<p>Sakky, I’m planning on majoring in Computer Engineering…Let’s not kill my motivation too much now…ok? </p>
<p>how about something positive? </p>
<p>My dream is to work on the cutting edge computer software and hardware that redefines the way we use technology. Something like the Android OS project from Google or the Iphone team…or working for Intel designing the newest generation of computer chips…this is what i want to do…</p>
<p>Eventually i want to start my own company to fuel my own vision (after i get my MBA of course).</p>
<p>How tangible is this? I am NOT going to be happy providing support for obsolete products that have no significance or meaning. </p>
<p>There is no way im going to accept a job that requires me to do that.</p>
<p>In fairness, working on insignificant, meaningless projects is not an occupational hazard specific to engineers. To be perfectly blunt, many, probably most people, hold meaningless, insignificant jobs.</p>
<p>I am reminded of the following scene from the movie City Slickers where Billy Crystal tries (and fails miserably) in trying to explain to his son’s classmates what he actually does for a living. {Starting at 1:30 of the clip.}</p>
<p>I am simply saying that the job of an actuary is not necessarily more boring and insignificant than that of an engineer. Many engineering jobs are boring and insignificant. </p>
<p>As another example, I know a bunch of engineers at Eastman Kodak who are stuck working on analog film manufacturing. Film is dying - a point that even Kodak readily acknowledges - as the world is rapidly moving to digital photography. {Pop quiz: when was the last time you actually used a film camera?} Kodak film revenue has been decreasing by double-digit percentage levels for years now, and the company has lately been reorienting itself towards the digital age. Yet as long as Kodak still has a film business, some engineers will be assigned to it. Frankly, those engineers are living sad lives: they’re stuck working on a clearly obsolete and dying technology, many of their friends have already been laid off as film continues to shrink, they know that they’re inevitably going to lose their jobs too, their 401k’s are completely sundered because of the sharp decline of Kodak’s stock price (which is lower now than it was during the early 1960’s!), they’re not being provided opportunities to learn new technologies, and they don’t dare to complain lest they become targeted in the next round of layoffs. </p>
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<p>I think it’s safe to say that nobody plans to end up in an insignificant, meaningless job. But that is what does happen to many people, regardless of the profession.</p>
<p>I agree with Sakky on this one. I can’t think of any jobs or professions that are “fun” or “exciting” more than 40% of the time (subjective). The vast majority of occupations have boring, repetitive, or mind-numbing aspects attached to them. At that point, is a matter of the individual matching him/herself to the desirable occupation.</p>
<p>More people need to get in touch with reality; no job is exciting all the time; there will be more losers than winners in a race; and statistically, 50% of students in any given class will be below the class average. Failure is more common than success, get used to it.</p>
<p>“50% of students in any given class will be below the class average”
Technically doesn’t this mean there are as many losers as winners? [/dbag]</p>
<p>Seriously though the reason I am doing computer stuff instead of actuarial or business is because, at least academically, the one interests me more than the other. By going into software as a profession, I’ll have an excuse to keep studying CS/SE type stuff and go to conferences and maybe even get to work with technologies a little bit. And, God willing, if I get something where I have something of an R&D role, I’ll have an excuse to write papers, get patents, etc. It’s not academia (or it could be…) but it’s better than doing something for which I have literally no interest.</p>
<p>I would never go to any actuarial or business conferences… zero interest. I’d never read papers or journals or periodicals or anything like that from them. I certainly wouldn’t want to publish or patent in those areas, and I’d really not have an excuse to be involved in CS/SE stuff working at jobs like those.</p>
<p>I agree that a job doesn’t have to be interesting all the time, but you should go for a job that will at least in theory allow you to pursue your interests. Otherwise misery on the job is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>Hey sakky, maybe all of your Microsoft buddies would have been better off getting an engineering job instead of being a code monkey. ;)</p>
<p>Anyway, these salary comparison threads are kind of silly since you generally wind up comparing superstar people from one field against superstar people in another field. Nobody can really count on being an outlier, so why even talk about them? I imagine most people in engineering find the “typical” engineering job more interesting than the “typical” actuarial job.</p>
<p>Well, now we’re quibbling about whether software engineering is actually engineering. </p>
<p>But, as I said, even if you don’t believe so, there are plenty of other ‘true’ engineering jobs that are boring and obsolete, nevertheless have poor saps forced to do them. Kodak still has plenty of mechanical and chemical engineers stuck with the rapidly fading analog film manufacturing business - do you want to be one of them? If you complain that you want a different role, Kodak will probably just lay you off entirely, as has already happened to thousands of other Kodak employees in the past few years. {Yet even if you don’t complain, you’re probably still going to be laid off, just later rather than now.} Electronics companies such as Cisco have plenty of electrical engineers stuck maintaining obsolete products that the company no longer even sells (but is still contractually required to support). There are electrical engineers stuck producing CRT televisions, even though there is little dispute that that’s a rapidly dying technology. </p>
<p>The saddest part about the entire endeavor is that by working on obsolete technologies, you become obsolete yourself such that your employer no longer wants to retain you. Never mind the fact that it was precisely because your employer forced you to work on obsolete technologies in the first place that made you obsolete. They won’t care about that. They won’t care why your skills are obsolete. All they will see is that your skills are obsolete, and then lay you off accordingly. Not only that, but then other employers don’t want to hire you either…because your skills are obsolete.</p>
