I still think engineering is your best bet if you want a good job. Also university is a time to explore what it is you actually want to do. So don't feel bad if you find you aren't interested in your main field of study, and I actually encourage testing out different classes that interest you. Thanks for watching!
As an engineering graduate, I spent a bit of time - just over exactly a year - in a non-engineering business technology field and ended up absolutely hating it. So I have to ask: What defines "a good job"? For me, it's one that is intellectually stimulating - I care not an iota about the money - and unfortunately I find that the overwhelming majority (probably 90%) of jobs out there - at least in my country, Australia - are either Systems Engineering, or Business Software. The remainder, I don't tend to get interviews, let alone offers. Both of these areas to me are insanely understimulating to me, and they don't provide the skills and experience necessary to leave them down the road without forsaking engineering entirely for good (and going into hiring or something, which is starting to look like a great end goal, if only because I want to help fix the hiring disaster we have now). Is this a similar problem in North America?
I have to disagree. I guess it depends on the specific field of engineering. When I graduated with an engineering degree in product design the industry wasn't hiring if you didn't have experience (which I didn't have) and then the Global Financial Crisis hit. I essentially never worked in the field which has left me feeling disappointed. I would encourage people to simply study a university degree which will see job growth by the time you graduate. Having said that I hesitate recommending anyone go to university given how expensive it is. Thanks for the vid.
I got an engineering degree and I always wanted to do engineering, but I mailed my degree back to my university and told them it was useless because it can't even get me to an interview.
The only thing a history degree qualifies one for is graduate school in history. Then teaching history. Yet most who teach history gave the worst track record for learning from history. Most college history professors identify as socialists or communists. That is the ultimate failure to learn from history.
Graduated in EE in 1980, made good money, saved up. Retired early with a FAT pension. I couldn't do that today. Ever since Jack Welch laid off thousands of Engineers, the fix has been in. Companies that used to hire people out of college, and train them (me included), won't do that anymore. Rather, they just bid against the few candidates out there. I became a Manager mid-career, which gave me longevity and a higher salary. But, then they told me that we were going to cut some engineering salaries by 40%, and I knew the whole "STEM" shortage crap was total BS. I've felt that way for a long time. To beat the system, get a plain vanilla Engineering degree with "Average U", that doesn't break you, and then get certifications in those things that are "hot". After that, move into management. Oh, and ignore everything management tells you. They're probably lying...
@@cryora No one can guarantee you job security, except you and God. Management will promise you that the future is in this, or that area, and imply advancement, but if the industry shifts, they might dump you the next year. For example, everybody was going to VMWare only a few years ago. These guys could name their price. Today, its AWS. Yesterday, AI meant Machine Learning. Now, everyone is shifting to "Transformer" tech (GPT3). No one knows, including them, and these days, Engineers (outside of management), are at the bottom of the good chain.
@@cryora Strong Unions. That's what's needed. But, I don't know of any Engineers that are starving, since we are favored for our general analytical skills. Even outside of Engineering positions. That's the good news.
In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, companies would hire new grads out of school and put them directly into training programs. Then starting in the 80s, manufacturing went offshore and companies started demanding that engineers have a few years of experience, and with each decade that passed the level of experience companies demand are ever increasing. When engineering grads see how near-impossible it is for them to get work, they switch to another career.
True. In eastern overseas countries i.e., Europe, Asia, Middle East, etcetera, they value engineering, science, and so on. In America since the 1980's and beyond, not so much. In eastern overseas countries, women go for men who are a scientist, engineer or Doctor whereas, women in America go for men who are bad boy rockstars or rap artists. So, you can see the decline of America, high-powered CEO's outsource American jobs on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean with the rich politicians being they're errand boys.
Good electrical engineers were in the basement as 12-year-olds building radio circuits, etc. People who pick EE because it has good job placement statistics are hopeless.
In my case, 10 years old. I worked as an engineer in power suppliers, with no degree. There was no college program at the time for power, but lots of trade shows with training. I did go into management, but then kept being put into Sales roles (Field Engineer, a lot of in the field, no engineer) - I hate Sales.
@@JetIgniter2k2 Yes, I nearly killed myself at age 12 when I made contact with 500 volts from my novice amateur radio transmitter. 60 years later I still have scars from where the wire touched my fingers. You must have found out about the camera's flash bulb circuit.
I have a Mechanic Engineering degree, graduated top 10% . I cannot get a job worth squat. Don't listen to the stupid stats. It's very hard to land or maintain an engineering job.
I’m going to disagree with you. There are a lot of engineering jobs available. Most people do not apply themselves enough in engineering school. They don’t do internships, co-ops, and wait till a month before graduating to start looking for a job. They expect that the degree should just get them a job cause they busted ass for 4 years. Then they are surprised that a job doesn’t just land in your lap cause you have an eng degree. Then they are out a job and live at home for a few months when they should have started looking 6-8 months prior to graduation for a job. Most people I graduated with did not have a job lined up post grad. Most of them just waited too long or applied to 5 jobs expecting to land one of them. I don’t feel bad for engineers who can’t find a job post graduation cause usually they just don’t try hard enough to get one. When asked why they didn’t apply more or do internships it’s usually just the same excuses: they are “focused” on school work, companies expect us to have experience for entry level jobs, etc… it’s all the same lame bs excuses. Every average joe gets an engineering degree. You have to stand out from the crowd and be involved in as much as possible to get a good job out of college. That’s what employers want to see. This is why a majority of engineers don’t work in engineering outside of college. I see it happen all the time. Like anything else if you want to get something, then you actually have to push for it. It’s honestly sad how many lazy students I went to school with. It was far and few between to find a good engineering student who actually works hard.
@@xxrealdealxx11 So are you saying that internships, projects, and clubs will determine an engineering job post grad? I just want to have an overall understanding of what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, are you saying that it's laziness and lack of engagement/participation outside of class is what leaves people with no experience, therefore, no job in their specified field? I'm only asking because I'm a month in studying to become an electrical engineer. I've started tweaking my resume with someone in charge of internships at the community college I attend and was told that I wouldnt be able to get an internship until I'm in my junior year with more engineering based classes. I'm trying to get experience from early and you seem to have a good idea of how not to fail 😂.
@@iyannasho3243 thank you. I have graduated college as a mechanical engineer and I am speaking from experience. You train of thought is correct. Unfortunately there are a lot of slackers in college too and I see people complain about not having jobs cause of the lack of experience or not trying hard enough. yes these are of key importance being involved. The more well rounded you are, the more employers will want you. You will have the upper hand and will be able to talk vastly about your experiences as an engineer. Also no need to rush through school. Do internships in the summer instead of summer classes so you can get those working-experiences. Whoever told you that you have to wait till junior year for internships is not good advice. I know people who got internships as a freshman,sophomore and junior. It is harder to get an internship at a younger grade level in college but it’s definitely possible and not uncommon. All of This will prepare you greatly for finding a job you want vs a job you just have to take to get a job. And the more desirable jobs out of college that a lot of people apply to are hard to get. So you have to stand out and have that experience to talk about. Also not to mention you will likely get a higher starting pay for having that experience. Also do not overlook the importance of interview prep. Most colleges offer this as a free service to you. It helped me realize that I wasn’t as good at interviewing as I thought I was. And the last thing is that it is a numbers game. The more opportunities you apply to the higher likelihood you will get interest and interviews for possible internship positions. Go to the career fairs and talk to the people that go to those. These help a lot as well and provide many opportunities to connect face to face with these companies as they usually have representatives there. The only 2 things I wish I did was do more internships or co-ops and make sure to spend time outside of school with friends cause it goes by quickly. A lot of people like to just do school and get out and forget about the other parts of college that are fun. Also I only had one internship opportunity in college but it was cancelled due to Covid. So I had zero internships and still got a job but I was also heavily involved with the SAE program at my school and other volunteer organizations. I also had a job while in school. But lots of other kids had more experience then me and lost had less and wondered why they didn’t get a job. Good luck with school and enjoy it!
@@xxrealdealxx11 Wow wow wow! Thank you so much for literally EVERYTHING you just wrote. I appreciate you taking the time out your day to give me some pointers and tips, as you know, you didn't have to. I'm definitely screenshotting what you wrote so I can remember all of this lol. This gave me the push I needed to get those internships and involved with the school, I can't thank you enough. 🙏😁
I studied electrical engineering and got a middle of the pack gpa. Landed a job a month before i graduated making 110k. The difference is i did have 1 year worth of internship experience (2x 6months at two companies)
The degree DOES NOT in 2024 mean a lot if anything. Higher education has dumbed down creating highly inflated GPA's with people not capable of doing the work. I have been in the trades (electrical/AC) for over 50 years. I got my engineering degree in the mid 2000's after 40 years of doing design, build and installation. My master who took me through my apprenticeship was a genius that taught me practical application and discipline. I learned as I worked, following instructions, installing equipment and learning as he graded my work. No free lunch here. No demeaning non-degreed people. But discipline, degreed or not is what is lacking. Wake up woke colleges and dumb down curriculum have lowered the quality of degrees and with the cost to get them drives many away. Look up Mike Rowe and what he is doing. Discipline, hard work, staying the course, learning and doing is how to have a gratifying and fulfilling life.
I saw this in action. When I was working a tech support job, a co worker had an enginnering degree. He was teasing me about my "Useless" philosophy and psychology degrees. I got the last laugh in the conversation when I pointed out that we have the exact same job role.
I bet he had guilty conscious. Engineering degree prestige is on the decline unless its software, medical, civil (especially building and construction) biology/lifescience and business based.
@@Hatemx1 Lol are u serious, without civil engineers there would literally no infrastructure whatsoever, theres a reason you see governments constantly on lookout for a pe civil engineer
@@daboss6614 In india, civil engineering is the worst major to do as even after graduation from top 10 engineering colleges of India( being in top 1%), there are no jobs in core engineering. All jobs are in IT sector.
One reason engineers have trouble finding work is that the field that traditionally needed engineers, manufacturing has been drastically curtailed in the US and Canada.. Companies will say that they don't have enough engineers applying, but that's in order to open up the employment market to the world. More competition, and also better to hold down wages.
Ask Bill "get the jab or else" Gates Always demanding Congresses allow him to bring over as many software engineers from India at $45k a year he wants so he doesn't have to pay Americans a Engineers a living wage
@laulaja-7186 doesnt make sense for a UBI youd be paying people to do nothing abd putting more burden on the working class. UBI wouldnt fix the problem at all. Just gotta stop immigration and raise tariffs to equal out supply and demand in the workers favor.
@Distress You're right but nobody is going to stop the immigration and all those immigrants are already getting UBI at the behest of the native taxpayer's. Might as well get some of that money lost to taxes back as far as i'm concerned but then again knowing the government maybe they'll just raise taxes even more to compensate so that in reality you're getting jack shit. Regardless though I don't think it matters too much either way to give a damn about.
I went to a career fair right after university and there was this employer who had a sign showing how much each entry position pay is expected to be. The chef gets paid more than engineers which shows that the company values the guy who cooks eggs more than the people actually running their facilities
Some low level positions you might take as an internship don't necessarily pay better than jobs outside of engineering, but they can get your foot in the door and open up other opportunities.
Being a chef would require years of experience in a kitchen. Sometimes it would require extra training too. About 5 years of real world experience on average. So yeah makes sense they would be making more than a college grad.
Never-ending that you show up for the interview high, unprepared, ill_mannered, late, argue with the interviewer, lie on your resume, trash your last employer, bring in food, kids or pets, or otherwise show up and act in a completely unhireable way. Hr loves to waste time like that.
I think the main reason is you can’t expect high school students to know what they want to be at 17 or 18 just because they are good at math & physics. After 4 years of hell with non inspiring engineering professors, most don’t want to be engineers. I had ChemE degree from UCLA but MS in Organic chemistry and worked as pharmaceutical chemist. Many of my classmates went onto Med schools , MBA or law schools. Only about 1/3 became engineers
Is chemE really worth it? I got a fully paid scholarship to study chemistry abroad but I'm thinking of turning it down to pursue chemE. should I do that?
I Absolutely Concur! 4 Years of Absolute Hell, being belittled by Arrogant Entitled Old Men in Dusty Lab-coats, then graduating in the Mid 90's to a barren fruitless job market in Australia.
I got a Mechanical Engineering degree back in the early 80s. I went into engineering because the calculator had come out and I thought it would be more fun to solve Physics problems with a calculator instead of a slide rule. And it was, but I never used the calculator much in my jobs. Still, no regrets. It was a good career and gave me a good retirement.
Wow, the comments here are ridiculous, but I'd rather just ignore those and say thanks for whatever you did the last 40+ years and good luck in retirement. If you have any cool stories or words of advice, many would like to hear these things, judging by all the thumbs up here. Slide rules look magical - never used one... have used a calculator, but yeah, doesn't seem to be used now in too many jobs. : )
Haha, the joys of working in something you love! I'm 20+ years into a second career as a cabinet maker, and I think about work all the damn time! It's a great refuge for the mind. Retirement is for wimps 😁
Ditto the 50 years in engineering! EE also. I think the reason young engineers can't find a job in engineering is they are not totally invested in being an engineer. The grads who build their own computers, design a robot, rebuild their cars, etc. will always find a job. Employers want people who know how to do things. If you get an engineering degree because someone told you to and you have no passion for it, it shows and you will struggle in the job market.
Shockingly, I graduated college with a degree in electrical engineering and landed a job directly relating to electrical engineering and it’s a pretty great job too. Biggest advice I can give to people in college or recently graduated is to just apply to everything you possibly can and something will show itself
I'm scared as hell. 😂 I'm about to get somewhat mechanical engineering job with chemical engineering degree.. Tomorrow should get a phonecall if I got the job. My studies talked about processes at pulp, paper and chemical mills, but the company thats about to hire me builds and repairs machinery for those mills.
@@jarskil8862 haha did you get the job ? Me too a little same situation, mechatronics degree but candidate for a business engineer LOL and I don't know if it really suit me or match with my skills nor my future career path 😅
when they mean shortage, it mostly means for some reason they arent hiring because they already have enough but theres lots of job seekers that dont have a job in that field, which then turns to "oh job seekers cant get a job because they arent qualified enough for the role which means we have a skill shortage". but actually it doesnt mean its a skill shortage, just the demand of the employers in different times
I am an older guy who worked a full career as an Engineer, or as an Engineering manager. I think I can add perspective to this discussion. I found two things often happen to engineers. One is that many folks start out as Engineers but 5 - 10 years into their career, they take other roles within the company. Often the jobs are promotions and pay more than an engineering role. A common thing was for Engineers to progress in the Engineering ranks, then at some point take a job as a project manager, production manager or construction manager or similar. Very often an Engineering Background prepares you for other careers; for example my friends in Finance often say that they like to hire Engineers as Financial Analysists because we can master the math easily compared to others. The second occurrence is that Engineers choose to get advanced degrees in other fields, for example an MBA or Law degree. Very often a Lawyer with an Engineering background is desired in areas such as patent law, or for litigation involving technical issues. Michael Blomberg received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, never worked a day as an Engineer. Me, I loved my Engineering career and never regretted putting in the time and effort to get my credential.
That's cool and all, but a regular person should not need to get a second degree to be able to get a good paying job, especially in America. Not because the education is better, but purely because of the cost. College is so fucking expensive.
Sounds like a boomer experience. How many times were you laid off “due to economic conditions”? Most younger engineers can’t stay employed at a place longer than 2.5 years. No such thing as climbing ranks or pensions anymore boomski. There is a lot of back stabbing and dog eat dog mentality in the modern engineering job market. If your not at least mildly narcissistic and completely unfazed by unethical practices and OSHA violations, you will be eaten by the wolves. The only good honest and modern answer is self employment.
Money has left engineering jobs. Meaning, in 1990, I knew millionaires whom started as programmers. However, it was not long before employers, went to the government to reduce wages, by asking the government to import more L1 and H1B visa holders, so, they could pay less. this has been going on for 40 years.
Yea whenever you wonder why most leftist political parties that support mass migration and outsourcing, also conveniently have massive corporate support, this is the exact reason why.
A job as engineer requires the right attitude, soft skills and personality traits. They don't hire you because you have a degree but becuase you are brillant. In the past holding a degree in engineering was a guarantee to be brillant, nowadays education has become an industry like any others and churns out as much graduates as possible. Having a good referral is a great way to land a job, as unfair as it may sound.
@@urnoob5528 sometimes I think the same as you. I do mechanical design in my country and it can be boring and frustrating at times, plus the fancy structural analysis is done by a software (no hand calculations). Those who want to make more money and like to travel move into sales, the careerist into management (of course).
Nope, engineering doesnt require these traits. And if it was all about education good schools or good grades would gurantee a job. Truth is there are more engineers than there are engineering jobs, some of them will go jobless regardless of how much skill they have, amd the companies just add new skill requirements to get the most out of engineers
Engineer with 24 years of experience here. I was never hired because I'm brilliant. I can list maybe 5 people I've met in my career that I would consider truly brilliant. The vast majority of people working in engineering, myself included, got hired because we were willing to bust our ass and take responsibility and think on our feet when problems arise. Being smart/brilliant is only 1% of what it takes to be successful.
As a person who has worked in Engineering since 1980, has applied for jobs in Engineering, and also interviews candidates for engineering, I know the answer. 1. Graduate quality has declined. I am shocked at the basic functional and math skills of graduates today. They are not the same quality of product they once were (on the average). They require more training than those from previous generations. Old-School "electronic technicians" understand electrical engineering better than almost all graduates with an EE. Most of the old electronic techs have died off or retired, so at least that competition is less of an issue. I was designing complete Satellite receivers (including packaging and ergonomics) as an "electronic tech". 2. Most graduates don't even know the basics. Several I have interviewed probably could not assemble a bicycle without watching a RUclips video. For electrical engineers, their knowledge of basic electronics is astoundingly poor. Several choke when I ask them: "design a class A amplifier using a 2n2222 transistor where I want to see a voltage gain of 5, and linear in the range of 2 to 7 volts AC. I want it to drive a 1k ohm load and have an input impedance of 10k ohm". Most will not be able to do it, or they will ask for the specifications for a 2n2222 (which I give them). They still fail. I will ask them to lay out a basic Butterworth filter, using a LM741C op-amp, with a low-pass roll-off of 6dB per octave, beginning at 660 Hz. They crash on that one too. Chemical Engineers also struggle with basic questions like valances or electronegativity. Most struggle with terms like Cathodic protection. Mechanical engineers seem to be unable to calculate maximum shear load for Engineered roof trusses unless they have the pre-canned engineering tool they had as a crutch in college. Employer fault issues: Employers put out ridiculous requirement lists for jobs. Must have degree, must have experience with a narrow and uncommon product type. Must have familiarity with their narrow and specific engineering tools (used by the last 3 guys they fired). If they do work for government, US citizen, with security clearance, high credit score (they don't actually tell you they are running this), as it is a "position of trust". Employers don't understand what they actually need. They ask for X,Y,Z...... But actually need C,M,Y,K. In some cases, they don't have the former guy to train you up, so you have to walk in the door with all the skills they need. I don't know how many engineering jobs that the scope changed, and the required skill sets morphed over time. If you are with an organization a decade, your replacement cannot be filled by a single person. The odds of someone off the street walking in with identical specialized skills is nearly zero. Heaven help you if the previous engineer was a top 1 percenter. Chances are, you will never measure up. Ultimately, most companies have tooling which was specified by a previous engineer. His selection of tools matched his way of engineering. The company has spent millions on those tools. The companies don't want to spend millions on the "correct set of tools for the job", until they have seen a "return on investment on the tools they already bought". This may leave your hands tied at some workplaces. And yes, I am that top 1 percenter. They are easy to spot. Companies are never able to fill the void left by their departure. Entire companies fold after they leave (or write massive red-ink). One of the keys to Engineering is simple: You only learn about 5% of what you need in college. You have to work hard after college to gain that additional 95% of knowledge.
Shocking how this comment doesn't have a lot of interaction. I'm about to start Mechatronics engineering bsc. What are your thoughts on this course? My aunt tells me i should go for medicine, that i shouldn't waste my smarts. Now, seeing all these comments is kinda disheartening.
@@nuel_edits4990 It seems well rounded. (I took the time to read the Syllabus). Always take the harder of the optional classes, because you will be competing with those who didn't. The program seems to touch on all the "interrelated spheres" of engineering. Keep in mind, this is an "overview". What it takes to be fully functional is that "other 95%" I mentioned. The really wealthy engineers are those who create patents for themselves, and either sell them, or form a company producing something. I make a healthy income from being a "wage slave", but I also do other things to enhance my income as well (free-lance engineering on the side). As for the lack of interaction, I didn't post until 2 years after this video was put up. I imagine fewer people are viewing it these days.
One of my professors kept hammering us about internships well before graduation. I'm almost a decade out of graduation and I literally have zero internship experience. I went straight back to the warehouse, my work environment during college and now well after college still here. I am comfortable where I'm at, but it feels bad. I racked up a good bit of debt from going to school longer than the average student, I've forgotten much of what I learned, and sad to say it was not the best use of my time.
