One should only go into engineering for the enjoyment of it. Period. Those who go in for the money alone wash
out, and do harm to their employers in the process. Even those who do engineering work because they like it
have to face the frustration of pursuing one of the most difficult, expensive courses of study, only to watch
as others with generalized "business" degrees outpace them in income, all the while complaining about the
cost of supporting the very engineering staff withut which the high-and-mighty marketing department would
have not product to sell, and overriding sound decisions on the generally-wrong assumption that the engineer
hasn't properly considered the business case (when, in fact, the manglement is simply failing to consider
consequences that fall off the short-term budget radar).
Vindication (but too rarely, credit) comes when the engineer pulls the employer's fat out of the fire, again,
leading to the implementation of what they specified, in the first place. Needless to say, "I told you so" is
not spoken at such times . . .
But if the idea of using technical skills to become a strange creature that is half businessman, half artist,
and half scientist (that is, half again what any one of those alone can be) sounds like one's kind of fun,
one should, go for it!
--
HadEnuf? |
