Engineering sucks.

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kmguru said:
In every generation, certain empire supports the engineers and they build great civilizations. Then the bean counters, priests and politicians take over and that civilization dies, never to get up. This happened to the Greeks, the Romans and so on...

Since 1935 through 1995, engineers did pretty well in USA, but not in China or India. Now the tide is turning....they go up, we go down....
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Yes I'm afraid that's true, it seems to be a repeatable phenomena. Actually here in USA we started to see the decline in the late 1970's after the energy crisis. In 1980 the change of administration ushered in the steady move toward globalization, which benefited certain large corporations and set the stage for the off-shoring of engineering, which is now in full swing and affects me on a daily basis. Can't imagine ever telling my kids to pursue a career in engineering.

I have seen recently though that the rate of off-shoring is starting to slow a bit as the labor costs in India are starting to rise (still a fraction of the cost to do that work in US or Europe though).
 
In seventies and early eighties, we built a lot of basic industries such as Petrochemical plants, Pulp and paper plants, mining, metals such as aluminium, magnesium, TiO2, steel mills etc etc. After 1990, it slowed down to a crawl because China and India expanded and we stopped, saying they pollute the environment. We still have tons of chemical plants on the Mississippi river banks from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, but they are old.

However I have not seen very many grassroot plants being built and old ones are closing down. I used to be a control engineer, one of the bset in the world. When Information Technology paid more money, I switched career. Once in a while I get calls for Control Engineering at the same rate as 1992.

The companies never spent any more money developing new technologies in the heavy industries. They just moved it to China and India with pollutions and all. At one time, we had the most sophisticated Faultproof control system for nuclear power plants in mid 80s. But because there was no new nuclear power plants being built, that company went bankrupt.

We lost a lot of good sensor and control technologies. That is why NASA is stuck with the old stuff and the Chinese and Indians are using early 80s technology.

The only thing we are doing well is in Personal Computers and by extension the microprocessors. But That technology will be stagnant since Bill Gates is stepping down. Dell, Lenovo and HP will be like the old big three auto makers...start pumping out same stuff with different colors.

The military which used to develop cutting edge technology is now buying COTS (Commercial Of The Self) products only from established companies that are old technologies. So, the government which spends Billions buys 5 year old technologies - in Internet age, like buying World War II tanks.

No wonder people feel Engineering Sucks - Like Rodney Dangerfield says - Get no respect!
 
Myles said:
The very worst kind. They are usually drop-outs from real engineering.
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Is that right?

I'm a mechanical engineer. Not sure what you consider "real" engineering, but I think I've accomplished a bit with my little degree. I have a number of patents; I work daily with multi-million element FE models running state of the art explicit analysis code on one of the largest dedicated CAE servers in North America; I helped develop engineering software that changed the way all engineers, mechanical, civil, nuclear, aerospace or electrical manage their data and analyze their designs for strength, fatigue and vibration; I've been on every continent in the world as a test engineer; I've put my mark on many different products that you probably use every day of your life. So, I feel pretty good about where I have gone with my mechanical engineering degree, although as I have said, I would not advise anyone to go into the field today.

What sort of advanced engineering degree do you hold, Myles? And what have you accomplished with it? Please share with us.
 
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Watcher said:
Is that right?

I'm a mechanical engineer. Not sure what you consider "real" engineering, but I think I've accomplished a bit with my little degree. I have a number of patents; I work daily with multi-million element FE models running state of the art explicit analysis code on one of the largest dedicated CAE servers in North America; I helped develop engineering software that changed the way all engineers, mechanical, civil, nuclear, aerospace or electrical manage their data and analyze their designs for strength, fatigue and vibration; I've been on every continent in the world as a test engineer; I've put my mark on many different products that you probably use every day of your life. So, I feel pretty good about where I have gone with my mechanical engineering degree, although as I have said, I would not advise anyone to go into the field today.


What sort of advanced engineering degree do you hold, Myles? And what have you accomplished with it? Please share with us.
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What an impressive cv. You should be known to a wider audfience but I bet you get invited to lots of parties to tell jokes. My only distinction is that I have a patent on widgets, not bad for someone who was expelled from school at thirteen. God. what I could have done with a degree ! The mind boggles.

It seems you overlooked the fact that I was responding to Nickelodeon who said that engineering sucks and later that he was a mechanical engineer. You just couldn't resist.
 
Nikelodeon said:
Civil Engineers are so uncivilized.
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May be because they work for the government, where corruption is rampant in public works projects.....

Today Bobby Jindal took over the Governorship of Louisiana. In his acceptance speech, he said to root out corruption. Like that is going to happen in his life time....

Our roads are the worst in the country...
 
Engineering indeed sucks. I dropped out of chemical in college. I hardly made it throuh intro to engineering i hated it so much.

The irony is I ended up being an "engineer" after all! Software development engineer, Quality assurance engineer, Business process engineer... :)
 
fadingCaptain said:
Engineering indeed sucks. I dropped out of chemical in college. I hardly made it throuh intro to engineering i hated it so much.

The irony is I ended up being an "engineer" after all! Software development engineer, Quality assurance engineer, Business process engineer... :)
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Looks like you still have the critical thinking that is needed to be a good Software or Business Process Engineer. If you had Chemical Engineering, you would be doing Chemical Process Engineering like developing new ways to make Bio-diesel, Cellulosic Ethanol, New drugs or making wines cheaply that tastes like the most expensive brands.
 
Half the engineers I graduated with went on to become accountants. Financial sector pays great, but the work is boring as fuck.
 
Nikelodeon said:
Half the engineers I graduated with went on to become accountants. Financial sector pays great, but the work is boring as fuck.
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One of my classmate got his masters in Industrial Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and then got his CPA with one try. He now runs an investment fund and raking in dough.
 
Nikelodeon said:
Sigh.
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You asked for it, you got it, now I am the Moderator for this forum. What next? We need some good discussions here. I get 30+ trade magazines per month from design engineering to storage to control engineering, chemical engineering, plant engineering etc.

USA is definitely losing engineering talent....we will be in serious trouble as economy tanks.....

Anyone interested in any specific area?
 
When great civilizations ignore and marginalize engineers, the society falls. The soul dies. It is a cycle that repeats itself over time.
 
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