• Life Advice & Visual Arts Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    🌌 Share Your Dreams! 🌌
    📸 15 Years of Photo Contests 📸
  • LAVA Moderator: Mysterier

Making 80-120k a year, what college major? or maybe no college?

I have a "science" based job that I dig. I mean I honesty like going into work. Yeah, there is the bullshit organizational politics I deal with but that has yet to supersede my love for my profession. I always want more money because my standard of "fun" increases but I would rather make less, work decent hours, and feel content.

I have had the other...more money= more responsibilities= more headaches=less personal time to spend the money. No thank you.
 
picking your field of study based on how much money you can make is a guaranteed way to loose intrest in college/fail out of college.

u can probably do better selling coke.
 
^^^ Heard there's good money in that.

uisgdlyast said:
Yeah i know its a lot of hard work.
When I talk to a few people who are making good money its because they got into a growing field.
I heard nanotechnology is growing so i'm going to look into that a little bit more too
Click to expand...

Truthfully, if you want to get into nano tech, unless you are really good in math, and material science, you won't do very well. Nanotech is a material science btw. I think one person you should really talk to here in that aspect is Zorn. He knows quite a bit about that area of physics. At least I know he does the Quantum portion, that is. Compact is another one to talk to, but he isn't on much these days. School gets your time when you are in the sciences. :)

I'm pretty much an observer in that area. Although I do know a bit of that area from my engineering days. :D I started out going for engineering, and ended up with a certification in mechanical design. :p

You might have better luck in Astro, or maybe Quantum. I was going for Astro, and I can tell you it's pretty easy, you just work with a lot of enormous, tedious equations, and variables that have to be updated for every step. It can be a bitch at times. It's worth understanding how large bodies move though, and even to be able to work on the theoretic end of it, and cosmology. That's the fun stuff I tell you.
 
When I talk to a few people who are making good money its because they got into a growing field.
I heard nanotechnology is growing so i'm going to look into that a little bit more too
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that "growing fast" does not mean everybody in the field is rolling around in gigantic piles of money. It means that people are getting hired.

I don't really have much to contribute beyond what's been said above. But I'll reiterate something:
You're talking about getting a PhD as a way to make a lot of money? Get real. Yes, having a PhD (in just about any field) will give you good job options, but is the desire to make $100k some day really going to motivate you through 8-10 years of work? Repeat that phrase in your head: Eight to ten YEARS. If you're not doing something you love, you'll give up (and as Wood mentioned, probably before you even finish your undergrad, much less before you start doing actual work). Considering one of the options your considering is to "not even go to college at all" (and do certificate programs), I don't think your heart's in this enough to even finish a (difficult) BS, much less even think about a PhD.

That said, I've known plenty of people who chose not to go on in academia, and instead entered the real world. A few things I've learned:
- Everyone I knew who went into computers (CS/CIS/MIS/etc.) is now fighting to get jobs they hate. The (delicious) irony is that they all chose those majors because they were supposedly fast tracks to good money.
- If you can pull off a math major, there's a lot of good tracks into actuarial and investment banking type jobs which pay well.
- Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering both seem to have excellent job placement. Every electrical engineer I know did well after graduation.
- People go into physics because they like it, not because it pays well. Physicists do well in the job market, but you're better off just doing EE or ME instead if job prospects are all you're interested in.
- Most importantly: All of the majors I've listed above are known for having high attrition rates amongst people who aren't really interested in them. You're not going to put up with 4 years of physics/EE/whatever homework if you're, you know, not interested in the subject.

Now, if I can be rude for a minute - to be honest you sound like a lazy person who wants to get the most he can for as little work as possible. In this thread you've listed off a half-dozen or so careers which people typically dedicate their whole lives to, and you seemingly want people on bluelight to tell you which is the easiest, or at least has the highest pay/work ratio.
Now, think really hard about what that says about you and how solid your prospects in any field are.
 
compact said:
All of the majors I've listed above are known for having high attrition rates amongst people who aren't really interested in them. You're not going to put up with 4 years of physics/EE/whatever homework if you're, you know, not interested in the subject.
Click to expand...
This (and The Wood's comment) are bang on. Don't just take a maths, engineering or physics course "because its got good prospects" even though you don't like those courses. You won't make it to your graduation of your undergrad course! Those are things you take because you've both a knack for them and you like them. Perhaps "like" isn't even a strong enough word. You have to be honestly and actively interested in that area and want to learn more, not just have it as something pass the time.
If you aren't interested, you don't bother learning the material, which means when it comes to later material which builds on previous things you're even more fucked. Trying to cram the day before and exam isn't possible, and you can't just attempt to BS your way through things like you might be able to with more essay orientated subjects.

Like Compact says, its 8~10 years! Think about where you were 8~10 years ago, and consider how far you've come, how much you've changed. Then project that into the future and times it by 5. You'll do a hell of a lot more both in learning and personal development in the next 8~10 years. You either go into one of those career paths with no doubt in your mind thats what you want to do, or you'll fall at the first hurdle.
 
All these posts are spot on.

Whatever you end up doing is going to take a lot of work. I think from your posts that you are more looking and getting a decent well-paying career path than looking for a way to slack off though. You have options. Any of these degrees can lead you to a lot of money. The thing is, are you willing to put in the time and effort to get there. You need a lot of motivation to get somewhere in any industry, especially in Engineering and Science, because if you don't love it, you won't get anywhere.

