Is electrical engineering becoming outdated?

[JakeBrodskyPE]

When I received my Engineering degree, the market for engineers was rather bleak. The cold war funding for many engineering projects had ended. And yet, over the years, engineering demand has inflated and shrunk a few times in a variety of fields.

Even if things don't look so good today, they will be different tomorrow. Chasing short term economic data like this is not what I would consider a healthy exercise.

 

[ModusPwnd]

The BLS predictions are for the next 10 years. Its some data at least, its not perfect but its more reliable than personal experience and opinion. Biomedical engineers have very high growth prediction. That makes sense I think, considering the amount of money spent on health care and the amount of hard problems that are now solvable with new technology and techniques.

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/biomedical-engineers.htm

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

...and how good are any economic forecasts? Seriously, these guys make weather forecasting look good.

 

[ModusPwnd]

Weather forecasting is good. Do you have any reason besides suspicions that the BLS predictions have no predictive value? If a team of data driven professionals can't make a prediction worth anything, then why should we accept your personal prediction?

 

[axmls]

Really though, I wouldn't encourage someone to pursue a technical field.

What do you mean by a "technical field"? This seems like a big leap to me.

That said, I may be mistaken, but growth rate doesn't give you the whole picture in terms of employment. The growth rate for electrical engineering might be much lower than biomedical engineering, but that growth rate for EE corresponds to a lot more EE jobs than biomedical jobs, because there are a lot more electrical engineers than biomedical engineers. Sure, there are also more people going into EE, but I feel like a single number doesn't give you the full picture. Even then, I'm sure if you were to look at individual sub fields, those growth projections would be wildly different between sub fields.

 

[ModusPwnd]

I agree its not the whole picture. But it is part of the picture. I understand that specifics and intricacies behind the numbers are meaningful. That's why I called it a first approximation. I see no reason to assume that higher order corrections will result in more positive employment predictions, maybe they will result in a more negative prediction. I think there is a bias on this forum to champion engineering and STEM in general no matter what. I don't think that way.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Weather forecasting is good. Do you have any reason besides suspicions that the BLS predictions have no predictive value? If a team of data driven professionals can't make a prediction worth anything, then why should we accept your personal prediction?

Like any data-driven forecast, it starts with a chaotic system and it goes downhill from there. Please don't tell me how good you think weather forecasts are. I've tried to use them for piloting a small plane. If I had been able to rely on those forecasts better, I'd have been able to pay for a lot more flight time. I can't tell you how many times I've read forecasts for winds and temperatures aloft, worked out my wind vector and temperatures at altitude and discovered that I shouldn't have even bothered looking at the forecast.

Financial investments are only accurate over a very long term and only within an order of magnitude. The shorter the time span, the less accurate they tend to be. I've read and invested and I'll say this: If you know what a random walk is, then you'll know that most financial forecasts are barely worth the paper they're printed on. And we're supposed to believe what these people think the job market will look like in ten years? I wish they could be that accurate, but if you ask them, any with a shred of honesty will tell you that this is all an educated guess at best.

Believe what you want, but don't be surprised if things don't end up anything like what was predicted.

 

[ezed lino]

Do you have a source for this claim of "high demand"?

Electrical engineering has been shedding existing positions.
http://www.computerworld.com/articl...l-engineering-lost-35-000-jobs-last-year.html
Pay has not outpaced inflation.
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1149198
The Beuaru of Labor statistics predicts slower than average growth in the field.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htmCertainly there is a demand, but I see no evidence of high demand in the foreseeable future. We have electrical engineering graduates working along side community college graduates as maintenance technicians at my job.

MEs' job often has a tenuous link with ME. Many MEs merely supervise maintenance technicians in many companies.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I don't know. At my job the people in demand are people with experience on particular semiconductor manufacturing processes and people with high levels of experience and knowledge on manufacturing equipment. Experience is more important than a degree, but that isn't a surprise. We feel thwarted by HR when we can't hire experienced people because they have the wrong or no degree. There are people with DeVry degrees and vendor experience that can work in any fab they want for six figures.

I would troll through the Bureau of Labor predictions for a first order approximation. I think computer science at the PhD/research level has high potential, and I think the Bureau of Labor supports that opinion.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and...puter-and-information-research-scientists.htm

Really though, I wouldn't encourage someone to pursue a technical field.

OK, ModusPwnd. If not a technical field, what field would you encourage to pursue instead, say to your child, or to someone who asks? And I'm talking about any field. You tell me what field you think is worth pursuing for someone considering a career.[/QUOTE]

 

[StatGuy2000]

Like any data-driven forecast, it starts with a chaotic system and it goes downhill from there. Please don't tell me how good you think weather forecasts are. I've tried to use them for piloting a small plane. If I had been able to rely on those forecasts better, I'd have been able to pay for a lot more flight time. I can't tell you how many times I've read forecasts for winds and temperatures aloft, worked out my wind vector and temperatures at altitude and discovered that I shouldn't have even bothered looking at the forecast.

Financial investments are only accurate over a very long term and only within an order of magnitude. The shorter the time span, the less accurate they tend to be. I've read and invested and I'll say this: If you know what a random walk is, then you'll know that most financial forecasts are barely worth the paper they're printed on. And we're supposed to believe what these people think the job market will look like in ten years? I wish they could be that accurate, but if you ask them, any with a shred of honesty will tell you that this is all an educated guess at best.

Believe what you want, but don't be surprised if things don't end up anything like what was predicted.

Jake, how good weather forecasts are depends on the time point and the specificity of the forecast. Weather systems are based on non-linear dynamical systems that are chaotic (i.e. sensitive to initial conditions), so any forecast will depend crucially on whether the initial conditions on which the forecast has made has changed. Forecasts within 1 to 3 days usually tend to be fairly accurate, but any forecast beyond that time frame will degrade in accuracy.

It's also worth keeping in mind what we mean by "accuracy", since any good forecast should be inherently probabilistic, and should include some measure of the probability or uncertainty of the forecast (e.g. confidence interval, standard error, etc.). For example, if the weather forecast is for a 60% chance of rain the next day, and it does not rain, then can you really state that the forecast is inaccurate? After all, there was a 40% chance that it will not rain, and that's a high percentage.

Of course, your response is that all forecasts are garbage, but I think that is a disservice. Forecasts can be very useful for decision-making, so long as the following are considered:

1. You're aware of the assumptions that goes into the model from which the forecast is made.

2. You're aware of the measure of uncertainty of the forecast.

3. You're modest and careful in how to interpret the forecast.

Of course, there are other considerations depending on the type of forecast, which I can't immediately think of for the moment.