This is why you're going into technical careers!

[Ashley Weed]

Originally Posted by Yan Wang

Hopefully no one here's going into technical careers just for the money. If that's what you care about (nothing wrong with it!), summer internships at large finance firms such as Morgan Stanley pay $1200/week + housing + travel. That's equivalent to $62,000+ a year as an undergraduate (imagine yourself as a sophomore earning that rate)! MIT grads with a BS consistently get $80k-$90k offers and with an MBA, that goes up to $109k average (high last year of $250k) with up to a year's less education than what you'd need for an engineering BS and MS (and it's an easier education).

That said, the record engineering salaries are pretty sweet

This trend is also seen in Penn State's newest College of Information Sciences and Technology. Since it's inception in 1999, the school has become the highest paid interns, starting salaries for graduates, and now highest paid faulty in the University.

[evulish]

The tech industry is pretty impressive right now. Even with the recession we're in, there are tons of jobs being created. I work in a mid-sized financial company, and our IT department has doubled or tripled in size, software engineering has also grown quite a bit (thought not quite as much, due to outsourcing), our web development team has gone from me to 4 people, the marketing department (mostly online advertising) has doubled in size.. and that's all in the past year (not even including our interns). While the starting base pay not be the best, the growth potential is amazing since we're doubling the size of the office, most manager positions are filled by the current employees. Bonuses are great, full medical, 401k, and other perks (discounted gym membership, 30% off many broadway shows, etc).

My recommendation if you want a good job out of college (and prepared to work LONG hours) is to check out the INC 500 list put out by INC magazine of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the US. The company I work for was #60 on that list.. and it's mind-blowing that we're able to keep up.