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Computer Engineering Degree Most Valuable
Anonymous Squonk writes "CNN reports on the National Association of Colleges and Employers quarterly salary survey. Computer Engineering degree holders once again command the highest starting salaries at an average of $53,117, but Chemical Engineering is gaining rapidly, and Computer Science graduate's salaries are up 8.9% over the year before. Most of the other geek disciplines rank high on the list as well." While starting salaries for some degrees are up, the overall situation is not very good - indeed, your salary may be decreasing.
Wow, that starting salary must be appreciated by all 5 graduates who were able to find jobs.
Honestly, until something is seriously done by the government and companies (determing a percentage that can be offshored, completely redoing the tariffs in the so-called "free trade" agreements, etc.), it's difficult to make a case for going to a college or university. To train for what? Everyone behind a desk is vulnerable to being offshored.
Thankfully, Lou Dobb's program is putting the spotlight on this issue each evening! Tonight, he's going to focus on the companies who are the worst abusers of offshoring. Last night, he focused on the owner of a Tool and Die shop who is complaining that "free trade" has ruined his business and it's about to go under. His specific complaints were that tariffs on his stuff going to China is 29.9%. Stuff coming from China to the US has a tariff of 3%. In Mexico, they freely use and dump chemicals that he would go to jail for dumping. This is free trade? Our elected officials agreed to this? Holy cow! The playing field is not level or even close to being level.
Until the tariffs are equal and labor/enviromental issues are equal with our trade partners, America is going to continue to lose jobs, companies, and wealth. Our future is slowly being flushed down the porcelin convenience. Our own beloved industry - IT - has near double-digit unemployment. Good luck to new graduates trying to enter.
I'd rather know about the money I'll be making five to ten years into the job. If the company has starting salaries too high, chances are they aren't going to be around that long.
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Yeah, but she has a masters versus a regular batchelor of science, or what have you. Most psychology majors I know have very low paying jobs with social services.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
You're probably right. We'll always need doctors in every town because people get sick and need to get better. But we won't always need software creators in town because the townspeople don't actually NEED them there -- the software engineering process can take place anywhere and still meet the requirements.
The sad(der) part is that nursing and elementary teaching are in the bottom five of the list with both of them going down.
Nurses and Teachers are the people who should be paid better. Oh well.
Free XBox, PS2
Lots of money is great, but what about the people who have a love for computing?... To me as long as I am happy with my work, the people I work with and I dont have to worry about where my next meal comes from then thats all the beans. If youve noticed, a lot of people are getting into the field JUST for the money, I'd like to see maybe 5-10 years down the road all the high money chasers go and the people who actually WANT to do this type of work stick.
The title "Computer Engineering" can mean so many things, though.
I know it was all about the internal computers from microwaves, stereos, etc. where I went to school. CE people had a very good combination of IT, CS, and various microprocessor-related engineering skills.
What does it mean to you?
One thing to remember is that salaries are very region dependent, so a Computer Engineering degree may not command the highest starting salaries in your region.
the cnn article doesnt mention it, but these types of surveys are based upon 4-year bachelor degrees, not masters.
Next - those numbers in the survey represent the AVERAGE! You're trying to take one individual case and make it the value for all cases. Statistics dont work that way my friend. Wilt Chamberlin may have scored 100 points in a game once (a single individual case), but that doesnt mean every player scores 100 points every night.
curious - MBA stands for "Master of Business Administration." How the hell does one get an "mba in psychology"? Did you mean MA or MS in Psych?
"You're never going to get rich working to make someone else rich."
This was told to me while I was working as a software engineer commanding a decent salary. But I wasn't making the real money. That job belonged to my boss, who saw it fit to pay me a skim from his profit for a job I performed.
What was I to do? Whine? Talk about how "greedy" he was? Criticize him for his lack of technical skills (compared to mine)?
All of that is excrement. Instead, I chose to become an entrepreneur. I found partners, made deals, and now am in the process of opening my second restaurant as well as selling things over television and Internet. I think about business all the time, and work suddenly has become very, very fun. Life itself feels like a massively multiplayer game.
