>>10387441engineer has lowest respect and some in certain groups
physicist has some respect and a lot in certain groups, can end up in textbooks from doing important things
doctor has most respect overall by random people, can also end up in textbooks but not as wide reaching as something fundamental like physics or math
at 40
engineer will be 12 years into career, senior position with paid masters degree, probably manager or r&d if very lucky, hopefully significant savings of around $200,000, probably uninteresting work and very few people will ever care about what you do
physicist will be 8 years into career, probably junior faculty, past postdoc and has plenty of citations, would have savings but probably closer to $100,000, work is at least somewhat interesting and stimulating, potentially very much and some people will care about what you're doing
physician will be possibly just starting career or a few years in, no savings unless he had a rare scholarship, work is probably not as interesting as it is fulfilling taking care of people and being appreciated, if your patients actually appreciate you, probably generally fulfilling but possibly grinding and maybe even miserable (I think half of doctors say they would choose a different specialty or potentially entire career if they could choose again according to doctor surveys)