@@AceofDlamonds You are not unusual. Many people graduate with degrees which they never use. One of my buddies has an EE degree. He works as a naturalist and trail guide in the Appalachian Mountains. For most, engineering knowledge is quite perishable. I always suggest people get a job in an affiliated field after graduation (if they cannot find a true-blue engineering job). This way, it helps refresh their studies. I taught engineering for a few years, then went back to doing engineering. I ran across one of my old "B" students who was applying for a job where I work. I was shocked at how much knowledge he had lost in only two years.
Your summary seems contradictory to the point. You start with assessing poor hard-skills means not getting hired, which makes sense. But you then end on boomer generation logic of whether the person can be irreplaceable or a "lifer". That isn't a goal for anyone under the age of 40, we have to LEAVE for a new job every few years to prevent our salaries from stagnatin (w.r.t. inflation). Its a 50% increase each time every 2-4 years, due to depressed wage appreciation (no raises) vis-a-vis all time highs in corporate earning reports, not in spite of it. You admitted so yourself -- the corporations see employees as replaceable cogs. So who cares if I measure up to some crazy tooling the company had in the past that is so nice, arcane and eccentric so it takes a year to get spun up on? I'm gone in the 2nd year unless I see my lifer coworkers get raises that outperform the standard SUB 5-9% band. OR ELSE, those lifers are suckers and so am I if I stay.
Simple Answer: A *shitload* of millenials were heavily pushed into STEM, and basically told that if you want Money, get that "E" part of STEM. A bunch of us went into college, learned what engineering in our field actually looks like, and realized we kind of hate engineering. But we're really good with spreadsheets, long form problem analysis, project management, communication and while nobody actually cares... math. Knowing that we weren't going to enjoy engineering work anyway, we just went after the bag. Some of which, ironically, requires those skills but NOT a BA or BS.
2 months into my engineering program, I wanted to quit and my parents didn't let me. It took me little bit longer than others to graduate but I wouldn't want it any other way now, I am so glad I never quit on it!
@@berrex5152 Yeah, it was totally worth it! At a job, you have coworkers who can assist you as you try to complete your work so that part helps a lot. School is mostly focused on theories which can often get difficult and boring too.
I'm an electrical engineering technician. My job is to maintain telecommunications equipment. I don't have an engineering degree. I just got this job because I did something similar in the military. I have a few coworkers who have actual electrical engineering degrees, but are technicians instead. What I often tell young people in high school is to get a trade job to see if they like it, and if they want to go to college, take college part time while they work. If they don't like college, then they can do trade jobs instead.
Depends on if you can get scholarships or not. My undergraduate degree was completely paid for through grants and scholarships, but to have it disperse I had to be a full time student. They don’t pay out to part time. To be fair though, I’ve somewhat always known I wanted to pursue a career in academia, specifically mathematical research, so the course to that job is crystal clear
@@andrewkarsten5268 I wanted to go to academia aswell but if you keep doing research you'll read about how academia sucks. Just a warning. Do research on your chances.
@@Matt_Castle low pay? Politically bad? What’s bad? I’m aware of many issues but I want to do research in topology in the only place I can really do that is in academia because no one else will pay for that.
@@andrewkarsten5268 I don't know if what I'm about to tell you applies also to math academia (it likely does) but from my own research on academia (physics, et al). I've read that it is extremely - EXTREMELY - competitive to become a professor, and that after doing your PhD you will get stuck on the postdoc treadmill for years to even a decade +. And even if you land a permanent job position, you'll be burdened by the constant pressure of the university wanting you to bring in grant money and publish A LOT of papers (quantity > quality). That's how you increase your chances of getting in academia as a postdoc - publish or perish (and bring in grant money). Etc, there are more downsides I haven't talked about. I don't know if this holds true for maths since math is not natural science. That's why you gotta do your own research on that. But I'll leave you a "blibiography" that convinced me to stay away from academia. If you do decide not to go to academia, you can still do your own independent research, provided you have time, energy and money. (1) www.google.com/search?q=math+academia+reddit&rlz=1C1RXQR_enUS1046US1046&oq=math+academia+reddit&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDUxODFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1 (2) www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/3h5ibg/academic_mathematics_as_a_career/ (3) ruclips.net/video/WsMUrW1PbxQ/видео.htmlsi=NRFHUOdMKlcakZZm (4) yangxiao.cs.ua.edu/Don't%20Become%20a%20Scientist!.htm (5) ruclips.net/video/fKO28Zsz9WQ/видео.htmlsi=oROuI7N9R1Pu0Fkd (6) ruclips.net/video/AXj8qHxS0A0/видео.htmlsi=zDAj1tkFf-dztKrB (7) washingtonmonthly.com/2001/05/01/docd/ (8) www.quora.com/Where-do-most-people-who-study-for-PhDs-end-up-working The only way I see one can become a professor without being EXTREMELY lucky is: go to a prestigious university (PhD then postdocs, a PhD is not enough nowdays: too many PhDs, too few professor positions = extreme competition), network (sell yourself), pump tons of papers (get those indexes up), get tons of grant money (hard to get). Until you get lucky enough that some university you apply for gives you an offer, and then you enter the academic ladder game (see "academia ponzi scheme" video I listed).
I was going to go for mechanical engineering.. but I ended up getting a 2 year degree and working as a mechanical designer at an amazing company. I love the work I do, and watching the engineers work compared to what I do, I'm glad I went this route.
mechanical design, how did you get into that? Are you in the US? What does your day to day look like? I'm curious because the more and more I learn about actual engineering jobs the less I think I want it.
Mechanical Design and Fabrication AAS degree? That's a really good start, especially if you focus on CAD and ALTIUM modeling. Don't get stuck machining parts all day, or welding .
@@nasuku7342 I love it. I am in the US. I work at a company that designs testing rigs of all sorts. I got put into the group that I wanted to, and our main focus is MASSIVE car/truck rigs that simulate driving conditions of all sorts. Anything from basic road conditions to simulate millions of miles driven, to race teams that need more stroke/throw to reallllly push the vehicles components. They have thousands of tiny sensors on both the testing rig, as well as the specimen being tested that give RIDICULOUS amounts of data, and they can detect a failure before it even yieles. I also recently started supporting the transducer group that designs all sorts of flexure-type sensors that the company uses in pretty much every product they make, as well as custom products depending on a company's needs. I'm still very new in the field, so my days mostly consist of grunt work, cleaning up the old employees models and assemblies as a means to make them more user-friendly as we work on them and customize them down the road. I'm essentially just a drafter at this point, but as I progress and learn about their products, I get to take on more and more responsibilities. It's great being around other people who nerd-out about this kind of stuff.
@@psychicspy Correct! I mostly use Solidworks and do modeling as well as working on massive assemblies, sometimes even rendering for quotes and to use in an online configuration tool that both potential clients, as well as our competition, have access to. I went to school at 30 years old, and it feels somewhat strange to have so many "bosses" that are a few years younger than me, but everyone I've met at the company is great, helpful, and INCREDIBLY smart. I get some imposter-syndrom working with the actual geniuses I see every day.
@SUBtrauma I have 3 AAS degrees and do product design and development. I'm the "R&D Engineer" at the company. I've thought about finishing my BA in Engineering, but with my high degree of knowledge and skills and being 60, I just don't see the payoff. When I retire, I will do R&D for myself and license to companies.
@@sebastianpirela7329 hi seb, me too. The short answer is that we do online courses, practice solving problems and do our own personal projects. But I'm a student myself and barely get time to do any of it. 😭
I'm a principal electrical engineer with nearly a decade of experience thus far. The grind is a lot more than being smart enough to figure things out. You work with tons of people to push a project along, so it also takes an amicable and somewhat extroverted personality to be successful. I deal with a lot of the business oriented side of things as well. I am in constant contact with sales representatives for a wide variety of components and chemicals we use. And of course, since the industry progresses onward, you have a constant battle to stay relevant in the job market; the learning never stops.
@@davierliton6559pior que é isso né, meu medo é eu fazer a facul e depois acabar num setor financeiro fazendo os ricos ficarem mais ricos, ao invés de ir pra obras servir a população.
Okay portuguese cheeseburger, want to tell me the matetials needed for the magnetics of isolation transformer used in a flyback configuration that needs to meet intrinsically safe crtiera? How about the limit of the stub lengths and the bandwidth on a fully loaded multipoint backplane with over 50 nodes? Do you know the I/O limitations of FPGAs interfacing via RGMII or SGMII for gigabit ethernet: any idea if we have to source a PHY that's HSTL compliant, or is it okay to utilize a shim layer to convert to GMII to the hardened MACs to the integrated processor? Oh wait, maybe you know whether or not I need to live with the cost for back drilled vias, blind vias, or laser drilled microvias? Perhaps the low loss dielectric with lower anisotropy is worth qualifying for the manufacturing process to get that run through thermal cycling and the different RoHS plating processes? Please tell me how I'm in finance, oh wise Cheseburger.
Civil engineering degree here. Worked 44 years in the field without any breaks. Employed by four different companies during the first 20 years, with all jumps instigated my myself. The fifth company stuck for me and I became part owner 10 years later. Retied now and living the good life skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking and backpacking in the mountains. No financial worries. Engineering is the best decision I ever made.
44 years ago maybe, complete opposite today. Everyone I graduated with ended up in consultancy, tech or finance eventually. I did an MS in structural after my civil BS and did a few years in the field, but moving to tech literally doubled my salary despite being entry level. You cannot justify the cost in time/money of studying civil engineering anymore
And office jobs are outsourced too. As long as there is Internet, it is very easy to outsource a office job... The Market looks ugly and the future looks dark.. I feel stupid that I did not see this like .. 10 years ago.. But I guess better later than never
@@limitless1692Just wait until the Robots/Ai become even more advanced and taking over more jobs. Crony capitalism will end up outsourcing all of us. Whether if your an Mechanical engineer or a cashier. They’re even trying to make software that can partially automate the roles of a hospital nurse right now.
Elect Trump/Bernie, severely limit outsourcing and immigration. Imagine dying for this country only for the very country you died for, to have its wealth exported to overpopulated countries.
The people I’ve spoke to that work in not only engineering but well-paid positions, even at a lower level, are individuals who did far more work behind the scenes than just attending a high ranking university and/ or acing their exams. While I believe there is definitely a disconnect between people graduating and getting jobs, those who end up in better positions have taken the initiative outside of their degree to act on their own interests, such as programming, drawing, music and sound production etc. And I actually had a friend who graduated from a top university in England and found himself a well-paid position only weeks after starting his internship. Not because he knew the most or had any valuable experience, but through his extra circulars, he not only showed his capacity for learning, but an interest for it, too. So, it goes both ways
Completely agree. A lot of people do not take any initiative during their time in school and that is 100% a contributing factor to them not being able to find a job. There is a lot of learning that must be done outside of class, and if you aren't willing to do it, people aren't willing to hire you. Sad but true.
How do you think music and sound production can help? Are you actually showing your portfolio or just mentioning it as a hobby. Asking because that's what I do in my freetime but I never considered it would help me get a job
@@FaCiSmFTW i dont do that, but have considered it a valid skill to learn. I practiced the regular guitar and if I ever had bought an electric guitar, I would sooner or later want to understand what is that thing called amplifier. And then if I mixed the sound of guitar with voice, I would certainly try to see how that is done by the soundtable (i dont know if that is the name in english, mesa de som in portuguese). That and everything envolving wiring, frequency modulation, etc etc.
Biggest mistake that STEM graduates make is graduating without internships. Engineering especially is applied science. You must have internship experience, I see it time and time again where students graduate and have ZERO experience which equals ZERO skills. The working world is nothing like school at all. I was the worst performing student in my department by far and I knew it. School was always a struggle so from freshman year I went out and did internships in my field. I did 3 years of unpaid work for city, state and federal agencies just to get the experience I needed. Just devoted 15-20 hours a week and learned applicable skills in design, construction, modeling, soils and so much more. You meet people and network which helps people know your character and work ethic. I was the first with a job before even finishing school. Unfortunately university many times is just a small part of the journey. Most students follow professors whose career is just academic not practical. University programs should require students to have a co-op or internship before graduation. College level education isn’t about higher learning anymore but just bare minimum to get a job. So universities should adapt to that fact and not just on the basis of an institution for “higher intellectual thinking”.
Once at a conference for networking in tech my colleague said that if you have the time to do unpaid internships in engineering you should do and I agreed with him. We were booed. But 2 of those people followed us with questions on how to obtain such jobs. We helped then and before their graduation they were already being paid for their jobs and they said that their colleagues from the uni who were aiming for internships for about 2 years had no success.
@@victornas91Not everybody is in a financial situation where they can afford to work for free. Maintaining high grades while working 40 hours per week for a job that actually pays money then an additional 40 hours for a job that doesn't pay at all isn't feasible and quite frankly it shouldn't be expected.
@@petelee2477 Unfortunately in today day and age students must make themselves standout. Having a degree alone isn’t enough, internships are vital because it helps the student truly see what fields are available in the sector. You have dozens at times hundreds of applications per opening. Employers will always take experience for positions that are supposed to be entry level. The job market today isn’t the same when my parents started. More is wanted from newer graduates and it’s the student job to also put themselves in a position for success. College is an investment, and should be treated as such.
1. A LOT of engineering jobs have been taken over by H-1b visa holders and other jobw have been off-shored. 2. There are a LOT of engineers applying for each engineering job. 3. Employers have become SUPER picky. They don't want to hire people who haven't been able to hold a job for a long period of time. 4. Employers don't want to spend 10 minutes training a new hire. They want the perfect-fit candidate. Employers are no longer investing in employees which they will probably be laying off within the next couple of years. 4. Engineering is extremely unstable for many engineers. When the economy slows the first thing that companies do is halt all new product development and lay of the engineers. THIS is why a lot of engineers show "unstable" work history. See #3 above. 5. Universities are businesses. They DON'T CARE if there jobs in the field they're schooling you in. They're in collusion with the US Government to open the border to train foreigners. They're in collusion with corporations and the media to spread the word that there's an shortage of engineers when there ISN'T. It all lies.
2018 Mechanical engineer graduate, after 3 years of looking I went into teaching. I work 9 months out of the year and for the other 3 I build my own boats. I am fortunate to have discovered that the system is rigged at a relatively young age. With the amount of nepotism and discrimination here in the United States I have grown to think its their loss.
Agreed. Teaching here in Canada is a sweet gig, you generally make over 6 figures within 5 years or so, plus benefits and all the vacation time. Honestly something I've been considering myself. But I'm not sure I'm cut out for working with kids all day long.
I'm an ME grad from 2018 as well; VT. I think most of the people that got into engineering because they like the field get burned out really quickly because of how mundane it is and naturally like to teach and learn. I literally work the job in the meme that says "are you ready for a fast paced, high tech work environment???!!?" and has a picture of an empty gray cubical with a fax machine sitting on the desk.
I'm an EE that recently started teaching at a local community college. The pay isn't great, but at-least the stress and workload aren't sucking the life out of me anymore.
@@OliverFoote The demand for engineering is low hence companies now don't want to train and internships are very very few and far between. Also networking is very crucial because companies dont have many very many entry level positions and any they do have mainly get filled internally or from internal references, hence networking is crucial. For example, when I was in college I had a former classmate that worked at Microsoft, his manager told him to find someone to refer to him for a software dev position and my friend contacted me to see if I was interested and unfortunately I was in grad school at the time so I declined. If they fill that role internally or from internal references it will never make out to job ads. And the ones on job ads tend to be higher skilled , even for entry level and also a lot of times they post it just to collect resumes for future position filling not necessarily they need someone right now. Nonetheless the main issue is engineering demand is low. It is not like the education , healthcare, and law enforcement which has very high demand almost all the time.
As a recently retired engineer, I see the expectations of young engineers thar are graduating have changed. The young engineers are graduating with the expectations that an engineer will sit in front of a computer for a large portion of the day. They expect to work in an air conditioned office and work 9 to 5 pm. There is a need for some of this kind of engineering. But most engineering positions have a need to apply their knowledge to existing equipment and processes. They need to be able work in the field, in environments that are loud, hot, or dirty. They need to be able to work in the evenings or through the night to resolve equipment issues as they occasionally arise. But the academic professors do not convey this expectation to their students. They don't, because most professors have never worked in industry (or at least only slightly have any serious experience in industry). Industry needs engineers that can, and will, apply their educational skills to trouble shoot existing systems. Industry needs engineers who want to get involved, and want to learn about application.
@@alphie10 cool, at least you found a alternative job and avoided being stuck in a deadend entry level job. Prior to the field your working in, did you look into accoustic engineering?
@@alphie10 okay, it's happening everywhere. How companies expect someone to have experience when they're in college. This needs to change and they should atleast have apprenticeships especially for majority of students who can't join internships/Co-Ops.
Great topic. I worked as an Engineer for 27 years mostly with the DOD, including weapons design and testing , advanced 3D Solid Modeling , advanced digital signal processing, etc. It was very difficult to find an engineering job for me in 1991. The job market was horrendous. Working for DOD brought light the fact that nepotism and cronyism is widespread. Bright Engineers were not considered for job if they weren’t related to a Government manager (they would hire their family or friends instead). This caused major problems with unqualified people being hired for key positions. Also, many Engineers lack the practical knowledge and ingenuity to develop effective designs. Also the DOD had idiots ruining people’s careers with Security Clearances. Most high tech manufacturing has moved overseas and took the engineering jobs with them. Also forced diversity and inclusion and other preferential hiring policies complicates the problem further
In the mid eighties, I applied for an engineering job at a hospital. The lead engineer hired a Hispanic guy with a high school diploma. He said the Government would pay half their salary if they hired a minority! I had a degree in Biomedical engineering and two years of experience!!
I once applied in house for an engineering position and was told I did not meet the requirements. I showed the interviewer the written requirements and my bonafides, I more than met the requirements. He said that the job posting was incorrect, which was BS . I thanked him for his time. He was no longer at our location 2 months later, probably got promoted. I wish him the best.
I worked 3 years in a Navy contractor. About a third of the engineers were foreigners (with temporary work permit), and the reason was obvious: they cost less.
Yup, overseas. I am a patent attorney working in Asia for 15 years now. Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. My degrees were in materials engineering and almost a second degree in mechanical engineering and a lot of materials and semiconductor processing here, pretty much nothing in the US. I also do patents about batteries, new cathode materials, electrolytes compatible with lithium metal anodes. Nanomaterials. I do university clients as well, all kinds of random one-off intentions. Herbal medicines based on various Chinese formulations. Biopolymers. Wouldn't get to do this variety of work in the US, which is one reason I left. Not many Americans patent attorneys here and most companies want a US patent in addition to the local country since the product will be sold in the US. Not sorry I moved overseas. Don't want to do software or systems engineering or whatever I would have been able to get in the US. Outsourced...myself.
The job search will definitely be a lot harder if you graduate without an internship. It's still possible to find an engineering job without one of course, but you will have to have very refined interview skills, maybe add additional certificates to your resume, and have a bit of luck. You might even have to take on a smaller role in a company and work your way up.
I graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree and Physics degree. I worked about 6-7 years in my field which was great!!! The one I would've done differently was LEARN how to do simple sheet metal projects by hand AND learn how work an CNC machine to make any semi-complex part that is needed. Hands on skills are what A LOT of the companies want.
@@TheRogerhill1234😂anyone who watches youtube and then says they have CNC experience will get their hand cut off. A CNC takes real life training and experimentation to learn lol
I studied mechanical engineering and graduated some time ago now. It was a 3-year degree in Sweden. Every newspaper and media outlet claimed that we needed more engineers, but that as actually not the case, they didn´t know what they were talking about. It just chocks me how powerless you actually are with an actual degree. Its all about social skills and charm. Also you don´t actually need a engineering degree to get most jobs. Even a lot of good jobs dont actually require a degree so I do regret studying at all. Oh well I cant change it now.
It is not that they didn't know what they are talking about. It is more corporate BS talk from companies to drive wages down and media just copies that train of thought without critically thinking about it.
They said same in Finland. There are plenty of open positions for sure, but they are looking experienced people with 10 years of experience If you have less than that, only way to jobs is through friends at companies, and if you don't have those, prepare to be unemployed.
@@jarskil8862 Well at least you have a great military system to be proud of. We are jealous of that in Sweden! But to adress your response. Yes I do agree with you. I have 4 years in inside sales (so pretty much underemployed with my degree) And despite this with good references its tough. Dont get me wrong its probably alot my fault perhaps I need to work on my personality etc. But I am just saying that the time I put into engineering was not worth it. The blood sweat and tears put into an engineering degree is alot. Most people dont even understand how much effort an engineering degree is. They told me in Sweden that there would be missing 70 000 engineers in sweden. So where are these spots? Pure lies. I thought companies would "pull" on me but I was very mistaken.
