Engineering: A dead end career?
Engineers speak out about engineering as a career: The good, the bad, and the ugly.
Sherri L. Carmody
Associate Editor
Today, America's workforce is running scared. Huge layoffs and big-business outsourcing to cheaper, foreign labor markets does nothing to boost morale. But does this hold true for engineering, traditionally considered a solid, secure career?
If so, you wouldn't know it from engineering school enrollments. A recent survey by the American Society for Engineering Education reports a 3.4% increase in engineering degrees from 2001 to 2002. While this looks good for U.S. science and technology numbers, an informal survey done by Machine Design reveals many dissatisfied engineers. Overwhelmingly, engineers report fewer jobs that are harder to find, require specific training and experience, and last only five to six years.
Status and recognition are sore points as well. For example, many people have no concept that engineers are behind most tangible things encountered daily, from the car they drive to work to the computer they toil in front of. Sadly, engineering is the "invisible" profession.
Adding further insult to injury is the loose application of the term "engineer" to nonengineers. The person who once was a garbage collector is now a sanitation engineer. Many engineers believe this leaves degreed engineers with no status. Also, corporations see engineering as a necessary evil rather than as an asset or a source of long-term value. Readers report some companies will not give their engineering staffs necessary resources or provide only minimal funding. Many engineers feel such practices arise because the work they do does not contribute directly to the bottom line. Many of them gripe that corporations focusing on quarterly earnings don't see the big picture.
No surprise, long-time engineers tout computers as the biggest change they've seen in engineering. For example, most calculations once done on pocket calculators have long since been relegated to PCs and bigger computers. But though better computers let engineers use higher-level languages to design more complex systems, the basic method of computer analysis has not changed much since the 1990s.
Is engineering a smart career choice? Some engineers feel the profession has lost the luster it once had while others say it's still a valid and satisfying career. But, many readers say companies view them as a commodity. As such, foreign engineers are being imported to take jobs, while more jobs are being exported through outsourcing.
Finally, readers see more corporate value being put on selling and marketing functions rather than on the design and manufacture of products. Considering the level of education necessary for proficiency in engineering, many engineers replied it is not a lucrative career choice. There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. While acknowledging that engineering is not a career for the rich and famous, one engineer stated, "I enjoy and take pride in the work I do. I can always come home at night with a clear conscience knowing that, somehow, I made the world a better place today."
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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.
© 2012 Penton Media Inc.
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Comments
WHAT ? can we do to FIX
What can we do to fix this?
This is ridiculous- engineers should be in charge of younger engineers who know how things work.
What is the solution?
Saying that engineering is dead is putting it kindly.
Engineering died a long time ago; it has since decomposed and its ashes have been blown away by the recent economic crash. I will reiterate the sentiments of one of the previous posters and say that enrolling in a mechanical engineering program back in fall of '99 was the greatest mistake of my life! Current engineers are the victims of the prestigious past engineering once had. Engineering might have been rewarding once but to me it is a dead-end career. I graduated in 2003 and have worked in machine design and product design; I've been working since 2004 and I have yet to crack 50K salary. It's laughable to think that my parents used lawyer, doctor and engineer interchangeably. In engineering school we were trained in the fundamentals of engineering but these laws are disregarded on a daily basis in the name of the bottom line. Moreover, the subservient foreign workers, who lack any assertiveness in the workplace, tend to appeal to incompetent middle mangers whose only goal is self preservation. I kick myself when I think back to my undergraduate days of hardcore studying. And to think my friends who studied IT and did half the work are now managers. My advice to anyone who is listening is: don't go into engineering. It might sound impressive but you will be miserable and you won’t make any money. If you like numbers pursue a career in Finance or Accounting; if you like technology, try IT.
Engineering: An emasculating, dead-end job
My opinion of engineering is nicely summarized in this message's subject. I have been an engineer for 8 years and I thoroughly regret the day I entered college to pursue engineering. I can say without hyperbole that this was the worst decision I ever made. Setting aside for the moment the more specific reasons for disliking engineering, the general reason I dislike engineering is that it makes people useless that would otherwise be useful. Most engineering involves little practical, or even theoretical, problem solving skills. Moreover, the mathematical and deductive skills learned in college often atrophy because of neglect. They simply aren't necessary if the engineer is nothing more than a low-functioning computer code run-monkey. I have always had contempt for useless people and it is irritating that engineers could be useful if most aspects of modern engineering were not overwhelmingly dominated by process and hackneyed computer simulation. The basic aspects of problem solving or estimation, made famous in Fermi Problems, are foreign to most engineers because they are prevented from acquiring any useful skills.
