Don't really want to be an Engineering major anymore...

As for the OP. I say stick with it. You can do anything you want with an engineering degree. Any job will hire you over any other major. Hell more people get hired to wall street with an engineering degree than with a business degree.

Just because you have that degree doesnt mean thats what you'll be doing for the rest of your life. I have a civil engineering degree and am currently working in software and project management, it's all about making yourself marketable and thats what an engineering degree does.
 
No I won't tell that to a kid in a third world country because it doesn't apply to that standard of living, ya dingus. If you had basic reading skills you would've picked up on the fact that I was making a poetic statement about money culture in first-world American society: value is dependent on your ability to appreciate your assets, spiritually, culturally, sentimentally, egotistically - whatever. And though for some reason you chose to ignore the very important stipulation in which we both agree, allow me to reiterate: such idealism by itself is complete nonsense, hence the need for practical context and some degree of reasonable cynicism; people who think they don't need money are naive hippies. Regardless, take more than a basic primer in financial theory and see if you still think that, at the end of the day, wealth = money.
 
Meanwhile, I graduated with a Liberal Arts degree and I'm super happy with my life.

And my brother gets a mechanical engineering degree and is just miserable. Haha
 
I'm sure there's easier degrees than Art History as well (somehow). Still, medical school is definitely up there...
 
engineers are better than anyone else.

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Look, if you don't like engineering then the answer is pretty simple to your dilemma. Don't do engineering. There are a multitude of good reasons to be an engineering major, and among them are NOT 'I wanna make a ton of money' or 'Mom and Dad said I should do it.' The dominant narrative of the day is wrong. College should not be somewhere you punch in and out for four years so you can get a piece of paper at the end that says "X showed up on time and followed all the rules for the last four years." This sort of mindset is why college graduation rates are so low these days. College is where you seek to define your identity in the midst of a personal intellectual awakening. If you don't walk across the stage on graduation day a completely changed person, then you have failed college. Do you want to spend the next few years of your life hating what you're doing? Is that how you're going to awaken yourself intellectually? You know what happens when people become doctors just for the paycheck? You get shitty doctors who are just there for the paycheck. And in regards to money, I promise that you're not going to die in a pond that you use as a bathtub and a toilet or whatever seward said earlier if you don't decide to pursue engineering. If you have some immediate financial emergency such as a dying relative and that's why you're in college, then you need to get the hell out right now and go get a job on an oil rig or in a mine so you can make an assload of money to pay for whatever your problem is. If that's not the case, and you're privileged with at least some degree of financial stability for the forseeable future, then I would suggest taking a variety of classes to try and find what you are passionate about. Sticking with a major that you're not motivated in just because it may have a good payoff is a bad idea. I can almost guarantee that you'll be in a worse-off situation financially if you end up dropping out or not being able to graduate because you couldn't keep your grades up than you would be from the salary cut you'd take if you studied something else. Major in what you're stoked about and the grades will follow.

The fact that you're reading this right now leads me to make the reasonable assumption that you're living in a first-world country, and when you write about pursuing a college degree, I think it's permitted to assume that you're within some of the top tiers of this country financially. Hell, the fact that you're writing this on a computer with internet connectivity means that you're probably richer than the vast majority of people on this planet. If you switch your major, worst case scenario is that you take a little longer to graduate, and you end up having a degree in a first-world country. In America, having a degree puts you in the top 30%. At this point, you're already winning the rat race. If people are going to berate you for not majoring in something you hate, just because it doesn't statistically make as much money, my answer would be to question at what point this drive to die with the biggest pile of accumulated stuff start to become a bit ridiculous?
 


