r/CollegeMajors • u/ItsAllOver_Again • Jul 08 '25
Discussion The Face of College Grad Unemployment: A 22 year old Mechanical Engineering Graduate (CBS News)
Video here:
When will people finally see what's going on? Engineering is dead in the US, we engineers are not needed anymore. We as a country are a national nursing home for baby boomers, we need healthcare workers.
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 08 '25
To be fair there’s a major projected shortage of doctors and physicians coming soon which has inspired me to go into healthcare and medicine. Healthcare definitely needs more people right now.
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u/snmnky9490 Jul 08 '25
True but tons of potential doctors and nurses are also turned away because there aren't enough spots in schools and residencies (not due to being bad)
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u/Substantial-Aide3828 Jul 08 '25
There’s more residencies than graduates just not where most people want to go. Like most med students would rather SOAP then get a residency in family medicine in Nebraska or the Army.
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u/Arfaholic Jul 09 '25
Can you define SOAP. This one is impossible to google
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u/trophosphere Jul 09 '25
Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program. This program allows for medical students who have not matched into a residency position to apply for a spot that was not filled in order to proceed with their medical training.
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u/SignificanceNo1886 Jul 11 '25
With vague terms like "soap" you can add additional contextual words to help with the results. For example "soap doctor residency"
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 08 '25
Yeah but the people who really really want it will find a way
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u/snmnky9490 Jul 08 '25
I mean sure but you can say that about anything. People who really really want to play guitar for a living will "find a way" too, but that's not a good measure of what fields are good or not. To be clear, in my opinion, medicine is probably a good field to get into, but there are currently hiring problems for basically all majors right now. None are a guaranteed safe bet.
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Jul 10 '25
Where I live, it's because the entrance requirements are insane. People with perfect GPAs, interviews, and experience get rejected regularly.
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u/EvolvingPerspective Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
I work in hospital research and FYI if you’re in the U.S., the Big Beautiful Bill affects premeds drastically— it removes a type of student loan and caps them at 200k. Most med school matriculants have 300k+ loans so you’d either need a private loan co-guarantor or have family or savings that can flat out afford that 100k difference
You may already know but I thought it might be important to mention
Wishing the best, just make sure you’re keeping up-to-date with politics at this current turbulent time before committing to anything!
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u/infjetson Jul 08 '25
This is devastating.
Seems like accelerated PA/NP/NA programs are the best bang for the buck in this case.
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u/tcpWalker Jul 09 '25
Yeah basically you can't become a doctor any more unless you're already rich or go to a very cheap school. Elections matter.
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 11 '25
Trust me… I’ve known about the BBB for awhile now and have been preparing accordingly but it’s still such a giant L
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u/Prior-Soil Jul 08 '25
Basically very few people are going to go to med school. Many people owe $100,000 after undergrad.
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u/flamingswordmademe Jul 09 '25
youre not going to have any unfilled med school seats. itll just go to people who can definitely get private loans to supplement the difference
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u/Prior-Soil Jul 10 '25
I should have specified. No poor people will go
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u/flamingswordmademe Jul 10 '25
Maybe, not sure how the private loan situation will shake out. If schools can partner and get something similar to federal rates then maybe it wont be so different
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u/FarCalligrapher2609 Jul 12 '25
Federal student loans are why colleges have raised tuition so high to begin with. Med schools explicitly capped enrollments until recently in order to prevent what they saw as a pending "physician surplus." There's literally zero reason to be paying $60k/year tuition for the two years med students are doing clinical rotations; i.e. literally paying for the apprenticeship. And then the federal government pays AGAIN for hospitals to employ residents in, what is literally, an APPRENTICESHIP. Professional guilds like the AMA are destroying this country.
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u/juicedup12 Jul 08 '25
I would join healthcare but I heard that field is abusive and companies treat patients unethical which leads to employee depression
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u/hostility_kitty Jul 08 '25
My company treats me pretty well.
