Yeah, I agree. I think that STEM seemed very bright and enticing ten years ago but today things are very different. It's still a better line of work than most, but it's not the cure all that people want to think it is.
It's so board. It could mean healthcare, oil and gas, IT, accounting, maritime, wildlife, aviation, forestry and almost anything and everything in between. Some of these fields could be booming at any given time while others could be terrible choices.
I have always looked at STEM careers as a BETTER choice than social studies and art with respect to being eligible for a job. However, you have to find ways to be marketable with an in-demand skill set in the STEM areas.
Just getting a degree in a STEM field doesn’t guarantee a job or even a job you will like.
Good luck.
Same thing for economics. Want to guess how often I've actually used anything at all close to Pre-Cal? Like outside of getting my masters, it hasn't happened at all.
My job is far closer to law than it is to any hard science. I get paid the big bucks not for my math skills but for my analytical and reasoning skills.
Which is why soon many of my peers went into law if I had to guess.
Accounting doesn’t even come close to what a math major study as most of the math involved in accounting is simple arithmetic. It’s more closely related to business and commerce degrees rather than STEM.
The math part of accounting is already 100% automated at any large company. Accounting is much closer to law than STEM, since most accountants spend all their time analyzing how to set up workflows for outlier transactions.
Construction! If you can’t count material needs, measure correctly, or understand how to minimize waste of material, good chance you will always be a laborer.
It’s stem
It’s math, engineering, computer science, medicine, chemistry, biology, food science, it encompasses like 80% of commercial industries
Do you know what stem means? The industries are booming right now
Even trades have to use math (plumbing for example incorporates algebra frequently) does that make them STEM all the sudden? No it doesn't and accounting is not STEM. I'm not trying to bash accounting as I am trying to be an accountant myself, but it's silly to compare.
Trades are definitely stem. I have been at stem events where they represent in full force
Edit: so the electricians union says they’re a stem career and you’re going to tell them that they’re wrong?
You make it sound like a conspiracy theory. It was only a matter of time before the ball dropped on IT jobs. If you didn't see it coming, that's on you.
You're right in that they likely fell from the rare surge of money that occured in 2021 back to a predictable-but-still-upward trend. It's fortunate that tech still pays a lot better than 90% of occupations.
Highly skilled and niche positions are always going to be in demand, I’m talking about the average sysadmin, help desk tech or analyst. These jobs were high paying and easily accessible before Covid, now you get paid 25 an hour (if you’re lucky) for years of experience with Linux, networking or sys administration
Been a ME for 16yrs and been managing manufacturing projects for the last 6.
I am unemployed 18months now.
I have seen since the start of my career mechanical engineering jobs stagnate and disappear.
I always advise against ME if anyone asks because of all my own career struggles over the years.
Data is king right now.
Lots of MEs flip to data though. Also always a job for MEs to my knowledge if you’re not geolocked. Maybe also because it’s a bit far removed from your career people looks the management more?
Also data is hot, but the amount of bad data people those degree mills and boot camps are churning out is sickening.
I've been an ME for 14 years, been in management for the last 10 - it's not slowed down at all.
You may have to move from your preferred location, but I get hit up all the time for even management level positions.
Are you on LinkedIn and is your resume pulling in recruiters?
Not trying to be rude, just trying to help in some small way.
I feel like there’s plenty of jobs, as long as you are willing to relocate. I get recruiters on linkedin contacting me about random jobs in Philadelphia, Colorado, etc. but they are on-site.
Yeah I totally understand that, but these days it’s harder and harder to stay put and not go where the jobs are. It’s an unfortunate part of today’s economy that people really need to come to grips with. They’ll either have to relocate or switch professions.
Of course they can move My daughter was born in NC and within a year we relocated to GA. Then my son was born 4-years later and in a year we relocated to Orlando, FL. We were in Orlando for 4-years and relocated again within the state. Every relocation was for a job move we made it work.
Then those that MAY NOT are screwed. This isn't our parents job market to advance as a Mechanical Engineer you have to change jobs every few years and relocation comes with the territory. This is how the game is played you either adapt or get left behind.
Whew good thing I’m not an ME and job hopping is easily doable without relocating constantly. I value stability for my family. Glad you have it figured out
I lucked out. I started as ME in undergrad and had my first internship during summer of 2009. I quickly noticed that all the EEs did ME work on top of theirs but I didn't see MEs doing the opposite. Needless to say but I changed majors that fall and even though I finished later it was the best choice i made.
And to add to that my professors always said that if being an EE doesn't work out you can always go crunch numbers on wall Street doing signal analysis 😭😭
Data was the fraud/scam of the day that has now been replaced by AI. Remember when Nike was going to be a data company or Tesla would revolutionize insurance with all their data. Nike wrote down that nonsense and Tesla is hiring cats from Geico
Depends where you live I guess. ME and EE thriving in places like Japan and China. People in the west just want to do office jobs. Everything else got outsourced.
