This article could be written from a controversial point of view, especially when the author's list of the useless graduate degrees include Information Systems, Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration, and surprisingly, chemical engineering. Most experience is just knowing what was done before and what worked. They have real world experience. One approach is experiential, and one requires a broader understanding of what is going on. I'm 72. I already posted this on reddit but I would also like to hear other opinions: ... leading to the common joke that all their engineering degrees are actually math degrees). And since you are not born experienced, you need to learn theory first that can be used on a wide spectrum of applications. Visual arts degrees can convey a broad range of artistic skills, from drawing, painting and sculpture to printmaking, photography and animation. There are also a bunch of gatekeeping and accountability reasons why college is a good idea - it guarantees at least some basic ability and understanding, whereas a person with only practical experience might be helpless in an unfamiliar situation. imagine my chagrin. It's supposed to help you identify the real problem, not the problem presented and to equip you with a larger tool box of content. But the numbers generally begin to favor college. But the thing about experience is that at some point you will likely encounter a new application you have never seen before. Yeah this thread is garbage. Congratulations on completing your education...or at least the start of it. If you do need to get a job, having a degree can only help you—not only will you have more options to choose from, but you’ll also get paid more. I don't think there are any that have terrible prospects. I'm not sure what is so useless about this degree. I would say get a job first, see what skills your employer needs, and have them pay for your masters (my employer covers tuition for degrees that are job related). Since these people have so much practical experience they very often point out that they should be doing our work, while nobody should hire "text book nerds" to do this type of engineer work. That's just where it starts. This is a blow to many an engineer's ego, but so be it. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. The key, that school gives you is you can understand WHY that method worked. Give yourself some credit--those times you came up with solution A and the "hands on" guys came up with solution B that was "better", that was experience you were gaining right then. Then there are roles that require a great deal of the application of non-intuitive, complex tools, with the attendant stamina, abstract problem solving, and exposure to theory and the narrower fields of interest. College degrees tend to allow more people with average innate skills sets to be successful in more challenging roles than without, and that at in very challenging roles involving a lot of non-intuitive theory, people who Excel at these roles without an academic background are as rare as hens teeth, and there are reasons for that. Did 8 years in the navy prior to college. School is the beginning of your preparation for a career in engineering but that preparation doesn't end when you graduate. Then you have 2 degrees. Via Reddit (BeardedBear86) ... over 300,000 architecture and engineering jobs were lost. Tried searching for any jobs with the keywords FPGA, Microcontroller, PCB or Signal Processing and couldn't find one. So there is probably some point where having a college degree and slightly less experience passes someone with slightly more experience. I say all this without meaning to insult you, im just explaining something that it took me a long time to figure out. There you need a deeper understanding than just what you done before. In my experience, there is no substitute for hands-on experience. if both have no experience. Also, you are more likely to get opportunities than a technician... this increasing your experience. Firstly, if you are going to do a degree, do something which is recognised outside aviation. I think the differences are largely that college takes average people and drills stamina and capabilities for years to get to a level that can be exhibited by hand on experience people at times. You can in your 4 years of experience get more knowledge than a technician because you have a bit more base knowledge. Here in Australia we have no space industry. It’s estimated that a degree is worth $1.3 million in additional lifetime earnings. That experience itself cannot help as effectively! That said, this is a Canadian perspective, and I understand the US is different, in that you jump straight to a PhD if you want to do research, and that a Master's is more of a taking specialized classes thing. Note that I am not saying that those technicians do not understand what they're doing, or that you should dismiss what they are saying because of lack of degree! There are few who possess the natural motivation, curiosity, and ability to attain a lot of actual success in these roles without an academic background. Biology, as a degree, suffers the same issue as Communication technologies when it comes to some of the most useless college and university degrees in the world. Credit their observations and skills. Even the senior engineers just have to let the millwright work and have to just check to make sure the result is what they wanted. I grew up an airplane nut and built (and later designed and built) model airplanes, starting with hand launch gliders and going to much larger radio control airplanes. We all start out like this, more or less. This certainly depends of the field - aero/astro probably needs more college, fidget spinners less. Won't help you get a job right now. I see engineers that are also journeyman and they make big money, Some of the best engineers I know were tradesmen (either industrial or military) before going to engineering school. Couldn't you get work at ESA through the UK? Getting an engineering degree is nothing special, you take two years of math and physics and then move into designing courses, ethics and spend time in the laboratory. ELECTRICAL engineering covers things like power transmission, electrical distribution (over areas ranging