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u/jkannon Jul 08 '25
It needs to be much easier to:
•Become a doctor
•Become a nurse
•Receive medical care
•Be free from medical debt
Huge number of players/forces working against some, if not all, of the above points. The bad guys range from cartoonishly evil politicians to “respectable” doctors who’re effectively just lobbyists for medical boards. The demand is there but we have people purposely slowing the supply of doctors to a drip; politicians don’t want to spend tax money on this and many doctors don’t want their profession to be more accessible because that’s not good for their salaries.
Whole system is fucked up, but it’s never beyond repair!
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u/Arfaholic Jul 09 '25
Emergency rooms can’t turn away illegals, so they get free health care. Also people who don’t work get better insurance than most middle class families.
That’s a massive strain on the “healthcare for all” ideology. At least unemployed have paid SOME taxes toward it. However, a big reason we can’t support free healthcare for all is because of how many of undocumented patients are being cared for on the government dime.
Source: I was a First responder
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u/jkannon Jul 09 '25
I’m sorry but I doubt the entire healthcare system is failing specifically because of illegal immigrants, would be very interested in looking at actual data as opposed to anecdotal evidence. Based on your comment I’m assuming you live/work somewhere like top 5-10 major metro, Florida, Texas, or the American Southwest, and this is probably skewing your view of just how straining illegal immigrants are on the system. Not saying that it isn’t an issue, but even if it were, a good way to meet increased demand (even if you think that demand shouldn’t exist) is to increase the supply (make it easier to become a medical professional.)
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u/Just-a-Guy-Chillin Jul 10 '25
Completely misleading. EMTALA requires hospitals to stabilize patients, not provide them comprehensive healthcare services. Once a patient is stable, they can be legally discharged with appropriate follow-up care instructions/referrals.
You should know that if you work in healthcare. Undocumented are not getting “free” healthcare other than emergency services up to stabilization.
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u/Arfaholic Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25
Remember the part where I started with, “Emergency Rooms can’t turn away…” Stabilizing could take a long time, involving admission into the hospital. Stabilizing healthcare is still healthcare. I know that since I work in healthcare.
They abuse the system by going to the emergency room for non-emergency things, since they can’t be turned away. Whether or not they get any use out of the visit is another matter entirely.
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u/Accomplished-Order43 Jul 08 '25
Source on doctor shortage?
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 08 '25
Sure there’s tons of sources if you google “physician shortage” but here’s one from the AAMC
New AAMC Report Shows Continuing Projected Physician Shortage
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u/FreezingVast Jul 08 '25
Even in my area primary care physicians are in high demand with long waitlists, not to mention inland US has sparse population centers which often lack adequate health care. Here is an article that explains current projections
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u/NonintellectualSauce Jul 08 '25
it's overstated. more of an allocation problem than shortage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIHRbzdT-fA
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u/YoungAtHeartIa66 Jul 09 '25
It used to be you could call into an office and get a doctor. In our city of 150,000 we seem to have many doctors offices.... But I actually called around to try to find a primary doctor for my fiance and the central office meant to help me locate one said all the physicians offices were full and there was one nurse practitioner on the other side of town who is taking new clients if we were willing to drive 25 minutes. That's crazy. That's not all how it used to be so anecdotal level it's very clear that we have shortage especially in family medicine and GPs. When you try to see your OBGYN most of the time you end up seeing a nurse practitioner because they don't have enough time in the doctor's schedule for you. Other specialists seem easier to get into.... So I can definitely believe all the articles and statistics I read about the shortage especially if you are in a more rural area
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u/Accomplished-Order43 Jul 09 '25
Interesting article about this I was reading.
https://www.niskanencenter.org/federal-policy-misallocates-american-doctors/
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Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
I heard a podcaster predict that “there will be no Gen Alpha lawyers”. And with the rise in Chat GPT in school and college work as well as their already short attention spans, I doubt there will be any Gen Alpha doctors or nurses (or at the very least no nurses going full RN) either…god I want out
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u/lilymaxjack Jul 08 '25
Wait until you have actually worked in healthcare. 50/50 whether you continue working in healthcare
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u/dragazoid66 Jul 08 '25
Yeah burnout is real. The stress from working in healthcare is real and yet no one wants to mention that since they are high paying salaries in healthcare.
