
The value of an engineering degree - austenallred
http://avc.com/2014/03/the-value-of-an-engineering-degree/
======
m_ke
This is BS, most of these companies are looking for snowflakes from top 10
schools, who have been programming since they were in middle school.

I have plenty of competent friends who had a hard time finding anything better
than an IT desk job after graduating from Stony Brook, NYU-Poly and City
College.

Most smaller tech companies don't even consider training their new employees.
Instead they want a 'ninja' who is comfortable with their tech stack and can
hit the ground running straight out of school. To make things worse 90% of
them think their analytics platform or social network for cats is the next
Google, so they put their candidates through ridiculous interviews that have
nothing to do with writing CRUD apps.

I even know people here at Columbia University who didn't get any good offers
outside of finance.

~~~
Ologn
I don't disagree that companies are often looking for people who have resumes
and skills far exceeding the simple, minor needs of particular jobs.

On the other hand, I have met many CS majors at local New York colleges, and
even among the seniors who seem to be in the top half of the class, their
knowledge of some basic things is almost universally absent. Such as software
version control - they don't know what it is, they don't know the names of any
version control systems, like git or perforce, and they don't know how to use
any of them.

They study for class, mostly, but seem to have no interest in all of this
outside of class. Not once in four years do you check a project out of github,
fix a bug, and then send a patch and pull request? And that's among those who
study and are in the top half of the class. Some kids don't even care about
studying much and I don't know why they're even bothering.

~~~
WalterBright
Learning things like git are very doable on the job.

In university, one should concentrate on learning things that are impractical
to pick up on the job - calculus, statistics, theory, quantum mechanics,
dynamics, etc. Stuff that takes sustained, concentrated focus to learn.

For example, although I got an engineering degree from Caltech, my practical
knowledge upon graduating was about nil. But I found on the job at Boeing that
the practical stuff was easy to pick up, and pairing it with the theoretical
stuff I learned in school made for an effective combination. Others who did
not know the math/theory, never picked it up, they'd spend their career
avoiding it.

~~~
z3phyr
I'm with you in this. I would just like to add that learning calculus,
statistics, quantum mechanics etc is important learning to apply it from young
age is equally important.

I had a friend in school who was so very good in physics, he could just grasp
every concept and get top grades. Once, we decided to make a video game or two
in the computer lab during the sports periods (we bunked sports periods). We
started with implementing simple projectile motion of ASCII characters, Simple
Harmonic Motion of an ASCII gauntlet and lots of cool stuff and effects. I
remember, even with his top notch knowledge of mechanics, he was unable to do
simple things, and I ended up doing the games alone. Then after he avoided
interacting with me, and rather completed his school homework during the
sports period. He would come to the lab just to say that the game is not
looking good, and I could have done this or that. I think he had inferiority
complex. I scored lesser than him, and all the teachers heavily favored him.
Our friendship became more formal.

I am sure he will get a very nice job.

------
chollida1
I'm Canadian, but I always thought I was knowledgeable about American
universities.

I'd never heard of Harvey Mudd college, and here it is competing with the two
giants of US engineering, MIT and Caltech.

The take away from this seems to be that you shouldn't assume your interviewer
knows that your degree is from a "name" school, or that the school you went to
will influence any one in a positive way.

I remember someone here mentioned that they went to University of Texas Austin
and that they thought that should ensure them of getting an interview anywhere
and I wasn't sure if they were joking or being serious as I'd never heard of
UoT Austin before as being a good computer science school.

~~~
sliverstorm
Caltech is much the same way though, outside of engineering nobody has heard
of it. Like Harvey Mudd, it's a small *private school that hasn't yet become a
household name.

~~~
splat
Small note -- Caltech and Harvey Mudd are both private, not public.

~~~
sliverstorm
Whoops, sorry. Edited.

