Speaking of engineering

[soccerdad72]

If it helps, a lot of video game designers have job options in the "serious games" market. I think the video game industry is strong and healthy in terms of job creation, but serious games provides another outlet for growth. Lots of companies use that type of simulation for training employees to deal with a wide variety of scenarios. IBM has a huge serious games division.

That's good info to know - thanks!

 

[bcla]

I got into the corporate world right at the ripe old age of 21 (seriously, I was too stupid to have gotten through college and b school, I had NO idea about the real world besides were to buy suits), a few months before 9/11 and then Enron and Arthur Andersen. The company I worked for was court appointed to run Enron, so that was one of my first assignments and we dealt with a ton of the AA restructuring too. It was a cool gig in general, but for a girl from Nashville, who have traveled a decent amount, but not like I was throw into, it was a GREAT learning curve, and terrifying. I remember Smith Barney and I lost Bear and Lehman when they went out. It was a huge part of my book of business (of course) and all the rest of it wasn't doing great either. I remember crying in my boss' office about making up the millions of shortfall in our base when the market was like that and him pretty much telling me it was the end of the world and there wasn't enough business left to make it up. That was scary. I had just gotten my first divorce too. I was at WDW with my folks actually when my dad told me the dow was 6000. It was traumatic. I was in NYC when Lehman's people where streaming out of the building - that was insane.

The point is, 2 years later, business was, and continues to boom, and it can be the same in tech, defense, retail, whatever. The OP's son will find his way, but no matter what you do, there will be crazy bumps.

You never know. However, in many ways I think that there will be plenty of jobs for new grads in the US because most haven't really developed a niche and many employers think they can mold them. I worked a summer job at an office building in San Francisco where one of the (then) Big 8 accounting firms had an office. It was hilarious seeing their mass interviews where pretty much every interviewee was wearing a navy blue suit, including the women who would wear navy blue skirts. The guy in the gray suit stood out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way.

Still - I look at the way that industries change. A high-performance computing cluster can be installed anywhere. Some states or even countries have economic incentives to set up shop. The ability to do good work exists around the globe. One of the really frustrating things is that we might think that our situation is bad with lots of new or existing jobs going to India or China, but over there they have a glut of engineering graduates who can't find a job.

When I was looking for a job I found that the majority of recruiters were calling me from India or Pakistan. They could basically provide a lot of brute force cold-calling. Often they were for position where I had zero experience or interest, so it told me that quite a few of these recruiters weren't terribly good. I still get a few calls now and then. I frankly preferred to deal with someone based in the US who could speak my language and not something that was sort of my language. I could usually tell the difference between someone calling from from India or who was originally from India but had spent enough time in the US to learn how to converse with Americans. That's a job (recruiting) that's been mostly outsourced and personally I think the quality has suffered. However, I'd honestly say that there are places around the world where they're doing pretty good work in many fields for far less in salary, and that kind of scares me.

 

[gillep]

DH and I both went to a predominantly engineering undergraduate university and he graduated with a B.S. duel major in Aerospace Mechanical engineering in 2006. He had multiple job offers before he graduated, all making very good money. He ended up going to a consulting firm and doing mostly Computer Science, which he has an amazing natural aptitude for. The job did require a lot of travel, but had a lot of excellent benefits and he advanced quickly, and allowed him to really grow as a professional.

He left about three years ago and now works for one of the most well known employers in the world in Silicon Valley as a computer programmer. I would say that from our engineering friends, about half do engineering, and the other half do computer science (even though their degrees are in engineering). My husband's career has offered us so many great opportunities, and we have always felt like he was well valued and compensated. He also has people solicit him with contacts that could lead to job offers all the time when he meets new people and they get to talking (the last time was in April on the plane to WDW). I would not hesitate to suggest to a student to pursue engineering if they felt like it was a good fit, and had interest in the work. My field on the other hand... (love my job, but the field has been hurting for a few years).

 

[cabanafrau]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say by touching a nerve? I just found it interesting that out of that long post where I said I wanted DS to find something that would make him happy and fulfilled, you seemed to think I am trying to force DS into biomedical engineering because *I* would like it? No. I figured my post was long enough without giving an entire life history, but DS had been interested in the medical field at one time but as I said later the germaphobe thing led him to rule that out. Hearing about biomedical engineering made me think "Oh, maybe he'd like something like that, he was initially interested in the medical field, but doesn't like the "blood and guts" part, maybe biomedical engineering would tie the two fields together". I really don't know that much about it, that's why I posted, thinking maybe someone else had experience to share.