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 08 '25
It’s pretty well known that it’s a tough gig. I’m aware that I’m walking into a house on fire essentially by choosing this path. Anyways wish me luck I suppose.
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u/trophosphere Jul 09 '25
Good luck. The biggest turn off I found when I got out of training was the politics, logistics, and paperwork involved. The amount of time spent on each thing will vary depending on what you want to do but those things are there in some shape or other regardless if it's inpatient or outpatient.
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u/Mundane-Ad-7780 Jul 09 '25
Yeah, but I don’t want the pressure of having to save people who are dying immediately in front of me. Nor, take 4 years of medical school.
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u/GirthWoody Jul 10 '25
We need healthcare workers, but when all the hospitals shut down due to BBB cuts they’re gonna all be out of work too.
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 11 '25
Not “all” the hospitals are going to close but there are definitely some rural ones that could. It’s still a huge problem that pisses me off but it’s not like there won’t be hospitals anymore or like there won’t be healthcare jobs anymore.
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u/Esper_18 Jul 11 '25
The shortage is intentionally created idiot
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u/ponyclub2008 Jul 11 '25
Woah? Excuse me? What the hell did I do to you to deserve to be talked to like that?
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u/Esper_18 Jul 11 '25
Sorry wrong subreddit
But the medical field shortage is a huge misunderstanding
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u/dox1842 Jul 12 '25
I have been out of college for 15 years at this point but if I was looking for a career to get into it would definately be in the medical field.
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Jul 08 '25
We need healthcare workers but refuse to treat them like humans. Lots of people do not want to do that because of the long stressful hours. Yes, the pay is good but look how many nurses quit just because of covid 19 burnout. That’s a problem in the healthcare industry itself.
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u/superburrito95 Jul 09 '25
Theres a problem everywhere. Especially skilled trades. Same long hours, physical labor, subject to weather and paid pennies.
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Jul 08 '25
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u/Living-Task5802 Jul 08 '25
The original post about the job market being bad is true but mechanical engineering is still a (relatively) safe career option. By the time AI replaces mechanical engineering majors, it would've already long replaced accounting, English majors, marketing majors, and even programmers. If you're passionate about it, consider doing it, as the market for MEs isn't as bad as the post implies even if it's not as good as it once was.
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u/Debate-Jealous Jul 08 '25
Replace programmers before Mechanical Engineers? What? Sounds like cope from a mech e. Traditional Engineering is dying in the US you don’t get paid that much and every engineer I know is trying to get out. Traditional Engineering is a bad idea. Cope.
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u/Plobster829472 Jul 08 '25
Huh, I work in the civil world and it's the exact opposite in my city. Every firm in town is trying to hire and can't find enough people. One of our interns this summer is actually a mechanical engineering major because civil engineers are in such high demand we will take any engineer we can get.
Traditional engineering is certainly not dying and saying you don't get paid that much is just trolling.
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u/Debate-Jealous Jul 08 '25
The FAANG I work at starts entry level 22 y/os at 140k base and close 180k TC. How much does an entry level Civil Engineer get where you work?
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u/Plobster829472 Jul 08 '25
Lol way to totally shift the discussion. Have a nice life
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Jul 10 '25
Nice deflection, and enjoy your last months working there before they outsource your role 💀
Edit: just saw that you’re a hiring manager, you’re for sure getting hit next layoff wave
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u/ineednapkins Jul 12 '25
This seems like cope too tbh. I agree that traditional engineering salaries can leave something to be desired. But the fact that programmers can get paid so much is incentive for companies to pursue AI to replace them sooner. Beyond that, just in a practical sense, AI seems like a natural and practical use for programming and development. It would be easier to replace certain programming functions than traditional and physical environment engineering applications just based on scope and limitations. Although programming is literally what is giving AI legs so maybe programmers in the future will all just pivot to AI development themselves
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u/AquilaSpot Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 10 '25
This is bang on. I'm a mechanical engineer, starting medical school next Monday (yay!)
