To those who blame college students for majoring in the wrong subjects,

[pnwmom]

you might reconsider if you looked into the situation more. The problem is with entry level jobs everywhere, even in fields like engineering. Why should they hire B.S.'s with no paid experience when they can easily hire someone with five years experience for the same salary?

Here are some examples of struggling new graduates in the Mechanical Engineering field.

http://www.indeed.com/forum/job/mechanical-engineer/Entry-Level-Mechanical-Engineer/t154022

"I graduated in 08 with a B.S., Mechanical Engineering degree from a good University in Michigan (3.14 GPA) and have not been able to find anything. I apply for mostly janitorial and technician work now while I work at Meijer for 7.85 / hour. People look at me like I am some kind of idiot when I have my Meijer shirt on. I feel like I wasted my time and money getting this ridiculously hard degree with nothing to show for it but $55,000 of debt. Sorry for venting (whining), but I just don't know what to do anymore."

"Hi guys, I'd totally agree with a lot of the comments going up. I'm graduating from the University of Kansas (BSME). I get "Do you have any work experience?" all of the time. It's kind of hard to tell them "No, but it's the job markets fault" Can't exactly pull in an internship if I have to compete with people all over the country. What would you guys suggest the correct answer to that question should be?"

"I graduated from Clemson University in August 08' with my MSME (3.5 GPA)I haven't had a single interview. I moved to San Diego in May of 09' and I've been working at Costco making $11/hr ever since."

"Damn I got BSME in June 2009, 3.3 gpa still no job. I had 2 real interviews recently and dozen phone interviews and still no luck. I need some entry level position where I would get opportunity to learn. I think I am going to concentrate on practical experience in this letter. It’s not enough to get formal education to become a successful engineer. Theoretical studies and lab work are great, but it’s not possible to cover all specializations in university. Employers specially in small companies are not really interested to hire entry level engineers and this is understandable, they need job to be done, not mentoring some young people or may be company needs one professional engineer and there’s no other engineers in that company. To become a technical professional you must learn particular processes and that requires some amount of time. Many graduates with degrees in engineering feel like they had illusions about their studies choice and turn their talents in other fields either because of financial benefits or because they can’t get a chance of technical experience that requires long time of mentoring."

_______________________

So the kind of comment I see over and over again is that it's not enough to have an engineering degree -- that employers want engineers with experience. And they don't want to train them themselves. So they hire someone with a few years experience instead of a new grad.

[zazen]

1. recent NC State engineering grad we know is bagging groceries

It was a step up from construction work.

This push for "STEM Ed" is all smoke and mirrors by the usual blue ribbon players. Smoked salmon and cocktails while they sub out the writing of yet another report alerting us all to this "crisis."

[cherokeeprogressive]

7. I'm a little confused as to why bagging groceries is a "step up" from construction work.

Too hard? Working outside not acceptable? Consider construction workers to be part of the great unwashed? Surely bagging groceries doesn't pay more than working in construction. The notion that bagging groceries is a step up from constructive manual labor chaps my hide a little.

I'd bet one could find thousands of engineers and architects who worked their way up from the bottom after earning their degree, or started from the bottom and worked on the degree concurrently.

I could be reading things wrong, and god knows I've been wrong more than my share of times, but it seems to me there is a belief that having the degree creates the job or that having the degree entitles a person to step right into a high paying position relating to their chosen field of study. That is not now nor has it ever been the way the world works.

I know business owners who started at the VERY bottom and worked their way to the top. One has a degree and one doesn't. In both cases, it took DECADES. Both are childhood friends. One owns a chain of automotive body and paint shops and one owns an industrial flooring business. Both are very successful. The body and paint guy started working for his father as the lowest of the low out in the shop. The other worked as a carpet installer while raising a family and going to school.

"Got the degree, where's my job?" isn't a good outlook in today's economy. We lament the lack of manufacturing in the country today, but I'd have to ask this: What if we woke up to a plethora of manufacturing jobs tomorrow? How many college graduates would work the assembly line while waiting for that management position to open up, or the job in R&D?