EE is a little easier than ME for finding jobs, and harder to outsource since a lot of our jobs are in the defense sector, the only one that is legally obliged to operate in the US for the most part
That's been my hope. Been in not quite 10 years. So many jobs need clearance so I think I have to be more careful choosing tenants since I live in the same building but, other than that seems like if you live in a defense hub you'll probably be ok
Dude you're doing it wrong. I'm an ME for 19-years and never had a problem finding work as long as I was willing to move. I have worked at 7-different companies and moved 6-times. I even switched coast a couple of times. Sounds like a mistake you made was switching from Engineering to Project Management. PMs are a dime a dozen anyone can be a PM. Switch back to being an Individual Contributor Engineer and you should be fine, provided you are willing to relocate.
…Just relocate, its so easy because I do it…’
Other people than you have different life circumstances.
I am unable to relocate at this time. Personal reasons.
Thanks for your input.
Bro I didn't make the rules of the game don't be made at me. Long gone are the days of job security for life where you can go work at a company for 40-years and then collect a pension. My comment was specifically directed at the Engineering that was out of work for 18-months. What's preferable for him to be homeless or to move and have an income?
I can only speak to the E in stem cuase that’s what I do. And in that case I think you’re correct about it being overhyped. It’s a hard career getting a job is competitive and unless you’re at the top of the field you would be making more money as a nurse in a lot of cases. I don’t think I’m built to do anything else honestly like being an engineer is what I’m meant to do but there are definitely lower effort alternatives that make just as much money. To sum it up I’d saying being an engineer is something you do cuase you love not because it’s a get rich quick scheme it’s more of a get middle class and having to put a lot of effort in.
I'm an engineer. I don't love it... The pay is decent and with my experience I don't have a hard of a time finding jobs (I know it's rough for recent grads, but I have more than a decade of experience).
I *really* want out of the rat race. I've found most jobs turn sour after 2-4 years when they start dumping more and more work on you and/or when idiots or narcissists get promoted to management.
I'm in my late 30's and feel like I have wasted so much time in unfulfilling jobs that take up most of my energy and free time. I have golden handcuffs, though. I need the healthcare and income so I put up with it.
People don't get rich quick in engineering, you can make a decent comfterble living and save up, but if you want to be making the big bucks you need to understand the buisness/marking side of things, have good people skills, and be willing to put in a lot of hours.
Agree. In my case it's also that for me the "smart" part of it is a lot easier than "being socially accepted" so it's less work for me to do engineering than a lot of other options where it's easier for other people "getting the degree" but more socially focused
Eh I disagree engineering is a team sport so to speak. If you own your part of the project by yourself and only need to get info from other disaplines maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal. But communicating is very important.
I agree it's important, but it's much more common I find in my engineering jobs for there to be other people who like talking about things like obscure history facts etc, and so it's not as weird if you're one of them. It's more common for there to be people who don't mind keeping to work topics and not talking about personal life stuff and not feel snubbed if you don't want to talk about that stuff. It's been much easier
STEM has gotten a big push because of a huge gap in STEM graduates overall compared to other countries. It makes sense that the benefits of the degree would become less the more STEM grads you have.
Unless you have the government assigning people careers, there is always going to be to be a cycle where certain fields have shortages and people are encouraged to study those fields, you see an influx of people, and the that affects the benefits of going into the field.
STEM careers rely on an influx of funding into STEM employers (universities and companies). Obviously companies can support themselves, but they still rely on a stream of marketable ideas from academia. STEM **requires** research funding.
Much academic research will not be applicable or valuable. Or it may not be valuable for decades. We need to stop playing political games with research funding and recognize that it is nothing an investment in STEM fields, and also a worthy contribution to understanding our world in its own right.
My husband and I both have STEM degrees and have done very well with them. We are encouraging our kids to do the same. There are so many opportunities with our degrees. I have worked as everything from a design drafter to now a data/automation expert. He has worked as everything from a field engineer to now a substation engineer.
There is a big push for multiple reasons. One of them is too saturate the market so each an engineer does not cost over 200k a piece. Jobs, as of now, are not plentiful because the tech sector is on the down swing at the moment. STEM was never as lucrative as a business degree. You make more out of school, but you hit your ceiling pretty quick pay wise. It has been like this since, well, always. However, every once in a while, you have companies like Google overpaying their staff and giving this false narrative that engineers and scientists make bank by just showing up with a degree. What I tell my interns? If you picked engineering to make money, then you did horrible research.
>If you picked engineering to make money, then you did horrible research.
Please explain. According to pay scale the number one and number two best paying undergraduate degree by average earnings are petroleum engineering and operations research and industrial engineering. Additionally 4 of the top 10, 7 of the top 25, 18 of the top 50, and 37 of the top 100 degrees are engineering degrees. It’s true that engineers are probably underrepresented in the very top tier of earners but as far as average the vast majority of mid career engineers are doing very well.
[Payscale](https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that-pay-you-back/bachelors/page/4)
Agree with this. Yes some people with business degrees end up making more money, but there's a hell of a lot of people with business degrees and you don't know if you're going to be one of the ones to make it big
With engineering well, there's plenty of people in my STEM company who end up in the higher paying positions that traditionally you'd think need a business degree, but they just got a STEM one.
