<p>Also, on the subject of salaries...I couldn't get paid ENOUGH to do an ibanking or similar job. I visited Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley, and the NYSE 2 years ago with the Harvard Business Assoc. We heard from Harvard alums describing their life: "I work 90 hrs a week."
"Its not that different from college, you still pull allnighters sometimes. But don't worry, you get to go on AIM and talk to your friends."
"You can work in NYC, or London, or Tokyo...but you really don't have time to go out and visit these places."
"I pay someone else to do my laundry, becaues I don't have time to do it myself."</p>
<p>Anecdotes like this explain why most people only work for 3 years as an analyst and then quit after making their $$$. Still....the value of my health, happiness, and sanity is worth far more to me, personally, than any monetary compensation I would earn in such a field.</p>
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In GENERAL, a Harvard college grad in economics for example will earn a 80-100k job.
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<p>Really? Well, I'll put it to you this way. Harvard College only puts up its information on undergraduate starting salaries in hardcopy, and I'm not in Cambridge so I can't check the data. However, Princeton publishes its data online. In 2004, the average starting salary for Princeton economics graduates was about $53.5k. Now, I can believe that Harvard econ graduates might make a little more, but at the 80-100k range? That seems highly dubious to me. Harvard students aren't THAT much better than Princeton students. </p>
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Therefore, if that Harvard grad goes to a Harvard grad school, he will be pulling several hundreds, if he is in the top of his class
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<p>Yeah, well, that's a pretty big 'if', don't you think? Being at the top of your class at Harvard grad school ain't exactly a walk in the park. It's not like you can just 'decide' one fine day that you want to graduate at the top of your class from Harvard grad school. </p>
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Ok I have friends at UF. Some of them are graduating soon, and they got job offers already. 58K offered to one, 62k to the other one. However, they are not even the top of their class, they are "B" students. Thefore logic would only tell you that on average a Harvard college grad would make more.
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<p>Really? Tell that to the Princeton guys who make an average starting salary of less than 49k. </p>
<p>EAS, I totally agree with you...going to Harvard doesn't necessarily equal making money/great jobs automatically.
But that wasnt my point.
What I'm saying is that its absolute crap when people tell you to S T F U if you tell them you're going to Harvard for the money and then preach on about going there purely for the "intellectual experience". Different people have different reasons for going to Harvard and making money might just be the #1 reason for some people. There's nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>1st of all, word to EAS. How can u be happy if you're a bald wrinkly 40 yr old divorced dude sitting in a leather chair in a nice office late on a Friday night doing work??Yeah you're making 300grand, but is that happiness? The best way to make money, and I'm also alluding to a post I read somewhere on CC, is learn about real business skills (for example at a CC) and start your own business. That way you control everything, and no one shafts you of your deserved pay. Of course, there is risk of failure, but if you're young, why not? Going to H doesn't guarantee everything, especially not a happy stress-free life.</p>
<p>Btw, if I'm not mitaken isn't that what most i-bankers and such do? they work as analysts at an i-bank for a few years and them move out to a less stressful/demanding job?</p>
<p>Banking isn't a career. A-bomb is right. Most people work for 3 years (the time period of being an analyst), and then move onto another thing...grad school, b school, another job, etc.</p>
<p>Plus you might not even get to work after 3 years, its not like you get hired for an indefinate amount of time, you get hired for 3 yrs as an analyst. No guarantee you'll get to move up the ladder.</p>
<p>the "studentsreview" site has average starting salaries, and average current salaries. I don't know how accurate it is, but it's there. </p>
<p>Pretty cool site, compares schools and gives you an idea of how different people look at their respective schools.</p>
<p>Funny thing, I'm an Air Force Academy appointee and I thought I'd check out the other side of the "elite" schools, salary was never a question that came up at the academy forum. Mostly questions on how to survive. Interesting.</p>
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<p>Funny thing, I'm an Air Force Academy appointee and I thought I'd check out the other side of the "elite" schools, salary was never a question that came up at the academy forum. Mostly questions on how to survive. Interesting.<<</p>
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<p>That's because as a military officer your salary is set by Congress. Not much flexibility.</p>
<p>People usually don't join the military for the salary.</p>
<p>I wouldn't even be making that much coming out of graduate school with a P.h.D. in chemical engineering. I'm not bashing econ or anything, but that is a heck of a lot of money for an econ major. Unless you are an economist for the president or something or if you have been doing economics for a very long time.</p>
<p>Sakky, it was interesting to note in the data you posted that Economics do not earn the highest average starting slaries either. Computer Science majors had the highest starting salaries by a fair margin, followed by Mathematics majors. </p>
<p>I am particularly surprised that a CS major's average starting salary is $10,000 higher than that of an economics major. What happened to the over-supply of CS majors in the labour market?</p>
<p>That oversupply was overhyped. The fact is, outsourcing notwithstanding, there are still PLENTY of jobs available for computer-science graduates. In terms of available jobs, computer science graduates of today are clearly better off than computer science graduates of 10 years ago because of the explosion of the Internet and of proliferation information technology and are still better off, relatively speaking, than graduates of most other degree programs. To those who would say that the computer science major is undesirable because it no longer provides a steady job, I would ask, what does? </p>
<p>Lest you think that the Princeton salary data was just a fluke, here is the data for Berkeley and MIT. Note how computer science/ EECS tend to be one of the highest if not the highest paying majors upon graduation (MIT EECS = course 6). Also note the salaries of the econ majors at both Berkeley and MIT (course 14 in MIT parlance), and compare them to the engineers. I think you will note that the data is consistent - people with economics bachelor's degrees consistently get lower average starting salaries than do people with computer science/EECS bachelor's degrees. </p>
<p>I think what really happened is not that there is an absolute oversupply of CS majors today. After all, if that were really true, then the free market would adjust and CS graduates would be getting pitiful starting salaries. Rather, it's that CS is, relatively speaking, not as lucrative as it was during the heights of the dotcom boom. But that dotcom boom was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime event. We'll probably never see an ecstatic burst in demand for CS people like that ever again while we live. The takehome point is that period of time was not a normal time in the labor markets. Right now is normal. The dotcom boom was a lucky period of time, and those people who earned big money during that time should feel that they won the lottery, because that's basically what they did. People who win the lottery shouldn't expect to keep winning it over and over again.</p>
<p>I wouldnt be surprised if MIT had the highest starting salaries of undergraduates of any school. Usually math and engineering majors make the most right out of school.</p>
<p>Closar, that studentsreview website is dated and inaccurate.</p>
<p>As far as ibanking goes, jobs for top analysts can start at up to $100k right out of school, not including the signing bonus. Only the lucky few get these jobs out of the top schools.</p>