I am an NUS engineering graduate of class 2004. Back then alot of my classmates are from the top 5 JC. The cut off point for NUS engin back (year 2000) then was 2 A and 1 B. I am now pretty surprised that only students with the worst grades enter engin. I guess times have changed and Engineering has become the new dumping ground.

"New dumping ground"? It's been THE dumping ground for ages.

huh ? I always thougt that guy in the front desk is engineer grad.

yeah, front desk recept, cab drivers, security guards are all engineering grads.

LoL, Engineering sux la, but gahmen force people to studeee by increasing a **** load of intake. I think after O lvl they should allow ppl to choose comfort taxi driving school after 2years just nice can start driving liao

? how does increasing intake of engineering students translate to forcing people to take engineering? If one's grades are lousy and cannot qualify for other faculties like medicine and law, that is a different matter isn't it? I don't think the cut off points for other faculties are that high.

Just want to share something about overseas opportunities having travelled quite a bit:

Engineers in Sg are currently better off in terms of pay and working hours compared to those in Japan and Europe. Their engineers really have a tough life if you include taxes and other expenses. India and China's engineers have fastest salary increments because they are quickly catching up technologically, but their pay is still shockingly low. US is one of the very few countries that pays its engineers very well and people like to use them as a benchmark. Employee share options is usually the reason for their high pay.

Engineering???? Why not???
 

Funny how people disrespect this group of 'gods' that built their world.....

For those still studying or intend to enter engineering, you have my encouragement.

For those who graduated, you will be a good engineer only after years of practises. Be humble and learn from everyone. My master is an uneducated old man who cannot even write his name in English. The skills he placed in my hands, worth 6 digits annually.
And the best part is, you can only get better with practises.

Even if after a few years, you decided you lost your passion for engineering, you can always join a different sectors. Your analytical reasonings, your multi-tasking skills, solution based problem solving etc., these are soft skills you can bring to every where.
I heard of engineering grads going to financial sectors, sales etc......
But I have never heard of financial grads being able to switch to engineering fields.

Last but not least, the group of us strongly believed that prospect of engineering grads will be improving again. There is a huge vacuum for capable engineers in SGP. Take the recent SMRT incident as an example. A classic case of penny wise pound foolish.

Good luck.

While I admire your passion for engineering, I think you need to see it in the context of young engineering grads.

Firstly, pay is determined by demand & supply, not by how important and world changing engineering skills are. We have been hearing "engineering future is bright" for the last 10 years ever since its hay days in 1990s. Till now, the situation has only gotten worse every year with cheap foreign imports.

And quite honestly, a 6 figure income is nothing to shout at. The important thing is how long & how much hardship one has to endure to get it. An average engineer will need to endure long hours, field work, tough old bird bosses, constant upgrading etc. for 10 - 15 years before there is hope to hit 6 figures.

In contrast, the banking investment sector is going all out to attract engineer grads and often enough offers them 6 figure package as a start! Save for the hardcore passionate techies, most would naturally abandon the field for greener pastures.

Why would anyone go out and slog a decade going nowhere and then make a difficult transition back to finance again? We are not talking about 10% difference in pay here, more like 50% upside on graduation and perhaps 200%-300% difference over long term.

Myaybe there is a vacum for good engineers, but people have been saying that for 10 years and so far nothing has changed. One can't really expect engineers to hang around wasting years of their lives waiting for the good old days to come back.

SMRT might be in need of engineers, but realistically how many can they hire and how much can they pay?

The Study Engineering lie continues.... I heard that lots and lots of ITE students are choosing to study Avionics ... I wonder if history is repeating itself as with Mechatronics and Games Developing etc etc....