I don't think it's true business is a better bet unless people stop doing business degrees as much
Yes, that is what I said. Engineers get paid more out of school, but they hit their ceiling pay wise much sooner. Engineers realize that in order to break that ceiling, you need to go to a non engineer focused position (ie management). However, most Engineers either lack skills to do it, or they have too much pride in their engineering skills to leave it behind.
I think you are just lacking perspective a bit here. According to pay scale the average new grad chemical engineer can expect $85 k and by mid career they will average $151k by contrast a starting public accounting major will start at $69k and be to $151k by mid career. That is one of the best paid businesses degrees. All degrees have a ceiling it’s hard to get past unless you graduated from an Ivy and have a lot of connections. As far as managers there is an army of low level managers for every CEO. Sure some pop through that ceiling but the vast majority are going to be stuck in lower or mid management.
Ummmm...I think payscale has horrible inputs. Go look at finance and you will see by mid career, it is way above 150k if you work for an actual finance firm. But this also proves my point that engineers will hit their ceiling much quicker. Just look at the delta between the two of a new grad and mid career.
Engineering disciplines usually have pretty steady career and pay progressions because a senior engineer is very valuable. Not sure why you think a pay ceiling relative to other fields.
No one ever said a senior engineer is not valuable nor has it ever been said that it was not a steady career path. All i said was that, in engineering, you hit the ceiling rather quick. The ceiling it still better than low wage, but to claim engineers and scientists make more than everyone is very misleading.
I’m not saying they make more than everyone? A lot of jobs outside of engineering will finish their careers only making 50% more than when they started (and that’s on the higher end). Engineering disciplines have way more growth.
Business degree lol this isn’t the 1980s. Bro went to the top business school in the state top of his class bailed on that nonsense and is now finishing med school.
Other two brothers are nerds and so far I guess you could say they capped out at best being $650k. Whoever told you it’s just Google paying bigly lied to you son. $200k is what the shitty contract roles pay 🤮
You make good money, but it’s not for everyone, it requires a certain minded and personality to work, at least in the E part of it
Also, the money isn’t as good as older generations think, sure, you can easily make 100k plus in engineering, but the people pushing it are thinking in 1980s dollars, that 100k now is the equivalent of about 30k then
But this applies to anyone who doesn’t do some of their own planning and research, any field. It isn’t enough to blindly listen to a general piece of advice used to draw in prospective students, and frankly anyone spending the time and money to go to university should know that.
There are plenty of science charities visiting schools who try to shove the message that "STEM/STEAM = good money and good career" down students' throats. For a grade school student old who hears this over and over again from people who are supposed to be there to help them, it can become believable or accepted as true without much further investigation.
At the same time, I'm sure there are lots of students who do their own research also.
I think a huge part of that is that there is a lot of value in STEM and learning it. Even if you go into business or acting or painting, having a sold background in STEM is going to be helpful. It is not talking about a bachelor's in STEM. It is talking about basic highchool and elementary school level. Understanding how the scientific method works and the basics of STEM will help you no matter what career you go into. I teach high school math, and my grade ten students are learning about graphing. I don't think all of them are going to need to know the distance formula in there life, but they will need to know how to put numbers in a formula as well how to do multiple steps to get your answer, and the need to be careful as you do each step, and if you make a mistake how to go back and find the right answer.
I agree with your assessment. From my perspective 20 years ago STEM might have had lots of opportunity for growth, but now, it seems as a person is better off learning how to be a plumber, welder, hvac. If someone wants to get into STEM joining a military and getting into cyber might be the best option to avoid debt and get a clearance.
Yeah I’m tried of STEM being crammed down everyone’s throats. Sure some people excel at math and science and want to do it for a career. Many others don’t (like me). We need to stop making those who don’t want to go into STEM feel like they’re making a bad choice. I would have been miserable in a STEM job (assuming I were able to pass the classes to get there, which is doubtful). Money isn’t everything. I’d rather be happy in a job that pays less than miserable but making more money.
No, they are both plentiful and Lucrative
The jobs that are going away forever are like csll centers and secretaries
Aeronautical engineers? Much needed
Also the jobs are demanding and inflexible but expect you to be able to drop everything for the next emergency caused by poor planning and a rush/growth mentality.
That is true. And within the USA, the wages and opportunities can be pushed back upwards if H1B and OPT for these types of workers were limited, whether that target specific nations of origin, or be broader. It would be such a strong economic tool to be able to rise above the economic class one was born in by learning STEM specialties. Instead, a lot of that opportunity in the USA is taken by workers or students who came over, we’re educated in the US and accepted jobs in the USA. This pushes down salaries for people already here who could have used these opportunities to elevate some seriously underserved American communities. If we are going to recognize that gentrification can be bad for underserved communities (pushing up localized costs), we should also recognize that our policies around STEM jobs play a role in limiting wages and opportunities for those same communities.
I'm a mechanical engineer that has worked designing new products for about 15 years. The truth is, at least in my field, you can make ok money or really good money. The difference really is in how much you know, how creative you are and how much you actually enjoy designing/making stuff.
There are mechanical engineers that never pick up a screwdriver designing stuff, and there are ones that have full hobby machine shops at home. Take a guess at the group that designs products better/faster. I have electrical engineers that just did what they had to in school to graduate, and ones that have been building PCBs for hobby projects since they were in high school.
