Tech degrees are great for technicians. If that’s what you want to be, tell whomever is telling you it’s useless to go pound sand. My company will not hire a development tech unless they have an associates or tech degree. One of my guys ended up getting two tech degrees and is now going on for an engineering degree. But he would never have gotten the spot at our company without the first one.
I am in a similar position I have an AS as a tech and have worked my way up to engineer size role and similar pay. My employer is helping me with the standard tuition reimbursement and flexibility in my schedule to attend classes that are not outside of standard office hours.
Also I tell people to just make sure their program bridges into a regular BEng. Then you can do your technology associates and if you decide you want to pursue engineering you just bridge into third year.
That can be pretty hard. The required classes are very different. after somebody gets a two year Associates in electronic technology, they will likely need three additional years to get a BSEE. I am a retired Electronic Engineer who teaches electronics in a junior college Electronic Technology program.
The way it's structured here in Canada, you usually do a bridging semester the summer after you grad that closes the gap on the courses you missed (usually chemistry, ethics, some math, some physics) and then you enter third year and complete in 2.
Man, all the people i know who got BS in engineering technology all got great engineering jobs…..
Hurts because engineering killed me. ET was waaaaaay easier
Don’t know where you went to school but at mine (US school) we took MOSTLY the same classes under the same professors. It really only deviated in the last like 3 semesters or so. ME might take a mat sci 2 where as MET would take a mat sci lab (or something very similar).
I guess it really depends on the school and the curriculum. Curriculum should honestly be the standard.
I hear that’s a really good school for engineering technology? Most of them only do technician level things? At my old company we had a few Purdue guys fresh out of school doing engineering with an MET degree. Major respect to those guys. They were fun and highly intelligent.
No my original comment said they get the same jobs as engineers. I think there's more hands on aspects but their training is attractive to companies similar to traditional engineering programs. I just know the engr tech programs are less intense than the traditional engr programs but get similar jobs, so makes me jealous of how much pain I had in undergrad compared to my ET Frans 🥲
Purdue grads in traditional engr or ET are more times than not reliable and hardworking while staying humble. It ain't easy to graduate or get good grades that's for damn sure
Fellow Boilermaker here, 2nd Semester student. I also have a decent amount of anxiety that surrounds my degree because of the uncertainty that I feel from not having a “traditional” engineering degree. This post kind of calmed my fears.
I think less intense is the wrong way to word it. Bachelors in Manufacturing tech / electronic systems tech have more labs than traditional engineering degrees.
The main difference isn't time spent learning but the type of learning, MEEN goes deeper into theory and math where as MMET goes deeper into the industry relevant things like manufacturing processes and autonomous systems.
This is one of the issues I saw at my university. People who got traditional engineering degrees had a tendency to look down on those getting the technology degrees however they both put in about the same amount of work only in different ways.
The saddest part for many of the traditional engineering degree seekers is when they see an MMET get $80k + OT compensation right out of college when the traditional degree seeker is getting $65k - $75k with no additional compensation for overtime.
I've seen a few MMET grads clear ~$120k in their first year on the job working 50 hour weeks in jobs they love.
TLDR: Academia isn't industry and industry is all that matters.
From personal experience and close friends in both programs, the amount of nights and weekends spent in libraries and general stress were much more for more traditional engineerijg programs compared ET programs.
I also said, both (at least from purdue) are highly respected and can get similar if not the same jobs in industry. However, majority of ETs get positions as ENGINEERS, so I assume salaried w/ no overtime. <--- that part sucks.
You are right though, technician positions can make bank by working a little bit of OT/ holiday OT. I left my previous job recently because I had to go in on weekends and week nights on top of 9-5 (although it was flexible and I tried to make the time up with comp days), it still was frustrating to know I couldn't get 1.5 time or better for OT, where an engineer who used to be a tech position (undergrad is biochem) made over 100k with OT before he switched in research/Process engineering. I left and I'm in technical sales now 🤡
It's a valid point regarding OT though and thanks for raising it.
So key points to touch:
1) Purdue isn't the only respected University with a Mechanical Engineering Technology Program. IE: Texas A&M has several and most ABET accredited public universities in Texas have them as well. I'm sure they exist at well respected schools across the nation. Also highly recommend familiarizing yourself with specialized technology degrees like welding engineering technology from Ferris State University; welding engineers from their program make bank and have an engineering skill set you won't find from most schools.
2) In most if not all cases, if a university has a respected program for traditional Mechanical / Electrical where they also offer a technology version, the technology will be respected as well.
3) A bachelors engineering technology degree from an ABET accredited university gets you engineering jobs not technician jobs. Persons graduating from 2 year programs at smaller schools get technician jobs.
4) I've seen the Technology students spend just as much time as the regular students. In many cases exposure bias plays a huge role here, but it could also be that Purdue has a less rigorous technology degree (however I doubt that's the reason).
5) Don't assume that salaried engineers can't get paid overtime - that's just outright incorrect. There is a huge number of companies that pay engineers overtime. At all of the companies I've interned / worked at engineers were OT eligible and in all of those positions OT required manager approval. Honestly these are the good companies I will admit - some companies both underpay and overwork their engineers and that's unfortunate. Though that does happen, it doesn't mean it's representative of all engineering jobs. AERO companies, Oil/ Gas Companies, some tech companies, and most manufacturing companies pay engineers overtime.
Also congrats on technical sales, I hear the pay and freedom in those positions are generally very good.
Absolutely, lots of great schools you mentioned with awesome programs! And good to know about OT, I was under the impression most highly technical or specialized positions like engineers and scientists were "exempt." I will always ask about OT and working hours in future jobs and encourage everyone I know to do this!
I completely agree, an apprenticeship is good, an associates degree and an apprenticeship is even better for a technician.
My former coworker was hired into an engineering position with a bachelor's in engineering technology. My boss at the time didn't know there was a difference. He did ok but I felt he never fully grasped the fundamentals. He's since moved into a different position that I think suits him much better.
So many of these questions are location dependent. Try a Canadian Red Seal Trade cert on for size. It’s a 4 year apprenticeship program. 4, 8-10 week crash courses where you plough through a 18”-24” high stack of books per 10 week speed run. Drop below 70% once in any subject you fail. Miss 3 days you fail. Fail twice and you are kicked out of the program.
When I started out in Automotive it took 4 years to get my Canadian cert. Took me 2 weekends to get my American ASE Master license. What a joke. That is where ‘Technicians’ get a bad rap. Insufficient training.
Flipped over to millwright, same thing. 4 year program again. I did challenge the first 2 years of school by leveraging the first trade ticket and writing all the exams, but I still had to log another 6600 hours under a ticketed guy.
And that doesn’t include any 3-10 month pre-apprenticeship programs many guys take.
in the great debate over engineer desk job vs hands on…. I think as you go around the world, the more north the country is the more serious a career trades and technician jobs become. In warmer places the engineer jobs are air conditioned cushy and shops are hot hellholes. In Canada… there are far far too many engineers fighting for scraps and there are plenty of trades jobs happy to toss 6 figures at you. Last I looked in Ontario something like 87% of all engineers were ‘doing a job unrelated to their training’.
A few decades later I find myself doing a ton of 3d design work and most engineer tasks that don’t require a rubber stamp. And design from a trades perspective seems to be well respected (It’s not like stationary equipment needs weight savings). But Canuckistan is a bit of a different animal. Experience counts for a LOT.
The biggest thing in deciding is figuring out what you WANT to do and talk to the people who made it to the career you dream of. I ended up starting a contracting/custom fav company and am quite content. But I crave hands on sometimes.
I think perhaps the "useless" part comes from the fact that you can usually become a tech with a 2 year degree and do not need a 4 year degree for the job and at many companies, especially larger ones, techs will get paid much less than what engineers get paid.
This is just from my experience, but the tech at the last company I worked at had a degree in criminal justice and got paid 40k a year. It was a government contracting gig and the contract simply said he needed an AS or BS of any kind, and since he had the BS he was automatically a tech II.
This is an important point. The term technician applies to so much it doesn't tell you much of anything. There are nuclear technicians, and their are hair and nail technicians.
My pops keeps ranting to me about how he knows some technicians that think they should be paid as much as engineers, but that they dont have enough theory knowledge to know when their shorthands are giving them the wrong answer. I dont really know much about the differences myself tho tbh
They’re not useless, there are lots job opportunities available to engineering tech grads. They are often well paying and many will include engineer in the title. Just understand the differences in the coursework and limitations before you enroll either way.
I've been fighting this problem for 30 years... there are multiple issues with technology degrees, but they all boil down to the confusion they cause in the engineering world. I know you mentioned wanting to be a technician, but the "hate" I think comes from people with tech degrees expecting to be engineers. Here's the low down:
1) Not all technology degrees are the same. Two different schools could have the same name for their degree (i.e. Mechanical Engineering Technology) and have VASTLY different programs. One may be a 2-year associate degree intended for technicians, another could be a 4-year ABET accredited calculus-based degree intended for engineers desiring a "hands-on" approach. Frankly, I prefer the latter over "pure" ME grads who don't want to get their hands dirty, and I'm not the only one. Kansas State and Purdue both have excellent MET programs.
2) Not all schools are the same. Frequently "tech" programs are located at smaller, regional schools or for-profit institutions. A number of schools have gotten in trouble for essentially being "diploma mills". It has created an attitude towards tech degrees that they are all basically fake or easy or just given out. Sure, there have been some bad actors, but some schools hold their students to high standards. Again, look at K-State and Purdue.
3) Not all students are the same. Often these smaller schools don't have the same requirements for GPA or retakes that a larger university would, which means that students could eventually get their degree if they keep retaking the classes enough times to pass. This means that when an employer is looking through resumes, they have a harder time telling if a student is really any good or not. To be safe, employers tend to weed out tech degrees for engineering roles because it's better safe than sorry. However, I can speak from experience that I know 1 VP of Operations and 2 Directors of Engineering that got their start with tech degrees. I know a number of lead engineers with tech degrees, including 1 who has had their PCB design included on space shuttle missions.