I don't think you should feel guilty friend, of course you have the right tô feel sad in situation where the carda are stacked against you( you're not alone on this regard,its hard for ALL of us!). knowledge is power, an engineer possesses varied skills that can translate to field Work, lab work even in the government, try to look at your current options! Courses and trade Schools, a new language, etc
At least with my parents, they still believed the old idea that "engineers are always in demand", "you'll never lack job security", and that STEM or business/finance mean money and anything else is "hope you like being poor!". When trying to apply to jobs I only got offers for draftsman jobs where I'd be under employed and grad school where I could at least do research, which still showed no security through layoffs. I really feel that the hype surrounding engineering in the U.S. is a joke at this point. It's like the employment equivalent of social media scrolling as people claim to be getting this big salary or that job deal. Big numbers mean little when people get laid-off 6 months later or have to live somewhere like the Bay area where their big number is still living paycheck to paycheck after loan payments. A sales guy left my office to start an electrician apprenticeship because he had a kid on the way and it immediately gave him better pay than I was making in drafting (that the company labelled "engineering") at the time.
Drafting has been, and always will be a good step up to any engineering position. Learn the ropes, learn the process, learn the people, the company, the industry, then get that promotion to Engineer, and hit the ground running !
Having had a career in engineering, it seems to me that half of engineers end up as administrators and/or managers - jobs that often pay little better. In one large corporation I worked for, it was an issue that was brought up, if one wanted to continue along the technical path or the more managerial path. It was a feature of their corporate structure.
Quite right. Part of this is good; it is better to have people managing who know the work. But part of this is bad; these people love engineering and they no longer can if they want to advance their career.
Graduated CE in 1980. Being underworked has been going on forever. As a graduate student I interviewed for a co-op position with a prominent civil engineering firm in Manhattan. I asked what I would be doing there. The manager quite matter of factly said “Let’s put it this way. If there is a choice between drawing a soil profile or filing some documents - you will be doing the filing”. That hit me square between the eyes. Digging ditches has always been a right of passage in any job. But people don’t want to dig ditches before they start building skyscrapers. What you really need to learn is what they don’t teach you in school. By far the best way to start in engineering is with a hook in a company and from there on in you need to advocate for yourself. Remember - no one is looking out for you except you. And with rare exception nothing is handed to you. If you want to do something bad enough and they either can’t or won’t let you do it then leave and find it. I left a few times. But I always had a side hustle. Eventually I was lucky strike out on my own as a consulting engineer. I realize I am not the norm but you can still move. In my school experience the best engineers were the ones who were the worst with the books. They knew how to put stuff together and design. They were creative a had common sense. But today - as the saying goes - common sense isn’t so common. Many think they are still in school - approaching things like a PhD student instead of an engineer.
I think you and I would have a blast trading career stories around a campfire. I earned my M.E. in the 70's. I was a builder of mini bikes, boats, hot rods, motorcycles, and was hands-on before going through college. I can't begin to tell you how many assignments I did in primitive locations where I had to set the clip board down and get my hands dirty and weld lifting fixtures that I designed or fit babbit bearings that I hand scraped to fit. This was entertaining to me. BTW...I worked for the juggernaut in Schenectady. They sent me to places that I still can't find on the map.
One of the fundamental problems I saw with my peers is that no matter which major they study in they seem to think just the degree will land them a job. Many graduates with no personal projects, no skills outside of class, they just memorize and study for exams, no internships. Its really difficult to land an internship I get it guys I landed my first one after applying to 200+ internships and going to 3-4 job fairs. Most people give up after applying to 5-10 or getting rejected from few interviews. The degree simply proves you have been introduced to all the basic engineering materials. If you can’t show your potential employer your creativity or willingness with this newly acquired skills they will not trust to hire you.
But entry level job should not require anything else than the degree. Its responsibility of entry level jobs to kick-start the career learning. But here even entry level jobs are asking more experience than college student can realistically get from studies.
@@jarskil8862agree😂 when I want to do the internship, it's funny when I saw some companies literally asking for 1year of technical experience 😢. The school doesn't provide what the market wants...
@@jarskil8862 The _biggest_biggest_ problem is thinking the degree is all you need. You actually need the will to get up and make calls and look for a job, _early_. You can't be hanging out with your friends on campus and expect someone with a job opening will just come find you. You need to go find them.
The issue is the demand does not line up with the supply. An engineering degree is still the best to degree to get in college whether you end up in engineering or not because STEM and engineering degrees beat out other degrees when i come down to mental capacity comparison between candidates for jobs. If you had the same experience as another candidate for a job , the one with engineering degree will most likely win out and that is why engineering and stem majors that go into other fields displace those fields' native major. You can also easily get employment in teaching as demand for math and science educators is very high in education. Engineering and STEM degrees are general smart person degrees that will give you the edge out side of engineering.
Believe it or not it wasn't my freshly minted BSEE that got me my first engineering job, but my amateur radio ticket. I'd been a ham radio operator since I was 14 and built some of my own gear. I had a lot of experience before before I entered engineering school.
After graduating with a Bachelors in materials engineering I began working as a project engineer at a plastics facility. Most of my time at work was dedicated to looking at excel spreadsheets and measuring dimensions on small plastic pieces. The pay was very good, but I didn't last a year at that place because I found it so mundane. I later found a job teaching chemistry and loved it.
Graduated in 2019 with a mech BA. Couldn't find a job as an engineer in Tamapa. Everyone wanted me as a technician, but not as an engineer. (20 years as an aircraft technician) I gave up after a year of looking. Worked in HVAC and controls for 3 years....as a technician. Thank God I didn't pay for the degree (GI Bill), but man, what a waste of time. Quit all together and started my own business for 2-3x the pay....as, you guessed, a technician. Corporate America can go blow a goat.
A lot of employers pretend to have openings not out of an interest in hiring some fresh graduate with a bachelors but in the hopes that someone far more experienced and overqualified will apply, at which point they can get rid of someone less useful to open up the position for the superior candidate.
Another thing they do is give you an unpaid internship or at least a job interview “exam” where they ask the questions they really need solved. If you give a good answer, cool for them. They run with it but still don’t hire anyone.
I went to school for mechanical engineering and took a break for various reasons. During my hiatus, I didn't want to go back to the retail job I had in high school, so I cold called every company related to engineering within driving distance. I got a chance to try out my skills at a civil engineering firm doing CAD. I've been there ever since and never looked back; it's been almost 20 years now. I never got my degree, but I'm now I'm one of their CAD managers and couldn't be happier.
Same…dropped out of college, worked for a small civil, took the off ramp in to Land Surveying, the most fun job there is. When we are hiking up a steep hill I say people pay money to come here and hike.
Honestly, degrees don't mean much. They just show that you've had introductory exposure in certain areas. I started as the lowest level operator were I work now and worked my way into a titled engineering position through self study. My work offers tuition reimbursement, so I went ahead and went back to school after a few years in the engineering role and will be finishing soon. But the skills I learned on the job and on my own have been much more valuable than what I've learned in school.
I graduated with a BS EE degree in 2014. I worked at Ericsson for 2 years, and then 7 years at Raytheon. I quit in July for a multitude of reasons, but the main one was because I wanted to become a teacher. I am now almost done with my first semester, and I love it! Engineering was great, and rewarding work. I just have a hard time committing to a single thing. However to be an engineer to anyone out there, you MUST have a high inteest in how things work. If that is what drives you then you will probably make it. Look for internships your senior year, and also drop the extra time wasters. Personally I had to drop video games my Sophmore year, and any committed relationships.
NOTE: That first year enternship isn't goint to pay off that degree, and likely won't pay for your food... The first year is tough for a reason. The industry wants to weed out the weak and feckless. It isn't all about smarts. It is about attitude and a willingness to do what others wont. Degrees don't guarantee success. Stubbornness does.
Graduated in 2019 in electrical engineering. Still no job. I've collected over 2000 rejections and had to start working in a fucking restaurant which consumes most of my time so I can't even attend extra classes to get some experience and 99% of the internship programmes are reserved for students... I'm desperate. I don't know what to do and it's taking a tremendous toll on my life and on me as a person. I have no social life left, I'm ashamed to show up at family gatherings, most of my friends with an education abandoned me. I can't afford to live alone and soon I'll be too old to continue living in shared apartments and the longer it goes the more I'm forgetting the things I studied and the harder it becomes to show my competence at job interviews.
Ciao Roberto, sono anch’io italiano ed ho trovato questo commento mentre cerco di capire se iniziare un percorso di laurea in matematica o ingegneria meccanica. Credi che la tua situazione sia correlata alla situazione del lavoro in Italia, oppure c’entra per lo più con il mondo dell’ingegneria? Se hai consigli ti ascolto volentieri, grazie
@@angelocostantini9407 Non lo in Italia perché vivo all'estero. In generale, il mondo del lavoro oggi è molto più competitivo, ci sono molti più laureati per cui una laurea da sola non garantisce niente. Qualsiasi cosa dovessi decidere fai un tirocinio prima di finire gli studi perché praticamente nessuna azienda assume gente senza esperienza e le richieste delle tue competenze sono ridicole anche per neolaureati. Non so consigliarti fra matematica e ingegneria. In teoria ingegneria dovrebbe essere un campo professionale più proficuo ma non conosco bene le opportunità per matematici (ci sono così tante possibili specializzazioni che è difficile da prevedere). Ti consiglio di vedere che tipo di aziende ci sono nella zona in cui vivi o vuoi vivere perché per esempio nel mio caso mi sono laureato in elettronica e dove vivo non ci sono aziende di elettronica, il che è parte del mio problema.
I would recommend getting a labor job that could lead into an engineering role. Working at a restaurant is a bad move. Get a job as a construction worker, a mechanic, electrical technician, or something like that. After a few years (or less) of showing your worth, it might lead into something more. My first job out of college was working as a soil lab technician for 13$/hour doing manual labor all day. After 1.5 years, I was offered an entry-level engineering role. But whatever you do, get out of food and beverage. If you want to be an engineer, you need to get experience that's at least tangentially related to the field. Restraunt experience shouldn't even be on your resume.
Also, don't let your engineering skills atrophy. If you did well in college, then it doesn't take much extra work to maintain your technical ability. Keep building circuits, keep coding, and keep working on engineering projects that you're passionate about. There's also a lot of high-quality free lectures online, if you need specific refreshers. Watch engineering lectures on your lunch break and read your old textbooks before bed. But the worst thing you can do right now is let your hard-earned skills atrophy.
I have a chemical engineering degree and work as a pipefitter. Unions rock! I just rig up flanges all day and get paid 40k more than the engineers who designed it. The engineers around here make a bit more too. I think its to fend off organizing attempts.
I had 23+ years in building trade unions My experience has been they truly truly sucked mostly because I was white male and not a politically active boot licker I left to become a heavy industrial maintenance electrician
@@arthurdirindinjr1792Unions are such parasites now. If they sniff out that anyone is getting paid more due to better performance they hound and whine because the bottom bracket isnt get paid as much as the top. Those who excel in mediocrity are the Unions best friend
I'm a unionized engineer and we make more than our pipefitters by 50% but we don't work overtime so maybe the PF can make it up on that. But I also don't have to work more than 40 hours a week. I agree unions rock.
A) In the 60's and 70's companies used to hire engineering graduates and train them. I graduated in the mid-90's and my experience was to be always asked to work overtime for free, no training provided at all at any company; you were just simply expected to know everything, be able to figure it out on your own, or get fired. B) many companies hire a group of 15 eng'g graduates, put them under intense pressure for 1 or 2 years, keep one or two of them and fire the rest. This says to me that engineers are a cost centre and not revenue-generating, low-value and not worth the investment, and expendable. Also hints at a management incentive structure based on a pyramid scheme: higher pay and bonuses for senior management based on free extra overtime provided by juniors. C) It used to be that I would apply for a job, there would be 20 to 30 other applicants, and I would often get an interview. Today, I am lucky if there are only 100 applicants for a position; I have never received an interview in this day and age from applying to a job (even with 20+ years experience). I stopped trying to find employment in this field.
Smart people should get degrees in math or physics. From those you can go anywhere else. And every employer will know you are smart, guaranteed. I had a good career as an engineer, but deep down I consider myself to have failed because I was not confident in my ability to hack a math or physics degree. So this is what I am doing now in retirement, studying math and physics, and really enjoying it, now that it means nothing to me in the real world.
I graduated with a BSEE, which has a ton of math. Never worked in the field because I graduated in 2002, tech bubble burst. If I could go back to my younger self with this advice, I would have gotten a math degree.
@@billyoung8118Engineering degrees are just as good. A lot of employers will hire you for different types of jobs with an engineering degree. Financial analyst, for instance, because you're good at math. Or middle management because you're good at problem solving. Because you have an engineering degree, they know these are true.
I got an average grade in a Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree, 89-92, could not get a job. I did a computing masters, 92-93. Got a programming job. It is hard to get a first engineering/or computing job, or a new job after 55 at the other end! In the meantime it is not so bad. Save/invest as much as you can for early retirement though...
Graduated ChemE in 2020 and worked at Exxon, but interestingly in a Finance role. I then decided to transition over to tech and eventually joined Amazon (AWS) as a Solutions Architect. Made way more than I could have if I had stayed in oil and gas. I enjoy what I do and would pretty much be happy doing anything technical as long as it paid well.
When touring colleges with my son we went to a mostly engineering school focusing on mechanical engineering. We got stuck on an elevator with an ME professor who spent the entire time talking my son out of studying engineering. Her point was that there are few jobs in that field in the US because we don't make things here anymore.
I Work and live in Silicon Valley I know a good bit on Engineers working in their field and killing it. I was in R&D as a glass specialist and saw the gap between a technician position that I had and a mid career engineer. I think having the soft skills and passion is what they want to see with the degree. Starting engineer school in 2 weeks with experience full time job basically making 100K and a side business doing art. Yo just go hard in what you are passionate about.
Sorry. I work the trades in aircraft manufacturing. I'm thinking about being an engineer. Living in the real world, you will NOT make big money like 100k a year without a degree. Been down this road a long time. Unless you like endless overtime and no life combined with shit health insurance. I'm 32 and regret not going to college. My top out as an inspector is 99k a year, however that takes years to obtain. More than a degree. I only make 52k a year. This idea of going into the trades and becoming wealthy is delusional. This only happens if you own your own business or are working many hours of overtime. Every other job is low wage. At least with a degree, your skills are more transferable. While mine are not.
Go for it. I'm an Aerospace Engineer and love the work. Hiring can be volatile at times. However, as long as you're willing to relocate you can always find a job. Good Luck
Damn 52k? I live in the south and our journeyman electricians make 72k on 40 hour weeks and the supers make 95k on 40s…. we aren’t even union. Work life balance and working conditions are a whole other story though, for that the degree is great.
I have my CDL - A. i haul cross country. Made 92k last year. You're 100% correct on the shift. They've brainwashed a TON of people into believing college is the only way to be successful financially. If you keep worrying about "prestige" it will leave you broke and depressed. Theres a plumber right now fixing a crappy pipe making 100k. And those jobs qrent filling fast enough. While people are going into debt 100k and cant even find a damn job. That's BS.
Where I live in Ohio I have never seen a plumbing job or truck driving job that pays anywhere near 6 figures, however there are dozens of engineering jobs open right now within a 50 mile radius that pay 70k a year or more that require a bachelors in some type of engineering.
@@edm9760 well you arent looking at all. And i wouldnt expect you to know where to look. You're not in the industry. There are plenty trucking jobs making 70k for SURE. When you get closer to 6 figures, its specific niches that get you close. 1 example is "tankers". Those are the guys that haul fuel. They almost always are 80k and above.
@@edm9760 also, one of the biggest, if not, THE biggest "Super store" walmart PROUDLY advertises new drivers start at 110k now. If you dont believe me, go look it up yourself. I have a close friend that works there aswell.
Cut your salary in half. You still like your job? No. The answer’s no. That’s why. People want to make a living doing something they enjoy not some mindless crap.
Became a patent attorney with my engineering degree as real engineering jobs in semiconductor fab had gone mostly overseas or were on their way in 1986 when I graduated. Have had the privilege to work with brilliant inventors on their inventions, and in literally every tech field, never a dull moment. Consider myself very, very lucky.
You made a very sage choice going into patent law instead of an engineering career! Engineering Jobs will be difficult to hold on to these days and into the future. Patent lawyers are in big demand, and you need and engineering degree to practice in this area. Yeah, you were very lucky, indeed...
What I've found, taking a "whole career perspective", and seen from a South African point of view - which might have too many differences to your situation to be relevant - engineers tend to end up in management. An engineer wanting to keep on just engineering for a lifetime generally gets into consulting on some specialist area, and even consultants don't make direct use of most of what you learn in university (it's essential background, but not a "tool of the job", generally) - at least not the ones I know. I recently asked an electrical engineering consultant (doing things like commissioning electrical grids at the urban level) what maths he uses at work. Answer: Linear algebra (and the kind you stick into Matlab, not the high level stuff). There are numerical tools for most things, and the computer does it. But it's not just that. The bread and butter is mainly project management with a small extra technical component. As far as I'm aware this is "always how it's been" - at least in a "small pond" like South Africa. In the biggest economy on Earth, "seek and ye shall find". If you can't, it doesn't exist anywhere else on Earth, and you've been out unicorn hunting. I think the "mechanism" is this: Businessmen hire people they can make use of to achieve their own objectives. They need a few engineers (in places that hire engineers) to do the technical stuff, but they get a better return on investment from general problem solvers the set to solving mainly money problems. (Yes, that's engineering. Well if you think otherwise you might end up with problems at work). Businessmen hire "labour assets", and the ones they're prepared to pay the most for are those who make them the most money (in an immediate short-view point-of-view). Engineers go through a pressure test that shows that they can cope with working themselves almost to death without actually killing themselves, and they get taught all sorts of systematic ways of tackling problems without panicking. If you a panic during your studies, at the wrong moment, you get to try again (if you're lucky) rather than pass. So someone whose business is really just make money in whatever way is going to value the engineering graduate over the music graduate, largely because some college has tried to kill the engineer by means of pure stress, and failed, and hasn't done that to the musician. In many cases the direct skill set trained doesn't count for much. The nice thing (in principle) about this, if you do pursue engineering instead of a trade, or music (at least to begin with) is that if it doesn't work out, you can change course, and just do what your growing process has transformed you into. (I can remember a lawyer whose happiest day was his last matter at Court, because he grew to hate the job. He left it to go and make kitchen units, and lived happily ever after. Thing is he had the choice there. If he'd started with the kitchen units and found he hated doing that, it would've been really difficult to correct course and go into law later.) If you really want to grab hold of your own future, knowing very well what makes you happy, probably the best option is to start now trying to produce some good or service that you can make a bit of money out of. Have side hustle, I think they say? Make up your own career path, accept whatever the tradeoffs are, and head thataway, or keep it on the side, ready to go full time if the time looks ripe. Don't be a peasant in search of a Lord; be the king of whatever kingdom you can make yours. A gentleman does not seek out a yoke to be placed on his ox neck. (Management has always looked to me like a terrible fate to be doomed to, so I get your dismay at what the prospects seem to be). When you get your degree, it's probably best to view it as a "persistence test" or an endurance test. It certifies you passed through trial by fire, and can be pushed really hard before you break. So it proves that you might be a useful component that doesn't wear out too quickly. There's also some certification of smartness, but if the person who hires you doesn't have a certificate, he's still going to always feel smarter than you, so the smartness is more of a reassurance to you than something someone who already knows everything will value when imposing wage slavery on you.
Switzerland has a great system education system, going to an apprenticeship is very commen here and how more then half of the people here get their first jobs and certificates. And the great thing is you can always do a year of extra school which will allow you to go and study anything afterwards and some apprenticeships already include this year
As an engineering student I never understood why the apprenticeship model isn't implemented in more career fields. Take candidates, pay them 10-12 an hour to start and let them work their way up via merit, this way ppl not cut out for this don't waste years and go into ludicrous levels of debt and companies can cultivate their own talent
I took a longer route through college to attend a hands-on engineering program after a representative of the school said it was crafted according to what industries were asking for; the school had interviewed or crafted the program with industry people. I was convinced. Every semester had a project class. After I graduated Magna Cum Laude: crickets. I don't know if the fact that I had taken longer to graduate was it, or the fact that I had to explain my degree on my resume because it was a mix of mechanical and electrical study, or what. After passing the FE I landed my first job to really use some knowledge and was forced to discover I have some sort of memory problem and was too slow at my job. Not to mention some mental/physical health stuff--I think it amounts to a learning disability, so no matter what I know, it only helps somewhat with learning new things on the job--and a post-grad arrival to vegan voluntaryist philosophy that precludes many jobs (e.g. I think patents and often the military are evil, for example). My blood, sweat, and tears were basically for nothing due to internal and external forces.
As someone who's currently in grad school for math, it's sad that universities today function as (shitty) job training programs. That's really the core problem with the university system today, and it's broader than just engineering, or even just STEM. Universities should not be seen as a tool for landing a good job or a stepping stone to a better career. Universities should function to preserve, transmit, and produce human knowledge for it's own sake. When we decided to turn universities into job training facilities for the PMC (the 'professional managerial class'), we were actually doing a huge disservice to both the future employees and citizens who pursued higher education under the assumption that it would help advance their careers, and also for the academics, students, and other scholars who were more interested in participating in a sort of idealized pursuit of art and knowledge for it's own sake.
