<p>I'm from University of Montana. The average salary for MBAs graduating from our program averaged $54,000, not including a bonus. If students can receive $50,000+ offers in Montana, they can get them anywhere.</p>
<p>I appreciate all the comments and responses. Well, this is what I was thinking of...it might've been stated somewhere but I probably got lost along the way =D</p>
<p>I think I'd be better off majoring in some type of Engineering, specifically Biomedical is what I'm interested in. I can get a PhD in that and I'm still able to get a "business" type job with a degree like that. Manager of an engineering center or something.</p>
<p>I think it's better to get a strong educational background, like engineering which I stated before and I can pursue to use that with business if I wish. Since most of success with business is from experience rather than business degrees which I read here and some other places.</p>
<p>Ohh man, thank god I'm 16 and still have plenty of time to decide =D</p>
<p>seriously, go outside and play. go make friends. go shoot some pool or play some Wii. Pick up some girls.</p>
<p>This is not anything that you should lose sleep over right now.</p>
<p>Parents that force their kids into a certain line of work should be drug out into the street and shot. Up until now, your parents have played a major role in your life. However, this is still YOUR LIFE. You will have to live with your decision FOREVER. They don't. Hell, they probably won't live to see most of your life.</p>
<p>Do what you want to do. You can make great money in business (far greater upside than medicine) and it's not because of luck.</p>
<p>Engineering is very good and more secure than others in a business. Coop programs are very good for engineering. They take 5 years instead of 4, but you have your employment lined up for you at graduation. In addition, when you are interning, you can fully support yourself financially. Make sure that your math is very strong, much more of it is needed in eingineering than in medicine. And as everybody else has said, relax, it is not the end of the world and tons of people out there has changed their profession in a course of their life, even in their 30s.</p>
<p>Engineering's very safe, but without a move into business (i.e. a career switch), its ceiling is very low and the lifespan of such a career can be on the shorter side.</p>
<p>Lifespan of such a career can be on the shorter side? Care to explain? (That's not sarcasm -- I'm seriously curious.)</p>
<p>If you can get into a top undergrad and are a good test-taker its pretty risk free to get an MBA. Go to a top school like Dartmouth, Duke, or Penn and get a 3.4+. You'll likely get a good job in consulting, banking, or industry making 50-70K. If you work hard and go into banking it can be up to 170K after college. After about 4 years get an MBA from a top 7 school. At a minimum you'll make about $100k, up to about $250K depending on your field. Regardless, most top 10 MBA grads make about $500K per year on average ten years out.</p>
<p>Tell them to grow up. The years where you work for a company for 30 years and then leave with a big pension is over. There's no job security anywhere today, so you can pretty much assume that no career is "safe".</p>
<p>By the way, statistically, business majors make more, but doctors have less of a downside/upside potential. You decide. By the way, NYU UNDERGRAD alumni are out getting $55k salaries not including bonuses.</p>
<p>RR: Sorry about the delay. My notifications seem to be failing recently.</p>
<p>From observing my parents' friends and my family, engineering careers generally seem to exhaust their lifespan after about twenty years. After that, they will either be let go (golden parachutes) or they'll move into management. Their engineering skills -- I don't really know what these involve -- seem to become less valuable over time. Maybe computer technology is evolving, or maybe the materials are changing, or... like I said, I don't know enough about the field to speak intelligently. The point is that in their mid-40s, the engineers my family knows were universally no longer engineers -- either laid off (all but one) or shifted into management (just one).</p>
<p>I have a cousin in engineering, now, and he chose to make the jump to business school early on to ensure that he could move into management rather than wait for the axe to drop ten years down the line.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Their engineering skills -- I don't really know what these involve -- seem to become less valuable over time. Maybe computer technology is evolving, or maybe the materials are changing, or... like I said, I don't know enough about the field to speak intelligently.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm an engineer and I completely agree. I don't think it's more so that the skills be come less valuable, only that they can be gotten for a lesser price by a younger and more eager engineer. There is something to say for process knowledge, but a majority of the industries processes have changed very little, and the ability to get more out of less (an engineer quality) can only be taken to a certain degree. In reality, the ultimate goal of an engineer is to make themselves obsolete... not a very good career choice if you don't like change and can't adapt quickly.</p>
