Díaz-Giménez: 'Study again, become an engineer'

'Study again, become an engineer': the advice that ignited the studio

A young journalist with a precarious contract — attributed with two master's degrees — sits across from an economist. He listens, challenges her, and delivers the phrase that has since circulated on social media: 'Study again, become an engineer'. At the end of the clip, she retorts: 'My university is paid for by me.' The studio heated up: much of the audience, according to collected comments, turned a professional recommendation into a live lynching. The episode, recorded in a tweet, reopens the eternal debate: which degrees are valuable, who pays for the useless ones, and whether studying journalism remains a reasonable gamble.

What the economist said and what the young woman replied

The economist Díaz-Giménez suggests the young woman pursue a more profitable path: return to the classroom and study engineering. His argument is old and simple: the market does not absorb the volume of communications graduates, and studying four years in a saturated field is a losing bet. The journalist's response, captured in the thread, goes another way: 'Is there really a ranking of degrees?'

The presenter adds his own thesis, which further inflames the atmosphere: that all degrees should guarantee a job commensurate with them. In other words: if the market doesn't want you, someone should force it to.

Do journalists really outnumber engineers?

The saturation thesis has supporters. A recurring diagnosis: some professions have demand, others do not, and political will alone cannot solve it. By this logic, journalism, fine arts, or humanities are high-risk choices; engineering, medicine, or business administration are reasonable bets. Even intermediate alternatives like Law or Education are cited, with more professional mobility than a newsroom.

The counterpoint comes with uncomfortable data. Except for the health sector and little else, no university degree exempts one from unemployment or poor conditions, claims a participant. There are engineers, according to the same thread, who emigrate to earn a decent salary, and graduates who end up in consulting firms piling up hours. And while young people are told to choose wisely, it is noted that Spain's industrial sector has deflated: manufacturing's contribution has halved in two decades. Where do those supposedly scarce engineers work?

The problem is not the degree, but the university system

Much of the anger is not aimed at the girl, but at the structure that led her there. According to this diagnosis, the Spanish university system has been massified without real entry filters: the decision was made that everyone can study the most specific degree possible near home, so no one is frustrated. The result, it is argued, is a one-size-fits-all system where talent is diluted and degrees accumulate without the market welcoming them.

One participant's comparison is with the French system: in systems with hard access, entering certain fields is difficult, and if you succeed, you leave with half a future secured. Here, the master's degree often functions as an extension of the classroom rather than a competitive advantage. Another data point launched in the thread: in engineering fields during the 1990s and 2000s, half of enrollees dropped out in the first year, and less than a quarter graduated. The real filter was failure, not the cutoff score.

Technicians and trades are missing, not graduates

The market sends a signal that does not fit the debate. 72% of companies report difficulties finding workers, and the profiles hardest to fill are not university graduates: they are qualified technicians. Electricians, mechanics, electromechanics, IT professionals from vocational training. What is demanded is not more upper-degree holders, but people with practical training and no need for two master's degrees to start.

This is the point that bothers the advice's defenders. If the problem is employability, the logical recommendation is not 'become an engineer,' but 'check how many people demand what you plan to study.' This applies to engineering, law, and plumbing.

The advice the counselor did not trinc

The irony with which the thread dismantles the sermon appears here: who recommends engineering, it is reproached, is usually an economist, not an engineer. The studio economist is placed in the IESE business school, and it is reproached that his trajectory does not pass through a laboratory or a construction site. The reproach is that the recommendation to study what is demanded, applied to himself, is not fulfilled; the advice is for others.

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In Spain, journalism can be practiced without having stepped foot in a communications faculty. Signing an engineering or architecture project, no. This asymmetry — a profession open to anyone, another guarded by a degree — explains, according to participants, why anger is directed at the messenger rather than the market he describes. By the way, part of the conversation drifted toward the economist's physical appearance. It gives the measure of the level.