I have met so many engineers who are unhappy, that I wanted to find out if this is the general state of the field, or if there are areas of it that may be more in demand or enjoyable. As I said, I felt like I didn't have enough info at this age about what careers are even out there. Even now I hear someone mention their career and I think, "What is that? What does it involve?" and I feel like I want to arm DS with as much knowledge as possible to know what is out there for him. I never said "I am against him pursuing engineering" as you said, I just want to give him as many ideas as possible for what is out there. He has never said he loves the idea of engineering and it would be his dream come to true to be an engineer, it seems more like him saying that because he's not sure what else to pick. I ended up thinking I'd like one field, and then having to transfer colleges because what I eventually realized I wanted to do wasn't an available major at that college. With the price of a college education, I don't think it hurts to think carefully about the choices early.

The first sentence of my initial reply said that I was commenting on what stood out to me. Yes, your post was long, but I didn't think that was a problem and I even read it all. As you said, the post didn't contain your life story, so you fully understand what you're trying to express and I have to stick with the details you shared. My reading of it made a few things stand out-- to me. I didn't speculate about tangential things, I took your words as I understood them. You think there is little to no future or opportunity in engineering disciplines, but you speculated biomedical sounded cool. Those are the facts I was working from.

I hear what your concerns are, but I'm not sure you have a lot of sound information yourself to be discouraging or encouraging him. I recommend seeking out summer engineering programs at colleges that your son could possibly attend to explore what's involved in different disciplines, what the course work is like in the different curriculum and what type of jobs can be expected with different types and levels of degrees. There's probably summer programs available in computer sciences as well which could give him another avenue of interests to explore. As far as the engineering ones go, my experience is they spend a week seeing a lot, learning a lot and talking with a lot of grad students who run the summer events. Gives a good intro to college life and a chance to explore and ask real questions in an organic way, not the more constrained environment of a tour or a dog and pony. I definitely recommend encouraging him to ask about math, because it will be an enormous part of it. Unless I miss my guess, a class or two with heavy robotics work will be a part of the studies, so he can find out more about that as well. Matter of fact, some of the work during the week may encompass robotics anyway. He also needs to meet with his HS counselor, discuss his ideas, ask for feedback and recommendations, possibly even some aptitude testing.

 

[DopeyDame]

I'm surprised by the negativity surrounding engineering as a career by some posters. Time and time again, it's on studies and reports as one of the most high-demand fields.
I'm an engineer (and a woman, which does make me stand out a bit...) Waaaaay back when I graduated (B.S. in Aerospace Engineering), I had 4 or 5 job offers. Since that time, I've never been unemployed and have had multiple offers the few times I've changed jobs. Right now, we have a hard time hiring enough smart, capable young engineers. We're practically begging the young woman who interned with us last summer to come back as a full time employee, but she's currently weighing some other offers. (She's graduating with a BS in Electrical Engineering)

Also, travel is absolutely not true of engineers across the board. In fact, I'd say it's less likely in engineering than in most other fields. (Technical consulting being the one clear stand-out, but I'd consider that career to be consulting more than engineering.)
Finally, it's worth noting that my company offers amazing work-life balance and flexibility. When I had kids, I went part time and no one batted and eye. Before that, I still had flexible work hours and only worked more than 40 hours very occasionally.

Engineering isn't for everyone, but I can't imagine encouraging someone *not* to major in it.

 

[fortwildernessishome]

I have not read this whole thread. My son graduated with a civil engineering degree in 2015. He had several job offers upon graduation. He picked the one he wanted and has been working there for almost 2 years. He doesn't travel and works in an office. He loves it and is making a ton of money!!!

 

[Skippy918]

As far as math, many of the engineering courses have calculus in them. I had 4 semesters of calculus, one of those being differential equations, plus prob and stat. Is he taking AP calculus? AP BC calculus would be equivalent to one semester of calculus at an engineering school.
My dh, who majored in computer engineering was not strong in math, but he managed to get through it. His major did have a lot less calculus based courses than mine did.

 

[katie01]

As far as math, many of the engineering courses have calculus in them. I had 4 semesters of calculus, one of those being differential equations, plus prob and stat. Is he taking AP calculus? AP BC calculus would be equivalent to one semester of calculus at an engineering school.
My dh, who majored in computer engineering was not strong in math, but he managed to get through it. His major did have a lot less calculus based courses than mine did.

He is a freshman this year, he took a placement test that allowed him to skip algebra and go straight to Honors Geometry, he did enjoy it and got an A in the class. Next year he is doubling up in math (they have a block schedule, so their classes change halfway though the year), and he will take Honors Algebra 2 and Honors Trig. So he does well in actual math classes, it's just the standardized tests where he gets lower math scores based on the computation part, not comprehension. I have faith DS could get through the math too for engineering. And again I'm encouraged by all these posts by the strong job prospects for most engineers.

