Old (2019) NYT article—“In the salary race, Engineering majors sprint, but English majors endure”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A pre-ChatGPT article. Cute.

Making pronouncements and predictions at the very start of a trend that has already proven to be highly problematic. Cute.

[Anonymous]

New (2023) CBSNews article

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-major-highest-lowest-incomes/

Sorry English is way at the bottom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
New (2023) CBSNews article

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-major-highest-lowest-incomes/

Sorry English is way at the bottom

Why is Pharmacy, which takes at least 6 years to graduate from no matter where you go to college, on this list? I thought it was supposed to be undergraduate degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
New (2023) CBSNews article

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-major-highest-lowest-incomes/

Sorry English is way at the bottom

Is this data gender-corrected? Using 35-45 year old does not account for the fact that women often take off significant time/reduce career efforts for caregiving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. My Dh majored in English and is earning over half a million + in the tv and film industry as are several of our contemporaries.

English majors are some of the smartest people I know - including my mother. AB University of Michigan 1955 Summa Cum Laude. I miss her. Hooray for your DH. 👍

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m an English major. Very content at 40 to be making $150K in a communications field, writing a lot, leaving every day at 4. My work is wonderful, and it never comes home with me. I’m sure I could be making a lot more money, but I value peace of mind and meaningful work a lot more. I’m happy!

+1. That’s awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and English are both low paying careers, so I'm not that surprised that English can catch up by the time someone is 40. What you want to do is make a pile of money right out of the gate, so that you can retire and life the rich life by 40 -- not continue working!!!

Be a hot chick; major in twerking; get on OF. Retire by 40!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A pre-ChatGPT article. Cute.

Yep, ChatGPT will depress CS wages very quickly.

[Anonymous]

This is very misleading. The only people who study English at college are rich people with family money. Of course they do well over time with connections etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/liberal-arts-stem-salaries.html

College is not trade school! What you make starting out isn’t very relevant. Think long-term.

STEM majors aren’t in “trade school”. They are as highly educated as their humanities peers and have as many options for flexible career shifts long term.

Also, while salaries may eventually equal out, that fast start allows STEM majors to pay off loans quickly, save to pay cash for a car, and save for a down payment on a house. Compound interest and early investment in the stock market is a wonderful thing for retirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is very misleading. The only people who study English at college are rich people with family money. Of course they do well over time with connections etc.

OMG where did you go to college? I majored in English and I knew maybe one person who might have had family money.

[Anonymous]

I'm not going to click through a paywalled article on NYT but if it's claiming that English majors do about as well mid-career as Engineering majors, that is blatantly falsed based on national data. You can go search by major here: https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that-pay-you-back/bachelors

Pretty much all engineering fields MID-CAREER salaries are 130k-190k, whereas nothing that combines English with anything exceeds 100k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to click through a paywalled article on NYT but if it's claiming that English majors do about as well mid-career as Engineering majors, that is blatantly falsed based on national data. You can go search by major here: https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/majors-that-pay-you-back/bachelors

Pretty much all engineering fields MID-CAREER salaries are 130k-190k, whereas nothing that combines English with anything exceeds 100k

This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/business/liberal-arts-stem-salaries.html

College is not trade school! What you make starting out isn’t very relevant. Think long-term.

STEM majors aren’t in “trade school”. They are as highly educated as their humanities peers and have as many options for flexible career shifts long term.

Also, while salaries may eventually equal out, that fast start allows STEM majors to pay off loans quickly, save to pay cash for a car, and save for a down payment on a house. Compound interest and early investment in the stock market is a wonderful thing for retirement.

This! The VAST MAJORITY of STEM kids are smarter/more intelligent than the VAST MAJORITY of English grads. The only smart kids that WANT to get an English degree are those that love English or are getting an 'easy' degree for a high GPA as a stepping stone to grad school (medicine, law or MBA). The first group will score high on job/career satisfaction and the latter, of course, will make money compared to a CS grad that didn't go to grad school. A third group will just coast on family connections.. Get into a decent school, study English or something equally fu fu, get a job with daddy's company or daddy's friend's and go up the ladder. The skills needed for a high level job are less cerebral and more interpersonal. I know someone who dropped out of college (English major) who 20 years later is the COO of a large company in another country (daddy's connections) and seems to be doing well (anecdotal, of course). I also know many, many STEM grads that decided to get an MBA and are rubbing shoulders with the C Suite.

If you were to measure the collective wealth of ALL STEM undergrads and compare that to ALL liberal arts grads adjusted for college pedigree, I bet the the STEM grads would be way ahead of the LA peers at any age group. Common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A pre-ChatGPT article. Cute.

As someone who has been working in deep learning and generative AI for a decade, I don’t believe the underlying truth of the article will change.