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Questions about College Majors?

What are the best college majors to pursue? Truly worth investing in

  • Posting this question for very recent high school graduates or high school seniors; I graduated this past summer. I am going to start out at a local community college so I have several questions. I am looking for a lucrative major, I don't see the point of investing so much time and money for a degree which is going to mess me up in the long haul. I am interested in knowing what lifestyles come along with different careers and the college years that it takes to get there. I have done research on many majors which result in high salaries such as Computer Science, AE Eng., Petro. Eng, CE/ECE, NE, Nursing, Civil Eng., Actuarial Math, all of which seem interesting. There's only so much a chart or statistic can tell you, I was hoping to gain insight from actual people who really do these things, really took chances in life to be somebody, people who made it

  • Answer:

    I am a junior in my college career studying computer science. I honestly think that choosing computer science was one of the best decisions I've made so far. Here's why: Even with the economy as it is right now, I have an incredible job outlook. I have a well paid internship lined up for the summer and next semester. I have had professionals (friends' parents who are small business owners) seek me out and offer me work because they need a programmer or an IT person. But while job security and high pay are awesome, they are not even the best things that this major has to offer. Almost every industry needs software developers and IT people. As a result, you can work in places from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, and everywhere in between. I don't know any other major where you can work just as easily in an investment firm as you can in a solar energy company. I also think if you're really passionate about some field, like biology for instance, a CS minor would guarantee you an edge over so many other people seeking the best jobs in that field. Another reason is that you are allowed to be creative in this major. I was talking to a Civil Engineering student who switched to Computer Science. He said that in his CE intro class, he was basically told that everything had to be done "by the book." I'm not sure how it is for other engineering majors, but it doesn't seem like there's much room for creativity for that one. Another thing that I like about CS that I don't think engineering majors can offer is that you can do so much with so little. I would imagining that if a mechanical engineer had a great idea, he would need a lot of equipment and maybe even a whole team to physically work with. With computer science, if I have a great idea, my laptop is my lab and I can connect anybody in the world to my product in a split second. This makes me think that CS is the way to go if you want to start your own business down the road. The only drawback to CS is that it's pretty freaking tough. However, I know some kids who started programming years before college, and the material we cover in the weeder courses was all review for them. The classes that made so many people switch majors or retake them were easy A's for these kids. So if you start learning to program now, then the difficulty will be much less overwhelming. Engineering majors are really hard too, and I don't think there's nearly as much material out there that can help you learn what engineers learn as there is for computer science. So there you go, I'll get off my high horse now...

Eric Christensen at Quora Visit the source

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Research scientist in physics, chemistry, math, biology, and many areas of computer science is a good life.  The research will keep pushing you to learn and do new things.  And the pay is upper middle class.  But a PhD is the "union card" to be a researcher.  You'll postpone making a really good salary for at least eight years (more if you do a post doc or two). Pre med followed by medical school is a good choice if you can memorize and deal with the blood, pain, fear, and death of patients.  Doctors will always be needed and the work will always be valuable.  But only do it if you value the work.  The money may drop back to the upper middle class levels that doctors enjoyed 50 years ago.  Again, you'll spend a long time studying before you get to full salary.  And you'll probably have big debts. A 4-5 year B.S. program in some engineering field is the quickest path to professional certification.  Engineering pays well and some engineers become managers with the potential for much larger incomes. Someone else will have to advocate for an MBA.

Ed Caruthers

The most lucrative paths aren't even on your list: bulge bracket investment banking or Big 3 management consulting. Either option can exit into private equity, which is where you will find the most obscene salaries. In order to get onto that track, however, you need to go to a target school (basically top 10/maybe top 15). I believe Harvard, Princeton, Wharton and MIT have the best track records for top placements on Wall Street out of undergrad. If you go this route and do everything right, you're fairly likely to break $300K annual salary by age 30 (usually better) and it only escalates from there. All that said, the lifestyle sucks: you'll have to work upwards of 80 to 100 hours a week, often doing relatively mindless work. However, this is the definitively surest path to getting rich. I myself am in tech, after only very briefly considering finance. CS is a challenging and rewarding major and the work you (may) get to do in industry is at least interesting if not exciting. Doesn't pay too poorly either: I just signed for ~$120K plus all the usual tech co perks (free food etc).

Anonymous

There are trade-offs with many of the majors. Undergrad engineering is usually designed to make people fail (or at least hate your life) to weed out a lot of people, and not everyone is capable of finishing it. That said, it's probably the best paying job on average for a four year degree. Business probably has some of the best potential, but relies heavily on social capital, and also has a high potential to end you in a job you hate without much advancement potential. Research in the sciences can make good money, but you lose earning potential for the years you are getting a PhD, and most people are not cut out to get a PhD. Going into medicine doesn't give you a terrible undergrad, but you need to do really well there because virtually every medical school has single digit acceptance rates. It also requires considerable money to apply to enough schools and take the required tests (think $1000-2000 minimum just for the application process). All of these fields can be very lucrative, but have a high failure rate too. They also tend to be harder fields to break into, so it is much less likely that someone would be successful in one of these fields with a degree from a community college. One thing that might be practical would be to work very, very hard for the first year or two and then apply to transfer programs at higher tier private schools. Many have programs that give full scholarships to the most promising community college students.

David Trauffer

Very good question you asked. Considering that many prospective students may find it difficult to choose the college major, a group of professors ( in fact over 1000 professors including Nobel Prize winners) in various academic disciplines have published a number of books on college majors including business management, nursing, design, IT, engineering etc. Why should you study a particular major? What can you expect at college? Why should you do a graduate/PhD? What resources/scholarships are available ? Professors have discussed these issues to satisfy your curiosity. The good news is that, unlike other academic books, the books are priced very cheaper (start from $0.99). Just google the "Curious Academic Publishing" or visit the following link to read the book of your choice: http://amazon.com/author/college.

Anonymous

Hey, i can understand what you are going through. It's such an ordeal to decide between the majors. I can help you decide your major for you but if you could tell me a little about what interests you more than what you have researched on. If you could tell me the kind of work you want to do on graduating, i would be able to help you better. You can also seek advice on specific questions at collegelf.com

Team Cialfo

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