3 ms·
Lots of disagreement against this article. I graduated in 2012 with a biomedical engineering degree, and the vast majority of my collegiate graduating class ma
by oarabbus_ 7y ago
Lots of disagreement against this article.
I graduated in 2012 with a biomedical engineering degree, and the vast majority of my collegiate graduating class made more than me right out of school, including the non-engineers; I worked as a server/busboy and also as a cashier for about 6 months while constantly applying for jobs. In case you're wondering, I did have internship experience most summers in college, nothing stellar, but it was on there. I will say that 2012/2013 was an absolutely awful time to be a non-CS fresh grad in the job market. I hadn't imagined working as a server after completing an engineering degree, and the difficulty I faced in getting industry roles led me to immediately apply for a MS program.
My first "relevant"/industry job was a contract role at a medical device company that paid $22/hr in an extremely high COL area (SF Bay Area). I was likely in the bottom 15th percentile of earnings at this point. 3 years later, I'd worked my way up to ~70k annualized salary. All while doing the MS program part time.
Today I'm at a Letter Corp in tech, and while sure there are plenty of people whose earnings far exceed mine, I'd be surprised if I wasn't at least in the 80th-90th percentile of both salary and lifetime earnings of my graduating cohort.
Now, obviously you won't hear any objection from me against finding, getting, and holding the highest paying job out of school. But I certainly question if it's really as important as people claim it is. And I will say I don't know if I'd be earning as much as I do today, and I'm not sure I'd have a MS degree, had I landed a better, higher paying role out of college.
- sct202 7y agoThat's a great story, and I think something a lot of people need to hear things like your story especially for the jump from school to working. I have a friend who basically became a nomad and only recently landed his first professional job, and it seemed like every year he got more anxious and doubtful about himself.