Which Major is the highest starting salary

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

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1.) Economics and Computer Science (I am really good in both fields but not veryy good in math). Secondly, can i pursue these courses in an LAC?
2.) Materials Science and engineering - do they have better or worse prospects than Chemical Engineers?
3.)Industrial Engineering
4.) Computer Science and Engineering

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</p>

<p>To reiterate, I am not saying that ChemE is a perfect field, or that it is better than Computers. In fact, I would say that in the near future, computer science will be a very hot field (despite issues with outsourcing, which tend to be highly overblown). </p>

<p>However, I would strongly object to the notion that ChemE is going to be any worse off than MatSci or IndE. These fields also require that you move to where the jobs are.</p>

22

<p>Thanks sakky and DUDE .. its just so confusing .. because i called my aunt who is a doctor in the US (I am from Pakistan) and she told me DONT DO COMPUTER SCIENCE!! U WILL BE BROKE AND UNEMPLOYED .. so i decided to move to Chemical engineering and realised i liked it even more than CS .. but now some people say its the worst decision they have ever made in their lives...</p>

<p>money is very important to me because I've had to suffer because of the lack of it</p>

23

<p>Waleed, Dude, My goal is to share my frustrations to encourage you to research and think about your career goals. My experience is that it just is not a good field and I got out after a few short years ( i was underpaid, overworked etc...). As has been suggested here, maybe it was the timing and regional factors that caused this situation. </p>

<p>I would encourage you to speak to others in the field and get their impressions. 4 years is a lot of time and money to invest and I encourage anyone thinking of Chem E to research it carefully and go beyond the published stats.</p>

24

<p>I agree that any field you are considering should be researched carefully, whether it's ChemE or CS or whatever it is. And that goes double for all of those liberal arts grads, many of whom graduate and can't find a job at all and end up working at the mall. I'm not saying that working as a chemical engineer is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it sure as heck beats working at the mall. There are a LOT of liberal arts graduates who wish they had instead studied something practical like ChemE.</p>

25

<p>LMAO--at the mall? i hope you were being facetious. They probably take those jobs temporarily, as a means to support themselves until they get a 'real' job. The same thing can happen to someone with an engr. undergrad degree right? I mean noone is gauranteed a job right after undergrad.</p>

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<p>Sadly, I am not being facetious. Yep, they really do end up working at the mall, sometimes for years on end.</p>

<p>Obviously nobody ever plans on working at the mall forever, so by definition, these are temporary jobs. But these are temporary jobs that sometimes last for a pretty darn long time. </p>

<p>Sure, the same thing MIGHT happen to an engineer, as nobody is guaranteed a job. But there are "degrees of no-guarantee". You are far more likely to end up working at the mall if you have an Art History degree than if you have a degree in something practical. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. Take a look at the salary figures of the graduates of Berkeley. Berkeley is supposed to be a top school. Yet some of the salaries garnered by certain majors at Berkeley are pretty darn low. In fact, I remember one girl who graduated from Berkeley who told me that, on a per-hour basis, she could have easily made more money if she had just went to work as a waitress right out of high school (factoring in tips) than she can make with her Berkeley degree. That just goes to show that simply having a college degree, even from a top school, does not mean that you are highly employable. Far from it, in the case of certain majors. </p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/CarDest/2005Majors.stm#salary%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/CarDest/2005Majors.stm#salary&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

27

<p>Petro engineers are usually the highest. But you also have to weigh in the fact that their hours are usually more demanding than other engineering fields. It really depends on where you live, and what the demand is for your specialization.</p>

28

<p>Sakky, do you have any information about the prospects for Materials Engineering? Is it a good field to get into? I am kind of suspicious because it seems to be one of the engineering fields with the least amount of people working in it. Is that just because it is a relatively new field? Thanks.</p>

29

<p>Perhaps I'm biased, but I see MatSci as basically a specialized version of ChemE, and a relatively low-paying version at that. I know that might be harsh for some MatSci people to hear, but come on guys, you know that ChemE and MatSci share a lot of similarities, and more to the point, there aren't that many MatSci employers out there who aren't also hiring ChemE's. Hence, I would say that unless your goal is to get a PhD in MatSci, or you don't ever intend to work as an engineer at all (i.e. you intend to become a management consultant or investment banker), then you should probably just major in ChemE.</p>

30

<p>waleed:</p>

<p>Please do your own research on desirable fields and don't rely on the words of just a few people - including your aunt who said to not do CS. I don't see how she'd even be in a position to know since she's not in the field. There's a lot of inaccurate information and assumptions out there regarding the CS field. In fact, the field is still doing well, is one of the higher-paying fields for BS grads, and has a lot of potential. Companies wouldn't be paying the starting salaries they do if they could easily obtain the same talents for less. This should be some indicator for you. </p>

<p>The fields of ChemE and CS are quite different from each other in practice so you should pursue the one you're most interested in as long as your research insicates the job prospects are reasonable.</p>

31

<p>Sakky, do you know why materials engineering isn't listed on the CNNmoney link you provided with the most lucrative college degrees? I seem to remember from somewhere that MatEng pays about 51K with a bachelor's.</p>

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<p>Hey, Petroleum E isn't listed either, and PetE has historically been one of the highest, and often times (especially now, with oil being $70 a barrel) THE highest paying engineering major. </p>

<p>I suppose that CNNmoney can't list EVERY single major, as there are literally hundreds and hundreds of majors out there (many of them being extremely obscure). So it picks some representative ones. But basically, MatSci has historically paid a little bit less than ChemE. So whatever the ChemE numbers say, subtract a few thousand off it, and that's probably about what the MatSci people are getting.</p>

33

<p>Hey, I was wondering what the job outlook is for Electrical Engineering majors? Sure, the CNNMoney site lists it as the second-highest paid bachelor's degree, but isn't it a really saturated field with so many ppl majoring in it and getting jobs in it? Also, can Materials Engineers potentially work in Electrical Engineering jobs, you know, like working in electronic materials, optical materials, semiconductor devices, that sort of thing?</p>

34

<p>
[quote]
but isn't it a really saturated field with so many ppl majoring in it and getting jobs in it?