<p>Me? I'm going to get my MBA and hopefully break away from the engineering role and into an industry analyst or systems management for the biotech/pharma industries. </p>
<p>Engineering is a great career, don't get me wrong, by the ceiling is very low if you plan on doing engineering work your whole life.</p>
<p>I was asked this question, I dont know the proper equation to use. If anyone can help i'd be greatfull. The question is "A Re Broker earns a commision of 6k. His rate of commision is 6%. what is his selling rate?thank u very much</p>
<p>$6000/.06 = $100,000</p>
<p>thank u soooooooo much</p>
<p>Actually, if you consider the opportunity cost and sunk cost that goes into a medical career, it's not really that financially intelligent.</p>
<p>Assuming that someone can make $45K a year out of college (almost anyone smart enough to get through med school can), you're looking at something like $180K of gross income forgone for med school. Add in the loans (upwards of $100K+) and the income loss during residency, and you're looking at losing around $200-400K of potential gross income. Now, does the medical salary actually make up for that? Maybe. If you discount the cash flows, maybe not.</p>
<p>I did the math here. Notice, though, that my calculations don't account for taxes -- meaning that physicians are actually worse off than my math would imply.</p>
<p>Yeah, the NPV for the medical "investment" is really crap. Why am I going back to do this, again? I must be insane.</p>
<p>Well, the problem with using straight NPV is that it presumes that all of the 'income' that you generate can be invested for future use. </p>
<p>But the truth is, you can't do that. Simply put, you need some of your current income just to live. For example, if you make 45k, you can't just decide to keep all of your after-tax money and invest it. Not even close. You still have to eat. You still have to put a roof over your head. Presumably, you still have to pay to transport yourself to your job (unless you work for a company like Google that offers free transportation). Everybody has to pay for these costs, whether they work in medicine or in some other job. </p>
<p>And the fact is, those costs do not ramp up 1:1 with your income. For example, a doctor might eat more expensive food than a regular person, it's probably not THAT much more expensive: certainly not by the same income multiple that he enjoys over the regular person. It's not like a regular Joe is eating $5 lunches and the doctor is eating $15 lunches all the time. And heck, some living costs for a doctor would arguably go down. For example, a doctor enjoys a higher and more reliable income than a regular Joe would, which means that the doctor can probably qualify for better terms on a mortgage (which not only eliminates the roof-over-your-head requirement, but also serves as an investment and tax shield). I know people who've made 40-50k for over a decade, and *still*can't afford to buy a house in the local area on any reasonable terms. {Granted the 'local area' is the SF Bay Area where housing is frightfully expensive, but still, the point stands.}</p>
<p>The point is that if you make 45k a year, you're probably not going to be able to save that much. If you're highly disciplined, maybe you can save 25% of your income a year. Doctors, on the other hand, have a lot of "excess" cash flow.</p>
<p>I don't think NPV assumes any of that. It's simply a recognition that resources are more valuable early in the cycle. Either you could invest it, or you had to borrow it, or you had to spend other money that you could have invested instead.</p>
<p>It's not that anybody actually is saving this much money. NPV is simply a recognition of the increased value of the resource early on.</p>
<p>In fact, banks loan interest BECAUSE of the time value of money. Not vice versa.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>There are plenty of things someone who's "good enough" to be a doctor can do other than medicine. Assuming I wanted to get a job in investment, I probably could. That would mean that I'd save myself another 5 or 6 (thanks to post-bac) years of education. Most of my job offers so far have been in the $65K+ range, with good odds of making at least $100K by the time I'm 30 or so. </p>
<p>Medicine is simply not a financially wise decision for me, considering the time value of money, sunk cost, and opportunity cost. There are many others who I'd assume are like me.</p>
<p>Hell, I bet that most doctors could be lawyers and make at least what the average family practitioner makes.</p>