Yup I agree.
I did a geoscience degree. It's the same in that field with regard to some people making okay money and others doing really well. But it's more to do with what industry they work in. Those in oil and gas tend to do well but there is some instability in their job in the since that they are at risk for lay-offs. Whereas there are others who don't make as much (say with government or environmental work) but are more sheltered from things like layoffs.
And then there are some really innovative people who work as consultants and have the potential to make 10x or more what a normal geoscientist makes.
They’re latching onto the same old standard. It’s very short sighted of these ‘forward thinking’ people. It’s like they stepped out of the 1950’s all over again. And it doesn’t take into account how little companies value investing in their employees and their infrastructure and IT during lean years. If those lean years are protracted, you’re way behind the curve.
I have a large number of young people in their 20s in my family beginning their careers. Most of them have entered stem Fields. However, I am extremely concerned about artificial intelligences effect on employment prospects . My cousins twins are both computer programmers who have been working on learning how to code since Junior high School. I'm not sure if there's not going to be a collapse in that field.
You could be an elevator repairer, they make $100,000 a year.
STEM covers so much, from hydrology to ocean sciences, from transportation to marine geochemistry, from natural gas extraction to biogeosciences. The list is long.
The need for mechanical engineers, chemists, electrical engineers, civil engineers, environmental scientists, and more is vast and growing. Researchers, software developers, data analysts, biotechnologists, and agricultural engineers are also highly sought after. Did I mention robots? Opportunities abound in robotics, artificial intelligence, sustainable energy solutions, space exploration, quantum computing, and genetic engineering and many more fields... .
You are correct.
The issue is that any one person cannot be eligible for all these opportunities. If I have a geology degree, I'm not going to be qualified for a nursing position. It doesn't really matter that they both use STEM skills, no one is going to hire me to work as a nurse just because of this. STEM charities who speak to grade school students often pitch STEM to students as a career often package everything together saying "look at all the opportunities!" One stem field might be great in terms of careers but another might be dead or oversaturated. It's hard to look at STEM as a whole because it's so large and one is often unrelated to another in terms of career opportunities.
Know plenty of people that shifted - geologist became an owner of a company that makes ocean gear for scientists, a electrical engineer that became a developer for digital live fire environments for special forces, a mathematician that makes internal tools for scientists who work with particle analyzers, etc. even know a psychologist that ended up selling...insurance Ahahahah A man, she loves it, to each their own LOL
Think about it like this; STEM jobs are needed and pay well, The more STEM graduates, the higher the quantity of applicants, high supply drives down wages, companies pay lower wages.
You will ULTIMATELY make good money with a STEM degree. You will also be generally smarter and happier, because you better understand the world around you.
It's hard to look at them as a whole. It's such a broad range of fields.
Someone may get a science degree, realize that they need years of further training to be employable in their field, and jump ship and do something completely unrelated. I know lots of people with science bachelor degrees who afterwards went to a career college for a 1-2 year program unrelated to their degree and their degree does nothing for them in terms of their current positions, salary, etc.
But at the same time, there are others who do excellent.
The acronym itself is so catch all. You may as well be saying people who have a pulse. I've even heard of it being extended to STEAM to include arts. Like what field doesn't involve one of these things?
I would like to say this is the case... But my job involves interacting mostly with people, and people do not act in this perfect, robotic rational way. It's much more important to have soft skills, which frankly, I don't think STEM degrees really teach all that well. Or at all, actually.
It's better than anything else. Unless you're getting a STEM degree, or a specific degree that directly translates in a future career then college is largely a waste of money.
I think the problem is that people say "STEM" when they really just mean "computer science" or "engineering". Or assume all bio/chem grads can just get hired as high level biochemical engineers that make bank. That said most of my friends who graduated in chem or bio are doing well now that we're 10 years out of school.
Yeah, I agree. I think that STEM seemed very bright and enticing ten years ago but today things are very different. It's still a better line of work than most, but it's not the cure all that people want to think it is.
It's so board. It could mean healthcare, oil and gas, IT, accounting, maritime, wildlife, aviation, forestry and almost anything and everything in between. Some of these fields could be booming at any given time while others could be terrible choices.
I have always looked at STEM careers as a BETTER choice than social studies and art with respect to being eligible for a job. However, you have to find ways to be marketable with an in-demand skill set in the STEM areas. Just getting a degree in a STEM field doesn’t guarantee a job or even a job you will like. Good luck.
As an accounting major how tf would accounting be considered STEM???
It's math. Basically as close into pure math as you can that isn't computer science
It's at most Algebra, accounting is really more similar to law than anything.
Accounting is barely math, it's closer to law than it is to anything STEM related
Same thing for economics. Want to guess how often I've actually used anything at all close to Pre-Cal? Like outside of getting my masters, it hasn't happened at all. My job is far closer to law than it is to any hard science. I get paid the big bucks not for my math skills but for my analytical and reasoning skills. Which is why soon many of my peers went into law if I had to guess.
As a CPA, I second this.
Accounting doesn’t even come close to what a math major study as most of the math involved in accounting is simple arithmetic. It’s more closely related to business and commerce degrees rather than STEM.
