Anonymous wrote:The PLTW program, which is new since the 1990s, has exposed a lot of students to engineering in high school.

Glad finally someone said it. The project lead the way program and STEM/STEAM push was in full effect by 2010. These kids are the product of that push.

Anonymous wrote:Many wash out after the first year.

+1. Majoring in engineering or wanting to be an engineer has nothing to do with becoming one. My engineering classes got so much smaller in Junior and Senior year in college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's great...until you spend your days breathing in carcinogens in a refinery or paper mill.

Engineers never get dirty.

My daughter is graduating on Saturday (from an ABET accredited program), has a 90k a year job she will start in July, and she is doing maintenance engineering - so will get plenty dirty working alongside the team.

Congrats on the graduation and the job! Did she major in MechE, Industrial or Systems, Operations Engineering or something else? Is this in the HVAC field? Just wondering since my DD is a mechE and it seems like most of the positions in the northeast are in the HVAC field.

Anonymous wrote:It's like anything, high salaries outcomes draw high applicants.

Just make sure you understand the end result. I know multiple people who got the engineering degree and hated the job/culture. Mostly cube living with the blinders on.......

You are clearly not informed about the amount of suck young people in investment banking and big law go through. At least in engineering, you are either building or designing something. Or fixing problems. Much more rewarding work than doing busy work for client x who needs this right now on a Sunday afternoon. And with start ups and so on, you can make much, much more money as an engineer that's bringing the skills. And often these days in IB, your boss will have an undergrad degree in engineering.

The point is engineering grads have optionality and can go in many different directions. No small thing that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of the kids at my child's high school and those from closeby schools are deciding to major in engineering. I'm curious as to why its become so popular, as it wasn't as common when I went to college in the 90's.

Do parents guide their kids towards engineering now because they think it will be AI-proof?

It's a fad and will likely go away in the next few years. STEM jobs are most susceptible to the AI revolution. Expect to see a swing to mathy social sciences (Econ, finance, statistics) and the much maligned humanities (history, English, etc.)

When I went to college, in parent times, I said I might major in physics, engineering or creative writing.

My parents and their friends thought creative writing was by far the most practical option, because they had no idea what a physics major could do, other than be Einstein, and the papers were full of stories about engineers being fired due to the end of the Cold War.

I loved trying to program my Atari, but the conventional wisdom then was that learning to program a computer was about on par with learning to fix a truck: useful and honorable, but not something that you could talk much about at the country club.

I think the moral is that students should try to learn as much as they can about a wide range of topics and accept the fact that predicting the future is hard.

Anonymous wrote:Kid likes math and physics. Seemed like a good major to start. If she doesn’t enjoy it she will pivot

Have her get the engineering degree first. Then she will have all sorts of opportunities to pivot in her career. An invaluable degree.

Kid likes math and physics. Seemed like a good major to start. If she doesn’t enjoy it she will pivot

Only an idiot would think high aptitude math students with engineering degrees only become engineers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of the kids at my child's high school and those from closeby schools are deciding to major in engineering. I'm curious as to why its become so popular, as it wasn't as common when I went to college in the 90's.

Do parents guide their kids towards engineering now because they think it will be AI-proof?

It's a fad and will likely go away in the next few years. STEM jobs are most susceptible to the AI revolution. Expect to see a swing to mathy social sciences (Econ, finance, statistics) and the much maligned humanities (history, English, etc.)

What a parent of a humanities major would say for $200 Alex

Engineering is just more interesting to many people? Why are you confused?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of the kids at my child's high school and those from closeby schools are deciding to major in engineering. I'm curious as to why its become so popular, as it wasn't as common when I went to college in the 90's.

Do parents guide their kids towards engineering now because they think it will be AI-proof?

You just didn't hang out with the right kids in the 90s.

Yeah, I guess not! Most of my friends and acquaintances went into law or medicine. There were very few engineers.

Many of your law/medicine friends likely have engineering degrees. I do and I'm a doctor. Many doctors I know have engineering degrees. Most lawyers I know also do. Guess it depends on who you know. Selectivity bias (which you would know if you had a technical background instead of a non science/math background).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many of the kids at my child's high school and those from closeby schools are deciding to major in engineering. I'm curious as to why its become so popular, as it wasn't as common when I went to college in the 90's.

Do parents guide their kids towards engineering now because they think it will be AI-proof?

You just didn't hang out with the right kids in the 90s.

Yeah, I guess not! Most of my friends and acquaintances went into law or medicine. There were very few engineers.

For the 90s child:
Did you play risk?
Did you play dungeons and dragons?
Did you watch Star Trek or read x men comics?
Did you own a graphing calculator?
Did you know what an electronic bulletin board was?
If so, you probably knew some engineers! I knew lots and I can only answer yes to two of those things!

It was required by the high school class if you didn't have one, they asked you to try to buy one because of the school's limited supply

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's great...until you spend your days breathing in carcinogens in a refinery or paper mill.

Engineers never get dirty.

My daughter is graduating on Saturday (from an ABET accredited program), has a 90k a year job she will start in July, and she is doing maintenance engineering - so will get plenty dirty working alongside the team.

Engineers = Prometheus. The rest are just posers.

I think people like to say, my kid is an engineer.

even if you spend 4 years in college as a chem major or physics major, you dont do that.

you dont say, I'm a chemist. or a biologist. or a philosopher.

I dont actually think kids who graduate w a 4 year degree should be an engineer either, but it is for now.

(this may change. plenty of jobs used to be 4 year degrees and now require more .. like a physical therapist)