Conflict: Major based on money or passion?

Firstly, making a lot of money is never guaranteed no matter what you decide to major in.

Secondly, you have to weigh your desire for money against your desire to like what you do for said money.

Lastly, studies show happiness doesn't go up much beyond about 80k/year (assuming you're single).

Do what you love and get really good at it. This way you will make more money than what's average for that profession, and you will be happier.

I thought some chiropractors made north of $100k.

SW developer salaries max out fast and the job can have high stress and long hours. Also, you won't get rich as a SW developer. $100k is not much either really.

physicians (medical field) make way way more. finance people make way way more. dentists make way way more and can do a 4 day work week too.

Computer science is probably the most lucrative field to get into currently. If you are even mediocre you should have no trouble getting a good paying job right out of school. Contrast that with most other majors where even if you're brilliant you will be making less than $40k/year without a lot of experience or a higher degree. I'm not saying you should stay in CS if you really hate it, but it is a useful skill to have. You could major in CS and complete the pre-reqs for PT or chiro school. Completing the pre-reqs will give you the foundational education you need without requiring you to double major. If it works out, great, and if it doesn't, you have something to fall back on. It would also likely set you up well for grad school in something science related if you decided to go that route.

Think about this: graduate students in my area live on less than $18k/year before taxes and get by just fine on this. Money is kind of tight, but unless you need to buy a new car or something, it's doable. People with a CS degree in this same area start out at about $60k/year. This means with a CS degree you could work for one year and then not work for two years if you desired such a thing. That's pretty crazy.

You're one semester in and you're realizing this. If you hit the 2k mark in a 8k/10k college XC race and you're not feeling confident and strong and are in over your head in pain, you would probably be in big trouble. And that's going for running, which you probably love and which you've trained for many kilometers and hours before. Life is a different kind of race. With much more serious consequences, variables, uncertainties. Yes, it looks like continuing down your CS path is bad news on all cylinders. The question is, do you have the options at your University, personal interests, and parental circumstance/flexibility* to take other paths?

Hopefully, there are some Letsrun forumites in the industries you're interested in who can provide insight. It would be a good idea to see some career counselors at your school and do some research on the internet and Linkedin to learn about new job-roles in existing and emerging industries, etc. and new kinds of opportunities or spins on existing professions/occupations.

What do your parents do for a living--is a huge question, influencing the whole range of expectations they would have and also what range of freedom you have to work with.

It's good to ask these hard questions early.

As the Tao Te Ching says,

Verse 63

"Easy promises engender little trust;

Taking things lightly leads to great difficulty.

Because the sage never discounts difficulty,

He never experiences great difficulty."

Also, if you have some flexibility in classes you are taking (electives for degree requirements), by all means, acquire some business skills and take some classes which would put you in the "enterprising" mindset, in terms of new ideas and social networking, else you're gonna have a helluva time in life trying to reconcile your passions and your standard of living ambitions.

Even though my good friend was accepted into the business school (US top 25) he was really passionate about horticulture. Against his parents wishes he followed his plant man dream. He eventually went to graduate school as well. This was 8 and 5 years ago.

Update: My friend makes $28,000 per year working for a major US City and has hardly put a dent in repaying his student loans. Salary cap on that job in the city is approximately 52k for the guys in the supervisor positions. He's still a Horticulturist I. Meanwhile, his same age friends who pursued more lucrative degrees (some business, other engineering) are all in the 80+ range.

Why do you think so many chicks with liberal arts degrees end up going to back into something like nursing school righ away? Money.

my friend wrote:

Even though my good friend was accepted into the business school (US top 25) he was really passionate about horticulture. Against his parents wishes he followed his plant man dream. He eventually went to graduate school as well. This was 8 and 5 years ago.

Update: My friend makes $28,000 per year working for a major US City and has hardly put a dent in repaying his student loans. Salary cap on that job in the city is approximately 52k for the guys in the supervisor positions. He's still a Horticulturist I. Meanwhile, his same age friends who pursued more lucrative degrees (some business, other engineering) are all in the 80+ range.

Why do you think so many chicks with liberal arts degrees end up going to back into something like nursing school righ away? Money.

Is your friend happy? Money doesn't make everyone happy if the means to get it is unfulfilling.

I looked up the average salary for a physical therapist. In 2012, it was around $81,000. Of course, that's average and the starting salary would presumably be lower. Also, I'd guess most PTs work with the elderly and jobs with athletes would be hard to come by. With that said, it's not bad money. I'd urge your father to back off. He's not making this any easier for you. It's not like you are considering a change to art history. The bigger issue here is your desire for a "lavish lifestyle." That pursuit is a losing game, but that's a deeper topic for another day.Starting college is not an easy time for many young people. I wish you well.

stick with computer science. i know exactly how you feel. i was the same way at your age. but, all that "follow your passion" stuff is pure crap.

the world is going to be continually automated, so any sort of computer science knowledge will be very benefitial. you will want to have a marketable skill.

i was an accountanting major in college. it was definitely not my passion, but i was good at it. now i am 31, making great money. the business world is actually pretty fun. i have plenty of time to pursue other passions outside of work and the funds to do it.

what is sad is watching my friends who pursued their passion for ancient history, or art, etc. and now they are really struggling. being 30 and making 8/hour at the coffee shop is depressing.

one more option, is to graduate quick, work hard, save up as much as you can in your 20s. it is possible you can be a millionaire by your early 30s. then you will have the freedom to follow your passions.

Remember, there are more than just programming jobs out there. The world needs more database analysts that only do light coding. Or you could go into IT, doing systems administration or security. I thought i'd be a coder but ended up with a job I enjoyed way more with less stress in IT.

