I want to get a job that will let me earn epic amounts of $$

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:48 pm

Doom wrote:
I know, kids are pricey (I'm paying some of those bills now, since there's no child support or alimony), but 60+ k a year should be enough to at least pay a 'sudden' bill for $100 without going deeper into 'poverty'.

That is true, but most people don't make that much.

I'm not trying to say knowing what to do with your money isn't important (it is), but if you're making the more common salary of 10k-20k, you are basically paying bills and that's it. No new cars every year, no new boats, just cheap, bare bones food and rent. And no amount of hard work will pull you out of that situation without some sort of great fortune. And even that's not guaranteed (See: pretty much everyone who's ever won the lottery ends up being worse off financially than they were before).

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 9:22 pm

Sure, at 10-20k, it's brutally tough...but some of those people are there because of choices they've made.

Much like your lottery winner example, if the people don't know what to do with it, luck is irrelevant. I seem to remember a story from a few years ago, a guy and his wife had 6 kids, and were living in like one room.

The whole neighborhood got together, built a nice two story house, and gave it to him, no mortgage or nothing (I think even utility was paid). A year or two later, they were back on the street, the guy made 'bad investments' using the house as collateral.

So, yeah, it's tough, and alot of people are in an unwinnable situation through no fault of their own...but alot of people are just plain losers.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:19 pm

I keep those hours 90% of the year for $120k. It's an awesome field.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Sep 17, 2010 7:15 am

Doom wrote:Sure, at 10-20k, it's brutally tough...but some of those people are there because of choices they've made.

I'm not saying that's not the case. But if "some" people are there because of choices they made, that means most are there because of things outside their control.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 11:30 pm

mean_liar wrote:I keep those hours 90% of the year for $120k. It's an awesome field.

Super. And what's the alternative to being a project controller if you're bad at math and not an engineer?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:31 am

I have no idea, sorry.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:18 am

Yeah, you're pretty screwed if "bad at math" is a personal descriptor. I mean, you can get lucky (actor, rock star, athlete), but year in, year out, top jobs in terms of satisfaction and pay have strong math requirements.

Mountain climbing is easy when you're at the top.

Realize, though, math is a skill...you can go far if you just freakin' sit down and practice.

One of my students was 21 years old, and in my remedial math class (basically 7-9th grade math). He took me semester after semester, then got his AA degree and went off to LSU.

A year later, he comes back for help...so here I am in my office, helping a former remedial student with his work in differential equations. A rare case, perhaps, but it's definitely possible to turn things around.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 1:23 am

I'll offer what I can by way of meta-advice:

1. I'm charismatic and ingratiating. I'm also not an asskisser, which I think is appreciated by most of the people I interact with. So I'm generally both memorable and likable.

2. I inspire trust by way of the quality of my work. I take huge masses of information in no particular format and then repackage it in a personalized, clean format that the clients can interpret and act on. In a more general sense, I'm paying attention to what people both need and what they want and giving it to them, while retaining a large amount of background information for whatever details about how and what the client wants to ask. The frontend they get is clean but if they want to see the sausage-making, I have that ready and decipherable. They eventually stop asking for it and everyone - owners, peers, contractors, including those that are nominally supposed to be antagonistic - eventually trust me as an impartial arbiter.

3. I have not stayed with the same employer for longer than three years at a time. I've returned to employers, but I believe loyalty is highly overrated. The 2% raise you get every year from the same employer is a 10-20% raise when you successfully acquire a slightly-more grandiose role/title/responsibility with a new employer. A very important part of this is that I relocated wherever I was needed and searched for jobs internationally.

I think those are the high points. I hope they're useful. My intent was not to be prideful though I'm very happy with the position I'm in and believe that luck was not the only reason I've managed to secure it.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 2:05 am

Communication skills cannot be overrated.

Realistically every employer wants a safe pair of hands that can act relatively autonomously. If that's you, you'll do fine bad at maths or no.

However, this stuff IS hard to plan in advance. I couldn't have told you from university where I was going to go next.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:02 pm

So. Here I am, in my freshman year. And I'm still greedy for riches and free time.

I was strongly, strongly thinking about completing my EE degree and either getting an MBA or a master's in engineering management. You know, the whole perception about middle management being cushy and all. The thing is though that if I'm planning on doing this then I need to decide right about now; I have to pick two technical cores and while I was thinking about getting two fairly hard ones because I think that they might help me with my career, if I need a good GPA then I'll pick two easy ones instead.

The thing is, is this career path actually going to get me any money and leisure in the long run or should I just hit the job market when I get my bachelor's?

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:17 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I was strongly, strongly thinking about completing my EE degree and either getting an MBA or a master's in engineering management. You know, the whole perception about middle management being cushy and all. The thing is though that if I'm planning on doing this then I need to decide right about now; I have to pick two technical cores and while I was thinking about getting two fairly hard ones because I think that they might help me with my career, if I need a good GPA then I'll pick two easy ones instead.