I would like to start off by saying I revere many engineers and how hard they work. As

you probably already know, the nature of the program makes it a highly competitive field

of study, where insane amounts of stress, time and effort go into trying to pass or to make

it into the next year, let alone graduating. Therefore, I do understand how it can be

frustrating for engineers to see people in different fields of study who put less time and

effort into their degree, have more time to do enjoyable things like party and ski for

example and still graduate with decent marks. However, it doesn’t mean people who

don’t study engineering, especially those studying liberal arts quality of life will decrease

once they graduate. It all depends on the individual and the choices they make. Look at it

this way, someone who does their undergraduate degree as a liberal arts student educate

themselves on a wide array of topics; politics, religion, languages, mathematics, classics,

literature, philosophy, economics etc. Which evidently gives them a deeper

understanding of how economies and politics work as well as a broad understanding of

how the world works which is very important. A liberal arts degree can also give students

the opportunity to learn new languages, understand the basic truths of life, or to grasp the

fundamental nature of existence, reality and knowledge. They can also make the decision

to go to graduate school and focus on a more concentrated field of study (ie- law,

business, etc). In saying that, even if they decide not to go to grad school what’s the big

deal? Personally, I believe liberal arts students still have equal opportunity to become

successful and happy with a high quality of life.

OP, my brother is currently studying engineering as well and is struggling with the same

thing. He’s good at it and is a smart guy with a great mind but he gets miserable thinking

about the future sometimes. Being an avid skier and an outdoors guy I can see how its

tough, but how I see it, if you stick to it and get your degree I truly believe you can go

anywhere. Engineers solve problems efficiently and fast and have a great work ethic,

which is the key to success. Obviously, it’s ultimately up to you but I think it’s worth it in

the long run.

 
Man, its pretty hard to say on this one. Try persevering a little bit, but if it REALLY isnt what you want to do, go in another direction. Yeah its difficult, but if you bite the bullet it may very well be worth it in the end. My parents always stressed heavily that i needed to pursue a field i enioyed. Luckily for me, thst was science and medicine and im applying to medical school this summer. If i hated the sciences, no way i could have pursued a field like that. You may be smart enough to do any field you like, doesnt mean you always will have the passion and dedication to get through it.
 
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here: what's stopping him from studying all those things as gen. ed. classes? I saturated my time with arts and philosophy during the first two years of school, and now I'm in the latter stages of a finance degree. Yet I'm capable of discussing art, politics, and philosophy for hours on end with my friends who majored in arts and philosophy. Where did this attitude come from, the idea that your major puts boundaries on what you're able and willing to learn? Not just in school, but throughout life?

I'm not discounting the intangible value of any type of education. The reason I took finance instead of philosophy is because I see post-secondary institutional learning as a primarily financial investment. When tuition costs what it does in the U.S., it's borderline reckless to overspend all that money on something you could learn at a library or community college.

The American education system, both in itself and its political/cultural role (using, say, funding as a metric), is the result of the 19th century push for industrialization. The idea is to produce a population of kids who are just smart enough to run the machines, but just dumb enough not to ask questions. The STEM major circle-jerk plays on this economic reality; engineers are not intrinsically "better" than liberal arts majors, they're just advantaged by being opportunists and are therefore "better" at playing the game (in theory). The STEM fields are bubbling, and we're currently on the up. I'm simply advocating that one can gain an advantage by hedging their bet on a trade degree (engineering, accounting, etc.) so that if OP needs career prospects for a period of time before the bubble bursts and our streets are flooded with unemployed engineers like baby spiders fresh from momma's sack, OP will at least have some steady income. And if it doesn't burst - hey, he's got a fallback plan. I don't think I've ever met an engineer who didn't have an incredible capacity for political, philosophical, and cultural discourse. You must be thinking of accountants (just kidding. but seriously...)

The idea that one can learn the fundamental nature of existence in college is like eating canned tuna by a salmon brook. The intellectual role of college is not to give you the answers, it's to give you the ability to ask questions, which literally any degree can provide, and trade degrees provide all while simultaneously granting you the economic leverage to put food on the table.

Some of the most intelligent and content people I've ever met were philosophy and english majors. I respect their ability to live happily within their means and sense of purpose without feeling the need to anchor themselves to pointless consumption. On the other hand, there's nothing inherently wrong with living the opposite lifestyle, one in which you sell fragments of your existence in return for financial gain, presumably to enhance future fragments of your existence, which you end up selling anyway. I think its backwards, but who am I to judge?

My point is not to condone one lifestyle over another. My point is purely utilitarian: that an engineering major will have all the same opportunities for growth and happiness that a liberal arts major will have, but not the other way around.

"There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little." - Jackie French Koller
 
However, if you're stuck in a major you hate, then you're not achieving the same level of growth and happiness that people in majors they love are.
 
