The "best" career paths/majors to go into?

Parents Forum
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<p>This. Primary care physicians, pediatricians etc. are already quite limited in what they can make because of semi-forced participation in government-based reimbursement schemes. I guess it’s not even accurate to speak in terms of a generic doctor’s salary, because in-demand specialists such as orthopedists can run practices that don’t have to take insurance. </p>

<p>My larger point is that the stereotype of the rich doctor who takes Wednesdays off to play golf is far from the truth and will become even further from it as time goes by. So no one should go into medicine for the big bucks.</p>

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<p>I think that becoming a doctor, all in all, is still the best profession.</p>

<p>Most lawyers work around the clock, seven days a week, for little money.</p>

<p>My client, an oncologist, gets great pay, and is home eating dinner at 6pm.</p>

<p>Even in the concentration camps, they did not kill the doctors. Their skills are always needed.</p>

<p>Even if you never found a job as a doctor in a big city in America, which is unlikely, there are thousands of small towns where you would be invited with open arms, and scores of countries as well. </p>

<p>Doctors don’t make as much as they used to, but they still make money, are respected, and do a lot of good.</p>

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<p>With typical physician training ranging between 8 and 12 years after college, I don’t believe that was ever the case. There are a lot faster ways to big bucks. </p>

<p>Still, a number of primary care positions with starting salaries at over $150k are going unfilled today. Before physicians drop from the upper-middle class by any definition is still ways away, with or without Medicare cuts.</p>

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<p>cellardweller, I hope you’re right. My D wants to be a doctor. I hope she will make enough to pay off her loans.</p>

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<p>“You can do a thought experiment with docs vs. nurses. Take both at age 18. Assume the nurse goes for a two-year AA degree, pays for it, but actually begins working as an LPN in the second year. Takes loans only equal to community college tuition. Takes the money that would have been paid for four-year tuition and invests it. Is hired after graduation, and works steadily til age 50. Now take future doc. Borrows all tuition for four years. Then borrows $250k for med. school, interns, then works as a resident. Then goes into private practice, borrowing $500k to set up practice as a GP. Who comes out ahead at age 50?”</p>

<p>Got my LVN in high school so I could work for good pay in college and medical school with a tuition AF scholarship for undergrad. Borrowed little. Borrowed nothing to set up my practice, but I did join the Air force and work for an HMO which helped me get launched. </p>

<p>Borrow $500k for a GP practice (GP does NOT equal FP or primary care…)? Don’t do that…But being a NP or PA seems pretty sweet to me. As a low on the totem pole specialist, I often feel I am doing the bidding, and they get the kudos.</p>

<p>"Generally, the longer the residency the higher the ROI even accounting for the lost years of full income. "</p>

<p>NOT for Child Psychiatry! Especially if you want to do more than “push” pills!</p>

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<p>One seems to forget that in America, The Day After Tomorrow (or any other post-apocalyptic employment wise situation) if there are no jobs to be had in other professions / fields / etc, few people will be able to afford the specialists and granite and brass halls of medicine.</p>

<p>Proof of this can be found in dentistry and vision care. As insurance coverage for these continues to decline or goes away, and fewer people have decent enough insurance to afford the treatments, these docs are hurting… If you’re an orthodontist with an uber-practice and a Jaguar, and few clients can afford the $5-6k, what then?</p>

<p>The economy is a zero sum game - if my customers don’t have disposable cash to buy the gadgets I make, then I lose my job and insurance, and good luck to those downstream from me in the food chain. They may outlast me for a few years, but they’ll have to pawn the Jag just like I’ll end up pawning my Saab.</p>

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<p>NJSue;</p>

<p>My D is in her first year of med school right now. She wants to be a neuro-radiologist so she has another 11 years of training before any potential “big bucks”!</p>

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<p>I completely agree but as with any profession…once you are inside it and can see the wheat from the chaff…this is always true. In that particular regard, there is nothing inherently special about engineering. </p>

