Yeah, that career snowball means little if you don’t look like the candidate they are looking for by the end of it. This happened to me. I started working in high school, taking seasonal summer jobs, and also doing part time work during the school year, as well as maintaining an honors status and playing sports, on top of Scouting as an extra curricular. This didn’t change in college. In fact, I might have been in an internship, in my career, the longest of anyone at my school, essentially never stopping work for my part time job. But, out of college, no-one hired me. Difficulty at school left me with a 4 year Engineering Tech degree. I learned out of engineering text books,I took terminal math, and I could calculate stresses and strains in systems but I just never derived the physics formula for problems that I solved in class. No one hired me. I ended taking a job as a machinist, until my old company hired me back. Very few companies even understood what my degree was as most ET degrees are 2year degrees. It didn’t matter that I had all that job experience in the field. It didn’t matter that I had experience outside of it. I didn’t have a BE so my BS meant nothing. Be weary of anyone who is going to shunt you down a parallel degree path. If it’s not the better known degree, it doesn’t exist.
Man I wish I found this content even 2 years ago. I graduated with a BEng in Energy & Environmental Engineering last year in a location with no demand for this, took a sales job out of college and quit after 4 months because I couldn't work till 11pm daily and am teaching now. I feel so lost and feel like I have fucked over my life because of bad academic and career choices. If I could go back I'd probably make myself pursue healthcare or a less stressful major that would give me equal pay lmao
I graduated with a degree in political science in 2020.. we didnt have career fairs, and "because nonpartisansgip" my college forbade us specifically from having a career fair for humanities graduates like.. you know bringing in nonprofits and such. It was absolutely ridiculous :D and they wondered why 80% dropped out.
Sorry but I would not suggest becoming a teacher to anyone other than those who want to do it for reasons other than money. I don't think there should be much enthusiasm for it 😅 Yes you can make a little above 100k but that is usually with TWENTY years of experience and with the proper credentials. No master's degree? You're salary is capped much lower than if you have one. So now you have to go another 30k into debt to obtain your master's. Pause the video on that pay scale chart and its all laid out there. Oh and your credential is also about 30k, often a lot more. Also get ready for a 1% raise every year. Yup, thats pretty typical. Start off at 55k and next year you're making 55,550. You might get part of the summer off, but you are also working 10 hour days. Engineer vs teacher salary is not comparable by any means. I know because I'm an engineer and my sister and dad are both teachers. My dad has been a teacher for 19 years and just started to make 99k. I was hired as an engineer out of school making 93k. 3 years later I'm making 130k. My sister has been working for 7 years, with a master's and shes gone from 55k to 65k. We live in California, so they are in one of the highest earning pay scale for teachers in the country. Pick a field that you enjoy, but know that money is really important. Choose something with a lot of room for growth and isn't capped.
I legitimately do agree with you. The thing about teacher salaries is that they grow very slowly and then receive dramatic bumps after people start to leave. It's unfortunate but just how the industry has historically worked. Teachers are averaging $95K in California right now, but that's a new thing. So you'll have teachers in their 30s and teachers in their 60s both making 95K because of salary caps after 10-15 years. Which is GREAT for the teachers in their 30s but terrible for those nearing the end of their career. I have a personal belief that more teachers should leave teaching halfway through their career. Especially if they start to get too bitter/out of touch from their students. Take the above average starting pay and then leverage those transferrable skills into something else down the road. I realize that's easier said than done, so it's more of a bird's eye view perspective that I have than necessarily a practical one. Congrats on the 90k out of college, by the way! I work primarily with engineers trying to work in the central US and it takes a lot of them 5-15 years to finally pass that 100k threshold.
@@UrgentlyFiring I'm late to this video/thread but I'm curious -- what professions do you think teachers should be transferring into once they're halfway into their career? I'm going into teaching and I'm worried about the pay cap but I know that I would hate a typical desk job, so I'm trying to see what options are out there to feasibly transition into after decades in teaching.
