Engineering Major question.........

[gogolion]

There are already a lot of great responses, but here are a few more points, perhaps rehashing some of what others have said. In all of this, I'm assuming her goals are to work in industry, not in academia.

- In my opinion, college it to prove you can solve problems and learn and understand the concepts behind the work you end up doing. As others have stated, very little of what you learn will directly apply to your work.
- I agree she should not rush to finish quickly. If I'm understanding correctly, she also finished high school in 3 years. So she is actually 2 years ahead of "schedule". I don't think anyone who has been working for 25+ years wishes they had started working a year earlier. So I wouldn't worry about her missing out on a year in the work force.
- Female engineers are rare. Companies will hire her over an equally qualified male candidate because she is a woman. Being as talented as it appears she is, she can write her own ticket in the work force.
- After you get your first job, your college/degree doesn't matter much. Your work experience is what matters after that.

It appears she will succeed in whatever she decides to do.

 

[LemonEars]

There are already a lot of great responses, but here are a few more points, perhaps rehashing some of what others have said. In all of this, I'm assuming her goals are to work in industry, not in academia.

- In my opinion, college it to prove you can solve problems and learn and understand the concepts behind the work you end up doing. As others have stated, very little of what you learn will directly apply to your work.
- I agree she should not rush to finish quickly. If I'm understanding correctly, she also finished high school in 3 years. So she is actually 2 years ahead of "schedule". I don't think anyone who has been working for 25+ years wishes they had started working a year earlier. So I wouldn't worry about her missing out on a year in the work force.
- Female engineers are rare. Companies will hire her over an equally qualified male candidate because she is a woman. Being as talented as it appears she is, she can write her own ticket in the work force.
- After you get your first job, your college/degree doesn't matter much. Your work experience is what matters after that.

It appears she will succeed in whatever she decides to do.

More good points. When you look back over your life, most of us would trade a year in the workplace for a year at Penn State. It is the best time of your life. Why not make it last?
Not so sure about "Female engineers are rare." That was certainly true 20 or more years ago. Now it seems like it is almost 50-50. We have many qualified and talented female engineers at my work location.
The best mechanical engineer I ever worked with had a Chem Eng degree from a small backwoods college in Michigan. He never used the Chem Eng material he learned but his ME talents were abundant. He reached the highest engineering level at my company when he was quite young.

 

[WarrentonLion]

Not an Engineering major, but I graduated with a degree in Meteorology back in '90. I shared many classes with Engineering majors (Advanced Physics, Thermodynamics) THE best decision I ever made during my college years was delaying my graduation by a full year to do a Cooperative Education program (2 Fall semesters and one Summer) with the National Weather Service. There I got to gain valuable experience with real world Mets, picked their brains, and I had a job waiting for me before I went back to school for my final semester. I agree with the posts above. Your daughter sounds like a very bright young lady. I doubt very seriously the Engineering profs have her best interests in mind. They are just looking to recruit bright minds for their programs and really know very little about what is truly marketable in the real world outside academia. My advice...slow down and don't be pressured into making decisions about your future. By all means, talk to people who are working in several different Engineering and related fields. Best of luck!

 

[gogolion]

Not so sure about "Female engineers are rare." That was certainly true 20 or more years ago. Now it seems like it is almost 50-50. We have many qualified and talented female engineers at my work location.

You may be right that I based my statements on experiences earlier in my career. I went to an engineering school undergrad (got my masters at PSU) and the men to women ratio was something like 5 to 1 there. The two companies I've worked for over the last 10 years haven't hired much, so I am probably a bit out of touch with the demographics. If more women are studying engineering nowadays that's great! I had no idea.

 

[LemonEars]

You may be right that I based my statements on experiences earlier in my career. I went to an engineering school undergrad (got my masters at PSU) and the men to women ratio was something like 5 to 1 there. The two companies I've worked for over the last 10 years haven't hired much, so I am probably a bit out of touch with the demographics. If more women are studying engineering nowadays that's great! I had no idea.

When I received my BS from Penn State there were about 800 engineering grads. There was 1 woman!! I'm really pleased that women are taking engineering. Women are just as capable as men and it never made sense that they stayed away from engineering. Many of the women at my work location are doing very well.