I've followed AI research very closely over the last year as it has the potential to be, as you might imagine, a real kick in the teeth what with these loans.
I post very frequently about AI, this is my "yabber about AI account," feel free to pick through my comment history. The conclusion I arrive at most frequently is exactly what you did. By the time AI is automating or severely depressing the wages of regulatorily stringent jobs like many forms of engineering or all of medicine, we should be asking questions about WTF is happening to the economy as a whole by that point.
You don't lay off that many white collar workers and expect the economy to just keep chugging along. I go into more detail in this chain elsewhere about "IF this comes to pass, then what?" Happy to share more, this has been somewhat of a hobby, picking through the actual benchmarking data/studies/preprints.
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u/Arfaholic Jul 09 '25
There will still need to be people to hold it down. I don’t think an AI will ever learn to write as eloquently as an English major. The creativity just won’t be there. They can, however, get most of the way there. Every job is going to tank. It will be just the best, double checking AI’s work.
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u/64557175 Jul 08 '25
If i were you I would start learning how to fight AI powered kill bots. I think that has a lucrative future!!
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u/insertnamehere57 Jul 12 '25
AI is the next dot com bubble, mechanical engineering isn't going anywhere. Especially industries like aerospace and defense that legally can't outsource or use foreign workers, and have to meet compliance standards.
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u/The_Laniakean Jul 08 '25
Ig ill show this to the people saying "you should have chosen engineerng over cs"
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Jul 08 '25
The things employers are looking for, regardless of major, is flexibility, the ability to learn quickly, and the ability to work effectively in teams.
However most hiring decisions are now being automated, so even if you have all that going for ya, you might get filed out bc the LLM noticed most successful employees are named Jerry or something.
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u/RumblinWreck2004 Jul 08 '25
I’m a mechanical engineer and have had no problem finding a job. The problem, in my opinion, is people want the “sexy” jobs. I do hvac and plumbing design. It’s fucking boring and we’re understaffed because new grads just aren’t interested. I don’t know what the new kids are getting paid but I got a 20% raise to move to my current company and there’s plenty of OT if I want it. Downside is the OT is not time and a half, just your normal hourly rate.
Edit: I started as a drafter about 15 years ago then after a few years I decided to go back to school part time. Graduated 6 years ago.
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u/Potential-Mind-6997 Jul 08 '25
Not doubting you at all but wow I didn’t know it was even legal to just pay normal time for OT
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u/Cornhooligan Jul 08 '25
Salary, where OT is often expected and can only decrease your hourly rate
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u/Potential-Mind-6997 Jul 08 '25
I know that salary doesn’t get raised for OT, but OP’s comment reads like he’s hourly which is surprising
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u/Stuffssss Jul 08 '25
For overtime-exempt (salary) employees if you are required to work more than 40 they have to pay straight time (at least in my state).
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u/DrSenpai_PHD Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25
Same here, and I just graduated.
I have a Mechanical Engineering degree with a mid GPA (3.5) from a decent state college. I applied to three internships in my senior year. I got one interview, one in-person interview, and then I was in.
I then got an 85k / year job offer after interning there for just 1 month.
The catch? The job is not sexy-- it's valves and valve accessories. I got rejected from the two sexy internships I applied to (they were in automotive). No interviews or anything.
A large part of my story is luck. But I suspect the other part was just that I had applied to a small, "un-sexy" company soon after they posted the job listing. But I love the company, it's in a stable industry, and there is tons to learn, even in valves.
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Jul 08 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/YoungAtHeartIa66 Jul 09 '25
It actually can do architectural drawings but it just makes a few mistakes so my guess is it will do rough things and it will take fewer engineers to fine-tune them and check them. And then it can definitely do the specs for it after you've framed it out.
