ot; kid studying engineering

[eavesdropper]

There have been some great suggestions and feedback from people on this thread. However, I have seen a few recommendations to consider nursing or physician assistant career options.

Unless scaredy’s son has a strong desire to be engaged in direct and constant patient care, these are not viable options. While the degrees do require some education in the sciences, overall they cannot be considered careers in science. The same can be said for medical doctors. There’s a lot of basic science involved in undergrad (pre-med), but far less in medical school (unless the student is getting a PhD in a research field simultaneously). Once the student graduates from med school, the chance to work in science is almost always over for good. Even those very few who work in academic medicine, and manage to run a translational research lab while teaching students and carrying a clinical load of patients, are actually spending that “lab” time supervising students or completing grant applications so that they can afford to do the research.

The sad thing is that many students work extremely hard to get themselves into highly competitive nursing or PA programs, and then are shocked by the care-centered curriculum and the direct patient care that pretty much makes up the professional school curriculum. There are far too many unsuited people going into nursing and PA programs these days strictly because they’ve heard that the money is great. For whatever reason, the reality that they will be taking care of very sick human beings never crosses their minds.

There are a huge number of science and engineering jobs in the medical field, for those who have no desire to work with patients. And thanks to the incredible advancement of the last 30 years, a lot of these career choices are really challenging and exciting.

[maybe]

Will you freakin’ science and engineer types please shove your “People who excel in math become scientists and engineers; the people who can’t handle math get on the short bus to B-school” stereotypes where the sun don’t shine?! Admittedly, it’s been a very long time, but I can recall having some fairly stringent math adventures in some of my more advanced finance, econ, and statistics courses (fortunately, electroshock therapy has erased the nightmare memories of those happy times). And calculus was required.

The thing is — the finance guys have only started doing real math in the last 20 years or so. The math behind Black-Sholes — which won the freakin’ nobel prize — has been textbook fluid dynamics since the 1930’s.

Don’t get me wrong– now that Wall Street owns the whole country– they also have people who can do real math. That simply wasn’t the case for many, many years.

[maybe]

Will you freakin’ science and engineer types please shove your “People who excel in math become scientists and engineers; the people who can’t handle math get on the short bus to B-school” stereotypes where the sun don’t shine?! Admittedly, it’s been a very long time, but I can recall having some fairly stringent math adventures in some of my more advanced finance, econ, and statistics courses (fortunately, electroshock therapy has erased the nightmare memories of those happy times). And calculus was required.

The thing is — the finance guys have only started doing real math in the last 20 years or so. The math behind Black-Sholes — which won the freakin’ nobel prize — has been textbook fluid dynamics since the 1930’s.

Don’t get me wrong– now that Wall Street owns the whole country– they also have people who can do real math. That simply wasn’t the case for many, many years.

[maybe]

Will you freakin’ science and engineer types please shove your “People who excel in math become scientists and engineers; the people who can’t handle math get on the short bus to B-school” stereotypes where the sun don’t shine?! Admittedly, it’s been a very long time, but I can recall having some fairly stringent math adventures in some of my more advanced finance, econ, and statistics courses (fortunately, electroshock therapy has erased the nightmare memories of those happy times). And calculus was required.

The thing is — the finance guys have only started doing real math in the last 20 years or so. The math behind Black-Sholes — which won the freakin’ nobel prize — has been textbook fluid dynamics since the 1930’s.

Don’t get me wrong– now that Wall Street owns the whole country– they also have people who can do real math. That simply wasn’t the case for many, many years.

[maybe]

Will you freakin’ science and engineer types please shove your “People who excel in math become scientists and engineers; the people who can’t handle math get on the short bus to B-school” stereotypes where the sun don’t shine?! Admittedly, it’s been a very long time, but I can recall having some fairly stringent math adventures in some of my more advanced finance, econ, and statistics courses (fortunately, electroshock therapy has erased the nightmare memories of those happy times). And calculus was required.