 

[LemonEars]

It's not even close to 50/50. You must be recruiting at all women's schools or you hire a bunch of Bio Engr's and IE's. Female ME's are very rare and in high demand, regardless of grades.

Here's data on Penn State...the largest undergraduate engineering program in the country, so it's a pretty good indicator.

http://www.engr.psu.edu/facts/undergrad-enrollment.aspx

Thanks for correcting me. I'm really surprised that in 2016 only 21.5% of the engineering students were women. At my work location it seems like our new recruits include a much higher percentage of women than 21.5%. It is still a lot higher proportion of women than years ago and this is a good thing.

 

[LemonEars]

Seriously? Do you have daughters? Did they help fix the car? If so, did they want to do it? Did you ever have them change the oil or fix a flat? Did you play with erector sets when you were a boy? What did your sisters play with?

Did you ever visit a 3rd grade school playground...if so you'll see 100 girls standing around chatting and maybe 2 boys with them, mean while you'll see 100 boys and maybe 2 girls running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Their is a difference.

Is it nurture or nature? Probably some of both. Fathers don't teach their daughters (by and large) how to use tools and fix things. On the other hand, most girls aren't interested, at all, in learning such things.

Having said this, I make my girls change the oil in their cars and they can also use all the tools in my shop.

I've worked for 47 years as a ME. I hate to fix things around the house and usually mess things up when I try. I am terrible working with my hands. My Dad tried to teach me how to use tools and fix things but I wasn't interested. I didn't play with an erector set when I was a boy. I played baseball and basketball. I did love to do math problems and spent hours making up problems and solving them. I tutored other kids in match from about the 6th grade on. I was also a voracious reader. I did well as an ME because I am very good at math, love to work with computers, and am told that I communicate well. I find that some engineering has to do with hands-on fixing stuff but there is certainly a place in engineering for those who aren't hands-on.

The fact that women talk to each other more than boys do should make them better engineers than men. Almost all engineering is done by collaboration.

 

[gogolion]

Thanks for correcting me. I'm really surprised that in 2016 only 21.5% of the engineering students were women. At my work location it seems like our new recruits include a much higher percentage of women than 21.5%. It is still a lot higher proportion of women than years ago and this is a good thing.

Yeah, I was thinking your 50/50 number couldn't possibly be right, but I wasn't sure so I didn't question you. I did a quick search and found a 2012 article that said 14% of engineers in the work force are engineers, compared to 6% in the early 80's. I also found that the engineering school I went to (WPI) is now only about 2 to 1 ratio (~33% women). So the numbers are improving but there's a long way to go.

As for why women avoid engineering, I think generally women don't seem to like math as much as men and they are more interested in professions that involve interacting with people.

 

[gogolion]

I've worked for 47 years as a ME. I hate to fix things around the house and usually mess things up when I try. I am terrible working with my hands. My Dad tried to teach me how to use tools and fix things but I wasn't interested. I didn't play with an erector set when I was a boy. I played baseball and basketball. I did love to do math problems and spent hours making up problems and solving them. I tutored other kids in match from about the 6th grade on. I was also a voracious reader. I did well as an ME because I am very good at math, love to work with computers, and am told that I communicate well. I find that some engineering has to do with hands-on fixing stuff but there is certainly a place in engineering for those who aren't hands-on.

The fact that women talk to each other more than boys do should make them better engineers than men. Almost all engineering is done by collaboration.

Yeah, I think it's more about math than the hands on stuff. I am handy with tools, but it was the math and problem solving part of engineering that got me. Although engineers do have to interact with people and good communication skills are very important, it is not typically a profession where you're meeting a lot of new people and spending a lot of time talking. I spent 6 years telecommuting to an office half way across the country and I often went days without interacting with anyone back at the office.

 

[LemonEars]

Yeah, I think it's more about math than the hands on stuff. I am handy with tools, but it was the math and problem solving part of engineering that got me. Although engineers do have to interact with people and good communication skills are very important, it is not typically a profession where you're meeting a lot of new people and spending a lot of time talking. I spent 6 years telecommuting to an office half way across the country and I often went days without interacting with anyone back at the office.