------
meritt
You can also make an incredible ROI by not paying for an expensive degree and
instead gain knowledge & experience through other means (teach yourself, free
online courses, open-source projects, paid internships, etc). Just take a look
at today's "Who is hiring?" [1] and you'll notice very few list degree
requirements. Most are looking for a combination of experience and knowledge.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7507765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7507765)

~~~
swalsh
Don't take this guys advice seriously. Not having a degree means you will get
paid less than people you have proven to have better skills than, and many
doors to many lucrative opportunities will be locked. You'll have a social
stigma, and you'll constantly have to be proving yourself in situations where
your coworkers don't.

EDIT: my comment was a bit angered, and I apologize for that. Just this
morning I found out that a company i had a great interview with yesterday told
me that despite liking me the company had a policy that they can't hire senior
engineers without a technical degree. Its tough.

~~~
meritt
It's precisely that line of thinking which has resulted in the most debt-
laden, over-educated and under-employed workforce in history.

Getting a degree can be a good thing, absolutely, but it's by no means a
requirement to success.

~~~
swalsh
I never said it was a requirement, I feel myself successful and I don't have a
degree. But the path has definitely been harder than my friends who do have
one. So with that, I recommend not taking that path intentionally.

~~~
SixSigma
I'm a University drop out, 20 years of it. It has _always_ been in my mind
that I don't have a degree. It has closed doors to me, made me feel inferior
in conversation and with the job market getting harder has shut off the job
supply and I've got 20 years professional programming experience. The ad says
Graduate Degree, that's that, no interesting job for you.

I tried to go back to Uni but it was: you dropped out, so no loan for you, you
have to pay for the first year yourself (we didn't even have loans the first
time round).

I have finally done it, this September I start at University once more.

~~~
randomdata
_> I've got 20 years professional programming experience._

According to many, 20 years of professional programming experience is a death
knell to even those with the best degrees money can buy. It is assumed you
should have moved on to bigger and better things by that point (not an opinion
I hold, but a sentiment that seems pervasive).

Did you find that it became more difficult to find work as you got older?

~~~
SixSigma
A bit. I always worked at startups / business development. I love programming
and I'm very good at it. I can smell hype.

One of the things that turns me off, though, is the framework de jour scene
but the converse is dull plodding.

My degree is a BSc in Supply Chain Management after doing an HNC (part time)
in Manufacturing Engineering financing it all working as a Cad draughtsperson
for 3 years.

The BSc is about 20% IT based and there's plenty of scope for modeling and
statistical analysis so hopefully a perfect blend of skills.

------
rch
I invested a little cash in '97 when I went to college. If I'd invested 4-5
times more I might not be working right now. Or I might have gotten excited,
over extended, and lost it all. Who knows.

I also wonder how the typical ROI compares to just buying a condo in a college
town instead?

~~~
Omniusaspirer
The gotcha with that comparison is that people will give you 100k in student
loans at 18 years old, but you'll have a hell of a time getting 10k to go
margin trading with.

------
plg
The world is not a meritocracy, and so we must not underestimate the value
(ROI?) of the various social connections one makes at different schools and
degree programs.

------
segmondy
The value of a lot of things in life including an engineering degree cannot
simply be reduced to a dollar amount, unless the moment you set out to get a
degree, your only and final goal was how much that degree would fetch you down
the line.

~~~
keeshawn
Unfortunately that isn't really up to us, since in our society you have to
work to survive until you die or retire. Until having no job means a livable
lifestyle, most people have to consider real dollar values when considering
education.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Well then, we'd better get to work on fixing that problem, shouldn't we?

------
bcohen5055
Looking at the ROI on a college degree is very tricky even if you are just
using to to compare schools. I clicked through to the original data set
([http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-
majo...](http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-majors-with-
the-highest-roi/)) and it shows that they used a net figure for calculating
tuition that assumes average grants and loans. I don't believe this includes a
TVM calculation for the loans though. This can really add up if you have 70K
in student loans...

