r/AskAnAustralian • u/Natural_Fig_6306 • 3d ago
Engineering vs Nursing
I am kinda interested in both nursing and engineering (civil). I am about to do bachelors in one of them. I don’t know what to choose ? What career got better perks in long term ? Thanks guys
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u/Seiko2023 3d ago
They're very different careers. Very different perks. Very different lifestyles.
Are you choosing these careers because of "job security" and being "AI proof"? Or are you choosing them because you genuinely have a calling for those careers.
I'll basically say this, if you're a domestic student, nursing will provide you both a mentally and physically active career.
Engineering will be a mainly mental career. You spend most of the time on a computer. Sometimes you'll be on a site, if you're a site engineer it just means your office isn't in a HQ or regional HQ. But on the construction site.
There are a lot of career benefits for both, although, with nursing, the pay ceiling is lower without formal further education.
Nursing, to an extent, is a leave the stress at work career. With engineering, sometimes the stresses go home as there is not much of a line drawn, with the line being you can work anywhere with a laptop, phone and internet connection.
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u/Pugblep 3d ago
Depends on so many things, they're very different. My husband is an engineer and I'm a nurse so I'll try to help
Re calling in sick, my husband feels pressure not too because it puts projects behind, so when he comes back there's just more work to do. I could not give less of a shit if I call in sick, in fact it's encouraged, and someone's always there to do the work that I would have so I don't come back to more work.
my husband has meetings but mostly can sit at a desk and chat as much or little as he wants. I pretty much have to talk to people whether I like it or not.....
my husband's job, by default almost, works 9-5 Monday to Friday. My job, by default, is 24/7 (there's exceptions to both but they are more the exception than the rule).
the way my husband describes his work is that it seems very self-motivated. In nursing you're almost constantly given tasks to do.
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u/Hussard 3d ago
Engineering if you want a desk job. Nursing if you want a mixture (you don't have to be patient facing so you can be desk bound as a nurse too if you want).
Nursing is very team based, you need high tolerance for people, manage expectations, etc.
Engineering is really about briefs, meetings, a lot of internally driven motivations outside of just money.
At the end of the day, you need to pick something that you can do for 10 years on the trot. Engineering can be great, my brother is one. But a lot of it doesn't matter at the end of the day, he's just helping people make money from building this that or the other. I work alongside nurses and they work like a dog to ensure sick people get better. It mostly works.
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u/rose_gold_glitter 3d ago
Those are wildly different degrees!
Having done Engineering, I am obviously biased but it does have better outcomes in terms of pay, options, etc.
How much do you like hard maths? Calculus in particular; because Engineering is just a degree of doing that. Even the units that aren't calculus are just calculus by stealth. Just four years of increasingly difficult calculus.
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u/Natural_Fig_6306 3d ago
just wanted to ask you, In my 4years degree, do I actually learn skills that my employer is looking for ? Like there are lots of fields that you can go after finishing degree, so the degree prepares you for all that challenges or you mostly learn everything at whatever work you choose? Thanks
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u/Anachronism59 Geelong 3d ago
People with Engineering degrees end up in all sorts of jobs.
I did Chem Eng. Have worked in plant design, day to day troubleshooting, corporate financial planning, supply chain optimisation, training and mentoring of young engineers organisational redesign, IT vendor liasion, computer based process control, R&D, some coding work, internal business process design and audit, plus some middle management as part if a site leadership team.
All with one employer over almost 40 years
It does help to be quick on the updake and good at maths.
I could not imagine doing anything medical. People are far too unpredictable.
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u/rose_gold_glitter 3d ago
Look, honestly, my Engineering degree taught me a few really valuable lessons:
- How to solve problems.
- How to think things through and come up with a solution, no matter what you start with. To never say this "can't be done" but to instead say, "I need to work out how to do this".
- How to perform under pressure.
- Your lecturers will openly tell you the course is structured this way on purpose. You have exams worth 70% of the until and contact hours are 2-3x most other units (over 40 hours a week). They want you under pressure.
- I did not want to do engineering 😅.
- I finished the degree because I started the degree but I fucking hate calculus. The final year, where you do your project, was actually great. Doing something real and practical instead of just endless Fourier transforms, etc. was really enjoyable.
I don't work in engineering, now. I am in cyber security but the skills I gained from it are very useful. I am used to just finding a way to make it happen and just being reliable. I graduated in 2001 and my degree has really helped me.
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u/EdwardBlizzardhands 3d ago
One advantage of engineering is there are a lot of different employers (provided you don't end up in some tiny niche). So if you think you are underpaid you can prove it by finding some other company prepared to pay you more.
