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It doesn't really matter to me if engineering is more narrowly focused. The fact remains there are way more jobs in engineering that pay well and a philosophy major can NEVER become an engineer. Philosophy majors I know are frustrated with the companies recruiting at school. Broadcom wants electrical engineers, JPMorgan Chase wants accountants/econ/finance majors, Allergan wants chemistry/biology students or bio/chem engineers, State Farm Insurance wants mathematics/actuarial/econ majors, etc... The constant theme is employers want students that know how to CREATE things or HANDLE MONEY. Philosophy majors know how to ponder and be creative, which is why they usually end up trying to go to law school, go to grad school for a more technical degree, go into marketing, go into sales, or go into journalism.
In my opinion an under-grad engineering degree and an MBA is a great combination. You will be very desirable to many companies because the fact is, many companies have engineering.
I'd like a list of what philsophy majors can do, that an engineering degree CANNOT do due to their degree. You don't NEED a philosophy or any other liberal arts degree to be a journalist for example. There are journalists that didn't even go to college out there. A well rounded engineer could also be a great writer for a newspaper for example. However, a philosophy majors can't walk in and try to be a nuclear engineer.
For example, I can't think of jobs that specifically say, "We are interested in a philosophy major" on the job board. Usually philosophy majors just apply to jobs that say, "College degree required." Techinically, an engineer could apply to that as well since it is in fact a college degree. However a philosophy major cannot apply to the countless jobs that say, "Finance major required or Electircal engineering degree required."
Some random careers a philosophy major cannot go into just with their degree:
1.) Medical research, pharmaceuticals (unless working in sales)
2.) Finance (Unless insurance sales)
3.) Accounting
4.) Engineering
5.) Computer Science
I think a lot needs to be said for having realistic expectations. I'm only 22, so I only have one generation worth of experience, but I can say that people my age, in my class in high school have a very skewed view of the world...Being an English major doesn't qualify you for many high profile jobs. You may love going to work every day, but you won't be going in a Porsche.
Unfortunately this shows your limited experience. Trust me, there are plenty of English majors driving Porsches. One has nothing to do with the other.
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Originally Posted by user_id
Looking at liberal arts majors first job and judging them (and their majors) on this makes no sense at all. Liberal arts don't provide any concrete job training, as a result these people will need to work their way up and start at jobs that pay significantly less than jobs other majors can get right out of school...With that said, I think most liberal arts majors are junk, but on educational and not employment grounds.
People who are liberal arts majors aren't looking for concrete job training. That's the whole point of being a liberal arts major. They want flexiblity.
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Originally Posted by tpk-nyc
This is the key point: all liberal arts degrees are not equal. McGill is a top school and many companies will want her because she’s smart and well educated. The actual degree subject is not important. They’re looking for poise, articulateness, tact, discretion, and people who can work with well-heeled clients.
The real issue regarding liberal arts degrees is social class, ...
I don’t mean to be harsh, but the people who do best with liberal arts degrees are usually from upper-middle class families who went to an excellent (often private) high school, are well-traveled and go to a good (flagship or private) college...
It’s much harder if you’re from a working-class family, go to a so-so public high school, spend a couple of years at a community college and then transfer to an average state school. You might be able to master the book knowledge, but all of the other stuff is almost impossible to replicate. Employers tend hire these people for their technical skills (which can be considerable and highly valuable), but might not benefit as much from a liberal arts degree.
The problem with this board is that people tend to make absurdly broad pronouncements, without considering the student or the school.
What are you talking about ? Please keep classism out of this forum. For that matter, all degrees are about social class. Simply going to college was long the dividing factor between the haves and have nots.
One can't discount personal drive, ambition and talent. It's also all about the "knows" and "do's" - What you know, Who you know, What you do, and What you are willing to do.
It's really silly to assume that a working-class family can only produce a child to go to a so-so public school and must major in a "technical" field. I know of upper middle class children who are losers, and some lower middle class children who now attend elite colleges - majoring in, OMG - Liberal Arts !
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Originally Posted by MassVt
The best post of the entire lot; congrats!
Actually, it's the worst . But that's just my opinion.
