Why Students Are Leaving Engineering

Ted writes "A former engineering major has written an interesting article explaining why he thinks many smart students are not studying engineering anymore." Many business leaders have commented on the lack of engineers and several companies have even started initiatives to help bolster our diminishing ranks. Will these measures be enough, or does the system require much more drastic measures?

Article summary

[seanadams.com]

Individual with neither passion nor aptitude for engineering attempts engineering degree, finds it tough, fails, and blames the system. Aside from the math being hard, he complains that the parties were dull.

We should make our engineering programs easier and more glamorous so that more people can hack it. This will help our colleges turn out better scientists and innovators.

Hard work

[BWJones]

Yeah, yeah. The complaint is familiar. In my undergraduate career, we routinely had to deal with taking 13 credit hours of science courses like chemistry, molecular biology and genetics, slaving away in labs until late into the evening while friends taking business courses were taking 18 credit hours for classes that started at 10:00am and were finished by 3:00pm.

Any of us in the sciences can relate horror stories like the molecular neurobiology exam that I took where upon receiving my midterm exam found myself stunned to be looking at a grade of 48%. My look of pain caused the professor to exclaim to me: "What are you worried about? You got the class high". Or how about the mid level Calculus course I took that was taught by a TA who could speak little english, but perfect Russian and often lapsed into it along with weird non-traditional symbols. She routinely exclaimed to us that we were stupid and she should not be teaching a "remedial" class, which honestly may have been, but for someone who came into the sciences from being a film major, I needed the refresher as the only previous Calculus I had was in high school.

But you know what? Science and engineering are hard. That's the honest truth. The classes are difficult, and sometimes you need to show initiative by going outside the class to other resources to master the material in the face of crappy teaching assistants. Part of the system is making it through all of the obstacles like late nights of study, long hours in the lab, poor teaching assistants, etc...etc...etc... It shows that you can 1) persevere, 2) learn, 3) troubleshoot and 4) Work Hard. I am not saying that things should not be improved. Rather, I think they should be improved, but I don't want our scientists, physicians and engineers to be sliding by either.

For those students who may be learning challenged, I am sensitive to those issues as well, but there may be some things that are simply not achievable for all students. That is a reality and those students should be counseled to pick a major that is doable for their skills. Or they should simply realize that it may take them longer to graduate. And before anyone starts shouting me down on this, you should know that I have dyslexia and tend to be a slow reader which makes things for someone with a doctorate a bit hard, but this is the career I wanted and to compensate, I spend more time reading than my colleagues. I knew I could hack it though and just work harder than others to stay current.

Why?

[gamer4Life]

1) Alot of work
2) Alot of theory with little practice
3) Less time to socialize (alot of work)
4) Pay is less than other professions that require less work.
5) No girls in class, and at work after you graduate.

Did I miss something?

Re:Article summary

[b0r1s]

There's also a bit of complaining about the poor state of advanced education, which has some validity as well.

I spent a lot of money (in loans and scholarships) to go to a GREAT school. Many of my friends took the free ride to the local state school, and found that their professors didn't teach, the TAs didn't care, and they walked away knowing very little. The cause of this problem is complex, but the state of public secondary teaching is slacking, and that's bound to impact the graduates at some level, too.

It's Not All That Bad

[filmmaker]

From the Article: "Find a way to teach engineering to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell."

I've gone back and forth and back again on this...and right now I'm of the mind that if you can't learn math by sense of smell, well, na-na-na, hey-hey-hey goodbye. Nobody held my hand through Asian, Russian, German and Indian math and computer science profs and incompetent grad student assistants and a myriad of other difficulties (in getting a BA mathematics). Yeah, it's not a perfect world, but if this kid was half as smart as he thinks he is, he'd have made it despite any obstacles. I mean, he kept going on about being a "verbal" learner...and if you're out there, dude, math is not a "verbal" topic...just FYI.

Why are fewer people becoming engineers?

[MsWillow]

Simple answers: P*ss-poor pay, insane hours, unreasonable deadlines and no real power. I was a senior software engineer, and lived through all that, and hated that part of my chosen career. Watching morons making more money, making decisions based on ?horoscopes? ?coin tosses? ?eeny meeny miney moe? really sucked rocks.

Since then, I've steered bright kids into an engineering *hobby* and a far more lucrative, less stressful career in management.

The guy is right.

[Concern]

I can see it now. Cue the chorus of people who say, "this guy must be dumb, no wonder he washed out."

You know what? Bullshit. He has a point.

During my four years of undergraduate, I did my share of engineering, CS, physics, and I threw in an extra liberal arts minor just because I was bored. My experience was exactly like his. The only difference is that I didn't want law or medicine, and was determined to suffer.

I learned mostly outside of class - primarily on the job (I paid for school by already working in the field I was studying). There are always exceptions, and exceptional teachers. Few and far between. For the most part the place was ridiculous, and I constantly pitied the kids who had to actually rely on the teachers to learn.

The sad fact is, the pedagogical technique is absolute shit at the university level. Absolute shit, even in some of the supposedly "great" American schools. The comparison to the secondary level, with its few remaining standards and shattered, vague but lingering sense of professionalism, is stark. These people often have no idea how to teach, and there is very little expectation that they should. There is no requirement for communication skills, metaphorical skills, or even language skills. The grading practices are ludicrous - almost dadaesque. There is no oversight. No standards. For fun, add critical first year classes with 250 students to a teacher. And of course, quite a few of them just plain suck altogether. As an educational environment, it is completely out to lunch.

The math curricula is particularly noxious, but the problem is by no means limited to mathematics. The best I can say of them is that the department may have seen itself as a filter rather than a teacher, selecting the few people who already know as much as they do and can prove it through arcane and torturous inquisition, and discarding the rest. But were they really such big believers in "natural talent" and "high standards?" This theory flies out the window when you see the entire class curved up 50 points. I once saw someone who failed a midterm and skipped a final curved up to a C-. It wasn't about standards. It was just completely non-functional. But this guy expresses it much better than I do.

Making excuses for these people is pointless. If you paid thousands of dollars to learn Differential Equations and got a gibbering 24 year old who barely understands them himself and can even more barely speak your language to explain it, you just got robbed.

I hate to say it, but it feels like the final stages of the great educational decline. We've been letting the public educational system burn at every level for decades, and now I think our higher educational institutions are finally starting to break...

Re:Hard work

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother? So you can have a 10-year career lifespan and then be laid off by the guy who did start his classes at 10 AM and end them at 3 PM, then went out drinking; who, incidentally, makes more than you?

Depends on the type of engineering

[zerus]

In my field, we've seen almost a 40% increase in undergrad enrollment over the past few years, so I doubt that it's every engineering field that's losing students. Sure since the tech bubble burst, students that would have studied a CS or related field might rethink their plans and pick a different major, but that's not every field. Nuclear, Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, etc etc have all seen steady increases in enrollment. It's most likely just students forecasting what field they think they can get a job in based on the current day demand.

no point to be an engineer in the US

[sunilhari]

How about after finishing a bachelor's and a master's degree with a 3.5 GPA, your job gets outsourced to India, China, or any other cheaper country?

Companies are giving real incentive to be an engineer.

That's what I did, and now I'm in med school, training for a job that can't be outsourced.

me

[moosesocks]

Well, I can give you my perspective.

I'm a college freshman. I eventually want to be an engineer.

I also want to learn other things too. Enginnering schools are simply not conducive to doing that. Every course you take is likely to be tied to your major in some way or another. That doesn't sound very fun to me.

Right now, I'm taking Psychology and Economics in addition to the requisite Physics & Calc I'll need to go to grad school for enginnering. Although I don't see myself becoming an economist or psychologist, I'm thoroughly enjoying the courses, and can definitely tie what I'm learning back into real life and just about any career I choose to go into.

Next semester, I'll probably be taking some english, and possibly some history. I really don't think I could bear loading my schedule full of science courses (which tend to have a disproportinately large workload). Friends I have at engineering schools seem to be bored out of their minds and stressed beyond reasonable limits.

Simply put, if you become an engineering student, and find out that you hate it, you're pretty much screwed. If I end up not going into engineering, I'll still have a great liberal arts education to fall back on, and at the very least, I'll be able to write well.

Engineers

[Mark_MF-WN]

You know what? Everytime I cross a bridge, ride an elevator, or fail to be crushed by a collapsing building, I'm thankful that engineering schools work the living crap out of engineers.

Engineering is too important to be easy. The right way to get more engineers into circulation would be better pay -- it's basic supply and demand. When demand exceeds supply, prices must go up.

It's funny how corporations love economics right up until the point where it involves paying intelligent people higher wages.

Alternative summary

[cpeikert]

Instruction in math, engineering, and sciences is abysmal. At least, according to the author.

I had some phenomenal instructors at my own Smartypants U, but there were some bad ones, too. And even the best of them sometimes failed to communicate the concepts well. Ideally there would be plenty of instructors who can really capture the students' imagination and communicate the joy and beauty of the ideas underlying mathematics, computer science, and engineering. Lord knows that these fields have no shortage of beautiful and powerful ideas.

However, it seems to be true that teaching is undervalued in the typical faculty job. There aren't many reliable metrics taken, and of those that are, there seems to be little accountability for poor performance. For research output, on the other hand, judgement is precise and swift. Under such a regime, how can one blame a professor for focusing on his research? Certainly there are many cases of faculty who are brilliant researchers and teachers, but in the more marginal cases, it's typically the teaching that gets the short end of the stick.

For the long-term health of mathematics and science, I think more focus must be on inspiring students within those fields, and that requires uniformly good teaching and advising. How we get there, I have no idea.

Family story

[Tablizer]

My brother is a mechanical engineer. Nobody is breaking down his door to hire him away from a dwindling company. He often has to fly to Asia to train others how to replace him and his coworkers for less money. He is looking to start up a non-engineering business of some kind to make good money the way most of his successful friends do: start their own (non-tech) business and master it over time. The "American Education Dream" is dwindling. The real money in the US is in salesmenship and ownership.

Reaction to globalization?

[slobber]

Could it simply be that an average engineer-to-be looks at countries like China and India where engineering is becoming *the* career choice (including software engineering) and given that engineering profession is highly outsourceable chooses some other more locale-dependent career like doctor or lawyer? It is kind of difficult to compete with someone who is willing to work for a fraction of your salary... At the same time, accepting lower salary is not an option because of the difference in the cost of living. Thus, bye-bye engineering career.

I had no passion for it and still made it.

[emil]

The author is spot on in quite a few respects - engineering is more a test of endurance than intelligence. Professors are assigned courses that have nothing to do with their areas of research, and it shows. Most TAs hate their jobs and constantly attempt to unionize because of poor working conditions.

Shortly before I started engineering, a crazed physics TA went on a shooting rampage through my campus, killing seven people before he turned the gun on himself. Yes, being a TA at a major university can be a very bad career move.

Get as much education as you can from a community college, where teaching is the main goal and not a sideline. It will do wonders for your GPA.

University Professors take a liking to students for the flimsiest of reasons - in my case, after compiling twm for hpux and replacing vue, my 68000 assembler professor hounded me to enter graduate school (an offer I sanely declined).

The whole system is a sham. Worthless waste of time, just to have a line item on your resume.

It;'s about the attitude.

[mrchaotica]

You know, the guy in the article could almost be describing my school (Georgia Tech), except that I haven't noticed as many incompetant teachers, and they seem to care more (but then again, it could very well be that the guy was ignoring the help available).

However, despite the school tradition of complaining, it's almost always self-deprecating humor rather than genuine unhappiness. Around here, we take pride in our 40%s, when the average is 20% -- numbers don't mean anything without context, after all. Also, most of us were warned before even applying to the school that we should expect our grades to average a letter grade below what we got in high school.

You're absolutely right: this guy has completely the wrong attitude, so it's no wonder he gave up. It's just as well, too: everyone I've met with his kind of attitude would have made a horrible engineer anyway! As my Statics professor says: "When engineers make mistakes, people die. You must be ever vigilant, and you must be perfect." And the only way you can do that is if you really enjoy what you're doing.

If this guy did become an engineer, he'd kill people!

funding and jobs?

[fermion]

What would help the most if the religious freaks did not get away with attacking science. It is very hard to do quality engineering when you are raised to believe that there is no cause and effect, merely god. Or that math and science is the devils work.

Alternatively, kids are increasingly being told that they must make money fast. We have spoiled children and criminals who have done little if any work at all levels of government, while the ones who have genuinely studied and work hard to advance human knowledge, and in the process create the knowledge that allows engineers and businessmen to create all the products we rely on, are vilified.

I mean who wants to be a science teacher if parents are going to say you are a devil worshipper. Who wants to be a math teacher if all the people in power say they never were good at math and it never did them any harm. Who wants to be an english teacher if the highest authorities are saying they never read. And without someone to teach kids these skills, there really are no engineers. And increasing the hostile environment, at leas in the US, is causing fewer students to enter American universities from abroad, which ultimately has a significant impact on the ability of the US to peacefully spread it's message of democracy.