from homes to factories to cities and even between countries). This is the right answer. The problem is that they are somehow right, almost everytime we come up with a solution, they come up with something better. I did a master's in robotics and now do FEA on rolling stock. Honestly, my take on master's degrees are that they are for preparing you to research and academia. How do you think you get to 30 years of experience? Respect it and give them their due. Although getting a degree isn’t the golden ticket to success anymore, it’s still a rite of passage in America. If you choose one of the most useless degrees you will be throwing your money away. Knowing why something works keeps things from being applied incorrectly, improperly or maybe someones determines better approach can be developed. I think a doctorate will just push you towards research or academia (there are positions that require doctorates, but they are few and far between). In most cases, a masters degree will be equivalent to 2 years of experience (a doctorate to 4 years). A tech knows how to fix things because they've fixed them before, you'll eventually learn to spot problems at the design phase or just by glancing at a wiring diagram. It does matter whether research skills add value to your planned career path. See if you can get a 2 year associates degree in audio production, then go for 2 more years in computer science or EE. Cookies help us deliver our Services. You could look at Satellite Applications Catapult. A good engineer, however, should be able to do for a dollar on a bad day what most will only get done for 10 dollars on a good day. Tradesmen know a lot and that experience is valuable to a lot of places. My wife decided in her sophomore year of college to switch from a music major to an art major. It's a big accomplishment. (Sidenote: if an university etc. Yes, a person with four years of experience and no college is probably better than someone with four years of college. Staying away from most difficult engineering degree is just one part of the equation. Most engineering roles are not "hard", require any deep understanding of the subject, or ability beyond what an average person with average skills with an average problem solving motivation can accomplish with a measure of success. In fact when you finish your university studies in engineering, you get a high paying job. For every "drop out of college" success story, there are at least 10x more "got my degree and got a good job" … There are tons of cubesat-related startups that could use someone with your education. Aside from the level headed people who point out that as long as you end up fulfilling your potential there isn't a useless degree. Then I guess all power engineers are overqualified if I am overqualified. When you graduate with a degree in engineering, you're able to speak the language and understand the problems you're presented with. Yes, if its just an undergraduate degree. The rest are full of STEM circlejerkers who can't fathom that having a history degree or an English degree means you go and work in history or english. Well, if you could start off with 30 years of practical experience, you'd be pretty damn useful too. We are two departments which is basically the same department, except my department handles larger and more complex projects, while the other handles smaller and less costly projects. Those with practical experience are often just as successful at their roles as college educated ones. Your degree isn't worthless, it's just you for the moment. Your degree isn't worthless, it's just you for the moment. It doesn't matter what exact field you do it in. However, those same occupations added 335,000 jobs between 2010 and 2015, growing employment by 12.8 percent and recovering that deficit in a relatively short amount of time. Add their experience to your education and it's a winning combination for you and your employers. I'm native from Peru and not long ago contemplated moving back. You don't learn theory on the job. It takes a while for you to eclipse your techs. Press J to jump to the feed. I'd love to give examples from my own career, but this is Reddit. Based on a poor return of investment, and with the market flooded with so many people seeking sociology degrees to do a white variety of jobs, this degree can make you virtually un-hirable. Look at the average gpa for an engineering … It takes experience to know how to solve those problems in the most cost effective way. My department consists entirely of engineers with 80-90% of us 0-5 years of experience. A coworker I once knew studied the mechanics of lab-rat tails and then worked on designing hydro turbines. I've learned a ton from machinists, floor people, assemblers, line foremen/women, techs... ). That is a good point, but would companies then rather avoid hiring fresh graduates, since they will eventually move to some other company before they gain the knowledge to be able to contribute more than a pundit with years of experience. You need to understand theory to develop. You'll probably have been working at least 5 years before you start making consistently useful contributions. More useful, but still quite useless comparatively to other degrees, unless you back it … The two best engineers I ever worked with grew up as farm kids, repairing and building stuff their whole lives. I have no idea how things are in Europe or other parts of the world, not do I know where OP is from. Depends on what you need done. Got out, went to U.C Davis. While the vast majority of graduate degrees will give you an edge, not all are created equal — and some graduate degree holders face a sharp rise in unemployment for their new job prospects. in Poetry! As a physics graduate student who takes a lot of classes with engineering students and considered engineering as a degree..I disagree with this page. I, too, understood a lot of theory, and even got hands on experience on a large international project involving human powered flight. It is not a useless one. AskEngineers is a forum for questions about the technologies, standards, and processes used to design & build these systems, as well as for questions about the engineering profession and its many disciplines. I firmly believe that aviation degrees are virtually useless to