Yes, that is your position and your reasoning for it makes no sense at all. You think the engineering degree is more flexible because an engineering graduate can further his/her education in other topics, but that is entirely vacuous, this holds for any major.
I really don't know what you're thinking, it seems to be that you believe Philosophy (and its underlying skills) can be learned by reading a few books, where as Engineering is something that takes serious study. But that is far from the case, if the Engineer decides in the future to learn Philosophy he/she will have to spend the same time on the subject that he/she would have if they picked it as a major.
The above is the critical issue, if an Engineer decides to study another topic they will start at home-base. That is, their engineering background will help them learn the other topics. On the other hand, the Philosophy can start many things on 1st, 2nd, etc base. This is precisely the sense that degrees like Philosophy are more flexible, they enable people to more rapidly learn a large class of additional fields because they have already developed the underlying skills required by them.
And yet, its not a random sample, you can't make generalizes from non-random samples. But the more serious issue is that its only looking at CEOs which is a very unique position in a corporation. I mean c'mon, I made a claim about a large class of careers, only one of which was executives, and you are trying to use statistics from what amounts to around .001% of executives...
Here's the thing: I'm not trying to have a "my major is bigger than yours" contest here. I don't have a stake. It will not boost my ego to spend hours online hating on philosophy or pushing engineering. Heck, I have a lot of respect for philosophy.
The reality is that neither of us will ever be able to prove anything about these majors on average. It just ain't gonna happen. The empirical data doesn't exist. The research on cognitive development isn't sufficient. You can present your opinion that engineers "start at home-base" and I can say that engineers learn valuable problem solving skills, but we can't make either of these arguments with any kind of rigor. I'm not going to waste my time arguing over something where in the end all the warrants come down to personal opinion.
I posted in this thread a) because I had an unusual amount of free time waiting for a call yesterday and I chose to kill it with an engaging debate and b) I don't want anyone to be misled by your arguments even if they are valid. I don't want any prospective engineers to turn aside from that path because they read your posts claiming that engineering career prospects are inflexible. Because I don't care about the default curriculum and I don't care about what is most commonly done. I care about what can be done. You argue that further education isn't topical to this discussion, but that's because you don't understand the discussion I am having here. My position remains the same: a smart and motivated student can access the most career flexibility with an engineering major. Is an engineering major alone sufficient? Maybe not. I think it's a great idea for engineers to study mathematics and philosophy. But if a true double major isn't feasible or would entail extensive opportunity cost, I strongly recommend making engineering the major. Because even if a philosophy grad can study engineering easily, it's not always easy to break in without the degree.
I have an English degree. I consult for two companies that are engineering-based in product design. Over the past several years, I have helped both companies identify new markets and develop new products accordingly, weighing in on design that affected overall price points and user experience. And both clients like to see me stroll in the door because my insights have helped them make a good deal of money.
So I guess you could say that I'm a Liberal Arts major who tells engineers how to do their jobs. Pretty funny, huh?
You can present your opinion that engineers "start at home-base" and I can say that engineers learn valuable problem solving skills, but we can't make either of these arguments with any kind of rigor.
I have never denied that engineers learn "valuable problem solving skills", they indeed learn such, but point here is that their skills are not very portable to other fields.
I'd also suggest that it takes a lot different type of brain to be good at engineering than it does at things like Mathematics, Philosophy, etc. Not only that, they seem to be largely mutually exclusive skill sets, that is, whatever makes someone great at problem solving in engineering and related fields also makes them not so great at abstract reasoning.
In Mathematics departments you usually have both an applied (more engineering like) and pure (all abstract) track, rarely do you find that people are equally talented at both. I've always been amused when mathematics students that have done very well in their first 2 years, which focuses entirely on applied math, hit a wall when they are required to take more abstract mathematics courses (Group theory, Set Theory, Topology and even things like Real Analysis).
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Originally Posted by barney_rubble
My position remains the same: a smart and motivated student can access the most career flexibility with an engineering major.
Yes, that is your position and the underlying logic behind the position makes no sense. You argument would support the flexibility of anything, including not getting a degree at all. Its a cop out to avoid addressing the educational quality of an engineering education.
So I guess you could say that I'm a Liberal Arts major who tells engineers how to do their jobs. Pretty funny, huh?
