Bar Stool Economics

[AJB37]

And what would you be doing if you weren't in the military? Unlike you, I spent a few years working in the corporate world. The average Joe with a liberal arts or "business" degree earns about $30-35k/year coming out of college, which amounts to a whopping $12-15 an hour. Some of these jobs come with benefits; most don't. Most of them do a job that any high school graduate can do, but for some reason the company wants a college grad in the position.

If your bachelor's degree is not in: accounting/finance, nursing, or engineering/architecture, then you're going to have a tough time finding a decent salary w/ benefits.

Maybe I am a rarity, but my first job offer out of college was for $45,000 for a 40hr week, since I would have had to work 50hr weekly the salary ended up ad around $60,000. I was an International Relations and History major. Most my friends with a liberal arts degree are generally making $50,000. Just because you don't have a degree in finance doesn't mean you can't go into finance. Your degree doesn't pigeon hole you into a specific sector.

 

[Flash]

Flash, I don't deny that someone fresh out of college with a bachelor's in liberal arts can find a good job (good being defined as >$40k per year to start with benefits and advancement opportunity); however, I do contest your assertion that it is the "norm" for someone to do so. You generally need some combination of knowing someone high up and prior experience in order to land such a job, and someone fresh out of college is usually going to be short on both those criteria.

I never said it was the 'norm', I just said that there are plenty of jobs in the DC area for those kinds of people. And where I work, many people are able to get jobs without either knowing people or with prior experience. Does that help? Sure, but definitely not a requirement by any means. That is a nice thing about the civil service.

A word of advice to you students and recent grads, there is a little bit more to the world than your small circle of college friends or your girlfriend's ex, his brother and his drinking buddies.

 

[AJB37]

a word of advice to you students and recent grads, there is a little bit more to the world than your small circle of college friends or your girlfriend's ex, his brother and his drinking buddies.

lies!!!!111

 

[Spekkio]

That is a nice thing about the civil service.

I was speaking about the corporate/private world, not the gubment.

A word of advice to you students and recent grads, there is a little bit more to the world than your small circle of college friends or your girlfriend's ex, his brother and his drinking buddies.

My experience comes from two years of job hunting with a B.S. in Biology and well above average grades in the NY metropolitan/suburban area. There isn't much out there.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

A word of advice to you students and recent grads, there is a little bit more to the world than your small circle of college friends or your girlfriend's ex, his brother and his drinking buddies.

Did you just hit someone for using anecdotal evidence directly after you yourself used anecdotal evidence in the same way?

Where I work right now the vast majority of professionals have an undergrad degree in one of those 'bullshit' majors, without a grad degree. And they generally start out here making around $45k. And the funny part, most of them are using their degrees in their every day work. And where I work is not an exception to the rule, there are numerous other places that are looking for people just like that in this area, both in government and in the corporate world.

--Break--
You non-engineer types can find a friend to help you interpret this complex graph (I kid because I love)

I didn't mean to start a big argument, my point is just that it is frustrating to see that our country is no longer the technology-superpower that it once was. There are a lot of kids looking for the path of least resistance - which is definitely NOT an engineering degree, and it hurts everyone:

Recruiters Scramble to Overcome Shortage of Engineers

New Oil Crisis: An Engineer Shortage

 

[FrankTheTank]

So what you are saying is that I should have been getting 2 times as much as a Psych degree when I got my commission (B.S. in Math)... Guess I need to go back and sue Uncle Sam for shorting me my cash when I was an 0-1 some fifteen years ago:icon_rage

 

[Spekkio]

^^ see?

So what you are saying is that I should have been getting 2 times as much as a Psych degree when I got my commission (B.S. in Math)... Guess I need to go back and sue Uncle Sam for shorting me my cash when I was an 0-1 some fifteen years ago

I don't think anyone's saying that at all.

