An Essay of EECS
-forwarded by Patrick Ng, author unknown, 24 June 2004

Average Berkeley EECS BS salary in 2002 was $58000. This is actually a
decline from the previous (boom) years. But still, far better than 20
or
30k.

http://career.berkeley.edu/Major2002/EECS.stm

Nationwide, EE and CS graduates had starting salaries of slightly over
50k
in 2004. Berkeley is an exceptional EECS program and Berkeley is close
to a
tech-oriented area (the SF Bay Area), so you would expect Berkeley
grads to
make more than the average. But still, 50k is still a far cry from
20-30k.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/19/pf/college/outlook_grads/index.htm

What is not captured in the starting salary information is the data
about
those who have no job offer at all. For all the problems with the
dotcom
bomb and outsourcing, it's still far easier to land a job right out of
school with an EECS degree than with a degree in, say, Peace and
Conflict
Studies. So not only do EECS grads get paid more, but they're also more
likely to get a job in the first place.

As far as the choice of becoming doctor is concerned, I think the
supposed
'wealth' of that path is greatly exaggerated, for a number of reasons.
First off, remember that if you want to be a doctor, you have to go to
medical school. With very rare exception, nobody is going to pay you to
do
that, so not only are you not making any money (and the engineers are
out
there drawing salaries), but you have to pay med-school tuition. So,
really, you're making "negative" salary all that time. Then, you have
to
complete your internship and your residency, which can easily be 5-6
years
of making peanuts (usually less than 40k a year) while working 100 hour
weeks, including regular shifts that go on for 36 hours or more without
sleep. After that, many doctors elect to pursue a subspecialty, which
is
another 3-6 years of making peanuts. Then, and only then, do you start
making serious money. And even that money isn't all that serious
anymore.
Physician salaries have not been keeping up with the rate of inflation
lately, as HMO's and PPO's have clamped down on doctor salaries.

http://people.howstuffworks.com/becoming-a-doctor14.htm

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/articles/11846-3.asp

Here are some 2002 salaries for physicians with who have been
practicing
for 3 years, meaning that they have completed all their training,
residency, and whatnot, and have therefore been in the field as fully
fledged licensed, and unsupervised doctors for 3 years. The salaries
are
good, but I don't think they're THAT good. The salaries are good only
for
certain specialties like cardiology or surgery, but keep in mind that
not
only do you have to complete a longer residency and fellowship to be
fully
trained in those specialties, but you can't just "decide" that you want
to
specialize in surgery - you have to compete for a surgical residency,
and
the competition for those spots is fierce. So you might easily wind up
in
one of the lower-paying fields like family medicine. If all you care
about
is money, ask yourself, is it really worth it to go through all that
hell
and all that debt just to make $150k a year? I don't think so.


http://www.physicianssearch.com/physician/salary2.html


Law school is a bit better if you just want money, but even then, it's
not
all it's cracked up to be. Again, lawyers have to go through 3 years of
law
school where, again, they're making a "negative" salary. Law school
ain't
no walk in the park either. The first year of law-school is especially
brutal. Nor does the pain stop once you graduate. Yes, unlike a doctor,
once you graduate, you will start making serious money if you decide to
walk in a law firm. But you will almost certainly be treated like a
workhorse grunt. Newly minted law students are graded on billable
hours, so
law firms love to work them until they drop from exhaustion. 80-100
hour
weeks at the top law firms is typical. Only when you make partner does
the
workload lighten, but there's clearly no guarantee that that will
happen,
because, again, the competition for a partner spot is brutal.


If you *really really* want to make money, if money is your primary
objective, then neither medicine nor law is the way to go. You want to
make
money? Get into investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, or
other
such positions in high finance. Here's the pathway to do it. Get your
undergrad degree in something quantititive, like engineering or perhaps
mathematics or economics, then get a job at a Wall Street investment
bank.
You'll probably make about 100k in total compensation (salary +
bonus)your
first year, and maybe 100-150k your second year, Work there for 2
years,
then go to a business school to get your MBA, preferably from Harvard,
Stanford, Wharton, or perhaps Sloan. With your MBA go back to a top-end
Wall Street bank where you'll probably make 200 or 250 k your first
year
out (again, salary + bonus). 10 years in, you can be making over a
million+. Stay there for 15 or 20 years, and you can be making anywhere
from 2.5 to 5 million, or possibly more.

Sounds good, right? Now here are the drawbacks. Getting an investment
banking position at a top-flight firm either post-undergrad or post-MBA
is
brutally competitive. The work itself is tremendously long and grueling
(again, 100 hour workweeks), and often times, extremely tedious. Even
worse, most people absolutely hate the job and can only put up with it
for
a few years. Like I said, if you can put up with the job for 10 after
the
MBA, you can be making a million+ a year, but that's the catch - can
you
really put up with it for 5-7 years? Most people cannot, not only
because
the competition to stay is brutal, but also because people simply don't
like it. But hey, if the only thing you care about is money, then a
career
in high finance is arguably the fastest way to make a buck. It's
clearly a
lot faster than a career in medicine or law.

The way I see it is, EECS is an 'insurance policy'. Once you graduate
from
EECS, you can go to finance, and many EECS graduates do. Or you can go
to
law school or medical school, if that's your bag. But if you decide
that
you're just tired of school and you don't want to put up with the hell
of
investment banking (or you can't land a banking job), then you can
simply
"cash in your chips" and get a job as an engineer, making 50-60k to
start.
That's not great, but it's not bad, all things considering. Contrast
that
with, say, a Peace and Conflict Studies major who doesn't have that
"insurance policy" and consequently has to go to law school or medical
school or has to take that investment banking job if he wants to make
serious money.


Having said all that, I still agree with your general thesis that EECS
is
probably graded too hard, relative to the other majors. I personally
think
that all the majors should be graded equally harshly. If EECS students
are
graded hard, then so should the Peace and Conflicts Studies students.