It was the careless mistake on my part, but nevertheless I still blame M$ for making an operating system so insecure, and so hard to secure. Though I spent a good 4 days to wrestle with the trojan horse and finally admitted defeat and reinstalled windoze, I won't cover the details here.
This is because I have things much more important to ponder upon.
As all my readers know, Cuppa is going to hit the 30-year old stage and therefore wants to sit down and make a plan.
I have thought long and hard. Here is the list with descending order of priority (i.e. most important first)
0. Have a family (as the continuation of 'long term relationship')
1. My career
Item 1 has a few branches, to make my story short, I artistically drew a schematic (as Einstein said before, Cuppa can be as artistic as possible, but not more, so bear with me)
As the schematic shows, I am thinking to change field. Right now there are three options:- MBA
- Management consultant
- Start on my own
Given three items and I can choose 1, 2, or even all of them, I have 15 options (count them!). But for simplicity, I just outline two routes which I think will be more viable.
The red path shows I will get an MBA first, then look for consultant job, as most people do. The problem is the cost of attending a good school.
The blue path is slightly different: Go into consultation first, get MBA, then go on my own. This route is more economical, because almost all consulting firms will pay for its consultants' tuition (of course, given the consultant behaves well). The problem here is the entry barrier into consultation without an MBA.
You definitely have observed there is a big gray 'FAMILY' word embedded at the back, and that actually forms the corner stone of my plan. It is always on my mind, and I mean what I said.
Personally I feel the red path is more desirable if I choose to attend Harvard or Sloan, though I am not sure if I am connected to reality... (does getting closer really makes sense in this case...?)
What happens if I choose to stay as an engineer?
I like engineering job, and problem solving is a fun thing to do. However recently there are a few issues that really concern me:
Push Factor: More and more engineers quit engineering around the world. Though this could drive up the salary, but most probably this will encourage employers to hire from other lower-income countries.
Environment: IT and EE have been changing far too fast and keeping up with the changes isn't too fun of a thing to do. Especially when it is my career is on stake. I no longer think it is cool to recompile a kernel 15 times just to shave the image size by 10kb, and I can't keep up with all the latest and coolest embedded technologies and programming tricks out there.
This is alarming.
Instead of holding slogans and burning politicians in effigies, I prefer to seek alternatives.
2 comments:
I know I have been trying to convince you, but here are some caveats,
1) If you like engineering and FAMILY very much, then you have triggered an MBA caveat -- Consulting job will not allow you quality FAMILY time (you most probably won't see your child grow up), and solutions will often be less than engineering perfect (many times, you come up with a give-and-take solution that will make engineers cringe).
2) If you are thinking of a cool and easy job, in a world free of stress, getting easy money, and living the high life -- that's not what an MBA offers, that's the life of the rich and famous who inherited $$$ from their parents. In fact, you will have to compete with the other MBAs and work extra hours to justify your higher salary.
3) Besides, it is highly possible that you might still end up in the industry after an MBA degree. Again, you'll have to fight with other MBAs to get the right job. So, it's not a walk in the woods nor is it for the faint-hearted.
Once you have decided, the school fees sunk, life is a battle onwards.
If you like a life nice and cozy behind the city walls, be a baker, an engineer, or a machine. If you step out of the walls, there is no turning back.
Good input. My thoughts on each of these comments are as follow:
#1: I know consulting job is more or less synonymous to 'no-life', especially in the top firms. Will give it a try and see. I guess most of time engineers disagree with the decision because they (the engineers) focus too narrowly (for example, on technical merit alone, etc.)
#2: Nope, I am not thinking of easy money. In fact, I just want to minimize the chance of embarrassing job-squeeze in middle-age. Even now, I also need to work hard to justify my relative higher salary than engineers from China, India, or Vietnam, and I don't see the competition will be any less severe from now on.
#3: I have no issue to stay in the same industry, as long as my job scope differs. In other words, I hope to have more choices instead of only work as an engineer.
Further inputs welcome :D
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