I'd like to see a better comparrison with public schools in the engineering
field across the entire career of an engineer. I went to a good state
engineering school for mechanical engineering. Cheap in state tuition (and a
529) meant no debt post graduation. That's huge when starting out.
Additionally my classmates and I had offers inthe 60k-80k range. That might
not be as high as people right out of Stanford but I can't imagine it has a
large effect over the length of someones career. When you factor in that many
of the graduates from more prosetgious colleges carry debt for 5+ yrs after
graduation.

~~~
vonmoltke
The annual % ROI on my degree is basically infinite, since the state of
Florida paid for my entire BS. Sure, Florida Atlantic is not a place most
people have heard of, but I still managed a Fortune 500 EE job right out of
school, in late 2002 no less.

~~~
randomdata
I would suggest you still have opportunity cost to consider. Assuming a four
year program, you could have, on average, earned $120,000 during that time. If
you then invested that at 5% until you reached retirement age, you could have
earned right around $1,000,000 over your career above your regular income
going forward. As such, your ROI should really be calculated on what you are
able to earn in your career above that.

To add, I would suggest that someone who has the determination and mindset to
successfully complete an engineering degree should be able to earn even more
than $120K during that initial period, but there are lots of variables that
could be considered. It is impossible to narrow down exactly what opportunity
you lost during that time, but it is almost certainly not zero.

~~~
vonmoltke
> I would suggest you still have opportunity cost to consider.

The opportunity cost comes in to the 20-year ROI column, which I admit without
a change in my career trajectory would have me well below the top schools in
that list.

> Assuming a four year program, you could have, on average, earned $120,000
> during that time. If you then invested that at 5% until you reached
> retirement age, you could have earned right around $1,000,000 over your
> career above your regular income going forward. As such, your ROI should
> really be calculated on what you are able to earn in your career above that.

As you said, the actual cost depends on a lot of variables. However, that is
an unrealistic starting point, at least for the period 1998 - 2002 when I was
an undergrad. As a trade apprentice, which is probably the best job I could
get with only high school, I would be looking at about $20,000/year, or
$80,000. Plus, your starting point neglects living costs and taxes, which are
going to consume a significant portion of that amount and which my
scholarships covered. It further neglects working during school; I made
$3,000/year - $5,000/year doing landscaping, maintenance, tutoring, and other
odd jobs. That amount is about what a part-time (20 hours/week), minimum wage
job would pay at that time. That cuts the opportunity cost down to $20,000 -
$40,000 for the entire period, which is not much of a head start on a career
that is going to pay me more than that in my first year after graduation.

------
Bahamut
I argue that mathematics and physics degrees are more valuable than
engineering degrees. It prepares you for one of the most fundamental of skills
for white collar jobs: critical thinking.

Much of the other stuff can easily be self-taught given a strong/exceptional
foundation in critical thinking ability, and it can be used to great advantage
in differentiating yourself from your peers.

~~~
balls187
I don't know what engineering degrees they offer at your school, but pretty
much every one of my classes was Math & Physics.

~~~
bobster15
A degree in math or physics requires much more math than that which engineers
study. Likewise a degree in physics requires much more physics than engineers
study.

~~~
balls187
Neither of which is an indication that they are better at engineers at
critical thinking.

~~~
jeffbr13
I think the difference might be this, in undergraduate degrees:

* Mathematics is _entirely_ about proving arguments and solving problems within logical systems. * The 'hard sciences' (esp. physics) are about working within a theoretical (often mathematical) framework and testing it with experimentation.

Contrast this to engineering disciplines, or even medicine, where the focus is
on gaining knowledge which you can use to solve problems. It's problem-
solving, but doesn't have much of the scientific method about it.

------
not_paul_graham
Surprised that Georgia Tech is not on that list.

GT has consistently ranked among the top 5 colleges for ROI on most of these
lists that are published.

