Why Students Leave The Engineering Track

[LovePatience]

So, the engineering major might be a more talented guy and his education might have been more demanding than the “religious studies” guy. But if the latter has connections and the former doesn’t, he might do much better.

There is no reason to suppose that people from well connected backgrounds are more likely to be “religious studies” or “psychology” majors. Isn’t major a choice that is freely available to everyone? If you are saying that given equal talent, a person who is well connected can do as well economically in engineering as “religious studies”, but “religious studies” is an easier major although “engineering” is more valuable to the world the conclusion is that: engineering is undervalued and that is one reason why people leave the track. If major doesn’t matter in income, then why major in engineering?

Yet, the fact that connections, personality, cultural literacy, and being positively stereotyped all come into play means that those in soft disciplines are learning something as well, soft skills. These are extremely difficult to measure grade wise but they become important long run. People make decisions frequently on emotional reasons. Leadership positions require soft skills by definition, and they tend to pay more. That’s where the ceiling comes for many engineering majors unless they also stop focusing on engineering and start focusing on soft skills, which many do by leaving the engineering track and getting an MBA. How many of our presidents majored in engineering or any similar subject? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_by_occupation Herbert Hoover came the closest with a degree in geology. Jimmy Carter had a degree in science. Most were lawyers.

Ronald Reagan, who many admire, majored in economics and sociology. He also was an actor. Is there any career profession more focused on emotions and soft skills?

Is there a link to the study that shows that the “upper strata” of folks are more religious? Atheism increases with education and probably also income; those two facts are somewhat contradictory.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

I don’t think Ridgerunner was saying that well-connect people are more likely to be “religious studies” majors. The point is that there is more to getting a job and doing well long term than just what you major in. The saying is “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

Your comment that management - especially upper management - needs soft skills is a very important point. Just out of school salaries may be higher for engineers, but career scope and longevity are also important when you consider long term income and employability. Hard skills also need to be updated more regularly than soft skills - for example learning new programming languages.

All that aside, I think there needs to be more to deciding a major than how much money you think you can make. And until we see engineers, or teachers, or nurses as more important than actors or athletes, we aren’t likely to get pay structures in line with the professions we really need to move this country and economy forward.

 

[ProVobis]

All that aside, I think there needs to be more to deciding a major than how much money you think you can make. And until we see engineers, or teachers, or nurses as more important than actors or athletes, we aren’t likely to get pay structures in line with the professions we really need to move this country and economy forward.

Most actors and athletes struggle financially, but this is not an advertised fact.

Good points otherwise.

 

[jilly4ski]

I don’t think Ridgerunner was saying that well-connect people are more likely to be “religious studies” majors. The point is that there is more to getting a job and doing well long term than just what you major in. The saying is “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

Your comment that management - especially upper management - needs soft skills is a very important point. Just out of school salaries may be higher for engineers, but career scope and longevity are also important when you consider long term income and employability. Hard skills also need to be updated more regularly than soft skills - for example learning new programming languages.

All that aside, I think there needs to be more to deciding a major than how much money you think you can make. And until we see engineers, or teachers, or nurses as more important than actors or athletes, we aren’t likely to get pay structures in line with the professions we really need to move this country and economy forward.

My father is an electrical engineer, and has worked at his company for over 30 years. (Got the job just out of college). However, he moved into a management position for a while, and now works in a very interesting non defined role. He has developed a lot of ‘soft skills’ and now often goes over documents for his boss and is more quality control, fixing delivery systems and manufacturing processes to get and keep allowance in production within acceptable levels. So combining his EE skills with soft skills.

 

[bbarrick8383]

I wish I could go to engineering school, I enjoy mathematics, I just can’t sit still long enough in the same classroom. I get bored with what I’m studying, school just wasn’t meant for me. I can spend hours reading and researching something as long as I’m into it, but my interests seem to switch on an off from one thing to the next.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Most actors and athletes struggle financially, but this is not an advertised fact.

Good points otherwise.

Very true. But if it’s not advertised, and the fact that teachers or nurses or the mid-level managers at a plant or construction site are paid poorly is well known, what do you think a student who is not sure what they want to be is going to pick?

The person who might make a great teacher will become an actor (read: waiter).
The person who might make a great nurse will become an athlete (on the 2nd string team in another country).
The person who might have made a great engineer will become a stock broker and either lose his soul or his shirt on the market.

In the meantime, we will all go without the talent we really need in the jobs that really matter because we don’t put our money where our priorities should be.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is there a link to the study that shows that the “upper strata” of folks are more religious? Atheism increases with education and probably also income; those two facts are somewhat contradictory.

I don’t have a link to a study. I am not personally persuaded (yet) that religiousness necessarily increases the further up the socioeconomic and educational ladder one goes. But there are some evidences of it. The most immediate source for that information I read was from the Wall Street Journal 1/21/12 “The New American Divide”, p.C1. While it says there has been a falling off across the board over the last few decades in the indicia that at least suggest religiosity, like births within marriage, marriage itself, there is a stark difference between classes.

But of course, one can be entirely secular in outlook and realize it’s stupid to have children out of wedlock or to “live together” without marriage, for all kinds of non-religious reasons. But then, the article, while admitting that religiosity has declined among all classes, it cites the General Social Survey, which seems to be a database which includes such things as secular vs religious attitudes, it appears 40% of those of the upper strata are very secular in their views and practice, while among the blue collar and below, it’s 59%. (very significant declines from the early 1970s in both, but worse in the lower stratum)

But one can also question which thing is the chicken and which is the egg. I recall some years ago reading “The Millionaire Next Door”, in which characteristics of millionaires were examined. Among millionaires, the longevity of marriages, the number of children, the regularity of religious practice are all higher than they are for the society at large and, interestingly, for high earners who are not millionaires. They are particularly high for self-made millionaires.

