STEM fields are great, but don't expect a career that will make you rich.

Make That Money wrote:

My STEM education DEFINITELY helped me secure my current role - no question - but my point was that if you want to make real money, you'll have to go another route. That route could be entrepreneurial, no doubt.

Honestly, I just wanted kids in school to know that while $75k sounds like the moon out of school, it isn't much once you're paying a mortgage and tuition. We can have the argument that private school are terrible another day; my point is that you will not be able to afford these types of things if you simply pursue engineering. ...

Son, you're still not making sense.

You got your high paying marketing job marketing chemicals in part because of your STEM chemical engineering degree.

It sounds a lot like pursuing your STEM degree was an essential part of making money.

Exactly. Sales engineer (I assume that's what he is?) is explicitly a STEM career -- your job is to provide technical expertise to the sales pitch.

I think what he's really saying is that you won't get rich if you stay on the technical side. Which is usually true, but not everyone has the desire or ability to go into sales or management. And seriously, there's no reason to be struggling on $150k. Live within your means, yo.

Logs into LetsRun, discovers a Hacker News thread...neat.

MSME wrote:

And seriously, there's no reason to be struggling on $150k. Live within your means, yo.

This is true, but I assume money isn't the point.

I have a PhD in EE and make about $175 salary+bonus plus a decent deal more in stock (~4 years out of grad school). I live in a city with a moderate cost of living...nowhere near CA or NYC. There's no reason I can't live very comfortably on that.

But when I look around there's not a lot of room to move up in the corporate hierarchy unless you're very brilliant and savvy or lucky.

Maybe one good thing about the typical business track is that you start out lower and there are more rungs to climb, even if it takes longer to get to the 6 figure salary range.

I think the way I'm going to deal with this is by changing jobs soon, and by seriously investigating starting a business. At least I won't get as bored in a new job, and attempting to start a business would provide plenty of motivation. Pretty scary to commit to it though.

What's the current MBA payback period? Last I looked...the best ones (like Wharton, Kellogg, etc.) were 7 years! That's a long time before the extra wages hit the wallet.

Almost nobody ever got rich taking home a paycheck. Return correlates with risk. Owning all or part of a business or doing deals where you get a part of the action are the route to getting rich. I worked for a year following graduation and then started my own business. I continued to live like a starving student the first year and now, by the third year, I am making more than my peers and looking at exponential growth the next few years. I always worry about business failure, but I correspondingly get outsized compensation for success.

Make That Money wrote:

If you want to make a lot of money and retire young, go for a business degree outside of counting beans.

If you want to make a lot of money you don't need a college degree at all.

Those making the most are athletes, entertainers and entrepreneurs that did not use their degrees at all to make money.

I am currently an undergrad in mechanical engineering, and I have noticed the same thing by observation. The floor out of college is higher, but the ladder is hard to climb. My dad has worked for a major Engineering corporation for 25+ years and nowadays he puts away 250k a year (this is in management by the way. He hasn't touched "mechanical engineer" work in a long time) but he's made this company millions!

If I know I have a brilliant engineering mind and also the social skills and charisma that 95% of my engineering undergrad peers lack what should I do once I graduate? Should I minor in business? Look to get out of the ME grunt work ASAP?