Engineering career anyone?

[Vulcann]

The world's oldest profession is still the safest from job loss.

 

Errrr...are you referring to....

[Little_prince]

FYI:

 

 

Looks like accountants auditors n property agent gona b extinct soon. pilots also?

alot of auditors and accountants can join the world's oldest profession lor. some of the xmm auditor quite jude

[Wyfitms]

 

Errrr...are you referring to....

 

teachers?

 

 

Looks like accountants auditors n property agent gona b extinct soon. pilots also?

 

real estate agents will not be extinct.

 

computers cannot CON vince people to buy

[Jajoba123]

jus sharing. am a engineering, started as a engineer in a small manufacturing plant in Tuas. at tat time, most field engineers hv to tahan heats, dirty jobs. so almost all new engineers from Malaysia. locals grads preferred air-con, R&D, planning dept. but the golden days of manufacturing in the 90s r gone when the plant is purely focusing on producing hitting above targets. ot like no business. but when come to 2000, everything change when ppl been talking about cost cutting, n worst hit by SARS. then finally i move on...

[RadX]

 

teachers?

 

 

 

u mai keh keh lah....dunch know the oldest profession

[Duckduck]

 

teachers?

 

real estate agents will not be extinct.

 

computers cannot CON vince people to buy

 

looks like chemical engineering is best for those engineering inclined in future :)

[Little_prince]

jus sharing. am a engineering, started as a engineer in a small manufacturing plant in Tuas. at tat time, most field engineers hv to tahan heats, dirty jobs. so almost all new engineers from Malaysia. locals grads preferred air-con, R&D, planning dept. but the golden days of manufacturing in the 90s r gone when the plant is purely focusing on producing hitting above targets. ot like no business. but when come to 2000, everything change when ppl been talking about cost cutting, n worst hit by SARS. then finally i move on...

 

still the same lah.

 

you go to ntu/nus and sit in a class or just walk around the canteen in the engineering faculty.

 

you will find that singaporeans engineering students are a minority.

 

there are more stalls in nus/ntu selling naan and xiaolongbao or even pho bo than char kway teow.

[Duckduck]

real estate agents will not be extinct.

 

computers cannot CON vince people to buy

 

most will b replaced by software apps which automate buy sell of properties. nowadays most use online prop websites to see adverts liao no need to rely on agents update. eventually the lau uncles who cant use computers will die off n pass their estate to their tech savvy kids n then all will b computerized liao. ST classifieds will b extinct in 1 decade my guess

 

 

For accountants/finance professionals, there will still be a need for those with creativity to dress up the books.

 

 

there'll artificial intelligence programs which will do d creative accts for u in future no need to decide how to smoke pple. got demand sure got someone the software lol

 

Edited February 11, 2014 by Duckduck

[Vulcann]

 

teachers?

 

Housewives la.

 

You go see those ancient cave drawings always depicting men hunting wild animals and women folk sitting around fire cooking or doing stuff mah.

 

Until present day sama sama so should be oldest profession loh, tio bo?

[Whatthe]

"In reality, engineering is an exciting, promising and greatly rewarding profession."

This is really bull nonsense lah. In reality, you just need to pay better salaries to attract people into the profession. Telling young people that engineering is an exciting, promising and greatly rewarding profession isn't going to entice them to enter the industry.

This is at the end of the day, a bread and butter issue. If the bank pays better and has better working conditions, it does seem sensible to choose a job at the bank rather than at a construction site where there is exposure to quite a lot of danger.

[GLZT]

 

"In reality, engineering is an exciting, promising and greatly rewarding profession."

 

This is really bull nonsense lah. In reality, you just need to pay better salaries to attract people into the profession. Telling young people that engineering is an exciting, promising and greatly rewarding profession isn't going to entice them to enter the industry.

 

This is at the end of the day, a bread and butter issue. If the bank pays better and has better working conditions, it does seem sensible to choose a job at the bank rather than at a construction site where there is exposure to quite a lot of danger.

It is exciting and promising, but definitely not rewarding.

[Porker]

The reality is young people want fast if not instant gratification.

 

Engineering is not glamorous at all and salaries are lower than other more glamorous jobs. The pitch by IES is just plain bs and will be slammed as evident from the responses to date LOL

[Little_prince]

It is exciting and promising, but definitely not rewarding.

so true....

 

even the so called top 10 engineer pay that is used to benchmark minister salary are all engineer trained businessmen types rather than true blue engineering professionals

[GLZT]

so true....

