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<p>Well, I’ll put it to you this way. The guys who major in non-technical fields at the elite schools often times make far less than a guy who majors in engineering or computer science at a no-name school. For example, I know several people who graduated from Stanford with degrees in the humanities (i.e. English, Art, Classics, etc.) who make significantly less than other guys who graduated from Cal State Universities, but with degrees in EECS. I would say that on a pure talent basis, those Stanford guys may be more intelligent than those Cal State guys. Yet they’re making less. Is that fair? You tell me. </p>
<p>That illustrates the central point that the money that you make is correlated to not only how good you are, but even more importantly, how marketable your field is. You can be the greatest in the world in a field that nobody wants, and you won’t make much money. On the other hand, you can be quite mediocre, or downright bad at something, but if it’s in a high-demand, high-paying field, you will probably make good money. Even a bad doctor probably makes more than a great engineer, but on the other hand, even a bad engineer probably makes more than a great Art History or Film Studies guy. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel better, some of those highly paid physicians and surgeons were themselves formerly MIT engineering students. Plenty of people at MIT pick up engineering degrees and then head off to medical school. Just because you get an engineering degree doesn’t mean that you have to become an engineer, and (perhaps surprisingly at MIT), many don’t. Many of them pick up engineering degrees purely for use as a backup career, but want to head off to non-engineering careers. For example, about 25% of EECS graduates at MIT head off to consulting and banking jobs, and that doesn’t even count those EECS people who wanted to go to consulting/banking but didn’t get an offer, so they invoke their engineering ‘backup career’. </p>
<p><a href=“http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2008/c...es/course6.html[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2008/c...es/course6.html</a></p>
<p>In fact, I have discussed ths point in great detail here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=91986[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=91986</a></p>
<p>In any case, to digress, I would say that if all you care about is money, then don’t work as an engineer. You can get an engineering degree, but not work as an engineer. Instead, go to Wall Street and get into financial services, like investment banking. A top investment banker will make more money in 1 year than the best doctor will make in his whole life, and even the entry-level bankers make outstanding amounts of money. Of course, the lifestyle is brutal with 90 hour work weeks and tremendous cutthroat competition to advance. But nobody’s ever complained about the money. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm[/url]”>http://www.careers-in-finance.com/ibsal.htm</a></p>
<p>And, if it makes you feel better, getting an engineering degree at MIT (or another top school like Stanford, etc.) is a well-trod path to getting into Wall Street.</p>