Conflict: Major based on money or passion?

The kind of people who go on to be fantastically successful never, even for one second, entertained the idea of being a chiropractor or physical therapist. Those just aren't jobs that appeal to the best and brightest. Nothing wrong with being in one of those fields though.

Median Annual Salaries - New York City chiropractors

10% $113,558

25% $135,344

50% $ 150,000

75% $219,575

90% $274,476

The median salary for a programmer is about $91K with supervisory jobs paying around $120K.

http://www1.salary.com/NY/New-York/Chiropractor-salary.html

Anyone with first hand knowledge of running and the right references would be at the higher end of that scale within 5 years.

Other benefits of Chiropractic

- independence

- active all day

- human interaction

- flexible hours

- mobility, you can take your skills anywhere

.

Before jumping to physical therapy, remember that the vast majority of PT jobs will be geriatric. As people get older, they need PT to recover from the wear and tear of life.

The Comp Sci you do freshman year IS NOT what it is like to have a CS job.

Randy Oldman wrote:

Other benefits of Chiropractic

- independence

- active all day

- human interaction

- flexible hours

- mobility, you can take your skills anywhere

.

Drawbacks:

You spend your days at best scamming peoples out of money by practicing quackery that is no better than placebo. And at worst you spend your days actively harming people by delaying them from seeking actual scientifically-based medical care or by causing strokes and vertebral artery dissections.

So I guess that's something to consider too.

Balanced wrote:

Randy Oldman wrote:

Other benefits of Chiropractic

- independence

- active all day

- human interaction

- flexible hours

- mobility, you can take your skills anywhere

.

Drawbacks:

You spend your days at best scamming peoples out of money by practicing quackery that is no better than placebo. And at worst you spend your days actively harming people by delaying them from seeking actual scientifically-based medical care or by causing strokes and vertebral artery dissections.

So I guess that's something to consider too.

You've never worked in finance thinking of new ways to rip off middle-class investors off on a daily basis, I assume.

Randy Oldman wrote:

Balanced wrote:

Drawbacks:

You spend your days at best scamming peoples out of money by practicing quackery that is no better than placebo. And at worst you spend your days actively harming people by delaying them from seeking actual scientifically-based medical care or by causing strokes and vertebral artery dissections.

So I guess that's something to consider too.

You've never worked in finance thinking of new ways to rip off middle-class investors off on a daily basis, I assume.

"Hey everyone! Quick! Look over there! Nothing to see here!!!"

-randy oldman

SW developers can and do make a lot of money. Depending on where you live and what you do, you can expect to start out making 60-120k. After 5-10 years you definitely should be over 100k, and could be a lot more. Many make 150-250k, and not just in SF or NYC.

However, if you don't have passion about it, you won't be very good at it and you won't get the top paying position. You may end up bouncing from job to job and people without passion are the first in line with layoffs come (and in SW they always come). Know, though, that SW development in the real world is nothing like school. Nothing at all. Even if your primary task is coding it's still going to be different than you think it is.

Additionally, coding is not the only route to go if you have a CS degree. There are lots of jobs that require little to no coding, though you probably need to start off coding for a few years at the least.

In the end, only you can decide. Keep in mind that what you are passionate about as a 20-something will not be the same when you are 30,40,50 something. Every job has it's downside and upside.

(BTW: even 150-250k is not enough to life a lavish lifestyle. You may think it will when you are 20-something, but it does not. You'll be comfortable, but if you want lavish you need to something else [or become a CEO, CTO, or COO of a major SW company]. But that's a different story).

"The median salary for a programmer is about $91K with supervisory jobs paying around $120K."

Don't know where you got your data from, but I was offered several jobs in NYC over 10 years ago that were paying 150K+. I assume things have only gone up.

I lived in San Diego at that time making 110k. Still living in SD now, but making 190k. I could make about 25-50% more in SF. The premium is generally even more for NYC.

As for this list:

"

Other benefits of Chiropractic

- independence

- active all day

- human interaction

- flexible hours

- mobility, you can take your skills anywhere"

The same can be said for SW developers except "active all day", but, of course, with flexible hours you can run/be active whenever you want (within reason).

That said, any job you hate is not a good job. You'll never be a top performer if you don't have passion. Top performers make the most money.

Doctors/paramedics/nurses are all obviously useful in emergency medicine situations. However despite their qualities doctors are generally horrible at treating running injuries and many other sports injuries, and the OP seems to be interested in this field.