Oh, and here's another piece of advice that I learned that I wish someone had told me earlier: Anyone will loan you any some of money as long as they are convinced that it's in their best interest to do so.
Stop working for someone else. Find partners. Find investors. Find a way that you can make a business work. It's exhilirating and fascinating. And you won't go back once you are free.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
What are you doing about it though? Are you writing your congressman? The whitehouse? The Press? Or are you doing nothing? We (American Programmers) who are working and aren't working need to become more involved in politics, and not just the EFF either.
the shortage is that there are not enough jobs for all the certificate and nothing else holders. Are they really IT/DP/CS professionals?
The company I work for has hired a few people in the last year. First requirement on every position BS in something, usually BSCS (CSEE doesn't exist much around here, so they only cover it under "related fields").
So, the job market is recovering slowly, and we are in no danger of outsourcing even job 1 here.
Wow, that's amazing, because I recently returned from a career fair here at Caltech, and nearly every job needed a heavy programming background. The problem (for you) is, that they want other skills too.
Your REAL problem is that an increasing number of students majoring in physics, chemistry, math, etc have learned to program pretty damned well. That gives us a huge advantage - we can take a job that uses either our science knowledge, programming skills, or more likely both. Companies get somebody with a wider range of skills.
As such, I think the best idea is a major in the physical sciences or better yet, EE, with a CS minor (or double major).
I guarantee you this - if you had an EE/CS double major, or even EE major/CS minor, you'd be beating companies away with a stick. Particularly here in California.
Finally some good news about my education (Computer Engineering). I graduate in a few months, and for the past four years it has been nothing but doom and gloom (No jobs, and now outsourcing).
From HR people they said it generally works out like this.
If you have a big name recognition school, such as Harvard, MIT, Caltech,etc. You are going to probably be offered more just for the name and the preceived additional skill level of the person who graduates from one of them.
Then you have the local big name school, such as Texas A&M being worth more in texas then in California. Again because of preceived values and a far better chance that the person hiring is from or knows someone from.
Then you have everything else, and thier they just check the books to see if the place is accredited.
Then after a few years of actual work unless you have one of thoses huge top-tier ones it really does not matter.
You started college in the middle of the dotcom boom. Salarys were inflated.
No college grad is worth $60k. Period.
We pay grads $35k. Good workers make it up to $50k in two years, mediocre ones go nowhere and shitty ones get fired.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
a companies best interest is to pay you the absolute bare minimum that it takes to keep you around, and not a dime more.
you need to negotiatie up front for the best compensation possible. all future raises will be based on that going forward.
... hi bingo
Me first. Company second. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
Putting yourself first isn't always about salary. Young engineers should be more concerned with the technology that they are learning and less about salary. Ultimately, engineering skills are a commodity. If you take the opportunity to develop unique and desirable skills, you will make more money over the long haul than someone with more common skills that chose projects on the basis of salary. You will also be more employable in difficult times. That's how you get rewarded down the road.
I can honestly say that I've always chosen the job that was more technically exciting or seemed like a big long term payoff because it was a risky challenge instead of short term financial gain. I've gotten screwed a few times when companies failed and the sure thing at a better salary would have netted more. But I look back without any regrets because I was always enjoying what I did.
- I can think of a few reasons.
1) Not minority (dis)advantaged.
2) Not gender (dis)advantaged.
3) Weak handshake.
4) Bad people skills.
5) No networking skills.
The first 2 may sound like flamebait, but I was a recruiter. I had several excellent candidates that I remembered, they had excellent GPAs and great people skills... but the gentleman I had to send the resume's to wasn't interested because they were not a minority.
Thats a fact of life now in business- you'll see companies being rewarded for hiring minorities, with the assumption that that automatically generates the best potential.
In this particular case, ours hired a minority with a 3.2 GPA over a 4.0 GPA.
Oddly enough, I've not been asked back to the recruiting team after I objected to this.
At best, this statistic only tells us where the US economy was, not where it is. I don't put much stock in tallies like this because it's like answering 42 to life the universe and everything.
Let's take a longer perspective, shall we? The computer industry has been white hot for many years now. Those of you who were working in it were riding that wave for a long time. Good work!
