These are the highest-paying college majors, 4 years after graduation—many pay over $100,000
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Anonymous
Yeah, those engineers who are good with people and like to manage others can do that. There's a lot of technical folks who have no such skills/desires and there's a limited path upward without them. Even chief engineers need to manage. Tech lead isn't quite as bad--but it's capped out in most places and there's still some management. I'm just saying that for a field that pays high and attracts bright people it's got a shelf life unless you've got broader skills. Whereas if you are a humanities or social science grad and take a lower-paying job in HR or wherever and develop your skills there, you can move up higher in admin and they are really drawing a similar set of skills and you can easily pivot to positions that draw on similar managerial soft skills. Engineering is a very pointy set of valuable skills and it's hard to move up just by being technically good--you can keep your job, you are valuable but it gets tedious. At least that's the experience of many of the people in my family and others they know. |
Anonymous
The government keeps wanting new and improved warplanes so I've never gotten bored. |
Anonymous
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I mean, it depends on the goal and the kid. If you are a LMC or less privileged college student without tons of connections at a non-top-tier school and you want career security.... engineering is almost surely your best bet if you have enough math skills to get the degree.
You can turn that into whatever you want depending on your goals. If you have the personality for it, you can do sales or management and your income can have the higher trajectory. If you just want a stable life, you can stay on a more traditional tech path and you may top out around $200k or something. Not shabby, but yeah, those successful in business/capitalism can easily beat you on money. |
Anonymous
Very few engineers work for the DOD or adjacent where there are endless budgets for endless improvements. Many work on optimizing tiny aspects of tiny problems that they figured out long ago, or spec-ing out things they know will never be put into production. |
Anonymous
Did you just copy and paste this entire post? |
Anonymous
+100. |
Anonymous
neither of you two PPs understand what statistics mean. You must've been an English major. -BBA grad |
Anonymous
Actually 25x to 50x, but point taken. |
Anonymous
Well, to move up in engineering beyond a technical role you've usually got to get a MEM or MBA. |
Anonymous
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What about at 10 years post grad?
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Anonymous
She had a connection for sure - in a vertical position. |
Anonymous
Agree. Ppl who post here generally grew up lower middle class or very middle class and haven’t quite figured out how to climb up effectively. As someone who grew up lower middle class and now has a household income of at least $5 million a year and a Net worth above $50 million, I am not at all focused on this list for my senior. If you are focused on this list, you are barking up the wrong tree. And if you do t see it, you need to expose yourself to different things. |
Anonymous
This may be true but think of the compounding effect of all those early years of making $100k+, if you do your savings right. Total assets would probably be comparable or more to the English major who has finally outpaced them many years later. |
Anonymous
Exactly. All these calls for STEM, STEM, STEM!!!!!! And then, lawyers and “comtractors” obviously making sooooo much more money. Engineering is difficult! If you’re smart it’s a good option and the baseline ceiling is much higher. Otherwise get a law degree, MBA, or whatever contractors come from. Just make sure the degree has a good reputation. |
Anonymous
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This is the dumbest post and such narrow minded thinking l. The world needs people with all kinds of skills and talents. Engineers may have built the iPhone but would it have been so wildly successful without the designers who made it appealing and the marketing teams who sold it to the public? Vaccine researchers may develop a vaccine but without people with the know how to manufacture it at scale and people who can communicate its safety and efficacy and lawyers to see it through the regulatory process, it won’t get made or used. Surely engineers wear clothing someone who went to fashion school designed and listen to music and read books and watch tv shows created by musicians and artists and writers. They send their kids to schools to be taught by education majors, and when their kids are showing signs of ADHD send them to neuropsych testing run by people who were probably psychology undergrads. They dine at restaurants run by culinary school grads and travel to places they only know about because they read about them blogs or articles written by English majors. They go hiking on trails kept safe by forest rangers who were environmental studies or forestry majors and their kids grandkids may have a shot at living on a planet fit for human habitation because of polysci and French double majors who work on global treaties to protect the environment.
If you value money above all else, do what you do. But to mock those who choose lower paid careers who produce things you use and benefit from all the time is really obnoxious. |