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Engineering grads taking the easy way out?

2 points by cherenkov ↗ HN
As I scour the landscape, I see some incredibly smart people who have toiled their way through competitive exams, secured admissions into some of the world’s prestigious universities and engineering programs, some even have enrolled into post-doc programs. I respect the commitment, dedication and their brilliance. I wish I did the same. I feel these people have traveled the farthest distance towards the horizons of knowledge in their areas of study.

Now, here is the unfortunate trend: these folks - after all that sweat and tears end up blogging or working in some stupid thought-leadership positions in some make-believe company creating the next web 2.0 application? Why? Why do folks who have toiled their way through Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or Materials Science end up in some stupid shop “managing” web application developers? I don’t get it.

Why can’t these talented folks with so much knowledge work on harder problems? Why settle for stupid web 2.0 applications? They have the best opportunity to contribute and create a much larger impact as opposed to the creating the next forgettable web 2.0 application that sells movie tickets or detergent. It is not even an interesting algorithm, it is a web application!

One reason I can think of is that they have no genuine interest in their area of study and they probably continued with their Ph.D. just to get it out of the way and accumulate tenure in some university. Another reason could be that they want to cash-out on their credentials and join the web application herd.

3 comments

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rcfox
I couldn't agree more! I'm currently finishing up my undergrad computer engineering degree, and it's really depressing to see people get $17 million for yet another service based on Twitter. (Money and product somewhat exaggeratedly made-up.)

I sometimes feel like the only one in my class who is interested in the low-level stuff like compilers and operating systems.

jfi
I'd also add it is upsetting to see engineers and comp sci grads head off into finance to build credit default swaps and binary exotic options instead of, as you said, working on things that really matter. I'm guilty of it myself, but escaped 2 years ago and started a company to help soon to graduate students find cool companies, rather than just those that can come to campus.

I believe the reason for the Wall St / hedge fund path is the promise of working in a challenging work environment, solving difficult problems, and earning a lot of coin. The first two wore off for me after 2ish years and the financial crisis detracted from the last. They can be a persuasive siren song though and it is easy to settle when there aren't a lot of other options that are immediately available.

nolite
One thing you need to realize, is that "hard problems" and "important things" cost money. That's just the cold hard reality of life. Now its one thing to go to the frontiers of knowledge, and push your way through the edge like Einstein, or Feynmann.. and if you can do that, its great, and 1000% respectable. Most of us aren't a Feynmann though.. and instead of pushing through in denial, we recognize that and move on. And the reality is, that you can do waay more with money than you can do with raw intelligence alone.

So another and probably more realistic choice is to take cues from Elon Musk, or Mike Lazaridis, or David Shaw: go make mint with a stupid web application, or finance or whatever, and then go use that money to work on important problems, such as:

Space X http://www.spacex.com/

Tesla Motors http://www.teslamotors.com/

Solar City http://www.solarcity.com/

Perimiter Institute http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/

DE Shaw Research http://www.deshawresearch.com/

That's how you get things done