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</p>
<p>What <em>are</em> you good at?</p>
<p>well wat is an accurate indicator of what i am good at? SAT? IQ tests? What i enjoy doing?</p>
<p>it doesn’t matter what you’re good at. You go to college to learn.
What do you think you would enjoy is much more important.</p>
<p>cool thanks i will keep that in mind</p>
<p>I think that many kids don’t know how to prioritize these days. “do what you love” only goes to a certain extent (to the point that you can still feed yourself). i come from lower middle class background, and was never taught to “do what you love” but rather to “look after yourself.”</p>
<p>affluence has definitely skewed our perceptions over the years.</p>
<p>^ so you think i should not do what i enjoy?</p>
<p>It’s painfully obvious that your priorities are not in order student01. Virtually every one of your topics are about making money and how high the salary is. </p>
<p>If what you love is lucrative, that’s great. But no amount of money is ever worth giving up a passion. Unless your passion is making money, in which case I truly pity you.</p>
<p>It’s also ridiculous that an engineer of all people would be complaining about salary. Engineers make a significantly larger salary than most careers and most of them enjoy what they do. The degree is difficult, yes, but no more time consuming than an intense design or art degree.</p>
<p>Engineering is a happy medium between making a large salary and really loving what you do; business students are generally in it for the money, and art/liberal art students are in it for the love.</p>
<p>
I have no other passion than to make my family and those around me to be happy. If I had the luxury, I would do things for self-fulfillment. However, I need to help make sure my parents can pay their medical bills (mom is chronically ill) and the only way I can do that is by earning a lot of cash.</p>
<p>pandem, you may see the world as doing things in terms of yourself, however, I will never have the luxury to do that.</p>
<p>I don’t need you nor plscatamacchia nor anyone to tell me that my priorities are not in order.</p>
<p>Oh, please. Don’t make this into “I can’t afford to be selfish like you”. </p>
<p>In all of your topics that I’ve read, you haven’t even mentioned that you need to provide for your family. Also, I seem to remember you commenting on a bmw or car of some sort and if a finance major can afford it. Sure doesn’t sound like your mom is of utmost concern. </p>
<p>“Do nerds end up living the good life”? That sure doesn’t sound like the “good life” refers to making money to cover your family’s medical expenses.</p>
<p>Considering that universal healthcare will eventually happen here, like it or not, becoming a millionaire is hardly necessary to take care of your family. And nitpicking about every little salary detail won’t make you one either. </p>
<p>The salary difference between a recent finance grad and a recent engineering grad isn’t that great. There’s no reason to choose finance over engineering for purely monetary reasons.</p>
<p>
No, your memory in fact, is hazy. Bring up that link, and you will see that it wasn’t me who made that comment. In fact, I believe I was the one who responded by saying that a finance major can’t afford it.</p>
<p>
The more important question for you is: what kinds of satisfactions are you getting from trying to say that I’m a liar?</p>
<p>
Universal healthcare will happen? What are you now, some fortune teller? This kind of statement really lowers the credibility of what you say.</p>
<p>edit: Your problem, in all three cases, is that you assert things before you can actually prove them.</p>
<p>Of course. And the i-bankers should be paid nothing, thanks to what they’ve done to the economy. No offense to any i-bankers out there. But don’t even deny :p</p>
<p>Haha, I think even President Obama said that “we need more engineers!” The government should give us more incentive, without a doubt.</p>
<p>You should do what you love, unless you can’t afford to, in which case you should do whatever you can to get by.</p>
<p>can’t afford to as in what you love does not pay enough? or like you can not afford to pay for art class or whatever?</p>
<p>Try to do something that makes enough that you can get by, but that you like. I’d say start by figuring out what it is you like to do. If you’re so miserable that you’re never going to be happy doing what you do for a living, you’re really going to make everyone else around you miserable, too. You’re not going to make them happy, even if you’re making a million a year, if you hate your life.</p>
<p>Flip through bls.gov. Click on things that sound interesting to you. See what the salaries are.</p>
<p>One company I worked for allowed you to claim parents as dependents for health insurance purposes, and put them on your health insurance family plan. Shop around for benefits when you look for jobs… If you’re creative and you work hard in college and get your pick of what’s out there, then you’ll be able to work something out without having to earn six figures. Meanwhile, choose a career path that’ll be both interesting to you so that you’ll be happy and successful at it, and figure out the best route to get there.</p>
<p>For a lot of us, engineering was something that interested us. I didn’t choose engineering because it was going to be lucrative. I chose engineering because I really, really, really wanted to design skyscrapers and bridges and stadiums and hospitals and things… and that’s what I do for a living now. If you pick something that you really, really, really want to do, you’re going to have the motivation to give it all you’ve got, instead of just doing a mediocre job to get there so that you can just provide for your family.</p>
