BEng the new BA?

djpbarry

Pittens wrote: »

Just talked to a woman this week ( external to my company) who had to have the term API explained to her.

So what? There are plenty of technically-minded individuals who would not know what 'API' means.

mikhail

djpbarry wrote: »

So what? There are plenty of technically-minded individuals who would not know what 'API' means.

I'm an EE PhD, and I couldn't recall exactly what it meant without looking it up. There's a real problem with technical people assuming their highly specialised knowledge is more widely known than it is.

experiMental

KealanOCarroll wrote: »

Engineering will always carry more weight than arts tho, even if there is just as many graduates from each....arts is like 9 hours a week, Engineering is 38....speaks for itself

It's not your area of expertise or your qualification that carries the weight, it's YOU who is carrying the weight. You simply have to produce high quality work, no matter what you have studied. If about 2000 graduates in Ireland can't get jobs in engineering, then it's partly their fault. Sure, recession is to blame, but there are more factors.

One of the reasons is, that engineering as a field is becoming more globalised. Many major companies recruit candidates from all over the world. So given this situation, those students who can't get jobs should look at foreign graduates or institutes that are producing the best work, and try to match that standard.

And you don't necessarily have to match that standard on your own, you can team up with someone else who is good, and enter competitions or try to publish your work in major papers. It will not work out 100%, but through trying, you will get a better insight into the "mechanics" of how people and the economy perceives your efforts. It may take you 10 years to score a job that you wanted after graduation, so you really have to be committed.

123easy

Engineering is a dead end career and a complete waste of time for talented people. Even during the boom salaries were crap compared to the proper professions. Not to mention the efforts of the IEI to completely dilute the MIEI title by giving it to people with diplomas. Some idiot even decided that it would be a good idea to call diplomas degrees! wtf?

Any students considering engineering as a career run a mile. Thats the best advice you will ever get. Dont listen to the Govts drivile about engineering as a career.

Turbulent Bill

123easy wrote: »

Engineering is a dead end career and a complete waste of time for talented people. Even during the boom salaries were crap compared to the proper professions. Not to mention the efforts of the IEI to completely dilute the MIEI title by giving it to people with diplomas. Some idiot even decided that it would be a good idea to call diplomas degrees! wtf?

Any students considering engineering as a career run a mile. Thats the best advice you will ever get. Dont listen to the Govts drivile about engineering as a career.

Engineering is a dead-end career if you don't have an interest in it. Lots of study, long and difficult work hours, poor pay compared to other professions etc. Objectively you'd be mad to do it...

However lots of people do have an interest in it, the very reason people look at engineering in the first place. It's not and never has been a get-rich-quick (or even get-rich-ever!) career, but can be immensely satisfying if you like the area.

breadmonkey

123easy wrote: »

....compared to the proper professions.

Thanks for the heads up. Would you care to list the "proper professions"?

mikhail

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

Engineering is a dead-end career

100 of the Fortune 500 CEOs in 2005 were engineers by profession. 75 had studied business administration, compared with 50 economists and 35 accountants. Heck, it's not that long ago that every single member of China's ruling council were engineers.

There's a lot of grunt-work in engineering which is not particularly well paid here (nor especially in the UK, though the US pays better), but a good engineering course is a fine education and there are lucrative careers to be made out of it.

123easy

breadmonkey wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up. Would you care to list the "proper professions"?

Am, ones that pay more than peanuts and provide job security. Law accounting, finance, medicine , dentistry and such like.

mikhail wrote: »

100 of the Fortune 500 CEOs in 2005 were engineers by profession. 75 had studied business administration, compared with 50 economists and 35 accountants. Heck, it's not that long ago that every single member of China's ruling council were engineers.

There's a lot of grunt-work in engineering which is not particularly well paid here (nor especially in the UK, though the US pays better), but a good engineering course is a fine education and there are lucrative careers to be made out of it.

The fact that 100 of the Fortune 500 CEOs in 2005 were engineers by profession is rather irrelevant to the many engineers who are on the dole here.

mikhail

123easy wrote: »

The fact that 100 of the Fortune 500 CEOs in 2005 were engineers by profession is rather irrelevant to the many engineers who are on the dole here.

Yeah, but it's relevant to anyone who's being told the qualification is worthless. The fact is that of the dozen or so of the class I graduated with (UCD a few years ago) and am still in touch with, all but one with has a steady job, and the remaining guy is chasing his dreams, doing part time and temporary stuff to get experience in what he wants to do. Not all of them are working as engineers, but they're all working. Maybe the guys being pumped out of the ITs with diplomas (sorry, "ordinary degrees") can't get work, but to quote an engineering maxim, GIGO.

lg123

I mostly agree with 123easy’s earlier statement. There are a few other career directions I would have chosen if I knew when I was filling out the CAO, what I know now. Its not the WFC, recession, or the poor money that make me feel like this. The profession is no longer a profession, every monkey calls themselves an engineer. Even when filling out my tax return recently (Aus), I had to tick a box as to my occupation, engineer was in the fourth grade. The other big thing is the job security issue.
A friends little bro is considering engineering and was asking me for advice. My advice will be, unless you have a huge passion for me, steer clear.

djpbarry

123easy wrote: »

Am, ones that pay more than peanuts and provide job security. Law accounting, finance....

Law, accounting and finance are all ‘secure’ industries at the moment? Are you kidding?

lg123 wrote: »

The profession is no longer a profession, every monkey calls themselves an engineer.

There’s a certain amount of truth in that, but I think it’s largely confined to Ireland. This is possibly owing to the large numbers of so-called process ‘engineers’ and manufacturing ‘engineers’ that have emerged in this country over the last 10-20 years – ‘engineer’ and ‘technician’ seem to have become interchangeable. But ‘engineer’ means something altogether different in the US, for example, or even in the UK, where a much greater diversity of engineering roles exist.

That said, I still think a BEng is held in very high regard in this country and will open far more doors than a diploma will.

Lu Tze

lg123 wrote: »

My advice will be, unless you have a huge passion for me, steer clear.

He he he

There’s a certain amount of truth in that, but I think it’s largely confined to Ireland. This is possibly owing to the large numbers of so-called process ‘engineers’ and manufacturing ‘engineers’ that have emerged in this country over the last 10-20 years – ‘engineer’ and ‘technician’ seem to have become interchangeable. But ‘engineer’ means something altogether different in the US, for example, or even in the UK, where a much greater diversity of engineering roles exist.

To be honest, i think when you say you are an engineer to people nowadays, they are more likely to associate it with fixing your washing machine or servicing the oil burner than infrastructure design or <insert your flavour of engineering here>.

The term has been diluted, holding little to know meaning anymore.

djpbarry

Lu Tze wrote: »

To be honest, i think when you say you are an engineer to people nowadays, they are more likely to associate it with fixing your washing machine or servicing the oil burner than infrastructure design or <insert your flavour of engineering here>.

True, but I think that's just a reflection of a the limited opportunities for scientists and engineers in Ireland.

123easy

mikhail wrote: »

Yeah, but it's relevant to anyone who's being told the qualification is worthless. The fact is that of the dozen or so of the class I graduated with (UCD a few years ago) and am still in touch with, all but one with has a steady job, and the remaining guy is chasing his dreams, doing part time and temporary stuff to get experience in what he wants to do. Not all of them are working as engineers, but they're all working. Maybe the guys being pumped out of the ITs with diplomas (sorry, "ordinary degrees") can't get work, but to quote an engineering maxim, GIGO.

GIGO!! They wouldn't like to hear that!!! As was rightly stated previously the modern meaning of engineer is a guy that attached a satellite dish to your house or someone who fixes your washing machine. Im sorry but I think you need to be smart and work hard to get a good Honours engineering for which there are no rewards or no real professional recognition. You are lumped together with all the people who got Diplomas who can now use MIEI and even worse monkeys with screwdrivers.

Bottom line anyone considering engineering beware of what you are getting into and compare it with other professions. I wouldnt recommend it unless you were really passionate about it but even then there will be nothing out of it so be warned.

Turbulent Bill

mikhail wrote: »

100 of the Fortune 500 CEOs in 2005 were engineers by profession. 75 had studied business administration, compared with 50 economists and 35 accountants. Heck, it's not that long ago that every single member of China's ruling council were engineers.

There's a lot of grunt-work in engineering which is not particularly well paid here (nor especially in the UK, though the US pays better), but a good engineering course is a fine education and there are lucrative careers to be made out of it.

I'd hazard a guess that the ex-engineer CEOs had an interest and passion for the subject, excelled in their area(s) and transferred their skills to management. That they were promoted was all about the fact that they were good at their jobs and suitable for management; being an engineer was incidental.

For an 18-year old filling out their CAO form, looking for money/strong career, expecting 500-odd points and without a firm idea of what they want to do, automatically suggesting engineering as the best option is nuts.

Turbulent Bill

mikhail wrote: »

Yeah, but it's relevant to anyone who's being told the qualification is worthless. The fact is that of the dozen or so of the class I graduated with (UCD a few years ago) and am still in touch with, all but one with has a steady job, and the remaining guy is chasing his dreams, doing part time and temporary stuff to get experience in what he wants to do. Not all of them are working as engineers, but they're all working. Maybe the guys being pumped out of the ITs with diplomas (sorry, "ordinary degrees") can't get work, but to quote an engineering maxim, GIGO.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the qualification is worthless (or getting back to the OP, less valuable than a BA), more that it's not the automatic ticket to success it was before and it's essential you actually like engineering before you sign up. By comparison other careers can offer the same success (and more) with less effort.

gotBass

My 2cents ( for what it's worth)
I have nothing against BA etc, I think the comparrison is flawed. People do courses because they have an aptitude / interest in the subject. If they don't like it then do something else.

off topic...

Firstly I believe that the title needs protection, I lost a salary hike several years ago because the company said I was not an engineer, they were based in Germany. ( I was already doing the job, with all of the responsiblities.) and lacked only the Level 8 qualification.
When I went through the degree, I then hear the words grade inflation.
To say this ticked me off is an understatement.

I find the abuse of the title at the heart of the problem, why can you go and do a couple of months of a course and call youself an engineer. I have put more than 10 years into my professon and feel short changed - sometimes.

but back to the point.....

What graduates are facing is a general tightening across all areas.
It's simply either a buyers market or a sellers market. when there were more jobs than engineers all was rosey , and I believe that many people bought into the general rubbish that was being touted about. Now with more people than available positions companies are hedging their bets, and paying less.
If this goes too far then we will see a talent drain from the profession , ( we are already exporting good graduates) or a perception from students that engineering is a waste of time because basically after 4-5 years of very hard graft you only make (x)thousand above minimum wage, better to go to an apprenticeship etc.
Other professions will pay more so people will retrain and go there. I can see this happening in the near future.

Will engineering lead you to huge wealth - Probably not.
Will engineering guarantee employment - no prefession will, but you have better than average chances if you pick the right discipline within engineering.
If you have an aptitude for fixing / tinkering / logic / maths & methodical ways of doing things - then engineering is for you.
What you will gain from an engineering degree - thinking about solving problems, which is a transerrable skill.

It's like any profession - you learn in college the basics, then as a grad you go out thinking you know your stuff. Only when you get out in the big bad world you truly realise the depth of your skills, this is the sink or swim point. If you succeed then you'll be for the most part in a good position, and money will follow. Engineering is a profession where continuous learning is required. If you become complacent and think you are the big cheese then do something else, because you'll be mothballed in time.

back to off topic....

One more thing, the use of Celtic cub is bandied about to describe our young grads - this is not fair, the whole system from the time they were probably 13 years old steered them this way, I feel that sometimes they have a right to be a little annoyed when they saw the avarice of the past.
- everything is cyclical, in 10 years employers will be moaning about not having enough people to do work. Let other's rant and rave, we need to think objectively about were we are and how we are to get out of this.

Pure_Cork

Plenty of companies are looking to take on graduates, but not all want to pay them. Pathetic that some companies won't even pay minimum wage to graduates. You'd earn more working in McD's or Tesco than some of the paying jobs. I know I earned more when I was 16 than some engineers are making now.

dan_d

Hang on a second here lads.

I think I had my 2 cents on this quite some time back, but flicking through some of what's written here, I have to post again!!

A BA and a BEng are 2 totally different things. A BA and a BComm are 2 totally different things. A BEng and a medical degree are 2 totally different things.

Setting that difference aside, I think what the OP is asking is, is the BEng becoming a very common degree in this country. Would I be right? There's a couple of answers to that.

During the celtic tiger years, being an "engineer" was extremely common. That did not mean you had a BEng.This was discussed in a previous thread about the IEI - I've linked to it before. "Engineers" was (in my field) a general title for anyone working on a site setting out, let alone in a consultancy. Now that I'm job hunting (and yes I have a BEng), the term engineers on recruitment websites throws up jobs that are in anything from fitting windows to telesales, and whatever may fall in between.

The reality is that Irish people haven't a fecking clue what an engineer does. As with many things in this world, if it's not flashy, with a big car, massive salary and lots of land, we don't really want to know either. Doctor, surgeon, lawyer we understand - and we're still quite close to the days when our grandparents and often our parents, were taught to worship the local medical man and lawyers, because they were educated and wealthy. Farmer is probably next in line in importance, and teaching (though that's "easy"). We are so backward in our approach to things it's ridiculous.

Like it or not, engineers build this world. They solve the problems. BP's oil spill problems - engineers working on it. The burst water main in Dublin city centre the other day - reported as the "engineers working full time on the problem". Haiti earthquake - volunteer engineers and doctors were called for.Mind you, we're only publicly called on when problems appear.

Ireland, as I said before, has no concept of what engineers do. In many other countries, engineers have far more respect, but equally, far more demanding standards on their qualifications. In several European countries, the title "Ingenieur" or "engineer" is used the same way as the title "doctor". Your business card says "Ing. Dan_d". In Canada, you cannot call yourself an engineer until you have taken their "Professional" exams, (equivalent to our chartership), upon which you get a stamp with your name on it, and a ring - even if your qualification is a BEng, or equivalent.In Spain, engineering is one of the toughest courses to get into in college and even tougher to finish out. In Russia, it takes 5 years (and experience) before you are awarded your basic engineering qualification.

In Ireland - well, need I say more. Engineering is an excellent career, and profession. It allows you to diversify into many other fields - financial, scientific and that over used word - management. Whether or not you become a millionaire out of it is up to you and what you choose to do with it.But it will teach you skills that can be applied across many sectors, and leaves a lot of doors open to you.Pure_Cork, of course you made more money when you were 16. We have no jobs for engineers. The only jobs we ever had were for civil engineers, and some for chemical, and the minute the economy crashed, those jobs went out the window. The reason being that construction was booming, we became totally over saturated with civil engineers for the size of the country we are, and then construction imploded. That's the fault of how our economy was built up and not of the engineers themselves. If our economy was built up in a so-called "normal" way, with primary, secondary and tertiary industries balanced as they should be (JC geography anyone?), we would have more jobs for engineers balanced more evenly across the various sectors.

For me, the bottom line is that if I were to fill out my CAO again, I'd still put the same choice down. I think we as a profession, particularly here in Ireland, do ourselves no favours. We do not speak out strongly enough in defence or promotion of our profession. We need to create a stronger system of grading engineers than simply the chartership, due to the fact that there are so many people out there who don't have the level8 qualification, but who do have years of valuable experience.We definitely need to make people more aware of what we do, and to call for the title "engineer" to be regulated. But to simply say "you don't make enough money out of it", is writing off a degree that is versatile, solid, gives you many many options as a career path and will stand to you wherever you go.

Whether that makes it better or worse than a BA or a BComm or whatever, I don't know, and to be quite honest it's irrelevant. At the end of the day it's a good qualification to have if you've any sort of aptitude at maths, or interest in problem solving. For Irish engineers however, the problem is not the degree, the problem is the general level of ignorance in Irish society at what it is that engineers do and the total and complete lack of regulation of the use of the title.

(I'll get down off my soap box now:D)

Pure_Cork

dan_d wrote: »

Pure_Cork, of course you made more money when you were 16. We have no jobs for engineers. The only jobs we ever had were for civil engineers, and some for chemical, and the minute the economy crashed, those jobs went out the window. The reason being that construction was booming, we became totally over saturated with civil engineers for the size of the country we are, and then construction imploded. That's the fault of how our economy was built up and not of the engineers themselves. If our economy was built up in a so-called "normal" way, with primary, secondary and tertiary industries balanced as they should be (JC geography anyone?), we would have more jobs for engineers balanced more evenly across the various sectors.

