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Your degree and your career aspirations - how do they match up?

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Original post by Princepieman
Aha, yeah, I've been found on a few :tongue:

Love it! That's exactly the same attitude I take: not caring how competitive it is and just going for it. Sure, I might not get there but it's not the end of the world and there are other routes of getting to my desired destination.

Google, Facebook (I think they pay the same in London as they do in SV), Amazon, Microsoft (in Seattle), Uber, Snapchat, eBay, Adobe, Linkedin, Bloomberg, Dropbox, Palantir, Twitter and many more, all pay in that ballpark to software engineers, designers and 'product managers'.

Of course the public companies will have more 'liquidity' in terms of stock grants vs a private company, so your 'available total compensation' would be higher at a public company vs say, a smaller startup or private tech company that is yet to be acquired/IPO. That said, if the latter does IPO/get acquired, the upside is usually higher.


Last time I checked (2011), Bloomberg paid 32k as a starting salary to its software engineers in London, which is so bad I couldn't justify attending the interview after acing the programming test. Maybe they pay well in the US, but not in the UK.
Original post by CharlieGEM
Last time I checked (2011), Bloomberg paid 32k as a starting salary to its software engineers in London, which is so bad I couldn't justify attending the interview after acing the programming test. Maybe they pay well in the US, but not in the UK.


Bloomberg is at £50k base now + sign on and stock. Confirmed from a bud with an offer for 2016 start.

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Original post by Princepieman
Bloomberg is at £50k base now + sign on and stock. Confirmed from a bud with an offer for 2016 start.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Not bad, but London prices man...
Original post by And what
Not bad, but London prices man...


Even with London prices, that's a pretty solid starting point.
I have to agree with the posts above. If you're going to adopt the defeatist attitude of "forget about grad jobs, only 5%(or whatever it is) of people get these" then you're wasting your time going to university in the first place IMO.
Can I do what I actually did?

I didn't actually have any expectations or even ideas about what I wanted to do after graduating when I was applying for or at university. Applied for all sorts from a Hydrography job with the Environment Agency to a Sales role in NatWest corporate banking. Also got an offer for the Civil Service Fast Stream but didn't want to move to London.

Degree: Geology
Jobs/Careers of Interest: University Administration
Graduate Salary Achieved: £26,000 in today's money (just under £18k at the time)
Original post by PQ
Can I do what I actually did?

I didn't actually have any expectations or even ideas about what I wanted to do after graduating when I was applying for or at university. Applied for all sorts from a Hydrography job with the Environment Agency to a Sales role in NatWest corporate banking. Also got an offer for the Civil Service Fast Stream but didn't want to move to London.

Degree: Geology
Jobs/Careers of Interest: University Administration
Graduate Salary Achieved: £26,000 in today's money (just under £18k at the time)


12-15 years ago? :wink: What made you choose the uni job, out of interest?

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Original post by Princepieman
12-15 years ago? :wink: What made you choose the uni job, out of interest?

Posted from TSR Mobile


It had the same job title as the temp job I was doing for about 40% more money :indiff:

(it was a brilliant decision - I love my job, it's fun, varied, interesting, decent pay, AMAZING holidays (45 days pa including bank holidays) and my employer and the people I work with are brilliant and seem to give a **** about my welfare)
Original post by PQ
Can I do what I actually did?

I didn't actually have any expectations or even ideas about what I wanted to do after graduating when I was applying for or at university. Applied for all sorts from a Hydrography job with the Environment Agency to a Sales role in NatWest corporate banking. Also got an offer for the Civil Service Fast Stream but didn't want to move to London.

Degree: Geology
Jobs/Careers of Interest: University Administration
Graduate Salary Achieved: £26,000 in today's money (just under £18k at the time)


How old are you? :tongue:
I always thought you were another recent grad giving up his time to the TSR deity.
Original post by Juichiro
How old are you? :tongue:
I always thought you were another recent grad giving up his time to the TSR deity.


I was a recent graduate when I joined TSR over ten years ago.

And I'm not a he :ninjagirl:
Original post by PQ
I was a recent graduate when I joined TSR over ten years ago.

And I'm not a he :ninjagirl:


Okay, so you are not that old. I estimate that you are around 35 (give or take 2 years). lol Sorry for my mistake. My experience with TSR has been that TSR females tend to display stereotypically female avatars and have names related to stereotypically female topics. You are the exception that confirms/breaks the rule. :redface: You became prominent during the TSR incident about TSR advertising dodgy ads to vulnerable TSR users. I had never noticed you before. Did you change account in the last 4 years or did you become a Mod/Assistant recently?
Original post by Princepieman
Bloomberg is at £50k base now + sign on and stock. Confirmed from a bud with an offer for 2016 start.

Posted from TSR Mobile


That's a lot of money for being such an un-bleeding-edge firm.
Degree: Music Technology (hoping to do MSc in Computing & IT Management, and a PhD)
Jobs/Careers of Interest: Business Analyst, IT Consultant, IT Support, Entrepreneur, Computing/Business Teacher
Graduate Salary Expected: £7.55ph at McDonalds
I'm still not in touch with much after two years. I study Maths and none of the careers I've heard of that naturally follow on are particularly interesting to me. I don't really expect any starting salary since I have nothing to offer an employer right now. Gotta work on that in third year. At least it's a masters so I have two more years rather than one.
Degree: Bsc Theoretical physics (aspire to maybe do a phd too)
Jobs/Careers of Interest: Tattoo artist
Graduate Salary: 0K (apprenticeships arent paid aha)


Reading this thread is kind of sad, it just seems to be people bashing the ones that want to work in finance but what if that is what they actually enjoy? And even if it isn't and they want the money, is that such a bad thing? Just because you view that career or path as wrong/boring etc doesn't mean that other people do. I personally can't stand things software development and I think I would hate to work in finance but I certainly see why people enjoy it.

Also for anyone that reads this + posted here and did graduate, did you achieve your goal?

For me the following things when choosing a career came to mind (in order of preference)

1. I enjoy the day to day and it allows me to challenge myself and improve
2. I earn enough money to eventually buy a house/get a mortgage
3. I have enough money and time pursue my hobbies outside art
4. Be able to work towards owning my own business and eventually be able to go part time
5. Be able to send my children to private school etc and be able to pay their fees for uni if they chose to go
(edited 6 years ago)
Degree: business management and finance
Jobs/Careers of Interest: gonna apply for finance schemes within car and planes manufactures and airlines. if can't get one just gonna scrap it out for a year on a work holiday visa in canada

Graduate Salary Expected: 21k in uk nmw abroad
Degree: Computer Science OR Mathematics / Computer Science [Undecided but leaning to the former]
Jobs / Careers of Interest: I'm hoping to work for a hedge fund (unlikely but absolutely massive pay); fintech market in general - most likely programming for HFT firms; analyst at an investment bank; AI technology (maybe for Tesla or Google's DeepMind); programming bespoke software and finally continuing in academia as a lecturer / researcher.
Graduate Salary Expected: Anywhere from £27.5K - £75K
(edited 6 years ago)
degree: Medicine
Job: Neurosurgeon
salary: alot of money ( i think)
Degree: Psychology, then I hope to do a masters and PhD in neuroscience
Jobs/Careers of Interest: Neuroscience research/academia
Graduate Salary Expected: £25,000 to start off with ... hope to eventually make about £60,000/year :smile:
what do you mean by "alot of money". When i say a lot of money, im thinking 200k. Also, how much do you get at first.

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