Where are all the engineering majors? Running companies, apparently. According to a new survey, people with engineering degrees are more likely to run a business than those with an MBA.
Identified, which runs a database of career information on Facebook users, analyzed more than 36 million Facebook profiles to determine who started and ran more businesses--people with business degrees or people with engineering degrees.
People with undergraduate engineering degrees were just as likely as business majors to start or run a business. But people with graduate degrees in engineering were three times as likely to start or run a business as people with MBA degrees.
"More engineers are striking out on their own to launch new endeavors, particularly in the IT, social, and mobile industries," it says.
Engineering entrepreneurs are also younger than their MBA counterparts. The average engineering CEO is about 34, compared to 35.4 years old for MBA holders. The overall average age for CEOs has plummeted in recent years, from 36 years old in 2009 to just 33 years old in 2011.
Have something to share? Send news and submissions to stem@usnews.com, or tweet @jason_koebler.
Reader Comments