Are you saying that a two-year academic head start in a non-specialized subject is worth a lifetime of financial insecurity?
 
"I'd argue that only those who truly believe money does not equal wealth are capable of wealth" - IIIII

i must have misunderstood this line right here. basic reading skills will do that to you.

and hey, while youre being condescending, why dont you look up the definition of back peddling?
 
If you don't know what you're talking about, then you don't know. Nothing wrong with that, just don't be surprised when people act like condescending pricks (me) when you oversimplify a complex subject.
 
I feel what you're saying man. I'm a freshman at UW and I'm trying to get into an engineering department. Fall quarter was pretty mellow for me (just Calc 3 and Chem) but this quarter I'm taking 17 credits and it's starting to hit me that I'm going to have to work this hard (and probably harder) for the next 3+ years. I was really bad with procrastination and actually studying/doing hw in high school and last quarter, so now I'm just making it a habit to take care of all of my shit early in the day because there's no way I can just "slide by" if I want to be an engineer.

What's keeping me going is that if I get an engineering degree there are really really good odds that I'll be able to find a solid job. I also like that I'm learning skills that are applicable to pretty much any problem-solving application. I'd rather work my fingers to the bone now and be able to ski, travel, and enjoy life from age 23-death than fuck around and have fun now and end up working a shit job for the rest of my life.

Just thinking about my lifestyle and study habits it's kind of a miracle that I made it this far. I don't want to fuck it up now.

 
You can disagree with me all you want, but your argument that wealth = money is a red flag. There are many valid arguments against my original sentiment, but your third-world nation cliché is crude at best. Who do you think is wealthier: a millionaire on a desert island, or someone with no money on a land rich with resources?

Money is only a representation of wealth and a unit of account. It is not wealth in itself. If anything, wealth > money.
 
I wouldn't call you wrong, but I will say that you seem to be ignoring some of the factors and requisites necessary to enjoy a lifestyle in which one will have the opportunities to pursue the things that truly makes him happy.
 
someone posted the dictionary definition of wealth on the last page.

perhaps you should check it out.

 
The problem with dictionary definitions is that they're too general to be of any use in esoteric discussion. Its like when people use dictionary definitions in ontological arguments; almost anything you take from it will be inaccurate.
 
the problem with you is that your fingers are in your ears, shaking your head back and forth while shouting nope nope nope nope.

you are arguing against a dictionary man. get real.

and of course dictionary definitions wont work in an ontological argument.

dictionary < metaphysics < philosophy < absolutely everything is debatable.

unfortunately we are not discussing ontology.

we are discussing a common household word and its definition.

also, anyone who uses esoteric to describe their own conversations is 100% likely a douchebag.

not to mention anyone who implies theyre too smart for a book that defines language.

i think wealth = money + assets

you think wealth = a mishmash of fuckin everything.

in fact im willing to bet that if you ask almost anyone the wealthiest person they can name, most will answer somebody like gates, buffet, walton's, or even trump.

is that because they carry around most peoples annual salary in their wallet's?

or because they "live on land rich in resources".

you tell me, dingus.
 
No, YOU are discussing the common definition of wealth. I am providing it's precise definition. What part of that do you not get? You are actually naive enough to think that a common dictionary is remotely useful for technical applications? Just because 90% of the population uses its common definition doesn't make its technical application any less valid.

Just curious - what did you go to school for?
 
I looked at the previous definition.

So, I checked the most accurate and thorough dictionary I know--The Oxford English Dictionary:

an abundance of valuable possessions or money: e.g. he used his wealth to bribe officials

1.1 the state of being rich; material prosperity: some people buy boats and cars to display their wealth

1.2 plentiful supplies of a particular resource: the country’s mineral wealth

1.3 [in singular] a plentiful supply of a particular desirable thing: the tables and maps contain a wealth of information

While everyone except whatever the name IIIII or |||||| seems to be relying on the traditional monetary definition, that is a somewhat confined perspective. Particularly when one looks at 1.3. Even more so when one looks at the origins of the word: from "weal" and "well" which don't particularly have anything specifically to do with material wealth. Instead they reference personal well being and stability much more strongly.