It couldn't last forever. Those wonderful salaries were not reflected in other parts of the industry. For the experience and training most Computer Science graduates have, an appropriate salary ought to be much closer to what most other engineers earn. That's why so many jobs are evaporating. We'll get them back eventually, at salaries more in line with what the rest of the engineering world is earning.
That's the way business works. The demand was white hot for nearly a decade. Now it's only red hot. It was a good wave while it lasted. Business Revolutions like that come along maybe once or twice per century. Be thankful you had the chance to ride this one.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
That's hurting more than any existing tariffs. While China's taking advantage of free markets, they're not playing by the rules. I'm all for free trade and I hate protectionism, but China's currency policy needs to go.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Linux/BSD/etc are rapidly addressing this, but not fast enough.
Thinking outside my Head
There is a huge difference between professional organizations and unions, and you do a disservice to both by lumping them together.
Unions exist - as you said - to assist with collective bargaining, to work for better wages and working conditions, and most importantly (imho), to reduce layoffs without cause.
Professional organizations on the other hand can have a variety of functions. Most are focused on knowledge sharing. The AMA, for example, publishes magazines and gives doctors strong recommended guidelines based on thousands of doctors feedback.
There would definitely be a benefit to both types of organizations for computer scientists/engineers. However, try not to lump them together, as you'll get the arguments against both, and few of the pro's for either.
My two cents on unions are that they need to get a foothold in the one place that can make a huge difference - tech support centers. Places like "CallTech" and other minimum wage, low-benefit, high-stress environments are the perfect foothold.
They get the numbers needed to show that people gain benefit from being under collective bargaining, and they build a groundswell of support.
When you then leverage that to move into call/support for say, Sprint or Microsoft, you can see that it would be a trivial extension to break into the server rooms, the switch closets, and the rest of the company.
I don't think for a second that I need to give the Unions ideas though.. they've thought of it, they are working on it, and it will happen in time.
I really like the idea of a professional organization though.. add some strong credibility, and knowledge sharing.
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Well, I hate to say it here, 'cause I know I'll get flamed more for who originally said it rather than what was said...Rush Limbaugh once made the statement that the fairest and simplest trade agreement with any country is simply, "We'll charge you what you charge us." If China's adding 29.9% to the cost of our goods, we do it to theirs. It's fair, it's equitible and anyone who complains is just told, "Fine, lower your tariffs, ours go down automatically."
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
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I graduated from GT as a CompE in Dec 2001 and got a job in Austin, TX starting at more than the $53k average. Every one of my friends got a job paying close to the average. There were a lot of higher paying jobs, but they were in cities with a much high cost of living. It doesn't surprise me that $53k is the average, but take it with a grain of salt because $60k in Northern California is more like $35-40k in other parts of the country.
-- Adam
I have been involved in hiring at the last three companies (all software related) that I worked for. Your resume would not have made the cut. Get someone professional to go over your resume. It needs to be cleaner, clearer, and it needs more content.
A lot of people don't realize that its not what they know or dont know that is keeping them from getting a job. Its the fact that they have really bad resumes.
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I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. slashdotters seem to think that IT == programmer. which is WRONG! sure programming is part of IT but a very small part. Those computer science degrees could be used very well to obtain an entry level job in help desk ot junior sysadmin at a large company. getting a job as a programmer with no real world experience is like a convicted child molester applying at the FBI. get your ass in the door first, fine tune your skill for a couple years _THEN_ go look for a programming job. you need portfolio's and verifiable experience under your belt.
I personally have been in IT for around 8-9 years, well before the dotcom boom. and I've never been out of work for more than 4 months at a stretch especially now that I've moved over to networking and process automation. I have yet to see a qualified network technician stay out of work for very long. the market is there, stop trying to skate your way in @ $50,000 a year coding web pages. get your asses in the trench and do it like the rest of us did. work your way up. a couple years of hard work won't kill ya, and it always pays off in the end. there is an IT market out there and plenty of jobs but without experience you might as well compare it to an etheopian child looking at pictures of a royal feast, i.e. you ain't ever gonna get it.
You can thank the teachers unions who make sure that starting teachers get paid squat while teachers who've been there a while, regardless of performance, make well above the industry median for someone with their education and experience - at least that's true in the state of Washington. Your state may vary.