A less touchy issue is simply the time needed to get an engineering degree and funding. A student will often need 5 years to get an undergraduate, and, if he or she wants job security, will probably wish a masters which is two more years. There are fields in which one can make as much money after going to school for less time. There are many degrees in which you can still party your freshman year and pass your classes. There are many degrees that you can finish in four years, and not risk having your funding cut off because you are not making suitable progress.

In the end, we are not training engineers. When I was in school, the number of qualified students at the high school and college level were high. It was a challenge to get into programs. The focus on national testing is reducing the number of students who can independently and creatively solve problems, and as a result reducing the number of students that are currently qualified to enter the programs. Popular schools have to turn people away, but the rest go out begging for minimally qualified students.

If we, as a nation or world, believe we already know everything, that everything can be gotten from a single book, then no engineering is needed. IMHO, we need to be curious, know that the universe is more interesting than a story told in a few pages, and be humble enough to admit that we cannot completely understand the mind, intent, or complete working of what we each consider holy.

He is, sadly, right.

[monstermonster]

Having gone through (and survived) such a program during my many years of school, I have to say that this guy is right.

There are those that have said that this must have occurred because this guy lacked aptitude or passion, but having seen a large number of people with both who simply got caught up in an often fickle system where if you entered during the wrong semester, you got Professor X, who was interested in the reputation of his school (and thus wanted to make the course "hard") but was totally uninterested in whether or not his students learned anything (because he had research to do or books to write or whatever else). This is more avoidable as an undergraduate than as a graduate student, and the fact of the matter is, there were courses where the folks that excelled were the people who'd taken the course before. Or (more often) the large groups of people who were cheating.

Science and math are hard, and anyone who tells you differently is selling something. The thinking isn't "better" than in the liberal arts, but the learning curve is steeper, and it's frankly a lot more work. I've done both, and it is a lot more work. But there are plenty of talented individuals who really want to work in engineering fields who simply get to the point where they say "screw this" because they realize that research universities are, in general, a lot more interested in funding and their reputations (often apparently judged by how many people they cut from the program in the first semester) than actually teaching anyone anything.

People, as they grow up, learn to cut their losses. We need to start worrying about the quality of education and not necessarily only admitting those to the discipline who will say "Yes, sir, can I have another" after every boot to the head.

*shrug*

[everphilski]

... and those of us who stuck it out, who were able to look past our GPA's, who were able to realise "hey, getting a 55% on an exam is OK if the average was a 45%", we are enjoying better than average pay and benefits in our engineering jobs. You get back what you put in. Freshmen engineeering courses are BUILT to weed out the weak, the people who won't stick it out.
-everphilski-

Re:Article summary

[SilverspurG]

Many of my friends took the free ride to the local state school, and found that their professors didn't teach, the TAs didn't care, and they walked away knowing very little

But, if they put up with the boredom properly, they found themselves easily situated to take the appropriate engineering tests and the GRE and move on to another 4 years of the same dull mindless grind. Then then could graduate with an advanced degree and shoe themselves right in to a cozy salary.

Like you, I went to a really great school, and then found myself in a working world that didn't care. Unless you have extraordinary social contracts the salary will be based 90% on the degree. Had I known then what I know now, I would've saved my money, slacked my way through state school, and slacked my way into a cushy PhD position.

Re:Article summary

[macrom]

Here's a better way to summarize the article :

If we're going to churn out students with a passion for engineering studies that actually KNOW their stuff, we need more teachers like Dr. Richard Feynman and less TA's who learned barely enough English to fill out their student visa forms.

And he's right. Some of us decided to suffer through our science and math courses, but many students turn to majors that are a bit less stressful in order to actually enjoy their college years. What's the fun in studying 5 hours a day for a single class only to get a 35% on a test? And then find out that 35% was a GOOD grade?!?! Most people don't want to see their tuition used in that manner. It's just us die hards that tend to tough it out. And you need more than a few die hards to keep a field of study moving forward for this country's future.

What complete BS

[zymurgy_cat]

The author takes his own personal experience and tries to extrapolate it to "thousands" of other students. What bullshit.

My first chemical engineering professor (Dr. Edmond Ko) set me on fire. He taught us how to solve problems. He even built up our confidence with his great proclamation: "I can solve any engineering problem. I simply apply the same principles, be it chemical engineering, mechanics, electrical engineering, whatever. Once I apply basic principles, I can look up any specific equations or methods I may need." He made us believe we could do the same.

Throughout my engineering studies, I had professors that blended humor, real world experience, and good 'ole basic problem solving to give me and my fellow students the tools to succeed. To this day, I still attribute my success to their efforts.

Did I have bad professors? Yes. I had the ones who had no heart for teaching, passed the buck to untrained TAs (who were just as frustrated as me), and couldn't teach a fish to swim. But they were few and far between.

Engineering is in trouble in the US not because of education but because of the business world. Why study engineering when some bonehead MBA can get a big bonus while still screwing things up? (And I have an MBA!) Why devote your skills and time to building a great product when your job is going to be shipped overseas anyway? I, like many other engineers, came out of college eager to apply my skills and help build new products and processes. It's been the business world, and its utter lack of respect for the abilities of engineers, that's crushed my love of engineering.

Weed-out courses are necessary

[kabdib]

When I went through the weed-out courses in college, all I can say is "Thank God they were there."

I was working at the time. A co-worker of mine attending the same college would approach me around the end of every semester and ask for "a little help with an assignment." Usually it was several assignments, two of which were late and the last of which was the final "hard" project that was due in a couple of days, and the cow-orker was completely lost. It wasn't a "little help," it was "please do my work for me." I would give broad hints, but not any code. Three or four semesters of this, and the person was gone.

If I was working with that person today . . . *shudder*. I have worked with some folks who apparently skated through coursework and managed to get hired anyway, and it can be pretty miserable. [Hint: You want your 'A' people to hire more 'A' people. Not 'B' people. 'B' people hire 'C' people and then you are totally screwed and you might as well toss in the hand-grenade and start another company.]

Re:Engineers

[arminw]

....The right way to get more engineers into circulation would be better pay.....

As long as an investment banker, stock trader or lawyer makes several times what an engineer or engineering teacher gets, there is a big disincentive to study engineering. Supply/demand appears not to be working or there is too much supply or too little demand for engineers. Liberal arts graduated company execs want to hire engineers for cheap and have convinced the govt. to let them get that cheap labor overseas.

Re:Article summary

[DarkBlackFox]

Easier? Hell no.

Watering down the material won't help anything. Instead of students giving up/failing because the material is "too hard," you'll end up graduating students who lack the skills necessary to do good things(tm). Engineering is a challanging field. If students don't learn how to accept and cope with challenging problems, then they'll fail in the real world too. I'd not want to be hooked up to a life support system or drive in a car designed by a D- engineering student.

More glamorous? Tough call. On the one hand, you'll attract more potentially bright people (though many who would consider engineering as a career are already well aware of the triumphs and tribulations of such a trade). On the other hand, you may end up with the "fast and easy training = big pay check" crowd, which causes all sorts of problems (see above).

Re:me

[zerus]

That's a good strategy, taking courses outside your major that is. I took a couple of minors to even out my education, it also kept me sane during hours or math, advanced physics, etc. If you find you don't like engineering after your junior year, I'd stick with it just to get the degree. Should you want to go to grad school, you can always switch your curriculum to what you want to study. Usually a department would just make you take remedial courses in that major to "catch up" to their traditional students. Keep in mind that a bachelors in engineering just shows that you can do the basics (meaning you can pass the FE exam without too much trouble if you want the grad school route). A bachelors won't make you an expert in the field or a definitive source of all things related to that field, but it shows that you have a good base in the fundamentals and a capacity for future study or field work. Keep up with the extra classes, they'll pay off

Washout is right

[mr_gerbik]

Calling himself a washout is the only thing he got right in this article. Plain and simple: engineering school did not fail him, he failed engineering school.

Re:Engineers

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, and what makes that even more ridiculous is that when a doctor (for example) screws up, only one person dies. When an engineer screws up, bunches of people die!

Re:Weed out courses

[Propaganda13]

Definitely agree about the weed out courses. I remember taking a couple and thinking "This is supposed to be a level 100 class? WTF?" After a semester or two, I looked back on them differently.
Other things I noticed is that he went against his aptitude and that he cruised through high school with good grades. You know what I learned by cruising through high school with good grades? I learned that I didn't have to study. When I hit some hard classes, I didn't have the built-in study skills. I still go a decent GPA and a CS degree, but I know I would have done a lot better and possibly learned more if I would have had better study skills/habits.

Engineering is not about pain and suffering.

[six11]

Some of the comments I have read are summarized like this: "This kid couldn't hack it with engineering, so he complains to the web that it's the system's fault. Lame!"

I do not think that Kern said things in the right way, but I generally agree with him. Look guys, engineering is not about pain and suffering. An engineering curriculum should help you learn about a limited set of facts and theoretical basics that will enable you to solve complex design tasks that real-world situations will throw at you. It is increasingly obvious that the ability to design creative solutions to real-world problems is at a premium (and this is not something that a typical curriculum teaches). Pain and suffering are not part of that equation. Kern is pointing out that there is an unnecessary amount of pointless heartache, wasted hours in lectures given by inept teachers, and horribly crafted textbooks. To those of you who get on people's cases when they complain about the inefficiency of the engineering-education situation: Aren't you just bragging? Or lying? Or just beating your chest because you were able to manage the pain?

I think the most important part of his article came at the end:

the United States will grow ever more reliant upon foreign brainpower to design its scientific and manufacturing endeavors.

I'm not sure if Kern meant this in the way that I take it, but to me he hit it right on the head. It's about design. The ability to solve certain known sets of problems computationally is essentially solved--it can be delegated out to machinery or people in other countries, even if they don't speak your language. The most interesting problems facing people these days are those that are not well-defined, or "wicked" problems as some would call them, and the only way to solve them--to engineer a solution--is by a human being, well-versed in the subject area, to creatively apply their knowledge to the area.

Good design can't be automated, but this automation is exactly what the American engineering environment is producing, because of this machoistic culture that has taken root. Engineering students are rewarded when they are able to play to a system that assesses everything that is quantifiable. Those things that are not quantifiable (such as the ability to effectively solve problems with teams or design new solutions to problems) are not graded and therefore students can't afford to spend time honing those skills. I think Kern is right; we have an engineering education system that is inefficient, and I think that system is producing exactly the wrong kind of engineers for the American engineering environment to be sustainable in the future.

Re:Article summary

[jsimon12]

I thought it was more like this:

"Blah Blah Blah.....I was the bomb in highschool everyone said I was smart I even me....blah blah blah.....Mom and Dad sent me an school......blah blah blah.....teachers didn't coddle me like in high school....blah blah blah......nobody loves me.....blah blah blah......Math was tough.....blah blah blah......I quite and switched to a BS degree.....blah blah blah....This is why America doesn't have engineers.....blah blah blah."

Gimme a break artcle writer, and take credit for your own failure, blaming others is one reason this country is going in the shitter, no one takes responsibity for their own actions, it is always someone elses fault.

Re:Article summary

[Maxo-Texas]

Agree on several points.

1) He was basically taking the 5th year of high school physics. The professors have absolutely no interest in wasting another year of their life treating trivial material to anyone (even a brain).

2) Grades are a joke. They use a bell curve. You hope you don't get in a class with the next Hawking- because he will get the "A". The main point is to reduce the number of people in the senior classes to a managable level.

3) If that engineering wasn't easy for him, then he would have never cut it as a real engineer. So he was properly filtered out by a system designed to do just that.

Where I do agree with him...
College used to teach- now grad students do the work- and in many cases they cannot teach.

What is not mentioned in the article...
These days, you go through all that hell, and in many cases you can't get a job at ANY pay level because a foreign national is willing to do it for a fraction of the pay. That's niether right nor wrong- it's just a fact. There is no point in smart but sub-genius level american's going into these fields right now. There may be in 20 years when out economies even out or we have a war and see the stupidity of relying on foreign nationals who are not U.S. citizens for our critical programs.

A smart but not genius person will reasonably pick the highest compensated field with good employment prospects that they enjoy or at least do not actively despise.

Geniuses are different tho- they will fight the material easy with or without help- usually will get to bypass the trivial courses and skip straight to the good stuff by the time they are 20 (if not earlier). And they will always find employment at decent wages + benefits.

Outside of geniuses- there are about 3 billion people smarter than average who are increasingly competing for the same jobs.

I'm currently studying engineering

[raoul666]

I'm in my second year, doing computer engineering. And yeah, it's hard. I wish I had the courseload of my girlfriend, who has less than half the number of hours in-class a week than me. But at the same time, I'm actually learning how to do something. Not how to get a masters, not how to get into law school, I'm learning *real* skills. At the end of my 5 years (doing co-op) I'll have 20 months of experience as well as an education that means something. I'll be a professional. Yeah, maybe I'm young and foolish and the real state of things will become clear to me later on. I don't know. But at least I'm not like the thousands of arts students taking classical studies, anthropology, and women's studies.

