<p>I (and others, I'm sure) hear all the time that if one goes to HYP and majors in underwater basket weaving, one can still get a cushy job. Then, I hear that only engineers will ever have jobs and everybody else should jump under a bus. Being 18 years old, I'm not qualified to judge either way.</p>
<p>So I thought I'd ask those of you in the work world and possibly doing the hiring, is major or caliber of school more important to employment? For the purposes of this discussion, I would like to disregard fields where a specific degree is necessary and focus on just general private sector office jobs with advancement potential. What's REALLY important to getting a position? </p>
<p>Vienneselights, a brand-name school can help offset the liability of a degree that doesn’t necessarily relate directly to a career. Employers will assume that:
-you were smart enough to get in and make it through four years, so likely you aren’t entirely stupid
-your coursework was likely fairly rigorous and demanded some level of effective written and verbal communication.
-you probably became somewhat socialized by your peers and experiences</p>
<p>BUT, don’t assume that the elite sheepskin makes getting hired for a great job any kind of certainty. Read the boards here and you’ll find plenty of anecdotes of Ivy grads working as baristas while continuing their search.</p>
<p>Combine the elite degree with a solid internship or two and strong academic performance, and your odds will go up.</p>
<p>That same formula will work even at a less elite school. Indeed, some great work experience will often make the Big State U anthropology major more attractive than someone from an elite school with no experience.</p>
<p>The safest route may indeed be a career-oriented degree like CompSci or engineering, but even those aren’t always certain. Specific disciplines tend to go through boom and bust cycles. Having said that, it’s probably been quite a while since CompSci grads from Stanford or CMU had much difficulty finding work.</p>
<p>If you think working 80 hours a week for a sometimes psycho tyrant of a boss is a cushy job–yes many liberal arts majors from the Ivies and some others do get those jobs if they fit in and the economy is good. Fitting in can mean being a hard-drinking jock from the crew or lacrosse team–or a super grind great with spreadsheets.</p>
<p>@barrons I imagine - well, I know - people who work 80 hour weeks for a sometimes psycho tyrant boss… For 60k annually. By cushy I meant a job that compensates adequately for skinning your ass</p>
<p>@Roger
By great work experience, do you mean something at a top competitor in the field? Or will proving that you can do spreadsheets work?</p>
<p>You are unlikely to get a civil engineering job without an ABET accredited civil engineering degree.</p>
<p>Your chances of going into elite investment banking or elite consulting employment are much lower if your degree is not from one of a small number of favored universities recruited by those employers.</p>
<p>However, differences in reporting, and lack of surveys at most schools, impose significant limitations on any comparisons.</p>
<p>There are also the widely quoted Payscale surveys, but these are reported stratifying the results by either school or major, but not by stratifying the results by both school and major. The latter would be much more useful and much less misleading.</p>
<p>Nah, become a civil engineer and spend your 80 hours climbing around in the active area of sewage treatment plants and stroking the egos of the elected officials whose good will determines whether you will get that next job - and when you’re done with that, prepare that 150-page grant request and navigate the state bureaucracy to schmooze it through.</p>
<p>OP, barrons doesn’t realize that every job has its upsides and downsides.</p>
<p>I once interviewed someone you had an undergrad in History from Princeton AND a masters in International Studies from Harvard. Educational credentials were confirmed. </p>
<p>The job was $35K telemarketer. He had 6 years verified experience as a telemarketer. Great presence and a clean record. </p>
<p>annasdad…While I am sure there might be a few lousy engineering jobs most have pretty regular hours. There are two engineering firms on my floor. They do not work 80 hours nor do they appear wildly stressed. They do sometimes work on weekends but not very often. Many work in the public sector on roads and other public projects. They do not work 80 hours but may do some overtime.
Boeing which has 1000’s of them–
[Working</a> at Boeing - Reviews of Jobs at Boeing](<a href=“http://www.jobitorial.com/boeing-job-reviews-C668?PageNum=1]Working”>http://www.jobitorial.com/boeing-job-reviews-C668?PageNum=1)</p>
<p>Telegram to barrons: sewage treatment plants are public sector jobs, and civil engineers design them, supervise their construction, inspect them, and help operators figure out what’s wrong when the poop isn’t getting properly processed.</p>
<p>And sharing a building with engineering firms doesn’t compare with sitting through endless city committee meetings listening to the consulting engineer yes-sir no-sir the elected officials on whom his (or her) next contract depends.</p>
<p>And have you ever attempted to actually read a 150-page bid spec? Apparently not.</p>
<p>Both my nephews graduated from LACs with non-STEM degrees. Both wound up with what I’d consider high paying first jobs ($50K+). One works for an IT company. The other works for a legal services firm. Neither job is even remotely related to their majors (History and Latin American Studies), but they clearly demonstrated they had effective communication and analytic skills. I think there are firms out there who still hire smart kids and train them.</p>
<p>I think a starting salary of $60k sounds mighty fine. There are many folks who would be happy with that salary. </p>
<p>Engineers in this household worked a 40 hour work week with occasional longer days…but never an 80 hour week. My husband writes those bid specs.</p>
<p>Just because someone yells something repeatedly and rudely doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about or even that it is remotely true. </p>
<p>General Rule = Post count, counts otherwise.</p>