The Most (And Least) Lucrative College Majors, In 1 Graph : Planet Money : NPR
Figures are median income for all full-time workers with bachelor's degrees in each subject. Workers with graduate degrees are not included in the data.
when I was younger, I was an electrician...
learned everything there was about it at the knee of my employer...
never when to school for it...
then, one day, out of the blue, he announced he was getting out of the business and offered to sell me the whole operation for a pittance...
and I took on the operation as an electrical contractor myself...
then, 'bout decade later, in the middle of a mid-life crisis while breaking up with my first wife, I decided to go back to college part-time for engineering...
got a BS and then a Masters in Civil Engineering... and then passed the PE exam...
was a civil engineer up until recently... at which point I decided to go back to doing what I really loved... doing electrical work for folks...
and I'm making better money as a self-employed "home-taught" licensed electrician than as an advanced-degreed licensed civil engineer...
the stuff I'm doing doesn't require a college degree...
and, as far as being interesting in terms of day-to-day challenges and fulfillment, being an electrician in the field beats the hell outta sitting behind a desk being a civil engineer...
if there's a lesson there, I 'spect it's readily apparent...