I don't really get why it's being said that this isn't an ontological argument. You're arguing about what "a thing is" in this case what wealth is and isn't. To me that seems pretty ontological. Also, in my mind it's quite difficult and perhaps impractical to have an ontological argument without evaluating epistemic issues. And this would definitely be the case with language.

And the history of the word "wealth" has an interesting epistemic origin--particularly when contrasted with it's most common usage today. He's (aka ||||) employing a broader definition of the word, and while you could argue it's archaic or inaccurate in an exclusively contemporary sense, as I read these posts it's more aimed to illuminate disparities between visions of wealth and our (problematic) reliance on wealth as having an exclusively monetary reference. Which really brings to the forefront an interesting notion--if we preclude that wealth is wholly monetary in meaning, what word do we use to reference well being? Being sated in a material or spiritual sense?

 
Dont tempt him.

Engineering is where its at buddy. If you just cant cut the mustard then econ or biz are also decent majors. If you are actually smart enough to do engineering then do it, you wont regret it. To make your life more fun, find some communications and english major girls at your school and make fun of them for how much their lives are gonna suck dick after college unless they find a rich hubby.

2. Tell said bitches that you are rich.

3. Fuckem and chuck em

4. Profit
 
your opinion of a words meaning does not make it a "precise definition". lol.thats quite a tall horse you are perched on dingus.

yes, i am that naive, and evidentially you agree that 90% of the population is as well.

what if i didnt go to school??

does that make me any less "qualified" to have this conversation?

what if i studied english??

what if im an astrophysicist?

you seem like a very smart guy.

smart enough not to profile someone by their academic credentials or lack there of.

and if i told you i spent 8 years in an elite canadian university would you believe me anyways?

a plaque on my wall does not make me smarter than you or vice versa.
 
This is the biggest crock of shit ive ever read.

Basically, the world is built on what we build.

I phones, computers, cars, factory machines, home appliances, mri machines etc..

THAT is what makes our society as advanced and comfortable as it is.

You want to see a society without engineering?

Go to africa, and have fun over there without technology.

The reason engineering majors have it better than liberal arts majors is because of the following;

The world is currently in the process of becoming more efficient, and cutting the fat out of the labor force. Remember the guy in office space, trying to defend his job and not get fired by saying to his bosses "im a people person! Im good with people!"?

Well those kinds of people with no real skill are going to be cut from the workforce and have trouble finding jobs. We all need cellphones and i pads and laptops but do we need a bunch of secretaries and paper pushers at the factories? No, we just need the product. Customer service is another thing but if you lib arts majors fancy competing with a bunch of immigrants and outsourced labor so you can talk on a phone 12 hrs a day, go for it.

Not all liberal arts majors are equally bad. The worst are communications and english. I dont have anything against them, well communications i do, but the point is that those majors dont represent any distinctive skill. Everybody knows how to talk, read, and write. Your not special because you went to college to learn how to talk well. Almost everyone can effectively communicate with one another without a fucking comm degree. Look at even the famous comm majors, like Keith olbermann, from the fucking cornell school of agriculture. Yeah he makes a decent living, but hes still a worthless piece of shit who contributes nothing to society other then to convince stupid people that they are victims.

Spark notes:

The world is quickly getting rid of jobs that are not necessary, and lib arts majors are in danger of being found to be not necessary.
 
True that. Engineers have the right to hold their heads high. What they study is conceptually in another galaxy from what comm or art history majors study. I wasnt even an engineer, i was a bio major, but i still concede engineers are the shit.
 
The funny part is that one of the number one complaints I've heard from engineers is that graduates they hire have absolutely no clue how to effectively communicate verbally or in writing.

For instance, my old landlord was a structural engineer running a private practice, largely consulting. He worked with a number of young guys from other practices and one day we were talking and he said, "It's sort of stupefying, these young people can crunch numbers and run programs, but they can't iterate well they can't work out of the box easily or very well independently and they have a lot of trouble communicating ideas."

Ever read Marshall McLuhan? (Also Canadian.) There's a fair number of big time philosophers who got their start in communication theory--which is an extension of philosophy proper. The study is not limited to interpersonal communication by any means.

I'm not saying there aren't brilliant engineers out there. There are plenty, but I don't get this sort of idea that everything designed is beautiful and useful for the progress of the world. I mean... there's A LOT of useless and shitty stuff out there. A LOT.
 
