Anyone here have an engineering degree but chose a non engineering career?
 

Anyone here have an engineering degree but chose a non engineering career?

I'm looking for some examples to share with someone who got the degree but somehow has become "allergic" to traditional engineering work.

He sees his degree as holding him back from other opportunities.


Since he regrets his choice of programs, it is giving him tunnel vision regarding other opportunities.
I've told him to think of it as just a university degree and go from there.

I'm looking for some good examples of people who have excelled in other areas, how they got into those areas and as a bonus, if the degree actually gave some sort of advantage over others in those areas.


Thanks in advance

P.S.
He's good with people, innovative with ideas, and creative.
He's also staying away from fields such as accounting, law, compliance and the like.
( I think you can see at the pattern here)

Did he do a BS or Masters? Going thru some business courses and picking up a project management degree/cert may be an option... Engineering background will let him call BS when appropriate on some things.

Has he considered working in education? Again, will depend on what level of degree he got.

I worked as an automotive engineer ( for General Motors) and an aerospace engineer as a contractor to the Air Force. After 10 years I’d had enough, quit, and started a publishing company, which led to a string of entrepreneurial endeavors. I made more money and had more fun than I ever could have as an engineer.
Just getting the degree was an advantage. It taught me how to be analytical, which is useful in most aspects of life (except marriage - lol).
Being good with people and being an engineer is a rare combination. He could capitalize on that.

There are a ton of Engineering disciplines, I know many in O&G that do not do their degree, Chemical, Electrical, etc.

I have an aerospace engineering degree and an MBA. Most of my career has been in some variety of project, program, sales, or business development role. Lots of tangents available without taking a full on departure from the base degree.

Graduated EE. I was programming in the 80's, then Builder/developer.

My only regret was not taking PE test, and getting my license.

Evren, the friend I made the caretaker of my old 911S, has degrees from MIT. He and a partner started their own private equity firm.

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far.

Here are some of the types of things that he is trying to avoid
-project management
-I.T. environments
-Engineering of any discipline (he is young yet has already work in civil and aerospace)


Those are all very similar work environments that he is trying to avoid.
(I know, nice problem to have)

Good examples thanks.

Keep the examples coming everyone
I appreciate it.

Ha, I love the calling BS comment!

His degree is mechanical at a BS level with top marks, but he doesn't want to pursue that any deeper, or invest in much more education without knowing which direction he wants to head.

One example that I gave him is a friends son who was a mechanical engineer who became a trauma surgeon

Another was an engineer who became a commercial pilot (and conversely one more who was a small commercial pilot but could not get hired by a major airline because he didn't have a science degree.)

In both those examples for those people the fact that they had a degree (any degree) provided value and opened the next door. They hadn't wasted 4 years. They got value for it and it satisfied a necessary check box.

His schooling and career advisors and friend were all breathing their own exhaust, telling him that if he doesn't work in engineering he has wasted his money and 4 years of his life. To further confuse things, his degree says "Bachelor of Engineeringing" and I can't convince him that it is just a Bachelor of Science if he chooses to see it that way, (or even just a 4 year diploma if he wants to pursue some arts type job which he actually seems well suited for).

His friends all told him I'm full of **** (I think he needs new friends)

He's been brainwashed into tunnel vision around what an engineering graduate can do.

I'm trying to find some examples for him of people where having an engineering degree isn't limiting, but rather opening a bunch of doors instead.

Well, the previous owner/host of Pelican went to MIT. He opened up an internet based Porsche parts business.

Went into software.
If I was doing it now I’d do something that can’t be outsourced. My go to example is always plumbing.

Look at any manufacturing Fortune 500 company and you’ll find most of the salaried employee and almost all of management and executives have engineering degrees. Few of them have ever worked in the lab or in a manufacturing plant or have ever worked as a real engineer. Typical non-engineering career paths for engineers (that often require an engineering degree to start) are technical services, sales, marketing, all manner of logistics, technical writing, compliance, and purchasing/acquisition.

The shortcut to a senior position at a Fortune 500 company is an engineering undergraduate degree and an MBA. Few of them ever worked as an engineer in real life, but they need to be able to speak to engineers and understand technical issues when they sell, service, move or manage the widgets their company manufactures.

Another thought is that if he can do engineering, he can do math. If he can doMath, he can do finance. Also, if he likes the technical challenge of engineering but doesn’t like the actual engineering part of being an engineer, he might consider law school to be a patent or intellectual property lawyer. He could probably get a company to hire him full time and send him to school just to get him to work for them as a patent lawyer. They are in that much demand.

My Patent attorney.

Degree in Mechanical Engineering. And he is an artist (painter) and almost went fine arts!

If he wants to go into business, I'd suggest an MBA.

Commercial Sales

If he is more hands on, Field Engineering is a lot of fun. You go out and are directing labor on large equipment.