<p>And if not engineering, then what? If engineering majors have trouble getting jobs do you think its easier for ?? But I do agree with others that point to nursing, physicians assistant and those other vocational endeavors.</p>

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<p>For a kid starting college now, I think computer science is a pretty safe bet. My son had multiple job offers the summer of his freshman year, since programmers are in such high demand right now. If you can stay on top of the latest technology, you’ll have a job. They can’t find enough people in Silicon Valley to fill the job openings.</p>

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<p>Wall Street, then. May not be stable, but if you got the skills you got the moneys.</p>

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<p>Not true. The working of the economy or parts of the economy can make people on average better off (positive sum, economic expansion) or worse off (negative sum, recession).</p>

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<p>A huge retiring workforce across most engineering disciplines is already leading to many replacement job openings. That wave of retirees will grow dramatically by 2013 and will peak by 2020 according to various industry analysts. Petroleum engineers are in very short supply, chemical engineers, typically the highest paid engineers are also in high demand. Mechanical and electrical engineers are also doing much better than just few years ago. Biomedical engineers are not doing so great but that is in part because the biotech industry is still in a slump and the biomedical industry prefers hiring PhDs. </p>

<p>Even the supply of foreign trained engineers will not cover the shortfall. Despite the sluggish economy, graduating engineers at MIT this spring had the highest average starting salaries and bonuses ever. Students also had more offers than ever. That effect is not unique to MIT but also trickling through most engineering schools. The situation is much worse in Germany and Japan where unemployment for engineers is essentially zero and many open positions are unfilled for lack of qualified workers. </p>

<p>If I was an engineer graduating over the next decade, I would not be worried. Most engineering jobs cannot be easily outsourced and the supply is limited. Even in computer science hiring is strong. The jobs being replaced right now are the most senior jobs, so it will be lot easier to move up the food chain, at least for a while.</p>

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<p>If dentists are hurting, please hurt me!</p>

<p>Average Dentist Net Income (after staff, office expenses and malpractice insurance but before personal taxes) according to the ADA:</p>

<p>General Practice Dentists: $233,200
Periodontists: $279,540
Orthodontists: $290,200
Pediatric Dentists: $346,070
Endodontists: $366,340
OMFS: $516,260</p>

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<p>One only has to see the **real **economic indicators over the past decade to determine if we’re in a zero sum game or not. Things like disposable income, upward mobility, and many others. From where we, the Hoi Polloi, stand, it’s been zero sum since the late 90s.</p>

<p>Cedardweller, I will respectfully disagree with pretty much everything you wrote. I work in a multinational firm where the average age is ANCIENT - easily 40+ yet we do truly cutting edge stuff in consumer electronics. 40 is kinda young actually. I’m 51 and have easily another decade and a half to go. The reason is simple. Health Care and decimation of individual savings accounts during the late 00’s and many of us having kids later in life… In 2020 I will be 60, and ready to face law school tuition. Retirement is unlikely for us before 65+</p>

<p>Perhaps you do not work in industries that are undergoing wholesale outsourcing. I do. Mrs. Turbo does. Her company was dumb enough to outsource key research to Elbonia 10 years ago, and as a result they haven’t seen zip from their Elbonian R&D, and good luck succeeding when their patents run out in the very near future… Outsourcing is more of a fight against perception - if management perceives Elbonian engineers as ‘cheaper’, then, by golly, they’re cheaper, never mind that they do not come close to matching our output or quality. </p>

<p>If we only consider MIT as a representative of all US Engineering colleges, then, sure, life is good. For the tens of thousands of kids that did NOT go to MIT, what then?</p>

<p>Incidentally, part of the reason for the essentially zero unemployment of engineers in Germany and Japan is not the great job market, but (in Germany’s case at least) the impossible entrance exams that limit graduate numbers, and the equally impossible to lay off policies (based on things like ‘social criteria’. Even with EU allowing free movement of labor, I’d wager we in the US have probably three times the non-US-born workers (myself included) than our German buddies have. </p>