 

even the so called top 10 engineer pay that is used to benchmark minister salary are all engineer trained businessmen types rather than true blue engineering professionals

Yes indeed. Any line can make money as long as you turn it into a business. So I think all entrepreneurs' income cannot be use to measure a particular position's income. Unless the position itself is 'entrepreneur'.

[Sosaria]

End of the day, people who go into engineering are just following their interest and aptitude, not really for the salaries. As long as the interest is there, it should be okay.

 

For myself and possibly many other engineers here too, we have no interest in marketing, business and finance, so even if offered a job in the industry, it's not appealing.

[Kiadaw]

 

And when you're a manager, you get the boot (due to retrenchment), you can never find another same job; as they are many waiting to go up and those in that position hang on for dear life.

 

Not to mention thousands of FT eyeing that position and even lower.

They also accept lower pay without blinking an eye.

 

So yeah, go to engineering and take your chance...or NOT in the first place.

Thats applicable to most jobs doesn't it?

 

As far as FT, its a matter of when FT will inflitrate an industry,if they have not already. I cannot think of a handful of Industries, that you, if not your children that will not be challenged by FT in some way.

 

If you look beyond Singapore, & open to more than Jobs in the Sunny tropical Island, In the developed industrial world, outside of medical, entertainers, I cannot think of many profession that give you higher chance of being employ or in demand than a highly qualify engineer. (high pay or not is another thing, & depends on nation & job nature).

 

For instance, if you are a highly qualify engineer, in Germany, you can apply a EU Blue card, that allow you to work within EU without any additional Visa, as its under professional jobs in demand (which also include medical doctor & maybe scientists). Accountcy, social science, business, for instance are not (from my memory). Within 3 years of professional job, you can convert to permanent stay.

 

In about 5 months, I would have fulfill my requirement for permanant stay. After that, I can continue what I do, become muscian, writer, or come back to Singapore if I choose to, but you its hard to discount the possibilty of job options in vast Economy of 300 million people.

 

What I meant to say is, being in Engineering isn't as bad as people think, especially if one is open to job option outside Singapore. But its only my opinion. But one is is clear, like any job, you must strife to be the very best in your field to have the option of worldwide possibilities or go far in general.

[The_Bear]

The reality is young people want fast if not instant gratification.

 

Engineering is not glamorous at all and salaries are lower than other more glamorous jobs. The pitch by IES is just plain bs and will be slammed as evident from the responses to date LOL

Engineer is hard and back breaking work. Prodding through the night when everyone else is asleep. The loads are heavy and the going tough. The situation can even get explosive sometimes and you can definitely smell the gunpowder in the air. Bridging the gaps is the key to success. It is a career full of minefields and each step must be taken with care. Advancement is only possible when you overcome the obstacles along the route. You have to dig deep to be safe from the hazards. There is nothing worse than being an engineer.

[Heartlander]

Below is my 2 cents worth of thoughts. Happy to get it off my chest:

 

Being a R&D engineer for almost 8 years in 2 Japanese MNCs taught me that Singaporeans have little to no chance of surviving for long in R&D environments. The long hours demanded meant the immediate family must be understanding and supportive, which is often lacking. I used to be so happy when I could see daylight when I am leaving my office! And the many many weekends wasted in the office rushing to complete work be it circuit design, PCB drawing, troubleshooting, evaluating, solving production issues, etc, etc, have been vividly etched into my mind. I am always reminded of those times when I pass by the premises even after many years. It was really impossible to have balance family life back then regardless of seniority.

 

Back then there were already a lot of FT, mostly from Philipines and Malaysia. We have no fight against them as their families with them here are depending on them to survive, so when their husbands need to be in office over weekends they will not complaint but only encouraging words. The situation was also worsened by ever shorter product cycles resulting in much stress. So much so that even a top FT engineer then had to leave the company as his wife threatened to divorce him if he kept spending ALL his time in office. And you think local people got chance under such condition? And who do you think the management will promote to fill the senior positions?

 

And there was always the fear of being obsoleted by the ever advancing technology, not helped by the fact that R&D was fast becoming a sunset industry. You can't help but got more and more worried when you see a lot of R&D companies relocated their design facilities and manufacturing plants to neighbouring countries, and thinking when will be your turn to be given the boot and how you are going to cope.

 

It really took a lot of courage to leave the environment but it was definitely worth it for my case. Though not everyone is so lucky.

 

But then again, I won't be able to land my current job if not for the hard work put in during the early years. So the early years definitely are time well spent for my case. Just lucky, I always remind myself.