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Top 10 highest paying degrees of 2010

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matas said:
I think I am gonna major in biomedical engineering or chemical engineering. What should I do?
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Biomed. Sounds far more exciting, at least to me. When I was a freshman, I pretty much narrowed it down to nuclear, biomed, or chemical. Glad I didn't do chem, I know a few people that regretted it.
 
iFX said:
With a CS degree name one job you can get out of school without additional training, we're talking a real, salaried job, not Walmart.
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Quantitative Analysis at a top hedge fund/trading firm for well into 6 figures out of school? Hard to get though.

For reference, I'm studying CS and Finance and my internship this summer is prorated at. Full time offers have even better figures.
 
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Juked07 said:
Quantitative Analysis at a top hedge fund/trading firm for well into 6 figures out of school? Hard to get though.

For reference, I'm studying CS and Finance and my internship this summer is prorated at 100k/yr. Full time offers have even better figures.
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have fun being a slave.
 
rcpratt said:
Biomed. Sounds far more exciting, at least to me. When I was a freshman, I pretty much narrowed it down to nuclear, biomed, or chemical. Glad I didn't do chem, I know a few people that regretted it.
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I'm doing chemical right now, there's little that a biomed major does that a chemical major can't do, especially if you take some bio classes. Chemical Engineering research has shifted a lot toward biology research in academia. It also gives you flexibility should you want to go into the petroleum/chemical industry, finance, etc.
 
IAteYourMother said:
I'm doing chemical right now, there's little that a biomed major does that a chemical major can't do, especially if you take some bio classes. Chemical Engineering research has shifted a lot toward biology research in academia. It also gives you flexibility should you want to go into the petroleum/chemical industry, finance, etc.
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Interesting. They're very closely related, of course, but I had never heard it put that a ChE could do anything that a BME could do before.

When they were "selling" us on ChE, it seemed like all they mentioned was paint and pharmaceuticals. I know there's more to it than that, but that really turned me off.
 
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Around $58k for the starting salary for MEs is about right. I started right around there when I graduated in 2008. The only problem is many of the big companies, mine included, have frozen all raises or proposals. So 2 years in I'm earning the same that I started with. I ended up putting my foot down in my last performance review a week ago and suddenly there was a bit of room in the budget to give me a raise. 🙄
 
rcpratt said:
Interesting. They're very closely related, of course, but I had never heard it put that a ChE could do anything that a BME could do before.

When they were "selling" us on ChE, it seemed like all they mentioned was paint and pharmaceuticals. I know there's more to it than that, but that really turned me off.
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I think it depends on your curriculum/school, but chemical engineering research at the very least is very bio heavy. I'm not sure what exactly you'd be looking to do with a BE/BME degree? As a freshman, it seemed to me that BE offered a narrower scope of what I could do, although granted, with an engineering degree you can do a lot.
 
It would be interesting to see along side those statistics the number of people with those degrees that got/will get actual related jobs in 2010.

Rumor has it that EE is the most likely to get a job.
 
rcpratt said:
Interesting. They're very closely related, of course, but I had never heard it put that a ChE could do anything that a BME could do before.

When they were "selling" us on ChE, it seemed like all they mentioned was paint and pharmaceuticals. I know there's more to it than that, but that really turned me off.
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Chemical Engineering gets you into Mech. Eng. stuff, Elec. Eng. stuff, and Bio. Eng. stuff depending on which direction you head in terms of electives and graduate degree.

I got an undergrad in Chem. Eng. and a Masters in the same. My master's took me towards Electrical Engineering (nanotechnology/Carbon nanotubes/High Vacuum Field Emission). Then I got a job which has twisted my education towards law and more electrical engineering (fuel cells/batteries).

The concepts you learn as a Chem. Eng are very applicable to EE. EE has voltage and current while ChE has concentration gradient and mass flow. Same principles.

BTW, pure Chemical Engineering is generally: Chemical Plant Design, Petroleum, Chemical Manufacturing and Materials (Dupont, Gore, Dow).
 
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Tiamat said:
Chemical Engineering gets you into Mech. Eng. stuff, Elec. Eng. stuff, and Bio. Eng. stuff depending on which direction you head in terms of electives and graduate degree.

I got an undergrad in Chem. Eng. and a Masters in the same. My master's took me towards Electrical Engineering (nanotechnology/Carbon nanotubes/High Vacuum Field Emission). Then I got a job which has twisted my education towards law and more electrical engineering (fuel cells/batteries).

The concepts you learn as a Chem. Eng are very applicable to EE. EE has voltage and current while ChE has concentration gradient and mass flow. Same principles.

BTW, pure Chemical Engineering is generally: Chemical Plant Design, Petroleum, Chemical Manufacturing and Materials (Dupont, Gore, Dow).
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I interned at a large industrial controls company last year and several of the software developers were chemical engineers.
 
Do we have any real statistics from the last 6 months?

Economy took a fat shit over the last year, I will be surprised that the average starting salary across all degrees are higher than last year.

Also, these numbers are for all the grads that GOT a job, I wonder how many grads actually got a job as a percentage of the graduating class, after 6 months of graduation.
 
Chemical engineering was the only engineering major that scared the aerospace engineers when I was in school.

The reason why petroleum engineering jobs pay so much is that a large percentage of them find themselves working in crappy locations and working crappy hours.

Oh, and industrial engineering is total BS, I'm surprised they call it engineering.
 
IAteYourMother said:
I'm doing chemical right now, there's little that a biomed major does that a chemical major can't do, especially if you take some bio classes. Chemical Engineering research has shifted a lot toward biology research in academia. It also gives you flexibility should you want to go into the petroleum/chemical industry, finance, etc.
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No.

You have a very focused idea of what BME/BE entails. BME is not just about biology or chemical processes, as it equally includes topics related to structure, mechanics, and electrical theory.

I did undergrad in BME with a concentration in materials science, and my MS was in BE with a biomechanics concentration.
 
KillerCharlie said:
Chemical engineering was the only engineering major that scared the aerospace engineers when I was in school.

The reason why petroleum engineering jobs pay so much is that a large percentage of them find themselves working in crappy locations and working crappy hours.

Oh, and industrial engineering is total BS, I'm surprised they call it engineering.
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Ha, yeah we IE's know the production and the business side to manage all you engineers, so I understand your sour grape attitude.
 
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