<p>1) You’ve tacitly consented that in posting the Georgetown report, you’ve actually falsified your own initial claim of "“75% of the workforce in any given field statistically fall into nearly the same annual salary.”</p>
<p>2) You accept that the Cal Poly data is not particularly reliable due to relatively small sample size.</p>
<p>3) You seem to not understand that unrepresentative sample means exactly that: the sample is unrepresentative, and thus cannot be generalized to a larger population.</p>
<p>4) Your final defence is basically: “Hey! I know my data is unrepresentative and worthless, but I’ll post it anyways! Look!” </p>
<p>Lovely. </p>
<p>Perhaps you should think about taking a social sci stat course. If you’re going to put your faith in numbers, and ask others of the same, you might want to actually know how to read them first :p</p>
The claim is to be understood as coming right out of college as a traditional student (no other prior experience factors i.e. military or other work/education). Mid-career would not be a traditional student right out of college, therefore his claim stands and could not be falsified simply by posting that data.</p>
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No, disco may have been using Cal Poly as an example of how to research your possible annual income right out of college based on your major and location. The OP can look up certain schools based on their supposed major and review the reported salary data accordingly and by historical trend.</p>
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Again, no specific school site will reflect the population as a whole, and it seems those data sets are examples to the claim. You want the nation as a whole? Look to indipendent studies that look for that exact thing or reasearch BLS.</p>
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Perhaps you should take a literature analysis course? It seems like you’re not inferring anything remotely corresponding in the words.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for giving me your insight and advice- as some of you stated, I AM only a sophomore, after all! You have all given me some things to think about. If anybody else has more advice or information they would like to share with me, please feel free to keep posting!</p>
<p>Turtlerock, I’ve * even quoted the exact claim of Disco’s that was refuted *, and yet you’ve still managed to misunderstand, drawing in non sequitors and selectively quote me in the process. If you’ll look on the first page, you’ll see that this discussion originates from the claim “75% of the workforce in any given field statistically fall into nearly the same annual salary.” </p>
<p>The rest of your post seems to be devoid of any concerns about drawing proper statistical inferences, and shows a startling lack of knowledge regarding problems of generalizability, external validity, and representation. </p>
<p>I thank you for your suggestion of taking up a lit analysis course, but I assure you that I’m not the one that needs it.</p>
<p>PoeticPrincess, if you excel at writing than you will be able to find a good job and eventually rise to a high enough salary to support a family. I singlehandedly support a family of four with nothing but a BA in English.</p>
<p>Continue developing those skills. They can earn you quite a bit of money in marketing and/or business, or in most any field if you are truly good at speaking/being on the spot, charismatic, etc. </p>
<p>There are plenty of students who enter college unsure of what they want to major in. Just try to explore as many options as you can both throughout high school and when entering college. You don’t have to start seriously considering a major until sophomore year of college.</p>
<p>I haven’t read any of the posts, but I can tell you that even those who are talented and passionate regarding Math and Sciences still hate Engineering, lol.</p>
<p>You are absolutely right and these people are crazy trying to show people up with statistics about stuff that’s not that serious. Just go to school and do you. Don’t worry about money or what other people will think. Go and find out who you are and explore your options in life: that’s what college is all about.</p>
<p>At this point in your life, trying to make this decision is an exercise in futility. The job market changes, thus job demand and earnings potential change as well. For example, right now is a good time for women to major in Computer Science. There is more funding available, there is an increasing demand for CS graduates, and since this field is dominated by men, recruiters are actively seeking women. However, universities are also becoming increasingly successful at recruiting women into CS programs. Basically, right now CS majors have a good job outlook, can expect a reasonable middle class or middle-upper salary, and women in particular are in demand. But by the time you graduate college, this could all change. Over the next 4 years, CS could become a popular major and end up churning out more graduates (of both genders) than there are jobs. Once that starts happening, salary goes down and jobs are more competitive. Or more of these jobs could end up overseas. </p>
<p>I understand your thinking- I’m much, much older than you and am just getting started in college. My preferred area of study (linguistics) requires graduate school to find a career with any kind of decent salary and job security. Since I have a family to support, I decided to major in CS for my Bachelor’s and then go on to graduate school for linguistics (or double major if I find a good undergrad school that has both). This will allow me to start working in a fairly lucrative field between undergrad and grad school. Also, CS will complement a linguistics major. </p>
<p>Right now I suggest exploring different areas of science, technology, robotics, engineering and so on. Go to summer camps, workshops, after-school programs. Continue doing extra in writing as well, but use the next few years to explore topics that don’t interest you much. You may find that you have interests that you didn’t know about. </p>
<p>Then, when you are ready to apply to colleges, you can make a more informed decision based on what you have learned about yourself and your interests, and job outlooks at that time. Remember- lots of people change majors while in college. It’s fairly common. So there is no pressure for you to make a decision right now, and indeed, it would be unwise to do so.</p>
<p>I can’t say that I can help you, but I will go through my decision on a similar thing.
I, too, LOVE writing. Stories, plays, skits, novels, poems, etc. I also loved acting. I went to college fully thinking I would major in theatre, and get a minor or something in writing as backup. Then I stopped and thought to myself… theatre is definitely not the most stable career choice. Then I thought about some sort of major dealing with writing. But then I realized… I am a procrastinator when it comes to writing and wouldn’t be able to make deadlines if my career involved that. Plus I’m also interested in trying to make a decent salary. So I looked to the sciences. I’m a storm chaser and a weather enthusiast. I’m not as passionate about it as I am with writing/acting, but I do enjoy it. The career field is more of a stability, and the pay can be good depending on where you’re employed, so I finally decided on majoring in Meteorology with a minor in Hydrology (just for added support to the major, and to make me stand out).
Now I could never give up on my other two loves… so I try to participate in on campus activities involving theatre and writing. In fact, I’m an officer in our school’s creative writing club. I’ve also decided I would like to continue to write as a hobby AND try to make money off of it, so like a few members of my club did, I decided to start self publishing on Amazon.
If you wish to make money, you should. But you should never completely give up on something you truly love doing. You need to look between the lines and find some way to fit it into your life. Maybe you could contribute short columns to papers? A blog perhaps? Now this only applies if you choose to go a way other than writing.</p>