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These Are The "Most Meaningful" And "Best" College Degrees
As the daily propaganda machine prompts the majority of today's American youth to go to college "to further their earning potential," despite the actuality that working alongside a non-high-school-graduate flipping burgers is just as likely an outcome, we thought it only fair to discuss the tradeoff between doing something we love and something that pays the bills. As The Washington Post reports, careers in healthcare and engineering ranked high in both meaningfulness and average pay. At the other end of the spectrum, people who had majored in art and design or humanities fields reported low pay, little sense of purpose, and they were relatively unlikely to say that they'd recommend their major to others.
Click image for large interactive version...
And the best and worst in each quadrant...
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he is from the upper midwest.
im willing to bet most of the readers here are from the tri-state & northeast states so that does apply too (jews).
I'm a jew but since i dont follow thte talmud or believe in Zionism i might as well be conisdered a Goyim
i referred to WASPS because at F500 level company in any other state where J00z aren't dominate..are mostly WASPs.
schooling is for finding a job by training to do one. making money requires no formal schooling except basic reading, writing and math skills.
Employers are the real driver. They all demand college degrees for any and all potential employees. The only exception is the blue collar trades, these once had two entry points. Being hired as labor and working into a trade as apprentice. Or going to Vo Tech and learning a trade over two years, then breaking into the union and getting hired as a starting tradesman.
The open borders policy has ended this game totally. Construction unions are nearly dead. Legal and illegal immigrants now do most construction work on a non-union basis both as labor for big and small construction firms and free contractors working for themselves. We saw free contractors hit our town in the boom of 2000-2008 and put every roofer and siding contractor out of business. Nobody could underbid the Mexican crews, some tried hiring them, but they would not bite. They made more money a free contractors than hiring on with a local white roofer or siding firm. Plumbing and electical took a hit too. Concrete work requires engineering work before anything is poured, so Mexican mostly worked for contractors with in house or outside engineering.
Bottom line, try and make good money in building trades, yes, it can be done, but high wages was once universal in construction, it is now very spotty.
I'm a drywall finisher in the IUPAT. The work force is 3 to 1 Latino illegals. The last multi-residential job (apartment construction has skyrocketed in the Twin Cities) the ratio was 15 to 1. I've lost close to $300k to these guys over the last decade. Why? Under the table deals with the union employers. Footage, or piece work.
Actually, we invented the under the table stuff, but we could make better than wage due to our skill. So much for carrying the less than the best union worker.
Then, in 2000, the horde came. A conscious decision by the AFL-CIO to up the numbers joined and exponential dues increases. Near $300 a month now.
How do they do it? Used to be stolen identities, now ITIN's, and let's not forget Obama and the (D) minions, the chamber of commerce, special interests, et al. Plus the folks that feel "pity" on those poor immigrants.
A lot of these guys are friends from the old days cause we stood together against the employers cheap shotting us. Not so much anymore. There are so many now, it's every man for himself.
What are they gonna do when the work dries up? The strongest *might* survive.
Unions originally helped establish decent wages and job protection in America, increasing tremendously the opportunities and living standards for the average American worker. But with the total sellout of the union leadership to the Democrat Party, the unions became more and more socialist and even communist, causing many members to become disillusioned for not being represented. They rebelled by leaving the unions as their dues were used more and more to politically destroy their culture.
As a result, private sector union membership began to fall like a lead balloon during the Reagan Administration.
Corporations and the government used this as an opportunity to open the borders to Mexican immigrants and displace white workers, primarily to mesh America’s European culture into a world Socialist state while keeping people at work with static salaries, at the same time offshoring America’s manufacturing base to Third World countries.
The more Mexicans that came into the unions, the more support the union leader had for the union left-wing causes - welfare for immigrants, plus the full menu of Democrat Party priorities: wealth transfer, gay marriage, environmental politics, high taxation and corporate welfare, globalization and support for union legislation.