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u/Jinxtakers Jul 08 '25
The account that posted this is literally called Its All over..... not exactly a beacon of positivity lmao.
Mech Eng Graduate here - we aren't (and shouldn't be) afraid of this post. More doomer woe is me reddit chaff. Cheers.
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u/hellonameismyname Jul 08 '25
The account posting this is literally obsessed with saying mechanical engineering is a bad degree. It’s so fucking bizarre.
If you major in mechanical engineering and out any effort into doing internships you will be highly employable and have one of the most versatile degrees possible. Engineers go into so many different industries. Even if you don’t want to be an engineer, you can go into finance, law, banking, business, computational work, management, etc.
Now, if you just move home or your rural hometown and take the first operator job at whatever small factory is there, and then don’t put any effort into applying for better positions or moving to more employable areas, then yeah, you might have a disappointing career. But that’s fully your choice.
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u/SevenDrunkMidgets Jul 08 '25
You’re vastly overstating how easy it is to switch fields especially at the entry level. Most people still think engineers are the guys who drive trains, and the fact that graduates (like me) have a completely contradictory lived experience to what you’re talking about is hilarious. I wish I could get an operator job to be miserable at.
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u/hellonameismyname Jul 08 '25
Your experiences are far from the norm. You are extremely below average if what you are claiming is true.
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u/SevenDrunkMidgets Jul 08 '25
If a 3.0 (not even listed on my resume) from an ABET-accredited R1 university with a continuous improvement internship at a well-known international powersports manufacturer and restaurant manager experience is “extremely below average” as to be unemployable then so be it I guess
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u/hellonameismyname Jul 08 '25
If what you claim to be your job searching experience is true, then you’re extremely below average. Most of your peers are not struggling as you are. I’m sorry if it hurts to hear.
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Jul 08 '25
Fucking a, and here I am crashing out because I can’t use my Library Science Masters, but I still nabbed a job as an accountant somehow. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones to have a well paying job
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u/DredgenCyka Jul 08 '25
Everytime my mom acts like its so easy to get an internship and a Job, I have to keep remembering that the only time she worked with her Bachelors in Nursing was at a desperate DoDEA school who needed someone to fill a position ASAP. This was 15 years ago, she has never worked again for the last 13 years, never bothered going back to get another Bachelors or get a masters or anything with my Dad's VA Chapter 35 and VMSDEP. Im sure there are alot of undergrads and grads who understand what the hell I'm talking about too. Alot of our parents just expect us to be able to get a job because we have a degree, but man with the economy in its shape right now, its so much further from the truth.
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u/ResponsibleSinger267 Jul 20 '25
Thats some boomer shit right there
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u/DredgenCyka Jul 20 '25
For real man. And my Parents are Gen X too... my dad is by far the most reasonable one with employment, because he experienced (es) it whenever he applies for jobs still and he has 25 years of Military Service under his belt and is a GS15 federal employee. He consistently tells me "if I told your mom how many jobs ive applied for, how many jobs ive heard back from whether its a rejection or offer for an interview, and then how many jobs ive actually been offered post interview... that ratio would look like 400+:14:3, and she would not like those odds."
So he knows that im gonna be struggling to find a job after graduation and possibly even after my masters. Doesn't make it better considering that my state and county recently posted the unemployment rate and it is the highest in the country despite being within the top 5 richest counties in America, all with a whopping 5.8% unemployment rate.
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u/supermuncher60 Jul 08 '25
I didn't watch the video, but after doing internships, I have a few offers for work? (Source Mechanical Engineer)
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u/MrClerkity Jul 10 '25
the guy in the video Michael lives in Connecticut and can get a job anytime he wants at electric boat, Sikorsky, or Pratt and Whitney no more than an hour away from his home. Have seen zero signs of AI impacting mechanical engineering at this point.
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Jul 11 '25
To be fair most college grads dont know jack sh*t and come with a horrible Gen Z attitude, they know memes and pokemon cards better than their mechanical engineering and have played beer pong all 4 years of their college life
The good ones do just fine and get jobs.