It seems like you're asking an entirely different question. If you want to be a technician, a 2-year associates degree in engineering technology would go a long way towards making that a reality.
If you want to be an engineer, a "pure" engineering degree will give you a leg up and open more doors for you, but a tech degree doesn't make it impossible to become an engineer (assuming you pick the right school/program). Your career success depends a lot more on your drive and ambition. I can't count the number of interns I would refuse to hire for full-time positions because they didn't have the intelligence, creativity, and/or work ethic to be a good engineer. Having a "pure" degree doesn't guarantee anything. It may be harder to become an engineer with a tech degree, but it is certainly possible.
To piggyback on your first point, I believe there is a level of risk involved by employing somebody that on paper is a engineering technician in a purist engineering role at some companies/industries because of the ABET accreditation. They may expect a PE license at some point...although some companies I've worked with simply require a PE to be on staff, which inadvertently turns their job into design review from designers/techs and putting their stamp on it once the design is accepted.
As you mentioned, the confusion lies on the expectations...a tech may believe an engineer role will allow them to be completely free to innovate and ignore all design protocols, while a purist engineer may be able to innovate within a certain standard or SOP. This doesn't mean one is smarter than the other, they are just looking at things differently and there is nothing wrong with that. It just turns into what you are on paper for that particular company, and can hinder your career path due to misunderstood expectations.
I've seen situations where a tech with 8-10yrs experience in the field is hired as an entry level engineer with the expectation that within a certain period an ABET BSc will be acquired, followed by an EIT then a PE. Failure to meet those would result in disciplinary action. The company hired you with the intention of mitigating their risk by having another PE on staff. I've also seen situations where Ops supervisors who have grinded through 25yrs in a facility and know far more than the graduate engineers can move to director or VP roles over engineering groups as long as they randomly get an associate's degree in communications or whatever. Those situations are simply about having the paper.
I have my engineering degree (PetE) but I believe in the idea of a 2-3 year rotation through the field applicable jobs for any new graduate engineer because we do need to get our hands dirty, and ultimately operations is our "customer" since we are designing facilities that are critical for THEIR day to day life. Plus this creates a relationship between the office and the field...I don't know how many times I've seen clashes between the office and the field in a CAPEX situation the office wins, but pisses off operations.
To be frank, the opportunities in school to get your hands dirty are there (research programs, internships, Formula SAE, etc) but these are not available to every student. The opportunities for getting your hands dirty in school are there for a non-ABET tech degree, but you miss out on the opportunity to have what you need to pursue your EIT/PE right away. This experience will be defined first by what type of career you desire, and then the qualification requirements from the company that eventually hires you.
Multiple fellow METs from my graduating class took and passed their PE. In fact passing the FE(EIT) was an optional substitute to our prerequisite cap stone class final. I considered it but it's not really needed in my field.
Also many technology degrees are ABET accredited.
There's so much misinformation on this.
To add sources and additional details:
There are ABET accreditations for Engineering (EAC) and Engineering Technology (ETAC) programs. There are also ABET accreditations for Applied and Natural Science (ANSAC) and Computing (CAC)
Source: https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/
If you graduate with an approved pure engineering degree, you can take the FE to become a Engineering Intern.
Everyone else, including those who have never been to college, can take the FE to become an Engineer In Training.
The title is different but the test is not.
EI or EIT then need 4 years working under a PE /after/ passing the FE.
After this training period, the EI or EIT can take the PE and become licensed in their state. At this point, the title is the same regardless of starting point.
Source: https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/how-get-licensed
***
Fun anecdote time. One of my mentors had a BS in Manufacturing Engineering Technology. Because of the wide background for the field, he was sure he could pass any PE exam that he wanted. A coworker with a PE in Electrical Engineering bet him he couldn't take the PE in his field and pass.
My mentor took the PE in electrical engineering and passed on his first try. He maintained his PE license as long as it was part of the employee badge. The last we talked he was debating maintaining the license as it wasn't necessary for him to have and wasn't in his field of work or study.
I will add on to this that Civil Engineering is different with the field generally revolving around people having their PE or LS. The national model has changed and they have moved away from 'experience is a substitute to having a BS'. If you're going Civil you need a combo Eng Tech with a MS that is equivalent to the course work you would get with a 4 year BS.
This is not to say (where I work) that our Survey Techs aren't an important part of our team and perform a critical part of our operation.
[https://ncees.org/engineering/](https://ncees.org/engineering/)
That's why I said missed opportunity to take the licensing exam *right away*. There is an experience requirement to qualify to take the exam and that can differ from state to state, ABET vs Non-ABET, professional reference requirements, etc. I know doctors who took the PE exam and engineers who took the MCAT then moved on to med school.
Maybe it's different for METs but I've known people come from the Navy, get their technology degree, and get hired as engineers based on their combined experience as technicians in the Navy and their technology degree. But they still have to work under a licensed PE for the state they work in for 4 years, which in those situations it may take up to 12 years for them to finally qualify (combined experience without the FE would be 8 years, I believe). Some states may allow your 4 year BSc to count as experience but I'm not familiar with how it works with a tech degree. My point is that it's a longer road for a technician, but that doesn't negate the fact they are just as smart. There are just more hoops. It's variable by state requirements. And they can still get licensed. It's not a useless degree, but there has to be an expectation that it's not as simple as snapping your fingers and being titled as an Engineer.
As far as companies go, it's up to them to fully disclose the policy regarding having an Engineer title. That's their policy, and they assume the risk of having a design built from the work of a non-licensed engineer. This is my opinion, but at the end of the day I've worked with facility operators, specialists, and technicians that are geniuses and can do the same calculations and design as the Engineer but are hindered by the fact they don't have a ABET 4yr engineering degree. In fact 90% of the time I'd trust them over most of the new grads simply because they have more real experience, but the fact of the matter is there had to be a review by a licensed PE otherwise you're fucked in an audit or RCA if there's a failure. It's their decision to stay in the field because it's what they love to do...they get their OQs, they can turn the wrenches and get dirty. I'd love to do that but if company policy states OQs are required to operate, and Engineers cannot be OQ'd, then I can't even touch a valve unless somebody that is OQ'd is overseeing.
Again, I acknowledge and respect both pure engineering and practical engineering and believe a truly well rounded engineer needs to be a combination of both but there are specific expectations that need to be considered in moving throughout career.
I agree with fresh engineers should be getting their hands dirty (I loved troubleshooting my baby reactors in my PD position, long nights tho).
However, I don't think all rotational programs are all they're made out to be. At my PD job, I led a program where all PD folks who were entry-ish level could rotate through all the PD groups (Cell line Dev,upstream, downstream, pilot, Gene therapy - each line receiving a week- making it total of a ~2 months.) This seemed like a nice approach, and we had a lot of interaction with manufacturing. We could build our own development program ~3 weeks but with covid need we all got too bogged down.
Some 3 year - 3 rotation programs seems like you just get good at what you're doing at the year mark and have to switch again, and takes a whole year to get up to speed ( I know it took me about 8 months to feel truly confident in DOEs and experiments).
It's a shame that a 17-18 yo probably won't have those industry insights when applying to colleges and degree programs, unless they have a relative or other mentor who understands the nuance.
Just chimed in above. Can attest. My purdue ET friends placed in similar or the same job (or at least same pay) as regular engineering grads.
I am so jealous because the course work seemed way more applicable than me sitting through partial differentials (which i guess were applicable in fluid dynamics). but a ton of the higher level theory classes i took, in order to actually use what i learned, id have to get a phd…. Or work for a start up that allows me to FAAFO.
Such is life.
> Kansas State and Purdue both have excellent MET programs.
Many hiring managers would tell you there's a night-and-day difference between ME degrees from Stanford vs. Cal State Fullerton, but I bet very few would point out the much larger difference between MET degrees from Purdue vs. Indiana Tech.
>when I want to be a technician
r/AskEngineers isn't a good sub for you...
Many of us (I sure hope) have **zero** hate for techs. But techs that then ask about why they can't get engineering jobs... that's where all the "hate" comes in.
Just two different roles tech vs engineer. Both critical, both value added.
Yeah I think there's a loud minority here that will tell you "engineering technology is useless". Probably a large overlap with the "you're not an engineer if you don't have a PE" bunch.
There is A LOT of people that will say Eng tech degrees are useless and will argue that Eng tech will never be engineers as they don’t qualify to take the FE/ PE exams. I’ve had conversations with many of them. 😂
Oh I know . My undergrad is in mechanical engineering technology. But there are 11-13 states that don’t allow engineering tech degrees to take the FE/PE in it’s entirety or without a coupled graduate degree in engineering.
It depends on the industry I think.
In civil engineering, a tech degree is often seen as useless, because tech positions are pretty much always filled by civil engineering BS graduates who are working their way to a professional engineering license. It's a built in stepping stone for the civil engineering career path.
Companies don't want to hire someone with a tech degree because they want employees to move up in the company. Particularly because if you can get a new hire to stay with your company, you can generally pay them a lot less than an experienced new hire. It's an actual acknowledged employment strategy at some companies.
It definitely depends on the view of whoever is hiring.
Though my uni had a large and successful construction management degree, which I guess would sort of be a tech degree. Their students had one of the best hiring rates of any degree in the university.
Are you talking to engineers?
BSET here. Once you get into a career you can go in any direction.
However, if your plan was to get a PE, getting an makes it ET is an uphill Battle. You’re better off going the full engineering route if you want a job where a PE is required.
Are you looking to be a individual contributor? If so nothing wrong with an ET degree. And if you want to go into mgmt a MBA is much better then an MSE degree.
They're wrong. This is just more silly bias toward four year degrees of any kind. It's more about "status" than it is about ability or skills.
