<p>They’re designing the M1A3 
and at some point we’re gonna design another brand new tank I’m sure.</p>
<p>I think that’s another key thing to being marketable: don’t have any inhibitions about working for companies whose products are meant to kill, be it Lockheed Martin or Philip Morris (Marlboro).</p>
<p>peter_parker: No you don’t. A lot of people with engineering degrees don’t even go into engineering.</p>
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<p>A fair portion of the graduating economics majors at my LAC are going to Goldman, UBS, etc. It’s a very common route in my college’s economics department to break into investment banking.</p>
<p>i’d actually rather build weapons for lockheed martin or make ads for Philip Morris than work at goldman sachs</p>
<p>I mentioned actuaries because a friend of my graduated with the degree, has a decent gpa, and has passed the first 3 tests needed to be employable. No work to be found. He contacted Actuarial professional groups, they said it’s hard for a newly minted student because those with experience are getting the jobs. So yes, eventually you can get a job, but right now it’s tight.</p>
<p>What do you do if you’re major isn’t currently in demand and your skillset is rather narrow?</p>
<p>Mike</p>
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This is why I posed the question, “most” marketable. Given your example, I could say I want to be a Rockstar, and if I awesome I could be successful, but how many Rockstar jobs are truly available?</p>
<p>Maybe I should say a major that will get you high compensation and provide flexibility in lifestyle and be in demand now and years to come.</p>
<p>For those of you saying CS, I’d say those days of easy money are coming to an end? Why, the majority of the work is being shipped over seas. People in India and China that are very well educated and can complete with US programmers will work for $100.00 a day as opposed to being billed out by a large consulting company at anywhere from $200.00 to $300.00 per hour!</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<p>Engineering is extremely marketable out of college. Most engineers do enter the engineering field, but you start out high. CS also goes that same career path into a high-paying technical position which you can use to break into business as time goes on. Or you can just make $100k a year making cool ****. </p>
<p>Math/Stat/Physics is essentially the same as above. They are also extremely marketable majors, but people majoring in this will not get a high-paying job out of college, simply because one doesn’t have relevant work skills yet (I speak from experience). That said, technical skills are by far the most valuable in the marketplace, and so once one has other skills, one’s salary will increase dramatically.</p>
<p>Economics is like the above majors. It’s not very good right out of college, but once you have other skills, those math skills will start paying off immensely. You’re likely going to go in to either a sales/management job right out of college, unless you are a top student, but you’ll generally have a more math/analytical background than business majors, which puts you at a large advantage compared to your peers after a few years, but is essentially a business major right after college. You can also try to break into consulting/i-banking, but that’s harder.</p>
<p>Finance/Accounting is great right out of college. But as time goes on, you’ll have less marketable skills than people who have taken more technically challenging majors. Still not a bad degree, but certainly not top tier.</p>
<p>Business majors in general are employable, as one learns to write and communicate in the business world, but like in the liberal arts majors, a lack of technical skills will hamper growth. If one can add foreign language skills to this major, it will be a major boost.</p>
<p>Liberal Arts majors can write and communicate. This is a very, very important skill, but unfortunately, there is no technical skill to go along with it. Office/Management/Teaching/Consulting jobs will all hire you for these skills though.</p>
<p>Biology/Chemistry majors generally leads to lab/research work. I think it is actually extremely important for bio/chem majors to work in labs in undergrad, even if they are pre-meds, simply because failing med school. Biochem is apparently far and away the most marketable degree in this field. (someone tell me why).</p>
<p>CS is the most marketable major by a longshot.</p>
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<p>This is false. Job outlook for software engineers is excellent. Check the BLS. </p>
<p>Also, those who are better at their job are more productive, but it is especially true with programming. You really may not be saving much by going with the cheap guys . . .</p>
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<p>Totally agree from lots of personal experience. If you are good, it pays very well very quickly too.</p>
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This is obviously BS. </p>
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I think CS is extremely marketable. But I don’t think you can say it’s way more marketable than other Engineering majors which are also in very high demand (Chem E/Mech E/EE).</p>
<p>“You have to work in engineering for the rest of you life.”</p>
<p>The fact that half of MIT engineering grads don’t work in engineering and that it appears that somewhere between a quarter and a third of the job postings on the ENGINEERING recruitment website at my state school are for non-Engineering jobs seems to argue. You’re not even close. Not only are you wrong, you’re speaking opposite to the truth.</p>
<p>“For those of you saying CS, I’d say those days of easy money are coming to an end? Why, the majority of the work is being shipped over seas. People in India and China that are very well educated and can complete with US programmers will work for $100.00 a day”</p>
<p>[Michigan</a> Engineering | 2007-2008 Salary Information](<a href=“http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/20072008.html]Michigan”>http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/20072008.html)</p>
<p>Median salary for a Bachelors in CS from UMich, $76,900. Facts say you’re wrong. Now, the job that would otherwise gone to someone who got a 20-credit certificate in programming from a community college might see their job go oversees, but the job of the guy with a bachelors from a good university in CS has great job outlook. </p>
<p>In general, people in China and India are not very well educated, and the ones who are aren’t working for pennies.</p>
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<p>1) There are way more software jobs than engineering jobs.