100% of financial accounting can be expressed using A = L + SE. It's basically algebra.
Math is part of stem. It's hard to name other jobs that fit into math better than any of the other categories
The math part of accounting is already 100% automated at any large company. Accounting is much closer to law than STEM, since most accountants spend all their time analyzing how to set up workflows for outlier transactions.
Construction! If you can’t count material needs, measure correctly, or understand how to minimize waste of material, good chance you will always be a laborer.
It’s stem It’s math, engineering, computer science, medicine, chemistry, biology, food science, it encompasses like 80% of commercial industries Do you know what stem means? The industries are booming right now
Even trades have to use math (plumbing for example incorporates algebra frequently) does that make them STEM all the sudden? No it doesn't and accounting is not STEM. I'm not trying to bash accounting as I am trying to be an accountant myself, but it's silly to compare.
Trades are definitely stem. I have been at stem events where they represent in full force Edit: so the electricians union says they’re a stem career and you’re going to tell them that they’re wrong?
What a poor take. The trades are clearly STEM fields.
They did the same thing years ago with IT. Push a ton of kids into a field to over saturate it, to the point you can underpay everyone.
You make it sound like a conspiracy theory. It was only a matter of time before the ball dropped on IT jobs. If you didn't see it coming, that's on you.
The ball has not dropped- way more openings than candidates Enough with BS conspiracy theories
As someone in IT in DFW area, it is absolutely saturated by foreign and domestic workers.
We know a field is actually saturated with workers when the wages stagnate or fall compared to other professions.
Wages did in fact fall.
You're right in that they likely fell from the rare surge of money that occured in 2021 back to a predictable-but-still-upward trend. It's fortunate that tech still pays a lot better than 90% of occupations.
Yet my friends in ATX are desperate to hire AI experts Can’t find good talent to hire
Highly skilled and niche positions are always going to be in demand, I’m talking about the average sysadmin, help desk tech or analyst. These jobs were high paying and easily accessible before Covid, now you get paid 25 an hour (if you’re lucky) for years of experience with Linux, networking or sys administration
No, IT is hurting for good talent
"Good talent" A.K.A seniors that would accept junior-pay
Been a ME for 16yrs and been managing manufacturing projects for the last 6. I am unemployed 18months now. I have seen since the start of my career mechanical engineering jobs stagnate and disappear. I always advise against ME if anyone asks because of all my own career struggles over the years. Data is king right now.
Lots of MEs flip to data though. Also always a job for MEs to my knowledge if you’re not geolocked. Maybe also because it’s a bit far removed from your career people looks the management more? Also data is hot, but the amount of bad data people those degree mills and boot camps are churning out is sickening.
I've been an ME for 14 years, been in management for the last 10 - it's not slowed down at all. You may have to move from your preferred location, but I get hit up all the time for even management level positions. Are you on LinkedIn and is your resume pulling in recruiters? Not trying to be rude, just trying to help in some small way.
I feel like there’s plenty of jobs, as long as you are willing to relocate. I get recruiters on linkedin contacting me about random jobs in Philadelphia, Colorado, etc. but they are on-site.
Some people with families can’t do that as much as they may want to
Yeah I totally understand that, but these days it’s harder and harder to stay put and not go where the jobs are. It’s an unfortunate part of today’s economy that people really need to come to grips with. They’ll either have to relocate or switch professions.
Of course they can move My daughter was born in NC and within a year we relocated to GA. Then my son was born 4-years later and in a year we relocated to Orlando, FL. We were in Orlando for 4-years and relocated again within the state. Every relocation was for a job move we made it work.
SOME people. MAY NOT. Thanks for your anecdote.
Then those that MAY NOT are screwed. This isn't our parents job market to advance as a Mechanical Engineer you have to change jobs every few years and relocation comes with the territory. This is how the game is played you either adapt or get left behind.
Whew good thing I’m not an ME and job hopping is easily doable without relocating constantly. I value stability for my family. Glad you have it figured out
Yup. I make a good living, have a stay-at-home wife and am on track to retire early at 54 if I want.
I lucked out. I started as ME in undergrad and had my first internship during summer of 2009. I quickly noticed that all the EEs did ME work on top of theirs but I didn't see MEs doing the opposite. Needless to say but I changed majors that fall and even though I finished later it was the best choice i made. And to add to that my professors always said that if being an EE doesn't work out you can always go crunch numbers on wall Street doing signal analysis 😭😭
Doing stats degree and have multiple offers already. Probably gonna go quant finance. Work for a bank and make em pay my PhD.
Data was the fraud/scam of the day that has now been replaced by AI. Remember when Nike was going to be a data company or Tesla would revolutionize insurance with all their data. Nike wrote down that nonsense and Tesla is hiring cats from Geico
Depends where you live I guess. ME and EE thriving in places like Japan and China. People in the west just want to do office jobs. Everything else got outsourced.
