Glassdoor.com - 50 highest paying college majors are...

[gorcorps]

So science and math fields pay more? Big surprise there!
What's important to remember is that these are all undergraduate programs... Those are pretty decent paychecks for a bachelor's degree and you can definitely make more based on location and added experience on the job. For you youngsters, take lots of science and math classes and pick a valid career before you pick a major.

What's sad is that despite knowing for quite some time that science and math fields pay so much, there's a ton of people out there that are quite proud of their lack of math knowledge.

 

[ControlD]

lol. I remember sitting at orientation and hearing "Look at the person to your left, and look at the person to your right. At the end of this year, only two of you will be here." That's one way to scare the shit out of a freshman.

Yeah, we got the same talk except they told us only one of the three would still be around. Sure enough, my freshman class had a 68% failure rate.

 

[CraKaJaX]

What's sad is that despite knowing for quite some time that science and math fields pay so much, there's a ton of people out there that are quite proud of their lack of math knowledge.

.... or still pursue a liberal arts degree and bitch about unemployment upon graduating summa cum laude.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

By the time you get to #50, you've covered essentially every possible degree-required job; from managing a McDonald's, to teaching Kindergarten, to putting astronauts into orbit.

I think the real news here is that there's only about 50 distinct college majors. And that's if you stretch (at a lot of schools, Math and Statistics would be the same major with different electives, as would MIS and CIS/IT, Business and Marketing, or Marketing and Advertising.)

Also interesting: starting salaries for the highest paid are less than double the starting salaries for the lowest-paid. (Although lifetime earnings is a different ball of wax, the starting salary matters most to people considering taking school loans.)

The place I'm currently attending has 60 major programs, if I counted right. But there aren't any which wouldn't fall into the categories in OP, including a dozen or so different specializations for ed majors.

 

[ControlD]

What's sad is that despite knowing for quite some time that science and math fields pay so much, there's a ton of people out there that are quite proud of their lack of math knowledge.

Those are usually the people crying on Facebook and blaming common core for not being able to help their kids with their fifth grade math homework. I never understood why it was (and still is) cool to suck at math.

 

[Chaotic42]

lol. I remember sitting at orientation and hearing "Look at the person to your left, and look at the person to your right. At the end of this year, only two of you will be here." That's one way to scare the shit out of a freshman.

Unfortunately for mathematics the weeding out classes don't really start until much later. I was in an algebra class (the serious kind, not college algebra) with a student who was on her third attempt.

 

[Riverhound777]

They should really include the job need and growth for each of these as well. Sure you can start at 70k with some oddball engineering degree, but what good is it if that industry is tiny and you'll hard trouble finding a job, or advancing in that field? You're probably much better off going for that 60k nursing job or MIS degree.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

My uncle (who is also EE) started at IBM at 28k way back when. When I landed the job, he was shocked at the starting salary now vs then. Times have changed, that's for sure.
The OP doesn't say much about it's data, except 5 years out of school.

If anything, salaries in semicon have been about the same since the early 2000s

 

[z1ggy]

WOOOO NUMBER 2 BABYYYYYY!!!!

And I'm crushing the median base salary, although I haven't read how/where it's calculated from.

 

[z1ggy]

lol. I remember sitting at orientation and hearing "Look at the person to your left, and look at the person to your right. At the end of this year, only two of you will be here." That's one way to scare the shit out of a freshman.

Did downtown Dave Wick say that? WWDWD?

It was pretty evident within like 1 month who was and wasn't going to make it.

 

[gorcorps]

They should really include the job need and growth for each of these as well. Sure you can start at 70k with some oddball engineering degree, but what good is it if that industry is tiny and you'll hard trouble finding a job, or advancing in that field? You're probably much better off going for that 60k nursing job or MIS degree.

Did you even read the list? I don't see any odd-ball engineering degrees... they're all rather generic without too many specialties.

 

[freeskier93]

Did you even read the list? I don't see any odd-ball engineering degrees... they're all rather generic without too many specialties.

Not that it matters, you're not going to get pigeon holed with any type of engineering degree. As long as the fundamentals of math and problem solving are there you can do just about anything.

 

[z1ggy]

Not that it matters, you're not going to get pigeon holed with any type of engineering degree. As long as the fundamentals of math and problem solving are there you can do just about anything.

Although, once you get years of experience under your belt, it's extremely hard, if not impossible to switch fields within a certain engineering degree (see below on a caveat perhaps).

For example.. EE is very broad and it's pretty hard to know going into a job if you'll actually like that line of work, since most students aren't actually exposed to what a "Real" job is like, even if they intern. I have an EE degree and I went into more of the power/machinery business. I ended up in the military world which is great because I'm almost 100% certain to have a job for life unless I do some dumb shit and fvck up. However, it's not terribly interesting to me anymore, it's pretty boring and not much technologically is changing for military work due to how long they take to adapt new things. I would LOVE to go design new radar or advanced detection systems... But I have 0% experience in that field. Unless I literally go back to school for additional master's degree work, nobody is going to hire me. I'm pretty much "stuck" in this specific field within EE. Not a horrible thing, but just because your degree is top 10, doesn't mean you can't end up pigeon holed into a certain type of job. YMMV

 

[ControlD]

^^

Yeah, I'd agree with that. I have been in the controls sector of EE for close to 25 years now. I doubt I would qualify for anything else at this point.

 

[SketchMaster]

MIS is really a gold mine in disguise. You can go from making 50k to 100k in under 5yrs if you have your certification and experience in a row.

I've actually been trying to break into a BA role for the past year but it's surprisingly competitive. Every time a req opens up in my company I get stellar reviews after the interview but always come in 2nd due to my lack of credentials.

