Obamas most despicable act to date.

[mrstickball]

HappySqurriel said:

DaBuddahN said:

Oh, of course. No doubt about that. But my point is that there are many specialized jobs that don't get payment above 100k. The post I responded to makes it sound like 100k salaries are abundant. While, 100k salaries aren't unheard of, and with a really good education you can get one... They aren't as common as salaries below 100k, get my drift? Look at my example, a freakin' engineer doesn't make 100k unless he becomes a supervisor of some division or project. =/ Doctors make 200k because their education is long, they are needed, long hours, and taking care of others is risky business. Doctors are one of the most highly paid jobs on the market... Yet, somehow, their average salary is trying to be downplayed.

After you have 5 to 7 years experience as an engineer or software developer earning $100,000 or more per year is not difficult, but it requires being willing to take risks and responsibilities while achieving more consistent high quality results than most people are willing to. The “easiest” way to do this is to become an independent contractor, where you can easily get steady work while contracting out at between $50 and $75 per hour; and if you have a good reputation you can bill out at $150 to $200 per hour.

Or a self-employed architect with an engineering background. In my little podunk town, I had to recently pay $100/hr for an architect to draw up blueprints of an apartment complex I own. And the other guy wanted about $300 an hour.

Ultimately, if you are smart and dedicated, you can make almost any career field (mind you, career field, not specific job) very lucrative. I'm a business analyst. I make $30,000 a year. If I get good at it and become the next Michael Pachter, I make many multiples more than I do. Heck, at my job right now, I have colleagues with PHDs that make little more than I do for the inverse characteristic of not having the dedication to make right career choices.

DaBuddah - Its hard to define if a career at a certain salary is 'abundant' or not. I mean, any doctor that puts in the hours to become one in the US will find that there is little chance of making less than $100k. But that takes huge amounts of time and responsibility...It really comes down to the value proposition: 'Am I willing to put in X amount of time and dedicate to make Y salary?'. If your willing to put X into a 8-year doctorate degree, the chances are very high you would find a very high paying job as an attorney, doctor, psychiatrist, or other PHD-driven career.

 

And going further than that, I can assure you that if you are smart, you can find a career path to earn more than $100,000. You can do what I did and skip college, and use the time to build up smart investments. Despite not having a college education, I am financially better off than (literally) every other person I know at my age. Everyone else is just getting out of college with huge student loans, and I have multiples of times more assets than they do because I focused on right career choices and investment strategies.

 

 *edit*

I see your still in college, and have chosen a path in computer engineering for your job - good path, BTW. At any rate, when you involve yourself in internships, and various possible paths through computer engineering, you have to look at that path, and decide what exact aspect of that field you want to be in, and find a way to excell at it. It is only through excellence you will succeed. Through that, you can easily make that goal of $100k/USD a year. The reason I say that is that I know people that get bachelors degrees in various computer fields - IT, engineering, software programming, ect. The amount of money you earn can really vary. An average joe can pick up a book for SQL and if they dedicate the time to it, can become a SQL expert and earn very close to $100k in a matter of a few years. Likewise, someone could learn basic HTML and earn far less, or not build up a good clientelle with SQL and earn very little, too. Its all a matter of how you use your skills to leaverage them to earn great income for you. No career is going to hand you any amount of money - you have to create worth, so its all a matter of how much worth you create. Flipping hamburgers will always earn you <$10.00/hr. The key is to invent a new way to flip the hamburgers, and receieve royalties from it