Also, I RTFA, and how the hell can you screw up a titration that many times??? Once you do it once, you know roughly how much you're gonna need, so next time you slow done 5mLs before that. Not hard. At all. Anyone mathematically inclined who puts in a fair bit of effort can do well enough in engineering. Trust me. I read /. instead of studying, and I'm getting through it fine.

Anyway, yes, students are leaving Engineering. Good. All the more demand for me to cash in on.

Some reasons...

[andreyw]

1) Engineering programs are generally-speaking harder.
2) It's hard to party the night away when you have 20 FSA's to compile into REGEXes. See 1)
3) Some see it as ``grunt'' work with no future, and in particular, no economic future due to dubious hiring practices abroad.

Hence, while previously a lot of people went into say, CS, because it was a money tree, now the only people hanging in there are those that actually are interested in CS.

Want engineering but also lib arts? Do science

[bitingduck]

I was on the fence whether to mod or post on this thread, but you just tipped me to post.

You're right that engineering schools in general aren't conducive to learning much liberal arts/history/whatever (though some may do a decent job of it). Science curricula, however do allow for more of the liberal artsy stuff, and will let you go into engineering later if you want, or something liberal artsy (with maybe a technical twist) later. I did physics (and eventually went on to a PhD in it) and managed to study abroad, take history and lit classes, be involved in extracurricular stuff that I'm still glad I did 20 years later. My current job is on the line between science and engineering (tips back and forth), but also occasionally benefits a lot from my liberal education.

A friend did a similar thing, doing chemistry and art history, and uses knowledge of both as a preservationist.

Another friend did biochemistry, also managed to spend a year abroad as an undergrad, is extremely well rounded in science and literature , and went on to a PhD in physics and is now a professor of engineering.

So my advice, if you like science and engineering and technical things, but also like the "soft" stuff, is to go science. Some schools even (in my opinion correctly) put science in the same college as literature and arts, rather than with engineering. Science (the real deal, with calculus and all) is as much a part of a good liberal arts education as art and literature are. If you go with a non-science major, getting into an engineering job or grad school could be hard, and if you go into engineering it could be tough to get into a non-engineering field. If you do a science major with a strong emphasis in a non-science thing, you can probably go either way.

If you want my opinion as to what science will be hot for a long time, it would be neuroscience, but you'll be better at it if you do it in a physics or chemistry (or electrical engineering) department rather than a dedicated neuroscience dept.

Research vs. Teaching

[Anonymous Coward]

At most universities, professors gain esteem and money for their research, not for their skills as teachers. The hiring committees ask, "How much have you published?"; not, "Do your students respect you and value your courses?"

Indeed, from the perspective of many professors, undergraduates are just a distraction. Thankfully, a handful become grad students -- then they have real value.

High school graduates need to choose their universities more carefully, selecting ones that claim to be undergraduate or teaching universities, not research institutions. Universities can be prestigious for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the undergraduate experience.

Research is important, and people who are brilliant researchers should be funded. In fact, the best researchers should be at separate institutes where there are no classes to take up their time. But universities in general should put teaching #1, research #2.

Re:Hard work

[BWJones]

Why bother?

Because it is a passion. I get to learn new things that nobody else knows yet. I get paid to do that.

So you can have a 10-year career lifespan

Screw that. 30-or more year career lifespans in academia are not uncommon.

nd then be laid off by the guy who did start his classes at 10 AM and end them at 3 PM, then went out drinking; who, incidentally, makes more than you?

If you were smart, you would be the one doing the science and calling the shots. I make it a policy to hire people that are smarter than I am, work hard, and the ex-jock business major can go work for someone else and make their life (perhaps yours?) miserable.

Re:Engineers

[grape jelly]

Watch what you wish for....imagine how abysmal the malpractice insurance would be.....

Re:Hard work

[Nasarius]

Why bother? So you can have a 10-year career lifespan and then be laid off by the guy who did start his classes at 10 AM and end them at 3 PM, then went out drinking; who, incidentally, makes more than you?

Because some of us are actually passionate about science and are willing to suffer through the intense education required to practice it.

Re:Hard work

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it's not about the money. Sometimes it's about the love of knowledge.

Re:Article summary

[cide1]

You got me. Your onto my plan. Co-op let me realize how the system worked before I graduated, so I didn't even have to leave to come back for grad school. An interesting side note on the GRE. Getting less than a perfect on the math section is a black mark against admission for grad school.

People whining about TA's language skills is a pet-peeve of mine. Im in the middle of Indiana. Outside of Purdue, the population is pretty homogenous. It doesn't matter. Now that I'm in grad school, and I go to conferences, I have to be able to talk intelligently with these same people. To work in any modern corporation, one must interact with many differant langauge backgrounds.

Engineering is hard. It just is. No amount of sugar coating will make it easier. Studying hard, going to office hours, going to class and actually doing the homework, instead of copying, makes one better. I partied my fair share, managed to play an intercollegiate sport, got exceptional grades, co-opped 6 terms, and am involved in many extra-curricular activities. I'm not an exceptionally smart person, I just work hard, and I budget my time.

What more can the government due to encourage higher education? Money is all over the place for qualified candidates. I got a full ride scholarship for a PhD from the National Science Foundation. I didn't get the scholarship because of a physics test score my freshman year, I got it because I was a problem solver, and I got to know many, many professors. Being on a first name basis with a professor is always a good thing. The fact that I can go to a state school, and from the day I step in the door as an undergrad, to having a PhD, only spend $30k in tuition is pretty amazing. And Indiana isn't the only state where deals like this exist. Residents of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, California, Washington, Iowa, Florida, and a whole bunch I'm forgetting have wonderful schools that are really cheap.

This guy washed out because he was looking to make a buck, not because he really wanted it. I'm glad he isn't designing my bridges.

Hear, Hear -- Note the *important* article portion

[weston]

"You just wait," I thought, gazing upon them like the ant regarding the grasshopper in the summer. "You party and blow off homework now, but in ten years, you'll be making merely wonderful money as investment bankers and consultants, while I'll be getting laid off from a great job at General Electric."

Business increasingly treats math & science talent as fungible and freely exchangable across borders, in an effort to cut costs, and salaries fall. And we all know how much social status and respect we afford to those skilled in math & science, right?

Add that to hit-and-miss quality of instruction, and in some cases, an intentionally withering gauntlet to run, and I agree with the author. The truly smart are looking elsewhere.

Me, I studied Mathematics.

Re:What complete BS

[DarkBlackFox]

Based on commentary like that, it sounds like this country needs more MBAs with engineering degrees. The lack of respect for engineers seems to come from the middle-management/PHB's with little to no concept of how the engineering process works, from ideas, to designs, to prototypes, to testing, to re-prototyping, to re-testing, etc, to final product. Most PHBs/managers seem to love setting timetables and deadlines to keep things streamlined and organized, and make sure everything looks good on paper for the investors and higher level PHBs/CEOs/what have you. Unfortunately for them (and for engineers), good design doesn't fit well on paper, or in schedules. Thus, products are rushed, engineers are overworked, scolded for slipping behind deadlines, and chastised when the product doesn't work as advertised. The result? Upper management looks at middle/lower level management and sees the pretty tables, pie charts, and timetables, and figures they're doing a bang-up job. So who else to blame? Engineers of course! Those lazy buggers didn't work fast enough to fit within the timeline. The grunts take the heat, while the managers celebrate with dinner parties and wine. (/rant)

The most successful engineering firms I've seen are those run directly by engineers. A couple of guys start up a company a few years after graduating from a decent engineering school. They stay relatively small, but do some amazing things, free of the pressures of multiple levels of management. It's a great thing, and shows what engineers can really do when given a healthy environment to work in.

It's also comforting to think virtually everything we use today was designed by an engineer. From cars, to toasters, to computers, to refridgerators, to bathrooms. Everything.

Re:Hard work

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a junior in electrical engineering at the same university the OP is affiliated with. I'm doing fine as far as grades and comprehension goes. I have had a strong interest in electrical engineering since long before college, so a somewhat poor experience in college hasn't been enough to discourage me. I plan to continue on after I earn my BS to get an MS and possibly even a PhD. I have to say, I agree with all of Mr. Kern's points. It's not that all engineering professors are bad, in fact I've had several that were great. However, I've had at least an equal number that try to explain things as if the students already understand the very concepts they are trying to teach. I have had teachers who assign so much homework that even students who don't have a job can't finish no matter how hard they work. I started university to learn engineering, not to prove that I have the constitution of a refrigerator. I've had teachers and teaching assistants who don't speak english well enough to convey fundamental concepts that are critically important to understanding the material being taught. Some textbooks that cost $140 are nearly useless. I never open them except to find the homework problems. Reading the text does not help me to understand the concepts being taught because the authors don't seem to understand that their audience is students who don't already fully comprehend the material at hand. I have no problem with making engineering students work hard. Engineers must work hard. I have a problem with professors who are not competent teachers continuing to be employed in spite of their awful teaching ability. Research is important, but students pay teachers to teach, not to do research. Rationalizing away and coming up with excuses for problems with the system is not going to help anything or fix anything. Only when people actually do something will the situation improve.

Engineering for the money is a tough way to go.

[TheNarrator]

I met this guy who was a web developer, worked hard, overtime , for crap wages, etc. He got laid off sent out 200 resumes and not getting a single interview. Now he owns a convienience store and rakes in the bucks. He went and sold $900 worth of champagne he bought at Costco for $4000 on New Years Eve! I met a guy who was an ex-molecular biologist doing mortgage brokerage which is glorified undergraduate business school homework and was making $26,000 a month out of his freakin apartment (NO this was not an MLMer trying to sell me shit, an actual good friend of a family member).

As an engineer I wouldn't recommend going into it unless you really like it and you're really good at it. Even if you're good you run into a big wall called marginal income taxes and the alternative minimum tax, if you work for a salary, once you start making six figures.

Going into engineering for the money is far more attractive for people who live in countries where the wage scale is wildly skewed to the point where you can live very well on a regular salary if you're an engineer making $20 an hour because the guy who works at the supermarket or cuts your hair or makes your clothes or cooks for you makes $2 a day (80 times less than what you make) not the $12/hour or even higher union wage they're making here.

I think he missed the point of engineering

[copeland3300]

In HS all your course material is spoon fed to you by the teacher. It's nothing more than taking notes and then memorizing them in time for the test. Engineering is different. You have to teach yourself. That's the point of engineering. The teacher, from my experience, is there to guide you when you have issues, but they certinly do not spoon feed you the material in the way that it was done in HS. As an engineering, you have to be smart enough to figure it out on your own, because in the real world, there is never anyone to spoon feed anything to you. Most of the time, engineers have to do stuff that hasn't been done before, and thus, they have to figure stuff out themselves. If someone liked how things were in HS, then they should stick to liberal arts.

Re:I had no passion for it and still made it.

[SchnauzerGuy]

I was actually in the Engineering building when the shootings [earthlink.net] you mentioned occurred...

The whole system is a sham. Worthless waste of time, just to have a line item on your resume.

Unfortunately, you apparently missed the most important part of your engineering education. I have long since forgotten how to do vector calculus and my 68k assembly is beyond rusty, but I'll never forget what one professor said on the very first day of class - "We aren't here to teach you things - we are here to teach you how to think".

That is the whole engineering education boiled down into one sentence. All of those "test[s] of endurance" are the best way that you can learn how to think like an engineer; how to analyze a problem and methodically develop a solution. It doesn't matter if you are designing bridges or writing software. And that line on your resume will open more doors than anything else on your resume. Getting a quality degree means tells a potential employer that you have the ability to stick with a difficult task and succeed.

In my own experience, while I have always been asked about my Electrical Engineering degree and education in job interviews, I have never been asked my GPA. It is like the joke:

What do you call the worst student graduating from med school?
Doctor.

Re:Why are fewer people becoming engineers?

[supabeast!]

You hit that one right on the head. I didn't stop building and designing networks because the work was hard, it was because I got sick of working for people who made decisions at random, promised bosses/clients the moon and stars, and then expected me to make amazing things materialize out of my ass over the course of a weekend.

If America really wants to recover it's position as the technically elite nation in this world, it's time to throw out the old-boys-club culture of management that consistently rewards and promotes corrupt morons who think technology is just magic pixie dust.

College lite(TM) (Patent pending)

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of paying for all that stuff you won't use, like professors that can't speak english, TA's that can't teach, and labs that are about following a bullet point list... just use College lite(TM). With College lite(TM), you only pay for what you really need. Step 1) here is your suggested reading list. Return when you are ready. Step 2) Test. Step 3) There is no step three. There is no step three!

