engineers do nothing but push papers?

[Lupe]

Most, if not all, engineers do nothing more than push paper - especially if they work in the military-industrial complex. Of course, a lot of people are perfectly happy doing this!

Will Blog for Food: 10 Reasons Not to Go to College

Is this true?

[RT Wolf]

Ummm....why do you ask? Are you considering doing engineering? are you "most" anything? If you want to find a challenging job that uses the skills of an engineer, you can find it. If you're not, then you won't.

What does pushing paper mean to you? Does that mean being deskbound and just scribbing on papers? Authors just scribble on paper.

[Vanessa]

That's a great article on showing the reality of not going to college to get a job and to start taking responsibility for the life you want to create for yourself. (#9 is a fav since that is the backbone of the us edu system)

The civil engineers and PEs I know have come to terms with the idea that they are not in the field more than 10-20% of their time and the rest is spent "pushing papers" --writing reports, excel spreadsheets, and project administration as an employee of an engineering company or military office. The older PEs move into people management most often whether or not they are interested in working with people or doing administration but because of their seniority.

With that, its not all engineers who do that. There are some out there who do nothing but field work and some work on their own.

What about engineering do you like? What dream do you want to fulfill by becoming an engineer?

[funchy]

I know one engineer (EE). He is designing cool software for the R&D department at a major telecom. It's neat to think millions of people are using something you invented. Some features on my own cellphone are things he personally created.

Another friend is a software engineer. He is designing computer modeling for military contractors who in turn make better armor. He actually models real-world tanks & helicopters and then designs the best way to model their vulnerabilities, ballistics, etc.

Both of them are paid six-figure salaries, full benefits, & treated very well.

Then I have one friend who was smart enough, suitable for EE or Computer Science fields. He dropped out of school college. Last I heard he's making minimum wage working at a taxi dispatch office, barely able to support his wife and 4 kids. The rest of his life he'll sit behind a desk like the dispatch desk, and he cries to me how unappreciated & bored he is.

[Bleicke]

I like engineering. I don't like the thought of zombying out in some big company.

Engineering in itself is a fascinating science, actually my favourite science. It's the science of making great things work.

What you do with it is an entirely different subject, obviously.

I agree that teaching yourself to be an engineer would be a lot more effective and fun than going to college. But nowadays most people are so unaware of what they want in life that they just go to college to get the time by. Ask a number of college students and 70%+ will only be there because they don't have anything better to do. That sucks.

But I think it's not engineerings fault.