Engineering Careers Short-Circuiting

8BitWimp writes "Today's edition of the Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article discussing the current plight of the U.S. engineering profession. One 29-year-old engineer recently caught in Nortel Network's layoffs said "I spent seven years in school, and it resulted in a six-year career." The article goes on to say a California computer science professor has statistics to show that a programmer's career is not much longer than a pro-football player. What do other Slash-Dot readers think of this situation as related to their programming and engineering careers? Would you pursue the same career path again?"

Comments

Re:Hmm OED has much earlier uses.

[Zeinfeld]

The Royal Corps of Engineers was active in the Napoleonic wars, and long before that (thats circa 1800 for those who don't know history). So the 'engine driver' theory is total rubbish.

The Engineers were responsible for the placement and use of seige engines etc. That profession goes right back to Roman times.

That is why we have 'civil engineering' as a profession, it is civil as in non-military. The Institution of Civil Engineers is an independent engineering institution. It was established in 1818, and today represents almost 80,000 professionally qualified civil engineers worldwide.

A person who drives a train is called a train driver. They are not an engineer unless they are a member of a chartered institution (unlikely unless they drive trains for fun). Equally the guy who fixes your car is a mechanic, not an engineer.