CB :)
 
Like everyone before me has said, it takes a shit load of work, and passion to be able to understnad, and learn how the sciences actually work.

Compact hit it on when he said you sound lazy. I pawned the answer off, because I know how hard it is to simply get into the field, and once you fuck it up once, or fail one class, you have to play catch up for the rest of your time at Univ. I didn't want to be mean, and say it up front, but I don't think you have what it'll take.

Try going for math, and get into business, and most certainly try learning a foreign language. Preferably German, or Chinese. As these languages will help you in the future of business. Otherwise I'd suggest you go into something, that you really enjoy. Money isn't everything you know.
 
First off i'm not lazy, i try hard in all my classes, do all my work and pull all A's, but now i probably sound like a jackass.

Anyways to restate something in my first post that i probably didnt make very clear, i do infact LOVE math, science, and computers. I pushed VERY hard to get into an AP Calc/ Ap Physics block only to be turned down because i wanted to continue my computer course, i'm still in the AP Calc though.

What i was trying to ask is that i really enjoy all of these subjects, and the no college path is still very hard considering the certificates you have to take and the one test is 10,000$ just to do it.
Anyways i wanted to know what a good major/career would be to look into for someone who enjoys all these things that pays well. I would rather have a job i like than one i hate.

I hope that clears some stuff up, also i plan on going as far as i can in any major i pick

Edit: Basically i'm also looking for a career that i can advance in too, i know that most of the time you get stuck in one job and can't move up at all so i also wanted to avoid that.
 
Like everyone already said, if you really like something, don't expect to be paid extremely well. My suggestion would be to go into chemistry if you reall want money, but then you have the moral issue of working for a large corporation, that doesn't help anyone with anything, but lining their own pockets. In the end the choice is your's, and nothing anyone here can say should influence you on how you spend your life. We can only tell you about our own experiences, and tell you what it takes to get to anywhere youwant. Don't make it so we have to pick, and then hate ourselves because you hate the classes.

In other words, make up your own mind.;)
 
Chaos Butterfly said:
Yep. There is a lot of money in Engineering :) and it can be very rewarding :)

Science is great, but there are very very very few well paid scientists. Basically I had this same sort of predicament, except that I was really good at Chemistry. I looked at doing a science degree, but then thought to myself that I actually wanted to get a job, that pays well. So I thought, hrmmm... Engineering, thats better than Science, so I ended up in Chemical Engineering, and I love it :) I'm currently in the first year of my PhD and am moving along steadily :)

Now you definitely do have options. Both the University path and the Computing Certificate path will work for you. There are a lot of well paid computer programmers out there :)

What I'd look at if I were you would be having a look at the Electrical Engineering or more specifically Computer Hardware or Software Engineering courses at some universities near you. Go in and have a talk with some of the lecturers and see what you think :)

CB :)
Click to expand...

Wow.... Look at all of those smiley's. That's astonishing.

Are you really this happy? and if so, how can I be too?
 
go to www.salary.com. It will give you a salary report on various positions and what level of education you need to attain these jobs.

At the same time, however, I'd make sure that the job I wanted, no mater how much it paid, was something I enjoyed....since I will be spending my entire fucking career doing it.
 
strngemily said:
try www.bls.gov if you live in the USA
Click to expand...

Nice site, everywhere i look it says physcists make a lot of money, electrical engineers also make a good amount, more than i expected. SO i think i'm going to look into these careers more because i want to do something i enjoy but i would like to get a nice paycheck too.

I also looked at salary.com, its a good website.

I'm going to research all this more, i'm doing some job shadowing now and I think i'm going to really look into physics because it seems like such an interesting career
 
Can you guys explain engineering to me? Payment, education, years of study, how hard it is, what exactly engineering is and the branches of it?

I am probably going to go into Virginia Polytechnica University, which is famous for is MASSIVE engineering programs and education opportunities.
 
Average University of Michigan graduate with a BSE in Mechanical Engineering (my field) gets 55000 first year. 4 years of study for a bachelors, extremely tough courseload. I'll give you some examples: Calc1-3, Differential Equations, fluid dynamics, strenght of materials, thermodynamics. Not exactly a cakewalk.

Engineers have a wide variety of roles in the workplace. I'm hoping to get a job as a r+d engineer.
 
Engineering gives good $? I thought we're losing lots of those jobs/degrees? Please correct me?
 
biochem => med => anesthesiology
or
sci/eng => patent law

both would essentially guarentee over 80k although tough to make it through



edit: i agree with everything thats been said though. better to make less and do something youre interested in. also not only is the subject matter in eng/science courses more difficult that other subjects, the grading is harsher. only do it if you are really interested/willing to study your ass off
 
Last edited:
better to make less and do something youre interested in.
Click to expand...

No, I completely disagree. I think this is a dumb point we are just told over and over again in the school system and from Hollywood.

I don't give a damn what I'm doing, as long as it makes the money, the time, and doesn't violate my morals (which would be pretty extreme for me, but Im not taking any part of being a worker in Venezuela).

Honestly, if I make loads of money and work very little, I can do what I really want to do in my free time. Teach kids, work charity, volunteering, do blood drives. They are fun things to do. But they don't pay enough, and are you willing to sacrifice lots of money and time for something you may like to do, but are forced to do it?

Money isn't the root of happiness, don't get me wrong. But you definately need time to find what your root of happiness actually is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top