<p>It's relatively easy in my area to get jobs out of college starting in the $40k-$60k range (before any kind of bonus). I don't see what the big deal is - some people here have bizarrely low expectations.</p>
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I was a bit horrified at the starting salaries of the Computer Science grads at Carnegie Mellon. There's a good chance Mathson's starting salary could be more than his PhD Dad's! It doesn't really seem right to me. I started out making $6 an hour in 1982. And that was after grad school.
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<p>Mathmom, you're not taking into account how many hours those kids will have to work earn those salaries. By the hour it might not seem like so much. Some of the kids I saw working in a high cost of living area (at SCS's favorite after-college-employer in the Pacific Northwest) looked as if they handn't been out of doors for months. ;)</p>
<p>Still, SCS's median starting salaries, adjusted for cost of living, while higher than starting salaries we typically see in our area, are not outrageously so. Nor are they that different from what my consulting firm pays new undergraduates.</p>
<p>^True, but many comp sci guys don't want to go outdoors anyway and they like working 60 hour weeks! The really big salaries were also in investment banking, I believe.</p>
<p>(And just so we're clear - we're not talking $50-60,000 here. Average starting salary with a comp sci BA was $90,000.)</p>
<p>mathmom, I think you were mistaken.</p>
<p>$80,000 is the maximum salary. The average is howering at 60,000. Am I missing something?</p>
<p>$85,000 is the maximum for Computer Science</p>
<p>Medha you are looking at 2004-5 numbers. </p>
<p>I could be remembering wrong, but I don't think so. The info was presented at the accepted students weekend last April. My recollection is that the top salary was ca. $120,000. Average or median was around $90,000. Lowest salary was someone who wanted to go back to hometown in Idaho and could only find a job teaching.</p>
<p>I wonder what Google is paying?</p>
<p>I agree that the kids making over 100k are working 80+hrs a week.</p>
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Medha you are looking at 2004-5 numbers. </p>
<p>I could be remembering wrong, but I don't think so. The info was presented at the accepted students weekend last April. My recollection is that the top salary was ca. $120,000. Average or median was around $90,000. Lowest salary was someone who wanted to go back to hometown in Idaho and could only find a job teaching.
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<p>Wow ok. Thanks for clarifying! I guess with unprecedented VC money, the jump in the salaries kind of makes sense.</p>
<p>First year investment banking analysts can make $130,000 to $150,000, from what I understand. However, 80 hours weeks (as per Merrymom above) would seem like vacation hours to them - they routinely work well over 100 hours a week for weeks on end.</p>
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I could be remembering wrong, but I don't think so. The info was presented at the accepted students weekend last April. My recollection is that the top salary was ca. $120,000. Average or median was around $90,000. Lowest salary was someone who wanted to go back to hometown in Idaho and could only find a job teaching.
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<p>mathmom, the numbers quoted at freshman orientation last fall were much smaller. The high was $90K, average was $70K and median $74K. I think those are spring 2006 numbers (medha quotes the 2005 numbers). It seems unlikely the average and median jumped that much in one year unless you're talking graduate or post graduate salaries and I've misunderstood. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Epattis/advising/surveys/orientation%20pm.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pattis/advising/surveys/orientation%20pm.pdf</a> (page 16)</p>
<p>BTW, at least through 2005, Microsoft and Google hired more CMU SCS students than any other employer (CMU itself exempted). I assume CMU's numbers tell at least part of the Google story.</p>
<p>DH finds the rush to investment banking jobs a riot -- when he graduated from an Ivy undergrad b-school, that was where the liberal arts grads who couldn't find jobs went to work. His first job out of undergrad paid $24K in 1983. We thought he'd hit the big time.</p>
<p>I worked for one of the big benefits consulting firms -- starting salary in 1986 was $16K. The opportunities for quick advancement and nice pay raises are there, but they don't happen for most folks straight out of school.</p>
<p>If recent college grads want to go be cannon fodder for the big firms as a way of getting loans paid off and acquiring a nest egg, fine. I worked 55 hrs/wk at the consulting firm while I was there (which coincided with DH being in grad school), and I loved it, but it was a specific time and place in my life. (I also had just broken $30K when I left, a salary which I considered a major milestone.)</p>
<p>I hope these kids don't expect to have that kind of income for the rest of their lives -- the burnout level in those jobs is incredibly high and many will leave by the time they're 30 to something that allows them time to breathe.</p>
<p>But yeah, DH sees starting attorney salaries these days and gives a big sigh, too.</p>
<p>"DH finds the rush to investment banking jobs a riot -- when he graduated from an Ivy undergrad b-school, that was where the liberal arts grads who couldn't find jobs went to work. His first job out of undergrad paid $24K in 1983. We thought he'd hit the big time."</p>
<p>I am definitely not an expert on investment banking but it seems like the jobs today are very quantitative (perhaps a change from the past?). Most of the students getting these jobs seem to be very good at math and their majors require strong mathematical ability.</p>
<p>The investment banking programs back them were essentially a two-year on-the-job training. Recent graduates would rotate through several departments, and after two years, the partners would decide who they wanted to stay on. We had a friend who was an IR major do this, got a permanent position after the training, stayed for a couple of years, and then to0ok a year off to travel the world.</p>
<p>My DH keeps telling DS about the quant jobs in IB (DS is an intended math major), but DS says phooey. He's an academic purist at heart. I say wait 'til he has bills to pay!</p>
<p>To the OP's question. I suspect some can't find jobs because their degree and field of study are not compatable with market needs....There are not a lot of calls for Lute players with degrees in ... this is related to the...but I don't want to become a teacher, or I don't want to be one of those commuters. I don't like ________about that job!</p>
<p>Then there are students who don't want to live anyplace they haven't lived before.....They don't want to live where the jobs might be.</p>
<p>Last would be the students who did a minimal amount of work in the easiest courses they could find, made no original efforts and have no recommendations better than..."I think he was in my class for a semester."</p>
<p>Otherwise I think their are jobs for most college graduates, if they are willing to take on a little more training, and if they are open to taking a salary that is less than a starting engineer...unless they happen to be an engineer.</p>
<p>mathmom, according to most recent CMU statistics, the mean starting salary for its BS Compsci grads was $67,500 and the highest was tens of thousands below the $120,000 you cited.</p>