Yeah, I know, that's a fantasy, but if you are going to have to basically teach yourself and you can demonstrate you know the material, why waste money being herded through with the rest of the cattle? Ah... I just answered my own question there, didn't I? Colleges are transforming [bbc.co.uk] into multinational corporations right under our noses. It isn't about teaching those students, it's about cashing in on that government subsidy and raiding the bank accounts of the impressionable.

Hey, studies funded by various universities show you'll make an extra million dollars in your lifetime with a college degree. Funny, but I've gotten one and I'm not seeing it. With the money I dumped into college, I could have made an extra million dollars in my lifetime by investing it in a mutual fund according to historical data provided by Fidelity. What a crock.

Too bad I can't get a 'do-over' for the last ten years of my life. I would take that money I wasted and invested it in *gasp* myself! You know, like... starting my own profit generating business. Then, in four years time, I would have been well established, and the desperately broke college grads would be begging me for a job they could have gotten with a high school diploma. Live and learn. I actively discourage the younger generation in regards to college, but 18 years of active brainwashing is powerful stuff. That's right old men from a different college era, children who have been brainwashed, mod me Troll. But ask a late twenty something what their college degree has done for them and they'll more than likely tell you, "Bupkiss."

Re:Engineers

[omgpotatoes]

But it's much easier for a doctor to screw up than an engineer. A building generally allows for higher margins for error than, say, a screaming three-year-old running a high temperature. Basic economics - higher risk requires higher return.

(I'm an engineer-in-training, so I'm allowed to put down my course... :-)

Re:Article summary

[PickyH3D]

This was not the summary.

The actual summary went more along the lines of: above average high school student attends Engineering school where the teachers cannot, and often do not, teach. Important material is covered infrequently and as quickly as possible by the teachers (beit a TA or not). Desires a learning environment where students are both encouraged to learn topics and where they are actually TAUGHT the topics. Also would like a place that does not put all of the burden on students.

It's idiots, and more specifically, professors like you that are causing the problems that this person talked about. "Weeding out" is exactly as he put it, the process of having students accept failures simply because of the inability of teachers to teach. For one thing, he never even said the math was particularly hard, but the teacher and the TA never TAUGHT it. No, instead, they forced students to read the book and go with it from there. I could only imagine what in the hell I would have thought as I looked at Discrete Math symbols used in lower level math books (MVC as he mentioned) that usually carry some sort of teachers explanation; I am very good at math, but I would be lying if I said I could read straight through a new level of math and understand it completely, especially before taking Discrete Math.

I am an engineer/programmer that is not failing his courses, but only out of my own abilities. My level of care for my courses is near the, "I could drop out tomorrow and not give a damn" level.

Re:Article summary

[twiggy]

I figured being on slashdot that clicking the comments would reveal stuff just like this snarky ass response. After all, it's mostly read by computer science and engineering type people. They went through the schooling, so obviously they're badasses, and the guy who wrote the article is just "weak" or unintelligent.

I've got news for you, folks:

I went to one of the "top" Computer Science schools in the country and the TA's and Professors there, with a few exceptions, were atrociously bad. I had Profs who couldn't speak english, TA's who couldn't speak english and had no experience whatsoever in teaching, and I had to compete with a bunch of stinky, non showering people who would have learned all this stuff on their own regardless of the piece of paper they're earning at Smartypants U.

Guess what?

If you want to cultivate a culture of science - you're not going to do it by crushing morale and making people hate it. You can sit here and say "good, I'm glad your dumb ass got weeded out!" all you want - but that makes you nothing but an arrogant ass who doesn't have any concept of where this country is going.

We're in line for a mass retirement of engineers that we have NO way to make up for - and you're cheering on your elitist selves because someone who showers regularly and wants to have a social life in addition to his education got "weeded out".

Believe me - the material itself is hard enough to weed out people who are not worthy of the professions they're studying for. Discrete math is tough stuff even with a good teacher, and forget about classes like combinatorial math - no slacker is going to get through that class alive.

You shouldn't be cheering that someone got discouraged by crappy teachers and demoralizing grading scales. In my high school, if the entire class did so badly on a test that a 50% would be curved to an "A", it was deemed that the teacher either A) wasn't doing his/her job to teach the material, or B) wrote the test poorly, because it's supposed to measure a grasp of the material to a certain point.

Something truly needs to be done about our colleges. They suck supremely.

The biggest culprit at MY school was that many Profs wanted to do research and had no interest in teaching - but they had to teach in order to be there. It showed very strongly in their classes. We either need to create separate research and teaching jobs, or be more selective about who we let do research (i.e. make sure they can teach well).

In any case - the bottom line is that there's major problems with our engineering curriculae these days. Just because you got your degree and he decided to change majors doesn't make him stupid, or you superior. What it DOES do, however, is strike a blow to our population of potential engineers - which is in DIRE need of growth.

Being a CS major made me hate what I used to love.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm typing this quickly before bed, so forgive grammar errors, I'm not planning on rereading it.

I had taken a lot of AP classes in high school, good at math, high SATs, you get the point. Going to school as a CS major killed my love for programming for a long time. I started coding cheesy apps when I was 13, and by the time I was a senior in high school I could build windows apps and was dabbing in my own OpenGL 3d engine (no AI, just run around inside it and stuff).

At a professional level? No, but that is why I was going to go to college.....and yes I went to a "good school" that is rated as one of the top 10 on the west coast for CS.

I quickly learned that many of the profs had no real world experience and had no idea how to program in a professional environment. We had one elitist jerk off prof everyone hated that would say "If you didn't do at least Calc 2 in high school you shouldn't be a programmer" This guy got his Ph.D. in like 1965, and had never once worked as a developer but would speak with utmost authority on any topic.

Other profs would come to class high or really hung over, and it became obvious the whole CS degree meant absolutely nothing.

I knew guys with 3.75 GPAs graduating and they were going to work as support people because their 4 year CS degree didn't teach them one damn thing about writing an app in a professional environment.

Think about this, these guys had a 4 year degree in CS but if you set them down to write an app you needed for a project they would have no idea where to start.

I changed my major my junior year after I had passed the class designed to "weed out" those that couldn't hack it with an A (311).

I have worked in the IT field since I first went to school, have a A+/Net+/Security+, and thinking about my MCSE or CCNA.

Then one day I decided to just sit down, and get back into coding.

I have learned more in the past year practicing coding in my free time than I ever did at any time in college, and I am enjoying it again. I do a little bit at work but not much, and feel solid enough that I may apply for a programming job in the near future.

Come to think of it, the people I know coding full time for a six figure salary have never had one college class.

Re:Wimp

[andy55]

I'm normally not the "mod parent up" type, but thank you for voicing this. I was growing increasingly nauseous as I scrolled down and read sympathetic whimper after whimper. Frankly, I thought many more people here would post this position and we could all chuckle together at this person craving sympathy.

Re:Article summary

[Martin Blank]

I didn't think that the author was complaining that it was too hard. He was complaining that there's no viable assistance along the way, and he may have a point there. A friend was a chem TA for a few years as he worked his way through a few degrees, and he enjoyed what he did. But he was constantly frustrated by other TAs that barely knew the material and refused to spend time with students. The instructors were off working on research and would only show up a few times each term, and you almost had to schedule time with them in the first week in order to see them before finals.

His complaint was that he was basically being forced to try to teach himself, which works for some people but not most. Most of us need someone whose shoulder we can tap to say, "OK, this isn't making sense to me. Can you please explain how this works?" Those explanations need to be able to come at the discussion from more than one angle, and often those standing in front of the class (TA or even instructor) are incapable of doing this to a great degree.

If I were him, I would consider transferring to another school with a good engineering program and see what the results are, or maybe even investigate the classes without transferring by sitting in on them in another school, if possible. Maybe he really is at what is seen as a good school, but they couldn't teach in a way that benefited him. Or maybe the quality of those at the front of the class is a serious problem that needs to be examined.

Re:Why are fewer people becoming engineers?

[Bill Dog]

Not every software engineer does insane hours. I hope you have other duties to fill out your long days than exclusively programming. I found that with 12 hour days, for myself, the code I wrote in the last hour tended to be shit. I would come in the next day and look at the stuff from that last hour and wonder what the hell I was thinking. Programming is just not something that people can do, and stay in the zone, for 13+ hours.

You can make above average wages as a software engineer by simply being better than the average software engineer. I hope you make enough to justify to yourself the ridiculous hours, but if I were you I'd worry about burn-out, and software development is something I love, and wouldn't want to ever get sick of. The other thing is, have you looked at your effective hourly rate? Take a senior software engineer who makes $80K. At a job where it's mostly straight 40-hour workweeks, one can make around 38 and a half bucks an hour. At 13-hour days, as an example, it's simple ratios, you'd have to make $130K to demand the same monetary value for each hour of your time.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Engineering 101 - Small school vs Large School

[1c3mAn]

I graduated from Lafayette College with a Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Lafayette is mostly considered a small liberal arts college, but it has a very strong engineering program. Total size of the school is about 2000 students. It is considered part of the Little Ivy League, though formally that doesnt really exist.

In my opinion, you get what you pay for. Lafayette was small enough that I knew every professor and every student in my department. They knew me as well, and my grades in every class, even outside of the department. I don't think you can get that kind of personalized attention at a larger school. All of the classes were taught by professors. Never was there a T.A.

I mainly learned from lectures. The expensive $100 dollar a pop books were usually references guides for me. The professors knew their craft. And the course load was reasonable.

One issue that we had that first, my class was the first class of ECE majors. The college had decided to scrap their EE degree in favor of a mixed ECE degree. My class was the only class that was allowed to chose. Everyone before us was an EE, while any new freshmen were all ECE majors. The fact that we were the guinea pig class may have lightened the work load a little, but the move from EE to ECE was just shuffling around some classes and adding some Comp Sci classes.

On the flip side though, the whole college was also changing from the 5-3 system to the 4-4 system. The 5-3 system is you take 5 course for 3 credit hours a semester while the 4-4 is 4 classes for 4 credit hours. As an engineer I always had to take 5 classes regardless. But any class taken outside of the engineering department was now beefed up with usually more writing (Damn those humanities requirements).

Again, you get what you paid for.
Small school, low student professor ratio, less chance to do some meaningful research, less known name on the diploma, and also usually in the middle of nowhere(Easton, PA isnt exactly a happening place)

Larger school, large city (usually), large classes, less interaction with faculty, more known name, bigger research being done.

I enjoyed going to Lafayette. I had enough free time, each semester usually only had 1 maybe 2 really difficult classes, while the rest were easy.

---

The article to me has some glaring misconceptions. The main one being that the writer believes that has a highschool science star he should have been able to master an engineering degree. AP courses help, but american highschool are woofully inadequate in preparing students for college.

I went to an international school and took the International Baccalaureate http://www.ibo.org/ [ibo.org]. It is an internation highschool degree program that tests and scores you on an internation level which is recognized by universities around the world while a regular american highschool diploma is not.

Grade inflation is not just occuring in colleges but start at elementary school. Getting an A in the US is just too simple. Too many straight A students are not really all they are cracked up to be.

Thus, I dont see a problem with the teaching being to difficult, to me it seemed like he had an over inflated ego by being the valedictorian of his class and never actually learned the way to learn in highschool. The fact that he switched completely out of the science field just shows me that he shouldnt have been an engineer.

I also think that the fact that the comp sci field has become increasingly more popular over the years, it is taking away a lot of the students that would have gone into engineering in the past.

The article reads too much like a blog entry then a news report. No input from the college stand point nor is there a student point of view of those who have managed to go through the program where he was successfully.

Flawed article.

Iceman

too funny

[zogger]

This is HYSTERICAL. A school with "engineers" and millions for so called amature sports, and no one can cob job their own desks back together? glue, screws, a clamp? the tech leaders of tomorrow who will take us to mars and give us mr. fusion reactors? HAHAHAHA! A simple door off a hinge repair, and NO ONE does it in a year?

sounds like some people are studying being "elite" more than learning to become practical engineers.

No, I don't want to hear "it's not your job" either or you pay blah blah blah. Sometimes you just chip in and get something done, don't wait for an invite in the real world.

Down the street from me is sort of a weird intersection, the weeds grow real high quickly, blocking the view so you can't tell if a car is coming around the corner or not making it hazardous. Ya, the county mows it once a month, sometimes that isn't enough. solution! Take weed whacker in trunk of car, stop, get out, and HORRORS OF DE HORRORS do something practical that benefits the neighbors and me just for the hell of it! And not get paid! And it's not my job! And it costs time, and uber leet mad weed whacking skillz! The horrors!

MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

not trying to flame, but really............organize a dang fix up party with your buds and some brewskis some weekend, fix the desks and the doors and the leaks. Maybe after the school newspaper covers the action (don't leave out the contrast with the stadium, nice set of before and after pics, etc), it will embarass the school and alumni enough so they will fund the maintenance department better.

As to bad professors, no idea other than I hold that all bossess need to work the loading docks and the assembly line once in awhile, just to keep them straight, so all professors need to go out and get non academic jobs once in awhile. Pass a law or something.