 

[freeskier93]

Although, once you get years of experience under your belt, it's extremely hard, if not impossible to switch fields within a certain engineering degree (see below on a caveat perhaps).

For example.. EE is very broad and it's pretty hard to know going into a job if you'll actually like that line of work, since most students aren't actually exposed to what a "Real" job is like, even if they intern. I have an EE degree and I went into more of the power/machinery business. I ended up in the military world which is great because I'm almost 100% certain to have a job for life unless I do some dumb shit and fvck up. However, it's not terribly interesting to me anymore, it's pretty boring and not much technologically is changing for military work due to how long they take to adapt new things. I would LOVE to go design new radar or advanced detection systems... But I have 0% experience in that field. Unless I literally go back to school for additional master's degree work, nobody is going to hire me. I'm pretty much "stuck" in this specific field within EE. Not a horrible thing, but just because your degree is top 10, doesn't mean you can't end up pigeon holed into a certain type of job. YMMV

For sure, but I think this is inherent in any career, not just engineering. Any degree is going to have a broad range of things you can do, and as you start down a certain path the further you get the harder it is to jump to another path without starting at the beginning. Some paths might diverge quicker then others but my point was more any engineering degree is going to have a huge range of paths you could go down, even paths outside of science and engineering. I know of some people who graduated with aerospace engineering degrees (what I also graduated with) and went to Wall Street making fuck tons of money.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Did downtown Dave Wick say that? WWDWD?

It was pretty evident within like 1 month who was and wasn't going to make it.

LOLOL WHAT A FUCKING BOSS. And no, it wasn't. TBH I don't remember who it was. My roommate freshman year was a complete waste of life. He barely made it a semester. I remember him asking me questions for Calc 1 that involved like ... simple fractions. He was certainly in for a rough ride.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Also, agreed on the concentration thing. I'm happy I chose power systems. Since graduating, I've been involved in substation design and now am in power generation. The power choice provides me with a ton of options though. NEED MOAR POWAH

Also @ControlD, plz give me all of your 25 years of knowledge on Z/Fourier/Laplace transform, impulse/frequency responses, and all things control as I need -some- knowledge in this very soon. This is one thing I never understood in school, and 6 years later ... still don't. Looking at all the convolution, s domain, time domain, etc etc etc and all that stuff is like trying to read hieroglyphics. Seriously - are you involved with any of that? And if so.... any reliable/helpful links/docs/books you could provide? Ideally this would be in layman's terms.

 

[Scarpozzi]

.... or still pursue a liberal arts degree and bitch about unemployment upon graduating summa cum laude.

Don't forget...they bitch about their $30-100k of college debt too and want loan forgiveness or a Federal government bailout.

...Had they only been better at math, they wouldn't have fallen prey to the student loan system....

 

[Chaotic42]

Don't forget...they bitch about their $30-100k of college debt too and want loan forgiveness or a Federal government bailout.

...Had they only been better at math, they wouldn't have fallen prey to the student loan system....

Do they just have fewer scholarships these days? I graduated high school in the late 90s and they were just giving out money for college left and right.

 

[purbeast0]

Do they just have fewer scholarships these days? I graduated high school in the late 90s and they were just giving out money for college left and right.

$10k for college in the late 90's went a shitload further than $10k for college would go in 2016. That would cover the cost of your books ... maybe!

 

[CraKaJaX]

Don't forget...they bitch about their $30-100k of college debt too and want loan forgiveness or a Federal government bailout.

...Had they only been better at math, they wouldn't have fallen prey to the student loan system....

I can pretty safely say that I am solid at math, but had to fall prey to the student loan system. Unfortunately my parents didn't baby me and cut me checks as some do. You have to be damn near a millionaire to have that compensation these days. Fortunately my loans are just about gone .... one more year or so. I think that's pretty damn decent considering the situation most people are in.

 

[CraKaJaX]

$10k for college in the late 90's went a shitload further than $10k for college would go in 2016. That would cover the cost of your books ... maybe!

Sad but true. This goes along with the above.

What's worse is dishing out $1500/semester for books, and then the professor upgrades the version so you can't even sell it the next semester to another student. You can barely give it away. Such a scam.

 

[z1ggy]

LOLOL WHAT A FUCKING BOSS. And no, it wasn't. TBH I don't remember who it was. My roommate freshman year was a complete waste of life. He barely made it a semester. I remember him asking me questions for Calc 1 that involved like ... simple fractions. He was certainly in for a rough ride.

What's sad is that more chicks wanted him than they did me although once I joined a frat life got way easier. But yeah most boss professor in the history of that school, except for that nobody who wrote Nightmare on Elm Street... psh.

At least he wasn't paying people to do his homework like most of the hockey team...? Then again, maybe he should have.

 

[ControlD]

Also, agreed on the concentration thing. I'm happy I chose power systems. Since graduating, I've been involved in substation design and now am in power generation. The power choice provides me with a ton of options though. NEED MOAR POWAH

Also @ControlD, plz give me all of your 25 years of knowledge on Z/Fourier/Laplace transform, impulse/frequency responses, and all things control as I need -some- knowledge in this very soon. This is one thing I never understood in school, and 6 years later ... still don't. Looking at all the convolution, s domain, time domain, etc etc etc and all that stuff is like trying to read hieroglyphics. Seriously - are you involved with any of that? And if so.... any reliable/helpful links/docs/books you could provide? Ideally this would be in layman's terms.

As soon as I can remember any of that stuff you will be the first to know!

(also, that kind of stuff is what co-op programs were invented for)