As an engineer who engineers for public safety, what do you propose should be done for people like myself who need a rigorous, evidence-based background to do our jobs safely? Engineering isn't knowledge for knowledges sake. It is so we can go out and do a job. Should there be tech schools teaching the same math and science as pure knowledge schools? Or should the engineers study in a College of Engineering side by side with the Colleges of Science and Humanities and leverage the brainpower already there?
@@jenniferpearce1052 >what do you propose should be done for people like myself who need a rigorous, evidence-based background This is a complete straw man argument. Actually quite the opposite, I'm suggesting we need more rigorous and deeper instruction. The math we learn today is not particularly rigorous. I'm not arguing that we stop teaching math or we teach it in a less rigorous format. I'm actually arguing that we teach more of it, and that we do so in a more rigorous manner that imparts a deeper conceptual understanding of the material. I think imparting a deeper understanding of mathematics on engineers would help them do their jobs better, not worse. Furthermore, I would disagree with you regarding your claim that engineering is just about getting a job and doing it safely, and I think a lot of engineers would agree with me, especially one's with graduate degrees. Most people who do serious, high level engineering research do indeed have a passion for the subject. Now if you're talking about people who just want to work in industry, I realize a lot of those people don't have a deep desire to learn about subjects like math or physics, and they just want to learn whatever skill they need for the job. I don't think the university system should be functioning as a job training program though. We should develop an alternative higher education system for people with these sorts of educational goals, but by designing our current university curriculum to primarily meet the needs of this subset of students, we do a disservice to the pursuit of science and knowledge, which is supposed to be the primary goal of the research university system. We should not be designing STEM curriculum to cater to the needs of people who just want to get an AS or a BS degree in something like nursing or engineering. Also, I would not include humanities students or social science students in this group. A lot of these people, like students in the natural science and mathematics are probably actually interested in learning and want to develop a genuine understanding of their subject. A humanities student probably doesn't need to learn group theory, but they should probably have some understanding of mathematics and proofs. I think it's actually easier to learn in a deep and rigorous manner, rather that just focusing on memorizing the formulas you need to "get the job done", and AFAIK there's even a lot of research in education and psychology suggesting a much. When students learn without developing a deeper conceptual understanding of the material, they just end up forgetting much of it when they leave the class. When students focus on memorizing facts and formulas for a test or exam, they often forget a lot of the material afterwards, but when they focus on developing a deep conceptual understanding, they actually learn the material quicker and remember it for longer.
@n.e.7647 I didn't make a straw man argument because I wasn't arguing anything. I was asking what you thought we should do to educate engineers. Nowhere in my comment did I state that engineering was about getting a job and doing it safely. Apparently, reading comprehension isn't needed for a math degree. I appreciate that you actually answered the _questions_ I was asking though. I do have a higher degree, and it's from a research university. I see value in both the research side and the "git 'er done" side. For proper engineering, you need both. If you divorce them, you will end up with useless research. Perhaps coming from a pure math background, you're not steeped in the applied science that is at the heart of what it is to be an engineer. Engineering is about taking the math and science and being practical. Are you familiar with the accuracy and precision targets? Research without practicality can hone in on either of those so much that it is useless for application. Sometimes, you just have to hit the dartboard. The understanding engineers need is to know when they just need to hit the dartboard and when they need to hit the center. Or the middle 20%. I agree with you that teaching just formulas and memorization for the test is garbage. Deeper understanding of the subjects is better. However, I don't think that's an issue of universities being treated like job training centers. That is a deeper cultural issue with people not valuing education, knowledge, etc.
My mom and her sister are both electrical engineering majors that have to partake in the interview process. They work for different companies. Applications without a college degree are an automatic decline. My mom has interviewed children of her friends and couldn’t accept any of them due to supervisor guidelines. They all went to work in non-engineering fields as couldn’t find work in the field and the most shocking one was her friend’s daughter making close to 6 figures with a liberal arts job. That liberal arts job is her passion now but wouldn’t be in college.
@@hgdfihdjk Not anymore. Not for reasons that most people think about. All the humanitarian crisis’ has been big money for some liberal arts major who choose to help down that path in a profitable way. One reason as we know about Afghan, Ukraine, Burma/Myanmar, etc. Not everyone chooses a high paying job for their major as many may want to like what they do.
Recently learned that elevator maintenance people can make in excess of $80,000 with high school diploma and some apprenticeship. Why bother with college and massive student debt? They'll never make $250,000 annually, but it's all about how much anyone wants and expects.
I got a M.E. at Detroit Mercy and couldn't find a job. Eventually got one at $16/HR in a Toxic Work Environment and decided why am I putting up with this and studied for the DAT while taking Sciences classes and got into Dental School.
One thing i would add from my experience I saw this video first a year ago. When i was working what seemed to be a dead end job. There were no possibilities for growth within the company and no clear path out towards a better job. However, it was technical and somehow related to my field, even if the required education was just a 1 or 2 year associate's degree. I stuck with it, did my job well and became the supervisor of the new department staff once everyone else quit (it was not a good working environment) Eventually I used that experience to find an actual engineering job at a multinational company doing a higher level version of what I did before. It’s a dream job in many ways and I can see multiple ways to move forward in my career from here. So don’t get discouraged! If you are creating at least some work experience in a technical field that can be used going forward, even if you are underemployed.
All of those things happened in one year? Awesome! Not many are so lucky, and in many cases the optimal path forward may be a very different choice from yours. But very cool that it worked for you!
Unreal. All you have said as of 5 minutes in is consistent with my experience. I trash the ME degree path and my school Virginia Tech relentlessly. Engineering and design are my lifelong passion but the arrogant ass clowns at universities manage to butcher the subject matter into boring drivel. And to the teacher who convinced me to stay the course and not drop out to start a machine shop..... I now own a machine shop and while its boring at times, it is 100% more fulfilling than the sorry excuses for engineering jobs I had.
Hey! I'm a Virginia Tech student here currently majoring in Computer Engineering. I was wondering if you were able to land in jobs after you graduated with your ME degree.
@@isaachossain2807 I returned to the auto junk yard I worked at as a kid where I got paid cash to do general repairs, fabrication, ext. I moved to the "tech triangle" around Raleigh NC for a year or so hoping for better opportunities and literally wound up working in a machine shop and digging ditches for a directional drill rig outfit.... Its a total slap in the face that BOEING is being run into the ground by an accounting major from VT. That said I've built one hell of a manufacturing facility for myself and I just picked up an Insta360 camera so I'm going to start producing some technical content for here and the R platform so there is certainly life beyond dismal employment opportunities and there is no shortage of cheap used machinery in the USA.
Maybe if people started in the trades (ie. Manufacturing, construction, etc) then went to school and got a degree relevant to the field they ALREADY work and have experience in, they wouldnt have this problem. Being informed about how an industry works and what jobs are out there is a good start too. Most people see degrees as a microwavable instant career, but ask anybody and they will tell you food is much better when its made in the oven.
It really does feel like only the top % of engineers in college can get a job in engineering easily, otherwise you gonna have to go on a battle to make your resume pop up, work on projects , portfolio, interview prep and everything. There will be jobs to apply for as I am a computer engineer which can do a number of fields but I am have have to put in the work, its not that bad tho cause I am not in debt
Its not always evem that. Guy who was top of my class and as thesis designed new type of cake filtration sieve, went back as being normal industrial welder after graduation. He said it "pays him better with less effort"
Got my engineering degree in 1997. It was a constant struggle to get an engineering job and I had to settle for just a technician job. My engineering degree never paid off for me as I didn't have the skills to get engineering jobs.
That is somewhat weird. You never looked for promotion as supervisor jobs? Thats the typical career path for engineers here. They go in bluecollar work in X place and after couple of years practical exp, they get promoted as supervisor. And through supervisor job all doors become open.
I think it has always been hard for the freshly graduated. I graduated as a mechanical engineer 40 years ago. There was a bit of an economic downturn at the time so no one wanted to hire someone with a piece paper and no practical experience when there were experienced people looking for a job Dishearten, I went sailing for 18 months. When I returned things had changed and I had q job as a design engineer within a week. Now retired after a varied and rewarding career. I was never unemployed in all those years.. I would say to any new graduate - persist and you will find something if you are passionate about your field.
I got an engineering degree in 2015 and I mailed it back to my university last year. I told them it was worthless and they should take it back. It never even got me an interview, or any sign that any engineering employer had even looked at my resume.
I got my physics degree on 2019 and I have yet to land an interview pertaining to engineering or physics. What exactly are they looking for? The next Nikola Tesla or Richard Feynman?? I can perform Multivariate Calculus computations and Linear Algebra, not to mention permutations and probability calculations. Is that somehow not enough to work on developing products on a team?
I was fortunate that when I graduated from university with a BSEE I had a job waiting with a small electronics firm that was a supplier for a major defense contractor. My first job opened the door to my second job at the defense contractor. I worked for them for almost 20 years in three different divisions and on a number of different programs. This in turn led me to leave for small optoelectronics firm that had been doing interesting things. I've been there for 26 years, got another postgraduate degree, and a number of patents. I still look forward to going into the lab every day because I know something new will be waiting for me. Other than some of the government paperwork - FDA, FCC, and so on - it's interesting and not boring. I understand my experience isn't the same as other engineers, but I'd like to think most engineers like their jobs.
I enjoyed this video, and I totally agree these people have been encouraging youth to study engineering for years! STEM STEM rah rah! there's a shortage! but how we struggle to find jobs in our field is sad! We got played, and lied to. no one told me it would be THIS hard to compete
I’ve had several engineering jobs that really involved very little engineering in practice and pretty much wasted most of the stuff I studied getting my degree.
2019 Mechanical Engineering grad here. 95% of graduates at my mid-level University were not fit to be engineers; however, they got the degree. Every employer I have talked to says engineers are everywhere; but it is hard to find a good engineer. This issue is made worse due to technicians and tradesman (machinists, fabricators, welders, etc) retiring out of the workforce and there is rarely anyone competent or interested enough to learn from them. The universities don't touch on it enough, which is a shame as these people were the foundation behind WW2 and putting people on the moon.
Many companies grab their engineers before they qualify, a win/win situation. It saves the undergraduate a further year of university and saves the company the wages a qualified engineer would command. After all, it only takes one engineer to sign off on the project. What could possibly go wrong?
Working engineer here. I've been at the same job right out of college for almost 6 years at a big corporate American company. The trend is to keep cutting down the engineering staff and expect the remaining ones to pick up the slack rather than hiring replacements. Maybe that's why people struggle to find jobs? We need to balance being "team players" with speaking up that we are overworked. It's a tough spot to be in.
Because companies want to lower wages of engineers. It is that simple. More people with engineering degree, the less they need to pay them. That is why there also is not really a shortage.
@@stephenmoerlein8470 Then I think they should reconsider this. There is a need for MDs because people need help. If anyone says that Medical School gets the best and brightest people, they should go to the Physics or Engineering graduate lounge. It's all about effing money. I have to say: the people in high school who joked around and were jerks to the nerd scientists and engineers in the 90s are the ones making more money than them and deciding the nerds' fates.
The best or the most eager to learn students have jobs way before graduation. The rest either do not have right attitude, character or interest. Enigeer is not a profession, it is a life style.
Im 17 and got accepted for an engineering school but the internet making me think i should go somewhere else, idk if i can handle studying that hard and spending that much just to be underemployed
Take a year off and do some soul searching. Go travel or party or work, then decide in a year if you still want to do it. Loads of people take a year between high school and uni. Just ask the program people if you can defer for a year
Too few engineering students I meet are not really interested in engineering. They were good at math in high school and simply want a good job. You can tell by their hobbies. Maybe 10 percent actually love the craft
I graduated engineering in 2021, got my engineering license last year, and now I'm stuck looking for a job, with everyday feeling like maybe I was not meant to go engineering.
I got engineering degree and worked 6 months as hired hand as project engineer. After the 6 month project was over, my contract ended and now I have tried to get any industrial job. But been searching for 5 months and becoming desperate.
A lot also depends on when you graduate. I was an EE/Applied Math double major and graduated when the whole defense industry was laying off a lot of engineers, which made it difficult for new graduates to land engineering roles. I ended up in IT, which I'm cool with because I made more than the few classmates who did end up in engineering roles (after a couple of years in the field). I also have a lot more variety than they do.
This disconnect is Companies asking for years of experience for entry level positions. It took me 2 years to find work after graduating with an ME degree. Once you get employed and secure some xp, t shouldn't be difficult to find work if you decide to move on.
This applies to most degrees. I was not employed in my degree at first, then was later for a short time .. then later in a technical field that fit me best. BTW, my employment/careers were all in the private sector, as it should be noted, that no public education will prepare you for the real private corporate world.
The same can be said if you have a bachelors of science in Chemistry, it is extremely difficult to find a job related to chemistry without a masters degree or higher and that can be very expensive on top of the undergrad degree you got.
Chemistry degree major here, thinking about going back for a second bachelors in engineering. Better job prospects as an engineer than those with a masters or PhD in chem.
So many Chem jobs in the west are analytical chemistry jobs too. These jobs are also usually badly paid for the amount of work you have to put in and knowledge you have to acquire. I learnt this the hard way. Though it's not the end of the world. Chemistry students can easily transition into engineering or medical or even law such as patent law, which have significantly better prospects. That is unless your heart is really set on going the whole route and staying in chemistry. You most definitely need to get a PhD to get a decent chemistry based job, but even then choose your PhD thesis wisely, as I have known so many fellow students who went the PhD route, only to end up as the manager at said analytical testing labs. You've definitely got to choose a PhD niche in chemistry that is relevant to the current worlds technologies being developed to get anything resembling a well paid and fulfilling career.
Is chemE really worth it? I got a fully paid scholarship to study chemistry abroad but I'm thinking of turning it down to pursue chemE. should I do that?
@@rheahayek7444 If its for your undergrad take the full ride. Hard sciences are safe (coming from a physicist) because you can always pursue paid higher education and switch major. For instance if you get your bachelors in chem you could go for a masters/PHD in chemE, Physics, matsci etc and the school will pay you a stipend to go there. If you go this route a research experience for undergraduate (REU) is a great resume builder.
Another variable that is hard to quantify...in the US companies bring over many engineers from other countries on visa's and pay them much less than US grads.
Lol I got a degree in electrical engineering, but after 2 years of nonstop interviewing and not getting a job I just gave up and became a cinematographer. I had 2 years of experience working with power/ control systems for PVD as well as 2 years of leading a team developing a product for a startup, and yet despite that experience I didn’t have enough for an entry level position. I wanted to be an engineer so bad, but after 100+ interviews with no success I completely gave up hope.
Graduated as civil engineer. I Work as a construction project manager building hospitals. I lightly use my engineering schooling frequently in the course of my duties. The biggest being the ability to think critically and solve complex problems
Graduates: We can't find jobs as engineers Employers: We refuse to pay engineers what they want Government: Our country has shortage of engineers Me: *Grabs a tub of popcorn*
I mean starting engineers can ask way too much money. Here its very simple. Engineering unions have decided the mininum pay which is recommended for starting engineers. Then there is proper experience ladder that shows how the wage should go up with years of experience.
I’m at the tail end of my ME degree and I had a similar feeling hit me. Wherever you look there’s just nothing and what is available (if you lucky enough to get it) requires you to move to the other side of the country for 3 months and do nothing at a computer until you get laid off. I like mechanical engineering and I’m gonna stuck out my degree but I probably should have just worked a trade and when to college later if I still wanted to.
Nothing stopping you from taking the engineering degree and using it to go get a real job at one of those high paying trades jobs, is there? The tradie with a full degree in engineering is probably going to be seen as the most qualified contractor in the phone book.
Hello Mr Foote, you can blame all of the above but I think the biggest problem is the student not asking questions and doing research on where the jobs are. I went to college for theater and music then looked up jobs in those fields a month after college started and I realized I made a huge mistake. No one makes money in those fields. I dropped out at end of semester and at least I have no debt. Thanks for the video!
You’re not the only one, I graduated and realised even if I did get an engineering job I wouldn’t be able to handle the stress. So still floating around.
I studied engineering and have worked as an engineer for 20 years. Finding my first job was incredibly frustrating (I was unemployed for over a year) because companies only wanted to hire people with experience. If you stick with it and get through your first couple of years working, though, it's awesome.
After graduating college in 1992, I was never able to find a job related to electrical engineering in my area. Being underemployed is the story of my life.
The problem is that your education is too narrow. Get into Electronics at home, design circuits, have fun. Get into hobby CNC machine tools, 3D printing, 3D modelling. You can't expect to make a living with too few arrows in your quiver. I do all these things and I'm never short of work.
I still think engineering is your best bet if you want a good job. Also university is a time to explore what it is you actually want to do. So don't feel bad if you find you aren't interested in your main field of study, and I actually encourage testing out different classes that interest you. Thanks for watching!
Your videos are useful bro
As an engineering graduate, I spent a bit of time - just over exactly a year - in a non-engineering business technology field and ended up absolutely hating it. So I have to ask: What defines "a good job"? For me, it's one that is intellectually stimulating - I care not an iota about the money - and unfortunately I find that the overwhelming majority (probably 90%) of jobs out there - at least in my country, Australia - are either Systems Engineering, or Business Software. The remainder, I don't tend to get interviews, let alone offers. Both of these areas to me are insanely understimulating to me, and they don't provide the skills and experience necessary to leave them down the road without forsaking engineering entirely for good (and going into hiring or something, which is starting to look like a great end goal, if only because I want to help fix the hiring disaster we have now). Is this a similar problem in North America?
I have to disagree. I guess it depends on the specific field of engineering. When I graduated with an engineering degree in product design the industry wasn't hiring if you didn't have experience (which I didn't have) and then the Global Financial Crisis hit. I essentially never worked in the field which has left me feeling disappointed. I would encourage people to simply study a university degree which will see job growth by the time you graduate. Having said that I hesitate recommending anyone go to university given how expensive it is. Thanks for the vid.
I got an engineering degree and I always wanted to do engineering, but I mailed my degree back to my university and told them it was useless because it can't even get me to an interview.
This is the problem with all majors, employers ditch graduates for entry-level jobs and propose them low cost internships instead
What’s frustrating for us History majors is knowing that civilization needs engineers a whole lot more than it needs lawyers.
Fifth generation Engineer with minor in history...
Gave up on it as a career .
The only thing a history degree qualifies one for is graduate school in history. Then teaching history. Yet most who teach history gave the worst track record for learning from history.
Most college history professors identify as socialists or communists. That is the ultimate failure to learn from history.
That’s the problem with people, everyone wants to be a lawyer but don’t look into job saturation.
Did you know that Bill O'Reilly is a history major?
I majored in both history and engineering, they aren't mutually exclusive.
Graduated in EE in 1980, made good money, saved up. Retired early with a FAT pension. I couldn't do that today. Ever since Jack Welch laid off thousands of Engineers, the fix has been in. Companies that used to hire people out of college, and train them (me included), won't do that anymore. Rather, they just bid against the few candidates out there. I became a Manager mid-career, which gave me longevity and a higher salary. But, then they told me that we were going to cut some engineering salaries by 40%, and I knew the whole "STEM" shortage crap was total BS. I've felt that way for a long time. To beat the system, get a plain vanilla Engineering degree with "Average U", that doesn't break you, and then get certifications in those things that are "hot". After that, move into management. Oh, and ignore everything management tells you. They're probably lying...
What are some things management would tell you that are lies?
@@cryora No one can guarantee you job security, except you and God. Management will promise you that the future is in this, or that area, and imply advancement, but if the industry shifts, they might dump you the next year. For example, everybody was going to VMWare only a few years ago. These guys could name their price. Today, its AWS. Yesterday, AI meant Machine Learning. Now, everyone is shifting to "Transformer" tech (GPT3). No one knows, including them, and these days, Engineers (outside of management), are at the bottom of the good chain.
@@cameliomack9932 I've been hearing the vocations are making a comeback. Is that just another lie?
@@cryora Strong Unions. That's what's needed. But, I don't know of any Engineers that are starving, since we are favored for our general analytical skills. Even outside of Engineering positions. That's the good news.
What certifications would you say are “hot”
In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, companies would hire new grads out of school and put them directly into training programs. Then starting in the 80s, manufacturing went offshore and companies started demanding that engineers have a few years of experience, and with each decade that passed the level of experience companies demand are ever increasing. When engineering grads see how near-impossible it is for them to get work, they switch to another career.
True. In eastern overseas countries i.e., Europe, Asia, Middle East, etcetera, they value engineering, science, and so on. In America since the 1980's and beyond, not so much. In eastern overseas countries, women go for men who are a scientist, engineer or Doctor whereas, women in America go for men who are bad boy rockstars or rap artists. So, you can see the decline of America, high-powered CEO's outsource American jobs on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean with the rich politicians being they're errand boys.
