Is engineering still a worthwhile career?

Question

With outsourcing and the fluctuations in the economy, is it still worth the hassle?

Answer 1

It really depends on what kind of engineering and where you work. I work in the aviation field and most if not all is in military applications. For security reasons my job can't be outsourced. And I can work for the government or a contractor and still have the same job. I only have a bachelors degree and still got a kick *** job designing aircraft for a living. I also support myself, my wife and our two kids right out of the gate.

But aviation isn't the only avenue to go into. And my degree is in Electrical Engineering not Aerospace.

Answer 2

Absolutely.  I have a BS in mechanical.  Here are two ways my career have gone.

After a brief stint in manufacturing, I wound up working in Quality Control.  As manufacturing is slowly (and seemingly irreversibly) going overseas, someone's got to verify the quality of the imports.  (That job really shouldn't be outsourced.)  My sliver of QC wove together engineering, manufacturing, CAD, and statistics

I now am a budget analyst with the Government (it's a long story), but employers really like engineering students because they're smart and will work hard.  Engineering is about getting things done, and that's a marketable trait.

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

All jobs are affected by fluctuations in the economy. Most are hurt by an economic downturn, some (such as shoe repair and pawnborkers) benefit from an economic downturn.

Engineering is no different. And it is the most worthwhile of any profession. Every object that you ever interact with was engineered by somebody.

Outsourcing mostly applies to manufacturing. Nobody can outsource innovation. Just look at some of the questions on YA from Indian engineers, and ask yourself if these people are capable of innovating ANYTHING. Listing the advantages and disadvantages of some stupid widget is no way to innovate!

Yes, some of these offshore companies are very good at explaining how to reinstall Windows Vista (R), but that is hardly engineering!

Answer 4

Engineering will always be a necessity in even the lowest of economies. When a society can't afford to bring in their own, they'll get one elsewhere. If you're thinking along the lines of just general engineering, then perhaps there may be some difficulty. The again there really isn't too much "general engineering" anymore, other than just being licensed in general engineering, but like other specialty careers, there's always a speciality taken up, much like that of being a medical doctor.

Engineers are needed in most every profession; (structural, civil, safety, petroleum, oceanic, marine, naval, fire, etc.), the list goes on and on. The difficult part is figuring out what branch to get into in a difficult economy. For instance, right now, petroleum engineers are up and down in rates right now. That is on the American market, but overseas, their salaries are skyrocketing because of foreign oil. Likewise, at the moment, structural and mining engineers are on the boost with wages. As there are always companies trying to figure out other and alternative ways of fuel, mining is there, as is developmental engineering, such as "inventing." Even the minute field of engineering are in need, that is fire engineering, safety engineering, architectural engineering and drafting, CAD, etc.

Hope it helped somewhat.

Cheero.