Future in Aviation for my Son?

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:10:54 -0400, James
wrote:

Become an MBA and then a CEO. Bugger up a company and lose lots of
money, and the get paid a ****load of cash to leave. If I ever go back
to college, I would study for an MBA.

That would make some sense. Nobody trusts a fresh MBA. You gotta
have some real chops from having worked at actually producing
something before you got the MBA. OTOH, last time I was out of work
(2001-3), the most demollished guys I saw at the unemployment office
every week were the middle managers with MBAs and lots of experience
holding meetings.

Something I think the other old engineers here would agree with is
that the job market is cycllical and you need to be alert to when any
given specialty is about to tank. You have to be able to re-invent
yourself over and over -- something that takes a good basic grounding
in the fundamentals and some staying current with what's going on
outside your specialty.

Don

On Oct 11, 7:19 pm, Don Tuite
wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:10:54 -0400, James
wrote:

That would make some sense. Nobody trusts a fresh MBA. You gotta
have some real chops from having worked at actually producing
something before you got the MBA. OTOH, last time I was out of work
(2001-3), the most demollished guys I saw at the unemployment office
every week were the middle managers with MBAs and lots of experience
holding meetings.

An MBA by itself can get you a job quickly but it doesn't distinguish
you much. However, engineers with MBAs are a different story. That is
a very powerful combo.

Something I think the other old engineers here would agree with is
that the job market is cycllical and you need to be alert to when any
given specialty is about to tank. You have to be able to re-invent
yourself over and over -- something that takes a good basic grounding
in the fundamentals and some staying current with what's going on
outside your specialty.

Its always funny to me when you see engineers that got into the
industry with minimal experience during the boom time complain that
life wasn't easy forever. You can't sit around on your bottom and
expect the gravy train to keep rolling, you have to update yourself to
stay on top. Getting the MBA is part of that. I still recommend people
get the full MBA vs the eMBA. The eMBA is good for those that are
already executives but anyone else should get the full MBA.
The next degree that executives need after the MBA is the JD. That's
what I'm going to work on next. If you look through SEC filings you'll
see that more than 1/2 of executives of successful companies hold both
JD's and MBAs.

-Robert

In article , says...



"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 10, 6:24 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:
As many of you know, my son is taking flight lessons. He's past solo,
and into his cross-country flights.

He's a senior in high school, and is wondering what to do with the
rest of his life. His initial aim has been going into engineering,
but has decided that math is not something he truly enjoys. (Although
he's good at it -- far, far more advanced than I am.)

Become an Engineer and then buy his own plane.


Ha, ha. Very funny. Become an engineer and watch your job be out-sourced by
some doofus with an MBA who doesn't know which end is up, but can run a
spreadsheet.


More like : Become an engineer then see your job be outsourced to a brilliant
Indian with a PhD, who runs Mechanical Desktop and Ansys FEA in his sleep and
works 18 hours a day at $8/hour.

On Oct 13, 12:24 pm, Airbus wrote:
In article , says...





"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 10, 6:24 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:
As many of you know, my son is taking flight lessons. He's past solo,
and into his cross-country flights.

He's a senior in high school, and is wondering what to do with the
rest of his life. His initial aim has been going into engineering,
but has decided that math is not something he truly enjoys. (Although
he's good at it -- far, far more advanced than I am.)

Become an Engineer and then buy his own plane.

Ha, ha. Very funny. Become an engineer and watch your job be out-sourced by
some doofus with an MBA who doesn't know which end is up, but can run a
spreadsheet.

More like : Become an engineer then see your job be outsourced to a brilliant
Indian with a PhD, who runs Mechanical Desktop and Ansys FEA in his sleep and
works 18 hours a day at $8/hour.- Hide quoted text -

Damn, where can I get him??? We've got 14 employees in India right
now. Their compensation packages are just over 1/2 of a U.S. employee.
After adding up the costs, I've never found any cost savings in India.
The reason companies hire engineers in India is because there are lots
of them. Like I said, we've got rec's for C++ and Java programmers
right now near Sacramento and are getting nill for good resumes. We
may have to switch the recs to India just to find people. Companies
find engineers in India because there is such a shortage in the U.S.

