Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
far. Also, safe bet assumes that nothing drastic happens in the marketplace. An aerospace engineer is all fine and dandy until the government decides to cut funding to NASA and the military. Not only that, many industries are on a wavelength cycle where ups and downs are common. Think of it this way, Walmart was doing better when the economy sucked. Now that the economy is on an upward slope, Walmart is going down.
The best thing, I believe is being the best leader you can be where you can easily adapt to different situations. In 20 years, half the companies that exist to day won't be the same companies you know now. Remember AOL? A good captain of a ship isn't just someone who can get from point a to point b the fastest. But a captain knows how to navigate the difficult journeys.
True. I actually have a friend that worked at JPL for a bit. If you take them out of NASA then NASA is mostly weather balloons and satellites. There is opportunity now with what Bezos and Musk are doing as they are developing more rocketry that will mostly likely replace the need to use russian technology to get to the ISS.
How about not everyone is interested in any of those fields? I, for one, am not interested in any of them. If I'm going to get a degree and further my education, it's going to be in something that I am passionate about, or at the very least interested in.
I dare you to say that my dramatic writing classes were "easy" and a "joke". Not at my former school.
I wish I had gotten a degree in ___________ because I think I can be satisfied with anything __________ related...problem is it's too late. I don't have the degree in it so I would start all over and owe more money.
I feel the same. Though I make very good $ in what I refer to as my third and final career, it isn't what I initially set my sights on or what I envision I would enjoy if I had to "toil" at something for 40+ hours a week.. I enjoy aspects of it, it's a very safe career field and the benefits are nice.
There is no conceivable way to maintain my(family's) standard of living doing what I love to do (semi-professional bagpiper, sports enthusiast, etc). That is why we have hobbies, isn't it?
I admit that I have been impatient about my career path/advancement to the point of being capricious. As I have matured and tested the waters of many a career field, a part of me does wish that I had focused more on STEM courses instead of whatever interested me at the moment or/ quickest way to a degree. Another part of me also wishes I had continued to developed skills in the trades such as HVAC, crane operator, pilot, etc. Friends that pursued these routes early and stayed the course are very well compensated and most deal with significantly less stress than I do day to day.
What I have seen with the STEM professional is a mindset that lends itself toward that career. Not to say that some don't completely veer and change paths or incorporate a non-STEM focus into their career but in my experience those are exceptions. Not sure if it's the chicken or egg phenomena but the vast majority of STEM-types I have known are not capable or would be horrible in creative, interpersonal, extrovert careers.
I had to take some non-stem classes as part of the distribution requirements of my mathematics degree. The quality of the students in the non-stem classes and the ones in my degree-related classes was night and day. Some things I noticed: The non-stem students rarely showed up to class on-time, if ever at all. They moaned and complained whenever faced with a larger than expected workload. They chatted and interrupted the professor in the middle of lecture. The worst part was the instructors seemed to encourage it (I'll never forget the anthropology professor who spent fifteen minutes ranting about how capitalism was terrible and that we shouldn't aspire to have corporate jobs). For the record, I never saw any of these types of behaviors exhibited by the students in the mathematics curriculum.
So not only were these non-stem disciplines providing their students with useless degrees, they were also nurturing and implanting horrible behavioral traits. Congratulations student: You have graduated with an impractical degree and a behavioral disposition of such a rotten nature so as to be wholly incompatible with the workplace.
This hasn't been my experience. I graduated *** laude as a STEM student and now work in a STEM field. I partied like crazy in college and regularly missed class. So did many of my friends. We graduated from a school renowned for its science program, all with 3.5+ gpas. We all have good jobs now.
Everyone's different, I can't focus on numbers all day while in an office, I tried twice and it didn't work, I have to work outside so I can complain about the cold and heat all day, lol.
Offices feel like dungeons to some people, I'm one of them. While there are some science fields with some outside work that I'd probably would like doing, I had a hard time passing chemistry in high school because of spit balls, girls, and generally not paying attention.
How about not everyone is interested in any of those fields? I, for one, am not interested in any of them. If I'm going to get a degree and further my education, it's going to be in something that I am passionate about, or at the very least interested in.
I dare you to say that my dramatic writing classes were "easy" and a "joke". Not at my former school.
That's what I think. I did my undergrad and advance degrees in the sciences, but that's because I like doing it. I would probably have a pretty hard time going into other fields.
A lot of these CS people in particular just happened to have a lucrative passion - there was no point where they coldly surveyed the employment landscape at 17 or 18 and made a decision. Maybe they went in with the intention of making video games and ended up working for a bank, but quite a few of them based their original career choice on their personal interests.
That's what I think. I did my undergrad and advance degrees in the sciences, but that's because I like doing it. I would probably have a pretty hard time going into other fields.
The problem is a lot of people see this in particular on here about majors. This is an excerpt from a Tumblr post.
Quote:
Student: I attended a four year university and received a diploma in a field I am interested in. Now I am $50,000+ in debt.
USA: YOU DUMB***. WHY THE **** DID YOU GO TO COLLEGE WHEN YOU KNOW YOU COULDN'T AFFORD IT? YOU DIDN'T EVEN CHOOSE A USEFUL MAJOR EITHER. GOD PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK.
Interesting. Are you implying blue collar skilled trades pay more than white collar jobs?
In general, they do. There are exceptions. Garbage pickup, for example. Problem is, a "garbage man" might as well be a taxi driver in today's "don't even have to get out of the truck" world. Taxi drivers don't make nearly as much as garbage men yet they do more; lifting heavy luggage around, etc. Explain that, I can't.
But the summary of my point is directly in response to the OP who simply said, in effect, "people chose easy degrees because they're easy". Others are saying "I chose my degree because the classes are what I wanted to do". And I said that's fine - BUT you can't expect to make major bucks out of it unless the courses/majors are in fields that are in high demand. Liberal arts doesn't even have a "field" per se, thus why it's not difficult to obtain.
Some people go to college for the wrong reasons. Some go just to say that they sat through 4 years of whatever and then complain that they can't get a good paying job because they chose the easiest degree to get.
I've been messing with technology in some form since I was 6 years old, in the days of BBS and IRC and simple programming. However, I'm also a published author, having written various fiction books and poems since I was 12, musician having sung and recorded since I was 16, and a public speaker, having done presentations since I was 18.
I'm good at all of the above, but creative arts and liberal arts are not sufficient for me to make a living. TV is going the way of the dinosaur, "radio" is nothing more than filler, and music isn't as appreciated as it used to be. Books are somewhat still in demand, but the era of eBooks has made consumption too easy; people finish a 400+ page book in a day and scream for the next, so unless you're doing textbooks or other types of non-eBook work, it's hard to really make a living doing it.
That left technology, which I once swore I would not do as a job because I don't really "like" it, I just happen to be good at it. Once I started seeing the upswing of technology's importance, I threw myself into it and got into college, with a technology major. I accepted it's not going anywhere and the more that keep up with it, the easier they'll have things. I still don't like it, but I get satisfaction knowing I make a difference.
On the other hand, some people took what they enjoy and turned it into a lucrative business. See most authors, artists, musicians, etc. So we're not saying that hobbies or "follow the heart" opportunities are bad all the time. Sometimes you might need to re-think what "job" means to you, and sometimes you need to choose not to work for someone else. If you're your own boss then the value of your degree is your own, really.
What I don't want to see, is someone complaining about making $40k/year out of college with a liberal arts degree when someone who has no degree but has tons of technical certifications and knowledge is over $100k/year offered at every interview. The wide split in money has nothing to do with whether you have a degree or not, it's the value of what you bring to the table.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