@@craigs1437 And by Europe you mean Germany. My Engineer cousin had to move there to find a job.
@@craigs1437 because these politicians make it more difficult and expensive to operate in America. Blame your state representatives and your president
@@gottfrei409 also the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden are good
@@craigs1437 you said eastern overseas countries does that mean women in the east of Europe, East of China, East of Japan etc. specify??
Good electrical engineers were in the basement as 12-year-olds building radio circuits, etc. People who pick EE because it has good job placement statistics are hopeless.
In my case, 10 years old. I worked as an engineer in power suppliers, with no degree. There was no college program at the time for power, but lots of trade shows with training.
I did go into management, but then kept being put into Sales roles (Field Engineer, a lot of in the field, no engineer) - I hate Sales.
Yup, shocked the shit out of myself at 10 taking apart a disposable camera.
@@JetIgniter2k2 Yes, I nearly killed myself at age 12 when I made contact with 500 volts from my novice amateur radio transmitter. 60 years later I still have scars from where the wire touched my fingers. You must have found out about the camera's flash bulb circuit.
I have a Mechanic Engineering degree, graduated top 10% . I cannot get a job worth squat. Don't listen to the stupid stats. It's very hard to land or maintain an engineering job.
I’m going to disagree with you. There are a lot of engineering jobs available. Most people do not apply themselves enough in engineering school. They don’t do internships, co-ops, and wait till a month before graduating to start looking for a job. They expect that the degree should just get them a job cause they busted ass for 4 years. Then they are surprised that a job doesn’t just land in your lap cause you have an eng degree. Then they are out a job and live at home for a few months when they should have started looking 6-8 months prior to graduation for a job. Most people I graduated with did not have a job lined up post grad. Most of them just waited too long or applied to 5 jobs expecting to land one of them. I don’t feel bad for engineers who can’t find a job post graduation cause usually they just don’t try hard enough to get one. When asked why they didn’t apply more or do internships it’s usually just the same excuses: they are “focused” on school work, companies expect us to have experience for entry level jobs, etc… it’s all the same lame bs excuses. Every average joe gets an engineering degree. You have to stand out from the crowd and be involved in as much as possible to get a good job out of college. That’s what employers want to see. This is why a majority of engineers don’t work in engineering outside of college. I see it happen all the time. Like anything else if you want to get something, then you actually have to push for it. It’s honestly sad how many lazy students I went to school with. It was far and few between to find a good engineering student who actually works hard.
@@xxrealdealxx11 So are you saying that internships, projects, and clubs will determine an engineering job post grad? I just want to have an overall understanding of what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong, are you saying that it's laziness and lack of engagement/participation outside of class is what leaves people with no experience, therefore, no job in their specified field?
I'm only asking because I'm a month in studying to become an electrical engineer. I've started tweaking my resume with someone in charge of internships at the community college I attend and was told that I wouldnt be able to get an internship until I'm in my junior year with more engineering based classes. I'm trying to get experience from early and you seem to have a good idea of how not to fail 😂.
@@iyannasho3243 thank you. I have graduated college as a mechanical engineer and I am speaking from experience. You train of thought is correct. Unfortunately there are a lot of slackers in college too and I see people complain about not having jobs cause of the lack of experience or not trying hard enough. yes these are of key importance being involved. The more well rounded you are, the more employers will want you. You will have the upper hand and will be able to talk vastly about your experiences as an engineer. Also no need to rush through school. Do internships in the summer instead of summer classes so you can get those working-experiences. Whoever told you that you have to wait till junior year for internships is not good advice. I know people who got internships as a freshman,sophomore and junior. It is harder to get an internship at a younger grade level in college but it’s definitely possible and not uncommon. All of This will prepare you greatly for finding a job you want vs a job you just have to take to get a job. And the more desirable jobs out of college that a lot of people apply to are hard to get. So you have to stand out and have that experience to talk about. Also not to mention you will likely get a higher starting pay for having that experience. Also do not overlook the importance of interview prep. Most colleges offer this as a free service to you. It helped me realize that I wasn’t as good at interviewing as I thought I was. And the last thing is that it is a numbers game. The more opportunities you apply to the higher likelihood you will get interest and interviews for possible internship positions. Go to the career fairs and talk to the people that go to those. These help a lot as well and provide many opportunities to connect face to face with these companies as they usually have representatives there.
The only 2 things I wish I did was do more internships or co-ops and make sure to spend time outside of school with friends cause it goes by quickly. A lot of people like to just do school and get out and forget about the other parts of college that are fun.
Also I only had one internship opportunity in college but it was cancelled due to Covid. So I had zero internships and still got a job but I was also heavily involved with the SAE program at my school and other volunteer organizations. I also had a job while in school. But lots of other kids had more experience then me and lost had less and wondered why they didn’t get a job.
Good luck with school and enjoy it!
@@xxrealdealxx11 Wow wow wow! Thank you so much for literally EVERYTHING you just wrote. I appreciate you taking the time out your day to give me some pointers and tips, as you know, you didn't have to. I'm definitely screenshotting what you wrote so I can remember all of this lol. This gave me the push I needed to get those internships and involved with the school, I can't thank you enough. 🙏😁
I studied electrical engineering and got a middle of the pack gpa. Landed a job a month before i graduated making 110k. The difference is i did have 1 year worth of internship experience (2x 6months at two companies)
The answer is simple, most products need 2-5 engineers, 5-10 practical engineers, 50-100 people with technical skills without any higher education.
And 1000 sales representatives.
And a million consumers.
Probably the most factual thread out of all the comments under this video!
The degree DOES NOT in 2024 mean a lot if anything. Higher education has dumbed down creating highly inflated GPA's with people not capable of doing the work. I have been in the trades (electrical/AC) for over 50 years. I got my engineering degree in the mid 2000's after 40 years of doing design, build and installation. My master who took me through my apprenticeship was a genius that taught me practical application and discipline. I learned as I worked, following instructions, installing equipment and learning as he graded my work. No free lunch here. No demeaning non-degreed people. But discipline, degreed or not is what is lacking. Wake up woke colleges and dumb down curriculum have lowered the quality of degrees and with the cost to get them drives many away. Look up Mike Rowe and what he is doing. Discipline, hard work, staying the course, learning and doing is how to have a gratifying and fulfilling life.
And 27.753 Billion Ants
I saw this in action. When I was working a tech support job, a co worker had an enginnering degree. He was teasing me about my "Useless" philosophy and psychology degrees. I got the last laugh in the conversation when I pointed out that we have the exact same job role.
Lol, love that story
I bet he had guilty conscious. Engineering degree prestige is on the decline unless its software, medical, civil (especially building and construction) biology/lifescience and business based.
@@maroon9273 Lol nothing glamorous about civil. In fact, it's one of the less prestigious ones.
@@Hatemx1 Lol are u serious, without civil engineers there would literally no infrastructure whatsoever, theres a reason you see governments constantly on lookout for a pe civil engineer
@@daboss6614 In india, civil engineering is the worst major to do as even after graduation from top 10 engineering colleges of India( being in top 1%), there are no jobs in core engineering. All jobs are in IT sector.
One reason engineers have trouble finding work is that the field that traditionally needed engineers, manufacturing has been drastically curtailed in the US and Canada.. Companies will say that they don't have enough engineers applying, but that's in order to open up the employment market to the world. More competition, and also better to hold down wages.
More reasons to vote for Andrew Yang. UBI may have some issues but Universal Basic Impoverishment seems to be the only alternative on offer.
Ask Bill "get the jab or else" Gates
Always demanding Congresses allow him to bring over as many software engineers from India at $45k a year he wants so he doesn't have to pay Americans a Engineers a living wage
@@laulaja-7186 Yang is not the sole supporter of UBI.
@laulaja-7186 doesnt make sense for a UBI youd be paying people to do nothing abd putting more burden on the working class. UBI wouldnt fix the problem at all. Just gotta stop immigration and raise tariffs to equal out supply and demand in the workers favor.
@Distress
You're right but nobody is going to stop the immigration and all those immigrants are already getting UBI at the behest of the native taxpayer's.
Might as well get some of that money lost to taxes back as far as i'm concerned but then again knowing the government maybe they'll just raise taxes even more to compensate so that in reality you're getting jack shit.
Regardless though I don't think it matters too much either way to give a damn about.
I went to a career fair right after university and there was this employer who had a sign showing how much each entry position pay is expected to be. The chef gets paid more than engineers which shows that the company values the guy who cooks eggs more than the people actually running their facilities
Don’t go into engineering for the money.
Chef or line cook? There’s a huge difference between the two. A chef is in charge of the entire kitchen. They’re not just flipping eggs…
Some low level positions you might take as an internship don't necessarily pay better than jobs outside of engineering, but they can get your foot in the door and open up other opportunities.
Being a chef would require years of experience in a kitchen. Sometimes it would require extra training too. About 5 years of real world experience on average. So yeah makes sense they would be making more than a college grad.
Never-ending that you show up for the interview high, unprepared, ill_mannered, late, argue with the interviewer, lie on your resume, trash your last employer, bring in food, kids or pets, or otherwise show up and act in a completely unhireable way. Hr loves to waste time like that.
I think the main reason is you can’t expect high school students to know what they want to be at 17 or 18 just because they are good at math & physics. After 4 years of hell with non inspiring engineering professors, most don’t want to be engineers. I had ChemE degree from UCLA but MS in Organic chemistry and worked as pharmaceutical chemist. Many of my classmates went onto Med schools , MBA or law schools. Only about 1/3 became engineers
Is chemE really worth it? I got a fully paid scholarship to study chemistry abroad but I'm thinking of turning it down to pursue chemE. should I do that?
@@rheahayek7444If you like chemistry do chemistry if you like physics do ChemE
@@rheahayek7444very hard to get a job in Chem E. Only 30k jobs but 12,690 graduates each year…
@@rheahayek7444i said it worth it for study abroad internship. Would take that as a strong opportunity
I Absolutely Concur! 4 Years of Absolute Hell, being belittled by Arrogant Entitled Old Men in Dusty Lab-coats, then graduating in the Mid 90's to a barren fruitless job market in Australia.
I got a Mechanical Engineering degree back in the early 80s. I went into engineering because the calculator had come out and I thought it would be more fun to solve Physics problems with a calculator instead of a slide rule. And it was, but I never used the calculator much in my jobs. Still, no regrets. It was a good career and gave me a good retirement.
Ok boomer
@@javiersaenz1040 X2
@@javiersaenz1040 you said what I was about to comment XD
Wow, the comments here are ridiculous, but I'd rather just ignore those and say thanks for whatever you did the last 40+ years and good luck in retirement. If you have any cool stories or words of advice, many would like to hear these things, judging by all the thumbs up here. Slide rules look magical - never used one... have used a calculator, but yeah, doesn't seem to be used now in too many jobs. : )
Interesting. Millenial here and i bought some slide rules from the thrift store and found them to be neat. 😂. Cheers.
50 years in electrical engineering. 50 years of continuous educating myself. So much fun. Didn't want to retire.
Yep, I have no interest in retiring after more than 30 years in, I might work one or two less months a year, but engineering is what I do.
Haha, the joys of working in something you love! I'm 20+ years into a second career as a cabinet maker, and I think about work all the damn time! It's a great refuge for the mind. Retirement is for wimps 😁
Ditto the 50 years in engineering! EE also. I think the reason young engineers can't find a job in engineering is they are not totally invested in being an engineer. The grads who build their own computers, design a robot, rebuild their cars, etc. will always find a job. Employers want people who know how to do things. If you get an engineering degree because someone told you to and you have no passion for it, it shows and you will struggle in the job market.
Woot! So glad! I’m sure your employers would be just as glad to hear that, too.
I worked from 10 years old , (going to school) until 2001, 58 years as a tech and engineer and manager. I quit.
Shockingly, I graduated college with a degree in electrical engineering and landed a job directly relating to electrical engineering and it’s a pretty great job too. Biggest advice I can give to people in college or recently graduated is to just apply to everything you possibly can and something will show itself
I'm scared as hell. 😂
I'm about to get somewhat mechanical engineering job with chemical engineering degree..
Tomorrow should get a phonecall if I got the job.
My studies talked about processes at pulp, paper and chemical mills, but the company thats about to hire me builds and repairs machinery for those mills.
@@jarskil8862 haha did you get the job ?
Me too a little same situation, mechatronics degree but candidate for a business engineer LOL and I don't know if it really suit me or match with my skills nor my future career path 😅
@@jarskil8862are you working as a mechanical engineer now? 😅
time consuming af
@@uaman11capitalism bru
the STEM shortage has always been a lie, at least for the past 30 years
when they mean shortage, it mostly means for some reason they arent hiring because they already have enough but theres lots of job seekers that dont have a job in that field, which then turns to "oh job seekers cant get a job because they arent qualified enough for the role which means we have a skill shortage". but actually it doesnt mean its a skill shortage, just the demand of the employers in different times
Worker shortages are always a lie. It's what you pay for .
Capitalism unless the billionaires want cheap .labor than it's h1bs and government handouts
I am an older guy who worked a full career as an Engineer, or as an Engineering manager. I think I can add perspective to this discussion. I found two things often happen to engineers. One is that many folks start out as Engineers but 5 - 10 years into their career, they take other roles within the company. Often the jobs are promotions and pay more than an engineering role. A common thing was for Engineers to progress in the Engineering ranks, then at some point take a job as a project manager, production manager or construction manager or similar. Very often an Engineering Background prepares you for other careers; for example my friends in Finance often say that they like to hire Engineers as Financial Analysists because we can master the math easily compared to others. The second occurrence is that Engineers choose to get advanced degrees in other fields, for example an MBA or Law degree. Very often a Lawyer with an Engineering background is desired in areas such as patent law, or for litigation involving technical issues. Michael Blomberg received a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering, never worked a day as an Engineer. Me, I loved my Engineering career and never regretted putting in the time and effort to get my credential.
That's cool and all, but a regular person should not need to get a second degree to be able to get a good paying job, especially in America. Not because the education is better, but purely because of the cost. College is so fucking expensive.
Sounds like a boomer experience. How many times were you laid off “due to economic conditions”? Most younger engineers can’t stay employed at a place longer than 2.5 years. No such thing as climbing ranks or pensions anymore boomski. There is a lot of back stabbing and dog eat dog mentality in the modern engineering job market. If your not at least mildly narcissistic and completely unfazed by unethical practices and OSHA violations, you will be eaten by the wolves. The only good honest and modern answer is self employment.
Money has left engineering jobs. Meaning, in 1990, I knew millionaires whom started as programmers. However, it was not long before employers, went to the government to reduce wages, by asking the government to import more L1 and H1B visa holders, so, they could pay less. this has been going on for 40 years.
Yea whenever you wonder why most leftist political parties that support mass migration and outsourcing, also conveniently have massive corporate support,
this is the exact reason why.
got that right
A job as engineer requires the right attitude, soft skills and personality traits. They don't hire you because you have a degree but becuase you are brillant. In the past holding a degree in engineering was a guarantee to be brillant, nowadays education has become an industry like any others and churns out as much graduates as possible.
Having a good referral is a great way to land a job, as unfair as it may sound.
sad to say but most of the brilliant ones are ones that choose not to get an engineering job after graduating
@@urnoob5528 sometimes I think the same as you. I do mechanical design in my country and it can be boring and frustrating at times, plus the fancy structural analysis is done by a software (no hand calculations). Those who want to make more money and like to travel move into sales, the careerist into management (of course).
Nope, engineering doesnt require these traits. And if it was all about education good schools or good grades would gurantee a job.
Truth is there are more engineers than there are engineering jobs, some of them will go jobless regardless of how much skill they have, amd the companies just add new skill requirements to get the most out of engineers
Engineer with 24 years of experience here. I was never hired because I'm brilliant. I can list maybe 5 people I've met in my career that I would consider truly brilliant. The vast majority of people working in engineering, myself included, got hired because we were willing to bust our ass and take responsibility and think on our feet when problems arise. Being smart/brilliant is only 1% of what it takes to be successful.
Companies hire you to get work done and solve hassles so managers can make their T time and get huge bonuses and promotions.
As a person who has worked in Engineering since 1980, has applied for jobs in Engineering, and also interviews candidates for engineering, I know the answer.
1. Graduate quality has declined. I am shocked at the basic functional and math skills of graduates today. They are not the same quality of product they once were (on the average). They require more training than those from previous generations. Old-School "electronic technicians" understand electrical engineering better than almost all graduates with an EE. Most of the old electronic techs have died off or retired, so at least that competition is less of an issue. I was designing complete Satellite receivers (including packaging and ergonomics) as an "electronic tech".
2. Most graduates don't even know the basics. Several I have interviewed probably could not assemble a bicycle without watching a RUclips video. For electrical engineers, their knowledge of basic electronics is astoundingly poor. Several choke when I ask them: "design a class A amplifier using a 2n2222 transistor where I want to see a voltage gain of 5, and linear in the range of 2 to 7 volts AC. I want it to drive a 1k ohm load and have an input impedance of 10k ohm". Most will not be able to do it, or they will ask for the specifications for a 2n2222 (which I give them). They still fail.
I will ask them to lay out a basic Butterworth filter, using a LM741C op-amp, with a low-pass roll-off of 6dB per octave, beginning at 660 Hz. They crash on that one too. Chemical Engineers also struggle with basic questions like valances or electronegativity. Most struggle with terms like Cathodic protection. Mechanical engineers seem to be unable to calculate maximum shear load for Engineered roof trusses unless they have the pre-canned engineering tool they had as a crutch in college.
Employer fault issues:
Employers put out ridiculous requirement lists for jobs. Must have degree, must have experience with a narrow and uncommon product type. Must have familiarity with their narrow and specific engineering tools (used by the last 3 guys they fired). If they do work for government, US citizen, with security clearance, high credit score (they don't actually tell you they are running this), as it is a "position of trust".
Employers don't understand what they actually need. They ask for X,Y,Z...... But actually need C,M,Y,K. In some cases, they don't have the former guy to train you up, so you have to walk in the door with all the skills they need. I don't know how many engineering jobs that the scope changed, and the required skill sets morphed over time. If you are with an organization a decade, your replacement cannot be filled by a single person. The odds of someone off the street walking in with identical specialized skills is nearly zero. Heaven help you if the previous engineer was a top 1 percenter. Chances are, you will never measure up.
Ultimately, most companies have tooling which was specified by a previous engineer. His selection of tools matched his way of engineering. The company has spent millions on those tools. The companies don't want to spend millions on the "correct set of tools for the job", until they have seen a "return on investment on the tools they already bought". This may leave your hands tied at some workplaces.
And yes, I am that top 1 percenter. They are easy to spot. Companies are never able to fill the void left by their departure. Entire companies fold after they leave (or write massive red-ink).
One of the keys to Engineering is simple: You only learn about 5% of what you need in college. You have to work hard after college to gain that additional 95% of knowledge.
Shocking how this comment doesn't have a lot of interaction.
I'm about to start Mechatronics engineering bsc.
What are your thoughts on this course?
My aunt tells me i should go for medicine, that i shouldn't waste my smarts. Now, seeing all these comments is kinda disheartening.
@@nuel_edits4990 It seems well rounded. (I took the time to read the Syllabus). Always take the harder of the optional classes, because you will be competing with those who didn't. The program seems to touch on all the "interrelated spheres" of engineering. Keep in mind, this is an "overview". What it takes to be fully functional is that "other 95%" I mentioned.
The really wealthy engineers are those who create patents for themselves, and either sell them, or form a company producing something. I make a healthy income from being a "wage slave", but I also do other things to enhance my income as well (free-lance engineering on the side).
As for the lack of interaction, I didn't post until 2 years after this video was put up. I imagine fewer people are viewing it these days.
One of my professors kept hammering us about internships well before graduation. I'm almost a decade out of graduation and I literally have zero internship experience. I went straight back to the warehouse, my work environment during college and now well after college still here. I am comfortable where I'm at, but it feels bad. I racked up a good bit of debt from going to school longer than the average student, I've forgotten much of what I learned, and sad to say it was not the best use of my time.
@@AceofDlamonds You are not unusual. Many people graduate with degrees which they never use. One of my buddies has an EE degree. He works as a naturalist and trail guide in the Appalachian Mountains.
For most, engineering knowledge is quite perishable. I always suggest people get a job in an affiliated field after graduation (if they cannot find a true-blue engineering job). This way, it helps refresh their studies.
I taught engineering for a few years, then went back to doing engineering. I ran across one of my old "B" students who was applying for a job where I work. I was shocked at how much knowledge he had lost in only two years.
Your summary seems contradictory to the point. You start with assessing poor hard-skills means not getting hired, which makes sense.
But you then end on boomer generation logic of whether the person can be irreplaceable or a "lifer". That isn't a goal for anyone under the age of 40, we have to LEAVE for a new job every few years to prevent our salaries from stagnatin (w.r.t. inflation). Its a 50% increase each time every 2-4 years, due to depressed wage appreciation (no raises) vis-a-vis all time highs in corporate earning reports, not in spite of it. You admitted so yourself -- the corporations see employees as replaceable cogs.