If you didn't go to school for business, then that's exactly what I'm saying. I wouldn't argue with a chemist by regurgitating dictionary definitions because I believed thatdefinitions trumped meaning. A dictionary only defines the common usage for a particular word (i.e. household use). If you think that it gives you license to partake in established theoretical discourse, then you are delusional.

I'm not here to judge; qualifications are not wholly indicative of a person's capacity (did I not say earlier that some of the most intelligent people I've met had so-called "bullshit degrees"?). The reason I ask is because during the first year one generally learns that there are different epistemological contexts of terminology, and I would be very surprised if you went to school considering your refusal to acknowledge this. This simply isn't something you can deny; this isn't a matter of opinion.

You're perfectly welcome to have disagree with my original sentiment (which draws to question the philosophical meaning of "wealth" within a financial epistemology), but to simply rub my nose in a dictionary is a horribly lazy argument, not to mention narrow in scope. As I said earlier, I've heard some very intelligent ideas that negate my thoughts, but anchoring yourself to a crude reference book is missing the point entirely.
 
Anyone who thinks an undergraduate degree defines them and their career in this day and age is naive.

You are only limited by your inability to seize opportunities. Do engineers have an easier time finding opportunities? Yes. Does it mean they will be more successful than anyone else? No.

Note to anyone who thinks an undergraduate degree in Business is sufficient, it is not. Go to graduate school. Get your masters. You dont have to do it now, but just know, you will be limited moving up in a company if you do not.

 
I would say that the role of colleges, good colleges at least, is to immerse you in a microcosm of people of comparable intelligence to you. For example, if you take classes at harvard but dorm and spend all your free time with crackheads your not going to get any smarter. It takes dealing with a vicious social hierarchy and having deep conversations with friends that challenge you to grow your intelligence.

Also IIIII, if wealth=/=money, then just call it money and stop arguing about something that really has no conceptual importance. Yeah you can argue that wealth is more about state of mind etc... But its just a tedious argument. What is your goal? To prove that wealth=/= money? Not very mind blowing, even if its true. We can just say money=happiness instead of wealth=happiness and all of the sudden your whole argument seems like a huge waste of time.

Also man your extreme wordiness in your posts reeks a little bit of intellectual insecurity. Say what the fuck you wanna say, you kinda remind me of a shakespeare teacher i had in college who often tried to read into and extract more meaning from the passages than there was actually there. Imo you should focus your intelligence on big questions, like this one i proposed https://www.newschoolers.com/ns/mobile/forumread/id/679664/

instead of over analyzing something as trivial as the meaning of wealth.

You sound like you got a baseball bat man, do some fucking damage with it.
 
I think it depends on which field of business. I've heard from finance guys that in investment banking and private equity analysis fields, the vast majority of them don't have masters (or CFAs), nor does it have as big an impact on their appeal to a company as their work experience, GPA, and networking.

What's your background in? I'd love to hear another account of this stuff.
 
Most degrees are useless as tits on a bull. Not engineering. You will thank yourself you have thate peice of paper. And you can get good employment from any angle with that degree.

Suck it up and if you can't take a year off to be yourself and then go back and finish.
 
Quite the opposite. I have the complete inability to express myself adequately without being verbose (I feel like I have done more writing than speaking in my life). People take it as overcompensation, which I don't fault them for. However I always maintain that wordiness/large vocabulary is never an indication of intelligence, and I actively tell people not to lend credit to my ideas for superficial reasons. If I truly were a skilled writer, I'd be able to write these things simply and eloquently, but alas...

So basically, I'll be the first to say I'm not exceptionally smart. And the inflated appearance of my words, if anything, indicates such.
 
Forgot to address this:

I was sort of making two comments. One being that we should question the philosophical meaning of "wealth", which I agree is a very tedious (but very real) argument. The other being that the textbook definition of wealth is not that it equals money. I've had finance professors write in huge letters on the board "WEALTH ≠ MONEY" and then we'll talk about it for days. Posting on NS is an inherent waste of time, so that seems like a moot point. It's just frustrating when I'm trying to engage in discourse and someone with zero background waltzes in and thinks that a single Google search takes precedence over a very specialized field of study.
 
im in mech engineering. its getting more interesting now (Im in my third year) but the first two years were pure math and physics and it got pretty fuckin shitty at some points for me for sure. I dont know what I wanna do when i gaduate, but I am confident that my degree will enable me to at least find stable employment when I decide thats what I want, regardless of if its engineering work or not.