The American labor movement then became dominated by the public service unions with their emphasis on immigration, feminism, welfare, centralized education and, in general, an Orwellian socialist agenda. This domination brought along the weakened and subservient trade and craft unions in support of the now radical Democrat Party.
The Democrat Party of Hubert Humphrey was no longer.
As a result, America’s labor unions became and are the enemy of white and black American workers, their accepted European culture, and their American Dream. But reality is raising her head. Americans have a definite work ethic: hard work, independence and to be paid for what they are worth. In the final analysis, they will demand representation.
Spot on - I remember doing concrete formwork and half the workforce was Filipino. As for concrete finishers, 100% latino. I doubt they were illegals (this is Canada), most of them were what we call "Temporary Foreign Workers". In the end, the owners defaulted and dissapeared, leaving all of us unemployed and missing a paycheck. I lost $2000 of sweat, blood, and tears from this epidose. It taught me that even employement is risky... Never worked ever since.
If you're trying to get a non-trade, non-deadend job, most employers will ask at least for a bachelor's degree and 2 years experience, and this is a entry-level position. Go figure.
The funniest part is after graduating with tens of thousands in debt if you do get a job you will be told to 'pay your dues', which pretty much means doing all the work while everyone else slacks off despite being paid twice as much. Fuck this.
Going to university was important to me because it helped me hone my learning skills, plus where else can a young man go be around so many young women?
Going to university was looked upon as an obligation in my family.
If I had entered teaching right out of schooll, I would be set!
I have never had student loans.
If one needs a loan, then I would reconsider my options.
Life is too short!
SH
College is so expensive that pretty much everyone needs a loan unless your dad is a Executive at some company or owns a business.
Better be a bigger business. Owning doesn't necessarily mean they have any more than a full time hourly worker.
Yeah. Bigger Business.
Even the government colleges are outrageously high priced.
Government... High price...
I think Super Hans went to university in Europe
"As the daily propaganda machine prompts the majority of today's American youth to go to college "to further their earning potential,..."
They are actually going to college to further the earning potential of those working in the classrooms.
Student loans are a huge cash cow for colleges. What would professors be earning without them?
My father-in-law died in 1995 at 82 and was a top-notch belly surgeon in Philadelphia and a teaching surgeon as well.
He grew up in a small town in Central PA. His father was an MD and Pharmacologist and owned the local hospital.
The father required his son to apprentice for free or low wages with local tradesmen during his high school summer vacations.
He did stints with an electrician, a plumber and a stenographer. My father-in-law knew what kind and quality of work these men did.
He was exceptionally smart and ran a MASH unit for the US Army in WWII - served 3 years in Europe as a combat surgeon.
If you think your kid is high quality college material - then do the kid a favor - make him work in the trades for free during the summers.
I remember my apprenticeship with Geronimo ("Jerry"), an Italian stone mason, who married my barber's cousin. I was 19 back then. I drove 10 miles to Jerry's house and had to arrive by 6 AM. Jerry, his other helper and I left at 6:15 for the job site. Jerry paid me full rate, beginning from the time we arrived to start work until the time we left the job. This was back-breaking work - busting out flat concrete by hand or jack-hammer, cutting the reinforcing wires and re-bar and throwing that stuff in the dump truck by hand; hand-mixing, shoveling and wheelbarrowing concrete; carrying cement blocks and mortar up several scaffolds; etc. I was never in my life so strong and so tired and sore at the end of the day. Yes, I learned the rudiments of flat-work concrete. I also learned that did not want to do that kind of work for the rest of my life. That was ca 1963. That experience helped toughen my mind. I finished college; was drafted; survived the regime of the Fort Benning School for Boys; survived Nam; went to law school; and made something of myself.
Bottom line: It is good to know young in life what you do not want to do. Then, figure out how to make it, doing what you think you can do best. Job satisfaction is total bullshit. That is why they call it work. If they called it fun, then you would not be getting paid. Teach your kid to figure out for himself how to make it on his own. There is nothing like failure to teach you humility and respect for others.