So, is wealth itself the cause of one’s religiosity, or is the effect of a constancy of character that also manifests itself in religious practice? The author of that book opined that it is the latter. A well-developed and virtuous character may impel one to go to church and to keep one’s spouse for a lifetime, but also to work diligently and live frugally.

Parenthetically, that book also demonstrated that high earnings and wealth are not connected. High earners do not necessarily have wealth to any greater degree than other earners. That’s because high earners squander just as much as everybody else, and their orientations cause asset wasting just as much. Divorce, for example, is a wealth destroyer or preventer without parallel.

Wealthy people (most millionaires did not inherit it) are wealthy for the most part because they live below their means, don’t waste, and are constant in their characters. Most, not too surprisingly, are self-employed.

Now, if one looks at socioeconomic classes on the upper end, the stats will certainly include the overeducated and immoral atheist. But they will also include “The millionaire next door”. Since the fairly well-to-do are a small percentage of the population (people with net assets of 1 million and above constitute only about 5% of the population) and since the great majority of them are self-made, it would not take a whole lot of “millionaires next door” to affect the percentages.

Finally I should clarify that the “super wealthy” are very few in number, and do not have the same characteristics as the “millionaire next door”.

 

[LovePatience]

I don’t have a link to a study. I am not personally persuaded (yet) that religiousness necessarily increases the further up the socioeconomic and educational ladder one goes. But there are some evidences of it. The most immediate source for that information I read was from the Wall Street Journal 1/21/12 “The New American Divide”, p.C1. While it says there has been a falling off across the board over the last few decades in the indicia that at least suggest religiosity, like births within marriage, marriage itself, there is a stark difference between classes.

But of course, one can be entirely secular in outlook and realize it’s stupid to have children out of wedlock or to “live together” without marriage, for all kinds of non-religious reasons. But then, the article, while admitting that religiosity has declined among all classes, it cites the General Social Survey, which seems to be a database which includes such things as secular vs religious attitudes, it appears 40% of those of the upper strata are very secular in their views and practice, while among the blue collar and below, it’s 59%. (very significant declines from the early 1970s in both, but worse in the lower stratum)

But one can also question which thing is the chicken and which is the egg. I recall some years ago reading “The Millionaire Next Door”, in which characteristics of millionaires were examined. Among millionaires, the longevity of marriages, the number of children, the regularity of religious practice are all higher than they are for the society at large and, interestingly, for high earners who are not millionaires. They are particularly high for self-made millionaires.

So, is wealth itself the cause of one’s religiosity, or is the effect of a constancy of character that also manifests itself in religious practice? The author of that book opined that it is the latter. A well-developed and virtuous character may impel one to go to church and to keep one’s spouse for a lifetime, but also to work diligently and live frugally.

Parenthetically, that book also demonstrated that high earnings and wealth are not connected. High earners do not necessarily have wealth to any greater degree than other earners. That’s because high earners squander just as much as everybody else, and their orientations cause asset wasting just as much. Divorce, for example, is a wealth destroyer or preventer without parallel.

Wealthy people (most millionaires did not inherit it) are wealthy for the most part because they live below their means, don’t waste, and are constant in their characters. Most, not too surprisingly, are self-employed.

Now, if one looks at socioeconomic classes on the upper end, the stats will certainly include the overeducated and immoral atheist. But they will also include “The millionaire next door”. Since the fairly well-to-do are a small percentage of the population (people with assets of 1 million and above constitute only about 5% of the population) and since the great majority of them are self-made, it would not take a whole lot of “millionaires next door” to affect the percentages.

Finally I should clarify that the “super wealthy” are very few in number, and do not have the same characteristics as the “millionaire next door”.

Thanks for the studies. The Millionaire Next Door was extremely thought provoking. You are right about the religiously active and income/wealth. Here is a Pew poll. pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-side-of-religious/Part-1/2-Who-is-active-in-religious-groups.aspx

However, I still do wonder about the cause of the correlation. Atheists and secular humanists are also relatively wealthy compared to the unaffiliated. Perhaps lack of apathy is the key factor and not the nature of the belief system. religions.pewforum.org/pdf/table-income-by-tradition.pdf

 

[peacefulwarrior]

I’m in a university and am in the senior year for a BioMed degree.

I’ll answer as simply as i can. Its a lot of work for very little gain. There was a large class of biomed students when we were in the freshmen year, and year after year we’ve seen the class quickly decrese in size.

Reason 1.
If you want money you can get it more easily in another path. You can go to Political science or buiseness and have a easier time getting a higher paying job than an engineer.

Reason 2.
Accountability. Engineers are far more acountable than other, a programmer can blame something on a bug and the majority have accepted the bug happen. If an engineer screws up his mistakes may cause an item to fail which can range from annoyance to causing a life to be lost.

Reason 3.
Work, only repeating reason one because it’s a major factor. I’ve seen BioMeds engineers go from failing there course works switich to biology (one of the various branches to biology to be specific) or pre-med and excelling.

Reason 4.
Not many women. No kidding for every 10 guys in a class there is only one woman. It can get rather annoying at times, where there was more than 3 woman in one of my classes even the teacher addimited he was suprised. Then continued to talk about how in his day there was more of a even 50 50 split.

Reason 5. Repeat reasons 1 and 3. It’s easier to go to other paths and make more money for less work overall. Engineers at times get very little sleep. Most of my proffessors have admitted it.

The only reason i’m in BioEngineering is because I want to focus in Genetic engineering.
For personal reasons, and because it can have very interesting results.

Oh and a old joke my teacher told my class is, all because you can design something to work, doesn’t mean you’ll know how to fix it if it breaks.