I can think of a lot of other programs now that interest me, but I am really glad I am mech engg still, depsite the fact its hard and pretty dry material. I would suggest sticking it out for a couple more years, unless theres something specific that you are REALLY sure about.
 
You were much less verbose here and much more to the point. I appreciate that. I agree that being verbose and having a large vocabulary is not directly correlated to intelligence- i had some young lady politics prof in college who was very verbose and hard to understand because she was obviously compensating for the conceptual simplicity of the material she was discussing, and possibly her own intelligence. You showed here that you can strengthen the power of your words by cutting to the chase and keeping it to the point. Its a good habit to keep, because when you are dealing with very high level concepts, the last thing you want is to constrain your brains full creative potential by filtering your thoughts through your wernickes and brocas areas (the areas of your brain responsible for speech recognition and production). This is why math and sciences use a system of symbols and equations- the level of the concepts is higher in most cases than can be accurately expressed by words.
 
I actually dont think posting on ns is a waste of time. While i love ns because i ski park, i also love it because skier families tend to be rich families, which means smarter than avg families and kids, which means alot of smart people are on this forum, which this thread does a good job of proving. So I dont think posting here is a waste of time. i think youve seen plenty of people here who engaged you in intelligent discussion. If only the rest of the tool forum members on the internet realized what nsers realize about how sick skiing is and how sick this forum is, then ns would probly blow up. It would be funny if this thread turned nsers into an entire generation of engineers. That would be cool.
 
Those are the prime examples of where, for the average business student without connections, it is impossible to move up in. The turnover rates in investment banking and private equity analysis fields is at an all time high.

To be an attractive candidate to these types of companies, one needs a solid background and connections. Getting your foot in the door is only half the battle however. Because of the influx of business undergraduates, companies are constantly finding better candidates to replace these low-level entry guys. In turn, this makes it more difficult for young men and women to gain the experience needed.

To actually have a chance at being retained and moving up, one almost needs a masters (unless they are one of the few who can manage without one). After having grown up in this world (father worked for numerous investment banks, all his friends are investment bankers/hedge fund managers/private equity guys, etc) I have seen and heard first hand stories of young, bright men and women who were let go because they did not have the education/skills/experience required to make them valuable assets that should be retained. He personally has had issues moving up into CEO and COO positions because his lack of a masters (Undergraduate at Columbia with a BA in English). He was offered the chance to go on his father-in-laws dime, and he turned it down. Let me tell you how much he regrets it. If you want the opportunity to become one of these 7-figure earners, you should have a masters. You are putting yourself at a disadvantage not having one.

Investment banking is not the place it was 20 years ago. Profits for the low-leveled worker are not what they once were, opportunities to be promoted are much more difficult, and the work-life is a grind. If you want to make it profitable, look for an opportunity to get a masters.

One of the few business arenas that actually still has a lot of opening is the accountancy concentration. Everyone needs accountants.

 
Aye. But after the CPA you can get work almost anywhere. Lot of doors open as well. If you ask me, its the most valuable Business degree out there. You have to know and work with financial statements religiously, which is a skill almost any business person should have.
 
Similarly, if you get your PE(especially your California PE - its the hardest to get) you can pretty much go get work anywhere. that is the biggest reason why i am a Civil Engineer...In a few months when i earn my PE(hopefully) i will literally bea able to tell companies that i want to come work for them. It doesnt hurt that my work background is hard to beat either haha.

But a TON of doors open up for me interms of location.

Civil Engineering has a very high basement salary, a fairly low cieling salary, but it is the ancillary benefits that make it worth it ie. pick your working location regardless of population center, and working very few hours while still making a very good salary if you go into the public sector.

Oh, and BTW if you graduate with an Engineering Degree and decide to do something else, businesses will hire you every-damn-time over a buisness grad; assuming you can communicate well. I was offered a handful of positions in sales, business, and finance on the spot after meeting higher ups from companies while at social events. A dude with a technical background who can communicate extremely well is the holy grail in this world my friend.
 
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