~~~
waterlesscloud
GT and UVA get special shout-outs in the source article-

[http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-
majo...](http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-majors-with-
the-highest-roi/)

~~~
rayiner
Not starting your Y-axis at zero is a sin.

------
HaloZero
I'm not sure what this post provides when the original post they link to is
pretty much the same data plus some additional data about computer science
degrees specifically.

[http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-
majo...](http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-majors-with-
the-highest-roi/)

------
ForHackernews
Note that the list is based on self-reported data from PayScale.com, and
doesn't include any graduate-level education.

It's not news that engineering degrees pay well coming right out of undergrad.

~~~
likarish
Here's the link

[http://www.payscale.com/college-roi](http://www.payscale.com/college-roi)

~~~
pjschlic
Are you aware of anyone who's done a similar analysis of graduate degrees?

------
MimiZ
Becoming an engineer is a great foundation upon which you can change the world
by building and doing.

However, to advance higher you also need to complement those skill sets with
good interpersonal skills.

~~~
logfromblammo
Ah, but if you have those interpersonal skills, you can advance almost as far
without the engineering degree at all.

You see the problem.

The business economy rewards bullshit and schmoozing to a higher degree than
it does actual work. Until that changes, any attempt to get kids to learn
useful things instead of how to work the system is fighting to swim upstream
against a very strong current.

As a result, a lot of people that are engineers, scientists, or any other
profession that requires a great deal of training in proportion to the typical
monetary rewards are doing it because that is something they had a personal
interest in doing. They achieve personal satisfaction in doing work that is
too difficult or detailed for others to do well.

You can only rely on that for so long. If you structure jobs in your companies
for such people to be spectacularly unrewarding, the people who would have
otherwise been engineers will choose other difficult careers that pay well,
and satisfy their engineering urges as a sideline or hobby.

As long as we have a business culture that values the ability to have a
conversation over the ability to land a camera inside a 10m by 10m square on a
completely different planet and still get clear images back, the people who
can do both will often choose to engineer their own career path rather than
work for the benefit of people who do not fully appreciate their work.

~~~
snowwrestler
Big things are only accomplished by teams. Building and maintaining a team of
people who are skilled and work well and productively together is actually
very difficult. Most teams fail to achieve anything lasting of note. For
example, most startups fail.

NASA needs great engineering to build things like the Mars Rover. But they
also need great management--it takes both.

~~~
logfromblammo
I don't think I can agree with everything you said.

Big things are accomplished by people with high ability. Adding team support
to those people will reduce the amount of time required for those people to
finish. Adding good management to the team reduces the overall cost and
prevents friction.

Building a team that works better together than the sum of the individuals in
it working separately is actually pretty easy. The hard part is getting
everyone to do something specific and profitable. The reason why startups fail
is usually because not enough real people wanted to spend enough real money on
the product to pay the team members as much as they could earn doing something
else. If you try to assign blame for that, it might not even land on the same
continent.

NASA only needs great management to stay on time and under budget. With no
basis for comparison, no one can say for certain whether any particular feat
of engineering prowess was fast or slow, cheap or expensive. But it is
starting to become apparent that engineers of equal ability, working at SpaceX
instead of a larger and older space contractor, can launch cargo into orbit
faster and more cheaply. That's the difference management makes.

Engineering provides the raw ability. Management sets the multiplier for time
and money costs.

------
jjeremycai
Why do you think Babson's ROI is so high, considering it's an undergraduate
business school?

Disclaimer: I go to there, but want your genuine insight

~~~
oneshotaccount
The "usual suspects" answer is that the students there are elevated in quality
relative to other schools.

For a similar concept, I lost a job as a teacher that paid $20k / year after
taxes. For a year after that, my job-seeking strategy might be best described
thus: [http://xkcd.com/874/](http://xkcd.com/874/)

Then I got a job (in software development, not teaching) paying low six
figures (...before taxes. Watch the magic of accounting render two similar
things nearly incomparable to each other). Does that reflect the incredible
(in excess of 100% annual return, say) effectiveness of "fuck around" as a way
to get jobs?

------
avckp
Degrees are not valuable until you know what you should know.

