YM approved degrees

[raeoflyte]

So what are the 'YM approved degrees' these days and why?

[Phoenix84]

Seems to be a pretty short list from the years I've been following YM.

1. Nursing
2. Accounting
3. Engineering

[formerexpat]

I wouldn't be so narrow and only list degrees. How about trades:

1) mechanic
2) plumber
3) electrician
4) carpenter

These fields can yield as much or more income than the ones above in post 2.

As for degrees, I'd say pharmacy, doctor, computer science or information systems, marketing and finance.

Yes, the list is fairly short. You shouldn't f*** around with 4 years of your life and take on extraordinary amounts of debt, unless you've got a good plan and ability to support yourself post graduation.

[Deleted]

basically, a degree/certification not in a math or science field is worthless. Just be sure to ask your lawyer what trade school/engineering school/medical school they went to.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2011 8:46:41 GMT -5 formerexpat said:

I wouldn't be so narrow and only list degrees. How about trades:

1) mechanic
2) plumber
3) electrician
4) carpenter

These fields can yield as much or more income than the ones above in post 2.

As for degrees, I'd say pharmacy, doctor, computer science or information systems, marketing and finance.

Yes, the list is fairly short. You shouldn't f*** around with 4 years of your life and take on extraordinary amounts of debt, unless you've got a good plan and ability to support yourself post graduation.

people in other majors than you listed manage to do that just fine. Not everyone is good at math/science or is handy. Not to mention that most people expect to work for 40+ years, I'd think they'd want to do something they somewhat enjoy. Life's not all about income and saving.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2011 9:55:27 GMT -5 Lady Gaga Gaga Snerd said:

Any field that requires you to have a license or certificate. You cannot cut hair in our state without a license. So, go into something that requires some piece of paper that only certain people can do this.

so a hair stylist certificate is now on the YM-approved degree list?

[chiver78]

Apr 16, 2011 9:53:34 GMT -5 @moneyjenny82 said:

basically, a degree/certification not in a math or science field is worthless. Just be sure to ask your lawyer what trade school/engineering school/medical school they went to.

I think leaving a law degree off the list is due to the oversaturation of unemployed lawyers in the market these days. just a thought....

[midjd]

Re: hair styling, I think this can be a great career for the right person... unless you're working at Super Clips or a place like that, you can bring home $1K a week before taxes. DH's cousin rents a chair in a large salon a few days a week and makes at least that much, plus it's PT and flexible so she can spend a lot of time with her daughter. Her prices are pretty low, $20ish for a haircut, $40 for highlights, perm, etc. I'm sure the higher-end stylists can make a killing.

Other than that, approved degrees: engineering, chemical anything, nursing, pharmacy, computer science.

[Nazgul Girl]

Inorganic chemistry is very bad right now unless you have a Ph.D. It's useless otherwise.

[stats45]

I think a bit differently about this. The better school you go to, the less concerned you have to be about major. If you go to Harvard, you are in the top 0.01% of all students, and even an English degree is probably going to set you up for an excellent job.

I think the problem is the explosion of social science (political science, psychology, anthropology) and softer degrees (including soft business degrees) that just to me seem to be a way to push more students through college. In most schools these majors have no pre-requisites and can be finished in a year. When colleges have 30-40% of students graduating in these majors, it is a sign that credentializing is becoming as important as instruction.

Even with that, students should still go to get those degrees if they don't have any other interests or abilities (at very low debt) because many entry-level management, sales, corporate positions now require a college degree of some kind.

The majors people on the boards suggest are more secure paths to the upper-middle class. Humanities degrees might be useful in many ways, but it would be inaccurate to think of them as the equivalent of STEM degrees in the odds of having steady financial success.

[stats45]

Nazgul, that is very interesting.

I started off undergrad in microbiology and didn't care for in much, so I moved to statistics. All of the quants I know from undergrad and graduate school are doing very well, but I don't know many biology and microbiology majors who are doing that well. Many are in graduate school but aren't really interested in academia, and the ones that didn't go to grad school aren't making all that much.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

None of my degrees have been mentioned.
I'm so not qualified to read this board. ;D

[Cookies Galore]

Me either, Chloe. I be one of them journalism degree-totin' dregs of society.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2011 11:56:03 GMT -5 stats45 said:

I think a bit differently about this. The better school you go to, the less concerned you have to be about major. If you go to Harvard, you are in the top 0.01% of all students, and even an English degree is probably going to set you up for an excellent job.

I think the problem is the explosion of social science (political science, psychology, anthropology) and softer degrees (including soft business degrees) that just to me seem to be a way to push more students through college. In most schools these majors have no pre-requisites and can be finished in a year. When colleges have 30-40% of students graduating in these majors, it is a sign that credentializing is becoming as important as instruction.

Even with that, students should still go to get those degrees if they don't have any other interests or abilities (at very low debt) because many entry-level management, sales, corporate positions now require a college degree of some kind.

The majors people on the boards suggest are more secure paths to the upper-middle class. Humanities degrees might be useful in many ways, but it would be inaccurate to think of them as the equivalent of STEM degrees in the odds of having steady financial success.

