[rayiner]

So my family is from Bangladesh. My aunt and uncle moved to Toronto. My cousin wants to study business and get an MBA, but his parents want him to study electrical engineering. I didn't get it, until I realized its all about risk aversion. An engineering degree is a secure path to the middle class. A business degree isn't, and entrerpeneurship certainly isn't. The business degree might have a higher potential reward, but middle of the class engineers still get jobs.

[Loughla]

I find it fascinating that engineering is now seen as a secure path to middle class.

When I was in college, construction was a secure path to middle class, and engineering was something reserved for folks who wanted to make 300k, but work 80 hours a week, a decidedly not-middle-class work ethic.

[rayiner]

There are two distinctions here: between America and India/Bangladesh, and between then and now. Construction or industrial work in South Asia was never a secure path to the middle class. Education has long been the way forward in those countries. In the U.S., skilled blue collar work was considered a path to the middle class, but those days are long behind us.

Today, in the U.S. engineering presents a secure alternative to liberal arts degrees and living with one's parents, just it has historically presented an alternative to manual labor in South Asia.