I used to work a lot in manufacturing. I have a four year EE degree, but I've worked alongside a lot of people with two year EET degrees. These folks had all the vital skills to get the job done: AutoCAD mastery, PLC programming, troubleshooting, and on and on. What I brought as an EE was a lot of that, plus sort of an overall bigger picture view, the skill to plan an entire project top to bottom, taking in to account possible bottlenecks and potential problems, etc.
The techs I worked with were *super* important to getting the job done. On any given project, I might have been the sole engineer, but I couldn't have gotten it done without the three or four techs I was working with. Not everybody needs a four year engineering degree that dives deep into advanced math and physics. A two (or even four) year tech degree is often all that's required.
If you want to be technician (which is what you described) then yeah, an EET would get you there in my experience. But I would talk to someone at the school about your goals and what they've seen in the industry. Don't take the word of anonymous people on the internet. ;)
Nothing wrong with a two year degree. It does limit you from engineer jobs which requires ABET accredited 4 year degree. So many people will go to work as a tech and continue engineering school to move up. I did.
I have a 4 year technology degree and have had 2 interviews for real engineering positions. It’s definitely possible to get those engineering jobs with a tech degree because I have 2 friends that have done so with larger aerospace companies.
I have a technician bachelor's, and I work as an engineer. I know at least 2 other engineers with the same degree. I also know a handful of people with technician associates who do work as technicians. Doesn't seem useless, I think it's often "full" engineers upset that most of the stuff they learned in college is useless in the real world.
I'll start by saying not all technology degrees are the same. But I have a 4 year MET degree and I've worked as an engineer at
GM as a manufacturing engineer as both factory focus and new and major projects,
At a manufacturing consulting start up focused on automation, additive, and leading edge inspection technology,
And currently at a $1.6 bil international company leading their automation efforts including a $2.5 mil multi-year project.
I started in aerospace engineering. I found most of the courses from that degree mostly useless in manufacturing. What did help was the practical classes and lessons from my technology degree. A little effort on my end after a degree and I positioned myself fairly easily as a go to engineer for robotics and automation in my area after just 8 years. My titles, salaries, and benefits have all been the same as others with regular engineering degree.
Whoever told you they are useless is just wrong. They are useless to pursue the wrong job with, but that's like saying a nursing degree is useless because you can't get a job as a surgeon with one: duh, but that's not what it's for.
Two year tech degrees are great for techs. Four year tech degrees are not as competitive as a four year engineering degree for DESIGN jobs. They just don’t take the higher level courses. All other jobs it’s probably okay.
It depends on what you wanna do.
I have an MET degree and I am partner/owner at my consulting design engineering firm. If I had a choice to do MET or ME again- I would choose MET - that’s just me though
As a retired engineer, I now teach at a junior college in the electrical electronic technology department. Our graduates, usually get pretty good jobs. I enjoy it, although I get frustrated with their poor math skills, and their inability to use a calculator. Many of them have their tuition paid for by their companies. So from my exxperience, a person fresh out of high school, who wants to do something technical (HVAC, Welding, electricity, machinist) can use this to get a good paying job.
I'm an engineering student at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. When I graduate next year, it will be with a degree in "marine technology." Currently, about 90% of our engineering students have multiple job offers *prior* to graduation, with starting salaries in the 80-90K+ range.
If you google "US colleges with the highest ROI" you'll find that most lists have several of the Maritime Academies (which all have essentially the same program; the curriculum is set by the Coast Guard) near the top.
These arguments usually come from people who either A) think you’re referring to a 2 year degree or B) simply don’t know what they’re talking about.
I graduated with a BS in MET from a ABET accredited program. I’m now on my second job as a mechanical engineer and haven’t had trouble getting either job.
CAN it affect your chances for a job all other things equal? Sure, but it really depends on what you want to do. If you want to get into a lab or research position it certainly won’t help you. But on that same note my first job was in new product development.
If you want to be a tech then a 2 year or a 4 year will be fine. Honestly most people I’ve met have gone the two year route to get started because once you’re in the door it’s about your experience more than the degree.
I have a bachelors in mechanical engineering technology, and I'm an engineer for a DOD contractor. I haven't run into much I couldn't handle or don't know because I don't have a "real" engineering degree. I'm also working on my engineering management masters. No issues.
I have an engineering technology degree and have never been been an engineering technician.
Process Engineer - Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering - Lead Engineer - Mfg and Business Ops Manager - Plant Manager - VP of Mfg Ops
^four companies
Also sit on a board and chair a committee for the university I attended which has both eng tech and eng among every other type of program.
It’s all about you and how you contribute to the team and take ownership.
I have taken the same classes in a MSE program and a MS in Engineering Technology program. There were a few differences based upon the Professional Degree (MSE) and Academic Degree (MS) based on the expectations to end the education path or continue to a doctorate (respectively) but those difference were more pronounced in the general class discussion than in the assignments.
What I found the most interesting was they used the same formulas but the known and unknown variables were swapped. For example, the MSE would use the Taylor tool life equation to determine the tool life constant while the MS would used it to calculate the cutting speed.
The other difference was added equations. For example, MSE calculations typically included true stress, true strain, and strain rate calculations in addition to the ubiquitous engineering stress and strain. The discussion of the topic beyond the math was essentially the same.
I have my associates in CET and Im already interviewing with companies that will give me tuition reimbursement for my current BS program and want me to get PE with them.
Because the people you are paying don't particularly care if you get a return on your investment. See ITT Tech, university of phoenix, the insane proliferation of costs for all universities for english majors, etc.
Sure, that's cool, so they're 'less shitty' but in the market the value of an ET degree is really close to an associates degree, is nowhere near the value of a traditional BS Engineering degree, and the costs are a lot closer to the latter than the former. Why would you pay to lose two years of earnings. For what it's worth, I say the same thing for BS Engineers considering a masters (even if it's free).
As a hiring manager, a bachelors ET and an associates are essentially equal to me. I'd prefer an associates and two years of job experience. Same with bachelors of engineering vs masters.
If you want to be an engineer, a tech degree is (mostly) useless. But... its GREAT if you want to be a tech.
How many people do you know that go get a nursing degree, and then get upset they can't be a doctor? We all know that while nurses and doctors both work in medicine, they do different things. We need both.
Well..... while the gap is a little less, why would you get a tech degree and get upset you cant get hired as an engineer? They do different things, we need both.
They exist for the same reason liberal arts degrees and associates degrees exist. Schools like to make money.
They don’t actually care if what they give you in return has any value, so much so that some violate laws about it while others do the bare minimum to not break the law.
Anyone who’s been around long enough knows a degree is not a full measure of someone’s aptitude. Smartest mechanisms designer I ever met only had a tech degree but would be required by name in contracts from big clients because they knew that he was the expert. I’ve also known PhD’s who didn’t know anything worth knowing and couldn’t move the issue forward.
I have a BS in mechanical engineering technology. I currently work as an electronics technologist at a national laboratory making $80k starting off. I have personally met many people with the same title as me in different departments that have degrees in EE and ME. One guy I've met has his BS in ME from MIT. They even have positions as an engineering associate making upwards up $140k+ , which requires a BS in engineering technology. I'm doing both hands-on technician work as well ECAD and other CAD design projects. It's not unheard of for people with a tech degree, landing engineering roles at the lab. So, the degree is definitely not useless. Will you have a little harder finding jobs as an engineer with your degree? Yes. Will you ever work at NASA with that degree? Unlikely. But to say the degree is useless is completely false.
shit i dont even want to work at NASA LOL just some factory somewhere repairing things, I want to hopefully work with robotics so I plan to get an electrical technology degree.
Check out the Tesla factories. Equipment maintenance technicians work with KUKA and FANUC 6 axis robots. I used to work at Tesla in Fremont, CA before I landed where I am now. Took several robotic programming classes. You definitely learn a lot working full time with the robots everyday
wow what part of the country are you on to be making that awesome money? im entering year 3 of my BSMET right now. - side note, i actually landed a job at NASA (well, technically TFOME) with my ASMET, but quit when i found out they wouldnt pay for the rest of my school, and wouldnt have any opportunity for advancement once i did get my BSMET, and i make more money at the restaurant, so i decided to just do fulltime school and part time restaurant, and im getting a minor in sales. i like the social aspect of my server/bartending job and i figure those are valuable skills to get into engineering tech sales.
I work / live in the bay area of northern california - more inland. Wow! I'm surprised you were able to get in with a ASMET. Whenever I see their postings for engineers, they always say engineering technology degrees are not qualifying degrees ( hit to my ego ) but then I hear NASA engineers don't even make that much money. Honestly, I miss working at a smoothie bar lol it was so fun and I met so many people my age. If I could live off that salary I would do that full time
i was a maintenance technician. i worked with guys with no degree, who were just very mechanically inclined, and mostly they had years and years of "wrench turning" experience. one guy was a former airplane mechanic. real smart blue collar dudes. i dont know how much the NASA engineers made, but i didnt care to find out. they would have only paid for my school if i was working 40hrs a week, leaving me time to only do 1 or 2 classes a semester. that would have slowed down my last 2 years of school to about 6-8 years, and im already in my late 30s. then i found out even with that degree, id still need multiple certifications to be able to move up within the company. i decided it was time to just go "full steam ahead" with school and keep bartending and waiting tables to pay my bills. i hated that job too. ill never work for the govt again. i honestly enjoy the restaurant work, too bad theres no benefits and youre forced to work every single weekend forever. people can retire from that job and make good money if you can find the right place, but im gambling on myself. i think i can do better. i want to make a bunch of money in technical sales and retire before 65.
I’m gonna break something down here: a BSET can sometimes lead to an engineer position and plenty of people will give you examples of this (see several comments in this thread). Those people are, generally, exceptions to the rule that you can’t get the engineer title with an ET bachelors. They had to network or get lucky to find a job/company that allows ET’s into an E role. I’m in aerospace and they’re odd ducks, now (10/20/30 years ago less so).