Over and Out.
how does one apprentice for a lawyer to find out that is not what one wants to do for the rest of their lives?
what condescending crap. a construction contractor or engineer(building/manufacture trade) make a good life and good living without the reputation lawyers are known by. standalone plumbers and electricians make as much and more than any white collar job. where does one apprentice for the cubuicle trade? dumbass. what the father was doing was giving his son choices. i don't think he would have minded an electrical contractor son with the bid to wire the 30 story office building being built downtown or the general contractor on the 500 home project outside of town.
It's called "reading the law"
In Vermont, you can apprentice with a lawyer for 4 years and then take the bar exam to be admitted to practice:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6550619
You can do the same in Maine, CA, Virgina and Washington:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law
In these 5 states, you do not have to attend law school to become a lawyer.
Top paying major: Psychopathy
Worst paying major: Honesty
Reverse the two for most meaningful
I'm an English major with Math as a minor. I am seeking no employment ever. I hope never to love or be so passionate at what I do that someone accuses me of working. I'm in the educational system because it reminds me of AA and has lots of young women that are not bisexual or /lesbian.
At least you know what you are doing. Carry on...
Basket weaving, joking. The vendors in the deep historical district of Charleston, SC have some really creative products. You realize that they have a skill, not a college degree. Hat's off too them.
Bernie Madoff - Hofstra University, Brooklyn Law School,
Jeffrey Skilling - Southern Methodist University
Kenneth Lay - University of Missouri, PhD economics University of Houston
Sandy Weill - Cornell university
Leo Dennis Kozlowski - Seton Hall University, a Catholic university
Hank Greenberg - University of Miami, New York Law School
Richard S. Fuld - University of Colorado, New York University
Jon Stevens Corzine - University of Illinois, University of Chicago
Chris Christie - University of Delaware, Seton Hall University
Hillary Rodham Clinton - Wellesley College, Yale
Bill Clinton - Georgetown, Oxford, Yale
George W. Bush - Yale, Harvard
George H. W. Bush - Yale
Dick Cheney - Yale
Paul Wolfowitz - University of Chicago, Cornell
Donald Rumsfeld - Princeton, Georgetown
Frank Carlucci (Rumsfelds Collge Buddy, CIA, State Dept) Princeton, Harvard
Caspar Weinberger (Sec State) Harvard
George P. Shultz - Princeton, MIT
John F. Lehman, Jr. - St. Joseph's University, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, University of Pennsylvania.
Gerald Ford - U of M, Yale
John Kerry - Boston College, Yale
Susan Rice - Stanford, New College, Oxford
Condoleezza Rice - University of Denver, Notre Dame
Sandy Berger - Cornell, Harvard
Stephen Hadley - Cornell, Yale
James L. Jones - Georgetown
Thomas E. Donilon - Catholic University of America, University of Virginia
Denis McDonough - St. John's University, Georgetown University
Jack Lew - Carleton College, Harvard, Georgetown University
William Colby - Princeton, Columbia
William J. Casey - Fordham University, St. John's University
William H. Webster - Amherst College, Washington University
Robert Gates - College of William & Mary, Indiana University, Georgetown University
R. James Woolsey, Stanford, St John's College, Oxford, Yale
John M. Deutch, Amherst, MIT
George Tenet, Georgetown, Columbia
Porter Goss, Yale
Quill and Dagger - is a senior honor society at Cornell University. It is often recognized as one of the most prominent and legendary collegiate societies of its type, along with Skull and Bones of Yale University.[1][2][3]
Looks like a list of entrepreneurs, I mean politicians
It's not who you blow, it's where you go.
Three words.
Student loan suicides.
Get smarter . See
https://www.academia.edu/8633301/Prodigies_Update_II
I have an BA in English Lit from U of Maryland 1977. I surf, mountain bike, hike and generally goof off until I have to go to my job which I only work four days a week. Oh did I mention I have a beautiful house on Maui and a house in Phoenix. Did I forget to mention that I am a waiter. Ha ha all you suckers that spend too much money on education so you can brag about it and the bullshit job you might get.