those who aspire to be pilots. Actually talked to a few supermajors, they said they give no preference to MS over B.S. Hello, I got my EE degree about a year ago and found a job immediately after my graduation. Was an Electronics Tech; mostly vacuum tube stuff. What about a masters in math? Many technicians I worked with called me the best engineer they ever worked with. The other department consists of old electricians and "pundits" with 10+ years of experience "working with their hands" or out on the field. The systems software that runs Reddit servers today was in version 1 right about when your dad's friend was leaving school. Here in California, as I'm sure will be the case in most industries in the U.S., a masters degree is useful, but not necessary. An engineering or business degree comes with an unemployment rate of a little more than 3%. In canada, Master's (MScA) is a necessary stepping stone to a PhD and 75% of the credits is a research project, only 25% is classes. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. I think many young engineering graduates have impostor syndrome to some extent, and I was certainly one of them, but eventually you get over it and realize you're more capable than you thought. School is important because you learn a broad range of skills and how to attempt to solve a problem you don't know how to solve. Some visual arts majors find full-time work, but many others must settle for contract and freelance jobs. Like Communication Technologies, Biology as a degree is a broad field that limits the applicable fields in … A degree gets you over the worst learning curve. With programmers everywhere, annual salaries for entry-level jobs have remained at around $4,500 for the better part of a decade. (It's a good idea not to show that off too much, though. NBC Called Architecture Degrees “Useless.” The Internet Fired Back . Pay attention to the experienced people. You should be very proud of yourself for getting through it. is offering it, then it should be of use to someone?). But, you need to have that foundation if you are ever presented with a situation that isnt spelled out for you and you need to know how to adjust. The systems software that runs Reddit servers today was in version 1 right about when your dad's friend was leaving school. Not to mention how real world practicalities interact with engineering concerns. IF you get an masters in engineering it usually helps bump you up into a senior engineer or go down the analysis/research direction better. A Computer Science Degree, from the 1960s. Really if you want a job do engineering or accounting. You do not. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the AskEngineers community. Many states used to allow experience as a kind of apprenticeship to substitute for law school - that's mostly gone now due to the growth of the regulatory state (thanks US liberals). And/or being able to communicate why to someone. Have the fundamentals of what we consider comp sci changed that much? Is a math degree useless financially? My company insists that our work is only suitable for someone with an engineer degree, but these non-engineers are better than us engineers. Or some simpler parts of our projects to save us time. And/or understanding why a stress concentrations always break the bracket the same way or why material selection matters, or how to minimize total costs over product life spans. In other words, if there's no market for a skill, being more specialized at it doesn't make things better. Eventually, they'll run into the limits of experience where a theoretical knowledge is required. just as i was graduating EE/CS the first microprocessors hit the market. Once you do you'll still look to the tech folks for their real world experience, if you're smart anyway but you'll be able to deal with problems they won't be. They're smart guys and figure out things I can't but their lack of field experience really shows when out in the job. The best engineers are those who have both. No, useless degrees is the biggest scam. ), any college degree is useful, as long as you know how to transform it into a valuable commodity. Let me tell you the tale of two people. Maybe you leave the rare whiz kid who can actually do super well in engineering but not know shit about philosophy but that isn't the majority of people. That understanding makes you an engineer and not a monkey. School teaches us the fundamentals and the first principles mechanisms of how things work and the very beginning of how to solve problems. ... Feel my Aero degree was completely useless... #1. aerokid1491 372 replies 8 threads Member. I would go as far as to say that this applies to every industry, because I didn't really grasp my bearings in the aerospace industry until I had worked for at least 3 years... and that's for one niche, specific part of aerospace. Business, biology, journalism--maybe even art if you wanted to get really avant-garde.That is decidedly not the case today, when students have the option to … But I expect to work for at least 40 years - I think someone with 40 years of experience and 4 years of college > 44 years of experience. Any monkey with half a brain can apply a method. I am not alone with this thought/opinion, I have heard the same story from other engineers as well. Engineers apply the knowledge of math & science to design and manufacture maintainable systems used to solve specific problems. They will not. By the way, the same thing applies in law (my current field). You know almost nothing about how business works, or how the real world impacts engineering solutions. I went straight into a Masters after graduating but my friend spent the last year looking for a job using his physics degree and couldn't get one. Most senior engineers are fine, but new guys can't troubleshoot for their life and have obscure suggestions for what a problem may be. Their hands on experience gave them a great practical perspective for their low years of experience as an engineer, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the AskEngineers community. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, Staff Controls Engineer (ME/EE/Systems/Software). You get a degree and start cocking up. But there is also no substitute for being grounded in theory and calculation.