I think what we are saying is that there is plenty of room in engineering for people who like hands-on work and for people who are math oriented and don't like hands-on work.

 

[CF LION]

We wanted Biomed as it is quickly growing. Tait has to develop projects rapidly, from conception with the top artists like U2, Lady Gaga, the Stones, to prototypes, to actual implementation. The artists do not know the limits of engineering. They just know "what they want". Many lifts, pulleys, etc. to design on the fly. So that is very unique. Clair Brothers does all the sound and audio. So it's not a life calling at this point, just an interesting thing to explore.

To echo others here, ESci has been around a long time at PSU. As an EE grad, I took some ESci courses from Dr Fonash (anyone remember him?). This was back in the early 80's.

I've worked with Clair Brothers before on theatre design. Excellent group. In addition to sound they also do theatrical lighting design, and like Tait, put together systems for tours of all the big boys in the industry. Pretty amazing that Lancaster County is home to two of the heavy weights for theatrical systems design and implementation.

If she has a thing for this type of work, some EE course work in audio/sound engineering or even lighting design in the Arch E department might prove valuable.

Good luck! Sounds like a great kid you got there.

 

[katchthis]

To echo others here, ESci has been around a long time at PSU. As an EE grad, I took some ESci courses from Dr Fonash (anyone remember him?). This was back in the early 80's.

I've worked with Clair Brothers before on theatre design. Excellent group. In addition to sound they also do theatrical lighting design, and like Tait, put together systems for tours of all the big boys in the industry. Pretty amazing that Lancaster County is home to two of the heavy weights for theatrical systems design and implementation.

If she has a thing for this type of work, some EE course work in audio/sound engineering or even lighting design in the Arch E department might prove valuable.

Good luck! Sounds like a great kid you got there.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[RobBliz]

I think your young adult daughter should talk to an advisor rather than her father seeking the opinion of strangers on a sports forum, but that is just me.

 

[RobBliz]

Yes you are so dialed in. :-O Just trying to gather info, and questions. She has talked to two profs and multiple people in the work force. You can easily glean a lot of info on here in a short time regarding engineering education and experience.The purpose of the OP was not so much to get answers, but develop a line of questioning for her professor. She had a meeting with him 24 hours after the offer was extended to decide what course of action to take. The answer of dual enrollment was needed in short order as drop add ends this weekend.
I also have numerous friends who are engineers and are engineer-CEO's . I think we are just fine in our approach.

Well as much as you brag I a surprised you need any advice.

 

[Rick76]

Engineering Science has been around a long time. I was a graduate student in the ESM (Engineering Science and Mechanics) Dept back in the 80’s. An undergraduate E Science degree is designed mostly for students planning to go the graduate school, or someone looking for a kind of “cross-section” engineering foundation. I would think it would be good for your daughter if she is not sure what type of engineer she wants to be. It was an exclusive undergrad degree, requiring an invite is what I recall.

Nittnee is spot on. Engineering Science and Engineering Mechanics have been around since the 1970's. Most of the students I knew in these programs went on to grad school or into a national lab where they could focus on research.

I think you should ask her what she really wants to do. If she wants to wants to be a field engineer or a design engineer, Eng Sci won't help her much. In fact most engineering firms won't quite know what type of degree she has. If she wants to get a PhD or do hard core research, it will probably be an asset.

 

[TDeebel]

Dual engineering degrees are pretty redundant and generally not worth pursuing unless you either have a very specific career path in mind or the second degree is really just a subset of the first (nuclear and mechanical is a good example of this). Most employers are either looking for a very specific skillset or treat an engineering degree as an indicator that the candidate is trainable. Double dipping on fairly general BS engineering degrees doesn't help either case. The added course load is better spent on a masters degree.

the biggest red flag for me though is the plan to graduate in 3 years by taking classes through the summer. unless the plan is to go directly into an engineering masters program that's a huge mistake. Graduating with a 4.0 is going to get her a lot of interviews but she won't get any job offers if she doesn't have relevant job experiences to draw from in a situational interview. The company I work for wants engineering grads with well-rounded resumes and hands-on experience. That means a couple rotations of summer co-ops/internships and/or research lab experience plus some participation in a design competition (FSAE, Future Truck, Baja, etc.).