Let's talk engineering!

[Anonymous]

Another female engineer joining the debate.

I'm a civil/environmental engineer. I started at a consulting firm, and now do policy work in my field.

My fellow graduates are all over the map. Some are climbing the corporate ladder at big companies, some are heading up construction divisions, others are consultants.

The startup phenomenon catches mainly those on the computer/IT/electrical engineering side. The civil/mechanical/chemical engineers tend to be more of the "hands on" types and not the Google type. At least in my circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Your salary will top out around 170k

I get that DC is a high cost of living area, but seriously, if you are a dual income family with two engineers, that means your salary will top off around 240K. That sounds more than live-able to me. It also has a far higher earning potential than most lines of work.

An ok house with 30 min commute to Tyson's will be 800k, so u have to be top of career salary in early 30s. And no one nc slow down not stay home

[Anonymous]

Whoops, typo, I meant 340K. This board is ridiculous. You realize the median income in this country is 50K, and the median income in DC is 80K, and 250K+ puts you in the top 10% of earners in this country, right? I don't think that someone should discourage someone from doing engineering just because they will "only top off at 170K." Plus there is no guarantee they will definitely live in one of the most expensive parts of the country unless they are software engineers. And the idea of renting through your early 30s or owning a condo first is a thing. Also most people who want want high earning careers don't stay home anyway, because it decreases their earning potential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your salary will top out around 170k

I get that DC is a high cost of living area, but seriously, if you are a dual income family with two engineers, that means your salary will top off around 240K. That sounds more than live-able to me. It also has a far higher earning potential than most lines of work.

An ok house with 30 min commute to Tyson's will be 800k, so u have to be top of career salary in early 30s. And no one nc slow down not stay home

Boozy lunch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whoops, typo, I meant 340K. This board is ridiculous. You realize the median income in this country is 50K, and the median income in DC is 80K, and 250K+ puts you in the top 10% of earners in this country, right? I don't think that someone should discourage someone from doing engineering just because they will "only top off at 170K." Plus there is no guarantee they will definitely live in one of the most expensive parts of the country unless they are software engineers. And the idea of renting through your early 30s or owning a condo first is a thing. Also most people who want want high earning careers don't stay home anyway, because it decreases their earning potential.

I didn't read it as discouraging, but rather as explaining why people take other paths. I do think it's helpful to discuss salary potential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another less well know school is Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology -ranked the nation’s top undergraduate engineering college for 15 straight years.

I have a friend who went to Rose-Hulman. It's a great school, but just a warning, as a woman in engineering your daughter might care about this: the gender ratio is 80:20 boys:girls. Of the top rated engineering schools, MIT and Harvey Mudd have some of the most even gender ratios. I have a good friend who went to MIT who didn't even apply to Caltech because she thought the social environment would be wrong for her. MIT's gender ratio hovers around 50:50 whereas Caltech is something like 65:35, and she felt this would significantly impact her experience in college.

Isn't that a plus?

I went to an engineering school for a year, but was very distracted by all the boys. Too many boys and too much beer.

Used to be really fugly, socially awkward boys. Now there are better looking ones with better social skills but they usually aren't all that smart. Trade off of looks and personality for brains and fug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another less well know school is Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology -ranked the nation’s top undergraduate engineering college for 15 straight years.

I have a friend who went to Rose-Hulman. It's a great school, but just a warning, as a woman in engineering your daughter might care about this: the gender ratio is 80:20 boys:girls. Of the top rated engineering schools, MIT and Harvey Mudd have some of the most even gender ratios. I have a good friend who went to MIT who didn't even apply to Caltech because she thought the social environment would be wrong for her. MIT's gender ratio hovers around 50:50 whereas Caltech is something like 65:35, and she felt this would significantly impact her experience in college.

Isn't that a plus?

I went to an engineering school for a year, but was very distracted by all the boys. Too many boys and too much beer.

Used to be really fugly, socially awkward boys. Now there are better looking ones with better social skills but they usually aren't all that smart. Trade off of looks and personality for brains and fug.

Where did you go to school?!?!?

Out of OP's recent list I'd say that Duke has the most consistently attractive AND smart boys in engineering. If that's a factor for her DD.

