<p>All I can find is that:
- BS in ECE avges about $52k starting salary,
- MS in ECE can expect around $70k starting salary.
- Phd in ECE, varies widely, expect $90k+?</p>
<p>How do these salaries increase for the next 5-10 years?
I realize that a lot of entry positions have multiple promotion options, if you want to bring that up, please give a sample path and a sample salary for that path. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>well you can do an MBA after your bachelors and earn 100K+ in your mid 20s, instead of doing masters & PHD.</p>
<p>
[quote]
well you can do an MBA after your bachelors and earn 100K+ in your mid 20s, instead of doing masters & PHD.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Heck, you don't even need an MBA for that. Just get a job on Wall Street right after undergrad {which you can get with an ECE degree} and you'll easily be making over 100k in your first year. Not bad for a 21-22 year old. Of course, you'll be working like a dog, but hey, at least you'll be paid well.</p>
<p>If you want to work on Wall Street, why major in ECE?</p>
<p>live-</p>
<p>becuase its a good backup career given how difficult it is to get into investment banking</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you want to work on Wall Street, why major in ECE?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, you have to major in * something *, and as california_love8 said, ECE gives you a solid backup career in case you can't get a Wall Street offer. Not everybody who wants a Wall Street offer gets one.</p>
<p>Still, as an ECE major right now, I sure as hell would transfer straight to Econ/OR/Business if I wanted a Wall Street (or Wall Street-type) job. Why go through 4 years of heavily technical classes if, evidently, you don't enjoy them as much as business/econ? Then, even if you don't get a job on Wall Street right away, you can at least go into something related and hope to get there some day.</p>
<p>I guess what I'm saying is, OK, it's a good backup career. But clearly, you are either (1) more interested in making money than pursuing something you enjoy if you do indeed enjoy ECE more than business/econ, or (2) more interested in business/econ than ECE. So, either way, you'd be better off majoring in econ or business (or maybe OR). If you can't hit Wall St right away, you'll still make more money with your business degree than your ECE degree (better for person 1). And person 2 up there would be happier with his business degree, even if somehow he didn't make more money.</p>
<p>I mean, you are going to kick your ass majoring in ECE, then go to work with kids that drank 5 nights a week and could still pull off a 3.8+ GPA. Life's not fair, but it doesn't have to be that unfair.</p>
<p>would CSE grads make about the same?</p>
<p>Yeah I see what you are saying, but the OP is asking in a way what his options are for a degree in ECE, and MBA is another one, which leads to favorable outcomes salary-wise. It has nothing to do with liking Econ or anything more or less, its just another option in case he or she is interested; nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>Anyone have salary charts for like an ECE job?
Ie, for __ degree ECE,
Year 2: ?
Year 3: ?
Year 4: ?
Year 5: ?</p>
<p>How realistic is it to get a wall street job? None of them come to ECE/engineering career fairs.... would you have to look them up yourself?</p>
<p>"well you can do an MBA after your bachelors and earn 100K+ in your mid 20s, instead of doing masters & PHD."</p>
<p>Do ece mba grads have an advantage over other mbas?. They typical MBA starting salaries are ~80k right?</p>
<p>"the OP is asking in a way what his options are for a degree in ECE"</p>
<p>Exactly! Thx. I've heard of various options, now looking for the details in salary. Please don't get into "Why major in ECE....". What's done is done.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I guess what I'm saying is, OK, it's a good backup career. But clearly, you are either (1) more interested in making money than pursuing something you enjoy if you do indeed enjoy ECE more than business/econ, or (2) more interested in business/econ than ECE. So, either way, you'd be better off majoring in econ or business (or maybe OR). If you can't hit Wall St right away, you'll still make more money with your business degree than your ECE degree (better for person 1).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, right there is the premise that I dispute, and therefore the accompanying later logic. You usually DON'T make more with an econ/business/OR degree than with an ECE/EECS degree on average.</p>
<p>As a case in point, nationwide, EE and CS students earn about 52-55k. Business students earn 44k. </p>
<p>We can look at one specific example of one school. Take Berkeley. In 2006, the CS graduates made 76k, the EECS grads made 67k. The business students from the Haas school made 60k. The Econ students made 54k. And the OR students (what Berkeley calls "IEOR") made 58k.</p>
<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/IEOR.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/IEOR.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/BusAd.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/BusAd.stm</a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Econ.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Econ.stm</a></p>
<p>Or take MIT. According to the following pdf, in 2006, MIT bachelor's degree grads in EECS made 70k. Econ students made 59k, Sloan management students (the business students) made 63k. For OR, it's tough to say because MIT doesn't have an independent undergraduate program in OR, and the "de facto" OR progam is split between the Sloan School and the Civil Engineering department. But note that the CivE graduates earned 51k. Hence, the "de-facto" OR grads probably earned somewhere between the CivE grads and the Sloan grads. </p>
<p>Furthermore, even the above figures cloud the resulting analysis because, like I said, a lot of people in any major (including engineering) end up in consulting or banking. For example, on page 9 of the previous pdf, you can see that more than 40% of the undergrads at MIT who go the workforce will take jobs in finance or consulting. Yes, a disproportionate number of them will be econ or Sloan management students, but clearly not all, as the majority of students at MIT are engineering students, so that means that a significant fraction of MIT engineers also go to consulting or finance. </p>
<p>Hence, the REAL analysis should be made by comparing those EECS/ECE students who actually took jobs as engineers vs. those econ/business students who took non-consulting/finance jobs (as not everybody who wants one of these jobs will get one). These numbers are obviously not available, but if they were, I am quite certain they would show that the difference in salaries would be * even higher *. In other words, when an MIT EECS student goes to Goldman Sachs, and an MIT Econ student also goes to Goldman Sachs, and they both get paid the same package (because Goldman gives the same package to everybody regardless of what you majored in), then that tends to decrease the difference in average salaries. </p>