If starting teachers salaries went up, the teachers wouldn't have anything to back up those extra taxes they keep asking for.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Liar, liar, pants on fire. I go to Wash U and the school is a god awful money pit, and the professors just aren't that great(they are smart yes, but many are lazy as shit). I will be shit struck surprised if I get a great job coming out of here.
I am a senior ME major HOPING to get 40-45k as a starting salary. I figure set my sights low and anything above that I get will be gravy.
And you do sound like one of the drone admissions people that work here, I can't fathom why they get paid a salary from my tuition money to bullshit all day.
Its an average not a minimum wage. Its only 48k because some are paying 35k and some are paying 60k. If everyone was only accepting 48k as starting, the average would be higher, since ofcourse some people deserve more.
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Your post betrays a poor understanding of psychology, game theory and human nature. In a trade where your productivity is a direct function of the number of hours on the job, such as flipping burgers and slinging lattes, it's approximately true, expecially as you can at least hope to make some of it up in tips for having a good attitude. In a trade where productivity varies wildly, such as computer programming, and is a direct function of ability and motivation, it's vital to keep people motivated. Which is why good employers tend to pay 20% over the going rate, and issue share options. 20% is a small price to pay for 50% extra productivity.
Tony.
-- "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" -- Juvenal
Averages are just that, the average, not the minimum. Also, the min and max vary a whole lot when you take a national average. Why? Because cost of living varies a whole lot. There are plenty of places where 35k is fine. I live in one of them, Tucson Arizona. On 35k you could easily afford to own a 1500+ square foot house, a deceant car, and have enough left over for some goodies.
Now of course in the bay area, 35k is practally poverty, you'd be sharing an apartment, maybe even a room, with someone just to make ends meet. So, all things being equal, the same job will pay more there.
Basic economics dude.
"Programming is easy! Programming is easy!"
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that from someone who then proceeds to create the most atrocious mass of spaghetti-code...
Here's an article for you. You may want to remember that there's a large degree of difference between mere competence and mastery.
So lets look at this from a logic point of view. I'm going to try to validate your argument through use of formal logic. As a refresher, an argument is valid when, if all the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.
So let's translate the first premise:
To think if I only made $53k out of college, I'd be taking a 50% paycut. (O, P)
That's:
O > P (this notation means if O then P)
Now the conclusion:
Good thing I didn't waste my time and energy on a useless college education. (W, C)
C > W Conclusion (If I go to college, I was time)
Now, there's an implied premise: If I went to college, I'd be making straight out of school money. (C, O)
C > 0
Okay, now let's look at the truth table:
O P W C O > P C > O C > W
1) F F F F
2) F F F T F F
3) F F T F
4) F F T T
5) F T F F
6) F T F T F F
7) F T T F
8) F T T T
9) T F F F
10) T F F T F T F
11) T F T F
12) T F T T
13) T T F F
14) T T F T T T F
15) T T T F
16) T T T T
Oops! It appears that line 14 has a false conclusion but has all true premises. This means the logic is invalid. Roughly translated, this say that you can go to college, make out of school money, *AND* have it not be a waste. Gee, who would have thunk it.
Now, if you had added the premise that the only reason to go to school is not make more money then you'd have a technically valid argument. However, I would you and I would still disagree that the only reason to go to school is to make more money. In other words, having a valid argument doesn't mean the premises are true, just that the line of reasoning beginning with the premises is good.
Now, I might suggest that going to school might help you either articulate your arguments better or realize that money is not the only reason why you'd want to learn. Maybe that's a set of life-skills that would be useful for you.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
HR departments are filled with idiots, sleazeballs, and the vile progeny of high ranking executives who are too incompetent to hold real positions, but can't be fired for political or financial reasons. So what do you do with them? Put them in the place where they can do the least amount of damage to the organization... HR!
And, as an aside, suggesting that WU students are better than those from CMU, Caltech, MIT, Stanford or ANY of the Ivy League schools is complete and utter bullshit. Grads from these school dominate the high-powered executive positions. These are the facts of the case, and they are indisputable.