Re:Article summary

[lpret]

Go to a school that is undergraduate focused. For example, the school I go to, Baylor University, is not MIT or whatever. But our undergrad engineering program is top 20 in the nation. You know why? Because they focus on helping you learn the material -- real professors teach you stuff, not some TA who is just doing it to get his stipend. There's practical inputs from nearby firms that give you a _real_ project that will actually impact people. There's an emphasis on communicating to non-engineering people, even *shock* business terms to help you sell your idea.

Don't go to a school for undergrad if it's got a good name. That's what grad school is for. Do undergrad at a place where you learn the trade and get involved in practical elements. THAT is what will make you successful in life -- no matter what your major is.

Re:What complete BS

[Vellmont]

"I can solve any engineering problem. I simply apply the same principles, be it chemical engineering, mechanics, electrical engineering, whatever.
Once I apply basic principles, I can look up any specific equations or methods I may need.

Uhhh, right. Just try that with software engineering and we'll see what kind of code you'll write. I suspect the same thing is true for Electrical engineering (go design a good CPU with some basic principles and "equations"). Not all engineering is that "plug and chug" crap that a certain segment of engineers think it is. It sounds you had a prima donna professor who told you a bunch of lies to try to build egos. I find that a terrible attitude. Some of the biggest problem makers in any job are people who insist they understand something, but completely don't. Why not just encourage students to know their current limits, and to understand how to expand those limits? Being a little afraid of a problem isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you try to tackle problems that are way too difficult for you to solve (and don't kid yourself, they exist) you're only setting yourself up for failure.

Re:Engineers

[highwaytohell]

I totally agree.

As a structural engineer i have been to too many countries where the education of their engineers leaves a lot to be desired. This shows in the quality of the end product.

Engineering is not meant to be a glamorous job. The money is good, but the reason its good is because lives depend on it. If you fail to engineer something correctly and leave design flaws, then there can be disastrous consequences. If you need to make it difficult at the college or university level, then so be it. If you cant handle the pressure in university, then there will be no way you will be able to handle the pressure when working in the field. I would rather not use the structure some hack from Bovine University created because the course had become easier.

It is not the type of field where you can allow complacency to sift through, because if you do, major disasters can occur. [tms.org]

Re:Alternative summary

[shitdrummer]

"How we get there, I have no idea."

1. Pay teachers very well so they are in say the top 5% of all wage earners. This will attract the highly skilled and educated back into teaching.

2. Send teachers to school during school holidays to further their own knowledge. Pay them for this. This ensures teachers are constantly updating their knowledge instead of driving taxi's during the school breaks.

3. Don't let your local community decide what should be taught in schools. Curriculum should be decided by a national panel made up of leaders in each field of study. Education should be a national issue, not one decided based on local beliefs no matter how "intelligent" those beliefs are.

4. Provide options for traineeships in traditional trades (e.g. electrical, plumbing etc) for the non-academic students. This will help remove disruptive elements from classes allowing those who want to study or have the aptitude to study to do so in peace. (not that you don't need to study to become a plumber and such, but I'm sure you all know what I mean)

5. Properly fund the schools and get rid of the Coke/Chip machines. I know the sugary drinks and food taste great, but they don't help you sit still and concentrate. (A new slogan perhaps? :)

6. Ban the teaching of religion on any and all school grounds. AND ENFORCE IT!!! Religion has it's place in society, but not in schools!

Just a few thoughts anyway. I know it won't solve all the problems, but I'm sure it would make things a damn sight better than they are right now.

Shitdrummer.

Math is where it's at

[pammon]

I enrolled at Smartypants U based on its excellent reputation for chemistry, which I had a passion for. I mean a serious passion. I could (can) recite in order the first one hundred elements of the Periodic Table in seventh grade. I got a 5 (out of 5) on the AP chemistry exam without having taken the course, based on what I had taught myself. My high school peers voted me most likely to win a Nobel Prize. Insufferable nerd? Sure, but I loved chemistry.

It took less than a year and a half of college for me to get sick of it. I dropped out of chemistry midway through my sophomore year, because the lab work was unending and tedious and I dreaded every day. I managed to coast through those three semesters based on what I had taught myself, before I switched my major to math.

The math work was a world apart from chemistry tedium. With the exceptions of linear algebra and differential equations, there were no routine problems; every problem involved proving a new, interesting theorem. They all required patience, work, and creativity. I solved one problem while doing crunches in weight lifting class, another while walking to the mall, a third one in a dream (really). Most of the tests were open book and/or take home.

As a result, I can run elliptic curves around most engineers in virtually any math topic. (Which isn't meant as a slight, of course; engineers take lots of courses that I didn't.) I can reason very abstractly (infinite dimensional vector space? No problem!).

No regrets, but it's not all roses. Job prospects are definitely a concern; most math graduates went to grad school, became actuaries (ugh!), or were "undecided" (read: unemployed). I was one of the lucky ones - I graduated with a signed job offer as a programmer, which I also love. Knock on wood.

And, like any major, we had our share of bad, bad professors. No need to get into that.

You can say that Kern wasn't cut out to be an engineer, and maybe he wasn't, and maybe I wasn't cut out to be a chemist. But my own experience has convinced me he's on to something. College turned my six year passion for science sour in a year and a half.

Still hard, less reward -- was: Re:Article summary

[Wansu]

  Engineering is hard. It just is. No amount of sugar coating will make it easier. Studying hard, going to office hours, going to class and actually doing the homework, instead of copying, makes one better. I partied my fair share, managed to play an intercollegiate sport, got exceptional grades, co-opped 6 terms, and am involved in many extra-curricular activities. I'm not an exceptionally smart person, I just work hard, and I budget my time.

Well said. There's no way to take the work out of the work. All the rigors this guy described are familiar to those of us who stuck it out and got engineering degrees.

Hell yes it's hard. But in the past, there were usually high paying job opportunities awaiting engineering graduates. That is no longer the case. Many of the businesses which hired these US engineers in the past no longer do because they can hire an engineer in China at a fraction of the pay. That's where the work went. For example, twenty years ago, there used to be a couple dozen good places in the RTP NC area where a skillful analog circuit design engineer could find a good paying job. Today theres one or two. There's still plenty of circuit design work in the world. It's just not being done here.

Today, engineering is still just as hard as it ever was. There are still good and bad educators at each engineering school. But what is different is the reward is vastly less than in decades past. When companies cease to manufacture and design products in the US, fewer engineers are needed here. There's too much stick and not enough carrot.

WHAT A WUS !!

[constantnormal]

In the Institution from which I graduated with a BME and a minor in electrical engineering, we had classes 6 days a week (in my freshman year, anyhow), it took nearly two hundred credits to graduate -- as opposed to the approx 125 credits at most engineering schools (yes, my credits transfer credit for credit to anywhere in the world). Our students were restricted to those that had high SAT scores (high being 600 and up in math (clustered between 700 and 800), >200 in verbal -- my verbal score was higher than my math score, wasted skills) and were from the top 10% of their high school classes. There were also other filters, in addition to a 6-hr admissions test. When you're competing against a room full of people like that, the distribution is fairly narrow and grading on the curve is merciless.

On the first day of my first semester of calculus, the instructor asked how many in the class had 3-4 semesters of calculus in high school. A smallish number of hands went up. He then processed to ask how many had at least 2 semesters, then 1. At the end, there were only 2 of us without our hands raised, one of which was me. I remember feeling the mildest of twinges of concern (hey, I was 17, who knew?) and thinking "Wonder what THIS means?" Some of the guys had 4 semesters of calculus using the SAME textbook we would be using.

I had a rough time, but managed to hang on and learn. In my first course in differential equations, I was frantically struggling to take notes as fast as the instructor was filling the blackboards, until somebody next to me stopped me and pointed out that he was merely copying the text to the blackboard, word-for-word, from memory. As soon as the class was over, I went straight to the bookstore and purchased a copy of Schaum's Differential Equations, as I knew that if I was ever going to pass this class, I would be doing it all on my own.

And you know? That was one of the most valuable lessons I learned in my time there. Repeat after me:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TEACHING. THERE IS ONLY LEARNING.

All that any instructor can do is present the material in a manner (hopefully more than one) that will stick when flung at a student's mind. Anybody wanting to be spoon-fed knowledge has watched the Matrix a few times too often, and thinks they can have knowledge downloaded into them.

The way I think of the learning process is that I'm building a neural net in meatware. It takes motivation, concentration, and reinforcement in the form of repetition to get good at anything. This process is called learning. It's a very active process, nothing passive about it.

In my day, motivation came from the fact that we were allowed only 2 failed courses before being ejected out of the program and losing our draft deferments, a sure trip to the far east. IF we successfully completed the program, we were virtually guaranteed well-paying jobs and lifetime employment. If we completed with a high enough GPA, we got a free ride to the grad school of our choosing (I didn't make the cut, had to pay for my own graduate degree). The stick and the carrot, time-honored tools in motivation.

But you know? We had people entering our program that had exited other programs which were suspected by the rest of us of being "more difficult". Those people invariably breezed through our program without breaking a sweat. I consider those schools Tier One (MIT, CalTech, any of the military academies). Guys that washed out of our program went on to breeze through state schools with good names -- names like Purdue, Northwestern, U of Michigan, etc. I consider those to be Tier 3 schools. And there are a large number of lesser (Tier Four) schools that turn out perfectly serviceable engineers. There's a definite hierarchy of engineering schools out there.

I have no sympathy for someone who isn't willing to do the work. Just because you were hot stuff in high school means very little as you move into larger ponds. You'll find that this situation exists in Med scho

Speaking as a Math Major

[Secret Rabbit]

I have friends that are in education and I know a few with PhD's in it as well. I know the theories and how they are told to teach. What happened to this guy is unfortunate, but is solely the fault of his high-school teachers and himself.

What is happening now is that these kids are told that they are awesome in everything (plus total hand holding, etc), and given good grades to reflect that even if they only show a glimmer of hope in that subject. So, what we end up with is a bunch of kids graduating from high-school that are borderline retarded in most subjects, but think that they are the best thing since sliced bread.

Then they hit University (Play times over, it's time for some real work.), and they can't cope.

When I came back to University I forgot everything: and I mean everything. I didn't know how to cross multiply. That's how much I had forgotten. I also had "instructors" that only put the book on the board. Hey buddy, I can read, tell me/explain something that isn't in/beyond the book!

But, what I did, is sit at said University for two months, ~8am to 10-11pm everyday (aside from fri, sat, sun evenings), and worked my ass off. I did every problem and asked when I couldn't figure something out. After that, I had caught up and all was well and good with the world. Though from what my friends tell me, my sanity took a fair good hit during that time ;) Right now, I'm in my final undergrad year with plans to go to grad school.

If I can do that, then anyone can get a decent grade in first year classes.

This guy says he's good in math and then gets a D in Discrete?!?! Sorry guy, but you've been lied to. You're retarded when it comes to math. Books more than just problem sets?!?! It's called being able to properly interpret those crazy symbols on the page like a person that actually understands how to read a text book ie not like a novel you mental midget. I could go on.

In fact, I'll will. But, just one last thing. This is my favourite quote, "...like, well, me: people smart enough to do the math...". What grade did you get in Discrete again? One of the easiest classes in all of Math. How about those other Math courses?

IMO, if the US and any other country for that matter, wants more engineers/scientists/etc, don't pull any punches in high-school. Make the kids think on there own and actually push them. Let them fail if they should fail. Then and only then will most high-school grads be able to handle University.

What's going on right now, is doing no-one any favours. It's creating people like this guy. A guy who may have the potential to be good. A guy whose smart enough to realize flaws in the system. But, not smart enough, nor has enough integrity to admit his own failings and limitations.

We are all good at stuff and bad at stuff. It's up to ourselves and only ourselves to find out what we are good at and stick to those things. And stay away from the things we are bad at, no matter how interested we are in them, because we are bad at them. This way, we all contribute in meaningful ways, and are most happy.

Hell, I'll never write a novel: god help you all if I ever get the chance. But man, can I derive the shit out of a function. So, I'll stay in my little abstract world, knowing that I fit here. And leave the other things to those that are good at them.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Re:Article summary

[Vicissidude]

People whining about TA's language skills is a pet-peeve of mine. Im in the middle of Indiana. Outside of Purdue, the population is pretty homogenous. It doesn't matter. Now that I'm in grad school, and I go to conferences, I have to be able to talk intelligently with these same people. To work in any modern corporation, one must interact with many differant langauge backgrounds.

Fine, learn how to understand Indian English or Chinese English on the job. The point of college classes is to learn the material and be graded on your understanding of the material, not your understanding of the TA who can barely speak English.

Re:I had no passion for it and still made it.

[Jim_Callahan]

"engineering is more a test of endurance than intelligence"


So is the profession of engineering. The patience to test every bit of your work for flaws is infinitely more important than being able to do long division in your head or recite the U.S. Presidents in backwards alphabetical order by middle name.