There's been a disconnect somewhere when a future engineer chooses to bag groceries rather than getting their feet wet in the construction trades.

[Honeycombe8]

38. Whoa, that's a bit harsh, don'tcha think?

I've known construction workers. One thing about it is: it is dangerous, unhealthy, and you can get seriously injured. It's a wonderful way to make a living, if someone is so inclined, but for someone who has opted for an engineering career, construction work is not an alternative for that type of person.

People are different. Many construction workers or lumbermen would hate to sit in an office all day. That doesn't make office work lower than construction work, or bad. And vice versa.

I knew a mechanical engineer years ago. Got out of college, got a job right away. It is not being a spoiled little kid to expect an ENTRY LEVEL job in a chosen technical profession. They are looking for entry level...as in, starting at the bottom IN THEIR FIELD.

Things have changed in this bad economy. There are many foreign workers here on work visas taking engineering and other professional jobs, working for a fraction of the pay. Experienced and entry level. They live together in rooms, live frugally, then leave and take their money to their home countries where their American money goes much farther than here.

I don't see that working construction would help an engineer get an entry level engineer job, anyway. Two totally different things.

One thing that MAY make a difference is...did the college student work during his college years? So that there's a work history of reliability, productivity, quality in work? That would be a good time to work construction part time, if you're going to do it. Or they could work in the mail room in an engineering company. The latter would probably be more helpful in gaining entrance into the field. An engineer also has to have OFFICE skills and understand how businesses work and are run.

[zazen]

39. Wow. You have some strong feelings about this.

That's fine, of course.

I guess I should have proactively stated that "he" believed it was a step up. I didn't think that was necessary to clarify, but I obviously offended you by not being as specific as I could. I believe he mostly thought that because it's been over 100 degrees pretty regularly throughout Raleigh July's and he was miserable.

[HiPointDem]

51. Yes, actually, bagging groceries can pay as well as entry-level construction. Wages in

construction have been going down the toilet, maybe you hadn't noticed.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. There is no "right" degree. No matter what you major in ...

you will find a few years down the road that the market for your skills has changed drastically, and almost certainly for the worse. It didn't used to be that way. But as corporations become more global and find more and more ways to outsource labor, no career is safe. It's become pointless to plan for a "career", the best you can hope for is a job that will continue for the next few years.

[Zalatix]

17. Which is why we need tariffs.

[limpyhobbler]

3. du rec. nt

[fascisthunter]

4. they can say what they want... it doesn't matter what they think

...because there wasn't much thought put into their opinions in the first place. Most majors are things people WANT to utilize to make a living. To me that's more admirable than doing what mommy and daddy told them to do because it would be lucrative.

I have a BFA... bachelors in Fine Arts... I am glad I did what I WANTED because I loved what I was learning. I'm doing just fine.. struggling, but much better off than a lot of others who are miserable and HATE what they do.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. There is potentially gainful employment for a Mechanical Engineering grad

While just about any program ending in the word "Studies" that doesn't start with "Policy" is a little more challenging in just about any economic environment.

[pnwmom]

6. This isn't necessarily true. Someone in a major ending in "studies" may have excellent

written and oral communication skills, skills that are important for any number of jobs.

I know a young man who had to major in a humanities subject because his GPA wasn't high enough to get in the business program at the state University. Now he's working in an excellent marketing job at Microsoft, earning more than some of the techies.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. But he wasn't hired by Microsoft for his knowledge of classical rome and greece

the way an engineering graduate would be hired for his knowledge of engineering.

I have a history degree and I have done very well for myself, but I worked as a glorified legal assistant and other crap jobs for years. If you hire me for a job it is because of my work experience and not because I took history in university.

It is a much harder road than somebody who graduates (in a healthy economy) with a direct entry to a professional career.

