There will always be plenty of engineering jobs here in the US, but… the more generic and outsourceable (I don’t think that’s a word) the work, the greater the likelihood that it eventually ends up overseas. The folks in India, China, etc. are just as smart, more motivated and much cheaper. It’s that simple.
Personally, unless I was really confident I was going to be a major engineering hotshot, I’d avoid most engineering tracks. It looks pretty risky to me.
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I agree with this. I think unless you really love engineering (and this applies to any field/career/work), etc…The most important thing is probably to do something you are incredibly passionate about since in any field or business, you will be competing with many people who love what they do so if you don’t want to be there as badly, you’ll eventually get forced out of work.
The environment of the people growing up in India and China is a lot tougher so I think it’s tough for US folks to want to spend 50 years trying to build a foothold to a better life when they are already living it now. This makes it harder to compete since we (they’ve) gotten soft already.
I also know of accountants and ex-lawyers who left because they couldn’t stand dealings with numbers and balance sheets all day and hated billable hours as a lawyer so they should make some courses required reading before folks go to do their CPAs, law or medical degrees.
What they should offer high school juniors and seniors (maybe they do already) is more counseling on careers and a cost analysis and be blunt about things like getting a history degree or sociology or English means no jobs unless you are lucky enough to be a professor (which now requires a PhD)…