 

[because]

It really depends on the industry. A lot of the hot industries will hire new/recent grads because they're cheaper, and often these companies are high risk, high reward with a possibility of IPOs but also the possibility of shutting down. I think Mark Zuckerberg made a mistake to say what he was actually thinking, but remember when he said "Young people are just smarter"?

Here's an article on the issue:

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/In-Silicon-Valley-age-can-be-a-curse-4742365.php

My uncle had a great series of engineering jobs when he was young and up to his 40s. Then his defense contractor employer laid him off and he was having trouble finding a job. He lived off of a side business, but still wanted to get back and had a very difficult time. After a divorce he moved to the East Coast because that was the only job he could find, but eventually they laid him off.

Part of the issue is that a lot of these jobs end up creating a worker with a specialized skill set. The jobs that may be out there won't necessarily have that same requirement, and employers may not wait for someone experienced and commanding a higher salary to ramp up. They might be more tolerant of a new grad since they won't cost as much and can theoretically be molded into the ideal worker. If one is a new grad that's one thing, but for someone experienced who will make more money they want the "purple unicorn".

What is your engineering degree in? I am just curious what area your negative experience is in. Our family and our large network of friends, relatives and colleagues luckily have had a different experience.

That article is 4 years old and referencing the Telecom industry that did go through a huge upheaval with new technology springing up almost daily. My husband is an electrical engineer in the telecom industry. The longest he has ever been out of work was 2 weeks and that was only for the paperwork to go through. Industries have always changed. Smart employees work at keeping their skills current. This is not unique to engineering nor age. Kind of like the grandma who is as smart phone savvy as the teen next door. You have to choose to make an effort to be current on your skills or you can just keep using your flip phone.

With most of their relatives being engineers it was probably inevitable that our children all chose to pursue engineering for a career. Oldest recently graduated and had quite a few decent jobs offers upon graduation. The youngest is still in school but the prospects for securing a job before graduating seem as good or not better.

As a few previous posters mentioned, it seems to be a very solid choice for a profession. However, it is a tough degree to obtain and getting tougher each year. Echoing a previous post, my children found it extremely difficult to impossible to hold outside jobs as the work load was too intense. Even at our local public university the engineering school has become way more selective in the few years between my oldest and youngest. They almost gleefully promote the fact that less than half the freshman class will make it through the various engineering programs. Many schools now purposely structure a semester or two as weed out semesters to weed out those that are not absolutely committed to engineering. One thing my children have said that it is beneficial to add non engineering minors to their degree to make them more versatile. For instance, my oldest is a ChE but added chemistry, biology and applied math minors.

OP - one of mine originally wanted to pursue med school. But found that research was much more exciting and bonus did not have to go into huge debt before starting to work. So I totally understand where you are coming from with thinking that biomedical research may be an interest for your son.

 

[katie01]

What is your engineering degree in? I am just curious what area your negative experience is in. Our family and our large network of friends, relatives and colleagues luckily have had a different experience.

That article is 4 years old and referencing the Telecom industry that did go through a huge upheaval with new technology springing up almost daily. My husband is an electrical engineer in the telecom industry. The longest he has ever been out of work was 2 weeks and that was only for the paperwork to go through. Industries have always changed. Smart employees work at keeping their skills current. This is not unique to engineering nor age. Kind of like the grandma who is as smart phone savvy as the teen next door. You have to choose to make an effort to be current on your skills or you can just keep using your flip phone.

With most of their relatives being engineers it was probably inevitable that our children all chose to pursue engineering for a career. Oldest recently graduated and had quite a few decent jobs offers upon graduation. The youngest is still in school but the prospects for securing a job before graduating seem as good or not better.

As a few previous posters mentioned, it seems to be a very solid choice for a profession. However, it is a tough degree to obtain and getting tougher each year. Echoing a previous post, my children found it extremely difficult to impossible to hold outside jobs as the work load was too intense. Even at our local public university the engineering school has become way more selective in the few years between my oldest and youngest. They almost gleefully promote the fact that less than half the freshman class will make it through the various engineering programs. Many schools now purposely structure a semester or two as weed out semesters to weed out those that are not absolutely committed to engineering. One thing my children have said that it is beneficial to add non engineering minors to their degree to make them more versatile. For instance, my oldest is a ChE but added chemistry, biology and applied math minors.

OP - one of mine originally wanted to pursue med school. But found that research was much more exciting and bonus did not have to go into huge debt before starting to work. So I totally understand where you are coming from with thinking that biomedical research may be an interest for your son.