Re:It;'s about the attitude.

[Percy_Blakeney]

"When engineers make mistakes, people die. You must be ever vigilant, and you must be perfect."

This is true. Of course, it is true for a lot of fields, including the low-level "serfs" that engineers look down upon. When a construction worker makes a mistake, people die. When a quality control person makes a mistake, people die. When the driver of a Hummer makes a mistake, people die. When a CEO makes a mistake, people die. When a politician makes a mistake, hundreds of thousands of people die.

Stop claiming that the potential for harming people means that a field needs to be a bitch to get into. It isn't true.

Re:Alternative summary

[philipgar]

These ideas will solve soooo much. We'll magically get qualified teachers because they're paid more. Oh wait... whats this, current teachers have tenure and can't be fired... didn't know this. Also reachers have never been held accountable the same way most people are, so paying them more won't help. Teachers have never gotten raises because they're good at it. They get paid based on how many years they've been in the district and how many degrees they have.

If you try to change the system you get complaints that it's unfair. All it takes is one teacher from a minority who's been there as long as someone else and doesn't get the pay raise. The other teachers could be the best teachers in the world, but the minority teacher was passed up based on race. You can't tell me such a situation wouldn't happen, as similar things happen all the time.

Teachers learning more over break? Some choose to, some don't. Teachers want to have lives too. It's a stressful job, and they need breaks. Also many teachers want to spend time with their own children, that's why they chose it.

As far as local communities vs national debate. I generally find it a load of crap. Just what we want, the federal government indoctrinating our kids in ..I mean teaching our kids how to be good people. Of course they'd neglect that not every state is the same. For instance in the south kids are more likely to need to learn spanish. Or the industries want more people to do XYZ. Also, having one national education system would give it nothing else in the country to compare itself against. If every local school district tries there own thing, it becomes easier to see what methods work and what dont. Region X produces smarter people than region Y even though all other socioeconomic factors are similar. Maybe they're doing something better... Just maybe. Competition is a good thing.

Sure in a perfect world we'd know whats the perfect curriculum is and whats the best course of study, but no one will agree on it, and we DON'T LIVE IN A PERFECT WORLD!

As far as coke machines... Eh I don't know if it matters. From my perspective I'd have been highly pissed off if I couldn't get my caffeine intake in my college classes. It helps, and some of us are tired.

For banning religion. . . Who really cares? Does it make a difference. . . I'm not saying it should be stressed, I don't think it should be, but should it be treated as taboo or non existant? I honestly don't know and don't care enough.

For colleges needing better engineering "teachers" . . . What do people expect? Do they expect that experts in a science field are also going tobe experts at teaching? Some people are better at teaching than others, and some professors are really good at it.

Of course even the best teachers in most engineering colleges have to avoid teaching too much. If you're a young tenure-track professor, research has to be your priority. Every extra hour spent preparing for class is an hour less spent on research. If you want tenure it doesn't matter if you can teach well, it only matters that you can teach. Research, however, matters a lot and has to be stressed.

As much as I disliked the system at first, I realized it does have its advantages. It encourages the sciences, and academia has never been about teaching so much as it has been about doing science. Most of the students survive somehow. I have, and I'm now a grad student who will further push the status quo.

If there's anything that needs to be changed it's the tenure system. Of course no one will go there, and all the experts (who ironically have tenure) will argue against any changes in the system.

Phil

Engineering courses

[tbspit]

To be an engineer you must know how to find out information you need, how to solve your problems on your own. For an engineering project, the engineer should know where to look for information, how to deal with problems he never met before.

Although most of the material taught in engineering classes is rarely used directly by engineers, someone who cannot pass an engineering course will probably not make a good engineer.

Mods on crack? Insightful? WTF?

[xtal]

A simple door off a hinge repair, and NO ONE does it in a year?

Never heard of a UNION, have you? You're NOT ALLOWED to do things like this in most universities. Physical plant services are unionized in every university I have ever been in.

Nevermind most fundraising goes into a collective pool.

Re:Being a CS major made me hate what I used to lo

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer science curricula is not supposed to teach you how to write shitty business apps for shitty corporations. It's about COMPUTER SCIENCE. It's about analysis, computability, and getting your ass kicked so hard that you either learn how to come up with your own solutions to problems, or drop out.

The teaching style is to tell you what you need to learn, not how to learn it. They don't hold your hand. It's your own responsibility to figure out how to learn the stuff.. because once you graduate and have to work there's no professor with office hours to tell you where your problem is. Have the discipline to do it yourself, great. But I doubt many folks have the discipline to cram the high end theory down their own throat without prodding.

Funny, computer science classes usually do not start to get really interesting until AFTER the discrete math/set theory courses, when you actually have the basic tools to understand what the fuck they are talking about. You obviously lacked the imagination and perseverence to stick around long enough to see it. Computability? Efficiency? Architecture? you dropped out before seeing that stuff in force. Without understanding it, you can't possibly write code to leverage the full power of the hardware.

Bill Gates may be the world's greatest business man ever, but he dropped out of computer science well before he got the hardcore theory...and the mess that is the windows architecture under the hood is a direct result of his not getting exposed to it.

You want to know why they didn't tell you shit about how corporate developer jobs work? It's because corporations do it WRONG. Business is about maximising profit, not advancing the art. Advancing the art is what computer science is all about. And professors know that just like in your 400 level courses, you are smart enough to figure out what to do to make it.

A lot of businesses actually have a vested interest in minimizing the use of efficient algorithms. After all, if you build reliable, efficient software, you can't double the price next year and change the splash screen and have it sell just because hardware has gotten faster and consumers are morons, because what you shipped last year actually still works. I mean, why raise the bar by which your own success is judged? It's business suicide to push the state of the art unless your competitor does it first.

Once you know how to DO THE MATH, everything else is easy to figure out. Sure, you've never heard of xyz that some company is asking for. Usually because xyz technology is a flaming bag of dog shit created for someone's short term goals, and that industry doesn't know any better.

And yeah, there are folks who cheated their way through. And they can't code their way out of a wet paper bag. But you get that shit in every field. If you cheat your way out of your college education just to get the paper, that's your own problem; you'll eventually get stuck coding the reports and other menial business software that is all you can handle....

As for your "jerk off" professor who was bitchy about students who don't understand calculus, I had one too. Yeah, he is an asshole. He's also a fucking genius. The man is a human compiler. Is his style appropriate for business? HELL NO. But you can learn a hell of a lot from him if you try. Writing scheme interpreters interpreted in scheme interpreted in scheme is a pain in the ass, but it gives you a lot of perspective on how and why and when to build interpreters. It's supposed to inspire you to to use interpreters and create scripting languages _when appropriate_ in your own software designs, not teach you a marketable skill directly. Like all the other courses in the program.....

In short, if you thought CS would teach you how to be a Microsoft code monkey.... you had the wrong idea to begin with.

Cheers

Re:Engineers

[Anonymous Coward]

kindly give us an example any 100+ storey building that can withstand the impact and subsequent burning of an aeroplane. I don't seem to aware any.

The Managment Degree

[Anonymous Coward]

Implicit in the whole article and most of the comments is the resentment that people with managment degrees are earning as much or more than people with engineering degrees. People say you should just get a business degree instead and not do all the work. However the successful people you see with MBAs, aren't really successful because of the MBA. If you think computer programming is something you don't need college to learn, take a look at finance or accounting, you can literally pick it up over a weekend. The rest of the business curriculum, managment, marketing, [whatever subject the school calls "learning Excel"] are UTTER bullshit.

If those business kids who are drinking 5 nights a week are making more money than the hard working engineering kids, its not because of how awesome their education is. It's because they have that alpha male, street smart, charismatic personality that allows them to get ahead. If you have an engineer's personality, I would not recommend business, as you're going to end up as some asshole's personal assistant. Even if you have a alpha male personality I'd still say do, engineering, because a business curriculum will teach you absolutely NOTHING. I guess you'll be able to enjoy college a bit more, but your left brain will definitely atrophy.

Take engineering if you can, if it ends up you have the potential to be a great businessman you still can be one. If you take business, and it ends up your potential is as a great engineer, will NASA's not letting you design the next rocket with your BA in marketing.

Re:Alternative summary

[Atanamis]

1. Pay teachers very well so they are in say the top 5% of all wage earners. This will attract the highly skilled and educated back into teaching.
I fully agree. If we want good teachers, we need to pay a rate that allows us to hire the best and fire anyone who fails to meet the standard. Without better pay, teaching will continue to be a last resort for those who can't do.

2. Send teachers to school during school holidays to further their own knowledge. Pay them for this. This ensures teachers are constantly updating their knowledge instead of driving taxi's during the school breaks.
Absolutely. If we are going to make teachers the best paid people around, it only makes sense that they should be expected to work year round like everyone else. Three months of training every summer would assist in keeping teachers at the top of their field.

3. Don't let your local community decide what should be taught in schools. Curriculum should be decided by a national panel made up of leaders in each field of study. Education should be a national issue, not one decided based on local beliefs no matter how "intelligent" those beliefs are.
This is where I have to firmly disagree with you. While there should be a national minimum educational requirement, families and communities ought to be allowed a great deal of leeway in regards to what they are allowed to teach. Allowing them to do so gives the ability for more visionary communities to better prepare for the future, setting an example to other schools. The idea that a monolithic education system can make all the "right choices" regarding what needs to be taught is presumptuous.

4. Provide options for traineeships in traditional trades (e.g. electrical, plumbing etc) for the non-academic students. This will help remove disruptive elements from classes allowing those who want to study or have the aptitude to study to do so in peace. (not that you don't need to study to become a plumber and such, but I'm sure you all know what I mean)
Trade school ought to be an option for all high school students. They should still be given enough academic training to allow them flexibility in life if they later decide they would like to go to college though. Locking people into a societal role early in life just isn't fair.

5. Properly fund the schools and get rid of the Coke/Chip machines. I know the sugary drinks and food taste great, but they don't help you sit still and concentrate. (A new slogan perhaps? :)
Eh, I'd leave this decision to the local schools. Junk food in small quantities can be a welcome break from a rough test. Proper nutrition should be taught to all students though, and healthy meal choices should be available if food is provided.

6. Ban the teaching of religion on any and all school grounds. AND ENFORCE IT!!! Religion has it's place in society, but not in schools!
Yes, because more ignorance of the beliefs of others is what we really need. I would prefer to have at least the top 3-5 religions in the area and the top 3-5 religions in the world taught by actual practitioners of the religion whenever possible. Suppressing religious expression without good reason is never justified, and in the US at least it is actually unconstitutional.

Re:too funny

[modecx]

The sad thing is, I've met and been around professional and student engineers that exactly mirrors what Andy said, and I equate it to inexperience and apathy. Why do they want to be enginners? I sure don't know--but I do know it can't be because Engineering classes are flooded with attractive females. For whatever reason, they can't take some 2x4s and make something to solve a problem. It's downright pathetic that a budding mechanical engineer is expected to take a year or two of calc in highschool, but not expected to take a shop class, where he can learn to run a bead of weld, or turn the cranks on a mill, and otherwise actually apply all of that fun stuff he learned in geometry and trig... That's what it's all about, where the rubber meets the road.

Good engineers, in my experience, have a background in what they come to do and love. I've met engineers who just plain can't understand that its beneficial to know what the non-engineers (the lesser-folk to these kind) think when they're working with their products, and I've met engineers who have had experience in their trades.. 100% of the engineers with real trade experience were the better engineers, probably because they can better relate to the poor slob doing the work, at least that's the way I see it.

This is exactly why I think every engineer should work with the guy that has to maintain/install his product--because at that moment when the engineer is turning the wrench, if his design sucks, he aught to realize it... The end result is a better product. These are the "If it's not broken, make it better" guys, and in many facilities they've been completely abstracted from the Real World, and they therefore can't get a grasp on why their stuff isn't working well.

Re:Still hard, less reward -- was: Re:Article summ

[MonoNexo]

I'm a freshman at a very respected college of Engineering in a university in Ohio. (It shall remain nameless!) As a freshman in Computer Eng, I am finding myself wondering if I even want to finish this major or just hop onto music or computer science. My reasons for debating on leaving computer engineering is that, at least here, I hardly get a scratch at my specific major until my junior year. Thats right - for the first two years, I will hardly touch a computer program for more than one semester. My current semester was cookie cutter for freshman in the engineering school. I have a science, a math, a religion, a history, an english, a mandatory engineering studyhall, a EGR lecture where we can discuss being engineers and learn about the school and how it works, and a EGR 101 class. EGR 101 is when we learn the fundamentals of being an engineer, without a good chance of touching our specific major. The class is random placement modules. Although there is a computer engineering module, I didn't get to get into it. Instead, I'm building composite bridges and writing technical reports on them. Although that may be helpful, it didn't spike my interest in civil engineering enough for me to want to switch over.
In two weeks, I'll switch modules into a mechanical engineering module. No, I won't be working on cars, I'll be taking apart a toaster, writing a report on it, then I write another report on how we can make the toaster better. Thats it. We don't actually put that plan into action, we don't even rebuild the toaster - they do that for us.

