Dr. Sandra J. Baylor, (right) an engineer and inventor with IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center, adds to the definition: "We build things, new and different, that improve upon things that already exist. We invent things that improve upon our everyday lives and how we live our everyday lives."

Over the last decade, engineering like many other industries, has been transformed by today's information-technology economy -- specifically the Internet. "There is a greater recognition of how much technology and the discoveries of science have driven the economy and have made people more aware of engineers and their role in fueling the economy and creating a better quality of life for people in the society as a whole," Jackson says. The Internet phenomenon is touching each of the profession's primary disciplines -- civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, industrial engineering -- and not just computer, software, systems and network engineers.

"The key consideration for students today is to blend computer/Internet skills with their own specific engineering disciplines," Jackson says. "What we are trying to educate our students about is that the so-called traditional fields are becoming, in and of themselves, more connected to IT and computer engineering with a focus on things such as the design of intelligent highways and intelligent buildings or sensors built into buildings or civil infrastructures which can tell you how they age," Jackson explains. "The people who are going to be hot are those who can marry computer-related skills into the traditional disciplines."

In choosing an engineering discipline, Baylor, a specialist in parallel computing based in San Jose, California, who has electrical engineering degrees from Southern, Stanford and Rice universities, advises students to be true to their own interests. "There are always going to be some areas that are going to be more glamorous than others, but it all depends on what your interests are. You may be interested in something that may not be glamorous. But when it's all said and done, you have to do what's exciting to you," Baylor says.

Jackson, Baylor and other engineering educators and professionals say students and graduating engineering majors must be vigilant and get ahead of the pace of change as they craft their careers. While the job market is stable for engineers, it is continually changing in light of cyclical market and economic forces. The slumping U.S. economy of 2000 and 2001, with its attendant job layoffs, reduced capital spending and dwindling corporate profits, hasn't dampened the long-term prospects of engineers.

"Yet contemporary economic conditions have changed the way corporations and organizations are deploying their work forces in the short-term," says Eric A. Adolphe,  (left) founder and chief executive officer of OPTIMUS Corp. in Ellicott City, Md., a technology company that focuses on wireless communications and computer networking. Adolphe says today's job market reminds him of the one he confronted when he graduated in 1988 from the City College in New York (CCNY) with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Adolphe worked for two organizations, including the Federal Aviation Administration, before founding his own company in 1992. "The market was flat. I can remember graduating and a lot of people were worried about getting a job," Adolphe says. Like all industries, cycles occur when employers control market demand for workers, and, to the contrary, when employees have the advantage. "And while jobs remain plentiful for engineers with high starting salaries, some employers have gladly pulled back on perks, like stock options, while demanding that new workers be flexible enough to do multiple tasks," Adolphe says.

Adolphe points the finger at the dot-com bust of 2000. "Beginning from the mid-1990s, engineers and technical workers jumped from employer to employer and dot-com to dot-com in search of the best deal. For now, at least, that kind of employment landscape has subsided," he says. "When the Internet boom took off, key engineers went over to dot-coms for $20,000 or $30,000 more a year. We (employers) said, 'This is our death knell here.' It was like a big sucking sound. They were just sucking all the talent," he says. However, today, "When I look at the market, it's sort of shifting back to the employers having more of an advantage. A couple of years ago, the employees had complete advantage. For those coming out of school, if you had anything related to IT in your background, you commanded a huge salary. Now the engineers are saying, 'I'll forgo the stock options. I'm looking for more stability.' They're also looking for breadth. They want to learn as much technology as possible, and that keeps you in demand," adds Adolphe.

Starting salaries for engineers remain at the top of career yardsticks. Expected starting salaries for bachelor's degree holders for the 2000-2001 time period for engineers in all majors was $41,700 to $44,000, the same as in 1999-2000, according to the 30th annual Recruiting Trends Survey conducted by Michigan State University's Collegiate Employment Research Institute.