EE is a little easier than ME for finding jobs, and harder to outsource since a lot of our jobs are in the defense sector, the only one that is legally obliged to operate in the US for the most part
That's been my hope. Been in not quite 10 years. So many jobs need clearance so I think I have to be more careful choosing tenants since I live in the same building but, other than that seems like if you live in a defense hub you'll probably be ok
Dude you're doing it wrong. I'm an ME for 19-years and never had a problem finding work as long as I was willing to move. I have worked at 7-different companies and moved 6-times. I even switched coast a couple of times. Sounds like a mistake you made was switching from Engineering to Project Management. PMs are a dime a dozen anyone can be a PM. Switch back to being an Individual Contributor Engineer and you should be fine, provided you are willing to relocate.
…Just relocate, its so easy because I do it…’ Other people than you have different life circumstances. I am unable to relocate at this time. Personal reasons. Thanks for your input.
Bro I didn't make the rules of the game don't be made at me. Long gone are the days of job security for life where you can go work at a company for 40-years and then collect a pension. My comment was specifically directed at the Engineering that was out of work for 18-months. What's preferable for him to be homeless or to move and have an income?
I can only speak to the E in stem cuase that’s what I do. And in that case I think you’re correct about it being overhyped. It’s a hard career getting a job is competitive and unless you’re at the top of the field you would be making more money as a nurse in a lot of cases. I don’t think I’m built to do anything else honestly like being an engineer is what I’m meant to do but there are definitely lower effort alternatives that make just as much money. To sum it up I’d saying being an engineer is something you do cuase you love not because it’s a get rich quick scheme it’s more of a get middle class and having to put a lot of effort in.
I'm an engineer. I don't love it... The pay is decent and with my experience I don't have a hard of a time finding jobs (I know it's rough for recent grads, but I have more than a decade of experience). I *really* want out of the rat race. I've found most jobs turn sour after 2-4 years when they start dumping more and more work on you and/or when idiots or narcissists get promoted to management. I'm in my late 30's and feel like I have wasted so much time in unfulfilling jobs that take up most of my energy and free time. I have golden handcuffs, though. I need the healthcare and income so I put up with it. People don't get rich quick in engineering, you can make a decent comfterble living and save up, but if you want to be making the big bucks you need to understand the buisness/marking side of things, have good people skills, and be willing to put in a lot of hours.
Agree. In my case it's also that for me the "smart" part of it is a lot easier than "being socially accepted" so it's less work for me to do engineering than a lot of other options where it's easier for other people "getting the degree" but more socially focused
Eh I disagree engineering is a team sport so to speak. If you own your part of the project by yourself and only need to get info from other disaplines maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal. But communicating is very important.
I agree it's important, but it's much more common I find in my engineering jobs for there to be other people who like talking about things like obscure history facts etc, and so it's not as weird if you're one of them. It's more common for there to be people who don't mind keeping to work topics and not talking about personal life stuff and not feel snubbed if you don't want to talk about that stuff. It's been much easier
I have some really bad news about nursing….read your last sentence and apply it to healthcare these days too.
STEM has gotten a big push because of a huge gap in STEM graduates overall compared to other countries. It makes sense that the benefits of the degree would become less the more STEM grads you have. Unless you have the government assigning people careers, there is always going to be to be a cycle where certain fields have shortages and people are encouraged to study those fields, you see an influx of people, and the that affects the benefits of going into the field.
Governments assigning people careers doesn’t exactly have a very good track record either.
STEM careers rely on an influx of funding into STEM employers (universities and companies). Obviously companies can support themselves, but they still rely on a stream of marketable ideas from academia. STEM **requires** research funding. Much academic research will not be applicable or valuable. Or it may not be valuable for decades. We need to stop playing political games with research funding and recognize that it is nothing an investment in STEM fields, and also a worthy contribution to understanding our world in its own right.
My husband and I both have STEM degrees and have done very well with them. We are encouraging our kids to do the same. There are so many opportunities with our degrees. I have worked as everything from a design drafter to now a data/automation expert. He has worked as everything from a field engineer to now a substation engineer.
STEM is too broad. Can you get a good, well paying job through STEM? Yes. Can you do it though just "being good at computers"? No.
There is a big push for multiple reasons. One of them is too saturate the market so each an engineer does not cost over 200k a piece. Jobs, as of now, are not plentiful because the tech sector is on the down swing at the moment. STEM was never as lucrative as a business degree. You make more out of school, but you hit your ceiling pretty quick pay wise. It has been like this since, well, always. However, every once in a while, you have companies like Google overpaying their staff and giving this false narrative that engineers and scientists make bank by just showing up with a degree. What I tell my interns? If you picked engineering to make money, then you did horrible research.
>If you picked engineering to make money, then you did horrible research. Please explain. According to pay scale the number one and number two best paying undergraduate degree by average earnings are petroleum engineering and operations research and industrial engineering. Additionally 4 of the top 10, 7 of the top 25, 18 of the top 50, and 37 of the top 100 degrees are engineering degrees. It’s true that engineers are probably underrepresented in the very top tier of earners but as far as average the vast majority of mid career engineers are doing very well. [Payscale](https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that-pay-you-back/bachelors/page/4)
Agree with this. Yes some people with business degrees end up making more money, but there's a hell of a lot of people with business degrees and you don't know if you're going to be one of the ones to make it big With engineering well, there's plenty of people in my STEM company who end up in the higher paying positions that traditionally you'd think need a business degree, but they just got a STEM one. I don't think it's true business is a better bet unless people stop doing business degrees as much
Yes, that is what I said. Engineers get paid more out of school, but they hit their ceiling pay wise much sooner. Engineers realize that in order to break that ceiling, you need to go to a non engineer focused position (ie management). However, most Engineers either lack skills to do it, or they have too much pride in their engineering skills to leave it behind.