@@nina80808 Statistically speaking, the average professional changes jobs 7-12 times and industries 2-3 times before they retire. It's extremely normal. But I think people in civil services (teaching, law enforcement, nursing, etc) feel a lot of shame with leaving that career and stay far longer than they need or want to. I personally know a lot of former teachers who are very happy and financially well-off working for businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and everything in-between. As well as plenty of others who just needed to transition away from one teaching role into something else like administration, the district, or even private schools. I used to work in a high school, and now I teach classes adjunct at a university while primarily serving as a job market analyst/consultant-type person for the school. I still get to serve students while making more money doing something else, and not having the same burdens and nonsense that traditional faculty deal with. That doesn't mean that the grass is greener per-se. I really do miss working in a high school. But transitioning out of K-12 was a lot easier than one might think. Where you go; however, is really going to be up to you and your own interests. So it never hurts to spend some time getting self-aware about what you want from a career and a workday. Only 30%-ish of salaried workers are doing a job directly related to their college degree. I wouldn't worry too much about pigeon-holing yourself into teaching. You're gaining all kinds of transferrable skills in the classroom that most industries value.
In addition to the advice given in the video, I think it’s important to actually talk to successful people in the field you are trying to break into. With respect to my field, there is a lot of bad career advice that gets echoed around on the internet by influencers and online forums, to the point where people start believing it’s gospel. The preferred experiences listed in job descriptions can have varying degrees of importance and it’s good to know how best to divide your focus.
Commenting on this so that it goes to the top. Absolutely! In my world we call them "informational interviews." But any way to learn from people doing your dream job (especially if they're successful at it) is going to be more valuable than any guru video out there.
Whats your opinion on computer science? I feel like the degree is a bit overhyped by social media etc. which leads so a massive amount of junior developers on the market. Perhaps electrical engineering would be the better option, as there are quite a few developments in this area (electric cars, charging infrastructure, renewable energy sources, photovoltaics, heat pumps...)
Pro tip - I broke 6 digit salary 2 years after I entirely gave up on ever getting there, persistence, education, luck and connections got me there and way past there
My moms a teacher and has been for over 20 years she has taught mostly in catholic schools and cant get a public school teaching job. Her salary is around 42k. And is currently over qualified having a few credits shy from a 2nd masters. Unless you get in a public school job early when fresh out and they can pay you cheap. Then you can go to grad school while working there and make more money. If not, there not gonna hire people who they have to pay more.
5:23 I'll second your point about engineers and the job market. I'm a EE who took about 12 years to reach $100k. I have also been back to school twice (MBA and PhD). I wouldn't change my major because I love what I do and I make enough to be comfortable. If money was a bigger motivator then I would have taken a different career path, even in the same field. Also, for one of your first points ( 3:45 ), I just talked today with a PhD data scientist who got 2 job offers this week, one government and one private sector. I don't know how much they are offering but it sounds like the government is paying less.
Such an interesting video, and I agree. I'm a lawyer - tonnes of people go into it because its good money and a stable degree (I'm in the UK so you can do law as an undergrad). The degree was so dull! I am a lawyer now, but its a tough career and extremely hard to get in at the entry level, so many are stuck as paralegals for years hoping to get accepted to train with a firm. I think tech and software are even worse, as you said - everyone was told 'learn to code!' or do IT and now it's very oversaturated with smart, but not very passionate people.
Thank you for sharing! "Oversaturated with smart, but not very passionate people" has been the social norm across pretty much all of the industries I work with.
I thought I was getting into education simply to take the road less traveled and to stay away from trendy jobs. I didn't know that educators are making more, I never even checked. I just assumed they where still making poverty wages and scaled back my means to a little bellow the poverty line in my area. Maybe this will be better than I thought, but hopefully people don't figure that out and do the same to the field I'm interested in :/. I am also looking forward to paying off the loans with the PSLF, that's cushy!
Right on!!! I'm a few years away from the PSLF kicking in myself! What educators make is obviously SUPER variable depending on where you are and what you're teaching. But I know quite a few teachers in my area making 6 figures at public high schools. So it can be a more stable career than people often give it credit for.
@@UrgentlyFiring I deal with agoraphobia so I'll likely stay at the bottom of the pay statistics but I met a creative writing professor online who also had agoraphobia and instantly I just was like "I can do it". That's what I'm shooting for, we'll see where I end up. I think I would make a good creative writing professor and even had an idea for a course I want to pitch. A lot of people want to write their auto biography these days and in a lot of writing classes I hear the teacher telling people "this isn't really the right setting for that" and I'm sitting there like "bro, this person just got here from a crazy ass immigration and the story is fire you should listen" and then it hit me "one day I'm gonna teach an autobiography class, it'll help people get their timeline strait and also for people who have complicated emotional patterns in life they can also let loved ones read the auto biography to give depth to their relationship and care system.
