Engineering - what is life like after graduation?

[Anonymous]

DS is considering engineering and is starting to hear some horror stories not just the rigor, but the drop out rate and cutthroat environments at some schools.

I personally know a few women engineers who decided to switch to other professions due to the “bro culture” and said their work environment were toxic. I know it is a small sample.

Anyone on the inside care to shed some light on what it is like after graduation?

Currently DS thinks he can handle the rigor but not sure about the cut throat portion, and if that is what he would have to deal with in most jobs after said he does not think he would want that as his major.

DS is very social, but not a bro culture kind of kid.

[Anonymous]

What type of engineering? There is a wide variety and its not all bros. I did EE at UMD (im a womam) and went into defense. Its not crazy$$ but cool and good stable $ in the Dc area.

[Anonymous]

Cocktail party chatter is scintillating.

[Anonymous]

Probably more school than major unless things have changed. 25 years ago i got my mech eng degree from UMD and it was very collaborative. Lots of group projects and for individual stuff students were friendly and helpful.

[Anonymous]

My DD graduated 2021 with mech e. Pretty male dominated but seems ok. She interned and now works in the defense industry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cocktail party chatter is scintillating.

Most of the engineers I know never stop telling you how engineers think differently from everyone else. And display a bit of, hmm, overconfidence?, in, well, everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cocktail party chatter is scintillating.

Most of the engineers I know never stop telling you how engineers think differently from everyone else. And display a bit of, hmm, overconfidence?, in, well, everything.

That description just sounds like most dudes.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

In college collaborative.

I don't know who you are talking to or why buy stop this is just dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is considering engineering and is starting to hear some horror stories not just the rigor, but the drop out rate and cutthroat environments at some schools.

I personally know a few women engineers who decided to switch to other professions due to the “bro culture” and said their work environment were toxic. I know it is a small sample.

Anyone on the inside care to shed some light on what it is like after graduation?

Currently DS thinks he can handle the rigor but not sure about the cut throat portion, and if that is what he would have to deal with in most jobs after said he does not think he would want that as his major.

DS is very social, but not a bro culture kind of kid.

The real problem is that most people have trouble keeping up at some point and have to go into management.

If they’ve gone through life thinking that English, history, psychology and poli sci are fluff, they’ll have a hard time succeeding in management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cocktail party chatter is scintillating.

Most of the engineers I know never stop telling you how engineers think differently from everyone else. And display a bit of, hmm, overconfidence?, in, well, everything.

Huh not my experience. I’m married to one and he’s the chattiest friendliest person I know. I’ve also worked in industrials and med tech and engineers are usually really thoughtful and humble (definitely more so than the sales division!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cocktail party chatter is scintillating.

Most of the engineers I know never stop telling you how engineers think differently from everyone else. And display a bit of, hmm, overconfidence?, in, well, everything.

Huh not my experience. I’m married to one and he’s the chattiest friendliest person I know. I’ve also worked in industrials and med tech and engineers are usually really thoughtful and humble (definitely more so than the sales division!)

Agree. The engineers I know are pretty humble. Nice people.

[Anonymous]

Engineers who either cannot or will not cooperate and collaborate are unlikely to survive. Huge amounts of teamwork are needed to get most any job done.

[Anonymous]

Some engineering schools have an intentional system to admit more freshmen students than they have space for juniors. At such schools, students sometimes do behave in a cut throat manner. There are specific harshly graded weed-out courses at such E Schools. E School courses are almost always graded in a curve.

Other engineering schools (arbitrary example: UVa Engineering, which is both smaller and lower ranked in engineering than UMCP or VPI) plan to keep all their students. UVa Engineering Dean said on the 1st day of Fall semester that everyone admitted was capable of graduating - and they meant it. Doing so required diligence, perseverance, and camping out at faculty office hours for some students. Not everyone had a high GPA when they graduated in Engineering, but everyone had a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some engineering schools have an intentional system to admit more freshmen students than they have space for juniors. At such schools, students sometimes do behave in a cut throat manner. There are specific harshly graded weed-out courses at such E Schools. E School courses are almost always graded in a curve.

Other engineering schools (arbitrary example: UVa Engineering, which is both smaller and lower ranked in engineering than UMCP or VPI) plan to keep all their students. UVa Engineering Dean said on the 1st day of Fall semester that everyone admitted was capable of graduating - and they meant it. Doing so required diligence, perseverance, and camping out at faculty office hours for some students. Not everyone had a high GPA when they graduated in Engineering, but everyone had a job.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply - this may help explain what DS is hearing from his friends who are a few years older. I guess I was not viewing it as intentional weed out classes - but seems that may be the case. DA said that his friends said that the first year engineering classes at his friends schools were all graded on a curve and that the collaboration is just not there - it is everyone for themselves.

Thanks to the others who replied as well - seems that it may just be his friends are at less collaborative schools and DS needs to find the right fit, and my personal viewpoint of knowing a few females whose personal experience were toxic may be outliers.

[Anonymous]

I come from a family of engineers. I laughed at the cut throat comment. They are not cut throat despite attending schools like MIT, Cal Tech and Berkeley. Most projects in the working world require collaboration. If your DC wants a collaborative school, Olin basically screens out during the admissions process, the kids who don’t work well in groups. I also hear great things about WPI and Lehigh in terms of collaboration.