I am currently a 3rd year junior undergraduate student studying business in New York City at Baruch College. I have been very indecisive in terms of what career path to pursue. To be completely honest, I am someone who cares more about the monetary side of a job, one that pays wells; one that is at least six figures. Currently I have not decided on a major yet. My GPA is also on the lower side of the scale due to slacking off during my prior years in college. However, I am set on bringing that up. With all that being said, what do you guys suggest in terms of a career path/major choice for me? What jobs will make the most money? What I have heard so far is that students who pursue the finance field, which is a good 80% of my school, tend to be very successful afterward when it comes to Investment banking and begin making a good amount of money right out of college. My other side of the thought process is going for the medical field. Yes, I know that I should not simply want to go into something like that for the sole purpose of money but it is actually something that I find a slight interest in. I have also been told that doctors do not make as much coming out of college and take a while to make a lot of money. (Also, how come multiple websites online ex.USA ranking and such claims that the top 10 earning jobs in the America all fall under the medical field?) In terms of personality, I am also more for the introverted and quiet type of guy. Will that affect me at all if I do decide to maybe do finance since I know that it is a field that almost requires a lot of networking. Any and all feedbacks/advices are greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Six-figure jobs are uncommon for recent college graduates; it usually takes some time to work your way up there. There are many fields where you can eventually get to six figures if you work a while and work your way into management or executive level roles. Industries/fields where you can get there faster are actuarial science/risk management, finance (especially quantitative finance), perhaps accounting (especially at a big prestige firm), and investment banking.
Medical doctor salaries range a lot. Primary care doctors average around $223,000 a year, whereas specialists average around $329,000 a year. That can range anywhere from around $200-250K for subfields like pediatrics, family medicine, endocrinology, internal medicine, rheumatology and neurology to $400-500K for subfields like dermatology, radiology, orthopedics, cardiology and plastic surgery. You can read through the Medscape Physician Compensation Report from 2018 here (https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2018-compensation-overview-6009667#4).
However, do remember that doctors often have a lot of debt from medical school. The median cost for med school is $200-250K, and unless your parents are wealthy and willing to pay for it - or unless you get one of the very few scholarships that are available for med school - you will probably be financing most of it with loans. So even if you’re making $200K in your first job out of residency, you’ll be paying back those loans for a significant chunk of your career. Under standard repayment (10 years), you’ll probably be paying around $2500 to $3000 a month on your student loans.
Have you taken the classes that would allow you to be admitted to Zicklin? If you are good at math, statistics and quantitative modeling is a major that can lead to lucrative positions in financial modeling after college. Those often pay pretty well. Actuarial science is another major that can lead to high salaries; actuaries average around $98K, so most actuaries will probably reach around six figures by mid-career. Accountancy and finance are also majors that can potentially lead to high salaries; accountants usually average in the mid five figures, but depending on what you do and how high you ascend you could make more. The marketing management major is also a decent choice; people who work in marketing don’t generally start out very high, but marketing managers can make six figures or chose by mid-career. Industrial/organizational psychologists can also make pretty high salaries - the average for I/O psychologists who work in private industry is about $100K - but you usually need at least a master’s to do that, and a doctoral degree is preferable.
On the arts & sciences side, the financial mathematics major within the math department could also lead to those lucrative quant positions I talked about. Combine it with the right CS classes (you may have to go outside Baruch, since they only offer CIS) and you could get into data science.
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Because most of them do? Medical and and other health professions training programs (like dentistry, optometry, podiatry, etc.) are often long, expensive, and include a lot of science and a lot of standardized testing. A lot of these programs also control the number of people who go into them every year (medicine does it via the limited number of spots in med programs and residencies each year). Because of that, demand is usually higher than supply, and doctors and dentists can therefore benefit from high salaries. Certain nursing professions, like nurse anesthetist and other nurse practitioner specialties, have similar characteristics.
A lot of these rankings list different medical specialties separately. For example, CNBC lists anesthesiologists, surgeons, obstetricians and gynecologists, “physician,” psychiatrists, and pediatricians separately. All of those are types of physicians; in my opinion, they should be listed as one job, but many listings don’t. (They also list oral and maxillofacial surgeons, orthodontists, prosthodontists, and dentists separately, but those are all types of dentists.)
Other non-medical jobs on the CNBC list include financial advisor, financial manager, lawyer*, actuary, business operations manager, and medical and health services manager. Business Insider includes other jobs in technology, business, and engineering, including plant manager, UX manager, IT program manager, data architect, corporate controller, R&D manager, medical science liaison and patent attorney.
https://www.businessinsider.com/highest-paying-jobs-in-america-2017-3#-5
*Lawyers’ salaries are bimodal. The ones who work at BigLaw firms can easily start in t he $140-180K range. Ones who begin as in-house counselor for businesses or at smaller firms start out at less, usually in the $60-90K range. But lots of lawyers stuck doing document review or working at public interest or nonprofits often make less.