most underestimated and overestimated major

[AmigaMan]

I'd say nursing and pharmacy are underestimated. Everytime I turn around, I see job postings for those types of skills. Of course I live in between two great hospitals, UNC and Duke. And pharmacy/nursing chicks are hot! Well not chicks that are nursing babies, but chicks who are nurses are hot.

 

[Martin]

I agree with nursing as being very underestimated. As for overestimated....I dunno really.

 

[herkulease]

blah

 

[silverpig]

Under: Nursing and Business
Over: Monkey Training


Anyone got a monkey they need trained? Please?

 

[CptObvious]

Originally posted by: herkulease
don't worry its a regional thing. I dunno the exact situation in florida but hear in california we are flooded with dentist and phamacist. my own family alone accounts for 9 dentists and 2 pharmacist. I too was gonna join the family and to dental but ochem screwed me but decided to go law and I enjoy it. There are hardly any vietnamese lawyers atleast compared to dentist.

Plus with a background in chem and bio gives me a leg up when biotech companies come to california for stem cell research.

you could always chase ambulances. 🙂 j/k

I hear ya about the Asian thing 🙂 I don't know too many other Korean lawyers, except my sister. Most of my Korean friends are doing something in health care (doctors, dentists, etc.)

It's too bad I graduated with a psychology degree, even though I took most of the core science courses. At least if I had a biology or chemistry degree I could go into patent law. Are you planning to do something in patents?

 

[QueHuong]

Originally posted by: DigDug
Underrated: liberal arts


What you learn from this course of study is how to think, critically analyze and write very well. All three are severely lacking in many college graduates because they've spent their college careers memorizing equations or filling out ditto sheets. I had to write about 3 (usually more) papers per class, per semester, every semester throughout school. I learned how to think about what I was taught and to organize and articulate my thoughts for others. You don't get that working on a calculate day-in and day-out.

That's how those liberal arts majors want to justify it. With your talk about calculations and equations, I'm assuming you're referring to engineering. Thinking engineering is just "memorizing equations" or " calculating day-in and day-out" is exactly why liberal arts majors wonder why the hell engineers get paid $50k per year out of college and liberal art majors are getting coffee for their engineering-educated bosses.

I don't doubt liberal arts majors are probably better novel writers; but in business, you want to communicate only the facts, get to the point, and keep it short. By training, liberal arts major are taught to fluff up their essays with colorful metaphors while engineers are taught to keep it very objective and factual. Secondly, engineering is pretty much all analytical and critical thinking. Even the freshmen physics class is far beyond plugging and chugging (i.e. memorizing equations). No engineers here will tell you memorizing equations got them through 4-5, sometimes 6 years of grueling work.

(I realize I didn't keep this post short myself...)

So to answer the original poster:

Underestimated: engineering (as evident by the graduating class being only 1/4th of the entering freshmen class)

Overrated: liberal arts

 

[Syringer]

I think over/underestimated is the wrong word..

 

[LordMorpheus]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: screw3d
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/09/pf/college/nace_survey/index.htm

CS is NOT overestimated, and is still pretty much in demand

edit: misread OP

OT:

<---- Engineer likes the fact that Electrical Engineering is 2nd to only Chemical Engineering in terms of pay (very similar to the fact that Chemical Engineering was ranked (at the time) hardest of Engineering disciplines)

😀

I think EE is somewhat underestimated. There is a large and growing field in industrial automation as companies look for cheaper ways to build things and as a way to avoid outsourcing all jobs to Mexico/China. EE with Automation specialty is growing rapidly!

I'm a Mech/EE hybrid right now, technically a Mech major but I'm specializing in robotics which means I take nearly enough comp and elec classes to pursue a degree in either of those other two majors . . . . this year is hard, next year will be all sorts of harder.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Engineer
<---- Engineer likes the fact that Electrical Engineering is 2nd to only Chemical Engineering in terms of pay (very similar to the fact that Chemical Engineering was ranked (at the time) hardest of Engineering disciplines)

😀

<--- CHEM E 😛

 

[dfinder]

Underestimated: MIS

 

[dfinder]

Overestimated: CS

 

[Koing]

Underestimated: French

If you passed Uni with a degree in FRENCH and wanted to go in to FINANCE/ Investment Banking you would be RIGHT at the top of the pile in England over ANY other degree for those 2 areas. Why? They want people to speak/ write in French to their clients abroad.

Koing

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: DigDug
Underrated: liberal arts


What you learn from this course of study is how to think, critically analyze and write very well. All three are severely lacking in many college graduates because they've spent their college careers memorizing equations or filling out ditto sheets. I had to write about 3 (usually more) papers per class, per semester, every semester throughout school. I learned how to think about what I was taught and to organize and articulate my thoughts for others. You don't get that working on a calculate day-in and day-out.

Any quality non-liberal arts program will do the same. I did quite a few in-depth analyses of companies and financial statements throughout my college career and I can honestly say that anyone just regurgitating formulae would have failed them.

Of course, I also took a lot of liberal arts classes for fun and took as few business electives as possible. It's fun being in a Shakespeare, or Religious Studies, or Middle-English Literature class and telling all the English and Lit majors that you're in Finance. Some of them were really pissed that a guy from the business school was at or near the top of their liberal arts class.

ZV

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Underestimated: Business
Overestimated: Economics/CS

CS is not over-estimated... don't believe everything you read on the forums. i don't know about other schools, but Amazon and Google are hiring heavily from UW CS. 60-70k a year isn't bad fresh out of school.

 

[alent1234]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
I'd say nursing and pharmacy are underestimated. Everytime I turn around, I see job postings for those types of skills. Of course I live in between two great hospitals, UNC and Duke. And pharmacy/nursing chicks are hot! Well not chicks that are nursing babies, but chicks who are nurses are hot.

my wife has a cousin who is a nurse at a good hospital in NYC with a few years experience. On the night shift he just got promoted to a manager position and the pay is around $100,000

 

[lobadobadingdong]

I'm an IS admin, I've yet to meet a CS major that stated at over $35k

 

[gopunk]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
I'm an IS admin, I've yet to meet a CS major that stated at over $35k

i've yet to meet a CS major that started at under 35k... wtf where do you live?