Based on the top 10 rewards and opportunities listed in Studying Engineering (Discovery Press, 1995), by Raymond Landis

1. Job Satisfaction
It’s important to find a career that you enjoy. After all, you’ll probably be spending eight hours or more a day, five days a week, at your job. Engineering can provide a satisfying field of work.

2. Variety of Career Opportunities
From electrical and computer engineering, to environmental and biomedical engineering, an engineering degree offers a wide range of career possibilities. But the majority of today’s college graduates will have more than one career during their work life, and engineering can provide a strong foundation for almost any one of them.

3. Challenging Work
There is no shortage of challenging problems in engineering. There is no single answer, no answer in the back of the book, no professor to tell you that you are right or wrong. You must devise a solution and persuade others that your solution is the best one.

4. Intellectual Development
An engineering education will exercise your brain, developing your ability to think logically and to solve problems. These are skills that will be valuable throughout your life—and not only when you are solving engineering problems.

5. Potential to Benefit Society
As an engineer, you can choose to work on projects that benefit society, such as cleaning up the environment, developing prosthetic aids for disabled persons, developing clean and efficient transportation systems, finding new sources of energy, alleviating the world’s hunger problems, and increasing the standard of living in underdeveloped countries.

6. Financial Security
Engineering is a lucrative career. Engineering graduates receive the highest starting salary of any discipline.

7. Prestige
Engineers help sustain our nation’s international competitiveness, maintain our standard of living, ensure a strong national security, and protect public safety. As a member of such a respected profession, you will receive a high amount of prestige.

8. Professional Environment
As an engineer, you will work in a professional environment in which you will be treated with respect, have a certain amount of freedom in choosing your work, and have the opportunity to learn and grow through both on-the-job training and formal training.

9. Technological and Scientific Discovery
Do you know why golf balls have dimples on them, or why split-level houses experience more damage in earthquakes? An engineering education can help you answer these questions, and push you to ask new questions of your own.

10. Creative Thinking
Engineering is by its very nature a creative profession. Because we are in a time of rapid social and technological changes, the need for engineers to think creatively is greater now than ever before. If you like to question, explore, invent, discover, and create, then engineering could be the ideal profession for you.

Filed under: Explore Engineering