Quality Control

Why are we social engineering this?

If companies want more engineers they will automatically adjust incentives to get them. When there are insufficient engineering jobs available they will fire them.

You can't look at the statistics for graduates and try to adjust the market to fit some preconceived notion of how many graduates should go into the real job world.

It is almost like some of these career placement "experts" were former Soviet comrades.

If there is really an engineering erosion it is because the available jobs are disappearing. It might be that the "root cause" has more to do with making fertile ground for business than convincing graduates to follow a certain path.

I agree, it's all about greed (outsourcing to China) and tyranny (why people don't study what I say they should?).

That will never end, it is used as a tool by politicians, they try to make you believe that wealth will come from an over-population of professionals, and in total disrespect of your libre albedrio to choose whatever you want to do with your life, they decry the low rate of students actually pursuing a career.

They don't give a damn about work force, as if farmers, iron industry, electric, petrol or construction company workers or any others were not essential for economic growth ! Maybe they ignore that wealth doesn't come from capital, PhDs or anything else, but WORK.

In the same fashion They promisse to grant rights to the women, when men and women are born in equality before the law since long, long ago. They speak crap about masculine primitiveness, because it is self evident that machismo is bad, and want to take advantage of it (women's votes).

I've met women (at least four) who say for example " Hey ! watch it budy, I've got a father and brothers who are fine persons". But their comments are not as shocking as the media notes in the oposite sense.

Oh boy, where the world is going ?

If I channel my inner bean counter, then I can think of a some obvious reasons to encourage more people to study engineering when there is no a job market to support a significant increase in the number of graduates:

If we could create a surplus of trained engineers, then

1) companies push down the pay scale for engineers due to competition for job openings.

2) companies could push salaried engineers to work longer hours with no additional compensation.

3) companies could push engineers to take over functions traditionally held by skilled trades thus eliminating more jobs in the name of "productivity."

While 1/4 of grads went into engineering 52% went into consulting, it and finiance.....wish they would have broke it down more, as to what consulting is.

Let the market determine it.

In my experience there are engineers who like to work with things and there are "people persons". A people person may choose a career in engineering, but he or she won't be satisfied with it in the long term. But this has a good side. "People persons" make good managers and engineering managers who have come up through the ranks are very valuable people... But I see that this observation does not directly address the issue raised by the writer.

If you read the article, a person who was interviewed said that he or she didn´t want to solve engineering related problems all day. How is that for a punch line? What was your mayor? Engineering. What is it that you do? I work for such and such as a human resources consultant. That´s all crap. If you entered this field it is to create not to consult. The kids who want to take up the engineering jobs are out there but companies have to place incentives such as career plans, more money, more education, career training, more vacation time, etc. That is my two cents.

Who knows? I have certainly seen a few who become disenchanted with their field by the time they graduate... especially at the Ph.D. level. (Research sounds so glamorous, but politics in academia can be even worse than the industrial world. Just the process of getting a Ph.D. burns some out.) I'm not sure that internships are the cure, but there should be some way for students choosing a major to verify their selection with real world experience, before they invest 4+ years of their life into becoming "tagged" or pigeon-holed in their career. That happens even further as one gains experience.

On the other side, as disheartening as it is, a lot of people come to the conclusion that a job is a job is a job. That's only relatively true, but can certainly feel that way 5-10 years into any "career." Mid-life crisis starts to set in and can last a long time.

And for those who survive these pitfalls, I think what makes one like or dislike their career, overall, is the relationships, good or bad, they've had along the way.

The basic problem is that high school graduates have no idea what people actually do during a normal work day in various fields. They have no real basis on which to make a career choice.

Our institutions of higher education don't make things any better. We encourage incoming freshmen to declare their major before taking their first course. Then the first couple of years are spent taking basic 'survey' courses that are prerequisites for the more advanced classes in the field. During this time, they are also taking the basic 'core' required courses for a degree, the classes they don't really want to take, not related to their field of study.

Students aren't allowed to take internships outside the educational institution until they have completed advanced classes in the subject. The school doesn't want to look bad, or to 'waste' an internship, by sending out someone, who is not already at least partially qualified. By the time the students are taking the advanced classes in their major, they are effectively 'locked in' to the degree. It takes a lot of money and time to change majors. There is also a lot of social pressure from parents, family, and friends who expect them to 'finish on time'. The individual educational departments are also graded by the accreditation boards on the percentage of freshmen that graduate in their field, so there is no incentive to encourage students to change their focus.

The results are that some of our students graduate in fields of study that they have no interest in pursuing. Some of our graduates are lost to the first job that they get offered. Hunger/impatience and social pressure are strong incentives to take anything you can get. It may be in a field they had not considered before, but, they find that they are good at, or enjoy. It is difficult to quit a good paying job, and take an entrance level job in the field that you may be better suited to, when it involves a serious pay cut.