So who cares if I measure up to some crazy tooling the company had in the past that is so nice, arcane and eccentric so it takes a year to get spun up on? I'm gone in the 2nd year unless I see my lifer coworkers get raises that outperform the standard SUB 5-9% band. OR ELSE, those lifers are suckers and so am I if I stay.
Simple Answer: A *shitload* of millenials were heavily pushed into STEM, and basically told that if you want Money, get that "E" part of STEM. A bunch of us went into college, learned what engineering in our field actually looks like, and realized we kind of hate engineering. But we're really good with spreadsheets, long form problem analysis, project management, communication and while nobody actually cares... math.
Knowing that we weren't going to enjoy engineering work anyway, we just went after the bag. Some of which, ironically, requires those skills but NOT a BA or BS.
2 months into my engineering program, I wanted to quit and my parents didn't let me. It took me little bit longer than others to graduate but I wouldn't want it any other way now, I am so glad I never quit on it!
I feel you bro you must be Indian like me lmao
Which engineering program was it😅
But are you an engineer/ happy with career now? I'm curious
@@berrex5152 Yeah, it was totally worth it! At a job, you have coworkers who can assist you as you try to complete your work so that part helps a lot. School is mostly focused on theories which can often get difficult and boring too.
@@3monsterbeastagree, project labs just basically 90% diy yourself
I'm an electrical engineering technician. My job is to maintain telecommunications equipment. I don't have an engineering degree. I just got this job because I did something similar in the military. I have a few coworkers who have actual electrical engineering degrees, but are technicians instead.
What I often tell young people in high school is to get a trade job to see if they like it, and if they want to go to college, take college part time while they work. If they don't like college, then they can do trade jobs instead.
That is a great way to do it! I wish I could describe this to myself (mumble) decades ago.
Depends on if you can get scholarships or not. My undergraduate degree was completely paid for through grants and scholarships, but to have it disperse I had to be a full time student. They don’t pay out to part time. To be fair though, I’ve somewhat always known I wanted to pursue a career in academia, specifically mathematical research, so the course to that job is crystal clear
@@andrewkarsten5268 I wanted to go to academia aswell but if you keep doing research you'll read about how academia sucks. Just a warning. Do research on your chances.
@@Matt_Castle low pay? Politically bad? What’s bad? I’m aware of many issues but I want to do research in topology in the only place I can really do that is in academia because no one else will pay for that.
@@andrewkarsten5268 I don't know if what I'm about to tell you applies also to math academia (it likely does) but from my own research on academia (physics, et al). I've read that it is extremely - EXTREMELY - competitive to become a professor, and that after doing your PhD you will get stuck on the postdoc treadmill for years to even a decade +. And even if you land a permanent job position, you'll be burdened by the constant pressure of the university wanting you to bring in grant money and publish A LOT of papers (quantity > quality). That's how you increase your chances of getting in academia as a postdoc - publish or perish (and bring in grant money). Etc, there are more downsides I haven't talked about. I don't know if this holds true for maths since math is not natural science. That's why you gotta do your own research on that. But I'll leave you a "blibiography" that convinced me to stay away from academia. If you do decide not to go to academia, you can still do your own independent research, provided you have time, energy and money.
(1) www.google.com/search?q=math+academia+reddit&rlz=1C1RXQR_enUS1046US1046&oq=math+academia+reddit&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDUxODFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1
(2) www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/3h5ibg/academic_mathematics_as_a_career/
(3) ruclips.net/video/WsMUrW1PbxQ/видео.htmlsi=NRFHUOdMKlcakZZm
(4) yangxiao.cs.ua.edu/Don't%20Become%20a%20Scientist!.htm
(5) ruclips.net/video/fKO28Zsz9WQ/видео.htmlsi=oROuI7N9R1Pu0Fkd
(6) ruclips.net/video/AXj8qHxS0A0/видео.htmlsi=zDAj1tkFf-dztKrB
(7) washingtonmonthly.com/2001/05/01/docd/
(8) www.quora.com/Where-do-most-people-who-study-for-PhDs-end-up-working
The only way I see one can become a professor without being EXTREMELY lucky is: go to a prestigious university (PhD then postdocs, a PhD is not enough nowdays: too many PhDs, too few professor positions = extreme competition), network (sell yourself), pump tons of papers (get those indexes up), get tons of grant money (hard to get). Until you get lucky enough that some university you apply for gives you an offer, and then you enter the academic ladder game (see "academia ponzi scheme" video I listed).
I was going to go for mechanical engineering.. but I ended up getting a 2 year degree and working as a mechanical designer at an amazing company. I love the work I do, and watching the engineers work compared to what I do, I'm glad I went this route.
mechanical design, how did you get into that? Are you in the US? What does your day to day look like? I'm curious because the more and more I learn about actual engineering jobs the less I think I want it.
Mechanical Design and Fabrication AAS degree? That's a really good start, especially if you focus on CAD and ALTIUM modeling. Don't get stuck machining parts all day, or welding .
@@nasuku7342 I love it. I am in the US. I work at a company that designs testing rigs of all sorts. I got put into the group that I wanted to, and our main focus is MASSIVE car/truck rigs that simulate driving conditions of all sorts. Anything from basic road conditions to simulate millions of miles driven, to race teams that need more stroke/throw to reallllly push the vehicles components. They have thousands of tiny sensors on both the testing rig, as well as the specimen being tested that give RIDICULOUS amounts of data, and they can detect a failure before it even yieles. I also recently started supporting the transducer group that designs all sorts of flexure-type sensors that the company uses in pretty much every product they make, as well as custom products depending on a company's needs.
I'm still very new in the field, so my days mostly consist of grunt work, cleaning up the old employees models and assemblies as a means to make them more user-friendly as we work on them and customize them down the road. I'm essentially just a drafter at this point, but as I progress and learn about their products, I get to take on more and more responsibilities. It's great being around other people who nerd-out about this kind of stuff.
@@psychicspy Correct! I mostly use Solidworks and do modeling as well as working on massive assemblies, sometimes even rendering for quotes and to use in an online configuration tool that both potential clients, as well as our competition, have access to. I went to school at 30 years old, and it feels somewhat strange to have so many "bosses" that are a few years younger than me, but everyone I've met at the company is great, helpful, and INCREDIBLY smart. I get some imposter-syndrom working with the actual geniuses I see every day.
@SUBtrauma
I have 3 AAS degrees and do product design and development. I'm the "R&D Engineer" at the company. I've thought about finishing my BA in Engineering, but with my high degree of knowledge and skills and being 60, I just don't see the payoff. When I retire, I will do R&D for myself and license to companies.
I left Electrical engineering and went into computer science and I never looked back. Financially rewarding and challenging
Wich country are u in ?
How did you go about doing that because I am thinking about doing the same but am honestly not sure
Yo I wish to do the same
@@sebastianpirela7329 hi seb, me too.
The short answer is that we do online courses, practice solving problems and do our own personal projects.
But I'm a student myself and barely get time to do any of it. 😭
I'm a principal electrical engineer with nearly a decade of experience thus far. The grind is a lot more than being smart enough to figure things out. You work with tons of people to push a project along, so it also takes an amicable and somewhat extroverted personality to be successful. I deal with a lot of the business oriented side of things as well. I am in constant contact with sales representatives for a wide variety of components and chemicals we use. And of course, since the industry progresses onward, you have a constant battle to stay relevant in the job market; the learning never stops.
Você não trabalha engenharia, vc trabalha no financeiro. Engenharia é soluções de problemas e nao bater papo é puxar saco de gente.😂😂
@@davierliton6559pior que é isso né, meu medo é eu fazer a facul e depois acabar num setor financeiro fazendo os ricos ficarem mais ricos, ao invés de ir pra obras servir a população.
Okay portuguese cheeseburger, want to tell me the matetials needed for the magnetics of isolation transformer used in a flyback configuration that needs to meet intrinsically safe crtiera? How about the limit of the stub lengths and the bandwidth on a fully loaded multipoint backplane with over 50 nodes? Do you know the I/O limitations of FPGAs interfacing via RGMII or SGMII for gigabit ethernet: any idea if we have to source a PHY that's HSTL compliant, or is it okay to utilize a shim layer to convert to GMII to the hardened MACs to the integrated processor? Oh wait, maybe you know whether or not I need to live with the cost for back drilled vias, blind vias, or laser drilled microvias? Perhaps the low loss dielectric with lower anisotropy is worth qualifying for the manufacturing process to get that run through thermal cycling and the different RoHS plating processes? Please tell me how I'm in finance, oh wise Cheseburger.
Sounds like P.C. design which you can get for "free" from a board mfg'r in Taiwan or wait for 'AI'@@seinfan9
Civil engineering degree here. Worked 44 years in the field without any breaks. Employed by four different companies during the first 20 years, with all jumps instigated my myself. The fifth company stuck for me and I became part owner 10 years later.
Retied now and living the good life skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking and backpacking in the mountains. No financial worries.
Engineering is the best decision I ever made.
44 years ago maybe, complete opposite today. Everyone I graduated with ended up in consultancy, tech or finance eventually. I did an MS in structural after my civil BS and did a few years in the field, but moving to tech literally doubled my salary despite being entry level. You cannot justify the cost in time/money of studying civil engineering anymore
An additional factor, here in the United States, is that manufacturing was pushed to over sea's for cheaper labor.
And office jobs are outsourced too.
As long as there is Internet, it is very easy to outsource a office job...
The Market looks ugly and the future looks dark..
I feel stupid that I did not see this like .. 10 years ago..
But I guess better later than never
@@limitless1692 I saw this when I was 14 and everybody called me crazy.... Now protectionism is basically mainstream.
@@gottfrei409 protectionism could you please define how it relates to the job market now a days Also is Nepotism rampant nowadays In the market
@@limitless1692Just wait until the Robots/Ai become even more advanced and taking over more jobs. Crony capitalism will end up outsourcing all of us. Whether if your an Mechanical engineer or a cashier. They’re even trying to make software that can partially automate the roles of a hospital nurse right now.
Elect Trump/Bernie, severely limit outsourcing and immigration.
Imagine dying for this country only for the very country you died for, to have its wealth exported to overpopulated countries.
The people I’ve spoke to that work in not only engineering but well-paid positions, even at a lower level, are individuals who did far more work behind the scenes than just attending a high ranking university and/ or acing their exams. While I believe there is definitely a disconnect between people graduating and getting jobs, those who end up in better positions have taken the initiative outside of their degree to act on their own interests, such as programming, drawing, music and sound production etc. And I actually had a friend who graduated from a top university in England and found himself a well-paid position only weeks after starting his internship. Not because he knew the most or had any valuable experience, but through his extra circulars, he not only showed his capacity for learning, but an interest for it, too. So, it goes both ways
Completely agree. A lot of people do not take any initiative during their time in school and that is 100% a contributing factor to them not being able to find a job. There is a lot of learning that must be done outside of class, and if you aren't willing to do it, people aren't willing to hire you. Sad but true.
Should you have to go THAT far above and beyond just to get a job?
@@NoelAWinslow yes
How do you think music and sound production can help? Are you actually showing your portfolio or just mentioning it as a hobby. Asking because that's what I do in my freetime but I never considered it would help me get a job
@@FaCiSmFTW i dont do that, but have considered it a valid skill to learn. I practiced the regular guitar and if I ever had bought an electric guitar, I would sooner or later want to understand what is that thing called amplifier. And then if I mixed the sound of guitar with voice, I would certainly try to see how that is done by the soundtable (i dont know if that is the name in english, mesa de som in portuguese). That and everything envolving wiring, frequency modulation, etc etc.
Biggest mistake that STEM graduates make is graduating without internships. Engineering especially is applied science. You must have internship experience, I see it time and time again where students graduate and have ZERO experience which equals ZERO skills. The working world is nothing like school at all. I was the worst performing student in my department by far and I knew it. School was always a struggle so from freshman year I went out and did internships in my field. I did 3 years of unpaid work for city, state and federal agencies just to get the experience I needed. Just devoted 15-20 hours a week and learned applicable skills in design, construction, modeling, soils and so much more. You meet people and network which helps people know your character and work ethic. I was the first with a job before even finishing school. Unfortunately university many times is just a small part of the journey. Most students follow professors whose career is just academic not practical. University programs should require students to have a co-op or internship before graduation. College level education isn’t about higher learning anymore but just bare minimum to get a job. So universities should adapt to that fact and not just on the basis of an institution for “higher intellectual thinking”.
Once at a conference for networking in tech my colleague said that if you have the time to do unpaid internships in engineering you should do and I agreed with him. We were booed. But 2 of those people followed us with questions on how to obtain such jobs. We helped then and before their graduation they were already being paid for their jobs and they said that their colleagues from the uni who were aiming for internships for about 2 years had no success.
@@victornas91Not everybody is in a financial situation where they can afford to work for free.
Maintaining high grades while working 40 hours per week for a job that actually pays money then an additional 40 hours for a job that doesn't pay at all isn't feasible and quite frankly it shouldn't be expected.
Internships in my experience have been insanely competitive.
@@petelee2477 Unfortunately in today day and age students must make themselves standout. Having a degree alone isn’t enough, internships are vital because it helps the student truly see what fields are available in the sector. You have dozens at times hundreds of applications per opening. Employers will always take experience for positions that are supposed to be entry level. The job market today isn’t the same when my parents started. More is wanted from newer graduates and it’s the student job to also put themselves in a position for success. College is an investment, and should be treated as such.
@@IrediaOhenhen college is a pretty poor investment than.
If it doesn't guarantee a career then there is absolutely no point in even going.
1. A LOT of engineering jobs have been taken over by H-1b visa holders and other jobw have been off-shored.
2. There are a LOT of engineers applying for each engineering job.
3. Employers have become SUPER picky. They don't want to hire people who haven't been able to hold a job for a long period of time.
4. Employers don't want to spend 10 minutes training a new hire. They want the perfect-fit candidate. Employers are no longer investing in employees which they will probably be laying off within the next couple of years.
4. Engineering is extremely unstable for many engineers. When the economy slows the first thing that companies do is halt all new product development and lay of the engineers. THIS is why a lot of engineers show "unstable" work history. See #3 above.
5. Universities are businesses. They DON'T CARE if there jobs in the field they're schooling you in. They're in collusion with the US Government to open the border to train foreigners. They're in collusion with corporations and the media to spread the word that there's an shortage of engineers when there ISN'T. It all lies.
This.
2018 Mechanical engineer graduate, after 3 years of looking I went into teaching. I work 9 months out of the year and for the other 3 I build my own boats. I am fortunate to have discovered that the system is rigged at a relatively young age. With the amount of nepotism and discrimination here in the United States I have grown to think its their loss.
Agreed. Teaching here in Canada is a sweet gig, you generally make over 6 figures within 5 years or so, plus benefits and all the vacation time. Honestly something I've been considering myself. But I'm not sure I'm cut out for working with kids all day long.
I'm an ME grad from 2018 as well; VT. I think most of the people that got into engineering because they like the field get burned out really quickly because of how mundane it is and naturally like to teach and learn. I literally work the job in the meme that says "are you ready for a fast paced, high tech work environment???!!?" and has a picture of an empty gray cubical with a fax machine sitting on the desk.
I'm an EE that recently started teaching at a local community college. The pay isn't great, but at-least the stress and workload aren't sucking the life out of me anymore.
@@OliverFoote
The demand for engineering is low hence companies now don't want to train and internships are very very few and far between. Also networking is very crucial because companies dont have many very many entry level positions and any they do have mainly get filled internally or from internal references, hence networking is crucial. For example, when I was in college I had a former classmate that worked at Microsoft, his manager told him to find someone to refer to him for a software dev position and my friend contacted me to see if I was interested and unfortunately I was in grad school at the time so I declined. If they fill that role internally or from internal references it will never make out to job ads. And the ones on job ads tend to be higher skilled , even for entry level and also a lot of times they post it just to collect resumes for future position filling not necessarily they need someone right now. Nonetheless the main issue is engineering demand is low. It is not like the education , healthcare, and law enforcement which has very high demand almost all the time.
As a recently retired engineer, I see the expectations of young engineers thar are graduating have changed.
The young engineers are graduating with the expectations that an engineer will sit in front of a computer for a large portion of the day. They expect to work in an air conditioned office and work 9 to 5 pm.
There is a need for some of this kind of engineering. But most engineering positions have a need to apply their knowledge to existing equipment and processes. They need to be able work in the field, in environments that are loud, hot, or dirty. They need to be able to work in the evenings or through the night to resolve equipment issues as they occasionally arise.
But the academic professors do not convey this expectation to their students. They don't, because most professors have never worked in industry (or at least only slightly have any serious experience in industry).
Industry needs engineers that can, and will, apply their educational skills to trouble shoot existing systems. Industry needs engineers who want to get involved, and want to learn about application.
Totally agree with you. Mechanical engineering graduate here who has been struggling to get a job, starting to consider other options.
Have you applied to advanced/additive manufacturing/3D printing job listings.
@@maroon9273 they wanted experience which I didnt have. I ended up getting an engineering job in the construction/building services field.
@@alphie10 cool, at least you found a alternative job and avoided being stuck in a deadend entry level job. Prior to the field your working in, did you look into accoustic engineering?
@@maroon9273 Nope I did not. A lot of the jobs here in the UK want experience so thats what makes it hard to get into other fields.
@@alphie10 okay, it's happening everywhere. How companies expect someone to have experience when they're in college. This needs to change and they should atleast have apprenticeships especially for majority of students who can't join internships/Co-Ops.
Great topic. I worked as an Engineer for 27 years mostly with the DOD, including weapons design and testing , advanced 3D Solid Modeling , advanced digital signal processing, etc. It was very difficult to find an engineering job for me in 1991. The job market was horrendous. Working for DOD brought light the fact that nepotism and cronyism is widespread. Bright Engineers were not considered for job if they weren’t related to a Government manager (they would hire their family or friends instead). This caused major problems with unqualified people being hired for key positions. Also, many Engineers lack the practical knowledge and ingenuity to develop effective designs. Also the DOD had idiots ruining people’s careers with Security Clearances. Most high tech manufacturing has moved overseas and took the engineering jobs with them. Also forced diversity and inclusion and other preferential hiring policies complicates the problem further
In the mid eighties, I applied for an engineering job at a hospital. The lead engineer hired a Hispanic guy with a high school diploma. He said the Government would pay half their salary if they hired a minority! I had a degree in Biomedical engineering and two years of experience!!
I once applied in house for an engineering position and was told I did not meet the requirements. I showed the interviewer the written requirements and my bonafides, I more than met the requirements. He said that the job posting was incorrect, which was BS . I thanked him for his time. He was no longer at our location 2 months later, probably got promoted. I wish him the best.
I worked 3 years in a Navy contractor. About a third of the engineers were foreigners (with temporary work permit), and the reason was obvious: they cost less.
Yup, overseas. I am a patent attorney working in Asia for 15 years now. Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. My degrees were in materials engineering and almost a second degree in mechanical engineering and a lot of materials and semiconductor processing here, pretty much nothing in the US. I also do patents about batteries, new cathode materials, electrolytes compatible with lithium metal anodes. Nanomaterials. I do university clients as well, all kinds of random one-off intentions. Herbal medicines based on various Chinese formulations. Biopolymers. Wouldn't get to do this variety of work in the US, which is one reason I left. Not many Americans patent attorneys here and most companies want a US patent in addition to the local country since the product will be sold in the US. Not sorry I moved overseas. Don't want to do software or systems engineering or whatever I would have been able to get in the US. Outsourced...myself.
Most engineers are not good "designers" in fact, most kind of suck. The intense math requirement weeds out the creative types.
The job search will definitely be a lot harder if you graduate without an internship. It's still possible to find an engineering job without one of course, but you will have to have very refined interview skills, maybe add additional certificates to your resume, and have a bit of luck. You might even have to take on a smaller role in a company and work your way up.
Do you have any tips on finding companies?
This: 'You might even have to take on a smaller role in a company and work your way up.'
I graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree and Physics degree. I worked about 6-7 years in my field which was great!!! The one I would've done differently was LEARN how to do simple sheet metal projects by hand AND learn how work an CNC machine to make any semi-complex part that is needed. Hands on skills are what A LOT of the companies want.
Dude, just watch some youtube videos on the subjects.
@@TheRogerhill1234😂anyone who watches youtube and then says they have CNC experience will get their hand cut off. A CNC takes real life training and experimentation to learn lol
I studied mechanical engineering and graduated some time ago now. It was a 3-year degree in Sweden. Every newspaper and media outlet claimed that we needed more engineers, but that as actually not the case, they didn´t know what they were talking about.
It just chocks me how powerless you actually are with an actual degree. Its all about social skills and charm. Also you don´t actually need a engineering degree to get most jobs. Even a lot of good jobs dont actually require a degree so I do regret studying at all. Oh well I cant change it now.
It is not that they didn't know what they are talking about. It is more corporate BS talk from companies to drive wages down and media just copies that train of thought without critically thinking about it.