~~~
avckp
Politics is a different thing but still.

------
FD3SA
_" There are more technical jobs open than qualified candidates to fill
them."_

I love how virulent memes just get reiterated as fact once they reach a
certain critical threshold. This one in particular, is pure bullshit as has
been falsified over and over again [1][2][3][4]. If you see people bring this
up, please set them straight. This meme needs to be killed.

Labor has never been in such high supply, and it has never been cheaper.
[5][6]

With regards to stupidly overpriced education, I recommend it to those who can
afford it because it is an extremely enjoyable experience. Don't take out 300k
of loans to do it though. Instead, use online courseware (EdX, Coursera) to
build a useful skill set, work for a few years, then go to college if you
really want the social experience and old boys network. Because that's the
only thing college has to offer in this day and age.

1\. [http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-
crisis-i...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-
myth)

2\. [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/the-fake-
skills-...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/the-fake-skills-
shortage/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0)

3\. [http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-
myt...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-
science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/)

4\.
[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_sho...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_shortage_Electrical_engineering_lost_35_000_jobs_last_year)

5\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-
demo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-
democracy.html)

6\. [http://inequalityforall.com/](http://inequalityforall.com/)

~~~
mbesto
> _Labor has never been in such high supply, and it has never been cheaper._

But _qualified labor_ is in short supply, and it's never been more expensive.

> _" There are more technical jobs open than qualified candidates to fill
> them."_

I'm going to be very pedantic here. This statement is in fact true. Had the
word _" qualified"_ been taken out, then you are absolutely right, there is no
shortage. However, the problem with STEM jobs isn't the lack of "on-paper"
qualifications, but rather "off-paper" qualifications. Everyone wants the next
Facebook engineer, but they are in limited supply. Case in point? Me. On
paper, I've written web apps in Rails, Python, JS, and PHP for 5 years now,
but I do not consider myself on par with my technical co-founder. On paper I
am 100% qualified to fill a majority of these positions, but in reality, I'm
not. Our expectations are offset by the stories we hear daily about Dropbox,
Facebook, Google, etc. We are just seeing starting to approach the bend of the
hockey stick in the "software is eating the world". It's only until we have a
large quantity of _qualified_ engineers when the hockey stick starts shooting
upwards.

~~~
FD3SA
This is another perception issue that I keep encountering. The job description
you've written above is for an extremely senior engineer, what some would call
a product architect (e.g. your co-founder), not a fresh graduate. In fact,
being a new graduate is now, by your own admission, considered to be an
unacceptable level of training for a "Facebook engineer".

This is corporate bullshit, and you've fallen for it. If companies want
someone who has mastered a technological stack, this is not an "engineer".
This is an architect. And this position should be paid significantly more than
an engineer. Although you may not consider yourself a competent engineer by
the "Facebook standard", not only are you a competent engineer, but a senior
engineer by every definition of the word. The fact that your evaluation of
your own competence is so warped by corporate PR is extremely worrisome.

