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Which College Majors Will Make You A 1%'er: The Answer May Surprise
By now we know that at least according to conventional wisdom says one has to be a banker, lawyer, or hedge fund manager to be guaranteed a spot in the fabled "1%". But a still outstanding question is what college-level studies do future 1%'ers take to end up in the top of the social pyramid? As the NYT shows, the result is quite surprising. As it turns out, "the majors that give you the best chance of reaching the 1 percent are pre-med, economics, biochemistry, zoology and, yes, biology, in that order." Just as curious, in terms of actual proportional representation, coming in at 1.9 million, the second most represented major within the 1% is... English and English Language. Bottom line - good news for Liberal Arts majors: all you have to do to get that PM job in Greenwich is to convince the boss that extensive knowledge of Shakespeare's sonnets is conducive to procuring some quality "information arbitrage" (on an untapped phone line of course). Alas, bad news for sociology and geology majors - these two are nowhere to be found, dooming the Rocks for Jocks crowd to a life of "99%"ism.
From the NYT:
Below is a chart showing the majors most likely to get into the 1 percent (excluding majors held by fewer than 50,000 people in 2010 census data). The third column shows the percentage of degree holders with that major who make it into the 1 percent. The fourth column shows the percent of the 1 percent (among college grads) that hold that major. In other words, more than one in 10 people with a pre-med degree make it into the 1 percent, and about 1 in 100 of the 1 percenters with degrees majored in pre-med.
Of course, choice of major is not the only way to increase your chances of reaching the 1 percent, if that is your goal. There is also the sector you choose.
A separate analysis of census data on occupations showed that one in eight lawyers, for example, are in the 1 percent — unless they work for a Wall Street firm, when their chances increase to one in three. Among chief executives, fewer than one in five rank among the 1 percent, but their chances increase if the company produces medical supplies (one in four) or drugs (two in five). Hollywood writers? One in nine are 1 percenters. Television or radio writers? One in 14. Newspaper writers and editors? One in 62.
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This article sounds like those shitty TV commercials pitching worthless degrees I see all the damn time.
Zoology? You can't be serious.
No that was Zoophilia....
Actually, this post misses by a mile. The biggest predictor of 1% status is family income! The poor who attend Harvard do not count.
Past history is no indication of future performance.
And, economics is largely a cargo cult. Not that economists don't get a lot of attention, but it should really be classed as PoliSci or Religion.
I believe the word you're looking for is Praxeology.
http://mises.org/rothbard/praxeology.pdf
Blankfein made it with a PhD in Proctology... he can make a diagnosis by taste alone...
im curious how many 1%'ers never graduated like Gates, Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Here is another NYT piece written a few months ago regarding many of these drop outs who made it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/will-dropouts-save-amer...
Gates + Zuckerberg - already part of the 5%
Jobs - incredibly lucky. Part of the 1e-6 that everyone holds up once in a while to show that the American Dream is alive.
The two ways to get rich have essentially never changed throughout history:
A college degree can be a key part of creating/opening/leveraging an opportunity in #2, but I think there are far too many other factors at play.
That said, a good engineering degree, which has real market value, is probably a good investment. English major or poli sci, not so much.
Regards,
Cooter
Biology at 6.6% is code for Pre-Med. You don't identify yourself as Pre-Med unless you've got a deathwish as every frustrated Teaching Assistant is gunning for your ass in the feeder and weeder courses. From start to finish, it's 12-16 years of ecstacy. Make sure you stick to Plastics. It's cash and carry.
Orientation : Are there any questions?
If you raise your hand and say, how do I get an A in this class, you might be pre-med.
Please tell me, what's so great about being a 1%'er?
You get to inflate your ego...
And act like your special.
Uhm, the laws for the 99% do not apply to you?
Bragging rights in Hell -- highly coveted.
autonomy... also known as the ability to get off the treadmill... it's not exclusive to the 1%, but all of the 1% have it.
What is the purpose of this article? I don't see any correlation between degree and wealth. Is that the point?
Most of these degrees seem like the sort of background one might need to run the plantation but that is biased from my vantage point as an engineer where I have to work 10x as hard for 1/10th the money.