So am I screwed pursing the data analysis field? I'm almost done with my Google Data Analytics certificate, and this is kinda bumming me out, lol. Great content, by the way.
Haha Thank you! AND my apologies! You're not screwed. You just need to be intentional about moving up the ladder. Data Analysis is still rapidly growing and the median income for established earners is over 6-figures. Earning potential means a lot in the career that you're already pursuing. I was only saying that it shouldn't be the only consideration people make when choosing what career to go after. If you're into Data Analysis then I'm sure you'll do great!
Todays job market has made my pay go up as well. 3 years ago I started at 21 an hour. Currently I’m at 28.90 an hour and because there’s not a lot of people with my experience. It’s a trade but not a trade that has a lot of workers like in construction. I work in food manufacturing and the numbers in my department are in the positive. My company looks like it’s going to break another record this year and because of that. The same company but in another state is desperate for people with my skills that they are now paying 44 an hour for my same position. No degree required just experience in this field is necessary.
todays job market is all about skill and licenses ur degree means nothing theres a dime a dozen but an engineer with a b1/b2 license is due to make 100k while some grad from engineering school will get 40k a year starting if there lucky, pilots licenses/ plumbers licenses etc you get the point a license will allow u to move country on a skilled worker visa and actually make you useful to the job market a degree is a piece of paper that said you sat for 4 years and have 0 experience and btw licenses are often cheaper and faster to get
Licenses absolutely can get you established in a well-paying career very quickly. I do need to throw out, though, that most engineering jobs in North America legally require an ABET-accredited 4 year college degree in order to do the work. Commercial pilot's licenses easily take years and $50,000-$100,000 to earn as well. And plumbers still have to go through apprentice and journeymanships before starting their own practice. A license isn't always a cheaper or faster alternative to college. What's important is that you take the pathway that's most "effective" for your particular career goal. That might be a license, or college, or even self-teaching on UA-cam. Always look at professionals doing your dream job right now and figure out how they got to where they are. The practice of reverse-engineering a career goal is going to give you better insights than any random guru on UA-cam ever will. Best of luck to ya!
I’m in the position where all but two of the “engineers” in my department even went to engineering school. And I, as a subject matter expert with a decade+ of experience at the company, am not considered a senior engineer. Sometimes it’s a crap chute, doing the whole reverse engineering a job from resumes when an entire industries grew up in a person’s career. That has certainly been the case for me in AV.
$60k is not a good starting salary... especially if you take on student loans to get it. You are giving advice that will set these kids up for financial failure.
You're right - $60k is not good. And yet, according to the Bureau of Labor as of the last financial quarter, half of salaried Americans are making less than that. So making 60k+ makes you financially better off than the majority of people in this country.
3:24 - "All it takes is a law being passed to see an increase in their starting pay.." Yes, depending on the government to set your salary is a great idea...
@@UrgentlyFiring depending on the government for your pay increase is a bad idea. It’s much better to work hard in a private sector where you can better control raises by individual merit.
Yeah, that career snowball means little if you don’t look like the candidate they are looking for by the end of it. This happened to me.
I started working in high school, taking seasonal summer jobs, and also doing part time work during the school year, as well as maintaining an honors status and playing sports, on top of Scouting as an extra curricular. This didn’t change in college. In fact, I might have been in an internship, in my career, the longest of anyone at my school, essentially never stopping work for my part time job.
But, out of college, no-one hired me. Difficulty at school left me with a 4 year Engineering Tech degree. I learned out of engineering text books,I took terminal math, and I could calculate stresses and strains in systems but I just never derived the physics formula for problems that I solved in class.
No one hired me. I ended taking a job as a machinist, until my old company hired me back. Very few companies even understood what my degree was as most ET degrees are 2year degrees. It didn’t matter that I had all that job experience in the field. It didn’t matter that I had experience outside of it. I didn’t have a BE so my BS meant nothing.
Be weary of anyone who is going to shunt you down a parallel degree path. If it’s not the better known degree, it doesn’t exist.