<p>My husband’s the same way… He was about to go into engineering because it was “stable” and “lucrative” and his dad and uncles were all engineers, until he decided to be… a composer. (Are you kidding me? What kind of a stable career choice is that, right?) Writing music’s what he loved, though, and he’s worked his rear off in order to be the best at his chosen gig. He had to squeak by for a decade with tiny apartments and Hot Pockets and true grad-student living conditions, but now he’s a tenure-track professor of music composition at a great college in a gorgeous location, making enough so that if I want to, I can quit next summer and we can buy a house and I can do whatever I want (well… except build skyscrapers and NFL stadiums. We’re still working this out…). We live a pretty nice life as a musician and an engineer, though, and I only really supported my husband for about six months until he got that professorship, so don’t think that I’m just his sugar-momma. ;)</p>
<p>Do what you love. Work your ever-loving BUTT off at it. Be smart about how you work. Make the connections you need to make to get where you want to get. Have a good idea of where you want to go, ask people who are there, and follow in their footsteps. The money and benefits will follow, and you’ll be able to take care of your family. You’ve just gotta have faith and put in the required effort.</p>
<p>^^^Great post!</p>
<p>We had some “friends” who tried to recruit us to sell Amway products (gag). They showed us a video, and the biggest selling point was that you could make a lot of money and RETIRE EARLY!!! They must have repeated that about 10 times. We finally looked at the people and said, “We LIKE engineering! We don’t want to retire early!” They looked as us if we had two heads, but we meant it. We make a comfortable living, but we’re not wealthy. We’re at home with our three kids in the woods in Maine. I can’t imagine doing anything else.</p>
<p>aibbar, you shoud design another disney concert hall and have ur husband perform there… ;p</p>
<p>anyway… even though I kindda hate engineering compared to my real passion, which is photography…
FOR ME, the peace of mind knowing that at the end of the day I have a pretty stable career, brings home enough and drives an M3 trumps being poor and doing what I reallyyy love… :p</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>O RLY?</p>
<p>*Bankers set for record bonuses on back of Goldman Sachs profits…Analysts said the bank was on track to beat 2007, its best year for compensation, when the average employees share of the pay pool was $661,490. Million-dollar payouts were commonplace and the senior figures received $10 million or more. News of the record profits caused a storm in the US where Goldmans rivals are struggling to shore up their battered balance sheets. It is only nine months since the firm was bailed out with a $10 billion loan from the US Government. The money was repaid last month. *</p>
<p>[Bankers</a> set for record bonuses on back of Goldman Sachs profits - Times Online](<a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines)</p>
<p>*Barclays’ pay and bonuses rise 32% after £3bn profit
*</p>
<p>[Barclays</a> staff handed 32% rise in salaries and bonuses after posting £3bn profit | Mail Online](<a href=“Barclays staff handed 32% rise in salaries and bonuses after posting £3bn profit | Daily Mail Online”>Barclays staff handed 32% rise in salaries and bonuses after posting £3bn profit | Daily Mail Online)</p>
<p>Nine banks that received government aid money paid out bonuses of nearly $33 billion last year – including more than $1 million apiece to nearly 5,000 employees – despite huge losses that plunged the U.S. into economic turmoil.</p>
<p>[Bank</a> Bonus Tab: $33 Billion - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124896891815094085.html]Bank”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124896891815094085.html)</p>
<p>*For instance, the study found that the nation’s big investment banks continued to lavish royal monetary packages on employees with scant regard for the corporate bottom line. When they profited, so did their employees. When they did poorly, employees were still paid handsomely. “And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well,” according to Andrew M. Cuomo, New York’s attorney general. “Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished.” …“For instance, at Bank of America, compensation and benefit payments increased from more than $10 billion to more than $18 billion in between 2003 and 2006. Yet, in 2008, when Bank of America’s net income fell from $14 billion to $4 billion, Bank of America’s compensation payments remained at the $18 billion level. Bank of America paid $18 billion in compensation and benefit payments again in 2008, even though 2008 performance was dismal when compared to the 2003-2006 bull market.”</p>
<p>“Similar patterns are clear at Citigroup, where bull-market compensation payments increased from $20 billion to $30 billion. When the recession hit in 2007, Citigroup’s compensation payouts remained at bull-market levels -well over $30 billion, even though the firm faced a significant financial crisis.”</p>
<p>Over time, Cuomo noted that the expectation of huge paydays became part of the prevailing corporate culture, as well as a “source of competition” between different firms. At Merrill Lynch, for instance, the bonus pool was pegged to what management expected competitors would do. So it was that Merrill shelled out nearly $16 billion in 2007 while piling up more than $7 billion in red ink. The next year, the company paid almost $15 billion as it tottered on the brink of bankruptcy. The report concluded that the losses in 2007 and 2008 “more than erased Merrill’s earnings between 2003 and 2006.” That’s quite something, even during a famously gilded age. *</p>
<p>[Wall</a> Street’s Bonus Babies - Coop’s Corner - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/30/blogs/coopscorner/entry5199429.shtml]Wall”>http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/30/blogs/coopscorner/entry5199429.shtml)</p>
<p>barclays is hiring 1000 this year</p>
<p>Screw investment bankers but I’d love to be em. Irony in its purest form.</p>
<p>Great post aibarr–and that could follow for just about any profession! Guess this explains why so many colleges are looking for kids who have a passion for something–it may not be the field they end up majoring in, but it certainly helps kids think about what passion is and how to look for it thru education, etc. so theat they can become happy, productive citizens.</p>