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Ah, the days of researching average starting salaries. It was a wonderful time, full of promise, where you would just browse through potential career options related to your degree like a stoner perusing a takeout menu on payday. As we all came to find out, the employment world doesn’t work like that. More often than not, your first job is usually not the one you want, and likely pays much less than you were anticipating back when you took the numbers in your career center’s brochure seriously.
There are, however, a few majors with nice starting salaries that hold up to scrutiny, which is borne out by a study of employment stats done by Michigan State. Among other general and specific numbers about jobs and the economy, they made a list of the starting salaries by each major. Here’s the top ten:
Electrical Engineering — $57,030
Computer Engineering — $56,576
Mechanical Engineering — $56,055
Software Design — $54,183
Computer Programming — $54,065
Chemical Engineering — $53,622
Computer Science — $52,237
Civil Engineering — $51,622
Mathematics — $47,952
Construction — $45,591
That list probably surprises no one. Engineering has always been a lucrative field, because there will always be a small number of people who actually have the intelligence and wherewithal to even get a degree in the first place. It’s also not a shocker that computer-related jobs are that high as well. Everything runs on computers now, and employment is still trying to catch up to demand there. Programmers get paid big bucks, and software companies don’t give two shits what your experience is, as long as you can code. Hell, even if you strike out in the higher end market, a computer-related degree will still get you an hourly job doing IT in any company for $15 an hour, minimum.
Not surprisingly, the less technically-focused degrees are on the low end, with Advertising coming in below even Social Work, which has been the stereotype of a low-income job requiring a college degree for years. Your coursework might be focused on advertising with Fortune 500 companies, but your first job out of school will likely be doing social media for a locally owned company for minimum wage. Don Draper didn’t have to put up with this shit, that’s for sure.
[via MSU Today]
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Petroleum engineering?
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/pay-scale-starting-salary-petroleum-engineering-36207.html
Contemplated changing schools many times to pursue that degree. Didn’t. #PGP
#2, 4, 5, and 7 are all the same thing. Software Engineering. Aka Brogramming
Also, a lot of those Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Math majors are working as software developers, as their majors envelop a lot of Computer Science principles and they tend to be pretty smart folks so they can work in the field without a C.S. degree.
Not at all. Find me a CS that could build an IC.
Yo Happy, if you parse my sentence one more time, I’m sure you’ll realize that what I said was that some of those Engineering majors end up working software jobs because they’re qualified for both a lot of the time. I did not say that a lot Computer Science majors end up working CE or EE (though they might dual-major and do that), since the curriculum doesn’t generally require all the same studies.
That said, learn to take a compliment next time, yah fuck.
And I’ve realized you were replying to the previous person. Still kinda pissed by the assertion that CS majors aren’t capable folks, but nonetheless I redact my statement.
Never back down! Never surrender!
I didn’t say CS majors weren’t capable in their field. What Brogrammer did was lump several fields requiring varying degrees of technical knowledge above and beyond knowing how to write source code into “Software Engineering” and then assert were all “Brogramming”.
They are NOT all the same shit as he implied.
Everything you said was fairly accurate, except that your typical CS major learns absolutely fuck all about EE in undergrad.
Agreed.
Can’t help but notice English/Lit didn’t make the list… I hate my old adviser some days…
I believe there’s been an oversight.
They say us Econ majors should outpace the engineers in mid-career salary. But most of us go to get MBAs, JDs, CPAs, or CFAs so I don’t know if it really matters that we studied Econ in undergrad.
That’s because most engineers get pigeon-holed and aren’t incentivized to move up or down. You start making $75k to $95k a year and you stay pretty content.
Maritime Administration: Average start pay 47500 plus benefits. x1.5 if located overseas. Cargo transportation is what people ALWAYS forget about yet 90% of global goods are transported by ocean.
A lot of field engineers or construction management graduates who work in the field usually make double or triple their base salary from bonuses
Whenever someone who is studying marketing or advertising tries to tell me they’ll be making decent money once they graduate, I just laugh and laugh and laugh. Little do they know that 85% of their profession is earning fuck all, regardless of how long they’ve been doing it.
Art major?
Why isn’t Political Science on this list? Oh, wait…