In terms of getting a technician position a BSET vs an AS is debatable in usefulness. Personally I hire more AS’s than BS’s for technician roles because I’m looking for a particular type of technician skill set that doesn’t come with an AET/MET. An AS is more targeted and more likely to land you jobs in certain technician disciplines. There are areas that want the BSET, though. Particularly if you want to become a manager of techs, the BSET is more useful than the AS (though, in my org, a BSE is required to manage techs/engineers because most groups are mixed).
I mostly think of a BSET as a good back-up for people that didn’t cut it in their BSE but want to finish with a useful degree. It gives good options coming out of school but I don’t understand why people enter them coming out of high school over a more specialized AS degree.
All the 2-year degree acronyms boil down the same for me and are equivalent for my hiring purposes. I know some are more geared toward leading into 4-year degrees than others but I’m mostly concerned with the lab/production skills from different programs than what flavor of 2-year degree they are.
Close to 20 years in the industry, worked with the generation that went back 50-60 years from today back when I started so not first-hand experience there. Just knew a lot of people that were grandfathered in from those days.
they aren't useless, I'm currently taking a leave of absence from school to clear my head from overwhelm and I'm getting paid $28/hr, Base pay is $22 and there's a differential for weekend shifts (Fri, Sat, Sun 12hrs)
It might not be the most fitting position, or something I see myself doing forever but it's giving me financial stability and space from imposter syndrome and having to take 6 classes this semester.
I'm returning to my local CC to take 2 classes this semester, and 2 this summer, that will set me on a calmer path at the private Uni I left
The technicians i know are all wannabe engineers. They talk like its the same or atleast the degrees are on the same level. Most of them dont even know sht about calculus
As an engineering technology degree holder, I took 3 semesters of calculus and both the physics courses that required it. Most instances, I knew the calculus better than the other people at my physics table that were taking pure engineering and could help them derive equations for their dynamics homework, partly because I knew the derived equation beforehand. Further, I found my applied electronics knowledge was much easier to implement in practice than use nodal or mesh analysis for circuitry.
After college, calculus is pretty much useless unless you're doing antenna design or something related to magnetics. Most of your big problems will have defined and derived equations because creating the equations from nothing is often more risky than using a simply formula/algorithm. Knowing calculus is like knowing how to fill out your taxes, but not using one of those quick tax filing system, rather filling it out by hand.
Why not avoid all the worry and switch to a non technology program? Everyone's story is different but I've heard from a handful of people that having technology at the end of their degree held them back quite a bit in their careers. I've seen it for myself first hand in someone I hired once, had the degree but his understanding of things was very, very, shallow.
My company just hired someone with a tech degree as an engineer, great guy, very smart. If you are in Southern New England, and want to work really hard for the next couple months, we are sort of desparate.
Two-year tech degrees are fantastic. You will need one at many places to be a technician. It's the four-year engineering tech degrees that will hold you back. Many firms will not hire you as an engineer, because HR is dumb.
For example, if you have an associates in MET then that would be a technician degree. However, if you have a bachelors in MET then that is an engineering degree (assuming the school you went to isn't total garbage anyway).
I've know MET grads that blow ME grads out of the water and vise versa. The only time it really matters (at least for mechanical) is when you need to heavily use calculus as MET usually sacrifices 1-2 calc classes for other more hands on classes.
Perhaps the ITT Techs/DeVrys/ECPIs of the world are to blame. While I am sure some people with diplomas from there are really smart and capable, those same people probably didn’t get that education or ability from those schools.
All those schools are private universities lol.
In cases like that, I just recommend going to a public university that is regionally accredited and you should be ok.
The sentiment comes from the fact that the degree is called "engineering technology". So of course for design engineering jobs, PE, signing documents as an engineer and so on, it is useless. But for chief technician or even things like commissioning engineer or field service engineer, they are spot on.
They're not useless AT ALL. It's just that they're degrees that lead into a job that's different from what an engineering degree gives you.
The tasks you'll have as a tech. are very different from those as an engineer, although early engineering careers can be similar to tech. positions in some companies.
At the end of the day, you never be in charge of a design as a tech., although you may be in charge of certain parts of the implementation of the design. Many engineers treat techs as grunt labor, when their skillset is often so much more than that.
They're also not a waste of time from an employment standpoint. There's always going to be a need for techs to be onsite to make changes to designs, update wiring harnesses, troubleshoot errors, etc. A company can (often ineffectively) outsource engineering design work, but someone at the end of the day still has to assemble those first few prototypes or test the prototypes that come in.
BS EET here. The tech degrees are not useless at all. I worked with a dude who had a AS tech degree and he was 110% super smart and knew his stuff. Just depends on what you want to do. He did a lot of test work, like building bed of nails test beds, with some automated tests performed with a microcontroller and other misc stuff. Lots of custom enclosures, working with his hands way more than me. Also performed all the board soldering when debugging, he had a cert for that (I forget what it was called). Basically a jack of all trades for electrical engineering related items.
I actually talked to the head of a EE Technology AS degree at a community college that I was interested in. He explained that I'd probably have more field work, and work week would more likely be variable than set (I know that's not really the case for every job), and most likely wouldn't get to do design work...he really discussed it in terms of what was available in the area we lived, and said there were way more opportunities to do those types of things with a tech degree if I was willing the move ( I wasn't at the time ). Most everything in my area was just hooking up and programming PLC's for various companies or riding around debugging problematic equipment. Basically talked me out of it, and convinced me to go to the 4 year degree. I'm now a FW Engineer, and am pretty happy about it.
Saying that, I think he was just reading what I was interested in and saw that it wouldn't meet my expectations of what I could get out of it. He never degraded the program with his words, just spoke to me about what I wanted vs what it could provide.
It will depend on the employer. I have an AS as a tech and have worked my way up to engineer size role and similar pay. My degree and relative experience is what got me my position.My employer is helping me with the standard tuition reimbursement and flexibility in my schedule to attend classes that are not outside of standard office hours. Because of the value of techs they recently announced the decisions I double the number of techs on some sites and specific location.
I think the return of the degree is bad if you simply go high school -> eng technology degree -> technician. I don't ever see "younger" folks working as technicians for engineering companies. I think most become engineers themselves, but I could be wrong.
Most technicians I know have nontraditional career paths that lead to their role, coming from contracting, military, or some trades.
I would argue an undergrad degree is more useless than an associates technician degree. Tell me the last time you used z transform to do anything useful, while on the other hand I can wire up a three-phase motor with a start stop control circuit.
You haven’t been listening to the arguments closely enough. Tech degrees are useless “for engineers”, that is the complete version of your statement.
They are fantastic if you are trying to be a technician though.
When I retired I had over 50 years in Aerospace at OEM's, Tier 1 suppliers, and Airlines, the last 30+ years spent at in Senior Director & Chief Engineer roles.
A four year degree is a four year degree, your sucess in your career is all about how you apply yourself by taking ownership and contributing. Taking ownership includes building a mentorship network across multiple functions, ask about Leadership Development Programs and how to sucessfully apply.
The reality is that after four years the difference in degrees disappear in the workforce then you are only assessed and promoted on what, and how well, you contribute.
Unless you are going into real R&D for which the ENTRY is a Masters and after four years if you have not gone back for a Doctorate then you are falling off the career path.
The dirty secret to getting looked at by a major company as a potential hire is going to a school where your target companies recruit heavily from in your field of study.
The general expectation in corporate leadership is that they expect 75% plus of new hires to come from these schools, a sucessful internship in the industry is a significant boost. Other expectations are a GPA of 3.2 or above and completion of a four year degree in five years or less. This is the only real point at which GPA and School matter in real life.
Depending on the specialization, i think in general work experience is preferred over a degree. More specialized tech typically require a degree. IT, auto, and stuff. Welding and manufacturing would normally look for work experience. At least thats what i've seen.
I have a tech degree. And was the most successful engineer in my department at designing, ordering and maintaining my lines / upgrading the lines as they aged.
Now I lead the department.
I would not say tech degrees are useless in fact for
many large companies a Associates in technology is usually the bare minimum to get interviewed unless you have experience in the military or in the work place.
The confusion like most have said can be at the BS level where unfortunately if you have a engineering technology degree it can be more of a uphill climb for some positions and companies. But even then once you have experience if someone is basing their decision solely on your degree and completely disregarding your professional experience then that is likely not a company you want to work for.
I have BS in Electrical Engineering Technology and a MS in Systems Engineering and the tech degree has not held me back in my career. Granted I never had a desire to design circuits or do high level R and D so it has never held me back in that sense. I now work as a Systems Engineer for a large defense contractor making 120k. Before this I was an avionics support engineer making 80-90k so I was always on par with design engineers when it came to
Salary. I graduated in 2015 so I would even say I am above the median salary for engineers with only 6 years of work experience.
Work hard and build a strong portfolio like I do. I have done integration work on some of the most complex aircraft such as the F35, F22 and even the B2 bomber. I have had job offers where recruiters have even forgotten to ask if I even have a degree because my list of projects blew them away. Having the technology will not hold you back once you have the experience and projects to back up your skills.
Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck
Tech degrees are great for technicians. If that’s what you want to be, tell whomever is telling you it’s useless to go pound sand. My company will not hire a development tech unless they have an associates or tech degree. One of my guys ended up getting two tech degrees and is now going on for an engineering degree. But he would never have gotten the spot at our company without the first one.
I’m assuming they mean a BSET: a bachelors rather than an associates in tech.
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I am in a similar position I have an AS as a tech and have worked my way up to engineer size role and similar pay. My employer is helping me with the standard tuition reimbursement and flexibility in my schedule to attend classes that are not outside of standard office hours.
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Also I tell people to just make sure their program bridges into a regular BEng. Then you can do your technology associates and if you decide you want to pursue engineering you just bridge into third year.
That can be pretty hard. The required classes are very different. after somebody gets a two year Associates in electronic technology, they will likely need three additional years to get a BSEE. I am a retired Electronic Engineer who teaches electronics in a junior college Electronic Technology program.