<p>But anyway, the point is this. EECS/ECE is a solid backup major that gives you the security of having a relatively high paying job right out of college - generally higher paying than a business, econ, or OR degree. You can hunt for a job in banking or consulting, and if you don't get one, oh well, you just take a job in ECE. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I mean, you are going to kick your ass majoring in ECE, then go to work with kids that drank 5 nights a week and could still pull off a 3.8+ GPA. Life's not fair, but it doesn't have to be that unfair.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, let me give you another perspective. At least the ECE guy will know he has the security of getting a decently paying job as long as he graduates. But what about that other guy of which you speak - the guy getting the 3.8 after drinking 5 nights a week? What if he doesn't get one of those consulting/banking jobs? Keep in mind, there's never any guarantee that anybody is ever going to get one of those jobs. I've seen numerous business students get top grades, and still not get the job they want. Keep in mind that business recruiting is only mildly about grades. Grades may help you get an interview. But once you're in the interview room, hiring tends to be rather arbitrary - it all depends on whether the things you say and the way you act are what the interviewer is looking for. So there is a significant chance that you can have obtained stellar grades...and not get the job anyway.</p>
<p>Starting salaries are irrelevant. I'm really not interested in spending loads of time looking up 10-year salary figures from all the top schools, so you can have your starting salary thing. But the average engineer also isn't a Berkeley or MIT grad. If you are going to quote MIT and Berkeley for engineering starting salaries, may as well quote Wharton for business salaries. I really don't care to look them up, but I'm sure if you did they'd be at least comparable.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How do these salaries increase for the next 5-10 years?
[/quote]
Some, like me, went into industry as engineers, and pick up various non-technical roles (while climbing up the ladder) and got paid more than your average PhD starting salary, less than ten years out of college. I don't know if UW-Madison is considered a "top school" in the eyes of CC. But I can assure you many of current/former co-workers don't go to Berkeley/MIT. </p>
<p>The market will pay for good engineers and even more for the great ones. A good engineering school will prep you well. Beyond that, it is entirely up to your work ethnic, those all-important soft skills, and, yes, the luck of being in the right place at the right time. Nevertheless, we all must learn to compete globally as the risk of wage redistribution (from US to elsewhere) is very real.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Starting salaries are irrelevant. I'm really not interested in spending loads of time looking up 10-year salary figures from all the top schools, so you can have your starting salary thing. But the average engineer also isn't a Berkeley or MIT grad.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Of course not. Which is why I also quoted * nationwide * salary figures. I do so again:</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you are going to quote MIT and Berkeley for engineering starting salaries, may as well quote Wharton for business salaries
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, that's not a fair comparison, now is it? After all, Wharton is a significantly better business school than is Penn engineering. But engineering and business are highly comparable at MIT (ranked #1 and 2 respectively for undergrad), and at Berkeley (both ranked #3). You have to compare apples to apples.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, let's do the analysis anyway, for year 2006:</p>
<p>Wharton BS grads earned 58k
Penn Computer Science & Engineering grads earned 65k.
Penn EE grads earned 60k</p>
<p><a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/wharton/surveys/Wharton2006Report.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/wharton/surveys/Wharton2006Report.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/seas/survey2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/seas/survey2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>So even when the rankings are not comparable, Penn CSE and EE grads (which are the analog to ECE) * still * make higher starting salaries than Penn business grads (the Wharton grads).</p>
<p>But the point is simply this. No matter what school you look at it, you will generally find that ECE grads make higher starting salaries than do business grads. That's why ECE is seen as such a strong 'backup major'. If you can't get the job you really want, i.e. banking or consulting, you can still get a quite decently paying job as an engineer.</p>
<p>Now, I certainly agree that 10 years down the line, those who enter fieds like banking or consulting tend to make significantly more than engineers do. But again I would stress, not everybody gets to enter those fields. Even if you're a graduate from a top undergrad business program like Wharton, MIT Sloan, or Berkeley Haas, you still may not get one of those jobs. That's why it's nice to have a backup.</p>
<p>"Wharton BS grads earned 58k
Penn Computer Science & Engineering grads earned 65k."</p>
<p>Those Wharton figures are base salaries, not including bonuses. Bonuses for 0-2 year new grads can be... at least 10k? Altho, since lots of those finance and consulting jobs are in NYC, that cost of living factor starts to weigh in.</p>
<p>" various non-technical roles (while climbing up the ladder) and got paid more than your average PhD starting salary, less than ten years out of college."
Thx Dallas, can you provide sample numbers and positions? It can make for a better comparison along with how PhD salaries progress.</p>
<p>"live-": no offense, you sound bitter. What for? I notice this sometimes from engineers. But never from business students. I'm sure lots of business students go into it for the money, yet nobody else is upset over that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Those Wharton figures are base salaries, not including bonuses. Bonuses for 0-2 year new grads can be... at least 10k? Altho, since lots of those finance and consulting jobs are in NYC, that cost of living factor starts to weigh in.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Exactly - cost of living. But the even larger caveat, especially for finance jobs, are the work hours. Investment bankers make plenty of money but also work like dogs - they certainly work far more than the average engineer does. </p>
<p>But again, that's not really what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is that plenty of people who want finance jobs, even business majors from the best schools, won't get one. Hence, I think it's reasonable to ask yourself what you're going to do if you don't get the job you really want. If nothing else, ECE can serve as 'career insurance'. Trust me - there are a lot of college graduates in other jobs who end up in crappy, low-paying jobs who probably wish they were engineers instead.</p>