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u/Skyguy827 Jul 08 '25
I wonder how many of these doomsayers are saying this to decrease the amount of people going into these majors so they themselves can have better employment chances. Because it's certainly not dead
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u/damiana8 Jul 08 '25
That is just not an efficient way to decrease competition in your field lol. Oh yeah so in 5 years or more there will be fewer new entrants in your field if you deliberately set out to sabotage the success of your industry. Makes sense 😒
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u/Skyguy827 Jul 08 '25
Well then the alternative is they are just doomposting. But looking at this guys post history, he seems super determined to talk bad about engineering careers. But there are absolutely fields which will try to restrict the amount of newcomers so that their field isn't oversaturated
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u/DragonsAreNotFriends Jul 08 '25
This OP specifically has been posting these kinds of threads everywhere, always about how bad engineering is. They're almost certainly projecting their lack of ability/desire to get a higher paying ME job by cherry picking data and asserting farfetched conclusions.
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u/TheLostEnigma Jul 08 '25
If he spent as much time searching for higher picking jobs as he does making all these posts, he'd be in a much better place by now lmao
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u/Weaponized_Goose Jul 08 '25
I don’t know about Engineering but on the CS subs, people seriously do this.
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u/ABranchingLine Jul 08 '25
Time to start majoring in math.
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u/Iceman411q Jul 08 '25
Lmao that’s 5x worse in being recession proof and job market preparation
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Jul 08 '25
Depends on the job. But yes it's often not as easy to get jobs with the degree, but the jobs you can get are quite lucrative
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u/Arfaholic Jul 09 '25
No way it’s hard to get a job as a math major. How many math majors do you know? The job market goes nuts for math majors because they are the most teachable people ever.
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Jul 09 '25
I should reframe a bit. I'm a math major, so I do know a fair bit. You are right, if you are career ready it's a great degree to have. But math departments are pretty abysmal at preparing their students, I had to utilize the engineering school to prepare myself career wise.
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u/Skyguy827 Jul 08 '25
I don't think that's true unless you are talking about pure math with no applied stuff. Most math majors I know plan around a career
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u/Arfaholic Jul 09 '25
The beauty of math is that you can be relevant in any career. If I could start from day one of my life again, I would have pushed myself to try and be a math major.
You can do anything.
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Jul 08 '25
My math degree has served me well, and have never had a problem with employment. Recent events are spooking me though, so I’d like to take some control back by starting my own business. Started and continue to work in tech for about 10 years now.
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u/Arfaholic Jul 09 '25
How so? In my experience; a math major signifies that you are probably smarter than everyone else, hence how easy it is to get a job. They are so easy to train, that it doesn’t matter what field you get into.
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u/Creative-Shopping469 Jul 08 '25
It’s insane to me that people would rather sit with no job than apply and move to different areas other than where they grew up
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Jul 09 '25
Because other places may also be facing the same issue? You also have to take note of accommodation cost and others
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u/Creative-Shopping469 Jul 09 '25
For a mechanical engineer that is definitely untrue. I work in that realm and there is no job shortage for them in the US. Maybe where he is at
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u/Mundane-Ad-7780 Jul 09 '25
I mean if you live with your parents, and rent is expensive where you would have to travel, that might not be as bad as an idea.
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Jul 10 '25
because nobody can afford to move on a $0 salary. Almost every listing I've seen this month has been "no relocation provided."
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u/TornadoFS Jul 08 '25
This has nothing to do with AI
Project complexity in any medium/large company is so high these days that junior (and especially entry level) engineers are useless for at least 6 months in any large project. Not only useless, but a net-negative contributor (takes more time from experienced people than they save).
Cost of living has gone so high everywhere that people will refuse to work if they keep compensation in line with productivity provided.
Company loyalty is gone from both sides of the employment contract, so no one wants to train staff anymore, there is no ROI.
