from engineers in those sorts of positions. Not from the engineering technicians/programmers you seem to be describing.</p>
<p>Have you ever noticed the gulf in complexity between engineering undergraduate science and that at the PhD level or even the Msc/M.Eng level? Can you imagine how much less PhD level research and innovation will be carried out if engineering and CS curriculum’s suddenly revert to that of 2-Year associates degrees?</p>
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</p>
<p>Any CS major or engineer can make the same argument about 80% of the courses they take at some point in their career. They eventually didn’t need it so should not have been forced to take it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yet the fact is, a growing number of programming positions now require CS degrees. Sure, there are still some companies that will hire developers without CS degrees, but they are a waning lot. </p>
<p>Furthermore, let’s face it, most CS graduates are not going to undertake R&D careers. Rather, most are going to end up taking regular programming jobs. See below. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The question indeed is where do you draw the line, and I am positing that where the current line is drawn is inefficient. You are effectively defending the status quo, which I believe to be an untenable position - you admitted yourself that 80% of the coursework is never used. That’s a 4:1 ratio of useless to useful knowledge that is imparted, which is clearly indicative of a deeply inefficient process. Surely you don’t care to defend the current line? </p>
<p>Now, certainly, nobody is proposing that the system be perfectly efficient, for that is impossible. But a 4:1 ratio of irrelevance is clearly far too much. </p>
<p>Nor do I agree that R&D innovation will be impacted in any way. Like I said, nobody would be prevented from learning anything. If somebody desires a PhD to enter an R&D job, they are perfectly free to take any and all additional coursework that they want. In fact, grad programs are free to implement whatever requirements they feel fit as a condition of admission. But not everybody wants an R&D job and not everybody wants a graduate degree. Those engineers who don’t should not be forced to take coursework that is irrelevant to them. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I would argue that overall technology innovation might actually increase as much of innovation occurs not in formal research labs and fostered by the formal educational process, but rather by tinkerers who are working directly with the technology. Since you brought up the field of electrical engineering, let’s explore that example. Arguably the greatest electrical engineer in history, whose inventions and are still marveled upon and theoretical musings are still being investigated even to this day, 65 years after his death, is Nikola Tesla, who never even graduated from college at all. His ingenious insights came from actually working as an engineer and thereby playing with the technology, back in a time when you didn’t need a degree to be hired as an electrical engineer. He certainly didn’t need to complete a PhD or even a bachelor’s before innovating, not that his well-documented mental illness would have allowed him to complete such a degree anyway. How many Tesla’s today are currently being prevented from discovering EE innovations because they don’t have the wherewithal to earn a traditional EE degree, thereby preventing them from obtaining an engineering job and hence denying them the opportunity to fiddle with the technology? </p>
<p>Nor have I ever once proposed that the bachelor’s degree revert to a simple 2 year associate’s degree, or anything of the sort. The bachelor’s degree would still be 4 years, and would still be rigorous. But it would be both rigorous and highly useful. You would replace the less useful topics with alternatives that are still rigorous, but are also useful. Students would also have greater flexibility. Those engineering students who don’t want to learn calculus should be free to substitute it with topics that they actually find useful. For example, a future Tesla would be free to substitute hardware lab courses where he could build a magnetic Egg of Columbus, the bifilar coil, and the death ray, all of which are far more innovative than having him sit and learn calculus that he will never use.</p>
<p>People in technical majors should take calculus and differential equations (and linear algebra) regardless of the utility. It is part of being a technically educated person to have developed the skills to succeed in such settings.</p>
<p>The thing is that if CS programs stop requiring advanced math, then more people will join the programs and wages will go down. Engineering and Computer Science programs NEED to require extraneous math, physics, etc. to keep their professions prestigious and full of talented people. </p>
<p>The only alternatives would be a certifying exam with a fixed number of graduates or a <em>shock</em> union.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure about that, al6200.</p>
<p>Algorithms would still be required of any respectable CS major. And that’s “harder” than any calculus course I could imagine.</p>
<p>And most people find linear algebra and statistics “easy”. These are not weed-out classes.</p>
<p>Still, I don’t think it’s fair to call yourself a computer scientist if you do not have a basic understanding of the ideas of calculus. Just like any Political Scientist worth his salt will know basic history… moreso than the average educated adult.</p>
<p>(Calculus actually puts you in that category for math).</p>