Many employers won’t even take a second look at your resume these days if you don’t have a college degree. A diploma has almost become a requirement just to get your foot in the door with most firms. Deciding which degree to obtain is extremely important. Since you will be investing a significant amount of your time, money and effort into obtaining one, it makes sense to earn one that will be viable and competitive in the tough job market. Below are a few majors with the highest starting salaries straight out of school.

Engineering is a big winner and tops the list in a big way, with a total of eight different engineering degrees taking up the first eight top spots: petroleum, aerospace, chemical, electrical nuclear and biomedical engineering. Petroleum engineers top the list with an average starting salary of a cool $93,000. Yes, that’s just the starting salary and it only goes up from there. Salaries are extremely high in the petroleum field because big oil businesses are quite lucrative. Graduates in this field generally work to find and recover gas and oil reservoirs. Work in this field often requires extensive travels and many in this field proceed to earn graduate degrees. $63k is the average starting range salary wise for a nuclear engineer. If you are mathematically inclined Engineering might be a great option to explore. All engineering majors are considered generally quite challenging, with a strenuous course load and challenging courses.

Computer science and information sciences and system degree holders are the two non-engineering degrees in the top 10 list with starting earnings at $61k and $54k respectively. This is a solid option to explore if you enjoy computers. Keep in mind that computer science courses are also very mathematics intensive.

Business majors can also be quite rewarding income wise. Economics majors can expect to start at $48k and finance students $47k. From observing these numbers, it’s clear that the money lies in crunching numbers and science. Be good in math = make lots of money. Engineering, Computer Science and Economic degrees all require excellent and advanced math skills while liberal arts majors such as Sociology and Teaching are towards the low end of the list salary wise.

The lowest paying degrees include sociology, teaching, English and history degrees. The starting pay for social workers and elementary teachers start at around the $33k range towards the lower end of the pay scale. Salaries are largely determined by supply and demand and graduates with degrees in Engineering are scarce and very much in demand while Liberal Arts degree holders are more commonplace.

This is just a general list covering starting salaries right out of college which means that it doesn’t cover the highest salaries as a whole. There are plenty of persons in other professions such as doctors or lawyers who also have very high earnings. It’s by no means a requirement to get a degree in the fields mentioned above if you want a good income. If you’re excellent at your job, you can have a high income no matter what career path you choose.

Author Bio: Written by Jacqueline Star: Online University Degree, Online Advertising, Online University

Category: Education
Keywords: degrees, university, college, education, career, jobs