-Robert

On Oct 10, 8:30 pm, Richard Riley wrote:
On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:07:20 -0700, "Tom Conner"
wrote:







"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 10, 6:24 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:
As many of you know, my son is taking flight lessons. He's past solo,
and into his cross-country flights.

He's a senior in high school, and is wondering what to do with the
rest of his life. His initial aim has been going into engineering,
but has decided that math is not something he truly enjoys. (Although
he's good at it -- far, far more advanced than I am.)

Become an Engineer and then buy his own plane.

Ha, ha. Very funny. Become an engineer and watch your job be out-sourced by
some doofus with an MBA who doesn't know which end is up, but can run a
spreadsheet.

Become an engineer

Get an MBA

Become a VP of engineering.

Not everyone is that smart. I guess we need to keep jobs around for
those with less intellect.

-Robert

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:09:57 +0000, Robert M. Gary wrote:

Not everyone is that smart. I guess we need to keep jobs around for
those with less intellect.

Which task needs someone "that smart"? Though it was decades ago, that
was pretty much what my Father did. Admittedly, outsourcing wasn't the
issue about which he was worried; I presume (I've never thought to ask)
that he simply wanted to get above the ceiling for only-engineers.

Though he never mentioned his motivation for the MBA to me, he did
mention that the MBA degree was *far* easier than the engineering
degree. We discussed it a lot, actually, while I was taking a mix of
business and engineering classes at my undergrad (and I was whining about
issues such as how the finance classes *avoided* calculus, even when it
was a natural fit for the problem under discussion).

Before going too far along a choice path for Jay's son, I'd revisit his
lack of love for math. If it's something at which he's good, but he
actively dislikes it, there's a decent chance that this is because he's
been/being exposed to math badly in school. This could mean a lot of
different things, from a variation of the Barbi "math is hard" to
teachers that unawaredly teach that the subject is uninteresting or "too
hard to be worth the effort".

I studied and work in computer software, but there was a period of time
during my undergrad when I gave serious though to finding something
else. My classes were borderline painful in their inanity. I then took
some time off, during which the only marketable skill I had was
software. And it became fun again. That showed that it wasn't the area
of interest but only the classes.

Knowing that, I could deal with the classes when I returned.

- Andrew

On Oct 11, 6:26 am, Andrew Gideon wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:09:57 +0000, Robert M. Gary wrote:

Though he never mentioned his motivation for the MBA to me, he did
mention that the MBA degree was *far* easier than the engineering
degree. We discussed it a lot, actually, while I was taking a mix of
business and engineering classes at my undergrad (and I was whining about
issues such as how the finance classes *avoided* calculus, even when it
was a natural fit for the problem under discussion).

Sounds like your father was smart enough to know he needed the MBA. An
MBA my itself is not that impressive; it needs to be married to
another degree. The engineering undergrad with MBA is a *VERY *
powerful combo and produces lots of job offers.

-Robert

On Oct 11, 8:07 am, Richard Riley wrote:
On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:09:57 -0000, "Robert M. Gary"

wrote:
Become an engineer

Get an MBA

Become a VP of engineering.

Not everyone is that smart. I guess we need to keep jobs around for
those with less intellect.

If you have the smarts to become an engineer, you have the smarts for
an MBA.

Oh, I'm certainly not saying you have to be smart to get an MBA. I'm
saying you have to be a little bit smart as an engineer to realize
that you *NEED* an MBA.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary wrote:

On Oct 10, 6:24 pm, Jay Honeck wrote:

As many of you know, my son is taking flight lessons. He's past solo,
and into his cross-country flights.

He's a senior in high school, and is wondering what to do with the
rest of his life. His initial aim has been going into engineering,
but has decided that math is not something he truly enjoys. (Although
he's good at it -- far, far more advanced than I am.)


Become an Engineer and then buy his own plane.

I am an engineer and I had to wait a loooonnnnngg time to buy a plane.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

On Oct 11, 8:35 am, Ross wrote:

Become an Engineer and then buy his own plane.

I am an engineer and I had to wait a loooonnnnngg time to buy a plane.

Forth year out of school and that was only because we had just bought
a big house.