4:45 - Yes, data scientists should have basic software development skills. That has always been the case.
Man I wish I found this content even 2 years ago. I graduated with a BEng in Energy & Environmental Engineering last year in a location with no demand for this, took a sales job out of college and quit after 4 months because I couldn't work till 11pm daily and am teaching now. I feel so lost and feel like I have fucked over my life because of bad academic and career choices. If I could go back I'd probably make myself pursue healthcare or a less stressful major that would give me equal pay lmao
Never thought I'd find myself getting career advice from Brendan Fraser. Dude didn't you just win an academy award. Congrats!
lmao Thank you!
I graduated with a degree in political science in 2020.. we didnt have career fairs, and "because nonpartisansgip" my college forbade us specifically from having a career fair for humanities graduates like.. you know bringing in nonprofits and such. It was absolutely ridiculous :D and they wondered why 80% dropped out.
Sorry but I would not suggest becoming a teacher to anyone other than those who want to do it for reasons other than money. I don't think there should be much enthusiasm for it 😅
Yes you can make a little above 100k but that is usually with TWENTY years of experience and with the proper credentials. No master's degree? You're salary is capped much lower than if you have one. So now you have to go another 30k into debt to obtain your master's. Pause the video on that pay scale chart and its all laid out there. Oh and your credential is also about 30k, often a lot more.
Also get ready for a 1% raise every year. Yup, thats pretty typical. Start off at 55k and next year you're making 55,550. You might get part of the summer off, but you are also working 10 hour days.
Engineer vs teacher salary is not comparable by any means. I know because I'm an engineer and my sister and dad are both teachers. My dad has been a teacher for 19 years and just started to make 99k. I was hired as an engineer out of school making 93k. 3 years later I'm making 130k. My sister has been working for 7 years, with a master's and shes gone from 55k to 65k. We live in California, so they are in one of the highest earning pay scale for teachers in the country.
Pick a field that you enjoy, but know that money is really important. Choose something with a lot of room for growth and isn't capped.
I legitimately do agree with you. The thing about teacher salaries is that they grow very slowly and then receive dramatic bumps after people start to leave. It's unfortunate but just how the industry has historically worked.
Teachers are averaging $95K in California right now, but that's a new thing. So you'll have teachers in their 30s and teachers in their 60s both making 95K because of salary caps after 10-15 years.
Which is GREAT for the teachers in their 30s but terrible for those nearing the end of their career. I have a personal belief that more teachers should leave teaching halfway through their career. Especially if they start to get too bitter/out of touch from their students.
Take the above average starting pay and then leverage those transferrable skills into something else down the road. I realize that's easier said than done, so it's more of a bird's eye view perspective that I have than necessarily a practical one.
Congrats on the 90k out of college, by the way! I work primarily with engineers trying to work in the central US and it takes a lot of them 5-15 years to finally pass that 100k threshold.
@@UrgentlyFiring I'm late to this video/thread but I'm curious -- what professions do you think teachers should be transferring into once they're halfway into their career? I'm going into teaching and I'm worried about the pay cap but I know that I would hate a typical desk job, so I'm trying to see what options are out there to feasibly transition into after decades in teaching.
@@nina80808 Statistically speaking, the average professional changes jobs 7-12 times and industries 2-3 times before they retire. It's extremely normal. But I think people in civil services (teaching, law enforcement, nursing, etc) feel a lot of shame with leaving that career and stay far longer than they need or want to.
I personally know a lot of former teachers who are very happy and financially well-off working for businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and everything in-between. As well as plenty of others who just needed to transition away from one teaching role into something else like administration, the district, or even private schools.
I used to work in a high school, and now I teach classes adjunct at a university while primarily serving as a job market analyst/consultant-type person for the school.
I still get to serve students while making more money doing something else, and not having the same burdens and nonsense that traditional faculty deal with.
That doesn't mean that the grass is greener per-se. I really do miss working in a high school. But transitioning out of K-12 was a lot easier than one might think.
Where you go; however, is really going to be up to you and your own interests. So it never hurts to spend some time getting self-aware about what you want from a career and a workday.
Only 30%-ish of salaried workers are doing a job directly related to their college degree. I wouldn't worry too much about pigeon-holing yourself into teaching. You're gaining all kinds of transferrable skills in the classroom that most industries value.