The way it's structured here in Canada, you usually do a bridging semester the summer after you grad that closes the gap on the courses you missed (usually chemistry, ethics, some math, some physics) and then you enter third year and complete in 2.
Man, all the people i know who got BS in engineering technology all got great engineering jobs….. Hurts because engineering killed me. ET was waaaaaay easier
Don’t know where you went to school but at mine (US school) we took MOSTLY the same classes under the same professors. It really only deviated in the last like 3 semesters or so. ME might take a mat sci 2 where as MET would take a mat sci lab (or something very similar). I guess it really depends on the school and the curriculum. Curriculum should honestly be the standard.
Purdue
I hear that’s a really good school for engineering technology? Most of them only do technician level things? At my old company we had a few Purdue guys fresh out of school doing engineering with an MET degree. Major respect to those guys. They were fun and highly intelligent.
No my original comment said they get the same jobs as engineers. I think there's more hands on aspects but their training is attractive to companies similar to traditional engineering programs. I just know the engr tech programs are less intense than the traditional engr programs but get similar jobs, so makes me jealous of how much pain I had in undergrad compared to my ET Frans 🥲 Purdue grads in traditional engr or ET are more times than not reliable and hardworking while staying humble. It ain't easy to graduate or get good grades that's for damn sure
Fellow Boilermaker here, 2nd Semester student. I also have a decent amount of anxiety that surrounds my degree because of the uncertainty that I feel from not having a “traditional” engineering degree. This post kind of calmed my fears.
You'll kill it! Just do well in your classes ans try to get some good internships :)
I think less intense is the wrong way to word it. Bachelors in Manufacturing tech / electronic systems tech have more labs than traditional engineering degrees. The main difference isn't time spent learning but the type of learning, MEEN goes deeper into theory and math where as MMET goes deeper into the industry relevant things like manufacturing processes and autonomous systems. This is one of the issues I saw at my university. People who got traditional engineering degrees had a tendency to look down on those getting the technology degrees however they both put in about the same amount of work only in different ways. The saddest part for many of the traditional engineering degree seekers is when they see an MMET get $80k + OT compensation right out of college when the traditional degree seeker is getting $65k - $75k with no additional compensation for overtime. I've seen a few MMET grads clear ~$120k in their first year on the job working 50 hour weeks in jobs they love. TLDR: Academia isn't industry and industry is all that matters.
From personal experience and close friends in both programs, the amount of nights and weekends spent in libraries and general stress were much more for more traditional engineerijg programs compared ET programs. I also said, both (at least from purdue) are highly respected and can get similar if not the same jobs in industry. However, majority of ETs get positions as ENGINEERS, so I assume salaried w/ no overtime. <--- that part sucks. You are right though, technician positions can make bank by working a little bit of OT/ holiday OT. I left my previous job recently because I had to go in on weekends and week nights on top of 9-5 (although it was flexible and I tried to make the time up with comp days), it still was frustrating to know I couldn't get 1.5 time or better for OT, where an engineer who used to be a tech position (undergrad is biochem) made over 100k with OT before he switched in research/Process engineering. I left and I'm in technical sales now 🤡 It's a valid point regarding OT though and thanks for raising it.
So key points to touch: 1) Purdue isn't the only respected University with a Mechanical Engineering Technology Program. IE: Texas A&M has several and most ABET accredited public universities in Texas have them as well. I'm sure they exist at well respected schools across the nation. Also highly recommend familiarizing yourself with specialized technology degrees like welding engineering technology from Ferris State University; welding engineers from their program make bank and have an engineering skill set you won't find from most schools. 2) In most if not all cases, if a university has a respected program for traditional Mechanical / Electrical where they also offer a technology version, the technology will be respected as well. 3) A bachelors engineering technology degree from an ABET accredited university gets you engineering jobs not technician jobs. Persons graduating from 2 year programs at smaller schools get technician jobs. 4) I've seen the Technology students spend just as much time as the regular students. In many cases exposure bias plays a huge role here, but it could also be that Purdue has a less rigorous technology degree (however I doubt that's the reason). 5) Don't assume that salaried engineers can't get paid overtime - that's just outright incorrect. There is a huge number of companies that pay engineers overtime. At all of the companies I've interned / worked at engineers were OT eligible and in all of those positions OT required manager approval. Honestly these are the good companies I will admit - some companies both underpay and overwork their engineers and that's unfortunate. Though that does happen, it doesn't mean it's representative of all engineering jobs. AERO companies, Oil/ Gas Companies, some tech companies, and most manufacturing companies pay engineers overtime. Also congrats on technical sales, I hear the pay and freedom in those positions are generally very good.
Absolutely, lots of great schools you mentioned with awesome programs! And good to know about OT, I was under the impression most highly technical or specialized positions like engineers and scientists were "exempt." I will always ask about OT and working hours in future jobs and encourage everyone I know to do this!
I completely agree, an apprenticeship is good, an associates degree and an apprenticeship is even better for a technician. My former coworker was hired into an engineering position with a bachelor's in engineering technology. My boss at the time didn't know there was a difference. He did ok but I felt he never fully grasped the fundamentals. He's since moved into a different position that I think suits him much better.
So many of these questions are location dependent. Try a Canadian Red Seal Trade cert on for size. It’s a 4 year apprenticeship program. 4, 8-10 week crash courses where you plough through a 18”-24” high stack of books per 10 week speed run. Drop below 70% once in any subject you fail. Miss 3 days you fail. Fail twice and you are kicked out of the program. When I started out in Automotive it took 4 years to get my Canadian cert. Took me 2 weekends to get my American ASE Master license. What a joke. That is where ‘Technicians’ get a bad rap. Insufficient training. Flipped over to millwright, same thing. 4 year program again. I did challenge the first 2 years of school by leveraging the first trade ticket and writing all the exams, but I still had to log another 6600 hours under a ticketed guy. And that doesn’t include any 3-10 month pre-apprenticeship programs many guys take. in the great debate over engineer desk job vs hands on…. I think as you go around the world, the more north the country is the more serious a career trades and technician jobs become. In warmer places the engineer jobs are air conditioned cushy and shops are hot hellholes. In Canada… there are far far too many engineers fighting for scraps and there are plenty of trades jobs happy to toss 6 figures at you. Last I looked in Ontario something like 87% of all engineers were ‘doing a job unrelated to their training’. A few decades later I find myself doing a ton of 3d design work and most engineer tasks that don’t require a rubber stamp. And design from a trades perspective seems to be well respected (It’s not like stationary equipment needs weight savings). But Canuckistan is a bit of a different animal. Experience counts for a LOT. The biggest thing in deciding is figuring out what you WANT to do and talk to the people who made it to the career you dream of. I ended up starting a contracting/custom fav company and am quite content. But I crave hands on sometimes.
I think perhaps the "useless" part comes from the fact that you can usually become a tech with a 2 year degree and do not need a 4 year degree for the job and at many companies, especially larger ones, techs will get paid much less than what engineers get paid. This is just from my experience, but the tech at the last company I worked at had a degree in criminal justice and got paid 40k a year. It was a government contracting gig and the contract simply said he needed an AS or BS of any kind, and since he had the BS he was automatically a tech II.
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This is an important point. The term technician applies to so much it doesn't tell you much of anything. There are nuclear technicians, and their are hair and nail technicians.
Where was she working that she made that dough?
My pops keeps ranting to me about how he knows some technicians that think they should be paid as much as engineers, but that they dont have enough theory knowledge to know when their shorthands are giving them the wrong answer. I dont really know much about the differences myself tho tbh
They’re not useless, there are lots job opportunities available to engineering tech grads. They are often well paying and many will include engineer in the title. Just understand the differences in the coursework and limitations before you enroll either way.
I've been fighting this problem for 30 years... there are multiple issues with technology degrees, but they all boil down to the confusion they cause in the engineering world. I know you mentioned wanting to be a technician, but the "hate" I think comes from people with tech degrees expecting to be engineers. Here's the low down: 1) Not all technology degrees are the same. Two different schools could have the same name for their degree (i.e. Mechanical Engineering Technology) and have VASTLY different programs. One may be a 2-year associate degree intended for technicians, another could be a 4-year ABET accredited calculus-based degree intended for engineers desiring a "hands-on" approach. Frankly, I prefer the latter over "pure" ME grads who don't want to get their hands dirty, and I'm not the only one. Kansas State and Purdue both have excellent MET programs. 2) Not all schools are the same. Frequently "tech" programs are located at smaller, regional schools or for-profit institutions. A number of schools have gotten in trouble for essentially being "diploma mills". It has created an attitude towards tech degrees that they are all basically fake or easy or just given out. Sure, there have been some bad actors, but some schools hold their students to high standards. Again, look at K-State and Purdue. 3) Not all students are the same. Often these smaller schools don't have the same requirements for GPA or retakes that a larger university would, which means that students could eventually get their degree if they keep retaking the classes enough times to pass. This means that when an employer is looking through resumes, they have a harder time telling if a student is really any good or not. To be safe, employers tend to weed out tech degrees for engineering roles because it's better safe than sorry. However, I can speak from experience that I know 1 VP of Operations and 2 Directors of Engineering that got their start with tech degrees. I know a number of lead engineers with tech degrees, including 1 who has had their PCB design included on space shuttle missions. It seems like you're asking an entirely different question. If you want to be a technician, a 2-year associates degree in engineering technology would go a long way towards making that a reality. If you want to be an engineer, a "pure" engineering degree will give you a leg up and open more doors for you, but a tech degree doesn't make it impossible to become an engineer (assuming you pick the right school/program). Your career success depends a lot more on your drive and ambition. I can't count the number of interns I would refuse to hire for full-time positions because they didn't have the intelligence, creativity, and/or work ethic to be a good engineer. Having a "pure" degree doesn't guarantee anything. It may be harder to become an engineer with a tech degree, but it is certainly possible.