2) CS is more analytical and more general than either of those majors (well, maybe not when compared to certain subareas of EE–systems engineering can be pretty abstract). This comes in handy when doing something other than programming. In engineering, you spend a lot of time studying details that are irrelevant if you don’t want to work as an engineer in industry. </p>
<p>I’m saying this without any bias–I’m an electrical engineering student.</p>
<p>1) There are also a lot less EE majors than CS majors.
2) As a EE major, you have math and physics skills. I don’t think you’re significantly less marketable than a CS major outside of CS. Sure, the things you learn might not be as general, but to learn that stuff, you get to show to employers that you are comfortable with calc, with basic physics, and with systems of equations. </p>
<p>It’s not easy stuff, and I think it’s pretty valuable. CS might be more valuable, but I think the gap is smaller.</p>
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<p>CS programs require more formal mathematics, and physics skills are irrelevant unless you want to work in a lab or as an engineer.</p>
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<p>These are things that CS majors learn as well . . . they even take classes where they learn how to write programs that numerically solve these types of problems.</p>
<p>I’m not hating on physics and engineering–I’m an electrical engineering student studying a physics-y area of that field. I just realize that what I learn in classes is less versatile than what a CS major learns.</p>
<p>Q: I know that half of MIT graduates go into investment banking or consulting (Thanks to Sakky’s numerous posts on that issue^^), so what kind of non-engineering stuff can engineering graduates do, given that they are NOT from top 10 schools like MIT?</p>
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First, yes. Second, physics is mathematical modeling. The type of thinking you have to do in Physics can be applied to many, many different fields. I think it looks very, very good, especially in consulting/finance.</p>
<p>Lastly, you might be right. I still think in a consulting/finance position, all engineers look great, but there’s a premium for programming skills that isn’t there in other engineering majors. </p>
<p>If you’re an engineer, you can always go into consulting/finance with those technical skills. You won’t be in as high demand as MIT, but it’s pretty marketable for outside engineering (though econ might be a better bet if you want to do that). I don’t recommend going into engineering if you know you don’t want to be an engineer.</p>
<p>How would a MS in CS compare to a BS in terms of marketability?</p>
<p>“Q: I know that half of MIT graduates go into investment banking or consulting (Thanks to Sakky’s numerous posts on that issue^^), so what kind of non-engineering stuff can engineering graduates do, given that they are NOT from top 10 schools like MIT?”</p>
<p>Engineering for a few, years, then an MBA, then whatever in the Business world. A Bachelors in Engineering is not a life long commitment.</p>
<p>How disgusting is it that the brightest people want to work in finance.</p>
<p>“How disgusting is it that the brightest people want to work in finance.”</p>
<p>The brightest people want to be paid the most. It just so happens that finance does that. If someone offered them a 1M/year engineering job, I bet they’d take it.</p>