I'm a very hands on person, and in my first few months of being here, I won't actually have a computer class. Next semester, I'll take an intro to computer programming class. Just one. Then rinse and repeat the gen eds, and in place of the classes that I'll have finished for my four years by that point (chemistry, history, religion), insert Engineering Ethics classes. My friend who is a sophomore Engineer says these are mainly reading and writing technical papers and basic ethics for being an engeineer (do good for humanity! be cost effective!).

Anyway, back to my point - it isn't interesting. Sure, I didn't pay 30k$ to goto college to have it be interesting - I paid to get an education... but where am I really gonna use the History of Engineering in real life? Do I really need almost 12 credit hours worth of ethics classes before I can start doing what I want to do with my life? I really just get the feeling that I came to college and I'm just getting a generalized education out of it. At least where I am going, there isn't a thrill of creating a robot yet, or even learning c# code. Would it really kill colleges to toss us a bone of what we came to do our freshman year? Visual Art majors are painting, music majors are playing, sports medicine majors are already getting hands on experience on the field... and the computer engineerings are in toaster classes.

I agree

[Ogemaniac]

I really dislike the whining about foreign teaching assistants and professors. Yes, it can be a bit challenging sometimes but this is relevant job-training experience. You will be working with these people in the future.

Just imagine it from the other side - not only does your TA have to be engineers/scientist, but much of the relevant research is written only in English, and they must be able to speak English to do their jobs. Despite the complaints, it is a lot easier to struggle to communicate in your own language than in the other guy's language. We Americans have the good end of the bargain in this matter.

I would love to see one of these "my-TA-sucks" whiners learn a language like Chinese. It is hard. Really really "#$"#" hard. I live in Japan and know from experience how challenging it is to learn a language whose fundamental grammar and logic is different from your own. I have never heard anyone who has struggled to learn a non-European language complain about not being able to understand their TA. I wonder why......

Several times on this thread, I have seen someone basically say "I asked my TA (insert absurdly complicated, 40-word-sentence question here), and he had no clue".

This is as much a failure on the student's part as the TA. When speaking to a non-native speaker, one should know that it is best to use simple sentence structures and simple words (in-field technical words are OK). It is part of the learning process to learn how to choose one's words to fit the audience.

The author is right, but not in the way he meant.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article shows perfectly why there is a lack of enigineers in the US.
But not for the reason the authors thinks to be.
Let's look at the story.
The author has a good GPA, a nice school carreer and starts at a high level US university.
Then he notices that the courses seem to be too difficult and drops out.

And this shows to problem of the US. We have here a guy form whom school was always easy because he was smart. But university is different. The stuff is not easy for anyone. If it's easy for TA/professor then it's because they learned this stuff for years, did do this stuff for years and have years of training. It didn't come easy to them. They in fact invested a lot of work. It's only easy for people at the genius level of Gauss. This means that it will never be easy for you, because you are not genius besides your own good marks, awards and super-duper GPA.
And this shows the problem of the US. Your people are not willing to spend this huge amount of work to learn this stuff. Your people are not willing and not able to accept failure and problems.
And this will kill you economically.

Re:Still hard, less reward -- was: Re:Article summ

[Rufford]

In college I knew several Computer Engineers that didn't really know what the hell their major was until it was almost too late. It certainly depends on your school but most believe it to be about an engineering position that uses computers. Not an engineer of computers. So the focus would be on general design principles. And while they use computers in advanced projects and learn plenty about it; Computer Science majors study computers from day 1 and don't stop.

Once again, this is a generalization but luckily my friends didn't lose any hours switching to MIS and now make more money than I do with my silly CS degree.

You might have done this but I suggest everyone get out their degree plan and read some of the descriptions of the courses.

Re:too funny

[Cedric Tsui]

Howdy. I'm an Engineering Physics student at Queen's University.

Consider for a second that there is a position which matches the missing pieces of your (zogger's) ideal engineer. It's the technician. The god of fiddly bits of equipment, master of the shop. He isn't paid as much as, is much better in the shop, but not as good at calculus.

Now in Europe, they call us Canadian (and American) engineers "Reader's Digest engineers" because their engineers and technicians are the same person. An engineer is expected to do both the design and mechanical manipulation of devices. There are arguments for this kind of position, namely that the hands on experience is useful for design, and vice versa. On the other hand, when have you ever heard of a design project being outsourced to Europe? You outsource to India if you want cheep engineering. Where do you outsource if you want GOOD engineering?

House construction does not require an engineer. Why? Because it's well understood. There's a big book of set standards that if followed will make a safe sturdy home. Think of it as a problem to which the solution has already been found. Example #2: Household plumbing doesn't require engineering, as plumbers have a standard to follow. An engineer is a designer, and is needed when there is no big book of set standards (yet).

You want your engineers to be these hands on guys, but that's not what engineering is about. My wood shop experience won't help designing a new WTC that can survive an aircraft impact. My ability to replace door hinges won't teach me to improve the fuel efficiency of cars. In Universities, engineering students are being taught how to be thinkers. We can't be taught how to solve the problems we are going to face in industry. They will be new problems, never before addressed.

Re:too funny

[Cedric Tsui]

Oh. 1 more point. Technicians are worth their weight in gold and should be praised as gods by all junior engineers. The amount a seasoned technician knows can make him worth 10 junior engineers. Sadly, they aren't given the respect they deserve. We do a little pay cheque comparison and think we're smarter than them.

Re:Article summary

[kfg]

The cause of this problem is complex, but the state of public secondary teaching is slacking, and that's bound to impact the graduates at some level, too.

Having read the article I have certain empathies with the author. The state of teaching at the university level is in a sad state these days in many, if not most, places.

However, it's also clear to see that much of his trouble stems from the fact that his secondary education, and remember he reports that he exceled there, simply did not prepare him for college to such an extent that he does not yet even realize that the fault lies with that secondary education he regards so highly. College is not the next year of High School and he does not even understand what is expected of him as a student. Especially in a "genius" course where one is expected to be self directed. This is not his fault. It is the fault of the teaching system he regards as a model for teaching excellence.

I live in area well populated by a wide variety of institutions of tertiary education. Had he risen to being laid off from GE he likely would have lived in my very neighborhood. We've got a lot of that kind around here. We've also got Union College, RPI, Skidmore and the home campus of the NYS University system, a two year branch of which is a mere ten minute walk from my home.

I make part of my living tutoring kids like him, trying to get them through their first year of culture shock. It's a difficult undertaking because while they are facing an upcoming midterm what I really have to teach them is what they should have been taught in their final year of secondary school. They have to learn last year's stuff while under the gun to be tested for this year's stuff.

With a background consisting entirely of taking standardized tests to see if you can exactly match an already known answer (and thinking that's good education) how the hell is he to be expected to undertake a course of study on coming up with unique, workable solutions to problems whose solution is as yet entirely unknown?

He doesn't even know that is something to be done. He's thinking of engineering as somehow akin to taking a standarized test and getting the "right" answers, and a Brownie Point for it.

In "Real Life (tm)" engineering there is no "right answer," only groups of possible solutions, all of which are, in some respect, known to be wrong.

I'm getting really tired of trying to teach these kids basic problem solving skills, to the extent that I even have to teach them what a problem is; and what an answer to that problem is; when it's already far, far too late for that kind of thing.

And the newer generation of teachers in college are the product of this same system. It's no wonder they're clueless how to teach.

KFG

How to: encourage engineering

[np_bernstein]

After your kid graduates highschool, don't let them go to college, but instead kick them out. Make them get an apartment, and a job, and bust their ass trying to pay rent and have enough food to eat. Make them tired at the end of the day... that long, hard tired where you're just glad not to be lifting anything. Let them do this for one year, and then tell them they can go to school. Tell them that year was what being poor is, and then tell them engineers, and doctors, and lawyers aren't poor. If engineering's the right thing for them, they'll pick it, and every time they start to think about quitting or taking the easy road, they'll think about that year, and how much it sucked, and realize that thinking all day isn't shit compared to lifting boxes.

The problems with education are real, but the problems with motivation in this country are much bigger. We've had it so easy for the last two generations that we've forgotton what it was like to *really* have to work hard

Its tragic but...

[slashdot_commentator]

Just accept the fact the U.S. is f*cked. I feel for this guy, but I feel more for my friend that got a 3.8 GPA as an EE at reputable state U back in the '80s. He busted his ass, and his reward was that he couldn't even get hired for a sh*t engineering job. A rule of thumb is that its takes 5 years of experience before an engineering scrub can even do anything useful out of college to be worth his pay. American business will not make that kind of investment in an employee anymore; even though its critical to long-term survival. He did what all the other educated people did (BS in astronomy, physics, biology, comparative lit, etc.); made money back in the PC gold rush as a programmer or analyst. The last thing in the world I would do is encourage a brilliant student to enroll in an engineering program. As bad as I feel for the washouts because their educators are research whores and academia is a lie, I feel sorrier for the students that can excel despite that environment, and end up (at best) an insignificant cog while some connected jerk can feel good about being able to hire productive talent for peanuts. You snot-nosed punks just don't see it. You vote for a clown, and now you don't realize that the U.S. cannot fund an Iraq occupation and rebuild a hurricane devastated region for the people screwed by the lack of adequate preparation. You don't understand that our military is becoming hollow, because we're engaged in a conflict that cannot be sustained by a volunteer military. You can't see the choo-choo train of economic bankruptcy from the national debt, and you're worrying about the nation getting enough engineers to drive manufacturing progress??? Who cares? In a country that insists on teaching I.D. as science? You won't have a student body capable to doing jack.

This is college we're talking about.

[oneiros27]

For those who read the article, the discussion was undergraduate engineering courses. It is significantly different from teaching middle school or high school, to which your comments might apply.

1. Pay teachers very well so they are in say the top 5% of all wage earners. This will attract the highly skilled and educated back into teaching.

Universities don't work like that. Money == Grants. Money != Students. There is little incentive for tenured professors to teach students, as it takes time away from they can write grant proposals, to get multimillion dollar grants. Think about it -- if you have someone doing consulting, they might make $200/hr. Is a college going to pay anywhere near that scale, and not charge rates where students are in debt for the rest of their life?

2. Send teachers to school during school holidays to further their own knowledge. Pay them for this. This ensures teachers are constantly updating their knowledge instead of driving taxi's during the school breaks.

College teachers sure as hell aren't driving taxis. They're writing grant proposals if they're tenured, or they're doing their other job (which may be that $200+/hr consulting, if they're an adjunct).

3. Don't let your local community decide what should be taught in schools. Curriculum should be decided by a national panel made up of leaders in each field of study. Education should be a national issue, not one decided based on local beliefs no matter how "intelligent" those beliefs are.

They don't decide. ABET [abet.org] certifies engineering curriculum. (I'd personally like to see a way for students to file grievences to ABET, but I doubt that will ever happen). Colleges in general are certified by large regions. In the case of where I live, it's handled by Middle States [msche.org]

4. Provide options for traineeships in traditional trades (e.g. electrical, plumbing etc) for the non-academic students. This will help remove disruptive elements from classes allowing those who want to study or have the aptitude to study to do so in peace. (not that you don't need to study to become a plumber and such, but I'm sure you all know what I mean)

Schools don't get to set their curriculum however they want ... they have to get approved by Middle States or the like. There are some universities that focus on internships in engineering. Drexel [drexel.edu] and U of L [louisville.edu] come to mind.

5. Properly fund the schools and get rid of the Coke/Chip machines. I know the sugary drinks and food taste great, but they don't help you sit still and concentrate. (A new slogan perhaps? :)

Universities have money. At least enough for the amount of waste I've seen.

6. Ban the teaching of religion on any and all school grounds. AND ENFORCE IT!!! Religion has it's place in society, but not in schools!

Again -- that should only apply to public middle school/high schools. It has nothing to do with universities, where you can elect which classes you're taking. (even state schools might have a Jewish Studies program or the like. And let's not forget schools like CUA [cua.edu] or BYU [byu.edu].

Oh -- and for the record, I'm currently in graduate school at a public university, and I got my undergrad from a private university (or more accurately, a real estate company who was obligated to teach classes), where I also worked for 7 years, and saw an amazing amount of graft. (and before someone claims this is libel, the fed agreed [gwhatchet.com])

Re:Still hard, less reward -- was: Re:Article summ

[twbecker]

Welcome to education at the baccelaureate level. A Bachelor's degree is supposed to give you a *well rounded* education, not simply teach you CE or whatever your major is. Your complaint about how soon you start taking courses that are relevant to your major is valid, but in the end you take just as many major courses as an English major, if not more.

Things turned out okay for him...