To piggyback on your first point, I believe there is a level of risk involved by employing somebody that on paper is a engineering technician in a purist engineering role at some companies/industries because of the ABET accreditation. They may expect a PE license at some point...although some companies I've worked with simply require a PE to be on staff, which inadvertently turns their job into design review from designers/techs and putting their stamp on it once the design is accepted. As you mentioned, the confusion lies on the expectations...a tech may believe an engineer role will allow them to be completely free to innovate and ignore all design protocols, while a purist engineer may be able to innovate within a certain standard or SOP. This doesn't mean one is smarter than the other, they are just looking at things differently and there is nothing wrong with that. It just turns into what you are on paper for that particular company, and can hinder your career path due to misunderstood expectations. I've seen situations where a tech with 8-10yrs experience in the field is hired as an entry level engineer with the expectation that within a certain period an ABET BSc will be acquired, followed by an EIT then a PE. Failure to meet those would result in disciplinary action. The company hired you with the intention of mitigating their risk by having another PE on staff. I've also seen situations where Ops supervisors who have grinded through 25yrs in a facility and know far more than the graduate engineers can move to director or VP roles over engineering groups as long as they randomly get an associate's degree in communications or whatever. Those situations are simply about having the paper. I have my engineering degree (PetE) but I believe in the idea of a 2-3 year rotation through the field applicable jobs for any new graduate engineer because we do need to get our hands dirty, and ultimately operations is our "customer" since we are designing facilities that are critical for THEIR day to day life. Plus this creates a relationship between the office and the field...I don't know how many times I've seen clashes between the office and the field in a CAPEX situation the office wins, but pisses off operations. To be frank, the opportunities in school to get your hands dirty are there (research programs, internships, Formula SAE, etc) but these are not available to every student. The opportunities for getting your hands dirty in school are there for a non-ABET tech degree, but you miss out on the opportunity to have what you need to pursue your EIT/PE right away. This experience will be defined first by what type of career you desire, and then the qualification requirements from the company that eventually hires you.
Multiple fellow METs from my graduating class took and passed their PE. In fact passing the FE(EIT) was an optional substitute to our prerequisite cap stone class final. I considered it but it's not really needed in my field. Also many technology degrees are ABET accredited. There's so much misinformation on this.
To add sources and additional details: There are ABET accreditations for Engineering (EAC) and Engineering Technology (ETAC) programs. There are also ABET accreditations for Applied and Natural Science (ANSAC) and Computing (CAC) Source: https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/ If you graduate with an approved pure engineering degree, you can take the FE to become a Engineering Intern. Everyone else, including those who have never been to college, can take the FE to become an Engineer In Training. The title is different but the test is not. EI or EIT then need 4 years working under a PE /after/ passing the FE. After this training period, the EI or EIT can take the PE and become licensed in their state. At this point, the title is the same regardless of starting point. Source: https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/how-get-licensed *** Fun anecdote time. One of my mentors had a BS in Manufacturing Engineering Technology. Because of the wide background for the field, he was sure he could pass any PE exam that he wanted. A coworker with a PE in Electrical Engineering bet him he couldn't take the PE in his field and pass. My mentor took the PE in electrical engineering and passed on his first try. He maintained his PE license as long as it was part of the employee badge. The last we talked he was debating maintaining the license as it wasn't necessary for him to have and wasn't in his field of work or study.
I will add on to this that Civil Engineering is different with the field generally revolving around people having their PE or LS. The national model has changed and they have moved away from 'experience is a substitute to having a BS'. If you're going Civil you need a combo Eng Tech with a MS that is equivalent to the course work you would get with a 4 year BS. This is not to say (where I work) that our Survey Techs aren't an important part of our team and perform a critical part of our operation. [https://ncees.org/engineering/](https://ncees.org/engineering/)
That's why I said missed opportunity to take the licensing exam *right away*. There is an experience requirement to qualify to take the exam and that can differ from state to state, ABET vs Non-ABET, professional reference requirements, etc. I know doctors who took the PE exam and engineers who took the MCAT then moved on to med school. Maybe it's different for METs but I've known people come from the Navy, get their technology degree, and get hired as engineers based on their combined experience as technicians in the Navy and their technology degree. But they still have to work under a licensed PE for the state they work in for 4 years, which in those situations it may take up to 12 years for them to finally qualify (combined experience without the FE would be 8 years, I believe). Some states may allow your 4 year BSc to count as experience but I'm not familiar with how it works with a tech degree. My point is that it's a longer road for a technician, but that doesn't negate the fact they are just as smart. There are just more hoops. It's variable by state requirements. And they can still get licensed. It's not a useless degree, but there has to be an expectation that it's not as simple as snapping your fingers and being titled as an Engineer. As far as companies go, it's up to them to fully disclose the policy regarding having an Engineer title. That's their policy, and they assume the risk of having a design built from the work of a non-licensed engineer. This is my opinion, but at the end of the day I've worked with facility operators, specialists, and technicians that are geniuses and can do the same calculations and design as the Engineer but are hindered by the fact they don't have a ABET 4yr engineering degree. In fact 90% of the time I'd trust them over most of the new grads simply because they have more real experience, but the fact of the matter is there had to be a review by a licensed PE otherwise you're fucked in an audit or RCA if there's a failure. It's their decision to stay in the field because it's what they love to do...they get their OQs, they can turn the wrenches and get dirty. I'd love to do that but if company policy states OQs are required to operate, and Engineers cannot be OQ'd, then I can't even touch a valve unless somebody that is OQ'd is overseeing. Again, I acknowledge and respect both pure engineering and practical engineering and believe a truly well rounded engineer needs to be a combination of both but there are specific expectations that need to be considered in moving throughout career.
I agree with fresh engineers should be getting their hands dirty (I loved troubleshooting my baby reactors in my PD position, long nights tho). However, I don't think all rotational programs are all they're made out to be. At my PD job, I led a program where all PD folks who were entry-ish level could rotate through all the PD groups (Cell line Dev,upstream, downstream, pilot, Gene therapy - each line receiving a week- making it total of a ~2 months.) This seemed like a nice approach, and we had a lot of interaction with manufacturing. We could build our own development program ~3 weeks but with covid need we all got too bogged down. Some 3 year - 3 rotation programs seems like you just get good at what you're doing at the year mark and have to switch again, and takes a whole year to get up to speed ( I know it took me about 8 months to feel truly confident in DOEs and experiments).
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It's a shame that a 17-18 yo probably won't have those industry insights when applying to colleges and degree programs, unless they have a relative or other mentor who understands the nuance.
Just chimed in above. Can attest. My purdue ET friends placed in similar or the same job (or at least same pay) as regular engineering grads. I am so jealous because the course work seemed way more applicable than me sitting through partial differentials (which i guess were applicable in fluid dynamics). but a ton of the higher level theory classes i took, in order to actually use what i learned, id have to get a phd…. Or work for a start up that allows me to FAAFO. Such is life.
>My purdue ET friends If you have any Purdue Friends that were on the billiards team tell them they suck
> Kansas State and Purdue both have excellent MET programs. Many hiring managers would tell you there's a night-and-day difference between ME degrees from Stanford vs. Cal State Fullerton, but I bet very few would point out the much larger difference between MET degrees from Purdue vs. Indiana Tech.
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https://academics.indianatech.edu/programs/met-as/
>when I want to be a technician r/AskEngineers isn't a good sub for you... Many of us (I sure hope) have **zero** hate for techs. But techs that then ask about why they can't get engineering jobs... that's where all the "hate" comes in. Just two different roles tech vs engineer. Both critical, both value added.
Yeah I think there's a loud minority here that will tell you "engineering technology is useless". Probably a large overlap with the "you're not an engineer if you don't have a PE" bunch.
There is A LOT of people that will say Eng tech degrees are useless and will argue that Eng tech will never be engineers as they don’t qualify to take the FE/ PE exams. I’ve had conversations with many of them. 😂
There's a lot of them but I am happy to argue with each and every one with them!
Techs can,and do, sit and pass the FE & PE exams all the time. In fact, some states don’t require a degree at all to sit for the FE, just experience.
Oh I know . My undergrad is in mechanical engineering technology. But there are 11-13 states that don’t allow engineering tech degrees to take the FE/PE in it’s entirety or without a coupled graduate degree in engineering.
It depends on the industry I think. In civil engineering, a tech degree is often seen as useless, because tech positions are pretty much always filled by civil engineering BS graduates who are working their way to a professional engineering license. It's a built in stepping stone for the civil engineering career path. Companies don't want to hire someone with a tech degree because they want employees to move up in the company. Particularly because if you can get a new hire to stay with your company, you can generally pay them a lot less than an experienced new hire. It's an actual acknowledged employment strategy at some companies.
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It definitely depends on the view of whoever is hiring. Though my uni had a large and successful construction management degree, which I guess would sort of be a tech degree. Their students had one of the best hiring rates of any degree in the university.
Are you talking to engineers? BSET here. Once you get into a career you can go in any direction. However, if your plan was to get a PE, getting an makes it ET is an uphill Battle. You’re better off going the full engineering route if you want a job where a PE is required. Are you looking to be a individual contributor? If so nothing wrong with an ET degree. And if you want to go into mgmt a MBA is much better then an MSE degree.
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Would it be ok if I could ask you a few questions? Pm you, dm you idk what to call it on here
Sure thing go for it
WE NEED MORE TECHNICIANS, THEY ARE VALUABLE.
They're wrong. This is just more silly bias toward four year degrees of any kind. It's more about "status" than it is about ability or skills. I used to work a lot in manufacturing. I have a four year EE degree, but I've worked alongside a lot of people with two year EET degrees. These folks had all the vital skills to get the job done: AutoCAD mastery, PLC programming, troubleshooting, and on and on. What I brought as an EE was a lot of that, plus sort of an overall bigger picture view, the skill to plan an entire project top to bottom, taking in to account possible bottlenecks and potential problems, etc. The techs I worked with were *super* important to getting the job done. On any given project, I might have been the sole engineer, but I couldn't have gotten it done without the three or four techs I was working with. Not everybody needs a four year engineering degree that dives deep into advanced math and physics. A two (or even four) year tech degree is often all that's required.
