Regardless of which study I pursue in whichever college I end up attending, what would my future be looking like with a BS in Science/Engineering? I know that’s really vague, but I’m pretty open to career choices right now. These are the general gists I’ve been getting, and that I’ve been hoping to get some further input on:
Biology BS is basically useless; you need to go to grad school to earn a real salary in Biology.
Chemical Engineering is VERY hard. (I recieved a year-end B in AP Chem and a 4 on the AP exam, the course felt very challenging to me and I have definitely not mastered everything that was taught. What is my likelihood of survival in this field?)
Engineering BS can usually get straight into work more easily compared to Science BS
Biomedical Engineering also requires you to go to grad school.
I’m just wondering what the best majors in Science or Engineering would be to get straight into work with a BS, and to be able to have upward mobility in my career (IE; not being stuck in an entry level $30/hr job my whole life). Is that asking for too much? Is grad school basically a necessity to work my way into a well developed career in Science/Engineering?
I just don’t like the idea of grad school because more education = more tuition fees, and I already feel terrible because my parents are completely covering college costs for me and I feel like a huge freeloader on them, and also I just don’t know if I have the patience or intellectual capacity to follow through with grad school.
I also feel I should mention that I have never taken any specific engineering courses. Just some core science and math courses:
AP’s: Bio, Chem, Physics 1, Calc AB
Honors: Pre-Calc, Algebra II, Geometry.
Will this hurt my chances of being admitted/doing well in an engineering major?
Thanks for reading all this, I just kind of rambled. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Your summary is pretty good - broad strokes but overall accurate.
A main difference between science and engineering is that ABET accredited engineering is not flexible. The classes are all sequential so you need to start your first semester with no deviation (second semester at the latest depending on Universities - some would have you take calc and physics first semester before you get into serious engineering classes). Also, engineering tends to be offered at fewer Universities than the sciences (which are offered everywhere) so choosing an engineering major may limit where you can apply. Finally, most universities with engineering require you to declare that major when you apply (there are some exceptions, like Clarkson or Union, but it’s especially strict at public universities since they must control the number of enrollees) and it’s often the most selective college at the university.
Science: typically offered at all universities (national and regional) and LACs. Can be divided into three groups:
Biology (poor job prospects)
CS (excellent job prospects)
Everything else : in between
At many universities you can apply for science in general, although the new popularity of CS has required Universities with limited resources to limit access to the CS major. It is often the most selective major you can apply for.
Biology (7-8%) actually has around the same unemployment rate for recent college grads as almost all engineering fields (about 6-8%). The difference comes in more with salary than job prospects. Unsurprisingly, engineering majors make more than twice the starting salary of biology majors early in their careers. That’s because engineering majors tend to become…well, engineers. Biology majors can take on a wide variety of jobs inside and outside the life/biomedical/natural sciences.
By mid-career, biology majors make about the same as geography majors, and less than economics, international relations, and political science majors on average.
It’s not true that you “need” to go to graduate school to earn a real salary in biology. Most biology majors are gainfully employed with decent middle-class salaries with BS degrees. There are a lot of research jobs specifically in biotechology or the biomedical sciences that may prefer someone with an MS, but that’s only a small fraction of the things you can do with a biology degree.
Likewise, it’s also not true that you need to go to grad school with a biomedical engineering degree, either. If you specifically want to work in certain types of engineering, there may be a preference for those with an MS degree, but again there are lots of things you can do with a BME degree.
If salary and a straightforward path into a career are your biggest concerns, engineering is certainly the path of least resistance. You don’t have to think very much about what you are going to do next (some kind of engineering, likely at some tech company), and engineers make high salaries both early in their career and into their mid-career and late career phases. The trade-off, of course, is that engineering is difficult and long. That’s kind of the reason the salaries are so high; competition for jobs is lower because qualified candidates are in shorter supply, because fewer people are willing to do the work to complete the degree. (And precisely the reason why chemical engineering is one of the highest paid fields.)
Also, I think you need to revise your definition of an “entry-level” salary. $30/hour is not “entry-level” for the VAST majority of college grads. that’s about $60,000 a year. That’s only an average starting salary for engineering majors, and that’s just barely. Other majors (including other science majors, even computer science, and economics and business) don’t make that much starting out. In most majors, starting/entry level salaries are closer to between $35,000 and $50,000 a year.
No one can really say what your future would look like with a BS in science or engineering. I know lots of folks with science undergrad degrees who ended up doing all kinds of different things. Some are engineers or developers making a lot of money; some are teachers and make not so much money; some have taken on different roles in business or outside of science altogether and are in the middle. Major doesn’t usually lead in a straight path from college to a very specific career with a very specific salary. (For example, I was a psychology major and I make quite a bit more than the average mid-career chemical engineer. But I have a graduate degree )
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