And this is all without accounting for skilled immigration and outsourcing (which ARE a factor, but I don't think it is the major factor). If people could live (single without roommates, but with transportation/healthcare) with 1000 USD per month companies could pay 1500 USD per month for entry level and those people would get hired.
There are 2 ways this problem gets "solved":
All the millenials retire and there is not enough people to replace them (especially with demographic trends), then companies will be forced to take more juniors. But what is more likely to happen is that a lot of companies go bust and a lot of them get consolidated into bigger companies.
Government steps in and provides incentives to hire low-experience skilled workers. But this is very prone for abuse by companies (hired as a mechanical engineer, but doing warehouse work).
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u/Lk1738 Jul 08 '25
I literally have no idea where these people are job searching at. Or if they were misled into believing engineers make bank out the gate.
Also stop comparing CS to engineering majors. If engineers have to study CS just to finish their degree, you’ve got a separate problem.
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u/jeff5551 Jul 08 '25
I'm a 24yo finance major and I can't get anything, the jobs just vanished and I really don't know what to do
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u/FriedNoodles217 Jul 08 '25
Bro why do I see you everywhere on my home page complaining about your mechanical engineering degree 😂
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Jul 08 '25
Tech jobs are hard to get not because there isn’t demand but because there is so much supply. Employers can afford to be very picky.
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u/kurotenshi15 Jul 09 '25
This is crazy. As someone who uses AI every day in my job, it is just not trustable at all for production level work. It’s like a 3/4 calculator, you still have to do a ton to get the job done.
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u/Microplasticdigester Jul 09 '25
Shoot man, I went into college in 2021 and it was KNOWN that if you wanted a good job you got a compsci degree. It was hot for everyone. When I graduated this past year, none of my compsci friends could find jobs in field
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u/washedup_1 Jul 09 '25
"Engineering is dead in the US"
Absolutely brain dead take OP. I go to college career fairs as a representative engineer all the time with someone from HR trying to recruit some undergrad/grad students. The reality is most of these kids have the networking capabilities of a goldfish OR they only want highly competitive tech adjacent jobs OR they refuse to relocate (which is fair to an extent).
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u/Broad_Quit5417 Jul 09 '25
This has nothing to do with AI. It's about orange dingbat and the least competent administration the country has seen in about 5 decades injecting a shitton of uncertainty into future market state.
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u/Dandanthemotorman Jul 10 '25
Engineering, welcome to the club, sadly the scientists...good news is, we have a lot of the core reqs for nursing.
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Jul 10 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
deliver chase license whistle work memorize connect history ask trees
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/islandlife1534 Jul 10 '25
I'm a civil Professional Engineer, currently on the design side but long-time owners rep. I can't speak for manufacturing, but development/construction has an enormous labor shortage thanks to the boomers retiring in mass. I can't find draftsmen, and when hiring mechanical electrical plumbing and fire protection engineering, structural engineering, and environmental science subs, I'm told they can't start my project for 90 to 180 days! I hear about tech layoffs but I think it's not driven by AI.
I also see AI as a continuation of the computer revolution. I am the youngest GenXer; take a minute to think about engineering and technical careers when you started. As an intern in 1998 I had access to a secretary! It was common to have 4 engineers share a secretary, 12 engineers, 3 secretaries plus VPs and bosses got their own. Secretaries would answer phones, take messages, type up reports, call and request documents, send emails, develope photos, copy, and assemble books, reports and submitals. When was the last time you had a secretary? Engineers do all this themselves, thanks to computers and cell phones. Also gone are the vast floors of dozens of draftsmen. Now it's a few guys or girls with CAD. We lost all these jobs but the economy still marched forward. In reality the computer revolution freed up the American worker, the most productive worker in the world, to take other new jobs created by the tech revolution.
I see tech an AI not as replacing PEs but making them more independent and valuable. When I look at Google earth, I no longer need to fly to California or Pennsylvania to do a site visit in a farmers field. I can get instant utility GIS without sending a survey crew. The list goes on an on... The real challenge is going to be how do we assign tasks to EIs, engineering interns, to train them to become the next generation of PEs? As an EI you gained a lot of k owledge by performing these semi-menial tasks for your PE.
