<p>Limited to those working in VA after college, etc but a real start. Also just recent grads.</p>
<p>WG02:</a> Wages of Graduates, List Programs By Institution</p>
<p>lots of VA graduates work in DC, I’m sure… likely including many of the higher paid ones (though of course, the living is much more expensive too).</p>
<p>I’d rather make $40K working in say Kansas then $50K working in DC :D.</p>
<p>Scary that a Masters degree grad in a STEM subject like Biology has a median salary of only $32k
[WG03:</a> Institution and Program-specific Data](<a href=“http://research.schev.edu/eom/opportunity03_report.asp]WG03:”>WG03: Institution and Program-specific Data)</p>
<p>I think these data are distorted by the inclusion only of graduates who work in Virginia.</p>
<p>They probably picked up a lot of the engineering majors because the companies that hire them tend to be in northern Virginia, rather than Washington, DC. But graduates in other majors, such as political science or economics, tend to work in DC itself and would not be counted. Or they move to other cities in other states.</p>
<p>My daughter works in the DC office of a national firm. Many of her colleagues are UVa graduates. And they make a lot more than it says on the chart for their majors.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see a similar chart for the state schools in a state that includes a major city a well as its suburbs – like Massachusetts or Pennsylvania. Those data might be more meaningful than data for a state where the most important major city is outside the state’s borders.</p>
<p>They report accurately what they report and you can draw a good numbers of inferences from them without being overly specific. NOVA certainly has many jobs in many fields. As Fed jobs are not even counted much of DC would not count anyway.</p>
<p>I also found myself wondering about the wage gap between someone who is already employed in an industry who then goes and gets the master’s vs. someone who gets the master’s in hopes of getting a job in the industry. The really high wages of educational administration folks, for example, are probably likely to people who already had good jobs getting a degree and then getting a raise – vs. people who go job hunting with a new master’s degree. So it might not be applicable to your situation. But yeah, what’s up with the low wages for biologists?</p>
<p>You’re not really a biologist without a Ph.D. You’re a lab technician.</p>
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<p>I’m sure you aren’t alone… the federal government locality pay is not high enough for pay to equal out, for example. It’s an expensive place to live starting out.</p>
<p>Also, after 18 months, a lot of people are in graduate school.</p>
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<p>When will people figure out that the assumption that “STEM major = high pay” is incorrect with respect to biology (and chemistry)?</p>
<p>In the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html</a> , biology majors often do poorly, often no better than the usual “poor job prospects” majors. (Note: link to this Virginia survey has been added to that thread, although some Virginia schools like Virginia Tech have had their own surveys up for a while.)</p>
<p>Of course I don’t know, but I am deeply suspicious of these salary by major surveys. I think smart, savvy kids do well regardless of major. Or if I were going to be cynical, smart, savvy kids who graduate from good schools and have connections do well regardless of major</p>
<p>I would like to see a survey that demonstrates that your salary 18 months post grad is highly correlated to your salary 10 years later.</p>
<p>Life is long, and I’d hate to see kids majoring in something simply because they think it will make them more money.</p>
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<p>But worse is the situation where people assume that majoring in any STEM subject automatically means a good job at graduation, so they major in biology (the most popular STEM major by far).</p>
<p>Majoring in something only because of better job prospects usually does not work out too well, since if you do not like the subject, you are unlikely to do well in it, either in school or on the job. But being well informed of the job prospects related to your major means that you can plan better – if your major has poor major-specific job prospects, you may know to be more aggressive at seeking internships and post-graduation jobs early.</p>
<p>“It’s an expensive place to live starting out” </p>
<p>Make that live in general, young, old…No offense to those living in the DC area, but I have strongly encouraged my kid to try to find his initial employment elsewhere. For people who have lived in that area their whole lives, the high cost of living, traffic and commute time, in general the “life speed” is acceptable. But for someone coming into it used to a slower, less expensive way of life, it can be overwhelming. We were there for two years and couldn’t wait to relocate because of the cost of living. Count me in for choosing Kansas and less $$ over DC.</p>
<p>“if your major has poor major-specific job prospects, you may know to be more aggressive at seeking internships and post-graduation jobs early”</p>
<p>This ^ is such good advice. Definitely will be shared with the second one in line…:)</p>
<p>The data looks very believable.</p>