Q: Engineering career/salary info for grads?

Edwards Finance > Mechanical Engineering

Q. I have been looking for statistics/information regarding engineering careers and their typical starting salaries for graduates (particularly Master's degree). I have my Bachelor's in Engineering Science (a WORTHLESS degree) from Penn State and will be going for my Master's in Electrical Engineering beginning this fall at Michigan State. Since I have a lot of undergraduate loans and looks like some graduate loans too, I need to make decent money when I graduate. Also, I haven't decided on what aspect of EE to concentrate. Because of these two reasons, I desparately need information regarding careers & salaries, and if you have any advice for me, please e-mail me with it.

A. -I've just graduated with a BS in EE. Man, it's a tough situation out there with regards to finding an entry level EE job. I've gotten the impression that an MS in EE is the way to go, and even then, it's still pretty hard finding a job it looks like. It has made me stop and wonder if it's really worth pursuing a career in EE, but that's another story. It's much easier getting a job in EE if you have 2 years of experience, but just pray you're not like me with 0 years of experience! Head hunters won't even look at me! From what it looks like, most entry level stuff for EE is between $30K and $38K for BS people. Average is about $33K. And that all depends on where you want to work (geographically speaking). If you want a job in NYC, for example, you can maybe expect a little more than if you were taking a job in some suburbia plant, simply because of the cost of living. Large companies that work for the government, like GE/Martin Marietta/Lockheed, all have standard salary ranges that they will use. GE, for example, has a low end of $32K and a high end of $39K with the average at $33K. I think an MS would get slightly more to start than a BS, but the MS will gain in salary faster than a BS (generally), and will be able to make a transition into executive and managerial positions a lot faster than a BS. For GE, for example, if you're a senior engineer, regardless of degrees, you will be making somewhere between $45 and $60K. That will take a BS probably around 15 years to get there, and maybe an MS will take only 10, of course depending on your own individual ability. But from what it looks like, BS's rarely go above "senior engineer" positions and salaries, so about $50-$60K is what your top salary will be. But an MS, from what it looks like, can break that barrier by going into executive and managerial positions, earning over $60K. The highest you see is the executive vice presidents and such who earn $100K, thereabouts, but that's like a one in ten thousand chance that you'll get to that level. Realistically, it looks like $60K is about all you can expect out of your career. MS is the way to go. From what I've seen, there are lots more jobs in digital and analog design, specifically in firmware and ASIC (VLSI) stuff. However, because of the increased supply of jobs in those areas, it looks like salaries are starting to come down. Analog people are becoming a rare breed, so you might want to go into it a little more. Power systems makes heavy use of analog, and from what I see, they get the higher pay, but there are fewer jobs. Digital is by far the area that has the most available jobs, but again, there's a ton of competition because everyone does digital it seems. Signal processing is a middle of the road type of thing, having a nice balance of jobs and competition for those jobs, but you definitely need a good signal processing school to teach you the stuff. I don't want to offend anyone, but it looks like medical device engineers earn way less than others, probably because the medical industry looks at us as technicians. There's hardly any demand for EE's in environmental companies (mostly ChemE's and CivE's). There's not too many jobs for materials people, especially at the BS level, so an MS or a PhD is the way to go, and you still have competition with ChemE's. I think the idea is to get a well rounded view in your BS, and then pick something that you want to do for the rest of your life when you do your MS/PhD. Oh well.. I've rambled enough. I hope I didn't offend anyone. All of what I said is just what I've been seeing out there for the last year or so. If anyone wants to take this conversation up in email, please do so. -Please don't take this the wrong way, but what in the world is "Engineering Science?" On it's surface, it soudns like a program that teaches "what engineering is like" rather than any engineering. -I'm can only speak for the Engineering Science program at the University of Florida, but I would assume that it's pretty much the same at other accredited schools. My degree from UF is Engineering Science, which is part of the Aerospace Engineering, Mechanics, and Engineering Science department. The advantage to it was the malleability of the program, as far as electives were concerned. Some students had a concentration in Engineering Management, but most were involved in Biomaterials or my concentration, which was Biomechanics. My coursework was essentially mechanical engineering, with a few changes. Some courses were the same, but taught in our department as opposed to mechanical, and some were substituted. The only Mech E classes I *didn't* take were Heat & Mass Transfer, Thermo II, and Vibrations. Instead, Engineering Science heaps on the mathematics and programming requirements, as they relate to mechanics, specifically Diff Eq II, Field Theory, Numerical Methods, and Engineering Statistics. Also, I had electives relating to my concentration, such as Physiology for Engineers, Biomechanics, and Biomedical Engineering Design. Since UF is still working on a formal BME program, biomed hopefuls had two options, basically: Engineering Science for a Biomechanics concentration, or the Materials Science & Engineering department to study Biomaterials. IMHO, it's a rather glaring omission for UF to not have a full BME program, because they rank in the top 3 (along with Ohio State and Minnesota) for the number of majors and interdisciplinary programs offered, and they have an excellent medical school right on campus to complement the active engineering college. Unfortunately, many employers are not familiar with the Engineering Science degree, despite the fact that most large research universities offer it as an option. Some think of it as an Engineering Technology degree, but it is in fact a full engineering program, and it has prepared me well for my pursuit of a Master's degree in Biomedical Engineering.

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