My wife on the other hand has no college education, is in management at WFM, and plays golf on Maui a couple of times each week.
Education has nothing to do with hard work, smart investing and the desire to live a fun and happy life.
how much did you and/or your wife inherit?
college degrees are just another extention of the 1%er control.
if your parents are in the 1% they know they can get you a good job, all you need is to get the right degree.
the 1% push the liberal arts classes, for the 99% and the liberal arts colleges explode, so we need higher pay, and many more liberal arts college directors, professors, faculty, and all the jobs at these colleges.
your dummied up in public high schools, the daily mantra, you can be what ever you want to be, but they know there's a 99% chance you can't, or won't.
Wait... I love engineering/rocket science as well as paying the bills. Most engineers who actually design things love what they do. Odd that it's not on the "meaningful" chart...
Had to read the article to find out that I'm correct:
"Finding a career path at the intersection of high pay and high meaning is kind of the holy grail, and we’ve generally seen that often you have to give up one to get the other," PayScale's Lydia Frank told me. "Of course, there are always exceptions, and healthcare seems to be a big one. Careers in healthcare can be very lucrative and workers in the field also tend to have a strong sense of purpose."
Another notable exception? Engineering. The upper-right quadrant of the chart is dominated by engineering fields - nuclear, chemical, aerospace and the like. These jobs pay exceedingly well, and people are generally happy with them. One of them - petroleum engineering - pays so well ($176,000 by mid-career, on average) that I had to omit it from the chart. 70 percent of petroleum engineers say their work is meaningful, and 85 percent would recommend it to others.
Aside from actuarial mathematics, every one of the top 10 best-paying majors is in engineering.
There are a mere 28,000 petroleum engineers in the United States .
And an unusual aspect of petroleum engineers is that they are connected to the banker industry. And locating this resource, i.e., oil, and determining how to extract it from the ground brings high pay.
In general, the narrative that would have engineering salaries high in relation to their education and performance is totally and dangerously false - $107,000 for an electrical engineer is "high"? - and one of the reasons why one should avoid conclusions drawn by the Washington Post.
The median salary for an electrical engineer is $75,647 in October of 2014 (most with meager benefits) in San Jose, California -- the wealthiest and one of the most expensive areas to live in the United States. The average salary for a nurse practitioner in San Jose in 2012 was $125,450, with union-negotiated benefits, where the median annual
salary for a pharmacist is $143,696.
The nurse’s salary reflects the union leverage and the engineer’s salary reflects the lack of leverage and the influx of lower-pay foreign workers for the technology industries.
I hear pharmacy might be shedding jobs.
"The median salary for an electrical engineer is $75,647 in October of 2014."
Something is way out of line with that number. Maybe they are looking at median salary for "sanitation engineers?" I can tell you that in my industry engineers (EE, ME, Aerospace) start at almost the "median" so that is certainly not the median around here. I would put the median at about $110K, after 20 years about $140K.
Maybe I and my colleagues are simply living in a parallel universe from the survey takers.
"An Electrical Engineer earns an average salary of $68,785 per year. Most people move on to other jobs if they have more than 20 years' experience in this career. Experience has a moderate effect on pay for this job."
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Electrical_Engineer/Salary
"This chart describes the expected percentage of people who perform the job of Electrical Engineer V in the United States that make less than that annual salary. For example the median expected annual pay for a typical Electrical Engineer V in the United States is $117,204 so 50% of the people who perform the job of Electrical Engineer V in the United States are expected to make less than $117,204."
Source: HR Reported data as of October 2014
http://www1.salary.com/Electrical-Engineer-V-salary.html
"This chart describes the expected percentage of people who perform the job of Pharmacist in the United States that make less than that annual salary. For example the median expected annual pay for a typical Pharmacist in the United States is $121,745 so 50% of the people who perform the job of Pharmacist in the United Sates are expected to make less than $121,745."