[pnwmom]

12. So? He was hired for communications skills that were developed in his humanities major.

And he didn't have to work at a series of "crap jobs" first. In his first job out of college, in sales, he was making a ridiculous salary ($6K a month.)

In a healthy economy, having an engineering degree does provide a more direct entry to a professional career. But there is nothing wrong with an indirect entry, in a healthy economy.

Now, unfortunately, we're still in a very sick economy. And young engineers are suffering, too.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

16. So is he represenative of the career and income performance of his classmates

or a spectacular outlier?

[Recursion]

10. My BA was in the most useless "Studies" there is (General)

I think when you have that kind of degree you just have to remember that college is not vocational training; it's not why you're there, and you have to get employable skills on your own (in my case, I learned to administer UNIX systems).

That said, most of my sysadmin jobs have required a bachelor's degree, which is kind of silly since it's basically a technician position. A lot of positions even said they required a BS in CS (which is absurd; at that level you can write operating systems); I've learned that if the applicant ignores those kinds of requirements HR usually does too.

[pnwmom]

13. The bachelor's degree has turned into what the high school degree used to be --

mostly a filtering device -- so it often doesn't matter what the major is.

[intheflow]

15. My BS is also in General Studies,

but I disagree with you that it's the most useless of the degrees. On the contrary, it taught me how to critically think, how to evaluate any number of situations and arrive at a constructive course of action. Which is what you did, understanding it wasn't vocational training and getting the training you needed to find a job.

[Prometheus Bound]

26. I know one anecdote doesn't mean much.

But my son graduated two years ago with a double major in political studies and film studies. He's now got a wonderful job with an NGO (film studies caught their attention) and was invited to join the Board of Directors of another prominent NGO at the age of 24. Meanwhile many of his friends who graduated in finance, engineering and so forth are still working at minimum wage jobs.

[exboyfil]

32. Interesting my daughter is looking

at Film Studies and Electrical Engineering (I am encouraging the Electrical Engineering). She is just so good in math and science I hate to have her pass up on the "safe" degree. I do think maybe a better investment would be in professional production and video editing equipment and let her follow her passion?

Any pointers from your son? My daughter is 16 and just getting started in video editing. She did have the best film at our school film contest and has done really good work for her Broadcast Journalism class. She has two main focuses in her final two years of High School getting a bunch of engineering/science/math classes in and elevating her video production skills. The college she plans to go to has a its own video production organization, and that will be the majority of her extracurriculars.

[Prometheus Bound]

34. I'm pretty sure he would say she's got an excellent plan.

I don't think he's particularly good at camera work, video editing and so forth, but he's good enough to do their project documentaries. And he's got the communication skills to do other stuff they need, like liaising with other NGOs, government departments, project personnel, and so forth. The actual knowledge he got at university wasn't really a factor in hiring him.

The extra things he did at university, like certain summer jobs, voluntary work and political videos, which prospective employers can access on Youtube, helped quite a bit I think.

[Recursion]

9. I have an MS in EE and only have a job because I was a UNIX sysadmin before grad school

So I got a job doing what I did before, at the same pay, with $50K more in debt.

(I will say, at least, that for now knowing UNIX is one of the few very-employable skills out there, thank God...)

[chickypea]

11. Think A BA or BS, Masters or even Doctorate is "Making It?"

It is a starting point. It is no guarantee of anything. It is a place to grow from, not something that says you've arrived.
Spend some years working your way up, like everyone else does/did and pull on your grown up undies.

[Lemmy]

14. Sorry, but subject matters

First things first: University/College is primarily a racket. They are money making schemes not unlike any other giant corporations whose sole purpose is to maximize profit. The number of useless electives that people are forced to take in order to earn their degrees is nothing more than a scam, not to mention text books and everything from food to basic necessities priced higher on campus.

That said, there is merit to higher education, but only in certain subjects. Those who major in philosophy or women's studies or art history are doing so for God knows what reason. They are, to put it quite frankly, being scammed. You don't need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a degree in a subject that you can learn by taking a few books out of the library and reading them, and there are no jobs associated with these sham degrees.