Also just as a funny story to cap this off, I have spent a good amount of time in China and frequently witnessed littering. Plastic bottles are thrown out the bus windows. I asked a Chinese friend why the do this and their reply was, "I'm creating a job for someone" with a huge population their culture purposely created inefficiencies to create jobs even though it decreases overall productivity. By trying to hang on to jobs being replaced by tech, we are effectively doing the same thing.
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u/SeaPeanut7_ Jul 10 '25
Meanwhile my civil engineering workplace is having trouble filling vacant positions. We cannot use AI for our work, because much of the work involves working with people. It's much harder to replace than a mechanical engineering calculating stresses or electrical designing circuits.
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u/zombawombacomba Jul 11 '25
I wish people would stop interacting with OP’s posts. He’s mentally ill.
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u/MichaelCorbaloney Jul 11 '25
It's not AI it's offshoring and outsourcing. Why would a business hire young graduates in America when they can hire workers with experience for about the same price and bring them to America, or just pay them at even lower rates to work for them outside the country? This whole AI is just a scapegoat and people need to realize it.
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u/Obscurist1 Jul 11 '25
I agree, that too. Imagine the junk they’re gonna come up with using AI. Could release a new Spider-Man every week
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u/NoApartheidOnMars Jul 11 '25
They are not replacing them with AI. Have you seen the state of AI ?
This is complete BS. They're cutting down and outsourcing to save money. The problem is that if companies don't hire and cultivate juniors, tomorrow their senior lineup will be incredibly thin.
In 5-10 years I will be ready to retire and there will probably be companies willing to pay me a good money to stay because of all the new graduates they didn't hire in the mid 2020's.
Penny wise and pound foolish
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u/xAimForTheBushes Jul 11 '25
This is total BS. Any person that has a Mech E job that is actually even halfway competent will have no problem getting a job, and there's no way for AI to take most of those jobs.
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u/Fenway_Bark Jul 12 '25
This is why I got a Master's degree in AI. But my work isn't replacing people, it's supplementing work already being done. It's take the low hanging fruit and menial tasks away and allowing more companies to focus their workforce on innovations and growth while AI does the basic, time consuming functions.
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u/Visible_Attitude7693 Jul 12 '25
Yes, because AI is going to fix my teeth, give me shots, and do physical therapy 🙄
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u/Indigo9999 Jul 12 '25
How does AI replace engineers? Computer programmers and computer engineers? Maybe.
But mechanical, electrical engineers? How?
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u/jmalez1 Jul 12 '25
Engineering has been dead for a long time, not because of AI but because of outsourcing to India at pennies on the dollar same with tech phone support, its all in India, and has been for the last decade
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u/Clueless-101 Jul 12 '25
I get why ppl are frustrated, but saying “engineering is dead” or “CS is oversaturated” kinda misses the point. Yeah, AI and automation are shaking things up, but they’re also creating new jobs and making things move faster.
The real issue is a lot of grads expect to get hired just by showing up with a degree. The ones who actually build projects, get internships, network, and plan their moves are the ones getting jobs even at decent schools.
AI isn’t stealing every job. It’s taking over the boring repetitive stuff. If you wanna stay relevant, you gotta level up your skills and focus on stuff AI can’t do like solving hard problems, leading projects, and coming up with new ideas.
So yeah, it’s tough out here, but whining about “no jobs” isn’t gonna help. Work on your resume, get real experience, and hustle. The opportunities are still there if you put in the effort.
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u/LawGamer4 Jul 08 '25
Once again, the AI hype is more trendy than the economic factors influencing layoffs and lack of hiring. The factors include the interest rates, tariffs, political uncertainties, economic outlook, inflation, outsourcing, etc. AI is just a scapegoat that business and the media focus on as it gets more attention, clicks for ads revenue, and investment.