College Graduate Starting Salary Article

garv221

sir_creamy_ wrote:

Hahah, I love you garv. You remind me of a younger me. Your resilience has not gone unnoticed.

snadam

Slowhand wrote:

I'm currently living in the East Bay, in San Pablo. (Rent is cheap here.) I was working in Marin, over in Novato, but the next job looks like it's going to be smack in the middle of Berkeley. Given, Oakland and San Francisco companies pay better, but the commute is nice and easy. Five minutes on the I-80, and I'm there. . . even with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

oh okay, youre across the bay then. Sounds like you got a nice setup. Living in Phoenix currently, "sprawl" and "traffic" go hand in hand. I can definitely appreciate a 5 min drive to work . Im originally from San Mateo, off the peninsula. I left there about 12 years ago, but visit often (except lately). I might be doing some work in Redwood City soon, so Im exited to go back there for a few days even if it's work.

I wonder if my salary will reflect the local salary then

Kasor

I agree area is a huge factor on salary. A same job from metro area and urban area can be 10k to 15k different.

famosbrown

I have said this before on a few threads on this site. Someone graduating from a traditional university or college (not DeVry or ITT) in CS, MIS, CIS, etc. really won't take Help Desk/Call Cneter work out of school because they aren't into break/fix work like that. In college, we learned many programming languages which would land us software engineer positions or programming jobs. Computer Engineers and CS majors (depending on school) won't even touch PC type programming, but but touch the programming of the stuff in your cars, automated machinery in big pharmaceutical companies, etc.

I graduated as an MIS major and right out of college, I made 60K per year in an entry-level college programming position with the Federal government. No Help Desk, no A+, Net+, or MCSE type work. At my school, we only skimmed over that type stuff, but the majority of the course work was business and programming.

I changed fields due to being bored with sitting all day looking at code, and it took me a couple of years to get back to the salary I had right out of school programming.

As others said, why would a CS major spend all of that money for school and then go work in a call center beside others who just grabbed their A+ cert making the same amount of money. If that CS major chooses that route, then that's what they choose, but the majority I know including myself start out as programers, software engineers, program analysts, Database Engineers, etc. because that is what is taught heavily in colleges and university and it doesn't change much like MS, Cisco, etc.

At this point, my degree is just leverage for management type positions...if I knew that I would be doing what I do now, I would have just pursued certifications and got a degree in anything.

garv221

famosbrown wrote:

I have said this before on a few threads on this site. Someone graduating from a traditional university or college (not DeVry or ITT) in CS, MIS, CIS, etc. really won't take Help Desk/Call Cneter work out of school because they aren't into break/fix work like that. In college, we learned many programming languages which would land us software engineer positions or programming jobs. Computer Engineers and CS majors (depending on school) won't even touch PC type programming, but but touch the programming of the stuff in your cars, automated machinery in big pharmaceutical companies, etc.

I graduated as an MIS major and right out of college, I made 60K per year in an entry-level college programming position with the Federal government. No Help Desk, no A+, Net+, or MCSE type work. At my school, we only skimmed over that type stuff, but the majority of the course work was business and programming.

I changed fields due to being bored with sitting all day looking at code, and it took me a couple of years to get back to the salary I had right out of school programming.

As others said, why would a CS major spend all of that money for school and then go work in a call center beside others who just grabbed their A+ cert making the same amount of money. If that CS major chooses that route, then that's what they choose, but the majority I know including myself start out as programers, software engineers, program analysts, Database Engineers, etc. because that is what is taught heavily in colleges and university and it doesn't change much like MS, Cisco, etc.

At this point, my degree is just leverage for management type positions...if I knew that I would be doing what I do now, I would have just pursued certifications and got a degree in anything.

Exactly.

Another note. I should have graduated with a major in Business and minor in Information Systems or not even a minor just a few classes, I could have simply taken some certifications instead.