Yet another college major thread

Six figure starting salary?

Living paycheck to paycheck as a civil engineer?

Based on these questions, I assure you that you don't have to worry about earning six figure salary at graduation unless your father owns a huge company.

I'd guess that 99% of people living paycheck to paycheck as any type of degreed engineer are blowing money ala MC Hammer.

Why are you even asking this here? This stuff is all over the web.

Why are you choosing a job based on salary? That's a sure path to career hell: shuffling useless paperwork with your equally miserable cube mates at a faceless corporation.

free college? wrote:

Six figure starting salary?

Living paycheck to paycheck as a civil engineer?

Based on these questions, I assure you that you don't have to worry about earning six figure salary at graduation unless your father owns a huge company.

I'd guess that 99% of people living paycheck to paycheck as any type of degreed engineer are blowing money ala MC Hammer.

Why are you even asking this here? This stuff is all over the web.

Why are you choosing a job based on salary? That's a sure path to career hell: shuffling useless paperwork with your equally miserable cube mates at a faceless corporation.

Can you read? The OP isn't looking for a 6-figure salary; he only wants a decent income.

Besides, I know a degreed engineer (Mechanical) who was very frugal (lived in a small apartment, drove an old used car, never ate at restaurants, didn't party or have jewelry, etc) who used to be living paycheck to paycheck. He's now living off of food stamps and government aid, but that's because he got laid off and is now unemployed. He's a bit of an exception because he couldn't find any engineering jobs since he didn't have any engineering internships or a good GPA, but that could happen to anyone.

Regarding your other point, there's one upside to a boring job that deals with shuffling paperwork - unlike manual labor trades, you'll actually have some energy to run and set PR's after you come home from work.

undecided junior wrote:

I'm leaning toward civil engineering right now, but I heard that the pay is absolutely terrible.

That's only true if you compare yourself to other engineers. Civil engineers do get paid a lot less than, say, chemical or electrical engineers. But CE's do get paid more than liberal arts majors, so it's not that bad.

sub 4 dreamer wrote:

That's only true if you compare yourself to other engineers. Civil engineers do get paid a lot less than, say, chemical or electrical engineers. But CE's do get paid more than liberal arts majors, so it's not that bad.

This is the correct answer.

How much does a CE make vs. Electrical and Chemical?

Brian Cell majored in CE @ Stanford.

Livin in da USA wrote:

Brian Cell majored in CE @ Stanford.

You mean Brian Sell?

This is 2-3 years old, but it will give you an idea:

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm

engimaneering wrote:

How much does a CE make vs. Electrical and Chemical?

Electrical and Chemicals usually get a 60K starting salary, which increases to 80-90K/year after a few years experience.

CE's, on the other hand, usually make only half that amount.

accurate guess wrote:

CE's, on the other hand, usually make only half that amount.

If you look at the post just above yours, you'd find data rather than conjecture. You'd also find that you are wrong.

Is it just me, or are there an awful lot of civil engineers (justifiably) unhappy about their piss-poor salary?

A quick search brings up these topics:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=1461995&thread=1461858

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=3148422&thread=3147546

Things don't look much better outside the U.S. either:

http://tripleperiod.blogspot.com/2007/03/civil-engineering-sucks.html