The thing is — the finance guys have only started doing real math in the last 20 years or so. The math behind Black-Sholes — which won the freakin’ nobel prize — has been textbook fluid dynamics since the 1930’s.

Don’t get me wrong– now that Wall Street owns the whole country– they also have people who can do real math. That simply wasn’t the case for many, many years.

[maybe]

Will you freakin’ science and engineer types please shove your “People who excel in math become scientists and engineers; the people who can’t handle math get on the short bus to B-school” stereotypes where the sun don’t shine?! Admittedly, it’s been a very long time, but I can recall having some fairly stringent math adventures in some of my more advanced finance, econ, and statistics courses (fortunately, electroshock therapy has erased the nightmare memories of those happy times). And calculus was required.

The thing is — the finance guys have only started doing real math in the last 20 years or so. The math behind Black-Sholes — which won the freakin’ nobel prize — has been textbook fluid dynamics since the 1930’s.

Don’t get me wrong– now that Wall Street owns the whole country– they also have people who can do real math. That simply wasn’t the case for many, many years.

[scaredyclassic]

Medical care is unlikely; he like me shivers And gets pukey at ickiness or human pain. His mama could see you come in minus body parts and not blink. She’s always been coldblooded that way.

[scaredyclassic]

Medical care is unlikely; he like me shivers And gets pukey at ickiness or human pain. His mama could see you come in minus body parts and not blink. She’s always been coldblooded that way.

[scaredyclassic]

Medical care is unlikely; he like me shivers And gets pukey at ickiness or human pain. His mama could see you come in minus body parts and not blink. She’s always been coldblooded that way.

[scaredyclassic]

Medical care is unlikely; he like me shivers And gets pukey at ickiness or human pain. His mama could see you come in minus body parts and not blink. She’s always been coldblooded that way.

[scaredyclassic]

Medical care is unlikely; he like me shivers And gets pukey at ickiness or human pain. His mama could see you come in minus body parts and not blink. She’s always been coldblooded that way.

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]Engineers can easily go into business and sales (assuming they have the personality for it)…business majors can not go into engineering. Enough said. [/quote]

Are you serious?? Perhaps you should explain precisely what you are referring to when you say “go into business”.

What, exactly, makes up the course of study for “going into business”? And are you saying that business majors are not capable of handling the level of academic studies assigned to engineering students?

Do you also believe that business majors cannot manage the academic demands of science majors?

While it is true (as I mentioned in my earlier post) that the “business admin” curriculum has been expanded AND dumbed down in many cases, the fact remains that there are some seriously rigorous courses of study in many schools. And I know many intelligent, accomplished scientists who would have been forced to withdraw from some of the classes I was required to take back in the ’70s.

So while it is tempting, and often great fun, to make blanket assumptions, it can get a bit old after a while when you’re under that blanket.[/quote]

I am not disparaging B-schools, I am sure you and many of your peers are way smarter than the majority of engineers I meet. Some of them are quite painful, and could never ever go into business. But at Cal Poly at least, there was a huge difference in the difficulty of curriculum. Maybe not at your B-school. At Cal Poly, students only moved one direction, from the Engineering F train to the business school station. And they all loved the move! It was a long standing joke. I think in life too, you can always move in a less technical direction. If you start out an engineering wizard, you can easily move into the sales route, or business admin route (too many engineers are limited in this regard by their lack of personality). But try to go back?

That is why I think it is smart to start as an engineer and move elsewhere as you go. Check back with me in 15 years to see if that was a good move.

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]Engineers can easily go into business and sales (assuming they have the personality for it)…business majors can not go into engineering. Enough said. [/quote]

Are you serious?? Perhaps you should explain precisely what you are referring to when you say “go into business”.

What, exactly, makes up the course of study for “going into business”? And are you saying that business majors are not capable of handling the level of academic studies assigned to engineering students?

Do you also believe that business majors cannot manage the academic demands of science majors?

While it is true (as I mentioned in my earlier post) that the “business admin” curriculum has been expanded AND dumbed down in many cases, the fact remains that there are some seriously rigorous courses of study in many schools. And I know many intelligent, accomplished scientists who would have been forced to withdraw from some of the classes I was required to take back in the ’70s.

