New study shows income is closely tied to choice of major. Your barista agrees. - Page 3

StephenHero thinks that the only degree allowed should be a bachelor's of making money.

Not true .. If you don't love computer coding, good luck completing a degree in CS. I thought I loved it - got through 4-5 courses and changed majors. Turns out I can only tolerate small amounts of computer programming if the end goal is extremely clear (statistical software for example).

Law and Business .. ya, pretty sure those that love Law/Business are out numbered 20:1 by those that just do it for the money.

Ya .. sort of sad they keep throwing Economics in with the "Social Sciences" .. Earning potential of a Economics grad should be significantly higher then a Sociology or Poli-Sci student.

fyp

Agreed. Money is important, but it's not everything to everyone. If you are passionate about a career field that does not pay that well, you may choose to give up a higher potential salary for it. There is nothing wrong with that at all, if you know what you are getting into.

Just like not everybody is willing to do what at least a few members on here do and work in petroleum where you run a several weeks on, several weeks off schedule in some god forsaken place in exchange for a bunch of money.

I think I would like it for several years. I'm not someone who needs to see my friends in person daily or something, and as long as the work location and other staff were reasonably consistent (not a new city every week or something) where I could have a stable life in both places...
Basically gives you long chunks of time to do stuff other people can't do (and money to do so)...who is that member that decided to buy a ducati, had a friend in CA buy it, picked it up, and drove it cross country to new york with several unplanned stays in the middle? Sounds good to me

+1

The wealthiest person in my family never went to college... he scrimped for 10 years to build a small automotive repair shop. Since then he has built numerous other repair shops around town that he rents out to other guys.

People have been putting college on a pedestal for all those years when it appears that the tide has turned. A smart person with a skilled trade could probably live quite well working for someone else, or become wealthy by starting their own business.

If I were 16 again, I'd probably make some very different choices.

Yeah, well, I went to school for Creative Writing. Graduated in 2008. Fast forward a couple years later, and now I'm working as an accountant. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what degree you earned. If you can't sell it to someone, you're eating it.

Why do they say journalism is the most useless major when their data show communications and journalism median income is only $3,000 less than engineering? The data support dogging psychology, but not journalism.

Also, they're using median salary for this which will not be affected by the top few percent in each field earning lots of money since it's the median not the mean.

Yeah, can't imagine having much use for a Psych Bachelor's except to say you're a college grad. Are you sure about this? Granted, I never wanted to go into clinical psych so never really did much delving into it, but this sounds more like Psychiatry (MD) than Psychology (which, as far as I know, are PhDs or PsyDs). Clinical Psychology would be more along the lines of a professional counselor Research assistant/lab tech or teaching, one would presume Qualified PhDs in Chem start at around $75k in research fields (for the big guns, anyway)

I once came across a study which stated that 75K was the sweet-spot salary where you made enough to live comfortably but were probably working a 40 hour week with limited work travel and pressure. As bad as a 32K mid-career salary sounds, the vast majority of people making 200K are earning that money working in pretty difficult/depressing/stressful careers. Corporate lawyers and bankers come to mind.

That doesn't mean everyone make 75K is happy and everyone making 200K+, but there's definitely a cut-off where you start earning your money at the cost of everything else in your life.

I've read a similar study, but I recall the details a little differently. They said that around $70,000 (this was in Canada I believe....wouldn't suppose it to translate to other places with different COLAs), you can basically buy things here and there that you want, eat out, and take a yearly vacation. Past that, you start seeing diminishing returns/tradeoffs - e.g. more stress for less marginal enjoyment. Instead of Banana Republic, you might be buying Zegna instead.

Of course, it was a fairly generalized study. Outside of the SF crowd, most people probably aren't hurting enough for $300 jeans and $3000 suits to stress themselves out for it.

Hell, my wife is getting 65k as a postdoc. I'm trying to transfer from teaching to industry, see where I end up salary-wise.