Either take a hard science, or don't bother with post secondary education at all. Go into a trade instead.

[intheflow]

18. Humanities are useless.

Art and philosophy are useless. Music is useless.



My god, what a dull, colorless one-dimensional world you must live in. The emphasis on science and math is exactly what conservatives drone and what has decimated our public education system. There aren't jobs in the humanities because there's been a concentrated effort by conservatives to erase such curriculum from our schools. There's a reason why intellectuals and artists are among the first people targeted for eradication by oppressive regimes. We are the first to question authority, and we encourage others to do so, too.

[chickypea]

33. English Majors Rule

I have had a pretty interesting and varied career. Did I know what I would be when I "grew up"? Hell no, if you'd have said what direction my life would take at graduation, I'd have said something completely different.

LEARNING is important. Education is important. Learning how to think critically is important.
Studying economics or business...not so much.

[Zalatix]

41. Well, we can at least do away with history majors, can't we agree on that?

I mean, what use are people who learn about the mistakes of the past, to a world like this? Learning about how the French Revolution overthrew the ruling class? Dangerous stuff, man. We might need to send in the drones.

[pnwmom]

20. You're wrong about humanities and similar degrees.

They don't lead directly to a career, but they can serve as the foundation for one. And many jobs require a bachelor's degree, the way they used to require a high school degree, and it doesn't matter what the major is.

One of the most successful recent BA's I know had a GPA too low to get into the business program at the University, so he majored in humanities. Now he's using his written and oral communications skills in a very good marketing job at Microsoft, where he makes as much money as many of the techies. He couldn't have gotten this job without a bachelor's degree, but the major wasn't important.

It also isn't necessary to pay "hundreds of thousands" of dollars for a bachelors's degree at a state school. In fact, I've never heard of a state school charging $50K a year or more for in-state students. Or even for out-of-state students.

Full time enrollment at the main branch of U.W., for example, is about $3500 per quarter, or less than $11,000 per year. Living costs would vary depending on the student's circumstances.

[ellisonz]

21. "there are no jobs associated with these sham degrees."

Philosophy = Jack of all trades
Art History = Ever been to an art museum?
Women's Studies = You do realize that ~50% of the population is female?

[pnwmom]

23. All of these humanities degrees develop skills in analysis and communication,

which many employers value.

[ellisonz]

24. You just won your own thread!

[Posteritatis]

28. Not sure whether I find ignorance like this funny or depressing. (nt)

[bhikkhu]

35. If all one wants out of life is money...

then that's probably sound advice. Though its hard for me to imagine what I would do with money if that's all I had, and wasn't able to think about things clearly, or express myself, or read critically, or learn well - all of which I learned in college.

[white_wolf]

36. What would you do? That's simple.

You'd be Paris Hilton.

[Zalatix]

42. Money = putting food on the table. Money = paying for that heart transplant.

Yeah, money may not buy happiness but it'll keep you alive.

[coalition_unwilling]

47. You're a Philistine, plain and simple. The streets are littered with the

resumes of folks who followed your adivce and went to school essentially to learn a trade, like engineering or business, instead of learning what Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy referred to as "the best that has been thought and said."

[a la izquierda]

52. Go get a few books on...

The last 5000 years of the history of native peoples of the Americas, read them, and come back and tell me all about what I spent 13 years studying. I expect a rundown of pertinent theoretical and archaeological debates.

I'll be patient...

[ellisonz]

19. K & R

- But I majored in History

[FirstLight]

22. It's not just college students, vocational certificates are junk too...

I was sponsored by the Workforce Investment Act in 2010 to go to an extension program for 9 months to get a certificate in HR Mgmt.

had to research the best program and even make contacts in the field and ask them questions about the work before i even got approved to go. Commuted over those 9 months over 200 miles each way for an 8 hour class ...
Thought I'd be entering a field with 37% growth projected over the next 5 years...