*Mostly* dead.
Oh, it's not quite dead yet. But it is getting there.
I have worked with some excellent managers in the past-- most with engineering backgrounds themselves. But most recent experience has been working for pure managers. And they are simply not good at making informed decisions. In my experience, they weigh technical issues too lightly compared to areas with which they might be more familiar. (An engineer on the other hand might weigh technical details too heavily, but at least the product might work...)
Where I work, it is the NORM to trade quality and reliability for schedule, to trade research and testing for cost savings. Our one big product is doomed to fail technically. But the managers always seem to "save the day" with politics and promises-- despite the lack of realism in scheduling and lack of risk management. If we are successful, it will be in spite of management, not because of it. But the publications will not reflect that.
Apart from those issues, I have bad news for the eager young engineering students: The *fun* of being an engineer is increasingly rare. The days of prototypes and field testing and "making it work" or "proof of concept" are pretty much over.
Managers do not want "heros" any more. They want boring, interchangable engineers. They do not want physical protoypes. They want artificially successful simulations. They do not care if you know the system inside-and-out. They care that you know your exact job and no more.They do not want technical reports and science. They want dumbed-down PowerPoint bullets and checkboxes.
The result is an apathetic, cynical and disengaged engineering staff.
The good news: If you can get some good experience early on, you can always start your own company or consult. Engineering is still a very satisfying major in school, and is transferrable to many non-engineering professions.
Dittos to engineering is dead
Call it a political - because the only time engineering was in its prime is when capitalism thrived in this country. Unfortunately I chose this career in the late 80's and by the time I graduated the fortune 500 companies flew away and dissolved especially in the NE
In my opinion, companies have treated engineers like whores - use them abuse them and lay them off. Ever since the crash of 2000 engineering has dwindled. Companies are leery of having the "engineering dept" anymore, now they have a couple, just to obtain answers they need for their designs and then everything is sent to Korea/China/Mexico/India for the process and manufacturing since the progressive green movement chased them out. Mechanical engineering is abusive job on the moral of any graduate. Discussion at a recent company projected engineering was going to be on "survival mode" until 2016 and manufacturing and R&D processes were going to take until 2025-2030 if we can turn around this spiral recession we're in.
Don't ever believe you will be in engineering job at a company for life, expect lay-offs, jumping from the burning ship frequently, and being told every two years this project will be shipped to "x" country where that division will produce it.
Engineering is a dead end career...
Engineering is a dead end career. It is a great field to be in "when you are employed".
The real problem is that we no longer manufacture anything in this country and therefore have little need for engineers. Most people assume that we engineer products in this country and then produce them in low cost countries. This is no longer true. For instance there is not one PC manufacturer in this company that engineers their computers in the United States. They hire local engineers in the orient to design, develop, manufacture, and oversee quality.
Computer Engineering worth it?
Yeah, i graduated with a 3.0 in Computer Engineering and minor in Computer Science in 2001. I've been trying to get a decent engineering job for 9 years and the best I could get was an engineering technician position for an R&D lab where I worked among Engineers. Eventually they laid me off because I couldn't solder or perform industry standard wiring which I consider a waste of my education anyway. I can't even get an interview at amazon or microsoft. Meanwhile I personally have known many foreigners from Ireland, czech republic, and India who have gotten sponsorship to work here in the US, delightful people. But I continue to hear how we don't have enough scientific minded, math and computer proficient graduates in our workforce. Now I wish I could just just trade in my degree for the $30,000 in school loans I still owe.
engineering is dead
I read the story regarding Engineering being a dead profession. Sadly it's true, Engineering is now an under rated and a seemingly unappreciated profession which requires so much training and education to obtain which doesn't pay off. I've recently been laid off because "Engineering Costs Too Much" "We don't need an Engineer we just need someone to fabricate." I don't know whats going on in todays business world but it seems like logic and reason are taking a back seat to bottom lines and the all mighty dollar.
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