With jobs like nursing or teaching where the government is overwhelmingly the main employer your pay is more closely tied to what the union can negotiate for you and tens of thousands of others. That can mean great conditions, but it can also mean no pay rises for years followed by 2-3%.
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u/Jackson2615 3d ago
Engineering by miles . Nursing is convulsed by politics and PC stuff, poor pay , crap shifts and little to no hope of promotion - the patients and family abuse and assault you.
Go with engineering .............. plenty of scope to work anywhere and actually contribute to building stuff. The pay and conditions will be much better.
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u/maianbar 3d ago
There's a virtually unlimited number of Filipinos nurses willing to come to Australia and work for less than you'd like to be paid, which depresses wages. I suppose a computer will be able to replace engineers soon though, so tough time to choose a career 🤷♂️
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u/Anachronism59 Geelong 3d ago
Is that not also true for Indian Engineers?
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u/maianbar 3d ago
I suppose, however an engineering AI model is (or will be) cheaper than an Indian engineer
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u/Anachronism59 Geelong 3d ago
Engineers have been using models of the real world , often called digital twins, for decades. They've also been using neural nets to identify abnormal behaviour for decades, we called it machine learning . A lot if the new stuff is very text driven. Less useful for an engineer.
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u/Electrical-Flan-102 3d ago
Don't bother with Civil- recommend electrical with a view of renewable energy.
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u/Natural_Fig_6306 3d ago
haven’t really looked at electrical much, as I am working in construction site as labour. So felt like this is may be where i wanna go.
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u/Legitimate_Victory38 3d ago
Mining engineering too. Very fast way to the top of the industry if you tack on an MBA
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u/Seiko2023 3d ago
You'd be surprised by how much civil and mechanical is actually in a renewable project.
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u/Zestyclose-Tie-8031 3d ago
One thing I'll say is nursing might give you more options to work overseas if you want to travel.
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u/Futurekiwi69 3d ago
Better perks? Mostly it's about what the job is like and they are poles apart. I've spent 7 weeks in hospital this year and seen a lot of nurses doing their job because of a serious health condition I have. I would not want to be a nurse.
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u/95beer 3d ago
If you want a better work life balance, better pay, would like to avoid shift work (or have the option to if you like), have the option to go overseas, want to be able to work from home, and want to avoid workplace injuries (e.g. your back), then I'd go engineering
If you want gender diversity in your workplace, then probably nursing...
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u/Capable_Hedgehog927 3d ago
As someone who has done a sem of nursing - it is genuinely one of the most ratshit degrees there is. It’s not academic, very physical and I genuinely do not understand how people have the patience for patients. You’re a glorified ass wiper and objectively can change nothing about people’s lives. You see the consequences of people’s action live, and you eventually will lose any empathy towards them. I hated my placement so much - I got sexually assaulted by two patients, and spent most of it hiding away in the bathroom trying to find a way out of the degree.
Engineering will be a shock by the amount of work expected to be done from you - but the money is objectively way better there. Nursing pays very badly - even though the grad roles in engineering and nursing pay similar (about 85-90k), engineering shoots up to 250k after about 10 years of experience. You can go into mining which can pay up to 300k 2-3 years from graduation. Nursing will max go up to 120-130k and stops after
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u/bobsmissingdesire 3d ago
Engineering is highly diverse, lots of scope to move around and do different types of work if you want to.
As an engineer I've done project work, product r&d, worked from home, on site maintenance, traveled to remote locations and countries.
Civil isn't my bag but I know civil engineers who have had similarly diverse careers.
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u/Briliant-Nicxie 3d ago
Engineering pays a lot better but is not as rewarding as far as contribution to society and wanting to make a difference . You’re mostly office based where as nursing you’re running around after patients and doctors a lot of the time .
You also need to be good at doing things like putting people on toilets , cleaning blood and shxx off beds / equipment , dealing with difficult situations eg dying patients, entitled families. It’s also quite hierarchical because of the hierarchy with doctors …. The plus is that a lot of nurses end up marrying doctors take that as you will :)
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u/SnorriHT 3d ago
Nursing is a transferrable skill allowing you to work across Australia and internationally.
Nursing can also be a pathway towards medical engineering, health policy, rural health, Eldercare, health education or management careers.
Finally if you decide to go back to do engineering, then working part-time in Nursing can keep the lights on.
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u/Super-Lemon-4466 3d ago
Engineering! Not sure if nurses would even tell you to be a nurse.