The thing is, is this career path actually going to get me any money and leisure in the long run or should I just hit the job market when I get my bachelor's?

Master's. No question, hands down. Management's not quite as "cushy" as people make it out to be, but you tend to get paid more for doing it, and a Master's Degree in *anything* will give you an edge in the job market that people with a Bachelor's Degree wish they fucking had.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:20 am

The MBA sounds like a risky gamble to me. Engineering Project Managers tend to have seniority and a good ability to communicate and organize, and they get their MBA after they're settled in an organization and looking to advance. If you graduate with an MBA you're an inexperienced engineer that comes with aspirations larger than your portfolio at that moment can sustain.

I'm not sure about the Masters; I don't know what that would do for you. I don't work closely enough with electrical designers to know how many of them have Master's degrees.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:23 am

Ganbare Gincun wrote: Master's. No question, hands down. Management's not quite as "cushy" as people make it out to be, but you tend to get paid more for doing it, and a Master's Degree in *anything* will give you an edge in the job market that people with a Bachelor's Degree wish they fucking had.

The most stressed people I know are middle management

They also work the most hours.

A master's will often give you an edge against an applicant with just a bachelor's degree.
Someone already in a job, with 2 or 3 years experience will generally beat both.

MBA employment has dropped substantially in the last year or so, for obvious reasons.
The top two schools in Aus have had employment on completion drop from ~99% to much, much less (I'm getting conflicting reports and I don't trust the self reported statistics. I'd guess they'd be lucky to be 50% in a management role.)

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:32 am

The reason to do the MBA is if you don't want to do Engineering.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 5:19 am

Lobbyist. As my Poli Sci teacher put it today, it's great if you like to party with other peoples' money. All you do is get money, go show legislatures a good time, and try to remember this mental whoring, not physical whoring, so you can leave the red pumps and lipstick at home. And as long as you can convince them to do things in the interest of your client, you get paid.

Hell, depending on how much pride and dignity you have, you could basically be a lobbyist that just does their job by literally being a whore.

Calibron · Post by **Calibron** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 6:37 am

Anybody here happen to know if going into academic neurology is a good idea? What about a medical technician?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 12:23 pm

Blasted wrote:The most stressed people I know are middle management
They also work the most hours.

That seems to be my experience, too. Lower and middle management can have it pretty rough.

Rathe · Post by **Rathe** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 8:00 pm

My 2 cents regarding MBA's and Engineering?

Get the Engineering degree first (master's if you want a small edge - but not much). Then get the MBA while working for a company and getting them to pay for it.

- Rathe

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Oct 26, 2010 2:39 pm

So after talking to various professors around my campus, I'm almost for sure going to pursue in academia. I like programming and embedded systems (so far), so I'm probably going to stick with EE rather than bail on out with CS. I haven't talked to any CS people, but all of the EE professors seem extremely perky and not 'beat down' by their jobs, you know?

The pay isn't exactly awesome but you really can't beat those hours nor the prestige. I'm not going to be one of those guys who insist on people calling me 'doctor' though. I don't know how it'll look to my spouse though if I only put in 6-hour workdays 4 days a week though. Maybe I'll become a part-time househusband.

Clutch9800 · Post by **Clutch9800** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 2:04 pm

Television Actor is very lucrative. They pay a LOT of money for very little work. There is hard work done on a TV set, but it isn't the actors doing it.

When you're working, the hours are quite long, but in the off season you just lay by the pool and watch the jack roll in.

They actually pay people to stand there for the actors while they block a scene out. I mean they pay people a living wage just to stand there where the actors are going to be so that the actors don't have to do it.

It's a very surreal world.

Clutch

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:42 pm

Lago wrote:I'm not going to be one of those guys who insist on people calling me 'doctor' though.

When I graduate, I will make every single person refer to me as "Doctor Captain Morgan".

(Yes, Morgan is my real name.)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:11 am

So anyway, what's this hot bullshit about professors having to RESEARCH?

That sounds a lot like homework, man.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 2:36 pm

Yeah, but you get spectacles every now and then. Of course, you're supposed to be doing research during those too.

The trick is to get students to do all of the actual leg work for you.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 2:37 pm

A few do, the vast majority don't.

For the few that do, a little of it is worthwhile, the vast majority isn't.

But unless you're going to a major Ivy League school, researching won't really pay out for you. It's one way to get promotions, but it's easier to and more efficient to do other stuff, like be on hiring committees, textbook committees, and the all-important grant-writing commitees.

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 9:57 pm

Here in Oz, your research contribution is considered much more highly than your teaching ability. Especially as the 'two tier' funding model of research or teaching universities is still being discussed by some.
I haven't known any academics to get hired by their exemplary teaching record, but I've known a few hired based on their research and one because of his industry contacts.
I believe that the basis is that even if you can't teach for peanuts, the students still have to pay the same.