They said same in Finland. There are plenty of open positions for sure, but they are looking experienced people with 10 years of experience
If you have less than that, only way to jobs is through friends at companies, and if you don't have those, prepare to be unemployed.
@@jarskil8862 Well at least you have a great military system to be proud of. We are jealous of that in Sweden! But to adress your response.
Yes I do agree with you. I have 4 years in inside sales (so pretty much underemployed with my degree) And despite this with good references its tough.
Dont get me wrong its probably alot my fault perhaps I need to work on my personality etc. But I am just saying that the time I put into engineering was not worth it. The blood sweat and tears put into an engineering degree is alot. Most people dont even understand how much effort an engineering degree is.
They told me in Sweden that there would be missing 70 000 engineers in sweden. So where are these spots? Pure lies. I thought companies would "pull" on me but I was very mistaken.
I don't think you should feel guilty friend, of course you have the right tô feel sad in situation where the carda are stacked against you( you're not alone on this regard,its hard for ALL of us!). knowledge is power, an engineer possesses varied skills that can translate to field Work, lab work even in the government, try to look at your current options! Courses and trade Schools, a new language, etc
Sadly those student loans must hurt for some of these new grads
At least with my parents, they still believed the old idea that "engineers are always in demand", "you'll never lack job security", and that STEM or business/finance mean money and anything else is "hope you like being poor!". When trying to apply to jobs I only got offers for draftsman jobs where I'd be under employed and grad school where I could at least do research, which still showed no security through layoffs. I really feel that the hype surrounding engineering in the U.S. is a joke at this point. It's like the employment equivalent of social media scrolling as people claim to be getting this big salary or that job deal. Big numbers mean little when people get laid-off 6 months later or have to live somewhere like the Bay area where their big number is still living paycheck to paycheck after loan payments. A sales guy left my office to start an electrician apprenticeship because he had a kid on the way and it immediately gave him better pay than I was making in drafting (that the company labelled "engineering") at the time.
Drafting has been, and always will be a good step up to any engineering position. Learn the ropes, learn the process, learn the people, the company, the industry, then get that promotion to Engineer, and hit the ground running !
I suspect that many people who go into engineering do so for the wrong reasons.
Having had a career in engineering, it seems to me that half of engineers end up as administrators and/or managers - jobs that often pay little better. In one large corporation I worked for, it was an issue that was brought up, if one wanted to continue along the technical path or the more managerial path. It was a feature of their corporate structure.
Quite right. Part of this is good; it is better to have people managing who know the work. But part of this is bad; these people love engineering and they no longer can if they want to advance their career.
Graduated CE in 1980. Being underworked has been going on forever. As a graduate student I interviewed for a co-op position with a prominent civil engineering firm in Manhattan. I asked what I would be doing there. The manager quite matter of factly said “Let’s put it this way. If there is a choice between drawing a soil profile or filing some documents - you will be doing the filing”. That hit me square between the eyes. Digging ditches has always been a right of passage in any job. But people don’t want to dig ditches before they start building skyscrapers.
What you really need to learn is what they don’t teach you in school. By far the best way to start in engineering is with a hook in a company and from there on in you need to advocate for yourself. Remember - no one is looking out for you except you. And with rare exception nothing is handed to you. If you want to do something bad enough and they either can’t or won’t let you do it then leave and find it. I left a few times. But I always had a side hustle. Eventually I was lucky strike out on my own as a consulting engineer. I realize I am not the norm but you can still move.
In my school experience the best engineers were the ones who were the worst with the books. They knew how to put stuff together and design. They were creative a had common sense. But today - as the saying goes - common sense isn’t so common. Many think they are still in school - approaching things like a PhD student instead of an engineer.
I think you and I would have a blast trading career stories around a campfire. I earned my M.E. in the 70's. I was a builder of mini bikes, boats, hot rods, motorcycles, and was hands-on before going through college. I can't begin to tell you how many assignments I did in primitive locations where I had to set the clip board down and get my hands dirty and weld lifting fixtures that I designed or fit babbit bearings that I hand scraped to fit. This was entertaining to me. BTW...I worked for the juggernaut in Schenectady. They sent me to places that I still can't find on the map.
.
One of the fundamental problems I saw with my peers is that no matter which major they study in they seem to think just the degree will land them a job. Many graduates with no personal projects, no skills outside of class, they just memorize and study for exams, no internships. Its really difficult to land an internship I get it guys I landed my first one after applying to 200+ internships and going to 3-4 job fairs. Most people give up after applying to 5-10 or getting rejected from few interviews. The degree simply proves you have been introduced to all the basic engineering materials. If you can’t show your potential employer your creativity or willingness with this newly acquired skills they will not trust to hire you.
But entry level job should not require anything else than the degree. Its responsibility of entry level jobs to kick-start the career learning.
But here even entry level jobs are asking more experience than college student can realistically get from studies.
@@jarskil8862agree😂 when I want to do the internship, it's funny when I saw some companies literally asking for 1year of technical experience 😢. The school doesn't provide what the market wants...
@@jarskil8862 The _biggest_biggest_ problem is thinking the degree is all you need. You actually need the will to get up and make calls and look for a job, _early_. You can't be hanging out with your friends on campus and expect someone with a job opening will just come find you. You need to go find them.
The issue is the demand does not line up with the supply. An engineering degree is still the best to degree to get in college whether you end up in engineering or not because STEM and engineering degrees beat out other degrees when i come down to mental capacity comparison between candidates for jobs. If you had the same experience as another candidate for a job , the one with engineering degree will most likely win out and that is why engineering and stem majors that go into other fields displace those fields' native major. You can also easily get employment in teaching as demand for math and science educators is very high in education. Engineering and STEM degrees are general smart person degrees that will give you the edge out side of engineering.
Believe it or not it wasn't my freshly minted BSEE that got me my first engineering job, but my amateur radio ticket.
I'd been a ham radio operator since I was 14 and built some of my own gear. I had a lot of experience before before I entered engineering school.
After graduating with a Bachelors in materials engineering I began working as a project engineer at a plastics facility. Most of my time at work was dedicated to looking at excel spreadsheets and measuring dimensions on small plastic pieces. The pay was very good, but I didn't last a year at that place because I found it so mundane. I later found a job teaching chemistry and loved it.
Graduated in 2019 with a mech BA. Couldn't find a job as an engineer in Tamapa. Everyone wanted me as a technician, but not as an engineer. (20 years as an aircraft technician)
I gave up after a year of looking. Worked in HVAC and controls for 3 years....as a technician. Thank God I didn't pay for the degree (GI Bill), but man, what a waste of time.
Quit all together and started my own business for 2-3x the pay....as, you guessed, a technician.
Corporate America can go blow a goat.
A lot of employers pretend to have openings not out of an interest in hiring some fresh graduate with a bachelors but in the hopes that someone far more experienced and overqualified will apply, at which point they can get rid of someone less useful to open up the position for the superior candidate.
Another thing they do is give you an unpaid internship or at least a job interview “exam” where they ask the questions they really need solved. If you give a good answer, cool for them. They run with it but still don’t hire anyone.
I went to school for mechanical engineering and took a break for various reasons. During my hiatus, I didn't want to go back to the retail job I had in high school, so I cold called every company related to engineering within driving distance. I got a chance to try out my skills at a civil engineering firm doing CAD. I've been there ever since and never looked back; it's been almost 20 years now. I never got my degree, but I'm now I'm one of their CAD managers and couldn't be happier.
Wow
Same…dropped out of college, worked for a small civil, took the off ramp in to Land Surveying, the most fun job there is. When we are hiking up a steep hill I say people pay money to come here and hike.
Honestly, degrees don't mean much. They just show that you've had introductory exposure in certain areas.
I started as the lowest level operator were I work now and worked my way into a titled engineering position through self study.
My work offers tuition reimbursement, so I went ahead and went back to school after a few years in the engineering role and will be finishing soon.
But the skills I learned on the job and on my own have been much more valuable than what I've learned in school.
“Engineering degrees are so expensive and we’re pumping so many students through these programs…for what?” So the colleges can make profit
I graduated with a BS EE degree in 2014. I worked at Ericsson for 2 years, and then 7 years at Raytheon. I quit in July for a multitude of reasons, but the main one was because I wanted to become a teacher. I am now almost done with my first semester, and I love it! Engineering was great, and rewarding work. I just have a hard time committing to a single thing. However to be an engineer to anyone out there, you MUST have a high inteest in how things work. If that is what drives you then you will probably make it. Look for internships your senior year, and also drop the extra time wasters. Personally I had to drop video games my Sophmore year, and any committed relationships.
NOTE: That first year enternship isn't goint to pay off that degree, and likely won't pay for your food...
The first year is tough for a reason. The industry wants to weed out the weak and feckless. It isn't all about smarts. It is about attitude and a willingness to do what others wont. Degrees don't guarantee success. Stubbornness does.
Graduated in 2019 in electrical engineering. Still no job. I've collected over 2000 rejections and had to start working in a fucking restaurant which consumes most of my time so I can't even attend extra classes to get some experience and 99% of the internship programmes are reserved for students... I'm desperate.
I don't know what to do and it's taking a tremendous toll on my life and on me as a person. I have no social life left, I'm ashamed to show up at family gatherings, most of my friends with an education abandoned me. I can't afford to live alone and soon I'll be too old to continue living in shared apartments and the longer it goes the more I'm forgetting the things I studied and the harder it becomes to show my competence at job interviews.
Same bro. Sucks.
Ciao Roberto, sono anch’io italiano ed ho trovato questo commento mentre cerco di capire se iniziare un percorso di laurea in matematica o ingegneria meccanica. Credi che la tua situazione sia correlata alla situazione del lavoro in Italia, oppure c’entra per lo più con il mondo dell’ingegneria? Se hai consigli ti ascolto volentieri, grazie
@@angelocostantini9407 Non lo in Italia perché vivo all'estero. In generale, il mondo del lavoro oggi è molto più competitivo, ci sono molti più laureati per cui una laurea da sola non garantisce niente. Qualsiasi cosa dovessi decidere fai un tirocinio prima di finire gli studi perché praticamente nessuna azienda assume gente senza esperienza e le richieste delle tue competenze sono ridicole anche per neolaureati.
Non so consigliarti fra matematica e ingegneria. In teoria ingegneria dovrebbe essere un campo professionale più proficuo ma non conosco bene le opportunità per matematici (ci sono così tante possibili specializzazioni che è difficile da prevedere). Ti consiglio di vedere che tipo di aziende ci sono nella zona in cui vivi o vuoi vivere perché per esempio nel mio caso mi sono laureato in elettronica e dove vivo non ci sono aziende di elettronica, il che è parte del mio problema.
I would recommend getting a labor job that could lead into an engineering role. Working at a restaurant is a bad move. Get a job as a construction worker, a mechanic, electrical technician, or something like that. After a few years (or less) of showing your worth, it might lead into something more.
My first job out of college was working as a soil lab technician for 13$/hour doing manual labor all day. After 1.5 years, I was offered an entry-level engineering role.
But whatever you do, get out of food and beverage. If you want to be an engineer, you need to get experience that's at least tangentially related to the field. Restraunt experience shouldn't even be on your resume.
Also, don't let your engineering skills atrophy. If you did well in college, then it doesn't take much extra work to maintain your technical ability. Keep building circuits, keep coding, and keep working on engineering projects that you're passionate about. There's also a lot of high-quality free lectures online, if you need specific refreshers. Watch engineering lectures on your lunch break and read your old textbooks before bed. But the worst thing you can do right now is let your hard-earned skills atrophy.
A lot of engineers have family who were engineers. In school and every job I’ve had, I was one of the only ones who didn’t “inherit” the trade.
I have a chemical engineering degree and work as a pipefitter. Unions rock! I just rig up flanges all day and get paid 40k more than the engineers who designed it. The engineers around here make a bit more too. I think its to fend off organizing attempts.
I had 23+ years in building trade unions
My experience has been they truly truly sucked mostly because I was white male and not a politically active boot licker
I left to become a heavy industrial maintenance electrician
I'm an engineer, and I pay my plumber a lot more per hour than I make!
@@arthurdirindinjr1792Unions are such parasites now. If they sniff out that anyone is getting paid more due to better performance they hound and whine because the bottom bracket isnt get paid as much as the top. Those who excel in mediocrity are the Unions best friend
I'm a unionized engineer and we make more than our pipefitters by 50% but we don't work overtime so maybe the PF can make it up on that. But I also don't have to work more than 40 hours a week. I agree unions rock.
@@revcrussell where can I get one of the those cushy union engineer jobs?
A) In the 60's and 70's companies used to hire engineering graduates and train them. I graduated in the mid-90's and my experience was to be always asked to work overtime for free, no training provided at all at any company; you were just simply expected to know everything, be able to figure it out on your own, or get fired. B) many companies hire a group of 15 eng'g graduates, put them under intense pressure for 1 or 2 years, keep one or two of them and fire the rest. This says to me that engineers are a cost centre and not revenue-generating, low-value and not worth the investment, and expendable. Also hints at a management incentive structure based on a pyramid scheme: higher pay and bonuses for senior management based on free extra overtime provided by juniors. C) It used to be that I would apply for a job, there would be 20 to 30 other applicants, and I would often get an interview. Today, I am lucky if there are only 100 applicants for a position; I have never received an interview in this day and age from applying to a job (even with 20+ years experience). I stopped trying to find employment in this field.
Are you a mechanical or electric engineer?
@@ipponsuki Mechanical.
Do you do projects on the side, or did you stop doing engineering?
@@ipponsuki I'm still interested, but it's only a hobby for now.
Smart people should get degrees in math or physics. From those you can go anywhere else. And every employer will know you are smart, guaranteed. I had a good career as an engineer, but deep down I consider myself to have failed because I was not confident in my ability to hack a math or physics degree. So this is what I am doing now in retirement, studying math and physics, and really enjoying it, now that it means nothing to me in the real world.
I graduated with a BSEE, which has a ton of math. Never worked in the field because I graduated in 2002, tech bubble burst. If I could go back to my younger self with this advice, I would have gotten a math degree.
@@billyoung8118Engineering degrees are just as good. A lot of employers will hire you for different types of jobs with an engineering degree. Financial analyst, for instance, because you're good at math. Or middle management because you're good at problem solving. Because you have an engineering degree, they know these are true.
I got an average grade in a Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree, 89-92, could not get a job. I did a computing masters, 92-93. Got a programming job. It is hard to get a first engineering/or computing job, or a new job after 55 at the other end! In the meantime it is not so bad. Save/invest as much as you can for early retirement though...
Graduated ChemE in 2020 and worked at Exxon, but interestingly in a Finance role. I then decided to transition over to tech and eventually joined Amazon (AWS) as a Solutions Architect. Made way more than I could have if I had stayed in oil and gas. I enjoy what I do and would pretty much be happy doing anything technical as long as it paid well.
Yeah, solutions architect looks like the role of choice these days.
Nothing pays like AWS, lol ! Former CSE.
The best engineers I've worked with were former technicians who went out and got any college degree, often not in STEM at all, and then got promoted.
When touring colleges with my son we went to a mostly engineering school focusing on mechanical engineering. We got stuck on an elevator with an ME professor who spent the entire time talking my son out of studying engineering. Her point was that there are few jobs in that field in the US because we don't make things here anymore.
It takes years of experience to become an engineer.
I wished I studied welding, and studied engineering as a hobby.
my brother was a welder. He has 5 vertebra fused. turns out, welding is hard on your back.
I Work and live in Silicon Valley I know a good bit on Engineers working in their field and killing it. I was in R&D as a glass specialist and saw the gap between a technician position that I had and a mid career engineer. I think having the soft skills and passion is what they want to see with the degree. Starting engineer school in 2 weeks with experience full time job basically making 100K and a side business doing art. Yo just go hard in what you are passionate about.
Completely agree, work your ass off in something that you can see yourself doing every day and loving it
The keep word of success in any career is PASSION in that job.
Sorry. I work the trades in aircraft manufacturing. I'm thinking about being an engineer. Living in the real world, you will NOT make big money like 100k a year without a degree. Been down this road a long time. Unless you like endless overtime and no life combined with shit health insurance. I'm 32 and regret not going to college. My top out as an inspector is 99k a year, however that takes years to obtain. More than a degree. I only make 52k a year. This idea of going into the trades and becoming wealthy is delusional. This only happens if you own your own business or are working many hours of overtime. Every other job is low wage. At least with a degree, your skills are more transferable. While mine are not.
Go for it. I'm an Aerospace Engineer and love the work. Hiring can be volatile at times. However, as long as you're willing to relocate you can always find a job. Good Luck
Damn 52k? I live in the south and our journeyman electricians make 72k on 40 hour weeks and the supers make 95k on 40s…. we aren’t even union. Work life balance and working conditions are a whole other story though, for that the degree is great.
I have my CDL - A. i haul cross country. Made 92k last year. You're 100% correct on the shift. They've brainwashed a TON of people into believing college is the only way to be successful financially. If you keep worrying about "prestige" it will leave you broke and depressed. Theres a plumber right now fixing a crappy pipe making 100k. And those jobs qrent filling fast enough. While people are going into debt 100k and cant even find a damn job. That's BS.
Where I live in Ohio I have never seen a plumbing job or truck driving job that pays anywhere near 6 figures, however there are dozens of engineering jobs open right now within a 50 mile radius that pay 70k a year or more that require a bachelors in some type of engineering.
@@edm9760 well you arent looking at all. And i wouldnt expect you to know where to look. You're not in the industry. There are plenty trucking jobs making 70k for SURE. When you get closer to 6 figures, its specific niches that get you close. 1 example is "tankers". Those are the guys that haul fuel. They almost always are 80k and above.
@@edm9760 also, one of the biggest, if not, THE biggest "Super store" walmart PROUDLY advertises new drivers start at 110k now. If you dont believe me, go look it up yourself. I have a close friend that works there aswell.
@@edm9760 look into tanker jobs or line haul. I made 105k with my Cdl and home every night while studying computer science.
Cut your salary in half. You still like your job? No. The answer’s no. That’s why. People want to make a living doing something they enjoy not some mindless crap.
Became a patent attorney with my engineering degree as real engineering jobs in semiconductor fab had gone mostly overseas or were on their way in 1986 when I graduated. Have had the privilege to work with brilliant inventors on their inventions, and in literally every tech field, never a dull moment. Consider myself very, very lucky.
You made a very sage choice going into patent law instead of an engineering career! Engineering Jobs will be difficult to hold on to these days and into the future. Patent lawyers are in big demand, and you need and engineering degree to practice in this area. Yeah, you were very lucky, indeed...
@@jimkekoa2756 Applying for patents as a lawyer or being a patent examiner is MISERABLE work.
What I've found, taking a "whole career perspective", and seen from a South African point of view - which might have too many differences to your situation to be relevant - engineers tend to end up in management.
An engineer wanting to keep on just engineering for a lifetime generally gets into consulting on some specialist area, and even consultants don't make direct use of most of what you learn in university (it's essential background, but not a "tool of the job", generally) - at least not the ones I know. I recently asked an electrical engineering consultant (doing things like commissioning electrical grids at the urban level) what maths he uses at work. Answer: Linear algebra (and the kind you stick into Matlab, not the high level stuff). There are numerical tools for most things, and the computer does it.
But it's not just that. The bread and butter is mainly project management with a small extra technical component. As far as I'm aware this is "always how it's been" - at least in a "small pond" like South Africa. In the biggest economy on Earth, "seek and ye shall find". If you can't, it doesn't exist anywhere else on Earth, and you've been out unicorn hunting.
I think the "mechanism" is this: Businessmen hire people they can make use of to achieve their own objectives. They need a few engineers (in places that hire engineers) to do the technical stuff, but they get a better return on investment from general problem solvers the set to solving mainly money problems. (Yes, that's engineering. Well if you think otherwise you might end up with problems at work).
Businessmen hire "labour assets", and the ones they're prepared to pay the most for are those who make them the most money (in an immediate short-view point-of-view). Engineers go through a pressure test that shows that they can cope with working themselves almost to death without actually killing themselves, and they get taught all sorts of systematic ways of tackling problems without panicking. If you a panic during your studies, at the wrong moment, you get to try again (if you're lucky) rather than pass.
So someone whose business is really just make money in whatever way is going to value the engineering graduate over the music graduate, largely because some college has tried to kill the engineer by means of pure stress, and failed, and hasn't done that to the musician. In many cases the direct skill set trained doesn't count for much.
The nice thing (in principle) about this, if you do pursue engineering instead of a trade, or music (at least to begin with) is that if it doesn't work out, you can change course, and just do what your growing process has transformed you into.
(I can remember a lawyer whose happiest day was his last matter at Court, because he grew to hate the job. He left it to go and make kitchen units, and lived happily ever after. Thing is he had the choice there. If he'd started with the kitchen units and found he hated doing that, it would've been really difficult to correct course and go into law later.)