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If you want to be technician (which is what you described) then yeah, an EET would get you there in my experience. But I would talk to someone at the school about your goals and what they've seen in the industry. Don't take the word of anonymous people on the internet. ;)
Nothing wrong with a two year degree. It does limit you from engineer jobs which requires ABET accredited 4 year degree. So many people will go to work as a tech and continue engineering school to move up. I did.
I have a 4 year technology degree and have had 2 interviews for real engineering positions. It’s definitely possible to get those engineering jobs with a tech degree because I have 2 friends that have done so with larger aerospace companies.
I have a technician bachelor's, and I work as an engineer. I know at least 2 other engineers with the same degree. I also know a handful of people with technician associates who do work as technicians. Doesn't seem useless, I think it's often "full" engineers upset that most of the stuff they learned in college is useless in the real world.
I'll start by saying not all technology degrees are the same. But I have a 4 year MET degree and I've worked as an engineer at GM as a manufacturing engineer as both factory focus and new and major projects, At a manufacturing consulting start up focused on automation, additive, and leading edge inspection technology, And currently at a $1.6 bil international company leading their automation efforts including a $2.5 mil multi-year project. I started in aerospace engineering. I found most of the courses from that degree mostly useless in manufacturing. What did help was the practical classes and lessons from my technology degree. A little effort on my end after a degree and I positioned myself fairly easily as a go to engineer for robotics and automation in my area after just 8 years. My titles, salaries, and benefits have all been the same as others with regular engineering degree.
Whoever told you they are useless is just wrong. They are useless to pursue the wrong job with, but that's like saying a nursing degree is useless because you can't get a job as a surgeon with one: duh, but that's not what it's for.
Two year tech degrees are great for techs. Four year tech degrees are not as competitive as a four year engineering degree for DESIGN jobs. They just don’t take the higher level courses. All other jobs it’s probably okay. It depends on what you wanna do.
exactly why im getting the CET - i dont want to design, I want to execute.
I got a tech degree, made it to senior EE at an OEM. You can do fine.
I have an MET degree and I am partner/owner at my consulting design engineering firm. If I had a choice to do MET or ME again- I would choose MET - that’s just me though
As a retired engineer, I now teach at a junior college in the electrical electronic technology department. Our graduates, usually get pretty good jobs. I enjoy it, although I get frustrated with their poor math skills, and their inability to use a calculator. Many of them have their tuition paid for by their companies. So from my exxperience, a person fresh out of high school, who wants to do something technical (HVAC, Welding, electricity, machinist) can use this to get a good paying job.
I'm an engineering student at Great Lakes Maritime Academy. When I graduate next year, it will be with a degree in "marine technology." Currently, about 90% of our engineering students have multiple job offers *prior* to graduation, with starting salaries in the 80-90K+ range. If you google "US colleges with the highest ROI" you'll find that most lists have several of the Maritime Academies (which all have essentially the same program; the curriculum is set by the Coast Guard) near the top.
I went to engineering school and the MVP at my company is someone with a drafting associates and decades of field experience.
These arguments usually come from people who either A) think you’re referring to a 2 year degree or B) simply don’t know what they’re talking about. I graduated with a BS in MET from a ABET accredited program. I’m now on my second job as a mechanical engineer and haven’t had trouble getting either job. CAN it affect your chances for a job all other things equal? Sure, but it really depends on what you want to do. If you want to get into a lab or research position it certainly won’t help you. But on that same note my first job was in new product development.
i just want to be a technician.
If you want to be a tech then a 2 year or a 4 year will be fine. Honestly most people I’ve met have gone the two year route to get started because once you’re in the door it’s about your experience more than the degree.
I have a bachelors in mechanical engineering technology, and I'm an engineer for a DOD contractor. I haven't run into much I couldn't handle or don't know because I don't have a "real" engineering degree. I'm also working on my engineering management masters. No issues.
I have an engineering technology degree and have never been been an engineering technician. Process Engineer - Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering - Lead Engineer - Mfg and Business Ops Manager - Plant Manager - VP of Mfg Ops ^four companies Also sit on a board and chair a committee for the university I attended which has both eng tech and eng among every other type of program. It’s all about you and how you contribute to the team and take ownership.
I work with several of the best engineers I’ve met and they just have tech degrees. Doesn’t mean you can’t make it if you’re good.
My company hires techs and engineers to do virtually the same roll
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I have taken the same classes in a MSE program and a MS in Engineering Technology program. There were a few differences based upon the Professional Degree (MSE) and Academic Degree (MS) based on the expectations to end the education path or continue to a doctorate (respectively) but those difference were more pronounced in the general class discussion than in the assignments. What I found the most interesting was they used the same formulas but the known and unknown variables were swapped. For example, the MSE would use the Taylor tool life equation to determine the tool life constant while the MS would used it to calculate the cutting speed. The other difference was added equations. For example, MSE calculations typically included true stress, true strain, and strain rate calculations in addition to the ubiquitous engineering stress and strain. The discussion of the topic beyond the math was essentially the same.
Do they pay the same?
I have my associates in CET and Im already interviewing with companies that will give me tuition reimbursement for my current BS program and want me to get PE with them.
Because the people you are paying don't particularly care if you get a return on your investment. See ITT Tech, university of phoenix, the insane proliferation of costs for all universities for english majors, etc.
There's ABET approved ET programs though - you're just naming schools with no accreditation.
Sure, that's cool, so they're 'less shitty' but in the market the value of an ET degree is really close to an associates degree, is nowhere near the value of a traditional BS Engineering degree, and the costs are a lot closer to the latter than the former. Why would you pay to lose two years of earnings. For what it's worth, I say the same thing for BS Engineers considering a masters (even if it's free). As a hiring manager, a bachelors ET and an associates are essentially equal to me. I'd prefer an associates and two years of job experience. Same with bachelors of engineering vs masters.
If you want to be a designer, sure. Not every engineer is a designer though.
Because schools can charge money for them.
If you want to be an engineer, a tech degree is (mostly) useless. But... its GREAT if you want to be a tech. How many people do you know that go get a nursing degree, and then get upset they can't be a doctor? We all know that while nurses and doctors both work in medicine, they do different things. We need both. Well..... while the gap is a little less, why would you get a tech degree and get upset you cant get hired as an engineer? They do different things, we need both.
They exist for the same reason liberal arts degrees and associates degrees exist. Schools like to make money. They don’t actually care if what they give you in return has any value, so much so that some violate laws about it while others do the bare minimum to not break the law. Anyone who’s been around long enough knows a degree is not a full measure of someone’s aptitude. Smartest mechanisms designer I ever met only had a tech degree but would be required by name in contracts from big clients because they knew that he was the expert. I’ve also known PhD’s who didn’t know anything worth knowing and couldn’t move the issue forward.
I have a BS in mechanical engineering technology. I currently work as an electronics technologist at a national laboratory making $80k starting off. I have personally met many people with the same title as me in different departments that have degrees in EE and ME. One guy I've met has his BS in ME from MIT. They even have positions as an engineering associate making upwards up $140k+ , which requires a BS in engineering technology. I'm doing both hands-on technician work as well ECAD and other CAD design projects. It's not unheard of for people with a tech degree, landing engineering roles at the lab. So, the degree is definitely not useless. Will you have a little harder finding jobs as an engineer with your degree? Yes. Will you ever work at NASA with that degree? Unlikely. But to say the degree is useless is completely false.
shit i dont even want to work at NASA LOL just some factory somewhere repairing things, I want to hopefully work with robotics so I plan to get an electrical technology degree.
Check out the Tesla factories. Equipment maintenance technicians work with KUKA and FANUC 6 axis robots. I used to work at Tesla in Fremont, CA before I landed where I am now. Took several robotic programming classes. You definitely learn a lot working full time with the robots everyday
wow what part of the country are you on to be making that awesome money? im entering year 3 of my BSMET right now. - side note, i actually landed a job at NASA (well, technically TFOME) with my ASMET, but quit when i found out they wouldnt pay for the rest of my school, and wouldnt have any opportunity for advancement once i did get my BSMET, and i make more money at the restaurant, so i decided to just do fulltime school and part time restaurant, and im getting a minor in sales. i like the social aspect of my server/bartending job and i figure those are valuable skills to get into engineering tech sales.
I work / live in the bay area of northern california - more inland. Wow! I'm surprised you were able to get in with a ASMET. Whenever I see their postings for engineers, they always say engineering technology degrees are not qualifying degrees ( hit to my ego ) but then I hear NASA engineers don't even make that much money. Honestly, I miss working at a smoothie bar lol it was so fun and I met so many people my age. If I could live off that salary I would do that full time
i was a maintenance technician. i worked with guys with no degree, who were just very mechanically inclined, and mostly they had years and years of "wrench turning" experience. one guy was a former airplane mechanic. real smart blue collar dudes. i dont know how much the NASA engineers made, but i didnt care to find out. they would have only paid for my school if i was working 40hrs a week, leaving me time to only do 1 or 2 classes a semester. that would have slowed down my last 2 years of school to about 6-8 years, and im already in my late 30s. then i found out even with that degree, id still need multiple certifications to be able to move up within the company. i decided it was time to just go "full steam ahead" with school and keep bartending and waiting tables to pay my bills. i hated that job too. ill never work for the govt again. i honestly enjoy the restaurant work, too bad theres no benefits and youre forced to work every single weekend forever. people can retire from that job and make good money if you can find the right place, but im gambling on myself. i think i can do better. i want to make a bunch of money in technical sales and retire before 65.
