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Non-Traditional Career Routes?
Dave Bieler asks: "With such
a broad range of interests in science and technology, it was not easy for
me to decide on a major in college. Currently, I am an Electrical
Engineering major at Penn State, however I have considered several other
majors: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Physics. Since
science and technology is booming, it may be possible to get into a career
in an area other than that traditionally associated with certain majors. ex -
a Physics major becoming a Computer Security specialist. I'm curious to
hear about any careers that were preceded by non-traditional paths."
Speaking as an Electrical Engineer who decided to drop that and go into
computers, this question strikes a bit of a chord with me. Has anyone
else gone to college intending to prepare for one career, only to fall
into another, either by luck or design?
You are actually choosing your subjects based on a future career? That's interesting.
In my view, few of us has any idea what we are going to be doing twenty years from now. We don't know which industries will be big, which will fail, or which all-new fields will be open by then. Especially at college age, you don't know what you will still like to do in ten or twenty years time (when you get upwards of forty, you start having a pretty good idea about it, though).
The way to choose your major is really to take two criteria into account: what subjects do you actually like; and what subjects will give you a broad enough foundation to be able to keep on choosing your path many years from now.
Majoring in something you really dislike just because there's plenty of jobs, because your family expects it, or because it carries with it an aura of status is a huge mistake. You might be doing that stuff for most of your life - do you really want to be unhappy with your job for most of your working career?Chances are you'll drop out - either at college or later - so you might as well choose something you actually like instead.
Getting a broad, foundational education is just as important. Sure, being a trained Cisco engineer pays a lot of money right now, but will it still do so in fifteen years? And what if you want to change to something else? The basic sciences are a good choice: physics, math, computer science, chemistry - they all tend to be useful almost no matter what you decide you want to do with your life later on.
Me, I waffled between Computer Science and Literature. I took CS and mathematics, and I haven't regretted it. Do I work as a programmer? No (though I might go back to that again in a year or two).
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Consider quantitative finance. I have a BS in Mathematics and a MS in Materials Engineering. Currently I work on Wall St along with many other engineers/physicists. We do more computer programming and mathematical modeling than any engineering job that I've held prior to this. One advantage is that Matlab/Unix/Linux is very prevalent in quantitative finance. The technical skills that you learn with an engineering background are very helpful in a field such as this.
Another place where an engineering degree helps is Law. I've heard that it is *very* easy to get into law school with an engineering degree. There's not enough technical attornies, but there is definetely a need for them, especially in patent law. I have a friend who was studying chemical engineering at my school as an undergrad. He went on to law school and is doing well as a patent attorny.
Although I can't speak about patent law, I do know that quantitative finance is very challenging and interesting. It involves more problem solving and analytical thinking than even the best engineering jobs that I've seen.
Keeping