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updated: Most lucrative college degrees

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teiresias

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Who the fuck are these kids coming out of school as computer engineers and making 51k? I think there's a bit of fibbing going on.

The recruiters at the university career fair the past two days quoted me starting salaries either in the 60k range for government work or the 70k-75k range for private industry or contracted government research labs. Of course, this is directed at someone that will be starting with a Master's degree rather than just a bachelors. This is also mainly in the Northern Virginia/DC/between DC and Baltimore area, so 70k doesn't stretch quite as far there as it would back home in Richmond, VA.
 
teiresias said:
The recruiters at the university career fair the past two days quoted me starting salaries either in the 60k range for government work or the 70k-75k range for private industry or contracted government research labs. Of course, this is directed at someone that will be starting with a Master's degree rather than just a bachelors. This is also mainly in the Northern Virginia/DC/between DC and Baltimore area, so 70k doesn't stretch quite as far there as it would back home in Richmond, VA.

Well I was debating hard whether to go back to grad school anyway seeing as how I'm not doing anything anyway.
 

Phoenix

Member
demon said:
doing what?

Knowing the past is in part the best way to understand the motivations of the present. They are analysts - and surprise, I know some who have specializations in Middle Eastern societies that are now in the DC Metro.
 
Engineering and computer degrees pay pretty well at first but salaries flat line pretty fast in those industries. It is hard to make six figures in technical fields. Mechanical Engineers with 10+ years experience usually have salaries in only the $80-90k range.

Outside of the 8-10 year degree programs (attorneys and doctors), I think business and finance are where the highest ceiling salaries can be obtained. I was a computer programmer for a good 5 years and now am an actuary. I will hopefully be making 6 figures within 4 years of being in the industry, as long as I keep passing the actuarial exams. At the firm I work for, the other departments (auditors, accountants, underwriters) all make six figures easy after 6-8 years too. None of my engineering friends make that level of salary and a few of them have been out of school since 92.
 
From every engineering school I have heard of the computer fields are:

Computer Science - Programming
Computer Engineering - design of CPUs, circuits, etc. Design of the hardware.
Information Science - understanding of systems architecture, more generic overall understanding of computers, etc..basically for people who couldn't handle real progamming. :)
 
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