So while it is tempting, and often great fun, to make blanket assumptions, it can get a bit old after a while when you’re under that blanket.[/quote]

I am not disparaging B-schools, I am sure you and many of your peers are way smarter than the majority of engineers I meet. Some of them are quite painful, and could never ever go into business. But at Cal Poly at least, there was a huge difference in the difficulty of curriculum. Maybe not at your B-school. At Cal Poly, students only moved one direction, from the Engineering F train to the business school station. And they all loved the move! It was a long standing joke. I think in life too, you can always move in a less technical direction. If you start out an engineering wizard, you can easily move into the sales route, or business admin route (too many engineers are limited in this regard by their lack of personality). But try to go back?

That is why I think it is smart to start as an engineer and move elsewhere as you go. Check back with me in 15 years to see if that was a good move.

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]Engineers can easily go into business and sales (assuming they have the personality for it)…business majors can not go into engineering. Enough said. [/quote]

Are you serious?? Perhaps you should explain precisely what you are referring to when you say “go into business”.

What, exactly, makes up the course of study for “going into business”? And are you saying that business majors are not capable of handling the level of academic studies assigned to engineering students?

Do you also believe that business majors cannot manage the academic demands of science majors?

While it is true (as I mentioned in my earlier post) that the “business admin” curriculum has been expanded AND dumbed down in many cases, the fact remains that there are some seriously rigorous courses of study in many schools. And I know many intelligent, accomplished scientists who would have been forced to withdraw from some of the classes I was required to take back in the ’70s.

So while it is tempting, and often great fun, to make blanket assumptions, it can get a bit old after a while when you’re under that blanket.[/quote]

I am not disparaging B-schools, I am sure you and many of your peers are way smarter than the majority of engineers I meet. Some of them are quite painful, and could never ever go into business. But at Cal Poly at least, there was a huge difference in the difficulty of curriculum. Maybe not at your B-school. At Cal Poly, students only moved one direction, from the Engineering F train to the business school station. And they all loved the move! It was a long standing joke. I think in life too, you can always move in a less technical direction. If you start out an engineering wizard, you can easily move into the sales route, or business admin route (too many engineers are limited in this regard by their lack of personality). But try to go back?

That is why I think it is smart to start as an engineer and move elsewhere as you go. Check back with me in 15 years to see if that was a good move.

[jstoesz]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=jstoesz]Engineers can easily go into business and sales (assuming they have the personality for it)…business majors can not go into engineering. Enough said. [/quote]

Are you serious?? Perhaps you should explain precisely what you are referring to when you say “go into business”.

What, exactly, makes up the course of study for “going into business”? And are you saying that business majors are not capable of handling the level of academic studies assigned to engineering students?

Do you also believe that business majors cannot manage the academic demands of science majors?

While it is true (as I mentioned in my earlier post) that the “business admin” curriculum has been expanded AND dumbed down in many cases, the fact remains that there are some seriously rigorous courses of study in many schools. And I know many intelligent, accomplished scientists who would have been forced to withdraw from some of the classes I was required to take back in the ’70s.

So while it is tempting, and often great fun, to make blanket assumptions, it can get a bit old after a while when you’re under that blanket.[/quote]

I am not disparaging B-schools, I am sure you and many of your peers are way smarter than the majority of engineers I meet. Some of them are quite painful, and could never ever go into business. But at Cal Poly at least, there was a huge difference in the difficulty of curriculum. Maybe not at your B-school. At Cal Poly, students only moved one direction, from the Engineering F train to the business school station. And they all loved the move! It was a long standing joke. I think in life too, you can always move in a less technical direction. If you start out an engineering wizard, you can easily move into the sales route, or business admin route (too many engineers are limited in this regard by their lack of personality). But try to go back?

That is why I think it is smart to start as an engineer and move elsewhere as you go. Check back with me in 15 years to see if that was a good move.

[Author]

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