With the national unemployment rate at 9.1 percent in August, college students face enormous challenges as they apply for post-graduation jobs. Some well-paid fields, however, are continuing to grow, and many of them require only a bachelor’s degree. The National Association of Colleges and Employers, the leading source of information on employment of people with a college education, listed the 10 best-paid degrees for 2010-2011 graduates and their starting salary offers in its article “Top-Paid Majors for the Class of 2011.” Harding University offers degrees in several of these fields, and some graduates from these programs are getting jobs at places like Microsoft and Lockheed-Martin. Based on NACE’s findings, the five Harding majors with the highest average starting salary offers are as follows:
No. 5. Management information systems: The NACE article lists information sciences and systems as well as business systems networking/telecommunications, which are both fields MIS majors can go into, according to Dr. Marguerite Cronk, chair of the MIS department. The average starting salary offer for information sciences and systems was $56,868. Cronk said she recommends the MIS program “because you can get a job.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, employment of computer network, systems and database administrators is supposed to grow by 30 percent between 2008 and 2018. Harding’s program, formerly known as information technology, has enjoyed a 100 percent employment rate over the last 10 years, Cronk said. Harding has MIS grads at places like Lockheed-Martin, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Axiom and the Department of Defense.
No. 4. Computer engineering: The average starting salary offer for computer engineering was $60,112. Computer engineering is actually a subset of electrical engineering, according to Dr. Zane Gastineau, chair of the department of engineering and physics. Computer engineering involves taking computer technology and “marrying” it to the machines that mechanical engineers design and the devices that electrical engineers design, he said. Employment of computer software engineers is supposed to increase by 32 percent between 2008 and 2018, according to the BLS. During the same interval, employment of computer hardware engineers is supposed to increase by 4 percent.
No. 3. Electrical engineering: This field had an average starting salary offer of $60,646. Electrical engineering focuses on electricity and its applications — power distribution, communication, electronic devices, etc. Electrical engineering is projected to grow by 2 percent between 2008 and 2018, according to the BLS.
No. 2. Mechanical engineering: Graduates in this field were offered an average starting salary of $60,739. Mechanical engineers design machinery to accomplish various tasks. The BLS website projects that employment in mechanical engineering will grow by 6 percent between 2008 and 2018.
Gastineau said engineering majors are paid well because “if they don’t learn their discipline here [in college] well, and they get out there and start practicing, there’s a reasonable chance they could kill somebody. … It is the risk that engineers take on — because we are always working on that cutting edge [of technology], we’re pushing that boundary and we want to do it in a safe way. When you’re taking those risks and stuff, people are going to compensate you for that.” Harding engineering grads now work at places like Boeing, iRobot, T-Mobile and Verizon.
No. 1. Computer science: The average starting salary offer for computer science graduates was $63,017. Computer science majors work in software development and programming. According to the BLS, computer programming is projected to grow by 3 percent from 2008 to 2018. Like computer engineering majors, computer science majors are also qualified to go into computer software engineering. Dr. Tim Baird, chair of the computer science department, said computer science opportunities are “only limited by our imagination.” Nearly all graduates of the computer science program have jobs. “To my knowledge, of the students who have aggressively sought a job, 100 percent of them have found jobs,” Baird said. Harding computer science graduates can be found at places like Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard and Lockheed-Martin.
Several of these disciplines overlap and many of the jobs these programs prepare students for are not listed, so students who major in one field may be well prepared to take a job in another. For more information, visit the National Association of Colleges and Employers website at www.naceweb.org,the Bureau of Labor Statistics website at www.bls.gov and the Harding website at www.harding.edu.