Listen to this guy. After a few years in the real world, "loving your job" gets exposed for the fiction it is. I found the more money I made, the more I tolerated my job. My friends that "love their job" and make about 1/4 what I do, complain non-stop. How much do they really love their job?

combine the two a/o go work in technology of sports science.

have both,

go for your dreams wrote:

Doctors/paramedics/nurses are all obviously useful in emergency medicine situations. However despite their qualities doctors are generally horrible at treating running injuries and many other sports injuries, and the OP seems to be interested in this field.

That's why the ones good at treating running injuries have lines around the block.

Mine charges my insurance company $325 for a 20 minute treatment where he's with me for no more than 5 minutes. It's easy money.

You think that with a 100k job you will have a lavish lifestyle?My brother and brother in law are in computer science. They both work for the government and make well into the 100k's, and haven't written code in ages. Money isn't all it is cracked up to be. Most men who work spend 1/3 of their lives after college at work. Why not make it something you like doing? That said, job satisfaction has many layers. There is the issues of whether your job is stressful or not, if you have good co-workers, a nice boss, good hours, and whether you feel intrinsically satisfied with your contribution to society. Most people learn to spend more as they make more. For money focused people, it means never having enough. If you are just out to make a lot of money to spend it on material things, you are in for a hard life.For the record, very few PT's or chiropractors work exclusively with athletes, no matter what your intention. Everyone gets athletes as clients, but you will also treat more than your share of medicare patients, worker's comp, disability, etc...that will make it feel like you have the worse job in the world.

I can give you some personal insight from my career choice. I got my undergrad in Electrical Engineering (focus on Electromagnetic and Analog design) and a Masters in Electrical focusing mainly on Digital Signal Processing and Embedded applications. I currently work as a new product design engineer, where I get to design hardware and embedded applications.

The reason I'm giving you my background is because I was once in a similar situation as you - and being 18-19 years old and deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life is slightly terrifying. I didn't know if I wanted to code and develop for the rest of my life, but chose this career path based on salary and the fact that I didn't hate it. Now that I am in the field, new product design is actually a cool field to be in. It's challenging, rewarding and it's your job to stay on top of new technology advancements, e.g. when NFC was first coming into the picture I was tasked to get hardware and prototype a working application in one of our projects.

In the end, it's up to you. I can see how being a code monkey could be mundane, but maybe start looking into the different types of careers that your degree could place you in before making that decision.

So, there have been some numbers being tossed around here, and I just wanted to throw my experiences in. Quite a few of my friends in CS have graduated over the last couple years, and most of them have landed in nice, $100k+ (not including benefits) jobs right out of school.

There are a lot of commonalities between success in CS and in running. To do well, you must love the subject (or the sport). Work on personal side projects, and talk about them when it comes time for the interview. Finally, make sure you get internships during the summer, it helps broaden your horizons (and makes your GPA irrelevant).

It's also worth noting that while developer salaries do cap out around $150-160k, if you move into management or some kind of architect role you can start pulling in $200k+.

$0.02 contributed

as a pt chiro you get to work with people without y chromosomes.

Maybe you read this, maybe you don't. 8 years ago I had to make the same choice, and I chose VERY poorly. I chose to follow my passion - teaching. 3 unemployed years later, I went back to school for computer science.

Money matters. I'm not talking the difference between 50-80k a year. I'm talking about the difference between $10/hr and 80k a year. In 3 years looking for non-tech jobs, I never got paid more than $10/hr. As a INTERN (that's right a friggin intern), I made $22.50.

Here is the cool thing - I do get to do what I love. Sure, software isn't the coolest thing in the world, but as I've advanced, I've gotten to choose the field that I apply my skill to. Guess what? I build applications that help apply big-data to students in an effort to help raise performance.

So, by quitting a teaching profession that paid nothing, I've been able to contribute to the education of MILLIONS of students as a software developer. And I make 2x as much...go figure...

If I could do it over again, I would do 2 years of focused liberal arts, and 2-3 years of hard science/math/career focused study.

4 years of being a Philosophy major was good, but by the 3rd year I realized I was more interested in the real world.

Schools like Deep Springs follow this model - 2yrs of the classics, and then you, "....go someplace else".

The real advantage of an honors program in a decent state school is you can do both.

After 20 years, those who can read and speak well, learn new things quickly, and lead/guide others are the ones who make the most money. Persuading people from a distance is the most valuable skill you can have.

If you think you can make enough to be happy and support a family, if you choose to have one, then go with your passion over the money.

I work on a trading desk (will earn $150-200k this year) and constantly think about leaving and what else I could be doing. Money is great at first, but after a while you begin to realize it's all bullshit and you need far less to be happy than initially thought.

I'm still relatively young, but know people in their 40s/50s who think they're stuck or are too scared to leave. Don't be one of those people - it's not worth it.