Anonymous wrote:Have you looked into other engineering? Electrical, biomedical, petroleum all pay nicely. My DH started in nuclear and really love his electrical engineering courses and switched right away.

I truly wish I was an engineer.

I am one but why?

Anonymous wrote:... And a conscience that allows you to stomach directly participating in a destructive industry.

I had a friend who did it, thinking "I drive a car. I use oil. I'm already complicit." But he said it made him sick (literally and emotionally) to be out in those drilling fields, so he cashed out, got a materials science degree, and now works on solar.

But that's what is really awesome about engineers- they aren't as pigeonholed as you think- I guarantee there are people working with your friend who aren't mat sci and working in solar with degrees in chem e, ee, mech e.

DH and I have a lot of engineer friends (lots from our college circle) and they work in super various industries, granted it was a good school (not ivy) with respected engineering history but they all have moved jobs and industries in ways that aren't strictly their selected engineering field. I mean yes, some things require specific training, but you will find all engineering disciplines in most industries. They want the way they think just as much as their training. DH routinely gets calls from random friends he graduated with being like "hey, any interest in working for Apple, we have some openings in XYZ dept." . I can't even imagine someone offering me a job out of the blue after spending literally years of my professional life trying to just get interviews in other places!

God, I wish I was an engineer and not a 21 year old who just wanted to study political systems! That went NO WHERE!

Have you looked into other engineering? Electrical, biomedical, petroleum all pay nicely. My DH started in nuclear and really love his electrical engineering courses and switched right away.

I truly wish I was an engineer.

You can work for auto manufactures and aerospace companies too.

Shell pays petroleum engineers about 300k. Federal government has a lot of recruiting problems because of this and normally can only hire new engineers.