BUT the data i researched was from 2006-07...BEFORE the bottom dropped out.
by the time i completed the program, well, you know how things are out there. Many of he HR people I had interviewed before the class had been downsized so I couldn't even try to use that connection to get a foot in the door.

now, thankfully the govt paid for the program. But it's STILL a huge waste of money, since I will not be able to enter the field unless I start as a data entry asst and work my way up in a decade or so... and I am 42.
So I am back to doing what I have always been doing, freelancing, design, etc...

So much for education being the key to a better future.


PS- I cannot even begin to tell you how horrible HR is anyway...The professors made it very clear that it is a 'hiring' market and that if the candidate doesn't want to give up rights or privacy, there's 20 people behind them who will... workers have NO rights anymore.

[pnwmom]

27. And there are so many millions in your situation. I'm sorry it happened to you. n/t

[exboyfil]

30. Your story is why I get disgusted anytime

someone mentions that capital gains and long term dividends should be taxed at lower rates than labor because of the risk involved. Your wages for labor are your returns from a very serious investment in dollars (which is the only risk that those with dollars take), time, and lost opportunity cost. Retooling a human is a lot harder than retooling a factory. Your life has depreciated by the time you have taken trying to better yourself - why when you do get a payoff (a job) do you have to face 20%-30% taxes on your wages when the LT capital gains folks pay 15%??? You have taken the greater risk.

[laundry_queen]

40. +1000 nt

[riderinthestorm]

43. When my daughter started her degrees in 2006, her field also had outstanding projected growth

She did her bachelors with a double major in 3 years in archaeology and business admin, and got her masters in archaeology and artifacts management in a year from the world's best university for that subject, but by 2010, nobody was hiring.

Tied to construction, field archaeology job prospects at this point are pretty dismal like the civil engineers, architects, urban planners etc who also graduated alongside her into what is now a zero growth industry.

She's fallen back to working as a professional riding instructor which has always paid very VERY well and truthfully isn't a bad gig but doesn't move her closer to her dreams. She's pivoting and applying to museums but she's competing against PhD field archaeologists who are similarly desperate and squeezed out of field work but who have a hell of a lot more artifacts experience than she has.

She has an EU passport and has applied globally and still no luck. Getting an entry level job right now is tough for new graduates everywhere. I really feel your pain.

[Recursion]

49. That also gets to why education isn't the answer

I mean, education can be a good thing for an individual, but it's not like educating the entire US population to be nurses and engineers will suddenly create enough nursing and engineering jobs for us.

[exboyfil]

25. My daughter is thinking of double majoring in

Electrical Engineering and Cinema (Film Studies with an emphasis on video editing and production). She is looking for synergies between the two majors in particular emphasizing some technical aspect of film making (such as the video editing software, cameras, etc). I think it will be worth the investment. I do like the idea of her getting a Liberal Arts degree as well. That way she has covered both sides of the coin so to speak. In engineering you are only required to take 19 hours of humanities/social studies, but the engineering school at Iowa really encourages synergies with the arts and other humanities. I am hoping she will also be able to keep up her violin which I also consider important (not an All Stater but does well).

I am surprised to see so many issues related with engineering placement. We are actually having some difficulty recruiting (require a minimum of 3.0) and are offering bonuses for bringing in new employees.

I cannot emphasize for engineering majors the importance of getting an internship. You need to be aggressive about it - don't wait for the companies to come to your colleges. You can also get experience at your college by working in the research labs. Employers value that as well.

We do need to stop the abuse of H1B and other types of Visas.

[pnwmom]

29. Do you know of any businesses hiring young mechanical engineers?

My nephew finally had to take a job as an "assistant" because that's all he could find, but there's no way to move up in the small company, because they only need one full-fledged engineer.

My nephew did have an internship, and started work there right after college -- but three months later, they closed the whole division.