[Anonymous]

Out of OP's recent list I'd say that Duke has the most consistently attractive AND smart boys in engineering. If that's a factor for her DD.

Yeah, but a lot of these attractive boys are fratty, misogynistic, preppy, and smart but not intellectual. At least this is my experience with Duke boys. And girls, for that matter.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I worked at the pto (on the trademark side) and encountered a lot of patent engineers and attorneys. They were generally socially awkward and sexist. They'd hit on women all the time but in a socially awkward way. OGC did a lot of sexual harassment training on the patent side.

For those wondering why male female ratio matters, have you ever been a woman in a male dominated school or professional environment? It matters. It can be very uncomfortable. You'd think it would mean the guys would bend over backwards being nice but for some reason it turns them into snickering, sexist fray boy types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Out of OP's recent list I'd say that Duke has the most consistently attractive AND smart boys in engineering. If that's a factor for her DD.

Yeah, but a lot of these attractive boys are fratty, misogynistic, preppy, and smart but not intellectual. At least this is my experience with Duke boys. And girls, for that matter.

Ahhh -- the reappearance of the frat hating misandrist

[Anonymous]

I’m more than 20 years removed from engineering school, but at that time any woman in engineering school would get a 3-4 point bump on the 0-10 scale. So if you were a 5 among the overall school population, you’d be an 8-9 to the boys in the engineering school/engineering job environment. It was a great environment for women who would otherwise go unnoticed. I assume things have changed a bit since there are many more women in engineering now.

[Anonymous]

I'm a female with a B.S. in chemical engineering and I'm married to a PhD chemical engineer. I went to a small school (CWRU) that prepared people in my class for a balanced range of engineering careers - plant engineers and research engineers at P&G, GE, Coors, BP, IBM, Dupont and other large companies. Some of my classmates also went to Med school, law school, and grad school for PhDs. My husband is a PhD chemical engineer and he went to Penn for undergrad and his classmates were steered towards grad school and had a more "academic" curriculum. HS friends who went to big state schools for engineering had more "practical" educations - i.e. they can assemble a pump and do hands-on things that plant engineers need to know.

I feel like I got an education that balanced the academic and practical, but it was an accident. I didn't know any engineers and know that there were different types of schools. Engineering curriculum is not as standardized as law, so it helps if your daughter has an idea of what she wants to do so she can pick a school that leans that way. You don't want to send her to a big state school if she wants to be a professor. Of course you can go to a good grad school from a big state school, you just might not be steered that way. Think of it how the guidance counselors from a Big 3 steer kids differently than a guidance counselor from a DC high school would for kids with identical test scores.

If your parents and their friends don't know anything about engineering, you want to be in a school that will help you identify and pursue opportunities that best match your talents and interests.

[Anonymous]

It would be a mistake to wait until you are enrolled in engineering school to begin considering a specialty. I understand that preferences may change, but schools have strengths and weaknesses and it's good to have an idea of what you might want to specialize in before picking a school. Moreover, career opportunities vary dramatically depending on specialty. Life sciences are the way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I worked at the pto (on the trademark side) and encountered a lot of patent engineers and attorneys. They were generally socially awkward and sexist. They'd hit on women all the time but in a socially awkward way. OGC did a lot of sexual harassment training on the patent side.

For those wondering why male female ratio matters, have you ever been a woman in a male dominated school or professional environment? It matters. It can be very uncomfortable. You'd think it would mean the guys would bend over backwards being nice but for some reason it turns them into snickering, sexist fray boy types.

Interesting. I have very rarely found it to be uncomfortable. Only once many years ago on a project with a very old, ex-military client. I'm sure that most of that generation has since aged out of the working world. For the most part, being a woman has only helped me both back in school and now professionally. Back in school, I found that the girls tended to have a nice balance of smarts, ability to communicate, and ability to bring a team together. Natural leaders on team projects. 2 out of the 3 people who won a big leadership award in my grad program were women. Pretty significant given how many more men there were. I find the same to be true in my career now as well.

[Anonymous]

The female/male ratios are getting better. So much better than when there was only one female in most of the classes and when were about fifteen total in the whole class. Gone, hopefully, are the days where you never had a female engineering professor.