Engineering and management studies or marketing, organizational studies, etc, even just a few courses. Be able to use the tech savvy on the other side, what hebegebe called front office. You betcha. Even if they don’t make that move, they add value to the business.
“absolutely no idea what an engineer actually does.” No kidding. “I think it would be interesting” or “I get my best grades in math and it seems like a good career path.”
Is an engineer at a disadvantage in those careers if his/her GPA is lower than it would have been had s/he majored in econ or something else, I wonder?
I believe an English major prepares well and places well in Law School admissions. Any lawyers want to correct me on that?
A Masters degree is a must in today’s job market if one wants to work in professional advisory firms.
“The back-office people who deal with technology seem to come from just about anywhere. Both groups are quite well paid (a senior-level back office person can make $300K including bonus), but the front-office gets more.”
Of course, a lot of this is dependent upon whether one sees financial success as relative to others, or as absolute. There are people making $300k who say - I’ve got it pretty darn well, I’ve got a nice life, plenty of goodies, I can send my kids to college, be assured of a comfortable retirement, etc. There are others making $300k who resent the heck out of it because so-and-so makes $3,000,000/year and flies private jet and it’s sooooo unfair. I think it’s indicative of poor values to be the second group, but whatever.
English major is good for med school, as long as other requirements are met. You don’t need to be an English major to learn to analyze and write well. It may not give you an iota of understanding how business works.
And there are families quite satisfied at 100 or 150k from one of the earners.
Some people want to be wealthy at any cost. Those people are generally not of the pleasant variety, in my experience, though they do often manage to make a lot of money.
In my opinion, your GPA only matters in getting past the HR department. From the first minute of your first job, NO ONE cares about your GPA, it’s all about performance.
Law school admissions is generally thought to be major-agnostic, although some types of law practice can benefit from specific undergraduate major backgrounds. According to [url=http://lsac.org/docs/default-source/data-(lsac-resources)-docs/2014-15_applicants-major.pdf]http://lsac.org/docs/default-source/data-(lsac-resources)-docs/2014-15_applicants-major.pdf[/url] , English is one of the more popular majors, but political science is by far the most popular.
Thank you. This is also why I recommended in the other thread that the economics/political science major should let her parents know that the path to advisory services such as law is quite open to her. Economics and political science are very practical and viable majors.
There will always be jobs for good people but please avoid getting trained up in anything you don’t really like, that is just asking for trouble. All else being equal, the best career one that allows you to be in business for yourself. Tha might be engineering or it may be something else. When you work for yourself you don’t have to worry about being booted out at age 50 and not being able to find another job (working for someone else). Also, never ignore the annuity value of a good retirement program. Many public employees are entitled to retirement income worth millions of dollars which is a lot more than most people can save on their own
However, pay attention to whether that defined benefit pension plan that your employer (public or private) offers you is adequately funded. Many pension plans are not, so depending on them, or placing a high value on them, can lead to unpleasant surprises when you want to retire.
What has the record been for getting paid been so far?
Re: defined benefit pension plan shakiness
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2010/08/23/the-10-biggest-failed-pension-plans
http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/20/retirement/pension-fund-cuts/
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323308504579085220604114220
http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2014/04/09/report-85-of-pensions-could-fail-in-30-years/
We’re getting way off topic here, but working for yourself takes a skill set that few people actually possess.
That’s why I tossed in the public sector option. By my calculation and ucba’s links, mostly everybody in the public sector has gotten paid so far unless they worked for Detroit. Better to at least be owed something than to be getting nothing at all which is unfortunately where a lot of private sector employees find themselves
Engineer with lower GPA can have an issue when looking outside engineering. Some folks interviewing have better understandings of engineering GPAs than others. I recall a number of years ago looking at a list of applicants for summer associates for law firm. All of them were English, history, political science, etc. majors except one who had an engineering degree. When discussing the candidates, several people noted the “low” GPA of the engineer (something like 3.4 with everyone else having 3.8+). I told them the engineer had the best GPA of the group.
English is fine for law. Still pretty common. To me it depends on what you are looking to do when you get out of law school. If you are looking at corporate/finance law, having a business related degree will help. Number of people who I see who have been practicing 20-30 years without business background have a very shallow understanding of the business side of the job. A lot of IP attorneys now have engineering/science backgrounds. Biggest issue I see at this point is whether anyone really wants to go into law. Not a great market right now. Not clear it gets much better soon. Good news if someone things they want to go to law school, there pretty much are no prereqs. So if you are entering undergrad now (or recently graduated), you can see if the legal market turns in the next several years. If not, you don’t have to go to law school. If it does, take the LSAT.
Maybe I missed something, but I thought @ucbalumnus in post #34 was referring to the hypothetical, dual-degree “English and Physics/Mathematics” major, thus the reference to #32, which was arguing:
He was talking about the liberal arts grad, not the engineer:
“A dual major in English and Physics/Mathematics is a flexible pathway to the elite professional services jobs, viz. Investment Banking, Sales and Trading, Quantitative Finance, Management Consulting, and Law”
What makes these jobs “elite”? They are just jobs. Lots of other jobs are interesting, rewarding and intellectual too. What is so special about these?
Elite as in working with the elite