Originally posted by: vi_edit
Originally posted by: Descartes
Originally posted by: BrownTown
I'll I know is my dad has two masters degrees and went to a top 25 university and didn't make 100,000$ till he was 50 years old as a nuclear engineer. I also know that the average starting salary for engineers like myself is in the 40,000 thousand doallr range, byt brother goes to MIT, the average there is like 60,000-70,000, it seems amazing to me that so many people could be making so much money here, now obviously people get raiswes, but if the average MIT graduate is making 70,000 when they graduate they would need a 30,000$ raise in 3-4 years to make 100,000$ by the time they are 25, and that is the number one engineering program in the country.
For the most part, I wouldn't be looking to MIT graduates as a benchmark for income. They'll make a good income, sure, but I'd guess that most don't go into engineering for the money; there are much easier paths to making much more money.
And the other thing is that with many "educated" professions they start out at a much higher salary but it's a glass ceiling that you really can't go any higher than. Sure you get small raises and possibly some sort of merit/performance bonuses, but really there isn't anywhere else to go. That is the situation my wife is in as a Pharmacist. She hit the ground running with a pretty lucrative salary. But she doesn't have really anwhere to go from there. In a deparment with 35'ish pharmacists, there are only 3 managers and a director. There is no other dichotemy to the department. And really the managers don't make enough more to merit the headache. You become a manager because you want to become a manger. Not for the raise.
Same really goes for the engineering types. If you stay with the same company you really don't have anywhere to go. There just isn't much of a career ladder to climb. The only choice you have is to employer hop every 5 years and try to score a big raise with each jump.
It's not like the consulting/sales/self employed people that simply can work harder/longer and make more money through bigger contracts, more sales, expanded territory, ect.
From the IT side things, I've actually got a decent chance to expand my income. I could come very close to doubling my income in a matter of 5 years by progressing through the ranks if I chose to do so.
Some positions/professions just lend themselves to more vertical progression than others.