[Trillo]

31. Those workers are overqualified for Costco. nt

[jp11]

37. I 'blame' people who major in history and have no interest in

teaching history or going for a masters in it to then open their already limited options more. I 'blame' people who acquire 100k+ of debt for a degree in literature and have no interest in writing, edition, journalism, etc. The wrong degrees are ones people picked cause they fell into the idea that everyone must go to a 4 year university and they picked something 'interesting' or 'easy' to get a degree without having any real passion or desire to be in that field.

Is the job market tough, hell yes, and it isn't only new grads that are screwed you have older people pushed out of jobs to bring in interns for nothing or a pittance of a stipend etc. Too many jobs want and have wanted YEARS of experience but pay like you have none. It was like that BEFORE the 'recession' as more people got degrees the jobs paid less and demanded more skills/experience. I routinely found jobs that should have been for college students 'requiring' skills from someone in the field for 5-10years paying 30k.

As a new grad out of school if I was stuck working for minimum wage I'd look into working in another country, it isn't that simple but those ARE options if you have the 'right' degree. If you can put the time/money into learning MORE you are MORE appealing to foreign companies/countries as a 'highly skilled' worker even if you don't have the experience. It is worth a shot to try over just rotting in a minimum wage job where your skills become less relevant and new crops of graduates come out every few months.

The same BS gets spilled in our media go to college and get a degree or you won't get a job. Employers can't fill their positions because there aren't enough qualified people, so go to college/tech school. But the problem remains they all want an employee ready to do the job on day one and not train anyone for anything.

I've said it before employers should be training people they can pay them less if they don't fit 'exactly' the BS requirements, college degree, 3 years experience, and if the employee goes to college then they can get a raise. But nope, employers want experience, degrees, and to pay people pennies on the dollar that they should be getting.

[Harmony Blue]

44. Engineering degrees are traps too

, so any degree can be hazardous if you don't have an idea on how to utilize the degree in the real world.

Contrary to popular belief, those that major in the humanities and arts are doing better than those that major in the sciences. Why? Flexibility, and that is what matters when trying to land a job in a bad economy.

Obtaining a degree is half of the equation. I try to tell college students all the time that work experience no matter what it is has some value (even min wage jobs). Is being a grocery work bad in the short term? A bagger at the grocery store builds interpersonal skills to work with other people and to build customer service skills (the heart of the U.S. economy is the service sector).

Skills, that is what brings home the bacon. This is why the trades are underrated in the United States, and you can still make good money if you learn these skills in specific trades.

Anyways, back to the grocery bagger. If he learns enough customer service work he can work on the front end customer service desk, or more interactive customer service departments. Produce, meat department, bakery etc.

Maybe this person isn't destined to work there forever, especially after obtaining their degree. But they can point to skills they learnt, and built to a future employer. It doesn't matter if it is not even related in the field. Work experience is experience, because it means you are used to adhering to a schedule, working with others, reporting to supervisors.

[pnwmom]

45. +1. n/t

[Recursion]

46. When I was in grad school, the College of Engineering...

...was telling undergrads that a BS in Electrical Engineering was a great lead-in to medical school. Now, this is probably true (EE was far and away the hardest academic thing I ever did, and taught me to be a much more disciplined thinker, etc.), but it seems odd that a field that's being billed as our future is actually telling its graduates to go into a different field.

[Zalatix]

48. Oh it's actually worse than that.

It sounds like what the College of Engineering was saying is that having dual majors in different disciplines is the wave of the future.

See Network Engineering and some Medical Industry-related degree, or more accurately, twin degrees (or a Major/Minor) in Programming and Biotech.

Programming itself is brutal; Biotech itself is brutal. Imagine having to do both. And then finding out that you're STILL competing against people in India with the same qualifications, willing to work for a dollar a day.

[bighughdiehl]

50. Just wait....

soon all the kiddies will be majoring in "STEM", then there will be a glut of STEM degrees after
the remaining jobs are outsourced or the economy takes a crap again. Then the talking heads will
turn right around and blame the STEM kiddies. Corporate America needs to be called out on their
bullshit just for once if anything at all is to be fixed.