Engineering - what is life like after graduation?

[Anonymous]

Most engineers are nerds, not bros. As a female engineering major who did work in aerospace, i have never had any problems working with men. It’s always been a collaborative environment. I have transitioned to IT. I am doing AI and ML. That’s where the money is.

Many male and female classmates have also moved into IT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Lol no. They are useless compared to a solid foundation in engineering or the engineers you are leading eont respect you.

[Anonymous]

I'm a female in Electrical Engineering. I didn't think it was cut throat. I had a supportive group of peers in the Honors College.

Work environment can be a bit toxic, but that can be anywhere I would assume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a female in Electrical Engineering. I didn't think it was cut throat. I had a supportive group of peers in the Honors College.

Work environment can be a bit toxic, but that can be anywhere I would assume.

Where did you go for undergrad?

[Anonymous]

Female civil engineer here. Echoing that all my workplaces have been very collaborative. First year of college some general classes were less collaborative than the remaining years when you have more projects, labs and smaller classes.

Engineering is all about problem solving and diverse experience, knowledge and ideas are needed and usually welcome. It can also be very creative, not just number crunching.

There are a few bros but they’re not the majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Most colleges have very few engineering courses the first year. Usually it is one per semester of a general engineering course and very collaborative. The difficult weed out classes are probably chemistry, physics, and math classes.

[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.

My spouse has two M.S. degrees in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Statistics and I have all degrees in Engineering. I can confidently tell you that engineers think logically, objectively, rationally and in a problem solving way that is very different than even the way Math majors think.

[Anonymous]

Lots of posters refer to "bros". What are "bros" (pardon my ignorance)?

[Anonymous]

Also, go look at the thread from late 2023 titled “Engineering degrees” or something like that.

Any Engineering school will be hard work for any student, except maybe for Richard Feynman (RIP). Engineering School is not likely to be the “fun and games” time which some students in other degree programs might have at some schools. It is rewarding as a field, but E School is a slog.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, go look at the thread from late 2023 titled “Engineering degrees” or something like that.

Any Engineering school will be hard work for any student, except maybe for Richard Feynman (RIP). Engineering School is not likely to be the “fun and games” time which some students in other degree programs might have at some schools. It is rewarding as a field, but E School is a slog.

My roommate was in a major where most of the year they had lots of free time on their hands. They had to turn in a few papers every once in a while, but not much else, except for finals week. For finals week they had to cram like crazy. As an engineering major I loved finals week. Because in engineering classes by the end of the semester you either knew the material or didn't so it was a normal week or even maybe even slightly easier. That was the one week a semester that my roommate had to do more work then me.

[Anonymous]

Another female engineer chiming in here (Civil/Environmental).

Yes the first year of college was especially hard, bc the classes are large and pre-reqs for lots of majors. Once I got into classes directly related to my major, it became much more collaborative and my grades went up (bc they were no longer weedout classes).

After graduation, I worked for engineering firms where I was on a project team, so more collaboration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Lol no. They are useless compared to a solid foundation in engineering or the engineers you are leading eont respect you.

I think PP is right. Yes, you can't waltz in without a foundation in engineering--but managing people is not like managing machines. And the higher up positions involve not just being lead engineer but integrating with other divisions. There are many engineers who just don't fully see the kind of complexity that isn't technical complexity---so they may think it's fluff because the grading norms were easier in those classes and they couldn't discern the differences between excellent work and good enough work in "softer" fields (since both might still get As in many schools). Working with humans and organizations has more complex variables that are often in flux and not easily observed. It's not the same skill set.

I don't think though overall engineers tend to be cut-throat. They tend on the whole to be helpful, nice people with a clear set of skills. There are only a few who express overconfidence or disdain for areas outside of their expertise--and those actually tend to be the weaker engineers in my experience. I think the issues in engineering post-graduation are a) some who like engineering as a field find their actual job boring, b) if you happen to not have a boring job, your skills get old if you're not really committed to continuous growth often moving to new technologies and approaches and learning from people younger than you, c) the way up out of b is through management which requires a non-overlapping set of skills. None of these things are insurmountable though, and someone with technical skills AND good social skills/respect for and understanding of domains outside of their technical skills will go far in engineering.

[Anonymous]

Bump for the benefit of the new crop of HS seniors and their families.

[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.

My spouse has two M.S. degrees in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Statistics and I have all degrees in Engineering. I can confidently tell you that engineers think logically, objectively, rationally and in a problem solving way that is very different than even the way Math majors think.

As a male electrical engineer, engineering requires you to make compromises. There's always something you can't know with certainty and you need to deal with constraints. Money and time aren't infinite resources.

[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.

You have a lot of misconceptions on Engineering and it is good you are seeking input. Have your DStalk to recent grads or teachers who did engineering or family, anyone. Engineers are social and have fun in college. They just have more stressful coursework and more hours per week. Female and male family members, one who taught at a top private engineering school told us to only consider schools that have 90% continuation after the first year. All of ours but one had 95+. The highest ranked private ivy/+ tend to have the most support such that practically everyone can get through: no GPA cutoffs or bars to get over. These schools have mostly small classes. There are less selective privates that have similar success and support.
One can do anything from Engineering: industry, phD JD MD tech innovation, consulting, anything. As long as it is a good school that supports them to stay on the path if they want to.