"Engineer" hardest job in America to fill

From http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107149/the-hardest-jobs-to-fill-in-america?mod=career-leadership

“Why are engineers so hard to find? 'We have whole generations of people loving liberal arts, not going into science and math,' says Larry Jacobson, executive director of the National Society of Professional Engineers. "

Bullpuckey, Mr Jacobson. We are not "not going into science and math" we're being pushed out of them. If I had ONE math teacher above the high school level who gave the appearance of giving a damn, I might actually have completed my engineering degree. Not that it would have mattered in terms of this discussion, because he's talking about professional engineers and engineering school is a lot like medical school. You go for four years, get your diploma and then you do your internship (or in engineering it's called "Engineer In Training" or EIT). My understanding is that of those who finish their degree about 60% actually become professional engineers because, well, so many engineers are exceptionally hard to deal with. Your knowitall neighbor who tells you you’re doing “it” wrong, regardless of what “it” is, kinda sums up my experience with engineers. On top of that, there's the disenchantment that you've been told you’re an engineer, not a tech- you want to be working on design and checking loads and all that good stuff. You don't want to be getting a "real" engineer's coffee.

On top of that, most engineering schools are designed to get rid of students- or at least that's what I was told by every engineering and upper division math instructor I had. The worst? At UW there was a class that was a three quarter series. In order to go to the next class (i.e. to go from 01 to 02) you have to have an "A" in the class you're in. The class was an hour a day of lecture plus a weekly lab. Here's the kicker, at the end of the third semester, if you have an "A" in the 03 class, you get ONE CREDIT for the whole series but you're paying for each class as though it was a five credit class.

So no, Mr Jacobson, I didn't initially choose Humanities with a double minor in history and professional writing. I spent the better part of a decade feeling like a failure because higher education told me that it didn't want me to be an engineer. I chose this path because history is basically stories and my transcripts reminded me that I was taking Humanities classes to keep my GPA afloat so I could afford to take more engineering classes. Blacksmithing is pretty close to engineering (I get to make and design stuff) but it's more fun to do it with fire than AutoCAD. So nyaah.

It's your bed, National Society of Professional Engineers, you lie in it.

EFC 7/21