<p>The fact is, that most engineering jobs can be outsourced and are being outsourced for reasons that do not necessarily make short or long term sense. </p>

<p>It is true that senior jobs are those being replaced now (for cost and benefit reasons) and when all of us geezers are outsourced away in a few years, good luck to the Elbonians that will have to carry on the torch. The supply is also NOT limited, thanks to the various permatemp visas and other machinations… As a 27 year experience engineer veteran, I only consider myself ‘safe’ from layoffs because all 27 years are in the same company, same group, 13 years with the same manager. </p>

<p>Thankfully, my kids have plan B (European Union passports) assuming Europe has not yet self destructed when they hit the workforce.</p>

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<p>I would not depend on the ADA alone… Other sources report their incomes are dropping…</p>

<p>[Dentists</a> Drill for Dollars - SmartMoney.com](<a href=“Personal Finance Advice - Personal Financial Management - MarketWatch”>Personal Finance Advice - Personal Financial Management - MarketWatch)</p>

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<p>No, it has been positive sum some of the time and negative sum other times.</p>

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<p>The article you linked also referred to ADA data. It is true that dentists saw their incomes dropping in 2009 before increasing again in 2010. Average dentist income has gone from $200,000 in 2000 to $230,000 in 2010, a 15% increase which is a lot better that most professions. Most studies show dentists doing well over the coming decade with people living longer and taking care of their teeth longer. Retiring baby-boomers have high disposable income and spend more on average on maintaining their health than the previous generations.</p>

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<p>I agree with all the comments about health care being an area of somewhat greater stability, though clearly the market will change in the coming years. The way health care is delivered now isn’t financially sustainable in the long run.</p>

<p>I like the nurse practitioner and physician assistant tracks. These require a smaller investment of time and money than med school. And, going forward, I think these professions will increase in demand as more cost-effective options for many types of activities.</p>

<p>We’ll always need doctors, but it isn’t clear to me that compensation levels will improve or even stay constant. Some of the current ways docs add to their income, like owning their own outpatient surgery centers or other facilities, may come under fire, too.</p>

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<p>Turbo:</p>

<p>It does not matter if you intend to work past 65 or not, the demographic curves tell a clear story. A massive retirement wave is coming and the first baby-boomers just hit 65 in 2011. The wave will grow rapidly by 2015 and won’t peak until well past 2020. Their sheer numbers will swell the size of the retired population for two decades. The effect of retiring professionals vastly exceed the negative impact of outsourcing and there won’t be enough foreign nationals on H1B visas to cover the deficit. </p>

<p>I am about your age turning 54 this year, also immigrated from Europe. My kids are also dual citizens but I don’t see a chance in hell they will want to move to the EU, whatever their profession. The first one just started medical school and even the least well paid GP in the US make more than 99% of specialists in the EU. Even with medical school debt, the income differential is huge and will not shrink substantially. The second one will most likely go to law school and get into business and international law. </p>

<p>In regards to engineering we will just have to agree to disagree. I see the industry from a different perspective, commuting back and forth between Silicon Valley and the Northeast. I have started a number of tech companies and now advise and raise capital for emerging growth companies and many are having a difficult time finding qualified engineers: you can just look up the list of open engineering positions at companies such as Google or Apple to get a feel for the depth of the problem. Most engineering jobs in the high tech sector are NOT easily outsourced and the track record of those that tried is not especially positive. Production and manufacturing can be outsourced, design and engineering much less so. The more Apple builds iPhones in China, the more design engineers it needs to hire in Santa Clara. I work in the medical device industry and outsourcing is virtually impossible because of FDA issues. I also deal with nanotech firms and proximity to research universities is essential for tech transfer. If I had a kid interested in engineering, there is no way they would find better opportunities in the EU than in the US.</p>

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<p>As a warning for those thinking about a PA vs MD track. A few more years of schooling make a BIG difference.</p>

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