I couldn't disagree more. A degree in basket weaving at Harvard will not be seen as better than an engineering degree at a state university. Surprisingly few employment sectors care about where you got your bachelors, as long as it's accredited (and you're not a moron) it's usually fine.

I majored in philosophy and my requirements did not take (in theory) a year to complete. Where are you getting your facts?

I do agree that soft sciences and social science degrees help those of us not mathematically/scientifically gifted to land entry level corporate jobs. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The jobs have to be done anyway, and there is definite promotion potential if you're bright and working at the right company.

[midjd]

English/sociology/law here, sometimes I'm amazed I can even walk upright

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2011 12:20:28 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Me either, Chloe. I be one of them journalism degree-totin' dregs of society.

I'm pretty sure philosophy means I'm a step above homeless crack addict.

[Cookies Galore]

Apr 16, 2011 12:22:54 GMT -5 midjd said:

English/sociology/law here, sometimes I'm amazed I can even walk upright

I don talk no gud wiff mi dugree.

[Deleted]

;D

[lurkyloo]

I'd disagree with science in general; a lot of those jobs are being outsourced PhD or no and the competition for academic jobs is nuts. I have a physicist friend in Europe right now because the US stopped funding his area of research, and chemistry has been steadily losing jobs to China and India for years. I think various subfields of biology are doing okay, for the moment.

Although the objective/logical reasoning skills you pick up are applicable to a variety of other fields and life in general. But we don't go in so much for life enrichment and personal improvement on these boards.

[april47]

Actually a new graduate with a nursing degree is having a hard time finding a job right now in certain areas. It is taking longer to find a job and they often have to be open to training in a specialty that really wasn't their first choice. They also have to be willing to take the nights shifts and be pretty flexible about location. I think it may be temporary because the baby boomer nurses will be soon starting to retire.

[Nazgul Girl]

I, too, am an igerant ignoramous, but somehow I manage to push my crippled intellect ( or should I write, "inkellec" ) along. I think that some careers that people stumble into are luck, such as finding out that they make good landlords or good medical coders. Few people start out in life wanting to be a medical coder. I don't think there was such a thing thirty years ago, anyway. Many people just seem to carve out a niche for themselves.

[Poppet]

Loads of people became teachers. Result? Saturation

Same with nursing. Saturation starting to happen. I wouldn't push nursing right now.

[TheOtherMe]

Re becoming a hair stylist, if you can get through some lean times while you work up your client base, you can make some serious money doing this. My friend's daughter has a salon in a very exclusive part of Denver and clears upwards of $200K per year between her charges and tips. He told me there were years when she wanted to quit, but she stuck it out.

She opened her own shop and rents out booths to other stylists. Only one of them is as successful as she is because they either can't afford the lean years or are impatient.

[whoisjohngalt]

Oh please, there is no list. You all can make fun of YM suggestions, but at the end of the day it's a very practical advice - don't get a degree in underwater basket weaving or history of the Timbaktu if you have no plan on what to do with them. And don't take SLs that will amount to more than your salary for the next 15 yrs.

What is so wrong about that?

Somewhere people lost the concept of what the college degrees are/should be all about. They decided that it's a great time to explore your interests and hobbies instead of building foundation for your future.

Lena

[HappyLady]

I agree with the 'there's no list'.

It's not really about the degree; it's about what you do after you finish school that counts.
I have a degree in Communicaitons, but took my first job working for a software company in their IT department. I can't even use excel, yet I'm on the cutting edge of technology, with a great job, with my liberal arts degree.

[stats45]

Moneyjenny, not all humanities/soft degrees are equal.

Take philosophy for example. Philosophy graduates score very highly on GRE scores after they graduate. Philosophy is very rigorous, and I credit all those logic and analytical classes. I wouldn't be so quick to group all of the majors together. Look at what majors of different degrees score on the GRE after finishing. I like to use that as a nice measure of how rigorous a degree is. Obviously, schools will vary as to how difficult the degree might be.

I have experience at large state schools and the private school where I received my doctorate. The graduates from top institutions receive job offers from all types of employers not related to their degrees because employers know they scored a 2300-2400 on their SATs, and they know they are getting intelligent people. There are plenty of English, humanities, softer science majors at Ivies and Ivy-tier schools who are in very high level positions in finance, business, etc. if they haven't moved right on to Harvard Law, Yale Law, or other top tier graduate work.

[stats45]

I say this as someone who really likes the social sciences. I doubled majored in economics and statistics as an undergrad.

[stats45]

This might not be the best source of information, but here is a list of degrees and average and mid-career salaries. Liberal arts majors do just fine, and I'm sure we have plenty of people on the board who graduated with liberal arts degrees and are outpacing the averages.

www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp

I think people like myself focus on the salary numbers because we are on the 'Your Money' boards. There are plenty of advantages of liberal arts degrees (and a liberal arts background) that can be more important than money for many people.

[Deleted]

Woohoo! I have the number 2 degree....guess I can stay!

[azphx1972]

Darn it, I should have gone into petroleum engineering.