Not really, you can undoubtedly find engineers that tell Liberal Arts majors what to do as well.
I'm not sure why people find such fascination with anecdotes and outlier cases, English is a terrible major and the fact that a small percent of English majors do far better than average doesn't change that. You could say the same for high-school dropouts, in fact, I wonder how the the statistics compare.
Not really, you can undoubtedly find engineers that tell Liberal Arts majors what to do as well.
I'm not sure why people find such fascination with anecdotes and outlier cases, English is a terrible major and the fact that a small percent of English majors do far better than average doesn't change that. You could say the same for high-school dropouts, in fact, I wonder how the the statistics compare.
And that is based on what? Long-term studies show that, after their initial struggles in the job market, liberal arts majors do fine over the course of their careers. It's hardly anecdote, either, since I encounter liberal arts majors in well-paid fields all the time.
Here's the problem with your obsession with this subject. You are looking at college as job training, whereas a liberal arts major learns a method for acquiring and assessing abstract information. Given how a large majority of endeavors in the world simply don't yield very well to quantification and formulas, that's a pretty important thing. My English major has served me quite well in that regard. And I know any number of fellow graduates who can say the same thing.
I have never denied that engineers learn "valuable problem solving skills", they indeed learn such, but point here is that their skills are not very portable to other fields.
I'd also suggest that it takes a lot different type of brain to be good at engineering than it does at things like Mathematics, Philosophy, etc. Not only that, they seem to be largely mutually exclusive skill sets, that is, whatever makes someone great at problem solving in engineering and related fields also makes them not so great at abstract reasoning.
In Mathematics departments you usually have both an applied (more engineering like) and pure (all abstract) track, rarely do you find that people are equally talented at both. I've always been amused when mathematics students that have done very well in their first 2 years, which focuses entirely on applied math, hit a wall when they are required to take more abstract mathematics courses (Group theory, Set Theory, Topology and even things like Real Analysis).
I agree that abstract mathematics and engineering require different mindsets. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive and could provide anecdotal evidence to the contrary, but I certainly agree that not all engineers would make good mathematicians (and vice versa).
Quote:
Originally Posted by user_id
Yes, that is your position and the underlying logic behind the position makes no sense. You argument would support the flexibility of anything, including not getting a degree at all. Its a cop out to avoid addressing the educational quality of an engineering education.
No, my argument doesn't support the flexibility of anything because there are often arbitrary lines drawn by society that can restrict career adaptation. In my current state, it is possible - though quite difficult - to gain PE registration without an ABET degree. But in some others, this simply is not allowed. Thus, a math or philosophy major - or someone with a background in the trades - would never be able to pursue some engineering careers without an engineering degree.
Even beyond professional certification, many employers very strongly prefer engineering grads for engineering jobs.
As to calling this argument a "cop-out," you clearly didn't read my last post closely enough. I'm not interested in arguing about the value of average engineering or philosophy curricula because there isn't sufficient evidence to have a worthwhile debate on that issue. Heck, you even admitted earlier that there isn't empirical data and that you have "no intention of proving [your] assertions with research." Sorry, but I'm not interested in continuing this discussion based on nothing but unsubstantiated opinions.
And that is based on what? Long-term studies show that, after their initial struggles in the job market, liberal arts majors do fine over the course of their careers. It's hardly anecdote, either, since I encounter liberal arts majors in well-paid fields all the time.
Here's the problem with your obsession with this subject. You are looking at college as job training, whereas a liberal arts major learns a method for acquiring and assessing abstract information. Given how a large majority of endeavors in the world simply don't yield very well to quantification and formulas, that's a pretty important thing. My English major has served me quite well in that regard. And I know any number of fellow graduates who can say the same thing.
And for those endeavors that DO require quantification and formulas, I'd greatly prefer that engineers and scientists handle these, and not advertising people.
And for those endeavors that DO require quantification and formulas, I'd greatly prefer that engineers and scientists handle these, and not advertising people.
Did I ever claim otherwise? I just thought the poster was making some really stupid claims. In his world view, a liberal arts degree is an express ticket to poverty, when nothing could be further from the case.
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? Please keep classism out of this forum. For that matter, all degrees are about social class. Simply going to college was long the dividing factor between the haves and have nots. 
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