Engineers have engineering degrees. Programming != engineering. Just like MCSE != engineer. Just like 'helpdesk engineer' != engineer.
The study in question is from the US where there are very few restrictions on the title "engineer".
Do engineers really make better spouses?
91–100 of 129 posts
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#92Seems pretty obvious to me that the amount of contact with the opposite gender plays a huge part. Since most married couples are heterosexual and Engineering is still dominated by men, so contact of any kind is more rare. On the other hand, dancers and choreographers are very likely to be dancing or choreographing with someone other than their spouse, at a very close physical distance to very fit partners who are nea…
I agree. Looking more into the study, massage therapists are up there in divorce rates, as well as "entertainers" which I believe would include actors.
The thought I had about agricultural engineers is that they would tend to be much more religiously conservative than other types of engineers.
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#93"The article also purports that the higher level of communication inherent in engineering jobs may be vital. A healthy communication in a marriage is vital for its survival." Yeah, us software engineers are renowned for our communication skills.
Software engineers are great communicators, which is why they are often awkward and unpopular. Getting along in groups and knowing your place in the social hierarchy order is much more dependent on effective lying.
Being a great communicator equals selling ideas in terms that your audience can easily ingest with the intent for which it was served. Nothing more. It doesn't mean lying, it doesn't mean not lying. Social politics is often grey. For better or for worse, selling an idea often involves playing on the emotions of your audience. Getting buy in means selling your ideas in a way people can relate to.
...and knowing your place in the social hierarchy is irrelevant. Knowing how to speak such that your place in the social hierarchy is blurred enough that everyone assumes you're at their level is the most useful approach. Not having people look down on you because you're socially beneath them, but also not having people write you off because they feel you think they're below you. Being a good communicator is being able to stand head to head with the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation and discuss your ideas with the respect of equals in terms they can understand, and also speak with the homeless person on the street with the respect of equals in terms they can understand.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal"
Believe this, I mean truly believe this and treat people with the respect this statement garners and the rest is easy. You are not above anyone else in the social hierarchy and they are not above you. That huge mansion they live in and the country club they belong too were purchased with the money. Their access to money doesn't make their life more valuable than yours. You hold different jobs because you have different training, social conditioning and peer groups. So I think there is little value to knowing your place in the social hierarchy. All it does is serve to allow society to write your destiny. Is that what you want or would you prefer to write your own destiny?
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#94Seems pretty obvious to me that the amount of contact with the opposite gender plays a huge part. Since most married couples are heterosexual and Engineering is still dominated by men, so contact of any kind is more rare. On the other hand, dancers and choreographers are very likely to be dancing or choreographing with someone other than their spouse, at a very close physical distance to very fit partners who are nea…
Its a little ironic that the group of people who laugh at "designing a GUI in visual basic to track the killer's IP address" apparently thinks that an agricultural engineer sits in the middle of a cornfield with a bunch of charts on an easel sketching out what piston goes into what shaft... as opposed to, you know, an office.
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#95This report looks like someone did a "grep" for the word "engineer".
It is not particularly informative to know that boiler operators and construction operators have higher divorce rates than aerospace engineers.
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this may be a narrow view of humanity... Everyone's an engineer in one way or another - that's just who we are as people. Just because the stereotype tends towards "engineers" (traditional meaning) being into mechanics, logic, programming, structures etc. doesn't mean that everything can't be viewed this way. The popular guys at school and politicians are social engineers. Footballers look to solve the proble…
Just to add to this comment: We do not function in isolation as a single typecast. We are all dynamic people. The football players or "popular people" could also be software engineers. Anecdotally, one of the most athletic people I knew in school ended up double majoring with a 4.0 in mechanical and chemical engineering. I never went to a school where there were over-the-top movie quality cliques. Our athletes were a…
Exactly... If I have problems with my car, I take it to a mechanic. He's an engine nerd... something at which I suck, he's awesome at it. If I have legal problems, I go to a lawyer. He's a legal nerd... again, something at which I suck. If they need software written, [or more likely, their computers fixed, again. Don't get me started] they'd most likely both come to me. They might both be awesome photographers and play on the same hockey team, have largely the same peer group and just be fascinated by different things. They may have different conditioning due to their family background. One's father might own a car shop, the other's mother might be a judge. They might have grown up as neighbours, gone to the same school and been in all the same classes together. One may just have had a large exposure to the way law works growing up and one may just have had more of an interest in hanging out with Dad in the garage tinkering with engines because his Dad was a race car mechanic. The mechanic's mom may have taught both of them to play piano and they may both be concert grade music nerds. The nuances are endless.
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#97I'm reminded of a scene from Scrubs where Turk tells JD: "I love how kids of divorced parents swear they have the market cornered on family dysfunction...". Point being - I don't view "not divorced" as a significant metric for a successful / happy marriage.
Louis CK has a good bit about this too:
"Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it's true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. That would be sad. If two people were married and ... they just had a great thing and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times."
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#98"The article also purports that the higher level of communication inherent in engineering jobs may be vital. A healthy communication in a marriage is vital for its survival." Yeah, us software engineers are renowned for our communication skills.
> Yeah, us software engineers are renowned for our communication skills. I like to think that I have some pretty good communication skills, and that they make me a better programmer.
Everyone thinks they have good communication skills... it's the paradox of self evaluation. You evaluate yourself based on your perception of those you evaluate yourself against - which in turn is largely biased based on your own perception of your self image.
If you hang out with people you perceive as more intelligent than you (which may or may not be true, it's a biased perspective), then you're more likely to evaluate yourself as less intelligent than you'd like. If you then evaluate yourself against people you perceive as less intelligent than you (which also may or may not be true, again a biased perspective), you're more likely to bolster an impression that you're more intelligent than you are - which again, may not be true.
So do people always agree with you? Do you perceive these people as more or less intelligent than you? Do they always agree with everyone? Do you perceive their ideas as valuable as yours?
It's hard to evaluate your own communication skills... because no matter the metric you use to attempt to evaluate them, your interpretation of the metric is biased in one way or another.
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#99Probably a linked variable or two here. Thinking aloud:
1. Higher income. Like, substantially higher income. 2. Later marriage. People don't tend to get married in college, and I expect to find that people who get married early have higher divorce rates than average.
Re: Do engineers really make better spouses?
#100Engineers have engineering degrees. Programming != engineering. Just like MCSE != engineer. Just like 'helpdesk engineer' != engineer.
I have a non-software engineering degree. Now I'm a software engineer. What does that make me?