Source: HR Reported data as of October 2014
http://www1.salary.com/Pharmacist-Salary.html
As you can see, there is an Engineer I, II, III, IV, V… but there is only a “typical” pharmacist. That is the legacy given America by the likes of Bill Gates, the recipient of America’s bountiful culture of free enterprise, economic justice, and vast commercial opportunity, who has become one of its most destructive citizens - a socialist.
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Norm Augustine, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, explains the travestyof this ignorance for the nation in “Danger: America Is Losing Its Edge In Innovation” | Forbes | 1/20/201:
In a global, knowledge-driven economy there is a direct correlation between engineering education and innovation. Our success or failure as a nation will be measured by how well we do with the innovation agenda, and by how well we can advance medical research, create game-changing devices and improve the world.
I continue to be active in organizations like the IEEE to help raise the profile of the engineering community and ensure that our voice is heard in key public policy decisions. That’s also why I am passionate about the way engineering should be taught as a profession – not as a collection of technical knowledge, but as a diverse educational experience that produces broad thinkers who appreciate the critical links between technology and society.
Here we are in a flattening world, where innovation is the key to success, and we are failing to give our young people the tools they need to compete. Many countries are doing a much better job. Ireland, despite a devastated economy, just announced it will increase spending on basic research. Russia is building an “innovation city” outside of Moscow. Saudi Arabia has a new university for science and engineering with a staggering $10 billion endowment. (It took MIT 142 years to reach that level.) China is creating new technology universities literally by the dozens.
These nations and many others have rightly concluded that the way to win in the world economy is by doing a better job of educating and innovating. And America? We’re losing our edge. Innovation is something we’ve always been good at. Until now, we’ve been the undisputed leaders when it comes to finding new ideas through basic research, translating those ideas into products through world-class engineering, and getting to market first through aggressive entrepreneurship.
That’s how we rose to prominence. And that’s where we’re falling behind now. The statistics tell the story.
Innovation is the key to survival in an increasingly global economy. Today we’re living off the investments we made over the past 25 years. We’ve been eating our seed corn. And we’re seeing an accelerating erosion of our ability to compete. Charles Darwin observed that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change…
Norm Augustine is an IEEE Life Fellow and retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/01/20/danger-america-is-losing-its-edge-in-innovation/print/
Technical jobs like engineering and programming pay well at first but if you're still 40 and not in management, you have a shelf life
unless you're super specialized / brilliant / etc ...in America anyways.
Countries like Germany actually respect engineers and treat them right and are treated like an asset.
Engineers in America are considered an expense.
All brilliant programmers are millionaires. All super specialized programmers (e.g. Mr. Fortran-a-tron 3000) definitely have a shelf life. Companies that need to employ Mr. Fortran-a-tron 3000 are fertile ground for disruption. But we replace people, so we are all in business until computers can write software. But when that day comes, so will recursively self-improved artificial intelligence and there will be no jobs for anyone.
Here are some jobs from the future:
Fast food worker, nope...
http://momentummachines.com/gallery/
Lawn care professional, nope...
http://www.robomow.com/en-USA/
Checkout clerk, nope...
http://www.ncr.com/products/gm/self-checkout-systems/selfserv-checkout
If limitless energy ever arrives, we're all damned to be slaves to the one eventual trillionaire that would be left.
I'm an optimist, though, and I want to believe that it'll all collapse first.
Oh, there is always making ourselves more attractive to the investor class:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution
Software Engineering: Most meaningful career you could have. How it this at 45% meaningfulness? It is like being paid to fold origami all day, or to write haikus. I code all day, then go home and code more. What could be more fulfilling. (except, perhaps, a cure for Aspergers.)
newsflash; life is a giant free for all and we re all animals fighting each others for mates and ressources on this rock known as earth, until some random cataclysm wipes us all once and for all.