There are jobs for engineers, there are companies looking for engineers but they're either not prepared to pay or pay f all. Multinational mech-related companies. It's ridiculous.

dan_d

What do you expect to be paid and how much experience do you have?

I'm a civil engineer, with 5 years experience, and no notion about how much I should be paid.

Brian CivilEng

At this point I think pay schmay, I'd work for the minimum wage if I could get a job as a civil engineer. It's a job I enjoyed and I want more experience (just under five years myself too). It's a job I believed in. It's a job which most people don't know exists, and don't know that it is required. When an engineer does their job correctly it makes it look like they were not required. If all the engineers in the world vanished tomorrow nobody would notice, then they'd be asking why everything is suddenly breaking down.

Lu Tze

dan_d wrote: »

What do you expect to be paid and how much experience do you have?

I'm a civil engineer, with 5 years experience, and no notion about how much I should be paid.

I would guess around 32,000 a year now.

abitofacomedian wrote: »

At this point I think pay schmay, I'd work for the minimum wage if I could get a job as a civil engineer. It's a job I enjoyed and I want more experience (just under five years myself too).

Thats a great attitude to be honest. I'm in a job 4 years now, survive cuts when reducing staff from 30+ to 10 over the last 18 months or so. Moving on of my own accord now though - no progression in work, and staying will be detrimental to chartership ambitions in a couple of years.

3 of us are leaving the office of our own accord this month - but no jobs will be advertised, there are enough former colleagues and work acquaintances available to fill the roles.

This is the biggest problem for those unemployed - no jobs will be advertised when they become available. There isn't even an opportunity to apply/interview when companies has a surplus of work.

dan_d

I wholeheartedly agree with the last 2 posters.

Money has never been a major issue for me, but right now I don't care what I get. If I could get a job as an engineer, I'd be delighted. It's the field that I want to stay in. Unfortunately that's not looking very likely.

The reason I asked that question of Pure_ Cork is that his post gives off the impression that he's (she?) a grad, looking for about 35-40k a year and getting annoyed when nobody will offer it. I could be way off on that, by the way - Pure_Cork,please correct me if I am.

abitofacomedian, you summed up my feelings exactly. Lu Tze do you mind if I ask where you're going?

Lu Tze

No problem. Going to Australia, just the working holiday visa, but have a couple of contacts out there. Mainly need a break to get the motivation back and hopefully pick up a couple of months site experience.

I'm pretty much resigned to coming back to the UK though - i have worked in a couple if things in 4 years since graduating, and only one has captured the imagination and that is hydraulic modelling.

When i handed in my notice and booked my flights there was no opportunity for me in the foreseeable future (2 years+) to gain experience in it while staying in ireland as we already had a dedicated modeller and another engineer with a lot more experience who also models.

Brian CivilEng

Ah WinDes Microdrainage, how I miss you. I can't drive past an attenuation pond on the motorway without imagining the graphic of the pond filling up during the critical storm.

What sort of hydraulic modelling were you into Lu Tze?

Lu Tze

Drainage, only got a year of it using infoworks cs. Analysing flood flows, CSO spills etc. Have messed about with clean water modelling - but haven't worked in it.

Anybody looking to play with it there is free modelling software out there you can learn the concepts on, not as polished, or with the range of options as infoworks/synergie et al.

Brian CivilEng

HECRAS is fun to play with, an that is free. It is a programme written by the US army Corps of Engineers so you know it has to be good.

Lu Tze

Yeah there are others as well usually coming from US institutions like the military - the motivation being to see how quickly and where contaminants etc. could spread.

Best of luck with the job hunt, if you have modelling experience the opportunities might come up, they have heavily invested in clean water during this WSIP, the next i reckon will invest more in the drainage network.

Set up an alert for etenders, you will see which consultancies are picking up the water work (there should be a lot of contracts coming out over the next 12-18 months, its already started) might be worth firing off CVs to them when you see the contract award notices

dan_d

Swap your 4 years design experience for my 5 years site experience (!!):D

I'd be fairly interested in getting into that side of engineering, however 5 years on site renders your design skills at that of a graduate, making it even harder to get a job.And returning to site is not an option for me.

Best of luck Lu Tze. Much as I complain about site work, I've had some great times there - it's a working environment like no other! As for the rest of us, we'll struggle on!

(now I've totally derailed the thread, I'll wander off....)