Instead of our obsession with the 1% maybe we need to figure out how we can get the other 99% to make changes that will throw off the yolk of the slave masters. We all know our leaders are corrupt. How they or why they became powerful isn't useful in changing a damn thing.
Actually I think just as lowly of the bottom 20% of able-bodied people that through demonstrated poor behavior remain poor.
The problem as I see it independent of educational pedigree is the number of people falling into poverty out of the middle-classes. That alarms me more than the fact a few asshats are super wealthy.
This info is useless / pointless.
a) being in the 1% (~360K income) is FAR from being in the 0.1% or 0.01%, hence the fact that doctors end up overredpresented (they rarely make millions a year, but there are a lot of them)
b) it does not take inherited wealth into account. If you are born into wealth, then you don't need any degree or work to 'reach it'. Other studies indicate that there is practically no social mobility in the US, so I think it's safe to say that over 90% of the 1% were BORN THERE.
c) it does not take into account the vile secret societies and how they work.
=> if you want to become massively rich, pretty much the only way is to sell out and become a slave to the inner circle: above all, they just need compliant drones to carry out their actions. The bilderbergers and their ilk control all the appointments to the top jobs.
The greater question though is who wants to be a lame shit like John Corzine? So what if he is massively rich: he is a pathetic failure of an individual, as are they all.
Great, just what we need...more PoliSciTards, Artsie-Fartsie's & Ethnic racists...
Time to start humanity over from scratch...
I am reading a book called "Emotional Intelligence". They did a study of how success relates to IQ. Turns out IQ only contributes 20% to your chance of success. Many other factors such as leadership, ability to get along, interpersonal skills, etc, play a heavy role in success.
Skool mostly builds on your IQ strengths (aka abilitity to pass intelligence tests).
I think this is true. I have a friend who is an attorney but he has Asberger's Syndrome. He's really fucking smart but his inability to deal with people has crippled him his entire life. When he realized he would never make it as a trial lawyer (screaming at the judge just isn't a good idea), he focused on contract law where he has minimal personal contact with people. He does most of his work on the phone where he does a creditable job.
Yeah thanks, great example. I can visualize the "screaming at the judge ". Extreme case but does drive home the point.
Also known as the "gunners" in law school... There's a saying... the B students end up as judges and teachers, the C students end up at their own firms, and the A students end up working for the C students. The reason the A students end up working for the C students is akin to a muscle car spinning its wheels... no ability to practically apply the knowledge (horsepower). These people tend to get stuffed in the bowels of lawyer factories doing research... obviously there are exceptions, but we don't make stereotypes around exceptions.
There are many similarly situated home schooled kids... you might not get much in public school, but you do get a social education.
You mean Asperger 's Disorder.
We need a new list post-collapse, for this one is definitely not appropriate. I highly suggest people work on skills that will carry them through the Greatest Depression on the horizon instead.
Do you want to be wealthy? Spend way less than you make. It really is that simple. You don't even need to graduate high school, let alone go to college, to understand that basic principle either.
Now, you better change your tone on that last paragraph young man... else you might piss off some of the posters around here who seem to think that mortgagors had no idea they couldn't make the payments...
We signed the dotted lines for that debt. It wasn't like a gun was held to our head. Becoming a debt slave is a choice. A lot of people simply refuse to admit it. What ever happened to personal responsibility anyway? I have no problem with people breaking contracts if they give up the collateral however. Businesses do it all of the time, and individuals should be able to as well.
The degree of manipulation is debatable... but I believe that if we can hold harmless those that signed on the dotted lines, that we can essentially hold anyone harmless for anything... the bar simply has to be higher than that...
Womens' rights killed chivalry... and the nanny state killed personal responsibility... you want to know where it went? The tens of thousands of pages of text no one reads nor understands before passing into law... personal responsibility is a snail that's been moving away for a very long time... sometimes getting picked up by passersby and moved forward.
"Spend way less than you make"
You're right - my grandmother who barely finished high school understood that reality very well.
Your grandmother is/was wiser than half the folks posting here and 50% of the rest of the population. I understand you can't take your savings with you but it should be every human's inalienable right to save the product of their own labor for the future. Problem is too many financial wizards think that the product of that labor is there for the taking. Therefore, in such an environment saving "within" the system is a fool's errand.
She also believed heavily in investing in real estate. Increasingly US real estate is starting to look good again. Any suggestions for good growth areas? I like the look of places like California and Arizona - more so AZ - as it is seen as a great retirement area.
Biochemical Sciences - #3.
Well, my son will be graduating from a Big 10 university with degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology this Spring. 3.89 GPA (out of 4), mutliple internships, awards, etc. Job? Not yet.
All he/we have heard from everywhere (Govt, Buisiness, etc) the last 5-10 years is how the US needs to produce more "hard science" grads so we can compete in the world.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
If you were any kind of real father you would have bought him a higher GPA, compitition is tough out there. (/sarc) How do you think the 1% do it? Gifts to the university foundations don't hurt.
The Govt has been producing H1B work visas at a much faster rate. Here we are in the middle of an undeclared Depression and there are over a million foreign workers in the US on H1Bs. All a company has to do is interview a few US workers and claim they are 'unqualified'. Our Govt has sold us out.
That's because the elites prefer foreigners, Indians , Chinese, etc. on VISA's. They work for a fraction of the cost, and have no moral reservations about developing biological agents that they know will be used on U.S. citizens.
Forget the visas - they go directly to the well - outsource the work to India and China, even cheaper that way.
The problem your son has is the following - yes he is very smart, but he's up against thousands of equally smart kids just in India and China, who are willing to work for 1/5 of his salary.
Or, more depressingly - he's up against tens of thousands of equally smart, not so smart, and dumb kids just in China and India, who are willing to work for 1/5 of his salary. Because honestly - for most entry-level jobs, you don't need smart people. You just need drones. Cheap drones are good drones.
All this BS about "hard science" is a fig leaf - because if US companies came out and said "Nah, we don't really give a shit, we just want cheap workers who will follow instructions all day long" can you imagine the anger? So the US govt has to "propose" a solution - they can't just say "According to the companies the truth is you're all overpriced. They don't care how innovative or creative you are or become."
Alternatively - tell him to look at the small startups. they're not so stable, but the cost-benefit equation is still in favour of locally sourced rather than outsourced.
Just a suggestion: Has he thought about becoming a patent agent or patent lawyer? Jobs are aplenty in IP, esp biotech and pharma, and you need at least a green card to become a patent agent/lawyer. At least he's protected that way.
[Edit] - becoming a patent agent is easy - he needs to pass a test, that's it. Once he gets a job he can use the money to save up for law school.
[Edit (2)] - unintended pun - "All this BS about hard science"
Congratulations for your son!
Sorry about the job market. He is facing the same stiff competition the rest of the scientific and engineering community faces. Our jobs don't enjoy the privileged protections of other Trades like Doctors and Lawyers. We are reduced to fierce competition with folks asking for 1/5th the pay in massive numbers. Our country imports these folks as rapidly as possible to keep wages suppressed locally. Can't have engineers and scientists accumulating too much economic power. However, if this makes you feel any better there is an increasing decline in the Legal profession as work moves to India. My wife works for one of the larger law firms in the country and she is assisting in that process...begrudgingly. So soon you should see even more downward pressure on the Trade jobs and another leg down in wages. Don't expect a consumer/housing domestic based recovery. Stocks are signaling a recovery is coming but if what I am seeing with my clients is happening nationwide then the opposite is inbound.
When I walk into the offices of my Fortune 500 clients all I see are empty offices, ashen faces, and a dour mood amongst most folks. Capital spending is tight and a constant drip of layoffs are taking place. Of course this all could just be a short blip and sunny times ahead...but after watching this for 3 years beginning to wonder.
Anyway, good luck to your son. He should try to find an internship and focus on augmenting softer skills such as communication and essentially "people" skills. That might help him get in good with someone and a break could appear after his application of his book knowledge being converted into marketable skills.
I think it's a trend in Fortune 500 - they benefit the most from outsourcing their work. The cost-benefit equation doesn't work so well for a company with less than 200 people. Moral of the story: Stay clear of the Fortune 500 companies, look more to the small/midsize companies.
In fact, I get the feeling that many of the Fortune 500 companies are actively changing their structures so as to benefit from outsourcing. For example - why innovate when really you just need incremental tweaks for most products? In which case why bother with hiring innovative and creative R&D people when really you need product development people who can follow instructions? I mean, if you're competing with AAPL that's another thing, but if all you're doing is trying to make stuff cheaper - you're probably better off taking existing designs and optimising as much as you can.
Please explain, what is the $ net worth threshold to be classified as a 1%er......
It's not measured in net worth but instead by blood line. There's a big difference between being wealthy and being one of the oligarchs.
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/wealth/wealth.html
Keep in mind there is annual income and overall net worth which is a lot more elusive because many rich people are in fact quite illiquid. For example, Mitt Romney is clearly a 1%'er worth a quarter billion or so, but his annual income and net worth are not even on the Forbes 400 list.
American households right at the 99th percentile (that is, the cut-off for the top 1 percent) will earn about $506,553 in cash income this year, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis. The income curve is very steep at the high end, meaning that people just a few tenths of a percentile point above that make much, much more. A family at the 99.5th percentile, for example, makes $815,868; its neighbor at the 99.9th percentile makes more than double that, at $2,075,574 a year.
The average net worth for the 99th percentile in net worth was $19,167,600 as of 2007, based on this research.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/about-that-99-percent/
Hope this helps.
i haven't seen many of your posts, so, hi
for some reason, your Q reminds me of helenThomas, so here are 2 avatar suggestions
now, either your question assumes that "the 1%" is based upon "net worth" or you don't belong here, doing this, b/c you are just trolling questions to fuk up zH
but there is nothing in tyler's intro or the times' bullshit to indicate explicitly wtf they are talking about here, except "the 1%" and slewie does not goto NYT "links"
however, there are indications this may be about income levels, not net worth
my lay understanding is that "the 1%" relates (originally?) to ownership of assets, particularly those made from paper and owned/controlled by vast corporate interests & the "insiders" who control the private governments which we glibly call "companies" which in turn control the public goobermints and make the rules for who gets what, when, and how, and who pays for it
the small % controls the assets thru "share issue", via proxy voting, by "negotiating" contracts regarding "rights" to water, minerals, air & access, and The Law
at the "extreme T0P margin" centralBanksters can create "money/currency/debt" as part of this struggle to contol the other 99% of just abt everything, according to my understanding, aka slewienomics
here's christineL_arde [IMF Seeks $500B Boost to Lending Resources - Bloomberg] asking for another $500 Bil so she can do her job and "fight the crisis" as part of what she sees, ultimately, as a $1 Tril "financing need in the coming years"
apparently, nearly all budgetary expenditures need to be to "fight" something like poverty, hunger, disease, injustice, and other crises like "protecting" libyan "civilians" during a civil war, all of which need "financing" b/c, well, we just don't have enuf money, otherwize
or something. like the 1% can't control things w/out debt-money and bankstering. jefferson knew this and so do we! our constitution includes it, also: human freedom requires limiting goobermint and having real money based on gold and silver which citizens can take to the US Mint and have coined into lawful money which has nothing to do with the "legal tender" now used world-wide and which is turning into "legal tinder" as i write
when napoleon needed "financing", jefferson took 828,000 square miles of the French territory of Louisiane. alexander hamilton probably woulda had lewis & clark exploring paper promises and analyzing subordinations!
This guy is posting below about forced redistribution for the greater good. He also thinks the founders were commies.
thxz, R_S
well, after your reply he agreed to disagree w/ you and canaduh accused him of being logical, too!
he wants to parse "how the tax is used (you)" and separate it from "that the inheritance tax is used" which he considers necessary b/c "a certain level of forcible redistribution is absolutely required for a functioning modern world"
so he may be packing the "evolutionaryBeliefSystem" as part of his construct of theReal which is very common and tends to throw people down more at the "collective" viewpoint than the "individual", at least abt certain things
it's like you're both looking at an array of data which you would like to approach mathematically, but you don't agree on the theorems governing the system you are looking at, symbolically~~the basic tenets, which he recognizes
part of my slewie belief system: human aggression is about control
and when i think 1%, i think control, so your dialogue with him appeals to me, there, and altho structure and function are different "categories", they are not always clearly distinguishable where the rubber meets the road
we have matter and the forces or vibrations acting thru matter; or form and content; or structure and function; existence and process; being and becoming; right up to: forced redistribution and the functioning modern world
somebody can look at a right triangle and get c2 = a2 + b2 and we can drop a shell on an outhouse from 8 miles away b/c newton quantified gravitational acceleration + others developed certain rapidly-oxidizing reactions of explosive power, but i think we're just too close to the human condition to understand it by normal means
whatever normal means
nice day, isn't it?
p.s. my original was in reply to Million$_Idiot
not boiltherich, whom you were writing to/about
he also replied to M$Idiot, not to me, but he replied before i did, so my reply is just below his
boil_rich and i haven't replied to each other at all here, but i replied to you abt what you & he were talking abt L0L!!!
Ralph hates my guts Slewie, I am OK with that. Like so many other posters here he is an utterly unsalvageable Neo-Calvinist. If he were in the 1% he so dearly loves his conscience would not bother him at all. It does not matter to him, indeed he sees no connection between grossly disproportionate wealth distribution and actual humans starving to death, mostly because the 50,000 or so that die from poverty, malnutrition, and starvation and the diseases related to them every single day are brown people thousands of miles away from his inspection. He need not do good things for others nor would he share had he anything to share because that is "God's" job. You know, fairness is so overrated and so subjective anyway, whereas a vacation house in Vale and another on Martha's Vineyard are so tangible, so much more sexy than starving Somalis and such. You never know do you, god might make those six numbers come up in the Powerball and then you SURE do not want taxes happening to YOU!
Here is a good corresponding CNN piece (did i just say that?) called Lessons from Famous College Drop Outs. Each of which is or was a 1%'er.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/30/opinion/schmitz-college/index.html
Didnt mean to repost
More than 90% of the 1%'ers wealth is inherited, field of study is really a result of the privilege to do as one likes because of prosperity rather than a ticket into such financial security. Do some accountants, bankers, brokers, lawyers hit the jackpot? Sure, but 1% of the US population is 3.1 million and about 3 million of those either inherited the title of 1% or enough dough to pay their way through the gates of the ivory towers. Why do you think so much effort was put into killing or at least gutting the inheritance taxes? It was the one tool we had to prevent, or just slow dynastic empires which represent the overconcentration of wealth which in turn strangles the economy by preventing capital formation for productive use.
The inheritance tax is another form of wealth redistribution and as such is a form of communism. The money given to heirs has already been taxed to death by the state and feds and adding another tax upon distribution is insane. If the inheritance tax proceeds actually went towards the utopian idea of "social justice", there might be some justification for it. But it never does. The tax receipts go into the general fund free-for-all and perpetuates the government waste everyone here is against.
I agree to disagree. When a half a dozen Walton's inherit 5 billion bucks each CLEARLY the previous generation (Sam) was not "taxed to death." Economics and all economic activity IS wealth redistribution. And of course people can and will argue without end as to what constitutes appropriate use of funds for the greater good, the general welfare as our commie founders put it, but without redistribution I assure you that you and your family would starve in short order. People think they can grow their own food or hunt, live a self sufficient tribal life, they cannot, for one thing they will be shot for trespassing just about anywhere they go, it is a capital offence to hunt on the kings preserves and it will all be the kings preserves in your world.
The truth is that there has to be a middle ground and we all know that, you can spout laissez-faire Ayn Randisms all day long but you know as well as I do that a certain level of forcible redistribution is absolutely required for a functioning modern world, if you disagree then you look silly and we all know you are just intellectually dishonest. I do not like what the government is doing, the fed, banksters, and all the other greedy self motivated fraud artists any more than you do, but it falls into the argument over HOW money and taxes are distributed and redistributed not over the fact of distribution itself. I know it is a subtle point, maybe there is an English major out there that can clarify for me, Spastica? Any volunteers? It will have to be volunteer because I have nothing to pay you, almost all wealth in America now having been redistributed to the top 1%.
Dude, this site stopped being a place for logical discussion like this a long time ago. Now it's just a circle jerk of another flavor. How dare you take the Rands name in vain!
Not everybody who stands to inherit is related to Sam Walton. Some families want to keep a family business going and arrange to pass on wealth that isn't anywhere near $5 Billion bucks. You may think it's silly but maybe you haven't been in this situation yourself. This kind of regressive taxation impacts regular people, not just Billionaires. When you use terms like the "greater good" and "forcible redistribution", you reveal a marked Marxist tendency which is not at all what our "commie founders" intended. Talk about looking silly.
Hence the exclusion of tax for estates below a certain size...
Economics and all economic activity is wealth redistribution? Huh? Last I check, Economic activity is supposed to be based on utility not wealth redistribution driven by supply and demand forces and in perfectfly functioning free markets you have perfect competitions with infinite buyers and sellers.
What's it to you if Sam Walton wasn't taxed to death. That does not entitle you to a fair share of his accumulated wealth, does it? And why can't I not till my own land and grow my own crops, if I'm free to maximize my right to own property?
Your proposition is a perfect example of the tyranny of "do-gooders" and their "good intentions" with "forced redistributions".
Redistribution is not just taxes or fees imposed by government, anytime I give you a dime for a product you produced because of perceived utility to me I am redistributing some of my wealth to you. All economics is about that. If nobody bought or sold anything with anybody else, there were no trade no transfers of wealth between us there would be no study of or theories about economics. Even with government fees and taxes it is TRADE! You "buy" from the government things you use all the time, roads, schools, water, a share of defense, all sorts of infrastructure that without government subsidy would only be available to the wealthiest, and or would not even exist in the first place. The obvious fact that you CLAIM you do not want to use these or that you do not use these is ridiculous and is what economics calls the free rider problem. You want a free ride that's all. As I said, we can discuss forever what constitutes a public good and at what levels, who can and how those are accessed, in fact one of the marks of a civilized society is the ability to debate just these facts, and some of these are obviously now out of equilibrium, but you want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and I say no way, the bathwater is all we have soiled or not, clean it yes but it will not be thrown out for the sake of a few rich bastards that want a free ride. They can go be "job producers" in hell and yet I think we will all manage better without them.
repost
Economics is a secular stand-in for religion and acolytes will never question their own belief systems. Every economic system has winners and losers, but the acolytes will tell you all day long why the winners in their system of choice are ordained by God, or the Invisible Hand, or Natural Law, or Liberté or whatever, so there's no point in arguing.
RS,
Quick quiz: What percentage of households are affected by the estate tax in the USA?
How about leaving college entirely to the liberty stricken indentured servitude of debt slaves? College has nothing to do with education or upward mobility (as the author pretends)!
The 1% gimmick is one dick sucking orgy after another among those of privilege entitled (born in) to participate "in da club."
The top is catastrophically fearful of change. That's why their only avenue of "progress" is to insulate themselves from the 99% -- which is the reality of for profit edumacation.
College is big business! The only thing produced is cowards and clueless idiots starting their future with a shit filled twinkee of government debt, payable straight to the 1%.
Mission accomplished, record bonuses for do-nothing fags of fraud.
what? My parents are immigrants and I was the first of us born in the US. Neither of my parents went to college. Both my brother and I worked our asses off, went to good schools and got good jobs, based on what we saw in the job market. We are both 5%-ers or higher. One can actually learn something of value in school, if one chooses a field that makes sense and really applies one's mind. Too many are choosing majors that will get them nowhere. Engineering? Technology? Finance? No, the math is too hard...boo hoo. Wouldn't want to actually work at learning. We coddle our kids too much when they all need a dose of reality and a swift kick in the azz..
One of the main staples of economics (and by extension-finance) is that "what cannot go on will not go on". We are already seeing that in the two main areas of money-making: Wall Street and medicine. It is simply unsustainable for costs to rise indefinitely and exponentially like it has been for the last two decades. It will self-correct, and the writing is on the wall. Sure, there will be money to be made, but nowhere near as easily or prevelant as it has been. You are seeing that with the annual "medicare fix" that will eventually end, disappearance of retail investors from Wall and Broad, and so on. The horse has left the barn. But everyone follows the latest and greatest trend.....until it's too late.
Bar/Bat Mitzvah will serve you better than any of these degrees in regards to wealth accumulation.
there's a lot of poor Jewish kids out there as well...
Political science and government, really?
At least health care/doctors are up there...but sometimes for the wrong reason. Kickbacks from big Pharma shouldnt be a way a doctor makes money (but since they have to crowbar cash from health insurers/medicare....I dont blame them).
I would say a decent amount of the English majors are in teaching. Get tenure with full paid benefits courtesy of the tax payers and a full pension to match w/ paid benefits for life.
Over the last 5 years or so, gaining tenure has been becoming more difficult. Most colleges and universities are now under hiring freezes and strict austerity plans because of the economy. Many college teaching jobs are now filled with job-shopper lecturers who are hired only by the semester or course. Even well established professors with many years of teaching under their belts are having trouble gaining tenure. Remember Amy Bishop? The professor who shot and killed 3 of her university colleagues? While admittedly an extreme case, that incident was all about tenure.
you go to an Ivy league college to party with the Bushes and Kerry's. you are a C student, later you will hire and fire the A students.
or as a professor at a small podunk state college once said to his students. "you go to an Ivy league school to read Shakespeare, and learn to run the world." "here we have a different program."
"you go to an Ivy league school to read Shakespeare, and learn to run the world."
Then the Ivy League school failed them both ways - otherwise they would have known the meaning of hubris and nemesis and the world would be a better place.
he meant that in a pejorative sense, to run the world into the ground, or to run the world for their purposes. but i have noticed a greater part of a liberal arts education is in learning the rules in order to exploit or break them. or why does anyone study the law?
i was in the communication department of the university system, and the department head had written a book on how corporations run the world, and control our thoughts, and i would say about one in ten students cared about how that should be changed, and the 9 out of 10 wanted to figure out a way to make money doing it
And 10 out of 10 of them were communications majors so it didn't matter away!
I kid, I kid.
Ivy League education - dropping "150k on an education you could have got for $1.50 in late charges at the public library."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=QnZ0Y4rvz6E
Anyone can learn anything if they're motivated and intelligent enough, as a friend of mine once said. Ivy League gives you connections, that's about it.
100 years ago, I'm sure it was the productive sectors i.e. engineers, doctors, architects. How the hell did we get here?
Haha! What I always suspected.
Just goes to show Liberal Arts grads still make up the elite.
Business, engineering, science, technical degrees...these are more like trade school degrees.
A broad, liberal, classical education is the key.
Let's consider the rotting carcass that the College has become.
I see the Medical area as the very best for anything right now that is useful.
Otherwise it's Arms, ammo and war material.
The medical area is solely dependent upon medicaid and medicare scratch... If that flimsy foundation is the very best, then god help us. There are plenty of better options (given the present barriers to entry). I know HVAC guys making 6 figures in BFE (with no college degree mind you). Hell, there are even some decent plays in RE picking up the distressed property crumbs from the big boys. Input costs for medical degrees are too high considering the risk of teet failure and opportunity cost.
All true.. all true.
My own doctor is thinking of getting out.
He now carries a Govt issued laptop in one hand and charts in the other.
In the top ten, coming in higher than chemistry, molecular biology, finance and physics -- art history.
I love it!
That is weird. But I think it might be because people who study art history - which after all is about as useless a degree as you can get for getting a job - already come from 1%-type backgrounds, & don't have to worry about getting a job...
I was also wondering where the IT people are...
1% earners has no connection really with the 1% wealth holders. Real money is not reported on any of this IRS bullshit.
Cash is dead labor, and it just multiplies without much real effort, while everyone else races to the bottom and fights over the scraps
File under Who Gives A Fuck. Anyone whose primary goal in life is to be a member of the wealthiest 1% is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
It's not necessarily that these specific majors make you wealthy, but having a well-rounded education is still worthwhile. Flexible brains adapt better to change and can come up with more creative solutions to problems.
.
My old lady is an art history major. Now she's a commercial litigator. Go figure.
1% here we come!
Funny how the one percent when the constitution was written were mostly slave holders and major land holders. Even the immigrant wage workers of the north were often no better off than slaves in the south, slaves in all but name. White slaves were just called indentured servants. But, even free men who worked in northern factories were dirt poor without even the comfort of slave quarters usually.
By those standards we are all better off than then, but by relative standards wealth is far more unequal now, and measured by who wields the real power in this supposedly representational democracy we are all but a few dozen just as enslaved as Kunta Kinte. The difference being that he knew he was a slave and we do not, he did not have to dwell on the matter to cope. Mostly.
NOTE to our government minders monitoring this: No sedition intended.