I think you are just lacking perspective a bit here. According to pay scale the average new grad chemical engineer can expect $85 k and by mid career they will average $151k by contrast a starting public accounting major will start at $69k and be to $151k by mid career. That is one of the best paid businesses degrees. All degrees have a ceiling it’s hard to get past unless you graduated from an Ivy and have a lot of connections. As far as managers there is an army of low level managers for every CEO. Sure some pop through that ceiling but the vast majority are going to be stuck in lower or mid management.
Ummmm...I think payscale has horrible inputs. Go look at finance and you will see by mid career, it is way above 150k if you work for an actual finance firm. But this also proves my point that engineers will hit their ceiling much quicker. Just look at the delta between the two of a new grad and mid career.
Engineering disciplines usually have pretty steady career and pay progressions because a senior engineer is very valuable. Not sure why you think a pay ceiling relative to other fields.
No one ever said a senior engineer is not valuable nor has it ever been said that it was not a steady career path. All i said was that, in engineering, you hit the ceiling rather quick. The ceiling it still better than low wage, but to claim engineers and scientists make more than everyone is very misleading.
I’m not saying they make more than everyone? A lot of jobs outside of engineering will finish their careers only making 50% more than when they started (and that’s on the higher end). Engineering disciplines have way more growth.
Business degree lol this isn’t the 1980s. Bro went to the top business school in the state top of his class bailed on that nonsense and is now finishing med school. Other two brothers are nerds and so far I guess you could say they capped out at best being $650k. Whoever told you it’s just Google paying bigly lied to you son. $200k is what the shitty contract roles pay 🤮
Thanks to AI, comment go byebye
Tell me about it. A biology undergrad won’t get me anywhere it seems 🙃 and I can’t do a masters
Thanks to AI, comment go byebye
Soon we will be pushing trades, I’m a teacher and I make sure TK tell kids that it’s a good option
You make good money, but it’s not for everyone, it requires a certain minded and personality to work, at least in the E part of it Also, the money isn’t as good as older generations think, sure, you can easily make 100k plus in engineering, but the people pushing it are thinking in 1980s dollars, that 100k now is the equivalent of about 30k then
But this applies to anyone who doesn’t do some of their own planning and research, any field. It isn’t enough to blindly listen to a general piece of advice used to draw in prospective students, and frankly anyone spending the time and money to go to university should know that.
There are plenty of science charities visiting schools who try to shove the message that "STEM/STEAM = good money and good career" down students' throats. For a grade school student old who hears this over and over again from people who are supposed to be there to help them, it can become believable or accepted as true without much further investigation. At the same time, I'm sure there are lots of students who do their own research also.
I think a huge part of that is that there is a lot of value in STEM and learning it. Even if you go into business or acting or painting, having a sold background in STEM is going to be helpful. It is not talking about a bachelor's in STEM. It is talking about basic highchool and elementary school level. Understanding how the scientific method works and the basics of STEM will help you no matter what career you go into. I teach high school math, and my grade ten students are learning about graphing. I don't think all of them are going to need to know the distance formula in there life, but they will need to know how to put numbers in a formula as well how to do multiple steps to get your answer, and the need to be careful as you do each step, and if you make a mistake how to go back and find the right answer.
Nursing is still doing very well.
Yes, but nursing is just one part of STEM.
Curious what country you live in? Where did you get your data from?
STEM lol what a scam. Just learn things that people pay you for
I agree with your assessment. From my perspective 20 years ago STEM might have had lots of opportunity for growth, but now, it seems as a person is better off learning how to be a plumber, welder, hvac. If someone wants to get into STEM joining a military and getting into cyber might be the best option to avoid debt and get a clearance.
Yeah I’m tried of STEM being crammed down everyone’s throats. Sure some people excel at math and science and want to do it for a career. Many others don’t (like me). We need to stop making those who don’t want to go into STEM feel like they’re making a bad choice. I would have been miserable in a STEM job (assuming I were able to pass the classes to get there, which is doubtful). Money isn’t everything. I’d rather be happy in a job that pays less than miserable but making more money.
No, they are both plentiful and Lucrative The jobs that are going away forever are like csll centers and secretaries Aeronautical engineers? Much needed
Also the jobs are demanding and inflexible but expect you to be able to drop everything for the next emergency caused by poor planning and a rush/growth mentality.
That is true. And within the USA, the wages and opportunities can be pushed back upwards if H1B and OPT for these types of workers were limited, whether that target specific nations of origin, or be broader. It would be such a strong economic tool to be able to rise above the economic class one was born in by learning STEM specialties. Instead, a lot of that opportunity in the USA is taken by workers or students who came over, we’re educated in the US and accepted jobs in the USA. This pushes down salaries for people already here who could have used these opportunities to elevate some seriously underserved American communities. If we are going to recognize that gentrification can be bad for underserved communities (pushing up localized costs), we should also recognize that our policies around STEM jobs play a role in limiting wages and opportunities for those same communities.
