I’ve been thinking about switching over from engineering to economics. This decision comes from being utterly unenthusiastic about having a career in engineering (and hearing about engineering firms downsizing). I have a lot of the basic classes taken care of already, so I would only have to focus on the actual core classes for my A.S., and transfer to ODU for my B.S.
I would like to get some feedback on this from others who are majoring in economics, and what line of work they may plan to pursue.
What year of college are you in? specifically what semester? I would say any math you’ve taken will help you get into grad school if you’re interested in that. I’m going into my third year having taken only principles of micro and macro and will be able to get a B.A. major in econ. I’m also going for calculus so I can take econ 490-491 so I can get into NIU’s econ grad school program.
Basically I went to Western Illinois university for 2 semesters having no idea what I wanted to do, then went to community college for 2 semesters and settled on majoring in economics now I’m going to Northern IL University and hope to graduate in the spring of 2012
You will have a much easier time getting a job with an engineering degree over an economics degree. I’m an economics major who wishes he had majored in some kind of engineering.
do not take my word, I’ve jumped careers 3x’s in 22 years but take my wife’s…she finished her engineering degree and hasn’t been able to be unemployed which has allowed me to change careers…and take nice vacations.
Technically, I should have graduated by now with my A.S. Past two semesters I only took one class per semester, and that was for my drafting classes. I just take what I can afford at the moment. To get my A.S. in business administration I’d just have to take 2 ECO, 2 ACC, and 1 BUS. If I do plan to switch I can still go ahead and get my certificate in CADD without getting my A.S.
This is just what has been on my mind. My brother works for a civil engineering firm and he’s told me it’s really hard to get work. No one wants to invest in any long term projects and half the work they get is government. They’ve laid off at least half of their employee’s. A lot of the people (almost all) who get into the CADD program here end up at the shipyard working at Northrop-Grumman (same with a lot of the welders, which welding was my other option).
I am an engineer. My GF has a B.S. in economics. Her options are either to become a banker, or work for financial firms. Frankly, both of these industries only exist en masse because of the government and that is, lame. My GF wishes she could go back and be an engineer. Also it is hard for her to find a job right now too…
Engineers! Wow I am a petroleum engineer. Let me tell you that our graduate work is very very cool. If you like figuring out how the world works and packaging your solutions in a way that’s accessible to industry, then engineering graduate school might be awesome.
Plus, as an engineering undergrad you can get into most graduate programs. You have enough math and science for the natural and social sciences, and MBA programs love you. Engineers are “smart”. Its like a badge of honor (not that other majors can’t be smart, or aren’t more challenging)
But, assuming you don’t want any more education after undergrad, working as an engineer is a lot more satisfying to me because you get to do real world work, assessing problems and coming up with creative solutions. It depends who you work for, but if you go with the right company you’ll never be bored. You’ll also be compensated a lot more… just depends how motivated you are.
My recommendation would be to do whatever it is that you love doing most. I’d personally much rather have an ok paying job doing what I love vs a well paying job that I loathe going to every day.
Finish your degree in engineering, your wife will thank you. If you like economics buy the mises library with a down payment from your first check as an engineer. If you hate the work, then either suck it up for a couple of years to put some money away and use your education to do something else. You could teach public school math or science with ease, or if you do some graduate work, you can teach some freshmen. You will take a pay cut, but it gives you a lot of time off. I only work 12 hours a week at my college
I’m actually double-majoring in both, you could try that. However, I don’t think the career opportunities of econ majors are better than engineers. Also, engineering is a very wide field, there’s go to be something you could enjoy.
Well, I suppose I’ll stick with engineering. I know it’s a wide field of what I could enter to, but as I said the big thing around here is working at the shipyard and it seems to suck everyone in. Someone asked me if my reason for not going to the shipyard was that I didn’t want to build war machines. He nailed it.
Finish your degree in engineering, your wife will thank you.
My girlfriend is really against the idea of majoring in economics. She thinks I’ll turn into a yuppie.
I would go with engineering, but not “civil engineering” or “engineering physics” or something like that. Go for mechanical, electrical, petroleum, chemical, etc.
I would recommend the engineering degree unless you plan to get a masters or PhD in economics. My brother is an econ professor. He majored in Geology for his bachelors and minored in economics. He realized quickly that there was no work to be found as a geologist without a masters or PhD, thus he applied for a PhD program in economics, his real passion. I work as a field engineer for an aircraft manufacturer, though I majored in Aviation Management, my background is avionics on aircraft. I am not actually an engineer but do work with many, and there are plenty of employment opportunities in the aviation industry for engineers of all sorts of specializations. I primarily work with software and E&E engineers, and several of them are younger men and women that came fresh out of college. The bottom line is with an economics degree you will not make as much money as an engineer most likely, unless you get a masters or PhD. And your choice of careers would be working for a bank or some type of financial firm or as a teacher or professor. Engineering jobs seldom require a masters, but instead have certifications to be attained, FE and PE.
Well at least whatever major you go into won’t conflict with your beliefs. I’m slowly becoming an anarchist and my major is political science ><. I almost have my BA so I’m just going to stick it out until I get my MA and PHD. I am even writing a book on war and planning on starting my own school. Good luck on your future career, I wish you all the best. ^^
Which engineering field are you considering? It’s hard all the way around for college graduates, but engineering seems to be holding up better than most other degrees.
Bert wrote: “Well, I suppose I’ll stick with engineering.”
Good.
I majored in economics and political science (I concentrated in International Trade and International Affairs, respectively) because they interested me. I enjoy observing how people act and trying to figure out why they act as they do.
However, I was not able to continue on to the graduate level due to financial reasons–I didn’t want to be $100,000 in debt and still working as someone’s research assistant–so I’ll never achieve one of the “coveted” academic/think-tank jobs. Instead, I work as an “economist”, but I really just sit in a cubicle and try not to lose my sanity. I don’t work with policy–that’s actually a big no-no becuase there are other departments that handle that work, and as I was warned, I don’t want to be “pissing in someone else’s cereal”; and I don’t do anything in the theoretical realm, either. What I do is some extremely low level statistics and I write the occassional SQL query:
select whatever
from table_name
where condition like X
order by Y
Yeah, that’s what I got myself in debt for…
On the positive side, I do get to keep Internet Explorer up in the background and follow the news and read the .pdf books available here.
I have actually been discussing the possibility of going back to school part-time with my wife. Since I have a better idea of the labor market now than I did 3 or 4 years ago, I would like to go for something in the computer science field or engineering field.
I would go with engineering, but not “civil engineering” or “engineering physics” or something like that. Go for mechanical, electrical, petroleum, chemical, etc.
My original intent was environmental which is connected to civil (involved with water treatment systems and waste water management, run-off, making sure the local environment is stable for development, etc).
I’d much rather do mechanical. I thought about possibly getting my welding certificate as back up which also shows I’m more varied when it comes to welding designs in drafting (took a WEL 101 class and did better than the people trying to get their certificates). One of my projects couple semesters ago was to design a mechanical device. Everyone was doing stuff out of the book and I designed an entire skateboard piece by piece. I don’t think civil could compare to that in the fun area.
I can relate. I have a mechanical engineering degree, I’ve worked for more than 10 years in the automotive industry, yet I still am not sure what I want to do “when I grow up”.
My two cents…finish your engineering degree first. It will open up a number of different paths; academic since you have the chops in advanced math, and professional since employers will figure that you’re a “smart person” who should be able to do a non-engineering job.