If you're only doing it for the money you're either going to burn out or end up hating it. The people in my computer science orientation who said they picked their degree based on money ended up switching majors. It gets a lot harder and all of the required math and science is a lot of work. Plus, when you land in the real world, if you hate the work your employer will figure that out and you wont exactly be a desired employee. When they ask you why you want the job, wanting a big salary isnt a winning answer.

"Myth #3: You have to follow your passion, and welding isn’t your passion.

“Follow your dreams!” is a phrase that our culture is in love with these days. The idea is that in high school or college you’ll realize what you love to do, and then get an education that follows so that you can have your “dream job.” What this actually ends up doing though is simply filling teens and twentysomethings with a whole lot of angst about what to do with their lives. When options are seemingly limitless, we have a really hard time choosing. We end up thinking that our lives are ruined if we don’t find that one thing we really love doing.

Thankfully, and although this is extremely hard to realize sometimes, your life isn’t limitless. The reality is that most people, especially in their late teens and early twenties, have no idea what they actually want to do. But because of the stereotypes that surround blue collar work, they go to business or law school by default, because having an office job is better than being an elevator technician. How could anyone possibly be passionate about fixing elevators? The answer to that might surprise you.

There’s a lot of work being done to show that passion or fulfillment in your workplace doesn’t come through “following your dreams,” but a whole host of factors that are very different from that outdated advice. In fact, research is finding that passion follows hard work and being good at what you do, rather than precedes it. What this means practically is that if you grease your elbows and master the trade of being a plumber, you’ll actually come to enjoy your work.

The truth is that our “passion” ends up being a combination of what we’re good at and what we work hard at. Fulfillment at work is more about mastery and autonomy and balance than about a pre-existing passion. Love for your work rarely springs from fulfilling a built-in burning desire in your heart to do that one thing in the world and that one thing only. In fact, turning a hobby you’re passionate about into a job is often a surefire way to kill that burning desire good and dead."

May help you answer your question, or may not. But I recommend doing something you see yourself working hard at and being satisfied with at the end of the day, not what pays you the most if you're bored out of your mind and are wasting half the day.

If you like money and working with injured athletes the answer is obviously to go to medical school and become a real doctor. Why aren't you considering this?

You will never be employable in a field you hate. Your best chance of success lies in the field you excel at. For someone like you, the little known, uncommon job offers by far the best statistical odds.

Is money your passion? For some it is.

There were some aerospace engineer majors here posting that they couldn't get jobs - too many people in the field!

Out of the gate, certain majors have higher starting salaries. However, in most industries, after a while, writing, working with people, planning, and being flexible are what get you ahead. And some luck. I am sure there are property developers in Detroit who are just as capable as those in Atlanta, and one group is stinking rich, and the other is doing...ok.

The real truth is that 10 years out of college, people don't care. They want to see experience. And they want to see success - you accomplished something. So if you set a goal to learn Chinese, and understand Chinese buiness practices over a 5 year period, and even remotely accomplish by living in Wuhan are someplace like that, employers see this as a success. Many would not, but some would.

When people talk about, "passion" they really mean a desire for some success. That is normal. that is why startups are so appealing - the work you do has a direct impact on the outcome of the business.

Pick a company/industry where you like the people, like the pace (its easy to get bored in a slow company) and there are some wealthy people at the top. If the people running the company are scraping by, pick something else. That is my opinion.

Major in something you can turn into a lucrative career.

Minor in something you are passionate about. (Assuming it's something that is not directly marketable like history, philosopphy etc.)

I'm 24 and already going back to school for petroleum engineering.

I considered continuing and doing a PhD in chemistry (my undergrad major), but I thought about it, and with only 2.5-3 more years I can have another undergraduate in petroleum engineering. A bachelors in pet eng can get you a job with 85-90k right out of school, with an average mid-career salary of around 140k. Most chem PhDs don't make that much (chem bachelors make around 35-40k), and certainly wouldn't right out of school.

Add in the fact that I love travelling and speak 3 languages fluently (french, English, Spanish), and a good deal of german, and petroleum engineering is a much better fit for me.

Of course I could do this because I have no student loans (parents pay), and I know everyone isn't afforded that.

I currently work in finance. Do I love what I do? Absolutely not. Do I hate it? Absolutely not! I would love to have some sort of outdoors job or coaching job, but they just dont pay. I make a great salary straight out of school. Work life balance isn't awful. The money I make gives me the ability to a lot of fun things that I couldn't do making 40k a year. Its a small sacrifice with literally a big pay off. Unless you really hate what you are doing I guess. Plus make some money early on, save up and then maybe make a career transition later on!

I'm a software guy, and if you don't really like it, then you will probably be unhappy and struggle to make a ton of money. It's a career where the technology is always changing, and if you don't have the passion, curiosity, and problem-solving skills, then it's probably not the best fit for you.

While demand is good and salaries are good, they're not *that* good. There are plenty of other jobs/careers out there that are comparable in terms of salary. There may be a lot of software guys earning $80-100k, but you need to work really, really hard, make sacrifices, and be exceptional to get over $150-200k. And consider that many of the high-paying jobs are in the big cities (NYC, Bay Area) where cost of living is outrageous. So 120k in SF is comparable to 70-80k in the midwest.

Software is not going to get you a "lavish" lifestyle unless you hit the startup lottery and your company gets bought by Facebook or Google. Even then, investors and founders are the ones who get most of the money.

I would suggest finding a well-paying career in a field that you like. Physical therapy seems to fit that bill.

You're only a freshman, so you can take a little time and work your way through some more classes before you make a decision on which to choose. Take classes relevant to both fields. You might even find something else that interests you and pays well.