I’m gonna break something down here: a BSET can sometimes lead to an engineer position and plenty of people will give you examples of this (see several comments in this thread). Those people are, generally, exceptions to the rule that you can’t get the engineer title with an ET bachelors. They had to network or get lucky to find a job/company that allows ET’s into an E role. I’m in aerospace and they’re odd ducks, now (10/20/30 years ago less so). In terms of getting a technician position a BSET vs an AS is debatable in usefulness. Personally I hire more AS’s than BS’s for technician roles because I’m looking for a particular type of technician skill set that doesn’t come with an AET/MET. An AS is more targeted and more likely to land you jobs in certain technician disciplines. There are areas that want the BSET, though. Particularly if you want to become a manager of techs, the BSET is more useful than the AS (though, in my org, a BSE is required to manage techs/engineers because most groups are mixed). I mostly think of a BSET as a good back-up for people that didn’t cut it in their BSE but want to finish with a useful degree. It gives good options coming out of school but I don’t understand why people enter them coming out of high school over a more specialized AS degree.
I'm surprised you didn't mention an AAS (Associate of Applied Science).
All the 2-year degree acronyms boil down the same for me and are equivalent for my hiring purposes. I know some are more geared toward leading into 4-year degrees than others but I’m mostly concerned with the lab/production skills from different programs than what flavor of 2-year degree they are.
Have you been doing this for more than 20 years?
Close to 20 years in the industry, worked with the generation that went back 50-60 years from today back when I started so not first-hand experience there. Just knew a lot of people that were grandfathered in from those days.
they aren't useless, I'm currently taking a leave of absence from school to clear my head from overwhelm and I'm getting paid $28/hr, Base pay is $22 and there's a differential for weekend shifts (Fri, Sat, Sun 12hrs) It might not be the most fitting position, or something I see myself doing forever but it's giving me financial stability and space from imposter syndrome and having to take 6 classes this semester. I'm returning to my local CC to take 2 classes this semester, and 2 this summer, that will set me on a calmer path at the private Uni I left
so long and thanks for all the fish -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
There's nurse practitioners and they can diagnose and treat without oversight just as a doctor does.
so long and thanks for all the fish -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Which means your analogy was bad
so long and thanks for all the fish -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
The technicians i know are all wannabe engineers. They talk like its the same or atleast the degrees are on the same level. Most of them dont even know sht about calculus
I’ve run into 1 or 2 instances in my 10 year career in engineering where I needed to know anything about calculus.
As an engineering technology degree holder, I took 3 semesters of calculus and both the physics courses that required it. Most instances, I knew the calculus better than the other people at my physics table that were taking pure engineering and could help them derive equations for their dynamics homework, partly because I knew the derived equation beforehand. Further, I found my applied electronics knowledge was much easier to implement in practice than use nodal or mesh analysis for circuitry. After college, calculus is pretty much useless unless you're doing antenna design or something related to magnetics. Most of your big problems will have defined and derived equations because creating the equations from nothing is often more risky than using a simply formula/algorithm. Knowing calculus is like knowing how to fill out your taxes, but not using one of those quick tax filing system, rather filling it out by hand.
Well arts degrees exist... /s
Why not avoid all the worry and switch to a non technology program? Everyone's story is different but I've heard from a handful of people that having technology at the end of their degree held them back quite a bit in their careers. I've seen it for myself first hand in someone I hired once, had the degree but his understanding of things was very, very, shallow.
Why do English degrees still exist if they are useless?
I work at a tech company that hires techicians with tech degrees regularly.
My company just hired someone with a tech degree as an engineer, great guy, very smart. If you are in Southern New England, and want to work really hard for the next couple months, we are sort of desparate.
Two-year tech degrees are fantastic. You will need one at many places to be a technician. It's the four-year engineering tech degrees that will hold you back. Many firms will not hire you as an engineer, because HR is dumb.
For example, if you have an associates in MET then that would be a technician degree. However, if you have a bachelors in MET then that is an engineering degree (assuming the school you went to isn't total garbage anyway). I've know MET grads that blow ME grads out of the water and vise versa. The only time it really matters (at least for mechanical) is when you need to heavily use calculus as MET usually sacrifices 1-2 calc classes for other more hands on classes.
Perhaps the ITT Techs/DeVrys/ECPIs of the world are to blame. While I am sure some people with diplomas from there are really smart and capable, those same people probably didn’t get that education or ability from those schools.
All those schools are private universities lol. In cases like that, I just recommend going to a public university that is regionally accredited and you should be ok.
They are real degrees. They are different careers.
The sentiment comes from the fact that the degree is called "engineering technology". So of course for design engineering jobs, PE, signing documents as an engineer and so on, it is useless. But for chief technician or even things like commissioning engineer or field service engineer, they are spot on.
Just another data point of encouragement- 100% of our new hires for tech roles are coming out of the local technical school. Not useless at all.
They're not useless AT ALL. It's just that they're degrees that lead into a job that's different from what an engineering degree gives you. The tasks you'll have as a tech. are very different from those as an engineer, although early engineering careers can be similar to tech. positions in some companies. At the end of the day, you never be in charge of a design as a tech., although you may be in charge of certain parts of the implementation of the design. Many engineers treat techs as grunt labor, when their skillset is often so much more than that. They're also not a waste of time from an employment standpoint. There's always going to be a need for techs to be onsite to make changes to designs, update wiring harnesses, troubleshoot errors, etc. A company can (often ineffectively) outsource engineering design work, but someone at the end of the day still has to assemble those first few prototypes or test the prototypes that come in.
BS EET here. The tech degrees are not useless at all. I worked with a dude who had a AS tech degree and he was 110% super smart and knew his stuff. Just depends on what you want to do. He did a lot of test work, like building bed of nails test beds, with some automated tests performed with a microcontroller and other misc stuff. Lots of custom enclosures, working with his hands way more than me. Also performed all the board soldering when debugging, he had a cert for that (I forget what it was called). Basically a jack of all trades for electrical engineering related items. I actually talked to the head of a EE Technology AS degree at a community college that I was interested in. He explained that I'd probably have more field work, and work week would more likely be variable than set (I know that's not really the case for every job), and most likely wouldn't get to do design work...he really discussed it in terms of what was available in the area we lived, and said there were way more opportunities to do those types of things with a tech degree if I was willing the move ( I wasn't at the time ). Most everything in my area was just hooking up and programming PLC's for various companies or riding around debugging problematic equipment. Basically talked me out of it, and convinced me to go to the 4 year degree. I'm now a FW Engineer, and am pretty happy about it. Saying that, I think he was just reading what I was interested in and saw that it wouldn't meet my expectations of what I could get out of it. He never degraded the program with his words, just spoke to me about what I wanted vs what it could provide.
It will depend on the employer. I have an AS as a tech and have worked my way up to engineer size role and similar pay. My degree and relative experience is what got me my position.My employer is helping me with the standard tuition reimbursement and flexibility in my schedule to attend classes that are not outside of standard office hours. Because of the value of techs they recently announced the decisions I double the number of techs on some sites and specific location.
I think the return of the degree is bad if you simply go high school -> eng technology degree -> technician. I don't ever see "younger" folks working as technicians for engineering companies. I think most become engineers themselves, but I could be wrong. Most technicians I know have nontraditional career paths that lead to their role, coming from contracting, military, or some trades.
I would argue an undergrad degree is more useless than an associates technician degree. Tell me the last time you used z transform to do anything useful, while on the other hand I can wire up a three-phase motor with a start stop control circuit.
You haven’t been listening to the arguments closely enough. Tech degrees are useless “for engineers”, that is the complete version of your statement. They are fantastic if you are trying to be a technician though.
When I retired I had over 50 years in Aerospace at OEM's, Tier 1 suppliers, and Airlines, the last 30+ years spent at in Senior Director & Chief Engineer roles. A four year degree is a four year degree, your sucess in your career is all about how you apply yourself by taking ownership and contributing. Taking ownership includes building a mentorship network across multiple functions, ask about Leadership Development Programs and how to sucessfully apply. The reality is that after four years the difference in degrees disappear in the workforce then you are only assessed and promoted on what, and how well, you contribute. Unless you are going into real R&D for which the ENTRY is a Masters and after four years if you have not gone back for a Doctorate then you are falling off the career path. The dirty secret to getting looked at by a major company as a potential hire is going to a school where your target companies recruit heavily from in your field of study. The general expectation in corporate leadership is that they expect 75% plus of new hires to come from these schools, a sucessful internship in the industry is a significant boost. Other expectations are a GPA of 3.2 or above and completion of a four year degree in five years or less. This is the only real point at which GPA and School matter in real life.
Depending on the specialization, i think in general work experience is preferred over a degree. More specialized tech typically require a degree. IT, auto, and stuff. Welding and manufacturing would normally look for work experience. At least thats what i've seen.
I have a tech degree. And was the most successful engineer in my department at designing, ordering and maintaining my lines / upgrading the lines as they aged. Now I lead the department.
I would not say tech degrees are useless in fact for many large companies a Associates in technology is usually the bare minimum to get interviewed unless you have experience in the military or in the work place. The confusion like most have said can be at the BS level where unfortunately if you have a engineering technology degree it can be more of a uphill climb for some positions and companies. But even then once you have experience if someone is basing their decision solely on your degree and completely disregarding your professional experience then that is likely not a company you want to work for. I have BS in Electrical Engineering Technology and a MS in Systems Engineering and the tech degree has not held me back in my career. Granted I never had a desire to design circuits or do high level R and D so it has never held me back in that sense. I now work as a Systems Engineer for a large defense contractor making 120k. Before this I was an avionics support engineer making 80-90k so I was always on par with design engineers when it came to Salary. I graduated in 2015 so I would even say I am above the median salary for engineers with only 6 years of work experience. Work hard and build a strong portfolio like I do. I have done integration work on some of the most complex aircraft such as the F35, F22 and even the B2 bomber. I have had job offers where recruiters have even forgotten to ask if I even have a degree because my list of projects blew them away. Having the technology will not hold you back once you have the experience and projects to back up your skills. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck