What Degree Do You Have? (private school, master's, career, healthcare)

[fallingwater]

Originally Posted by opsec

1. What degree(s) do you have?
2. Where did you go to school?
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)?
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)?
5. How much professional experience do you have?
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience?
7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change?

1. Private College
2. Associates in Graphic Design, now working on my Bachelors in Marketing
3. I enjoy art, computers, technology and figuring out what people want
4. Freelance graphic design
5. Very little in this field
6. If I wasn't married I would have starved to death by now
7. I never would have pursued an associate degree in design. I enjoyed it in school but in real life its over saturated and most companies want a bachelors degree. The only way of moving on for a bachelors is to use my associates as a minor and go for marketing. There are no graphic design programs in my area. I could go for a bachelors in art but figured that would be even more useless. My first passion was interior design but I was talked out of it due to the over saturation. The school counselor said GD was a much better field. Don't let college counselors steer you wrong kids!

[NJBest]

Originally Posted by opsec

1. What degree(s) do you have?
2. Where did you go to school?
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)?
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)?
5. How much professional experience do you have?
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience?
7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change?

1. BSe Computer Science, BS Economics, MS & MBA pending (school has a program to get both)
2. Closest school to my parent's home (small private school)
3. I liked computers in highschool and was good at programming
4. Employed, then self-employed across multiple industries
5. 10+ years
6. I do alright
7. I would finish college in one take rather than drop out and have to plead to get readmitted and finish later than everyone else.

[ragnarkar]

Originally Posted by opsec

1. What degree(s) do you have?
2. Where did you go to school?
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)?
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)?
5. How much professional experience do you have?
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience?
7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change?

1) BS, Engineering Physics. MS, Engineering Physics. MS Finance.
2) 1st tier public universities, 2nd tier private university.
3) Obsession with crunching numbers and financial markets.
4) University research + work at local financial firm.
5) 3 years.
6) 40k. Not sure.
7) Not exactly. I would just go for a BS, either in Statistics or Finance and start working right after graduation. I would save a large chunk of every paycheck towards starting my own business (and would own my own business by this point in life.)

[JonSavage]

Such a cool thread. I'm currently in school, so I can't actively participate but there's some good info on what to realistically expect once I graduate.

Let's keep the thread going

[11thHour]

Originally Posted by opsec

1. What degree(s) do you have?
AS Flight Technology, BSci Flight Ops and Aviation Management

2. Where did you go to school?
A local community college then transferred to a small, private college in the intermountain west.

3. Why did you choose the degree(s)?
To become an airline pilot. Initially in college my goal was med school to become a physician but I thought flying planes would be 'funner'. Hah.

4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)?
Flight instructed for 3 yrs after finishing flight training which I did concurrently with college, then flew for 3 different airlines over about 12 yrs(very unstable occupation), then FAA medically dequaled me. Been working in airfield operations and management for several yrs now.

5. How much professional experience do you have?
18 years

6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience?
$50-55k depending on overtime. Not boosted by experience, it has no bearing unfortunately, based on seniority only.

7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change?
No. Flight training plus the tuition of a private college put me many tens of thousands of $ in school loan debt. The $ I make has never justified that cost. Plus it's inheritantly an unstable industry and I have lost my job several times. Now I can't even work in my chosen occupation thanks to FAA red tape over a temporary condition I had, but once they make a decision it's done. I'm sick of working weird hours and every holiday. Last christmas I had off was in high school, almost 20 yrs ago. Very little opportunity for promotion where I'm at now. People camp out their entire careers here so it takes someone retiring or dying to open a position, and it's extremely competitive.

What would I change? I would have pursued medical school. Big mistake changing my mind on that one.

My responses follow each question above.

[JonSavage]

Originally Posted by 11thHour

My responses follow each question above.

Sorry, to hear that. I have 2 semesters left before I complete my undergrad and I've found myself questioning my choice of major more and more.

[marigolds6]

Originally Posted by opsec

1. What degree(s) do you have?
2. Where did you go to school?
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)?
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)?
5. How much professional experience do you have?
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience?
7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change?

1) BS in Geography, MS in Geography
2) Big Ten school undergrad, top ten in my field school grad
3) Wanted to study the environment, found geography instead and realized I love maps and spatial problems
4) Work in my field since graduation. Published a few times, including the "Advances in GIS" special edition of the Professional Geographer. About to be professional certified. Teach at Wash U in STL
5) 4 years as of last month (minimum requirement for professional cert)
6) ~$60k in a low cost of living city. I'm public sector, and pay, merit pay, and promotions have been frozen for 6 years, otherwise I could earn more with my experience by now.
7) I paid my own way through school and took a job at the end of my MS because I was flat broke. My committee strongly recommended I stay for my PhD, and if I did it over again, I would have stayed. For those familiar with GIS, my thesis adviser is ESRI's new chief scientist. I would have been defending just in time to move possibly to ESRI with her.

[Sweetbottoms]

1. What degree(s) do you have? Certified Culinarian with plans to get my BA in baking and pastry
2. Where did you go to school? Private Culinary school
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)? Love cooking duh!
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)? Nothing yet i just graduated yesterday!
5. How much professional experience do you have?Other than school not much
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience? right now nothing im job searching but Executive Chefs can make upwards of $100,000 I'd like to be one one day
7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change? I would but I'm glad to be out. I busted my a$$ to graduate top of my class and 4 months early..

funny thing tho the day after I graduated I found I might be allergic to yeast/gluten and dairy. I get tested tomorrow. If so it won't stop me I'll specialize in cooking with people for chronic autoimmune diseases and allergies such as Celiac and Crohns disease!

[Squeaky2012]

Originally Posted by opsec

1. What degree(s) do you have?
2. Where did you go to school?
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)?
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)?
5. How much professional experience do you have?
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? Is that boosted by your experience?
7. Would you do it over again? If not, what would you change?

1. Bachelor of Arts, Political Science
2. University of Northern Iowa
3. My first love is history, but politics and history intertwine so smoothly. To understand the politics of an area, you must understand the history of a place (city/state/province/nation). Also, I transfered from a department with a Top 10 reputation in History, and my alma mater obviously didn't have that, and since I had just entered my junior year, transitioning to Political Science was a smooth process.
4. Absolutely NOTHING. It's crazy how you can see the light of day only after leaving the bubble, and once I left the academic bubble I realized just how limited my degree was as far as transferring into various fields outside of politics. Also, I graduated in late 2007, and the recession cut local, state and federal budgets down to the bone, which resulted in the loss of government jobs on a massive scale.
5. Does customer service count (tongue-in-cheek). I have also performed transcription work, and I kind of enjoy it. The problem is that salaries seem horrible.
6. Unemployed. NEXT!!
7. That's a good question. I guess that I would go to college, but I would find something more practical. Perhaps I would've earned a degree in Social work, or a major that would allow me to transfer my hard and soft skills into meaningful employment. The one thing that colleges and universities INTENTIONALLY never say is that it's okay to be visionary, and to follow your heart. But also remember that it's better to follow your stomach, because at the end of the day you're going to need a job to pay for your food and other basics.

[nicet4]

1. What degree(s) do you have? None
2. Where did you go to school? I Didn't
3. Why did you choose the degree(s)? Not Applicable
4. What have you done professionally with the degree(s)? Not Applicable
5. How much professional experience do you have? 36 Years
6. How much do you make (ballpark)? $75k plus perks Is that boosted by your experience? Everything in this business is related to experience.
7. Would you do it over again? Yes

Originally Posted by opsec

Really enjoying learning about everyone's different experiences. Please keep'm coming!!

What I find interesting (and reassuring in many senses) is most of you went to school and got a degree based on passion vs. money. I've always been of the mindset, do what you love and the money will come. Sometimes it's not in the financial sense, but in self reward or happiness.

I look at it a little differently. You can learn to love anything if you get really good at it.

I am in construction management. Started out as a grunt in the office, and did lots of on-the-job training and had good mentors. Now I mainly do project management and estimating. Most my work experience is in the commercial construction (football stadiums, hospitals, etc) and heavy civil (bridges, roads, etc) industries.

Then you know who I am, I design fire sprinkler systems for commercial construction, hospitals, etc. I don't do the installation, couldn't put a thread on a 1" piece of pipe if my life depended on it, but I prepare all the working drawings, hydraulic calculations, submittals and shoulder the responsibility for obtaining fire sprinkler plan approval. I am often the sub contractor who represents 2% - 5% of the project cost while bringing to the table 50% of the problems or so it seems sometimes.

Thank you for the compliments. I agree I am lucky. Definitely the exception to the rule. The reason for me going back to get my degree is to hopefully solidify myself a bit. It's a dog-eat-dog world, and in my industry having a bachelors degree is the norm.

Here is where we are different which I would attribute to our being trained/coming out of the insurance industry. A degree doesn't carry much weight, only 20.61% of us have a bachelors degree, but for us certification is everything and the only thing. Certification isn't easy, it takes an absolute minimum of five years to get it done and don't confuse the process with some sort of union apprentice program because it's not.

Being in construction management you are aware only three people can prepare and submit construction plans for approval; registered architects, professional engineers and, in the case of water based fire sprinkler systems, nationally certified technicians.

It's one of those niche jobs that if you didn't hear me talk about it here you would never know it even existed.

But I see an educational requirement in another five to ten years.

Should I get laid off, fired or quit, it would be very difficult to find another setup like I have.

We're industry trained so the numbers of available techs are kept artificially low. Maybe I would only earn $60 to $100k, depending on where I was in the country, but even at 63 I could find another job easily enough. After reading about age discrimination I think I am in a rather unique field.

I give it up the skilled trades. Most the time they have the crappiest working environments and while they make good pay, it doesn't always seem like a lot for the sacrifice. Just this past year, I learned an industrial painter makes close to $100k/year, sometimes more. Most these guys are HS grads. The major downfall is the owner of the company was telling me the average life expectancy is only around 50yrs old due to chemicals and job hazards. When you look at it from that point, the money isn't all that enticing.

Nearly half of the installers in the Chicago area are out of work. Sounds all great to be earning $34.00/hr but if you only work four months out of the year that isn't really all that good.

Another thing to consider about the trades is it's hard work. Doing what our installers do at about age 55 you are physically done.

And yes, anyone in construction (hourly or salary) is subject to feast/famine. Of course, the hourly guys are the ones that hurt the most. If you make $20-30/hr but only work half the year, it's like an average of $10-$15/hr. No one is protected though. If it gets slow enough, or a job losses money because of bad management, etc. then "office" staff gets cut as well.

Peculiar to our business I've always been the first hired and last fired.

As an owner, you brace for the bad times. Funny how people think contractors rake it in. Yes, on some jobs it happens but usually because management & field operations clicked, unusually good weather, etc. Rarely because the contractor had a fat profit. Most the time, profits are in the 5% range or lower. Yes, on a $100 million project that's $5 million profit. But when you compare risk to reward, it's a tricky business. How many people would put up $100 million of their money to only make 5% return? It's not like a "safe" return you get from investing $X at the bank on a CD and are guaranteed X return. There is a very real possibility things could happen to cut your fee in half, or to zero or even worse to lose money!

Of course, that being said, most contractors are aware the risks, and try to hire the best people possible to reduce those pitfalls. Like anything else, it's a statistics game and you have to win more often than lose or you pack up shop and go home.

If I hit 7% net profit on a project I am thrilled. To be in this business you need to have a little bit of gambler in you. Sometimes, on the real small jobs, you can do a lot better but you'll need it to make up for the jobs that didn't go so good.

For over half of my 35 years in the business I owned my own company and with two exceptions I did rather well earning low six figures. Except for 1991 when I qualified for food stamps (I didn't apply but my accountant and I had a good laugh over that one) and then 2005 when a trusted customer when bankrupt.... I trusted him and not getting a lien filed... you know what that did... cost me the equivalent of a new McMansion.

Anyway, life has been good even with the couple downfalls. I've been married many decades and my wife often says life with me has been a real roller coaster ride. In 1990 I earned $105k (equivalent to $182k today) then earning less than $14k in 1991.

As owner I also learned if I had earned just half of what the people who worked for me were convinced I earned I would have retired ten years ago. You got a lot of money floating through your checkbook but the trick is grabbing some of it.

But I got to tell you it's all been worth it, a wonderful ride. Best part about it is I can honestly say I have never been bored.