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[quote=Anonymous]Grew up in an engineering household with lots of engineers in the extended family and most did NOT want their kids to go into it. I think the enthusiasm for engineering is overdone on DCUM and most college boards.

Sure the starting point for engineers is great. It's great to gradate with 70k-100k offers in hand. But as you get into your 30s and esp your 40s-50s it gets harder and harder. There is only so much need for management -- not everyone makes it (and not every engineer wants it -- many want to do engineering, not manage budgets etc.). But if you aren't/don't want to be management by the time you hit your 40s-50s, you are being billed out at a fairly expensive rate and companies realize that they can hire younger guys cheaper to do your job. And historically the problem in the US with civil, mechanical, electrical has been -- there are a LOT of other countries with very solid math skills; work gets outsourced all the time to be done by Asian engineers for 10k/yr rather than paying a US engineer 130k/yr. Frankly computer engineering and related IT fields have been all the rage for the last 1-2 decades and now we're seeing outsourcing there too. Bioengineering is hot right now and maybe that stays hot bc it requires creativity and solutions that the math oriented nations typically don't come up with -- they're better at the rote repetitive work?

Can't tell you how many engineers I know who by 40-50 had been laid off so many times that they left altogether -- some started their own businesses where math skills helped (construction; etc. -- but laying counter/floors ain't easy when you're 45 and have been sitting at a desk for 20 yrs); some started random business -- i.e. stores, car dealerships etc.

The only engineers I know who WANTED their kids to go into it were the oil/gas guys -- knowing that it's a VERY unsteady life but lucrative so if you plan well you can make it out well despite knowing you'll be laid off every few yrs -- OR the engineers who ended up in the gov't; I don't think any of them loved their jobs but they loved that they had stability thru their careers and did not have to worry about yet another plan at Fluor or GE or Jacobs or whatever to ship work out to Taiwan and let all the US guys go.[/quote]

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