Engineering:Good or bad career?

Engineering is a great career in terms of challenge and the work done ,yet accoarding to many sources it's not a good career in terms of many others.
This is inspired by when i was looking at Eng-Tips.com forums and the thread on what you would do if someone's child in high school looking at careers said "do you recommed engineering as a career" well i said in a word after loking at the replies WOW!!! They all (almost) said well many many said no! so.. what do you think it is about engineering that would be good careerwise? bad? and the main question is a guy or gal who loves math and science and wants to apply them in a way to benefit mankind(my way of defineing engineering) and who is just a bit unsure (like myself)
What would You tell that person? what would you say.
are there any alterntives?

The Myth About Student Competency

College and university students today seem so technologically competent. When they wake up in the morning, they dont turn on the TV to find out about the weather; instead they go to the Web site WeatherBug.com. For news, they use CNN.com, not channel 21. Of course, this is after they check to see what instant messages (IMs) they missed while sleeping. To learn about friends, they turn to Facebook.com. Going online for entertainment is normal for them. Computer games, massively multiplayer games, and music downloads are an assumed part of their environment (for example, 85% of 18- and 19-year-olds download music).¹ And when they want to communicate, sending IMs or text messages is as natural as picking up the phone. There is no question that students go online before they go to the library; Google has become this generations reference desk.