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</p>

<p>First off, you can't determine saturation by looking only at the number of people majoring in it. Some majors that have very few people majoring in it can nonetheless still be 'saturated' in the sense that there are also very few jobs. For example, very few people major in Art History, but that doesn't exactly mean that Art History if a lucrative field to enter. Far from it, in fact. </p>

<p>Secondly, there really aren't that many people majoring in EE, or in engineering in general. Keep in mind that only about 5% of all bachelor's degrees conferred in the US are engineering degrees. There are more people in the US majoring in "parks and recreation" than in EE.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2003/c03033.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2003/c03033.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Or as Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE once said:</p>

<p>""More people will graduate in the United States in 2006 with sports-exercise degrees than electrical-engineering degrees," says Immelt. "So, if we want to be the massage capital of the world, we're well on our way"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13123358/site/newsweek/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13123358/site/newsweek/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The point is, if EE is saturated, then what about all of those other majors that are far more popular than EE? Wouldn't they be "really" saturated? </p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, can Materials Engineers potentially work in Electrical Engineering jobs, you know, like working in electronic materials, optical materials, semiconductor devices, that sort of thing?

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</p>

<p>Sure can. And so can ChemE's. So can Chemists. So can physicists. In fact, of the 5 CEO's in the history of Intel, the first majored in physics (Robert Noyce), the second in chemistry/physics (Gordon Moore), the third in chemical engineering (Andrew Grove), the fourth in MatSci (Craig Barrett), and the fifth and current one majored in economics (Paul Otellini). Interestingly, not a single CEO in the history of Intel ever majored in EE.</p>

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<p>The salaries for ChemE and EE seem to be pretty close. If the EE department at a certain school was ranked reasonably higher than the ChemE department at the same school, could you still expect a higher salary as a ChemE from that school or rather would an EE degree probably get you a higher salary since it's ranked higher?</p>

36

<p>Orz, not even one mention of Mech E.</p>

37

<p>
[quote]
Sadly, I am not being facetious. Yep, they really do end up working at the mall, sometimes for years on end.</p>

<p>Obviously nobody ever plans on working at the mall forever, so by definition, these are temporary jobs. But these are temporary jobs that sometimes last for a pretty darn long time. </p>

<p>Sure, the same thing MIGHT happen to an engineer, as nobody is guaranteed a job. But there are "degrees of no-guarantee". You are far more likely to end up working at the mall if you have an Art History degree than if you have a degree in something practical. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. Take a look at the salary figures of the graduates of Berkeley. Berkeley is supposed to be a top school. Yet some of the salaries garnered by certain majors at Berkeley are pretty darn low. In fact, I remember one girl who graduated from Berkeley who told me that, on a per-hour basis, she could have easily made more money if she had just went to work as a waitress right out of high school (factoring in tips) than she can make with her Berkeley degree. That just goes to show that simply having a college degree, even from a top school, does not mean that you are highly employable. Far from it, in the case of certain majors.

[/quote]

If your major was in the liberal arts like history, then cant you be a high school teacher? The salaries aren't too high, but at least you have a stable and relatively comfortable job. At least better than the mall.</p>

38

<p>
[quote]
If your major was in the liberal arts like history, then cant you be a high school teacher? The salaries aren't too high, but at least you have a stable and relatively comfortable job. At least better than the mall.

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<p>Sure, but a lot of people either know up front they don't want to teach, or they do this for a year or two and discover they simply don't like it - i.e. they don't like putting up with the kids or the bureaucracy. They also generally need to make an extra effort to get a teaching degree rather than just the basic degree. Many don't do this. Fortunately, there are some who do.</p>

<p>Supply and demand reigns - the degree areas offered the highest starting salaries will tend to be the ones most in demand due to the number of job openings versus qualified candidates. IMO, the engineering degrees are much more difficult to obtain (due to much harder work required) than the general liberal arts degrees, hence fewer candidates will complete them, hence starting pay will be higher (since the demand still exists).</p>

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<p>Supposedly, the number of engineering majors is actually decreasing slowly year-by-year. There aren't fewer engineering jobs opening up which means that in only a matter of a few years, engineering might be a very worthwhile field.</p>

40

<p>
[quote]
If your major was in the liberal arts like history, then cant you be a high school teacher? The salaries aren't too high, but at least you have a stable and relatively comfortable job. At least better than the mall

[/quote]
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<p>You know, I've wondered about this myself - why don't more liberal arts grads get their teaching certs and become teachers? You said it yourself - it's better than working at the mall. I agree with ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad that a lot of people don't like to teach or don't like dealing with the bureaucracy or kids or all that, but honestly, who really likes stocking shelves at the mall?</p>