I know a public school teacher making $130,000 in New York City
Starting? After decades of teaching, yes but starting or mid career?
Well likely from years of work and tiers.
Always a pleasure to watch these videos! I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers.
I appreciate that - thank you!
In addition to the advice given in the video, I think it’s important to actually talk to successful people in the field you are trying to break into. With respect to my field, there is a lot of bad career advice that gets echoed around on the internet by influencers and online forums, to the point where people start believing it’s gospel. The preferred experiences listed in job descriptions can have varying degrees of importance and it’s good to know how best to divide your focus.
Commenting on this so that it goes to the top. Absolutely! In my world we call them "informational interviews." But any way to learn from people doing your dream job (especially if they're successful at it) is going to be more valuable than any guru video out there.
Whats your opinion on computer science? I feel like the degree is a bit overhyped by social media etc. which leads so a massive amount of junior developers on the market.
Perhaps electrical engineering would be the better option, as there are quite a few developments in this area (electric cars, charging infrastructure, renewable energy sources, photovoltaics, heat pumps...)
You can do almost all of comp sci with basic EE skills too
Pro tip - I broke 6 digit salary 2 years after I entirely gave up on ever getting there, persistence, education, luck and connections got me there and way past there
My moms a teacher and has been for over 20 years she has taught mostly in catholic schools and cant get a public school teaching job. Her salary is around 42k. And is currently over qualified having a few credits shy from a 2nd masters. Unless you get in a public school job early when fresh out and they can pay you cheap. Then you can go to grad school while working there and make more money. If not, there not gonna hire people who they have to pay more.
5:23 I'll second your point about engineers and the job market. I'm a EE who took about 12 years to reach $100k. I have also been back to school twice (MBA and PhD).
I wouldn't change my major because I love what I do and I make enough to be comfortable. If money was a bigger motivator then I would have taken a different career path, even in the same field.
Also, for one of your first points ( 3:45 ), I just talked today with a PhD data scientist who got 2 job offers this week, one government and one private sector. I don't know how much they are offering but it sounds like the government is paying less.
Such an interesting video, and I agree. I'm a lawyer - tonnes of people go into it because its good money and a stable degree (I'm in the UK so you can do law as an undergrad). The degree was so dull!
I am a lawyer now, but its a tough career and extremely hard to get in at the entry level, so many are stuck as paralegals for years hoping to get accepted to train with a firm. I think tech and software are even worse, as you said - everyone was told 'learn to code!' or do IT and now it's very oversaturated with smart, but not very passionate people.
Thank you for sharing! "Oversaturated with smart, but not very passionate people" has been the social norm across pretty much all of the industries I work with.
I thought I was getting into education simply to take the road less traveled and to stay away from trendy jobs. I didn't know that educators are making more, I never even checked. I just assumed they where still making poverty wages and scaled back my means to a little bellow the poverty line in my area. Maybe this will be better than I thought, but hopefully people don't figure that out and do the same to the field I'm interested in :/. I am also looking forward to paying off the loans with the PSLF, that's cushy!
Right on!!! I'm a few years away from the PSLF kicking in myself!
What educators make is obviously SUPER variable depending on where you are and what you're teaching. But I know quite a few teachers in my area making 6 figures at public high schools. So it can be a more stable career than people often give it credit for.
@@UrgentlyFiring I deal with agoraphobia so I'll likely stay at the bottom of the pay statistics but I met a creative writing professor online who also had agoraphobia and instantly I just was like "I can do it". That's what I'm shooting for, we'll see where I end up. I think I would make a good creative writing professor and even had an idea for a course I want to pitch. A lot of people want to write their auto biography these days and in a lot of writing classes I hear the teacher telling people "this isn't really the right setting for that" and I'm sitting there like "bro, this person just got here from a crazy ass immigration and the story is fire you should listen" and then it hit me "one day I'm gonna teach an autobiography class, it'll help people get their timeline strait and also for people who have complicated emotional patterns in life they can also let loved ones read the auto biography to give depth to their relationship and care system.
@@cookingwithsilenceI hope u accomplish your dream
@@LamithelambI'm keeping the dream somewhat open ended but still a general picture of where I sort of see myself more or less!