What I see here is that the bar for the definition of "competent engineer"
keeps going higher and higher, without a commensurate increase in salary. This
is a classic symptom of excess supply.

~~~
mbesto
> _This is corporate bullshit_

I spent 4 years at the largest business software company in the world and have
spent 3 years on and off in very small (3 employee) startups. I would presume
my bullshit meter is fairly well tuned.

> _you 've fallen for it._

I haven't. I tried finding a technical co-founder that didn't cost me an arm
and leg, and it's taken me 6 years to do so. (YMMV)

> _This is an architect. And this position should be paid significantly more
> than an engineer._

This is laughable. I've seen more architects in my day than most people have
seen sales people. Just type in "SAP Architect" on any job search and compare
it to the number you get for "Rails Architect". Architects are the bullshit
powerpoint pushers I used to see day in and day out in Enterprise IT, who,
after 5 years of never coding or implementing, fell short of guiding their dev
teams because they couldn't keep up with the ever-changing technology stack.
You know who should be paid more than anyone else? The person that can build a
small team, make crazy revenue in a very short (relative) amount of time. It
doesn't matter what you call those people, but they do exist, are in short
supply and should be compensated equal to their productive output.

> _What I see here is that the bar for the definition of "competent engineer"
> keeps going higher and higher, without a commensurate increase in salary._

Actually this has more to do with time than anything. The Next Big Startup™,
can't afford to spend 6 months on software, when they can higher Rockstar Dev
Mcgee™ who can create it for them in 1-2 months.

Lastly, I'm failing to see the motive behind "corporate bullshit" you speak
of. Google and Facebook do _not_ want to pay these insane salaries, so it's in
their interest to actually (1) have a large supply and (2) promote that there
is a large supply, not the opposite. Their compensation packages are a direct
effect of the shortage of supply of qualified talent. If this "corporate
bullshit" is being lead by a small amount of vocal developers who are
artificially padding their salaries by crying "supply shortage", then this is
far from being "corporate".

The question ultimately becomes, what is our idea of "competent". From what
I've seen, there is _massive_ demand for people to create the next
AirBnB/Dropbox/etc, which requires some very talented individuals to run and
maintain. The other 99% clones of those companies that fail are because they
don't have those competent people. So it's a loser's game with a bunch of
people who demand that they win. Thus, the situation we are in.

EDIT: This video by Gabe Newell says it all:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU#t=12m20s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU#t=12m20s)
(from about 12:20 to 16:00 - these "least correctly valued" people are no
longer incorrect valued, that's my point)

~~~
FD3SA
> The person that can build a small team, make crazy revenue in a very short
> (relative) amount of time. It doesn't matter what you call those people, but
> they do exist, are in short supply and should be compensated equal to their
> productive output.

Precisely. I realize that we're using our definitions loosely, but this is
exactly what I'm referring to when I mention Product Architect.

My next point is, what makes you think Google/Facebook/etc. have anything they
can offer this person? The reality is, this eponymous engineer is a future
billionaire, not a stock employee you can just hire with 120k a year and free
pop. If this is what big corps mean when they say "competent", then excuse me
as I laugh my ass off at their excellent "compensation package".

>From what I've seen, there is massive demand for people to create the next
AirBnB/Dropbox/etc, which requires some very talented individuals to run and
maintain.

You have to realize that it is absurd to expect someone like this to accept a
job at a big corp. Just as a recent example, look at the Whatsapp founders.

Which brings me to my initial assertion: there is no skills shortage. Just a
superstar shortage at bargain basement prices.

~~~
noname123
1) I think there's only a couple of hundred billionaires in the world.

2) 120K is a lot of money for an average American.

3) I don't think 'crazy revenue' is built by the merit and efficiency at which
you can complete your tech stack. Case in point, FB during year 1 of its PHP
stack; or Digg or Reddit year 1. Personally I think luck has a lot to do with
it.

Which brings me to my assertion: There is no superstar programmer. Just a
delusion sold by capitalists to get the proletariat to consume more
information on an advertising-driven business model. I just want to be a
ramen-sustainable programmer (but not ramen-sustainable startup).

~~~
GFischer
I'm with noname on this one. 99.99% of those excellent engineers are NOT going
to be billionaires.

They'll be lucky to be millionaires (and I'll envy them if I can't join them).

For those marvelous engineers to become millionaires, they need to have the
luck to be paired with an excellent business team, build the right product and
have a large dose of luck.

I'd rather have a not-so-brilliant engineer and an excellent team, vision and
execution (as in build the right thing at the right time and produce value),
for most products (very especially for your AirBnB or Facebook examples) you
don't need top-tier talent to build it (you do need some to scale).

Edit: some of these marvelous people, which have actually built a succesful
startup, tried again and FAILED. So it's not just the person, the idea must be
right, the timing must be right and luck has to be on his side.

