Rank the prestige of these professions - Doctor, Lawyer, Banker, Teacher, Engineer, Business Owner...

1. Doctor

Very prestigious. Difficult to obtain, helpful, well-respected profession. Also, the prestige follows you internationally. Doctor's are respected worldwide.

Also, #1 bragging trump card for parents -

"How are the kids?"

"Oh, lil johnny smarty pants is in MED SCHOOL!"

"WOW, that is great, he is so gifted."

2. Teacher

Prestige bonus points (real or imagined) - you gave up your high salary your college degree could have awarded you (BS as we all know) in order to serve the public and train the future "everythings" of America.

3. Military

Prestigious no matter how you slice it. It also depends on when you served. Introduce 2 people:

Person 1:

"So and so is a Korea/Vietnam/Gulf/Iraq vet."

"Oh, thank you for your service"

Person 2:

"So and so is an engineer"

"Neat"

4. Lawyer

Behind M.D. and Ph.D., the next most prestigious degree. You are given prestige points especially by the lower classes. "So and so is a LAWYER". They don't know that lawyer isn't all it's hacked up to be.

You are hated on by much of the middle class, perhaps envied, but also somewhat respected - they know you have 6 figures of debt. The upper class will also allow prestige points as it's what all their kids do if they have no direction. But, must attend a name school!

5. Business Owner

You create wealth and drive your own business. Prestigious in that others envy you for your lax hours and lifestyle. What they don't understand is that 20 years of eat/sleep/work afforded you a successful business and a decent lifestyle. Some will try to shortcut the process with an MBA - imho this is less prestigious to the average American. Basically, you avoid the many years of the school of hard knocks and think you should be a CEO upon graduation. You quickly learn that an MBA was a waste of time.

6. Banker

7. Marketing

8. Salesman

9. Police

10. Engineer

here is a link to a news article which addresses this very issue "occupation prestige"):

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2005-05-23-prestige-usat_x.htm

That list is way off the mark. Firefighter? Teacher? Nurse? Priest!? all rank very high. Come on. Oh sure, these are all above "ATHLETE"!! Hahaha. I'd like to meet the a-holes that actually think that. Oh, "actor".....low on the list. Engineer, architect, LAWYER, BUSINESS EXECUTIVE are all below teacher and nurse?

Ha! What a joke. That's a great example of the total crap the media puts out. Thanks USA Today!

@ some thoughts on the matter: you can't spell and you can't think. Bad list and bad examples.

some thoughts on the matter wrote:

your list is terrible. teacher at #2? give me a break. we all know that teachers below the college level only teach because they are lazy, not smart enough to actually "do" what they teach, or have valid reasons for needing all that time off.

I honestly have no idea why teacher is even mentioned with "prestige." It's NOT a prestigious profession. Like any profession, if an individual does something great, HE will be prestigious. But in general, when someone says "I'm a teacher" or "My daughter's a teacher", not many people are going to say "WOW! Really? Man that's awesome!"

First of all you seem to be aware of the financial world, but not the medical world. You stated:\"7.MD, but probably surgeon, not an eye doctor, dentist, etc.\"

If you had any knowledge of the medical world, you would know that an eye doctor is known as an opthamologist and they actually perform surgeries. The \"eye doctor\" you were probably referring to is known as an optometrist which prescribes glasses and gives eye exams.

super rankings wrote:

Rank

Doctor, Military, Lawyer, Banker, Teacher, Engineer, Business Owner, Marketing (ads etc.), Police, Salesman

snakes - bankers

enforce the snakes - military & police

owned by the snakes - doctors

support the snake legal system - lawyers

teach what they are told to teach - teachers

develop snake technologies (tasers etc) - engineers

universal prestige

alternative healer

business owner

runner

Looks like someone was a really bad student or is just jealous he didn't become a teacher. Or maybe you live in a state where education isn't valued.

I agreed with Doctors and Teachers being at the top. Especially so for teachers because they have to get a masters (and go in debt) and do not get rewarded with a high paying job.

Military

Business Owner

Police

engineer

Teacher

Lawyer

Banker

Marketing

Salesman

Yes Doctor's are lower than Salesman

90% of Doctors are lower than whale shit!

The military is one of the best cross-sections of society that you will find in any institution -- like it or not it's very representative of our society. Maybe it is a news flash to some of you, but not everyone travels in the same social circles that you do.

runn wrote:

Looks like someone was a really bad student or is just jealous he didn't become a teacher. Or maybe you live in a state where education isn't valued.

I agreed with Doctors and Teachers being at the top. Especially so for teachers because they have to get a masters (and go in debt) and do not get rewarded with a high paying job.

Looks like someone is a teacher. I never knew that you had to have a masters degree to teach? Is this something new? I have had some great teachers but have also had some piss poor teachers that only care about themselves. To think this is a low paying job is very very misleading. Look at how much time a teacher gets off and then tell me it is low paying. Even for a teacher making $30,000 a year I bet this is more like $45,000. You also have to look at the cushy government bennies that teachers get, including pensions and great health insurance. Plus there are probably people out there who are in 8th grade that could teach a 7th grader. I'm sorry that you aren't getting the praise you feel you deserve but if you did go into teaching looking for praise you should not have done that in America.

Is here any teacher?

1. Professional distance runners

1. Doctor

2. Business owner (I know that's vague)

3. Lawyer

4. Engineer

5. Banker

6. Military

7. Sales

8. Police

9. Marketing

...

455. Cashier

456. Glorified babysitter a.k.a. "Teacher"

457. Bum

1. Clergy

2. Sports Photographer

3. English Teacher

4. Doctor

5. Regular Military Officer

6. Pharmacist

7. Mathematician

8. Policeman

9. Butcher

10. Janitor

11. Gardner

12. Handyman

13. US Marine Officer

14. Auto Body Repairman

I think the prestige of a PhD depends sensitively on the field.

A PhD in social sciences is not quite as high as one in string theory!!!!

a list i created wrote:

2. Doctor - Your go to "guy" (or "girl") for health problems. They solve these problems and have a huge impact on "quality of life".

Oh please...you can't be serious, is this a joke? They "solve" health problems? Too funny...more like they treat the symptoms with drugs. Drugs that can have serious side-effects, which then require more drugs to treat the side-effects (over 100,000 deaths and over 2.5 million serious adverse events occur annually in the U.S. from "correctly-prescribed" medical drugs). And today's "doctors" seem to be oblivious to the industry-funded safety studies polluting the medical journals. Many doctors feel that as long as the drugs are "FDA-approved" all is well & good, and who cares about side-effects. And medical ERRORS are now the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S.: 😠

Medical Drug Destruction wrote:

2. Doctor - Your go to "guy" (or "girl") for health problems. They solve these problems and have a huge impact on "quality of life".

Oh please...you can't be serious, is this a joke? They "solve" health

I think it depends on the situation and the type of doctor. I have wasted thousands of dollars and many hours seeing sports medicine specialist doctors to try and treat running injuries and this just wasted my time and money and degraded my quality of life mainly because of the time used up which made my working and family life more stressful.

However, I have also had to visit the emergency room with other health problems and the doctors, nurses, radiologists all really helped me get back onto my feet and I am really grateful for that.

Paradoxically, from what I saw, the emergency room doctors and workers seemed not to be so well paid, and were obviously tired and stressed with their workload. I felt for them. The sports medicine specialist doctors in contrast seemed to be very well paid, relatively relaxed and had nice, well-furnished premises. It seemed as though the monetary rewards given to the different professionals and the impact they had on the quality of life of their patients were in fact inversely proportional to each other;