Comparatively, expected starting salaries for engineers rated well above those who graduated with undergraduate business degrees ($35,600 to $39,100), for instance, and behind computer science majors ($42,750 to $46,900), the Recruiting Trends Survey reported. Among engineering disciplines, chemical engineers could expect a starting salary in 2000-2001 of $46,800 to $48,600; computer engineers $45,400 to $50,300; electrical engineers $44,400 to $48,300; mechanical engineers, $44,100 to $47,800; civil engineers $40,400 to $42,400; and industrial engineers, $39,900 to 43,400, the survey said.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) in Bethlehem, Pa., which also tracks employment trends, notes that while engineers and technical workers had to work harder in 2001 than in 2000 to find positions because of the dot-com shakeout, salary offers remain strong. Computer engineering graduates saw their average salary offers increase 8.1 percent from July 2000; civil engineering graduates 8.1 percent; petroleum engineering graduates 8 percent; electrical engineering graduates 7 percent; and chemical engineering graduates 4.2 percent, NACE reported. Factors keeping demand strong for engineering graduates include an increasing baby-boomer population that is reaching retirement age prompting corporations to bring in "bench strength" and the launching of new projects following distractions from Y2K concerns in 1999 and 2000, according to the NACE organization.

In addition, NACE said hot on the heels of graduates are computer and electrical equipment manufacturers, computer systems design firms, engineering services and consulting firms, and general contracting companies. Among employers, EDS, Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young, Lucent Technologies, General Motors, Accenture, Deloitte & Touche, Procter & Gamble, and Caterpillar have announced plans to hire new engineers.

When Rensselaer's President Jackson lays out what budding engineers have to do to be successful, her own credentials give credence to the advice she offers. The 18th president in Rensselaer's history effective July 1, 1999, Jackson had served as chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; was a theoretical physicist at the former AT&T Bell Labs; is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; and is a life member, the MIT Board of Trustees, the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate (theoretical physics) from MIT. She is passionate about technical education -- and just as passionate that science and engineering must have the full participation of minorities and women. Jackson's laundry list for engineering career success has three fundamental building blocks: learn the basics; embrace the notion of teamwork, and develop an entrepreneurial spirit. "The need for prospective engineers to learn the fundamentals of science and math is time honored," Jackson says. "Students have to always get a grounding in the fundamentals. They should not try to bypass learning the basic math and science that undergird whatever field of engineering they enter," she explains.

Baylor of IBM offers that as students learn the basics, they need to accept the fundamentals of math and science with curiosity. "I would encourage them to be inquisitive, be curious. Ask questions about why things work the way they do. Why do they do it this way as opposed to that way and explore that concept further," says Baylor, who helped in the development of Deep Blue, IBM's widely hailed chess-champion computer.

Jackson says that as a building block to success, teamwork is central to engineering. The image once of the lone engineer hunkered down working on a solution to a problem no longer applies. "Today's engineers have to be able to work in multidisciplinary teams to begin to be able to see the big picture even if they may be working on a very specific part of a larger problem," Jackson says. "They have to be able to see more of the big picture and to work with others to attack and solve problems."

Dr. Allyson D. Yarbrough, principal director in the electronics engineering subdivision at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, adds that within technical teams, today's engineer must be able to articulate solutions. In the aerospace industry, for instance, teams may consist of an electrical engineer, mechanical engineer and software engineer in addition to management executives and military officials. Yarbrough, who has a master's and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University, says while engineers must be technically competent, they must also possess well developed people and communications skills as they traverse work groups. "The ability to bring your slice of pie to the table and be able to integrate that in with the whole solution, pieces of which other people are providing, is really important," she says. "The ability to communicate is the thing that ties it all together. No matter how innovative or creative a solution I come up with, if I'm not able to communicate that either verbally or with the written word, then the efficiency of my solution is greatly diminished. And it might actually be negated."

Adolphe of OPTIMUS believes engineers shouldn't "pooh pooh" communications and liberal arts along with technical portions of their training. "Good God, I cannot find an engineer who can write, and it just seems to be getting worse. What has apparently happened is a lot of the engineers went to school and said, 'I'm going to go out and make $150K a year when I get out, if I'm the best coder on the planet.' So, they go out and take all these classes, and then they do nothing but coding. And when they get out that's all they know how to do," Adolphe says.

The third building block of Jackson's career laundry list is developing a spirit of entrepreneurship about yourself. "Get some entrepreneurial know how," Jackson says. "Engineers can learn how to manage and run a company, which will serve them well whether they start their own businesses or they go to work in another enterprise because they will know the fundamentals of what it takes to build a business plan and then to operate according to that."

Adolphe, who has completed a juris doctor degree from the Catholic University Columbus School of Law, says engineers like himself, who establish their own enterprises, must understand their weaknesses. "You have to have a burning desire to become an entrepreneur, not sort of a casual desire," he says. "You've got to make a very honest assessment of who you are, where you are and what your limitations are. When you run a business, you've got to say I want to be an entrepreneur. I don't want to code."