I'm a mechanical engineer that has worked designing new products for about 15 years. The truth is, at least in my field, you can make ok money or really good money. The difference really is in how much you know, how creative you are and how much you actually enjoy designing/making stuff. There are mechanical engineers that never pick up a screwdriver designing stuff, and there are ones that have full hobby machine shops at home. Take a guess at the group that designs products better/faster. I have electrical engineers that just did what they had to in school to graduate, and ones that have been building PCBs for hobby projects since they were in high school.
Yup I agree. I did a geoscience degree. It's the same in that field with regard to some people making okay money and others doing really well. But it's more to do with what industry they work in. Those in oil and gas tend to do well but there is some instability in their job in the since that they are at risk for lay-offs. Whereas there are others who don't make as much (say with government or environmental work) but are more sheltered from things like layoffs. And then there are some really innovative people who work as consultants and have the potential to make 10x or more what a normal geoscientist makes.
They’re latching onto the same old standard. It’s very short sighted of these ‘forward thinking’ people. It’s like they stepped out of the 1950’s all over again. And it doesn’t take into account how little companies value investing in their employees and their infrastructure and IT during lean years. If those lean years are protracted, you’re way behind the curve.
Me too, but the decisions I make are shaped by the scientific method
As years have passed I became convinced it was and is a campaign to lower our salaries. And they were successful.
I have a large number of young people in their 20s in my family beginning their careers. Most of them have entered stem Fields. However, I am extremely concerned about artificial intelligences effect on employment prospects . My cousins twins are both computer programmers who have been working on learning how to code since Junior high School. I'm not sure if there's not going to be a collapse in that field.
You could be an elevator repairer, they make $100,000 a year. STEM covers so much, from hydrology to ocean sciences, from transportation to marine geochemistry, from natural gas extraction to biogeosciences. The list is long. The need for mechanical engineers, chemists, electrical engineers, civil engineers, environmental scientists, and more is vast and growing. Researchers, software developers, data analysts, biotechnologists, and agricultural engineers are also highly sought after. Did I mention robots? Opportunities abound in robotics, artificial intelligence, sustainable energy solutions, space exploration, quantum computing, and genetic engineering and many more fields... .
You are correct. The issue is that any one person cannot be eligible for all these opportunities. If I have a geology degree, I'm not going to be qualified for a nursing position. It doesn't really matter that they both use STEM skills, no one is going to hire me to work as a nurse just because of this. STEM charities who speak to grade school students often pitch STEM to students as a career often package everything together saying "look at all the opportunities!" One stem field might be great in terms of careers but another might be dead or oversaturated. It's hard to look at STEM as a whole because it's so large and one is often unrelated to another in terms of career opportunities.
Know plenty of people that shifted - geologist became an owner of a company that makes ocean gear for scientists, a electrical engineer that became a developer for digital live fire environments for special forces, a mathematician that makes internal tools for scientists who work with particle analyzers, etc. even know a psychologist that ended up selling...insurance Ahahahah A man, she loves it, to each their own LOL
Think about it like this; STEM jobs are needed and pay well, The more STEM graduates, the higher the quantity of applicants, high supply drives down wages, companies pay lower wages.
Have you done legitimate research or is this your opinion? I’m a STEM grad; this sounds like nonsense not based on any scientific data.
Lol. OK. Get a creative writing degree and let us know how that works out for you.
You will ULTIMATELY make good money with a STEM degree. You will also be generally smarter and happier, because you better understand the world around you.
I know a lot of smart, STEM people who are socially inept. Basically book smarts =/= street smarts. But generally I agree with you.
I agree.
It's hard to look at them as a whole. It's such a broad range of fields. Someone may get a science degree, realize that they need years of further training to be employable in their field, and jump ship and do something completely unrelated. I know lots of people with science bachelor degrees who afterwards went to a career college for a 1-2 year program unrelated to their degree and their degree does nothing for them in terms of their current positions, salary, etc. But at the same time, there are others who do excellent. The acronym itself is so catch all. You may as well be saying people who have a pulse. I've even heard of it being extended to STEAM to include arts. Like what field doesn't involve one of these things?
Isn’t a for Accounting?
I'm making way more now in a business field than what I could have with my STEM degree.
Me too, but my life decisions have been guided by the scientific method and knowledge about how things actually work
I would like to say this is the case... But my job involves interacting mostly with people, and people do not act in this perfect, robotic rational way. It's much more important to have soft skills, which frankly, I don't think STEM degrees really teach all that well. Or at all, actually.
It's better than anything else. Unless you're getting a STEM degree, or a specific degree that directly translates in a future career then college is largely a waste of money.
I think the problem is that people say "STEM" when they really just mean "computer science" or "engineering". Or assume all bio/chem grads can just get hired as high level biochemical engineers that make bank. That said most of my friends who graduated in chem or bio are doing well now that we're 10 years out of school.