 

[AJB37]

But salaries also start leveling out as you advance in your career. So while an engineer may make more than a philosophy major starting at the midpoint in their career they should be making roughly the same amount. I'll post the link when I have more time, but I have to go the gym... since my degree won't get me pain maybe my looks will......

 

[eddie]

Recruiters Scramble to Overcome Shortage of Engineers

New Oil Crisis: An Engineer Shortage

IIRC, The petroleum engineer shortage may have as much to do with crappy oil prices historically as it does with our population not wanting to do engineering for a living. Exploratory oil and oil production professionals are ALL going to be in a hiring boom because the old guard is retiring. When oil was low-ish, the personnell infastructure did not expand much, which has exacerbated the current situation. Not as many replacements were hired or trained.

As far as the general shortage, what % of the problem of the problem is that not enough people want to study engineering vs. not enough of those trained engineers want anything to do with engineering-proper but would rather make more elsewhere with their skills?

 

[Flash]

Did you just hit someone for using anecdotal evidence directly after you yourself used anecdotal evidence in the same way?

So you noticed? All I have to say, I have far more experience and exposure than some of the other people who have claimed to know the facts on this thread. Age and experience actually count for something, shockingly enough.

 

[Flash]

My experience comes from two years of job hunting with a B.S. in Biology and well above average grades in the NY metropolitan/suburban area. There isn't much out there.

I would hate to point out the obvious, maybe it wasn't your degree.

 

[CommodoreMid]

For me, choosing my major wasn't about what I could do on the outside with it (history and economics = would you like fries with that?), but my interests. I absolutely loved my major. I loved every class I took and I could talk all day about what I studied. Many of my engineering friends were the same way. None of my friends at school chose their majors because they were "practical" or the "path of least resistance." We chose our fields because we could genuinely get excited about the material in the classes. I can't wait to get to grad school so I can study this stuff more.

I think with regards to America's problems in getting engineers I'm curious to see why choose their majors in the first place. I don't know how you could effectively measure this, but it would be interesting to see whether or not people are merely choosing the allegedly easiest path towards a degree, or if Americans are generally more interested in the social sciences and humanities. If it's the former, then our work ethic sucks. If it's the latter, I wonder people from other countries have a natural inclination towards the science and engineering disciplines, or if they are doing something "practical?"

In the end, I think if you just major in whatever interests you and makes you happy, you'll be successful. I was great at calculus, but there is no way you could have paid me to be an engineer (also the fact that I hated physics had something to do with that too), so even if I had switched and gotten good grades, I don't think I would be inclined to perform well or advance myself in the discipline. Being an economics major I tend to look at this as a comparative advantage issue. If we all as individuals specialize in what we like and do well in (our majors) our society as a whole should be better off.

 

[picklesuit]

Wow...this thread got REALLY out in the weeds about who has the better major...I think the original intent was to bitch about tax codes and the idiots out there who think hard working rich people are evil. I think it is time to rein in the pissing contest between engineers and us other mortals.

Or you guys can continue to make yerself sound like jackasses...

 

[eddie]

Wow...this thread got REALLY out in the weeds about who has the better major...I think the original intent was to bitch about tax codes and the idiots out there who think hard working rich people are evil. I think it is time to rein in the pissing contest between engineers and us other mortals.

Or you guys can continue to make yerself sound like jackasses...

Since when are thread-jacks off limits? It's not like we look any less like jackasses arguing about the tax code instead of the merits of specific disciplines of higher education.




Maybe the problem is just that too many people go to college???

 

[BACONATOR]

Maybe the problem is just that too many people go to college???

I actually kind of agree with this. It seems that for middle-class suburbia, it has just become the "next step" after highschool to go to college. Parents are forceful and expect it, so kids go and just study whatever the hell they can manage (not saying everyone, just some folks. Ya know... those in my "tiny slice" of the pie).

Look at any up and coming industrial nation with a lot of growing technological industry. You don't see many Indian college students majoring in "women's studies" or "recreation studies". Come to think of it, it seems that the biggest horseshit majors end in "studies".