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Best and worst degrees for getting a high salary job?

Which degrees are most / least valued by employers, and lead to high / low salary jobs (considering they're studied at a reasonable university)? In my opinion:


Best
Medicine
Dentistry
Veterinary Medicine
Optomery
Engineering
Law
Chemistry
Economics

Worst
Music
Philosophy
History
Psychology
English
Rest of Humanities

P.S. We are considering that these subjects are studied at Above average to very good universities, so please don't include employment statistics which include bad Universities
(edited 8 years ago)

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Reply 1
Best: What you said, maybe add Physics and accounting / maths as well

Worst: All the random degrees like American studies
(edited 8 years ago)
:yawn: this is getting so dull now. We get it, if you do anything other than STEM (with a few exceptions) you'll end up with a **** job.

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Original post by zigglr
Which degrees are most and least valued by employers, and lead to high / low salary jobs (considering they're studied at a reasonable university)? In my opinion:


Best
Medicine
Dentistry
Veterinary Medicine
Optomery
Law
Chemistry
Economics

Worst
Music
Philosophy
History
Psychology
English
Rest of Humanities

P.S. We are considering that these subjects are studied at reasonably good to very good universities, so please don't include employment statistics which include bad Universities



Engineering should be high of the best list. Way above chemistry and law.
Reply 4
Original post by PeakBellCurve II
Engineering should be high of the best list. Way above chemistry and law.


Oh yeah forgot about Engineering
Reply 5
Engineering, physics, law shouldnt be on there. Maybe accounting and finance too.
Reply 6
Original post by nickmurp
Engineering, physics, law shouldnt be on there. Maybe accounting and finance too.


Engineering yes, Physics not so sure. And Law is one of the most valued by employers IF studied at a reasonable University, as it is a difficult degree and useful for businesses. However if studied at a crap Uni then not so much
Reply 7
We have way too many lawyers. Physics graduates can get pretty much any finance related job they are good enough for, including IB.
Original post by zigglr
Which degrees are most / least valued by employers, and lead to high / low salary jobs (considering they're studied at a reasonable university)? In my opinion:


Best
Medicine
Dentistry
Veterinary Medicine
Optomery
Engineering
Law
Chemistry
Economics

Worst
Music
Philosophy
History
Psychology
English
Rest of Humanities

P.S. We are considering that these subjects are studied at Above average to very good universities, so please don't include employment statistics which include bad Universities


You forgot art as one of the worst subjects. That sub wont get you anywhere


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Original post by nickmurp
Engineering, physics, law shouldnt be on there. Maybe accounting and finance too.


They all lead to amazing jobs. You can become a Lawyer, chartered accountant, Investment Banker etc. So they should be on there


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Reply 10
Original post by nickmurp
We have way too many lawyers. Physics graduates can get pretty much any finance related job they are good enough for, including IB.


As can Law grads. Law will still lead to a high salary job even if they don't become a Lawyer, all firms want to hire Law grads even in non - Law - related positions
Why does everyone seem to think finance is the dream job? The big money's gone now from Broking and Trading unless you're the best of the best (in which case the degree you study is hardly going to have much of an effect), and I'd say that 80% of the people I know (family friends, my dad was a broker) who did it seem to be (overweight) divorced alcoholics. I hardly saw my dad until I was about 10 when he started cutting back on the hours, he'd leave home at 6 and get back around 1-2 (after meeting clients), he was constantly depressed or angry, and the happiest I've seen him in his working career is when he quit his job to work as a shelves stacker for a year.
I'm only in second year at uni and already my two friends who do physics are joking about their complete unemployability, I personally know 8 chemist graduates who transferred onto my course (2nd year of a 5 year degree - Chem Eng) because they realised that unless you want to do a phd you just end up as a lab monkey, and that seems to be a the fate of a lot of people who study biomedical sciences as well.
The others are good in that they directly lead to a job, but this idea that generic science degrees are a golden ticket to a well paying job and are much much better than other humanities degrees are utter delusion - I'd certainly take a IR undergrad degree over a chemistry or physics one.
Just do one of dem quantitative degrees of some similar sort of course. My mate was a college college dropout at 17 but did accountancy or sum **** at nite school and reached a startin salary of 30K by age 20. Fast forward 3 years and he is already up to 40K with bitches falling off him - clearly numerical/quantitative path is the way to go. By comparison all the crackers from school that did homosexual **** like Geography, Psych after graduation even after MA pretty much spend all day wanking.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Tadpole123
Why does everyone seem to think finance is the dream job? The big money's gone now from Broking and Trading unless you're the best of the best (in which case the degree you study is hardly going to have much of an effect), and I'd say that 80% of the people I know (family friends, my dad was a broker) who did it seem to be (overweight) divorced alcoholics. I hardly saw my dad until I was about 10 when he started cutting back on the hours, he'd leave home at 6 and get back around 1-2 (after meeting clients), he was constantly depressed or angry, and the happiest I've seen him in his working career is when he quit his job to work as a shelves stacker for a year.
I'm only in second year at uni and already my two friends who do physics are joking about their complete unemployability, I personally know 8 chemist graduates who transferred onto my course (2nd year of a 5 year degree - Chem Eng) because they realised that unless you want to do a phd you just end up as a lab monkey, and that seems to be a the fate of a lot of people who study biomedical sciences as well.
The others are good in that they directly lead to a job, but this idea that generic science degrees are a golden ticket to a well paying job and are much much better than other humanities degrees are utter delusion - I'd certainly take a IR undergrad degree over a chemistry or physics one.

There are not only sales and trading in finance jobs you know. There are everything from casual hours of corporate finance to the long hours of investment banking. The fields is huge. The pay is usually high, and you can climb the career ladder much faster in any other field.
Original post by zigglr
Which degrees are most / least valued by employers, and lead to high / low salary jobs (considering they're studied at a reasonable university)? In my opinion:


Best
Medicine
Dentistry
Veterinary Medicine
Optomery
Engineering
Law
Chemistry
Economics

Worst
Music
Philosophy
History
Psychology
English
Rest of Humanities

P.S. We are considering that these subjects are studied at Above average to very good universities, so please don't include employment statistics which include bad Universities


You forgot languages. That can be one of the better ones.
Reply 15
Original post by zigglr
As can Law grads. Law will still lead to a high salary job even if they don't become a Lawyer, all firms want to hire Law grads even in non - Law - related positions


Lollllll. In your dreams.
Reply 16
Original post by justag
Lollllll. In your dreams.


Haha, you :biggrin:
law is nowhere near the best, shouldnt be on that list.
When will these threads ever end?! Oh wait... I started some myself :/
Anyway, my twopence:
BEST (in no particular order)
Engineering (duh!)
Medicine
Economics (with mathematical and statistical content)
Physics
Maths
Other healthcare fields such as nursing and radiology, dentistry, vet med etc.
Anything really which involves maths
WORST
Anything with a low probability of a high return on your Β£27,000+ investment! Sadly, this includes degrees in the Arts and Humanities.
Reply 19
Languages are underrated. Few people speak languages fluently in this country (important ones I mean) so you get a nice extra pay premium and less competition for jobs. Win!

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