<p>Is it business, engineering,etc?</p>
<p>[Major</a> Surveys](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/major/major.stm]Major”>https://career.berkeley.edu/major/major.stm)</p>
<p>According to that data, it looks like Computer Science (either L&S or EECS).</p>
<p>Yea, CS has the highest average starting salary ($75,847), according to the survey. EECS is slightly below it, though</p>
<p>Note that there is some bias in these numbers since EECS people are more likely to go to graduate school compared to L&S CS people. So the top EECS people will likely be going to graduate school while the top L&S CS people will be going to industry, leading to different starting salary numbers.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that salary figures may be misleading as certain industries - notably finance/banking - pay a large fraction of pay packets in the form of year-end bonuses. Such bonuses are not included in salary figures because nobody knows what they will be until they receive them - during an economic crash, your bonus might be zero.</p>
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<p>Is that really true? </p>
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<p>I might actually argue that the EECS students - which obviously includes many hardware students - are more likely to work for established firms for a high salary - than are CS students who are more likely to join a startup for a miniscule/no salary but with a large chunk of equity that might be convertible to riches. For example, a handful of CS graduates can immediately launch an Internet company to build Facebook widgets, or even compete against Facebook itself. It’s not so simple for a bunch of hardware EE graduates to immediately launch a new semiconductor or devices firm.</p>
<p>About EECS people more likely to go to graduate school… if you look at the survey, almost all EECS people heading to graduate programs are doing it for EE, not CS. In fact, proportionally, more CS people are going to graduate school for CS, than are EECS people.</p>
<p>3 EECS people in the survey reported graduate programs for CS
2 CS people in the survey reported graduate programs for CS
Yet, EECS had over 3 times as many respondents/graduates</p>
<p>It is also important to note that CS generally pays more than EE. This could be part of the reason why so many EECS people (who focus on EE) will go on to graduate school, rather than begin working.</p>
<p>In the end, this survey is unreliable, because the response rate hovers around 40% for EECS and CS.</p>
<p>“Note that there is some bias in these numbers since EECS people are more likely to go to graduate school compared to L&S CS people. So the top EECS people will likely be going to graduate school while the top L&S CS people will be going to industry, leading to different starting salary numbers.”</p>
<p>This shouldn’t make a difference. Average salary should be compiled from those who report a salary from a job. Most graduate students don’t work a full-time job, and thus wouldn’t report salaries.</p>
<p>But I agree with caltanner’s statement that the 40% response rate is unreliable. Non-response bias can be strong with surveys.</p>
<p>engineering, math, and stat majors have pretty high average salaries, higher than bus admin.</p>
<p>^ in previous years, when they posted them</p>
<p>not only is there non response bias but self reported salary information is extremely unreliable. probably less likely to misreport employer so that may be more reliable.</p>
<p>From my experience, it’s easier to get a high paying job as a CS major than as an EE major.</p>