Jeff on here is an Architect, yet he tried his hand at being a Pilot.

And how about being an Astronaut? NASA is advertising RIGHT NOW for the next astronaut class.

My original degree, Bio Medical Engineering.

Been in video games for ~30 years.

The number of PHD's running around the video game industry would make your head spin.

Everyone thinks it's a bunch of Mountain Dew drinking live in mama's basement stoners.

The density of smart people is staggering.

One of my high school computer buddies, both of us decided on not going the Computer Science route. I went Aero Space/Mech E/Power Engineering route. He went Phd Biology. We both used our extensive computer knowledge to further our careers. And he went back to CS 25 years ago.

And yet, you can't fix a WordPress site?

Sorry, just ribbing you, but you did dive head first into that one. SmileWavy

Have a M.E. from LSU and have been in technical sales for 32 years.

Time. And it turned out to be a Database, which was easy to fix, for someone familiar with it.

My "programming" career ended a few years out of college. My focus was elsewhere and most of what I needed was able to be worked out in spreadsheets.

I was a (12B) Combat Engineer in the U.S. Army.

I became an Art Department slave (a Carny with a dental plan) in the motion picture biz. Does that count?

I've got a friend that got his electrical engineering degree. He "practiced" at a large plant for about a year then went back to school and got a law degree. He's doing the medical malpractice thing now.

My Dad's former Cardiologist (since my Dad is no longer here) started out as a mechanical engineer. My Dad being a P.E. Civil Consulting liked him from his engineering background explaining things relative to fluid dynamics. I always wanted to ask his Cardiologist with the M.E. background "Being a former Mechanical Engineer, and now a Heart Surgeon, do you think the heart, as it functions as a pump, was a result of evolution or a part of "Intelligent design"?" but I never got around to it.

Sidebar, spent the weekend in Austin checking out Texas State for Conner.

Wifey wants to come down your way this summer to scope things out.

Can I buy you a beer or 12?

Sure, just not Corona

more than a few engineers have gone onto medicine.

Engineering has changed in my 45+ yr career. Back then, engineers were nerds with pocket protectors that were mostly behind the scenes. It was always 100% technical skill sets.

Today, engineers must be more well rounded. My skill set is about 50% technical and 50% what I call soft skills. The soft skills: finance, marketing, making presentations, managing teams, project management. I work for a Tier I automotive company for 32 years and I have been all over the world primarily acting as a internal consultant for the company. A few years ago, I considered becoming an independent consultant/contractor.

I started out behind a drafting board in machine design. I'm so far removed from those days. Engineers aren't just for nerds. Engineers have allot of skills that are well suited beyond the engineering world.

Most of the non-super nerd engineers where I work become managers. Somehow I bucked that trend and became a manager despite this :)

We have several engineers who took roles in finance which for some reason pays better than engineering which I can't understand.

We engineers joke that it's a lot easier to turn an engineer into a accountant than it is to turn an accountant into an engineer.

Hi Wayne,

I have a friend in the UK I went to school with. He is an engineer but later started his own computer company. He fairly recently sold his business to his six employees but I believe he is still active in it.

His company is not just fixing computers but is involved in consulting as well. I believe he has been successful. If your friend is interested please pm me his name and email address and then I will approach my friend with his info.

Cheers, Guy

The primary thing that engineering teaches is how to break a problem down into smaller problems that can be solved. Yes, we are taught a wide swath of the basic engineering disciplines. But the main focus is always how to solve a problem. No matter where he goes in life, this discipline will help him.

In all fairness, I'm going to guess that he went into "engineering" because he saw how much engineers make. He probably doesn't have that "I gotta solve/fix this problem" affliction that most of us have. In that respect, the best he could have been would be a "crank it out" engineering, doing the same calculations, day in and day out. He will probably make a crappy engineer in the real world.

I'm going to guess, he is not a hands on, technical guy.

I graduated from engineering with an awful lot of people who would make crappy engineers. My best friend, brilliant and top marks, quit IBM after 6 months. Last I heard he moved to L.A. and got "serious" with his body building career.

He is the one that needs to turn this around. What interests him?

This is one reason I left. I loved hands-on engineering and I had fun projects to work on. Then I was "promoted" into a semi-office job overseeing the guys like I had been who were having all the fun. I don't know how it is in the rest of the industry now, but in those days they promoted engineers up the corporate ladder farther and farther away from engineering until they were beyond their actual skill set, ineffective, and frustrated. I saw the writing on that wall and got out early.

Does management count?
In the industry I worked in, the smart (and successful) plan was to get an MS in engineering (chem preferred but mech will do) and then use the company's education assistance policy to get an MBA. It's always better if they pay for it.
Doesn't have to be a full-blown MBA from a top school, heck it can be a phone-in part-time deal like from pepperdine.