[techstar25]

I'd say 90% of the responses to his article so far say something like "Sorry you couldn't cut it, but engineering is hard, so you Mr. Kern must be a lazy moron". Well to that I say, he's a successful writer and lawyer who is getting his material published for Slashdot to read. While, you are posting on a silly message board on your lunch break before you go back to your 80/hr week coding job that you hate. I'd say things turned out okay for him. The smartest thing he ever did was leave the engineering field. That makes him smarter than most Slashdot readers.

Re:Article summary

[caseydk]

Good call.

Seriously though, it sounds like he needs a better college where they're actually focused on TEACHING.

I went to Rose-Hulman where it is made clear to profs that their FIRST responsibility is to teach and make themselves available to the students. Some went as far as giving you their cards and their home phone numbers - normally with strict restrictions like "don't call me after 10pm".

When you go to a college that doesn't value undergrads, you'll suffer as a result.

Re:Article summary

[Mac Degger]

Personally, I think the guy who wrote the article was a whiner who couldn't hack the math (as much as he thought he could...he was just deluding himself). What I do agree with is the course load, especially when you compare it to other studies. Engineering/science means a lot work. Much more than the libereal arts. So much so that I'd say the study should be extended by a year to reduce the load and allow for some extracurricular activities, or even a job. Because that part the article writer got right; you work your arse off for years and you end up with a not so high paying job with excelemnt chances of being laid off by that pansy-ass liberal arts mayor who is now managing you.
And no matter what the MBA's of the world say; managing can be taught, and it's much easier than a physics degree.

Re:Article summary

[budgenator]

not just the TA's the profs too, the simple facts are being a good $thingy'er != good $thingy instructor. Normaly the person who got to the point of being so good at his particular $thingy, never realy had to struggle with the course work and is usualy incapable of relating with a student who is.

Get out of the honors or accelerated or whatever classes, they are geared to students who have a native instinct for the course, not student that actualy require teaching

Feel free to substitute any field for $thingy, the problem is pretty universal.

Re:Engineers

[electricninjaface]

Getting a 43% average in a course doesn't mean you learned 43% of what was expected of you. Did you know that mathematically inclined professors (like in engineering) know that if the grade distribution is compressed up at the top of the range, with 15% of the class getting 100%, then you are clipping off a section of the distribution. You can't actually distinguish the good students from the stars. If you want to be able to see the full range of student ability then your grade distribution should have a tail at the high end as well as the low. That means lower averages.

Additionally, a harder exam will challenge all students. If you get a perfect score on an exam you might feel good, but you haven't actually learned how much you know the material. You just know you know it better than you were tested on.

A 43% was a B+? So the class was graded on a curve and you didn't like the numerical value that you got? Cry me a river.

Re:Still hard, less reward -- was: Re:Article summ

[databyss]

They thought that a Computer Engineer was an engineer that uses computers? Wow... just... wow. Did they think that other engineers didn't use computers?

Exactly what kind of engineering did they think they would be doing? Civil? Electrical? Industrial? Cause they have their own majors.

I'm sorry, that's just dumb. How long were they taking classes before they decided to look at the course requirements for their major?

Story from an elder

[TamMan2000]

Well, a second hand story from an elder...

I spent 3 years doing development and validation of computational fluid dynamics software at a major jet engine manufacturer. While I was there one of the guys who had beein in aerospace for 40+ years befriended me.

The real reason is that there aren't more people becoming engineers is that we just aren't treated like he was when he was my age. His salary when he was 30 was comparable to a medical doctors. It used to be that people who had the brains and passion to suceed in any field would often choose engineering, now, if they want money, they avoid engineering. Engineering is left to folks like me who really love solving problems, and would probably do engineering even if it paid less.

Companies that scream bloody murder everytime a government regulation interfiers with the free market in any way that hurts their bottom line (complaining that capatalism is te american way) want permission to hire engineers differently from all other professions because engineers are scarce. Well you're the ones demanding a free market.

Pay us more, there will be more of us!

My older friend I mentioned before forbid his children from studying engineering... I will advise my kids that a career in engineering is a bad finacial decision, but if they think it will make them happy...

This is the problem.

How many of you would tell your kids to become engineers?

Re:Article summary

[JWW]

Software Developer and System Administrator looking for a full time position in the Ohio area

I think your sig says more about why no one's going into engineering than the story does. Until engineers get interviewed for nearly every job they apply for, and have some choice of jobs and mobility in the workforce, I DON'T CARE if there aren't any new engineers out there. Bring on the much talked about shortage of engineers.

There is no demand out there in the job market at this time to justify anyone going into engineering right now. Companies crying about not being able to find engineers in this country are just hypocrites looking for an excuse to outsource all of our technology development.

Re:Alternative summary

[skiman1979]

6. Ban the teaching of religion on any and all school grounds. AND ENFORCE IT!!! Religion has it's place in society, but not in schools!

Yes, because more ignorance of the beliefs of others is what we really need. I would prefer to have at least the top 3-5 religions in the area and the top 3-5 religions in the world taught by actual practitioners of the religion whenever possible. Suppressing religious expression without good reason is never justified, and in the US at least it is actually unconstitutional.

I completely agree. I never understood why people say school is no place for religion. Religion is a huge part of millions of people's lives. Having classes in various religions would help show students just how different people are around the world. Classes don't have to be run in a way that would teach them "you must believe this" but instead "this is what many believe." It would enable students to better understand people from different religions and cultures, allowing them to more easily interact with people out in the "real world." I always thought that's what school was (at least partly) all about. We want to prepare these students for life, give them street smarts, not just book smarts.

Sounds Familiar

[Infamous Tim]

In college I knew several Computer Engineers that didn't really know what the hell their major was until it was almost too late

This is my experience to a T. It took 2 years of "can you hack it" classes to get into basic circuit theory at my SmartyPants U, another semester after that into the basics of comp. engineering. It was at this point where I discovered a terrible truth: I Didn't Enjoy Comp. Engineering.
Of course, at that point there's nothing a college student can do. I had 89 hours by the end of that semester, and I desperately wanted out. Of course, SmaryPants U wanted me to stay put, seeing as I'd already invested so much time & energy in one major.

Once again, this is a generalization but luckily my friends didn't lose any hours switching to MIS and now make more money than I do with my silly CS degree.
Lucky bastards ... They wouldn't let me make the switch.

Re:Why are fewer people becoming engineers?

[colinrichardday]

July 20, 1969.

Language skills...

[Mauz]

Two stories from when I was a TA:

1) I taught the lab of a second year digital logic class whose prof. might have been good at research but sucked as a teacher. I didn't believe the comments the students made about the class so I sat in (second row, left side of class room that had seats for 50 people) and I couldn't understand a word the man said. He basically faced the board and muttered while making scratchings that sort of looked like K-maps. So, I got my hands on the class syllabus and started taking the first 45 minutes of my 2 hour long lab to teach digital logic. At the end of the semester, I had a lot of people thank me for doing that.

2) Communication is key. If students turned in homework, a lab report or a test that was incomprehensible, I gave it a zero. Engineering is all about communication and I quickly taught my students that being engineering students was not an excuse. If they didn't write legibly and clearly, I didn't care how brilliant their work was because neither I or anyone else could understand it. Oddly enough, the foreign students usually demonstrated better written language skills. (I did have to occasionally to convince them that a thesaurus is a dangerous tool.)

I've been working now for 10 years and communication is still key. I'm in the process of learning Mandarin.

Re:Engineers

[bluGill]

You forget (Or rather you hinted at, but didn't bring out) one important point: All the other students in your class are the same as you - they are smart people who got good grades in high school. You are no longer competing with the "can't spell his favorite word - duh - football player", you are competing with smart people. This is a hard transition. For me I went form the smart guy who didn't nothing and still got good grades to one of the dumber people in class. Unfortunately I didn't have the study skills to make up for it. (I graduated anyway, but I don't mention my GPA)

Now we are judged on our GPA. However an A student in easy classes is judged higher than a C- student in engineering, even though the C- student worked harder, learned more, and is all around smarter. This is a big disconnect in industry.

Re:Story from an elder

[radtea]

From the article: "You party and blow off homework now, but in ten years, you'll be making merely wonderful money as investment bankers and consultants, while I'll be getting laid off from a great job at General Electric."

This is the key to the article. PHB's aren't engineers, don't understand engineeers, and don't like engineers. But they make the hiring and pay decisions that affect engineers. Furthermore, while an engineer is expected to actually build stuff that works or suffer for it, PHB's are often rewarded rather than punished for their failures.

I have no objection to my kids becoming engineers, but I strongly advise them to study business as well, so they're well-prepared to become their own boss, as I am. It's the only way to ensure that as an engineer you aren't beholden to some bozo with an arts degree and a big ego and no actual skills. Of course, you're still beholden to clients, but they come in all shapes and sizes, and after a while you can start to be a bit selective about who you're willing to work for.

Hard work in college just doesn't pay off

[kylef]

We've had it so easy for the last two generations that we've forgotton what it was like to *really* have to work hard

Maybe. But when I look around and see my friends, many of whom dropped engineering for economics and business/finance degrees, making 2-3X more money than me at this stage, I wonder why *I* work so hard. They go home at 5pm. I work until 10pm regularly. They have social lives. I don't.

And don't even get me started about college lifestyle. My engineering-dropout friends were out partying with their fraternity brothers Thursday night through Sunday night every weekend, while I worked away diligently in the computer clusters and electronics labs. One of my old friends kept asking me, "Dude, why do you do this to yourself?"

I justified the work in several ways. First, I value designing and creating more highly than managing or analyzing. The engineer's status in society, in my view, is noble. Second, I assumed that all my hard work would pay off in the form of a good career, while all the partying hooligans drinking away their most productive years would have a rude awakening when they hit the workforce.

But when *I* hit the workforce, it took 11 months to land a very entry-level job. By contrast, one of my friends who started something called the "12-hours club" (the minimum number of credit hours to remain a full-time student) got a job immediately as an "investment analyst" at a major Wall Street firm. 5 years later, he makes roughly 3 times what I make, and the gap is growing. We're both smart people, but there is no question (he'll readily admit it) that I worked much harder in college.

I was wrong. They were right. I'm just willing to admit the truth. I still feel morally superior, in that all of my hard work produces things which add value to human life, but when I compare the relative benefits to my life (social life, financial life, stress, etc), I still feel shortchanged. But it's no one's fault but mine: I chose this profession. And I chose poorly.

Re:Hard work in college just doesn't pay off

[Alomex]

First of all, you are comparing to one of the few professions that trumps engineering salaries (those are, in no particular order: economics, law and medicine). Second of all, well paid finance types work way past 5:00pm. These are the sleep-with-the-phone-under-the-pillow-types.

As a CS person I make more money than almost all of my highschool classmates, the sole exception being a TV executive, who gets paid more AND gets to sleep with startlets...

But you know what? there isn't a degree called "TV executive", he got there by the sent of his pants. What was his degree in? Actuarial science....

Re:Why are fewer people becoming engineers?

[jafac]

Long story short - it's easy to complain about other people's decisions when you don't understand all of the elements that go into making the decision.

It's also easy to get into a mode of thinking where you don't question authority, because you assume you don't have all the facts they have.

That mode of thinking is intellectual laziness.

That's too little, too late

[Sagarian]

That may be the best way to influence an 18 year old who just appeared out of thin air. But more realistically, the best way is to influence your children *from birth* to understand the value of education and hard work. In my case, it was being given the opportunity to work in the yard from a very young age to earn spending money (and very little of it). It was bagging groceries, doing random paperwork at a real estate office, even being a receptionist at a hair salon... those things taught me that the people around who had the money either owned the businesses or had education levels that let them do highly skilled work.

I didn't have to be sold on engineering or college at all by the time I was 15. I knew how the other half lived and I knew that being poor would really, really suck.

Here's His Problem...

[Stormy Dragon]

His entire problem can be summed up in his complaint that the TA wouldn't "Articulate the steps". He's trying to learn mathematics as a cookbook. You learn a procedure to solve problem type A, type B, type C, etc. This works fine in high school and is all most people need to know.

But in engineering, not every problem you come across will fit some easily defined type, and there won't always be someone around to give you new procedure for the particular circumstances you're facing. You need to understand the theory well enough to come up with your own procedure.

Re:Story from an elder

[NateTech]

Everyone blames the "corporate raider" schemes on someone other than themselves.

Anyone with a mutual fund, too lazy to investigate and invest in good companies and take ACTIVE part in watching over that company as a true Shareholder, deserves the wild-ride silly "driven only by the next quarter" market we've built ourselves.

As one famous investor says:

We've become a nation of "renters" when it comes to financial investments.

When discussing this with a friend, his friend argued, "What about Adam Smith's invisible hand?"

He replied: "We *are* Adam Smith's invisible hand!"

This isn't about company leaders suddenly deciding to go the short-term gains route -- the company leaders are only reacting to EXACTLY what their Shareholders WANT.

Don't like Corporate America as it's currently run? STOP INVESTING IN IT.