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Comment by xxpor | Hacker News Reader

Why be a civil engineer with all of the liability and hard stuff to learn, and earn $35k coming out of school, when you could be CS grad and earn $150k, with way less stress?

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>and earn $35k coming out of school, when you could be CS grad and earn $150k, with way less stress?

First, $35k is made up, that’s what someone working full time at In-N-Out now makes.

Second, being an entry level civil engineer is not more stressful than working in CS. You bear no responsibility and don’t do any physical labor. Why is that stressful?

The $35k is probably out of date, it was the avg I remember from BLS when I was in college 10 years ago.

> Second, being an entry level civil engineer is not more stressful than working in CS. You bear no responsibility

Eventually you're gonna be signing off on stuff that could collapse or explode.

>Eventually you're gonna be signing off on stuff that could collapse or explode.

Only if you want to. Going full PE and signing off is not required to have a pretty good career as an engineer as part of a larger firm.

Yes, exactly. US engineers are obviously not dumber than the ones from other countries, they are just doing other kind of work.

If that’s the point then it seems we are making the right decisions. Dominance in one at the cost of another, possibly less important area.

I don't disagree to be honest because there are plenty of US cities where you can't do much in terms of urbanism even if you had the skills to build. They were built at the wrong era, for cars. They are just not dense enough.

As someone who got both degrees from a pretty prestigious US university, this was my reasoning too. I haven't worked a day in Civil Eng since graduation and I don't regret it one bit

I'm sorry $35K? Any source to show that rate? In small-town midwest U.S. the starting rate is at least $60k, so I'd be shocked to see it at anywhere near $35k anywhere in the U.S.

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