If you really want to grab hold of your own future, knowing very well what makes you happy, probably the best option is to start now trying to produce some good or service that you can make a bit of money out of. Have side hustle, I think they say? Make up your own career path, accept whatever the tradeoffs are, and head thataway, or keep it on the side, ready to go full time if the time looks ripe. Don't be a peasant in search of a Lord; be the king of whatever kingdom you can make yours. A gentleman does not seek out a yoke to be placed on his ox neck. (Management has always looked to me like a terrible fate to be doomed to, so I get your dismay at what the prospects seem to be).
When you get your degree, it's probably best to view it as a "persistence test" or an endurance test. It certifies you passed through trial by fire, and can be pushed really hard before you break. So it proves that you might be a useful component that doesn't wear out too quickly. There's also some certification of smartness, but if the person who hires you doesn't have a certificate, he's still going to always feel smarter than you, so the smartness is more of a reassurance to you than something someone who already knows everything will value when imposing wage slavery on you.
Really in depth response on this matter, I appreciate you giving your thoughts.
@@boombeet678 Thanks for letting me know. And you're, of course, very welcome.
Switzerland has a great system education system, going to an apprenticeship is very commen here and how more then half of the people here get their first jobs and certificates. And the great thing is you can always do a year of extra school which will allow you to go and study anything afterwards and some apprenticeships already include this year
As an engineering student I never understood why the apprenticeship model isn't implemented in more career fields. Take candidates, pay them 10-12 an hour to start and let them work their way up via merit, this way ppl not cut out for this don't waste years and go into ludicrous levels of debt and companies can cultivate their own talent
I took a longer route through college to attend a hands-on engineering program after a representative of the school said it was crafted according to what industries were asking for; the school had interviewed or crafted the program with industry people. I was convinced. Every semester had a project class. After I graduated Magna Cum Laude: crickets. I don't know if the fact that I had taken longer to graduate was it, or the fact that I had to explain my degree on my resume because it was a mix of mechanical and electrical study, or what. After passing the FE I landed my first job to really use some knowledge and was forced to discover I have some sort of memory problem and was too slow at my job. Not to mention some mental/physical health stuff--I think it amounts to a learning disability, so no matter what I know, it only helps somewhat with learning new things on the job--and a post-grad arrival to vegan voluntaryist philosophy that precludes many jobs (e.g. I think patents and often the military are evil, for example).
My blood, sweat, and tears were basically for nothing due to internal and external forces.
As someone who's currently in grad school for math, it's sad that universities today function as (shitty) job training programs. That's really the core problem with the university system today, and it's broader than just engineering, or even just STEM. Universities should not be seen as a tool for landing a good job or a stepping stone to a better career. Universities should function to preserve, transmit, and produce human knowledge for it's own sake. When we decided to turn universities into job training facilities for the PMC (the 'professional managerial class'), we were actually doing a huge disservice to both the future employees and citizens who pursued higher education under the assumption that it would help advance their careers, and also for the academics, students, and other scholars who were more interested in participating in a sort of idealized pursuit of art and knowledge for it's own sake.
yeah but if Universities are private firms, how can they be profitable?
As an engineer who engineers for public safety, what do you propose should be done for people like myself who need a rigorous, evidence-based background to do our jobs safely? Engineering isn't knowledge for knowledges sake. It is so we can go out and do a job. Should there be tech schools teaching the same math and science as pure knowledge schools? Or should the engineers study in a College of Engineering side by side with the Colleges of Science and Humanities and leverage the brainpower already there?
@@jenniferpearce1052 >what do you propose should be done for people like myself who need a rigorous, evidence-based background
This is a complete straw man argument. Actually quite the opposite, I'm suggesting we need more rigorous and deeper instruction. The math we learn today is not particularly rigorous. I'm not arguing that we stop teaching math or we teach it in a less rigorous format. I'm actually arguing that we teach more of it, and that we do so in a more rigorous manner that imparts a deeper conceptual understanding of the material. I think imparting a deeper understanding of mathematics on engineers would help them do their jobs better, not worse.
Furthermore, I would disagree with you regarding your claim that engineering is just about getting a job and doing it safely, and I think a lot of engineers would agree with me, especially one's with graduate degrees. Most people who do serious, high level engineering research do indeed have a passion for the subject. Now if you're talking about people who just want to work in industry, I realize a lot of those people don't have a deep desire to learn about subjects like math or physics, and they just want to learn whatever skill they need for the job. I don't think the university system should be functioning as a job training program though. We should develop an alternative higher education system for people with these sorts of educational goals, but by designing our current university curriculum to primarily meet the needs of this subset of students, we do a disservice to the pursuit of science and knowledge, which is supposed to be the primary goal of the research university system. We should not be designing STEM curriculum to cater to the needs of people who just want to get an AS or a BS degree in something like nursing or engineering. Also, I would not include humanities students or social science students in this group. A lot of these people, like students in the natural science and mathematics are probably actually interested in learning and want to develop a genuine understanding of their subject. A humanities student probably doesn't need to learn group theory, but they should probably have some understanding of mathematics and proofs.
I think it's actually easier to learn in a deep and rigorous manner, rather that just focusing on memorizing the formulas you need to "get the job done", and AFAIK there's even a lot of research in education and psychology suggesting a much. When students learn without developing a deeper conceptual understanding of the material, they just end up forgetting much of it when they leave the class. When students focus on memorizing facts and formulas for a test or exam, they often forget a lot of the material afterwards, but when they focus on developing a deep conceptual understanding, they actually learn the material quicker and remember it for longer.
@n.e.7647 I didn't make a straw man argument because I wasn't arguing anything. I was asking what you thought we should do to educate engineers. Nowhere in my comment did I state that engineering was about getting a job and doing it safely. Apparently, reading comprehension isn't needed for a math degree.
I appreciate that you actually answered the _questions_ I was asking though. I do have a higher degree, and it's from a research university. I see value in both the research side and the "git 'er done" side. For proper engineering, you need both. If you divorce them, you will end up with useless research. Perhaps coming from a pure math background, you're not steeped in the applied science that is at the heart of what it is to be an engineer. Engineering is about taking the math and science and being practical. Are you familiar with the accuracy and precision targets? Research without practicality can hone in on either of those so much that it is useless for application. Sometimes, you just have to hit the dartboard. The understanding engineers need is to know when they just need to hit the dartboard and when they need to hit the center. Or the middle 20%.
I agree with you that teaching just formulas and memorization for the test is garbage. Deeper understanding of the subjects is better. However, I don't think that's an issue of universities being treated like job training centers. That is a deeper cultural issue with people not valuing education, knowledge, etc.
@@marcor5886most of them aren’t, most of them are government subsidized
Five years at an engineering school. Saying around school. Q: When do engineers start to make serious money? A: When they stop being engineers.
My mom and her sister are both electrical engineering majors that have to partake in the interview process. They work for different companies. Applications without a college degree are an automatic decline. My mom has interviewed children of her friends and couldn’t accept any of them due to supervisor guidelines. They all went to work in non-engineering fields as couldn’t find work in the field and the most shocking one was her friend’s daughter making close to 6 figures with a liberal arts job. That liberal arts job is her passion now but wouldn’t be in college.
"making close to 6 figures with a liberal arts job.", that is rare.
@@hgdfihdjk Not anymore. Not for reasons that most people think about. All the humanitarian crisis’ has been big money for some liberal arts major who choose to help down that path in a profitable way. One reason as we know about Afghan, Ukraine, Burma/Myanmar, etc. Not everyone chooses a high paying job for their major as many may want to like what they do.
Recently learned that elevator maintenance people can make in excess of $80,000 with high school diploma and some apprenticeship. Why bother with college and massive student debt? They'll never make $250,000 annually, but it's all about how much anyone wants and expects.
I got a M.E. at Detroit Mercy and couldn't find a job. Eventually got one at $16/HR in a Toxic Work Environment and decided why am I putting up with this and studied for the DAT while taking Sciences classes and got into Dental School.
Nice!
$16/HR?? What a joke of a wage!
One thing i would add from my experience
I saw this video first a year ago. When i was working what seemed to be a dead end job. There were no possibilities for growth within the company and no clear path out towards a better job. However, it was technical and somehow related to my field, even if the required education was just a 1 or 2 year associate's degree.
I stuck with it, did my job well and became the supervisor of the new department staff once everyone else quit (it was not a good working environment)
Eventually I used that experience to find an actual engineering job at a multinational company doing a higher level version of what I did before. It’s a dream job in many ways and I can see multiple ways to move forward in my career from here.
So don’t get discouraged! If you are creating at least some work experience in a technical field that can be used going forward, even if you are underemployed.
All of those things happened in one year? Awesome! Not many are so lucky, and in many cases the optimal path forward may be a very different choice from yours. But very cool that it worked for you!
100% you're a smart person. 100% life sucks. 100% you can make the best of it regardless
Unreal. All you have said as of 5 minutes in is consistent with my experience. I trash the ME degree path and my school Virginia Tech relentlessly. Engineering and design are my lifelong passion but the arrogant ass clowns at universities manage to butcher the subject matter into boring drivel. And to the teacher who convinced me to stay the course and not drop out to start a machine shop..... I now own a machine shop and while its boring at times, it is 100% more fulfilling than the sorry excuses for engineering jobs I had.
Hey! I'm a Virginia Tech student here currently majoring in Computer Engineering. I was wondering if you were able to land in jobs after you graduated with your ME degree.
@@isaachossain2807 I returned to the auto junk yard I worked at as a kid where I got paid cash to do general repairs, fabrication, ext. I moved to the "tech triangle" around Raleigh NC for a year or so hoping for better opportunities and literally wound up working in a machine shop and digging ditches for a directional drill rig outfit.... Its a total slap in the face that BOEING is being run into the ground by an accounting major from VT. That said I've built one hell of a manufacturing facility for myself and I just picked up an Insta360 camera so I'm going to start producing some technical content for here and the R platform so there is certainly life beyond dismal employment opportunities and there is no shortage of cheap used machinery in the USA.
Maybe if people started in the trades (ie. Manufacturing, construction, etc) then went to school and got a degree relevant to the field they ALREADY work and have experience in, they wouldnt have this problem. Being informed about how an industry works and what jobs are out there is a good start too. Most people see degrees as a microwavable instant career, but ask anybody and they will tell you food is much better when its made in the oven.
It really does feel like only the top % of engineers in college can get a job in engineering easily, otherwise you gonna have to go on a battle to make your resume pop up, work on projects , portfolio, interview prep and everything. There will be jobs to apply for as I am a computer engineer which can do a number of fields but I am have have to put in the work, its not that bad tho cause I am not in debt
Its not always evem that.
Guy who was top of my class and as thesis designed new type of cake filtration sieve, went back as being normal industrial welder after graduation. He said it "pays him better with less effort"
Got my engineering degree in 1997. It was a constant struggle to get an engineering job and I had to settle for just a technician job. My engineering degree never paid off for me as I didn't have the skills to get engineering jobs.
That is somewhat weird.
You never looked for promotion as supervisor jobs?
Thats the typical career path for engineers here.
They go in bluecollar work in X place and after couple of years practical exp, they get promoted as supervisor. And through supervisor job all doors become open.
I think it has always been hard for the freshly graduated.
I graduated as a mechanical engineer 40 years ago.
There was a bit of an economic downturn at the time so no one wanted to hire someone with a piece paper and no practical experience when there were experienced people looking for a job
Dishearten, I went sailing for 18 months. When I returned things had changed and I had q job as a design engineer within a week.
Now retired after a varied and rewarding career. I was never unemployed in all those years..
I would say to any new graduate - persist and you will find something if you are passionate about your field.
I got an engineering degree in 2015 and I mailed it back to my university last year. I told them it was worthless and they should take it back. It never even got me an interview, or any sign that any engineering employer had even looked at my resume.
Owch, there really is a supply demand imbalance, so many degrees, not as much demand for them anymore
Did you do any internship or outside ciriculars? Getting entry level work arent that hard if you do these
that kinda sounds like a you problem
I got my physics degree on 2019 and I have yet to land an interview pertaining to engineering or physics. What exactly are they looking for? The next Nikola Tesla or Richard Feynman?? I can perform Multivariate Calculus computations and Linear Algebra, not to mention permutations and probability calculations. Is that somehow not enough to work on developing products on a team?
How big is your portfolio
I was fortunate that when I graduated from university with a BSEE I had a job waiting with a small electronics firm that was a supplier for a major defense contractor. My first job opened the door to my second job at the defense contractor. I worked for them for almost 20 years in three different divisions and on a number of different programs. This in turn led me to leave for small optoelectronics firm that had been doing interesting things. I've been there for 26 years, got another postgraduate degree, and a number of patents. I still look forward to going into the lab every day because I know something new will be waiting for me. Other than some of the government paperwork - FDA, FCC, and so on - it's interesting and not boring.
I understand my experience isn't the same as other engineers, but I'd like to think most engineers like their jobs.
I enjoyed this video, and I totally agree these people have been encouraging youth to study engineering for years! STEM STEM rah rah! there's a shortage! but how we struggle to find jobs in our field is sad! We got played, and lied to. no one told me it would be THIS hard to compete
I’ve had several engineering jobs that really involved very little engineering in practice and pretty much wasted most of the stuff I studied getting my degree.
2019 Mechanical Engineering grad here. 95% of graduates at my mid-level University were not fit to be engineers; however, they got the degree. Every employer I have talked to says engineers are everywhere; but it is hard to find a good engineer. This issue is made worse due to technicians and tradesman (machinists, fabricators, welders, etc) retiring out of the workforce and there is rarely anyone competent or interested enough to learn from them. The universities don't touch on it enough, which is a shame as these people were the foundation behind WW2 and putting people on the moon.
Huh? How exactly were they not fit?
@@tbcstuff3634 the could do the math, but not the design. Engineering is about design and inventing.
@@TheRogerhill1234 Design is easy, what are you even talking about?
@@tbcstuff3634 sorry, I should have said sound/successful design
Many companies grab their engineers before they qualify, a win/win situation. It saves the undergraduate a further year of university and saves the company the wages a qualified engineer would command.
After all, it only takes one engineer to sign off on the project.
What could possibly go wrong?
What indeed!
Working engineer here. I've been at the same job right out of college for almost 6 years at a big corporate American company. The trend is to keep cutting down the engineering staff and expect the remaining ones to pick up the slack rather than hiring replacements. Maybe that's why people struggle to find jobs? We need to balance being "team players" with speaking up that we are overworked. It's a tough spot to be in.
It's funny, we need more medical doctors than engineers yet we limit people in med school and allow everyone in engineering school. Why?
Because companies want to lower wages of engineers. It is that simple. More people with engineering degree, the less they need to pay them. That is why there also is not really a shortage.
AMA limits number of MD graduates. We have to import foreign MDs to fill hospital residency positions.
@@stephenmoerlein8470 Then I think they should reconsider this. There is a need for MDs because people need help. If anyone says that Medical School gets the best and brightest people, they should go to the Physics or Engineering graduate lounge.
It's all about effing money.
I have to say: the people in high school who joked around and were jerks to the nerd scientists and engineers in the 90s are the ones making more money than them and deciding the nerds' fates.
The best or the most eager to learn students have jobs way before graduation. The rest either do not have right attitude, character or interest. Enigeer is not a profession, it is a life style.
Im 17 and got accepted for an engineering school but the internet making me think i should go somewhere else, idk if i can handle studying that hard and spending that much just to be underemployed
Take a year off and do some soul searching. Go travel or party or work, then decide in a year if you still want to do it. Loads of people take a year between high school and uni. Just ask the program people if you can defer for a year
@@OliverFooteBut don't you think that taking a break from school will make you lazy?
Too few engineering students I meet are not really interested in engineering. They were good at math in high school and simply want a good job. You can tell by their hobbies. Maybe 10 percent actually love the craft
In in
In interviews I asked what kind of hobbies that they did that might be related to their engineering interests.
I graduated engineering in 2021, got my engineering license last year, and now I'm stuck looking for a job, with everyday feeling like maybe I was not meant to go engineering.
I got engineering degree and worked 6 months as hired hand as project engineer. After the 6 month project was over, my contract ended and now I have tried to get any industrial job. But been searching for 5 months and becoming desperate.
@@jarskil8862How is it going now?
A lot also depends on when you graduate. I was an EE/Applied Math double major and graduated when the whole defense industry was laying off a lot of engineers, which made it difficult for new graduates to land engineering roles. I ended up in IT, which I'm cool with because I made more than the few classmates who did end up in engineering roles (after a couple of years in the field). I also have a lot more variety than they do.
This disconnect is Companies asking for years of experience for entry level positions. It took me 2 years to find work after graduating with an ME degree. Once you get employed and secure some xp, t shouldn't be difficult to find work if you decide to move on.
This applies to most degrees. I was not employed in my degree at first, then was later for a short time .. then later in a technical field that fit me best. BTW, my employment/careers were all in the private sector, as it should be noted, that no public education will prepare you for the real private corporate world.
The same can be said if you have a bachelors of science in Chemistry, it is extremely difficult to find a job related to chemistry without a masters degree or higher and that can be very expensive on top of the undergrad degree you got.
Chemistry degree major here, thinking about going back for a second bachelors in engineering. Better job prospects as an engineer than those with a masters or PhD in chem.
So many Chem jobs in the west are analytical chemistry jobs too. These jobs are also usually badly paid for the amount of work you have to put in and knowledge you have to acquire.
I learnt this the hard way. Though it's not the end of the world. Chemistry students can easily transition into engineering or medical or even law such as patent law, which have significantly better prospects.
That is unless your heart is really set on going the whole route and staying in chemistry. You most definitely need to get a PhD to get a decent chemistry based job, but even then choose your PhD thesis wisely, as I have known so many fellow students who went the PhD route, only to end up as the manager at said analytical testing labs.
You've definitely got to choose a PhD niche in chemistry that is relevant to the current worlds technologies being developed to get anything resembling a well paid and fulfilling career.
From what I've been looking at, that is the same case with the vast majority of science degrees in egeneral.
Is chemE really worth it? I got a fully paid scholarship to study chemistry abroad but I'm thinking of turning it down to pursue chemE. should I do that?
@@rheahayek7444 If its for your undergrad take the full ride. Hard sciences are safe (coming from a physicist) because you can always pursue paid higher education and switch major. For instance if you get your bachelors in chem you could go for a masters/PHD in chemE, Physics, matsci etc and the school will pay you a stipend to go there. If you go this route a research experience for undergraduate (REU) is a great resume builder.
Another variable that is hard to quantify...in the US companies bring over many engineers from other countries on visa's and pay them much less than US grads.
Lol I got a degree in electrical engineering, but after 2 years of nonstop interviewing and not getting a job I just gave up and became a cinematographer. I had 2 years of experience working with power/ control systems for PVD as well as 2 years of leading a team developing a product for a startup, and yet despite that experience I didn’t have enough for an entry level position. I wanted to be an engineer so bad, but after 100+ interviews with no success I completely gave up hope.
Graduated as civil engineer. I Work as a construction project manager building hospitals. I lightly use my engineering schooling frequently in the course of my duties. The biggest being the ability to think critically and solve complex problems
and to tell everyone to shut up, and listen to you, as you have an engineering degree !!! How fun is that?
Graduates: We can't find jobs as engineers
Employers: We refuse to pay engineers what they want
Government: Our country has shortage of engineers
Me: *Grabs a tub of popcorn*
I mean starting engineers can ask way too much money.
Here its very simple. Engineering unions have decided the mininum pay which is recommended for starting engineers. Then there is proper experience ladder that shows how the wage should go up with years of experience.
I’m at the tail end of my ME degree and I had a similar feeling hit me. Wherever you look there’s just nothing and what is available (if you lucky enough to get it) requires you to move to the other side of the country for 3 months and do nothing at a computer until you get laid off. I like mechanical engineering and I’m gonna stuck out my degree but I probably should have just worked a trade and when to college later if I still wanted to.
Nothing stopping you from taking the engineering degree and using it to go get a real job at one of those high paying trades jobs, is there? The tradie with a full degree in engineering is probably going to be seen as the most qualified contractor in the phone book.
Hello Mr Foote, you can blame all of the above but I think the biggest problem is the student not asking questions and doing research on where the jobs are. I went to college for theater and music then looked up jobs in those fields a month after college started and I realized I made a huge mistake. No one makes money in those fields. I dropped out at end of semester and at least I have no debt. Thanks for the video!
You’re not the only one, I graduated and realised even if I did get an engineering job I wouldn’t be able to handle the stress. So still floating around.
I studied engineering and have worked as an engineer for 20 years. Finding my first job was incredibly frustrating (I was unemployed for over a year) because companies only wanted to hire people with experience. If you stick with it and get through your first couple of years working, though, it's awesome.
After graduating college in 1992, I was never able to find a job related to electrical engineering in my area. Being underemployed is the story of my life.
The problem is that your education is too narrow. Get into Electronics at home, design circuits, have fun. Get into hobby CNC machine tools, 3D printing, 3D modelling. You can't expect to make a living with too few arrows in your quiver. I do all these things and I'm never short of work.
@@rogerfroud300 I have gotten into equipment repairs and had two IT related businesses, that's how I got by.