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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
"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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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
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."
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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
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.
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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.
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.
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