Thank you! I am learning so much from these posts. DS could of course change his mind at any time about what he wants to do, but I went from feeling very concerned for him with his potential choice, to feeling much more hopeful, and hearing lots of good suggestions. I wondered if, as you said, adding at least a minor in something else could help? But it sounds like the engineering program all on its own is pretty intense, which I figured it would be

 

[bcla]

What is your engineering degree in? I am just curious what area your negative experience is in. Our family and our large network of friends and relatives luckily have had a different experience.

It says I'm an electrical engineer on my diploma, but it's really more computer/chip design that I do. Its that there's actually a worldwide glut of engineers - especially from India and China, and that even American companies are setting up shop to save on salaries. My wife was actually concerned when my former company set up a group in Asia that I would become expendible, and eventually I was. There's also a pretty well known bias against older job applicants. When I was applying for jobs some listings stated the number of applicants in the hundreds. Having 5 years of experience is a plus, but 15 may trigger thoughts of costing too much and maybe dealing with a family. You can read all about competent people in their 40s and 50s who can't find a job, especially where they went to the only large industry employer in the area, but have set up roots.

Now those who found government jobs seem to have job security. I have a neighbor in a government position. He says it might not pay as well as a similar private sector job, but he doesn't need to worry about being expendible.

 

[because]

Thank you! I am learning so much from these posts. DS could of course change his mind at any time about what he wants to do, but I went from feeling very concerned for him with his potential choice, to feeling much more hopeful, and hearing lots of good suggestions. I wondered if, as you said, adding at least a minor in something else could help? But it sounds like the engineering program all on its own is pretty intense, which I figured it would be

At least in my children's school, adding in certain minors really wasn't much more work. For a ChE major, since they are already taking a ton of chemistry and math, it only took a couple more classes to get their chem and applied math minors. My youngest is in Aerospace and is planning on taking an extra math class over the summer to add an applied math minor.

 

[because]

It says I'm an electrical engineer on my diploma, but it's really more computer/chip design that I do. Its that there's actually a worldwide glut of engineers - especially from India and China, and that even American companies are setting up shop to save on salaries. My wife was actually concerned when my former company set up a group in Asia that I would become expendible, and eventually I was. There's also a pretty well known bias against older job applicants. When I was applying for jobs some listings stated the number of applicants in the hundreds. Having 5 years of experience is a plus, but 15 may trigger thoughts of costing too much and maybe dealing with a family. You can read all about competent people in their 40s and 50s who can't find a job, especially where they went to the only large industry employer in the area, but have set up roots.

Now those who found government jobs seem to have job security. I have a neighbor in a government position. He says it might not pay as well as a similar private sector job, but he doesn't need to worry about being expendible.

Luckily, as I have said, we haven't seen that trend amongst our friends and colleagues and we are all well into our 50's. That really is tough that your area sees such age discrimination. I do agree working for a company that has a lot of government contracts that require security clearances has some extra job stability.

 

[bcla]

Luckily, as I have said, we haven't seen that trend amongst our friends and colleagues and we are all well into our 50's. That really is tough that your area sees such age discrimination. I do agree working for a company that has a lot of government contracts that require security clearances has some extra job stability.

Well, it may depend on the long term prospects for the project. A couple of my uncles worked for defense contractors. One got tired of it and bought a business. Another worked for years at one company but got laid off when his project slowed down. They both had security clearances.

Some of my coworkers are older and I feel fortunate, but the trend in Silicon Valley seems to be to look at resumes and and eliminate those with too much experience. My main connections are people I've worked with, so that may not help so much in case of a layoff. A few years back when I was looking, I did have a former manager get me an interview with a hiring manager for a job that wasn't even listed publicly, but I wasn't really well suited for it. I'm pretty sure you'd recognize the company's name. Certainly it's nice when that happens but it's not a reliable means if you're not in a field where you tend to schmooze a lot. I've known a few customer facing engineers who were able to leverage contacts for jobs after a company folded.

And that not just the workers in my field are international but the work sites are too. I'll just pull up one of the better known companies in my industry for where they're hiring. I mean, years ago it would have been about 75% in the US. I'm seeing the first 10 jobs located in India, Malaysia, China, China, Malaysia, China, Malaysia, India, California, and California. It's a bit hard for me to tell where the jobs are in total even though there's a number for each location. It's just that there are literally dozens of locations, but right now I'd guess that most of them are outside the US.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Again, it's not been our experience that job prospects are fewer for older engineers. It might be in some areas or fields, for sure, but age didn't hurt DH at all this last go-round. He was north of 50 when looking for his current job--there was no shortage of interest in him, both in and out of the nuclear field (so it wasn't strictly based on his body of experience there).