<p>^ It seems to me that if I was put on something that was dying like that, my first order of business would be to update my resume and start making some phone calls… not ten years into it, but the day it happened. If you get stuck on something like that, it’s really your own fault.</p>
<p>^Depends, depends. If one is close to retirement might as well stay until the retirement date or until that unit shuts down, whichever comes first or is more preferable. For anyone else, it’s time to abandon ship (the captain jumped off eons ago!)</p>
<p>That is misleading. The skill sets learned while working on film or CRT televisions (or various other things) is not limited to only those technologies. Those skills can translate with a little tweaking to other jobs as well. Sure those jobs will be less exciting, but they aren’t just going to leave you hanging there with no usable skills. Additionally, working in engineering with just a BS is much less dependent on how up to date you are on new techniques and technologies than a PhD, for example, because when working for a big company, your hands are tied by their pace of technological advancement. You aren’t expected to push the boundaries most of the time, you are expected to perform your role as part of the team using the tools the company provides (for the most part).</p>
<p>Sure, but the point is, you can never rely on your employer to have your future career interests at heart. Plenty of employers are perfectly willing to have your skills deteriorate to obsolescence…and then terminate you afterwards. </p>
<p>Let’s face it. Not everybody has a strong bargaining position. To extend the Kodak example, Rochester NY - while not being the one-company-town that it used to be - doesn’t exactly have a plethora of engineering jobs. If you have strongly established ties in the town - i.e. your kids have active roots in the school system, your spouse has a good local job - and Kodak sticks you with a dead-end engineering job, then unless one of the handful of other local engineering companies is hiring, there isn’t a whole lot you can do. This is particularly a problem during economic downturns such as now when most companies stop hiring. The recent news is replete with stories of employers increasing work responsibilities and taking away benefits and employees cowed into acquiescence because they fear losing their jobs entirely and not being able to find another. </p>
<p>Yet surely you would agree that much of any job is highly technology-specific, and if that technology is declining, your value as an engineer declines with it. Analog film production is entirely different from digital photography, and if you’re stuck working on the analog technology when others are not, you will be at a clear disadvantage. </p>
<p>But the larger point is that there are many boring, dead-end engineering jobs, just as I am sure that there are many boring, dead-end actuary jobs. No field is immune from boring-ness.</p>
<p>Sure, if you are stuck working on analog film technology, it isn’t very applicable to digital film technology unless you keep yourself current, but it certainly has applicability in other industries. There is a ton of chemistry/materials science involved, for example, and while there may not be any exact matches to the processes of analog film, there are certainly other jobs that are available that make use of such skills.</p>
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<p>And I think that raises a good point. All fields are this way. So often people like to come on here and compare the top performer of career X and the average performer of career Y and declare career X the winner, much like the OP did. It is quite ridiculous when you think about it. Additionally, the types of boring, “dead-end” jobs available to engineers are much more enticing to a lot of us than the types of boring, “dead-end” jobs available to actuaries. I would much rather continually refine the design of one jet turbine fan blade for 15 years than sit and continually reevaluate an insurance company’s risk for 15 years.</p>
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<p>I am sure that isn’t exciting. Whoever got stuck with that likely nearly has heart attacks every few days because of all the risk Mr. Wayne likes to take. I bet the incidence of heart disease and hypertension is markedly higher among the group of former Batman actuaries.</p>
<p>So basically sakky is saying that all jobs are boring and stupid which isn’t much of a point at all because if i were to get free money without working a job then it would be pretty awesome haha</p>
<p>Well, the point is that saying “engineering is more exciting than being an actuary” is sort of a weak argument, since either job has the potential to be mind-numbingly boring and because all jobs are boring anyway, to some extent, which has a tendency to mask the differences among them.</p>
<p>I think there are valid arguments for preferring to be an engineer, but I tend to agree with sakky that excitement probably isn’t one of them.</p>
<p>One thing that engineering beats actuarial science at is job opportunities. From the BLS OOH,</p>
<p>"Employment for actuaries] is expected to grow much faster than the average for all occupations. Competition for jobs will be keen as the number of qualified candidates is expected to exceed the number of positions available. … Job seekers are likely to face competition because the number of job openings is expected to be less than the number of qualified applicants. College graduates who have passed two of the initial exams and completed an internship should enjoy the best prospects. "</p>
<p>Compare this towhat is says about engineers in general:
“Overall job opportunities in engineering are expected to be good, and, indeed, prospects will be excellent in certain specialties. In addition to openings from job growth, many openings will be created by the need to replace current engineers who retire; transfer to management, sales, or other occupations; or leave engineering for other reasons.”</p>
<p>Just look at the sheer numbers. There will be 23,900 actuaries in 2018 and 1,571,900
engineers (not counting software people). Almost every engineering specialization beats actuaries, and the biggest ones (MechE, ElecE, etc.) do so by an order of magnitude. More jobs means more options in the kind of work you end up doing, assuming you are a good enough candidate to play the field. It also means more locations to live and work, and everything that goes with that.</p>
<p>Man, I see in [engineering] the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God [knows] it, an entire generation [designing bridges, writing documentation]; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy [merchandise] we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars [, and actuaries]. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very [dissatisfied with our earning potential].</p>
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