Once you got a few years running the train without screwing up ( :) ) and get an MBA, you'll be fast-tracked up the ladder into highly compensated management.
They consider it an employee filtering system.

But keep in mind that engineering is lots more fun than running an adult day-care center.

BTW I know a guy who got an engineering degree from MIT and went on to start and build a successful company on the interwebs, complete with a tech and OT forum and everything!

I have a BSEE and work in field service for a locomotive builder. I’m basically telling people how to fix stuff.

Seems like an interesting young man and your advice (as well as the info from posters here) is excellent. There is no reason he cannot use his engineering degree as a solid platform to pursue other goals. The opportunities are really limitless depending on what he decides is best for him.

I am not an engineer - my background is in economics and finance. I did and do, however, manage a lot of engineering heavy projects and have worked with a lot of engineers who feel the way your friend does now.

If he is currently working for a diverse company it would be fairly easy to spend time in other divisions/disciplines to learn what they do. Northrop Grumman does this with their engineers to see if they have the ability to broaden their skill sets.

So many other routes to dip a toe in potential fields of endeavor: Volunteer, Internships, a class at the local JuCo if necessary, apply for other jobs outside engineering: Get on LinkedIn or some other site and apply for jobs he think may interest him and go for the interview if asked...in short, learn as much as he can while still working as an engineer.

So, examples:

My Father had a Civil Engineering degree from West Point and a Masters in Nuclear Physics and Civil Engineering from MIT. He moved into management fairly quickly and had a flair for it. He did very well managing projects and people.

I have numerous friends from the military who had engineering degrees and became military pilots - dozens and dozens. They learned a lot and I do not know one that went back to hardcore engineering when they either left after their initial commitment or made it to retirement: lots of entrepreneurs, business owners (in some crazy ventures) and managers.

Best of luck to your friend. He has a really good base from which to explore options.

My dad was an aerospace engineer in the 60s and after 15 years decided the environment was not for him. He started a business that became successful, explored commercial real estate development, started another business that went nowhere, retired at 55 and tinkered with aircraft for the rest of his life. This was a guy who came from TX to Calif as a kid with less than nothing in the back of a pickup truck during the dust bowl era.

The engineering degree gave him a process for accomplishing objectives and solving complex problems. That was enough and served him well. I suspect your friend is only limited by his own imagination and the world is his oyster.

You're right and his other friends and advisers are FOS.

He can do whatever he wants to do. THe fact that he has a degree just shows that he's willing and able to put out the effort and learn.

Plenty of engineers on my team. Tell him to get a Six Sigma cert and look into process improvement jobs. We don’t do anything g engineering related at all, but having people with that mindset really helps when we need to break apart a problem and come up with a solution.

I have a BS in mechanical engineering and an MBA. I only briefly used my MBA for a year as the GM for a small business, which I quickly figured out was not the job for me. Other than that, I've spent my career (almost 20 years) as a mechanical product designer for a bunch of different industries.

In the past few years I have been writing, with increasing frequency, for my local PCA chapter's magazine. At first it was small stuff, now it is more involved articles with lots of photos, of which I also take. Increasingly, I find that I am more interested in writing a good story about an experience I have had than dealing with the more mundane parts of my engineering job, of which there are many. I haven't yet figured out how to make a career out of it but the fact that I remain employed as an engineer is allowing me to explore different possibilities.

Bottom line: your friend should pursue a career related to something he is passionate about. If he is holding down a good engineering job, perhaps he should stick it out for the time being and look for opportunities on the side to "get his feet wet" so to speak and find a niche that makes him happy. Once he finds that, it may be easier to make a new career out of it.

Watch out! That's exactly how I got started in publishing. I wrote and took photos for the 356 Registry for about 10 years. Learned something about publishing and thought I'd start a magazine as a hobby - something interesting to do after work. This coincided with my promotion out of the lab and into the office, so work wasn't that interesting anymore. Before I knew it I was making more money at my hobby than at my job - and it wasn't a hobby anymore.

Good food for thought. Thanks for the comment. I haven't figured out how to make money doing it yet but find it fits well into our lifestyle right now as we are living in Germany (due to my wife's job) and traveling quite a bit. Plus, I've only recently (after doing this for almost 3 years) discovered that I qualify for press credentials at some of the big car shows here. That has been a fantastic treat and much better than sitting alone in my home office all day. I can see where it could wear on you if you end up traveling constantly. But I am nowhere near that point yet.

...sorry for the momentary hijack.

You can pivot to other careers with your engineering degree. I went from engineering to an engineering software company and worked through many different roles including application engineer, technical sales, marketing, strategy, chief of staff for CEO, and analyst relations. The engineering background has enabled me to leverage that experience in many roles where as I’ve seen the company hire outsiders who didn’t have the background and they struggled to succeed.