Now, some types of engineering are more "niche" fields--mining, environmental, fire protection, and so forth. But, these can also be lucrative since you have specialized knowledge and experience. And it's very important to keep current, especially in electrical, where things change at the speed of light (ha ha).

One thing I would recommend steering clear of is the "engineering technology" fields--these are typically offered at less rigorous schools, and have much less value. The programs are less math-intense and more hands-on, but because of that, they aren't as valuable as a regular engineering degree. My BIL has one of these--he had flunked out of engineering school, and his company wasn't paying him what he wanted, because he didn't have the piece of paper. Going the engineering technology was the quickest way for him to get the paper. But, he can't get his MS now, because he doesn't have the math credentials to get into graduate school or to handle the courses. Again, not such an issue with my BIL (he's also in his 50's), but I would strongly encourage a young person to go for the regular degree. Any engineering degree is going to require calculus and differential equations--how much you go beyond those, really depends on major/interest. Diff. Eq's was a "weed out" course, back in the Stone Age when I was in school (DH took it three times!).

 

[disney4us2002]

My middle son graduated in 2015 and was already working parttime during his senior year at a nuclear power plant. He was a mechanical engineering major. All of the "kids" he graduated with either already had offers or got hired pretty soon after getting their degree. Son believes the biggest benefit was that his school made engineering students do three semesters of field internships. That gave lots of practical experience so both the student could see if they really liked what they would do and employers got a feel for the students. My older son majored in theatre sound & lighting production. He loves what he does but he makes half the money his brother makes and works nights, weekends and holidays. At least they are both happy.

 

[cabanafrau]

He is a freshman this year, he took a placement test that allowed him to skip algebra and go straight to Honors Geometry, he did enjoy it and got an A in the class. Next year he is doubling up in math (they have a block schedule, so their classes change halfway though the year), and he will take Honors Algebra 2 and Honors Trig. So he does well in actual math classes, it's just the standardized tests where he gets lower math scores based on the computation part, not comprehension. I have faith DS could get through the math too for engineering. And again I'm encouraged by all these posts by the strong job prospects for most engineers.

His algebra and calculus results will probably be the biggest indicators of his proficiency level for mathematics heading into engineering. He may turn out to be incredibly proficient, yet discover he's fed to the teeth with the rigors of mathematics. That feeling should not be ignored even if he shows himself to be a math wunderkind. Often kids like that get propelled into the major in college and wind up miserable/crash and burn/switch majors but have a hard time deciding on something new or struggle under the financial implications of a switch.

The more exploration your son can do himself to get a feel for what fits him, the better off he'll be. It's great to help him seek out sources of information, but the surest way he finds his own path is for him to absorb the info. directly as much as possible.

 

[longboard55]

His algebra and calculus results will probably be the biggest indicators of his proficiency level for mathematics heading into engineering. He may turn out to be incredibly proficient, yet discover he's fed to the teeth with the rigors of mathematics. That feeling should not be ignored even if he shows himself to be a math wunderkind. Often kids like that get propelled into the major in college and wind up miserable/crash and burn/switch majors but have a hard time deciding on something new or struggle under the financial implications of a switch.

The more exploration your son can do himself to get a feel for what fits him, the better off he'll be. It's great to help him seek out sources of information, but the surest way he finds his own path is for him to absorb the info. directly as much as possible.

If I would give one tip for potential engineers is its starts in high school. Everyone in your college classes was in honors math and took calculus, chemistry and physics already. They wizz by real quick in those classes, much faster than high school, so if you do not have the background you will get run over.

 

[Gracie09]

My middle son graduated in 2015 and was already working parttime during his senior year at a nuclear power plant. He was a mechanical engineering major. All of the "kids" he graduated with either already had offers or got hired pretty soon after getting their degree. Son believes the biggest benefit was that his school made engineering students do three semesters of field internships. That gave lots of practical experience so both the student could see if they really liked what they would do and employers got a feel for the students. My older son majored in theatre sound & lighting production. He loves what he does but he makes half the money his brother makes and works nights, weekends and holidays. At least they are both happy.

DH went to a school that does 6 months classes, 6 months paid coop after the sophomore year. Its typically a 5 year program but he ended up with multiple job offers, including some from all his coops. He ended up with a company doing bridge rehab work and the rest is history.

 

[Cadiewampus]

In my business, I deal with mostly Electrical and Mechanical engineers. A lot of the ones at the companies we sell to get their jobs soon after graduating college and retire from the same companies