@@Lamithelamb thanks btw, I hope your dream are followed and bear more results than you ever imagined :).;
Hey man you’re really doing a great job with your channel. I really appreciate this content. Keep going :)
Thank you so much!
Genuinely, thank you for this video.
So am I screwed pursing the data analysis field? I'm almost done with my Google Data Analytics certificate, and this is kinda bumming me out, lol. Great content, by the way.
Haha Thank you! AND my apologies!
You're not screwed. You just need to be intentional about moving up the ladder. Data Analysis is still rapidly growing and the median income for established earners is over 6-figures.
Earning potential means a lot in the career that you're already pursuing. I was only saying that it shouldn't be the only consideration people make when choosing what career to go after.
If you're into Data Analysis then I'm sure you'll do great!
I never really understood what data science/analysis as a profession actually is. The few people I know in these fields do vastly different things.
I know a highschool teacher making $259K a year in Casper Wyoming.
Which school? Natrona County high schools top out at about 88K with years of experience and a PhD
From that one job? I don't think so. Wyoming definitely doesn't go over 200k
Todays job market has made my pay go up as well. 3 years ago I started at 21 an hour. Currently I’m at 28.90 an hour and because there’s not a lot of people with my experience. It’s a trade but not a trade that has a lot of workers like in construction. I work in food manufacturing and the numbers in my department are in the positive. My company looks like it’s going to break another record this year and because of that. The same company but in another state is desperate for people with my skills that they are now paying 44 an hour for my same position. No degree required just experience in this field is necessary.
Rock on!
Where are these teaching jobs where teachers are starting at 100k?
I wish I had understood this 20 years ago...
Where are the citations or websites?
It was all revealed to me in a dream ;)
@@UrgentlyFiring that's a nerd deepcut
todays job market is all about skill and licenses ur degree means nothing theres a dime a dozen but an engineer with a b1/b2 license is due to make 100k while some grad from engineering school will get 40k a year starting if there lucky, pilots licenses/ plumbers licenses etc you get the point a license will allow u to move country on a skilled worker visa and actually make you useful to the job market a degree is a piece of paper that said you sat for 4 years and have 0 experience and btw licenses are often cheaper and faster to get
Licenses absolutely can get you established in a well-paying career very quickly.
I do need to throw out, though, that most engineering jobs in North America legally require an ABET-accredited 4 year college degree in order to do the work.
Commercial pilot's licenses easily take years and $50,000-$100,000 to earn as well. And plumbers still have to go through apprentice and journeymanships before starting their own practice.
A license isn't always a cheaper or faster alternative to college.
What's important is that you take the pathway that's most "effective" for your particular career goal. That might be a license, or college, or even self-teaching on UA-cam.
Always look at professionals doing your dream job right now and figure out how they got to where they are. The practice of reverse-engineering a career goal is going to give you better insights than any random guru on UA-cam ever will.
Best of luck to ya!
There needs to be a license for how to avoid run-on sentences.
I’m in the position where all but two of the “engineers” in my department even went to engineering school. And I, as a subject matter expert with a decade+ of experience at the company, am not considered a senior engineer.
Sometimes it’s a crap chute, doing the whole reverse engineering a job from resumes when an entire industries grew up in a person’s career. That has certainly been the case for me in AV.
Great video, where can i contact you?
pure facts
Algorithm Algorithm boost my Algorithm
Thanks for the help, mate!
$60k is not a good starting salary... especially if you take on student loans to get it. You are giving advice that will set these kids up for financial failure.
You're right - $60k is not good. And yet, according to the Bureau of Labor as of the last financial quarter, half of salaried Americans are making less than that.
So making 60k+ makes you financially better off than the majority of people in this country.
@@UrgentlyFiring making $60k without student debt is much greater than making $60k with student debt.
@@jwonz2054I don’t understand your point here? Of course no debt is better than debt, if all other things are equal.
@@DaveDDD You can make $60k starting wage without college. OP's advice is to take on college debt to get a $60k starting wage.
3:24 - "All it takes is a law being passed to see an increase in their starting pay.."
Yes, depending on the government to set your salary is a great idea...
Who do you think sets pay for teachers, police, military, etc? lol
@@UrgentlyFiring depending on the government for your pay increase is a bad idea. It’s much better to work hard in a private sector where you can better control raises by individual merit.