<p>L O L @ blossom #11</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At least it’s a job in his field rather than one working in a Starbucks! </p>
<p>I do feel sorry for those students who pursue a degree in a field they don’t much like because it “has market value” and then find out once they have their degree that the field has become overcrowded. Better, I think, to pursue something you love with the simultaneous expectation that the job won’t pay very well and live accordingly until you find out otherwise – even if you are a STEM major.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>At least Starbucks gives you benefits… he didn’t even get that! lol</p>
<p>He actually did love CS and that’s the reason he went out of state. Honestly, he probably could’ve gotten a better job in a different field but this is the field he wanted to pursue. He’s hoping this is just a stepping stone to bigger and better.</p>
<p>Some industries can be regional as far as employment availability goes. Those who are picky about where they want to be after graduation need to consider whether their intended career path is viable there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you drive a car? Use public transportation? Fly places? Heat your house? Use electricity?</p>
<p>@emachine–
My middle son has an undergrad degree in political science</p>
<p>He also has a masters in public policy ( which was his ultimate goal) and is lucratively employed in DC doing advocacy and policy work which is exactly what he has always wanted to do.</p>
<p>psych, it was in relation to the 2nd half of that sentence. </p>
<p>Btw, there are plenty of alternatives to fuel all of those things. We don’t explore them precisely because of how profitable gas is. OTOH, there really is NO replacement for good, well-compensated teachers.</p>
<p>“Btw, there are plenty of alternatives to fuel all of those things.”</p>
<p>Horses are great alternatives. Green energy. Ships sailing without engines - so green, soooo 22 century. Ya, sure.</p>
<p>Are you ready to pay 10 times more for electricity, fuel, groceries? Green energy is expensive, and without energy … it is back to horsepower. (personally, I won’t mind, I bike to work).</p>
<p>"there really is NO replacement for good, well-compensated teachers. "</p>
<p>Teachers at many private schools are compensated less than in public schools. Yet, they are much, much better teachers. You can’t solve problem by throwing money on it.</p>
<p>“In the Gerogetown study, new grads in biology and chemistry had starting salaries of $31k and $32k.”</p>
<p>Grad students or PostDocs? </p>
<p>Could you please look at the statistics of biology and chemistry majors 5 years after employment? 10 years?</p>
<p>D is a freshman biology major. (At her college something like 50% of the freshman are “pre-med” so it’s a full court press to weed out as many kids as possible.) The college assumes that all biology majors there are pre-med but she wants to be an environmental biologist. So far I haven’t found any real statistics about how various biology tracks/concentrations fare relative to each other in the job market. Does anyone know?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wouldn’t someone with an environmental biology degree generally be in direct competition with anyone who holds a standard biology degree, in the same way that a video game design major would compete with a CS major? Take one environmental biology elective, join an environmental-related campus organization, and put the appropriate buzz words on your resume and you’re just as qualified for getting an interview as anyone else.</p>
<p>LoremIpsum - Of course that makes sense now that you mention it…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Neither. New, employed graduates with a bachelor’s degree in those fields.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can look for yourself in the Georgetown report:</p>
<p>[Center</a> on Education and the Workforce -](<a href=“http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/]Center”>What’s It Worth?: The Economic Value of College Majors - CEW Georgetown)</p>
<p>Median wages for all biology and life science majors (including new and experienced grads, as well as BA and graduate degree holders) is $50,000. In comparison, the physical sciences is $59,000, social sciences is $55,000 and humanities is $47,000.</p>
<p>However, most life scientists do get a graduate degree and get a 101% salary boost from their graduate degree, whereas for other fields it’s more modest (70% for physical scientists, 57% for social sciences and 48% for humanities).</p>
<p>Georgetown’s “Hard Times” report had easier-to-read graphs with more direct salary comparisons.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/Unemployment.Final.update1.pdf[/url]”>http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/Unemployment.Final.update1.pdf</a></p>
<p>However, in this report they lumped together the life and physical sciences, and as we can see the salary differential between those fields can be pretty big. So it’s hard to make direct comparisons using this data.</p>
<p>Even so, experienced college grads (defined by Gtown as 30-54 years old, so between 8 and 30+ years of experience) in the life and physical sciences have the same median income as those in the social sciences ($60,000).</p>
<p>They also have similar salaries when graduate degrees come in - life and physical scientists have a median of $87,000 and social science majors have a median of $85,000.</p>
<p>They do make significantly more than humanities majors ($50,000 experienced, and $65,000 with a grad degree) and psychology and social work majors (although I’m not really sure why they lumped psychology in with social work and not with social sciences, since psychology majors are not likely to enter the same kinds of jobs as social workers; anyway, $45,000 experienced, $60,000 grad degree).</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I think also an important question is, should we care? I don’t care that graduate degree holding engineers make $100,000 because I don’t want to be an engineer. I’m a social scientist; we average $85,000 with a graduate degree (which I have) and that’s more than enough money for me to live a middle-class lifestyle and raise children with, so that makes me happy.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“Most”? Admission to medical and other health professional schools where the pay boost is largest is rather difficult to come by. A PhD in biology is not necessarily a guaranteed ticket to good job prospects these days.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Says who? This was not true in our experience. </p>
<p>And of course if teaching jobs paid more, more people would want to be teachers, schools could be more selective, and the quality would go up. Just like any other profession.</p>
<p>Regarding public and private high school teachers, it is certainly possible that a teacher would accept lower pay at a private school where students are selected (both self-selected and selected by the school’s admissions process) for interest in school (or the particular school’s emphasis) and disruptive students are quickly expelled over a public school where the teacher may have to deal with more uninterested students, “problem” students, and other distractions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Whether private school teachers are uniformly “much, much better teachers” can be debated. The important point, though, is that you are misinterpreting the statistical regularity that you assert. It is not that paying more gives you inferior teachers; rather, private school teachers accept lower compensation because they feel that their working conditions are better. Being able to pick and choose your students is what makes the difference.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure how CS majors overall are faring, but my son is graduating in May with a dual major in Software/Computer Engineering from a small engineering school in the Midwest and he’s had several amazing offers already. Honestly couldn’t believe that any new grad (even my DS!) could be worth that much right out of school. I would sure recommend SE as an in-demand field based on his experience so far.</p>
<p>Geez, my first job as a veterinarian paid $18K a year…yes, that was a few years ago, but still… My daughter plans to major in Marine Science, and I’ve warned her that she will likely be following in her mom’s footsteps rather than big brother’s!</p>
<p>I do not understand what the salary #s represent. Are they starting salaries or average salaries after what time period? </p>
<p>I find it curious that no business majors are listed. Accounting majors start at very respectable salaries right out of college and earn large salaries if they become partners in successful accounting firms.</p>
<p>So can someone explain to me what these #s represent?</p>