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:Engineering is working out fine for me

[eggstasy]

People who drive trains are often referred to as "engineers". Got it now?

Re:If you're out of work, ask youself this...

[amorico]

I'm sorry but this attitude exemplifies something that is wrong with engineering culture. People are not born to anything except a slap on the ass and even that is dependent on a your health care plan.

An appreciation of and a desire to participate in science and engineering often comes from the encouragement of others during one's education and subsequent career. Moreover, nothing in the article indicates that a passion for engineering will save you from a volatile job market. As people who work in these fields our focus should not be on the smug satisfaction that the pretenders are being ousted, but that people who want to innovate are not finding it economically feasible to do so.

Usually those who are passionate about something encourage others to be interested in it as well. Yet, like yourself, some feel that a particular field is 'theirs' and others are unworthy or unqualified for some reason or other. This is not a way to grow an industry or a field.

-A