Most-lucrative college degrees all involve math

[cheesehead]

"Most Lucrative College Degrees"

from CNNMoney.com

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-edu...du-collegeprep

The top 15 highest-earning college degrees all have one thing in common -- math skills. That's according to a recent survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which tracks college graduates' job offers.

"Math is at the crux of who gets paid," said Ed Koc, director of research at NACE. "If you have those skills, you are an extremely valuable asset. We don't generate enough people like that in this country."

. . .

Specifically, engineering diplomas account for 12 of the 15 the top-paying majors. NACE collects its data by surveying 200 college career centers.

Energy is the key. Petroleum engineering was by far highest-paying degree, with an average starting offer of $83,121, thanks to that resource's growing scarcity. Graduates with these degrees generally find work locating oil and gas reservoirs, or in developing ways to bring those resources to the Earth's surface.

. . .

Other highly-paid engineering majors include chemical engineers, who employ their skills to make everything from plastics to fuel cells and have an average starting offer of $64,902.

(So that's why they major in Chem-E.)

Mining engineers start at $64,404 on average, while computer engineers, who have an expertise in both coding and electrical engineering, pocket roughly $61,738 their first year out of school.

Computer science majors are fifth, with $61,407, the top-paying non-engineering degree this year.

[potonono]

I can't stand averages in terms of salaries. I need to move out of the sticks. :)

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by potonono

I can't stand averages in terms of salaries. I need to move out of the sticks. :)

You'll miss the cost of living.

[cheesehead]

"For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word - Statistics"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/te...6stats.html?em

. . .

Now Ms. Grimes does a different kind of digging. She works at Google, where she uses statistical analysis of mounds of data to come up with ways to improve its search engine.

Ms. Grimes is an Internet-age statistician, one of many who are changing the image of the profession as a place for dronish number nerds. They are finding themselves increasingly in demand — and even cool.

“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.”

The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data. In field after field, computing and the Web are creating new realms of data to explore — sensor signals, surveillance tapes, social network chatter, public records and more. And the digital data surge only promises to accelerate, rising fivefold by 2012, according to a projection by IDC, a research firm.

. . .

Though at the fore, statisticians are only a small part of an army of experts using modern statistical techniques for data analysis. Computing and numerical skills, experts say, matter far more than degrees. So the new data sleuths come from backgrounds like economics, computer science and mathematics.

They are certainly welcomed in the White House these days. “Robust, unbiased data are the first step toward addressing our long-term economic needs and key policy priorities,” Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, declared in a speech in May. Later that day, Mr. Orszag confessed in a blog entry that his talk on the importance of statistics was a subject “near to my (admittedly wonkish) heart.”

. . .

In another sign of the growing interest in the field, an estimated 6,400 people are attending the statistics profession’s annual conference in Washington this week, up from around 5,400 in recent years, according to the American Statistical Association. The attendees, men and women, young and graying, looked much like any other crowd of tourists in the nation’s capital. But their rapt exchanges were filled with talk of randomization, parameters, regressions and data clusters. The data surge is elevating a profession that traditionally tackled less visible and less lucrative work, like figuring out life expectancy rates for insurance companies.

. . .

[cheesehead]

Sometimes math can be financially useful even to non-pros:

"Math tutor uses numbers to fight red light camera ticket"

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=12265823

COLLIER COUNTY: A woman was caught on camera running a red in Collier County. But after her husband fought the ticket, it was thrown out. Now officials say there may be other drivers who were wrongly ticketed as well.

. . .

But Collier driver Mike Mogil claims the yellow lights are simply too short. And as it turns out, he's right.

. . .

When his wife received a ticket in the mail recently, the first thing she said was the yellow light was too short.

So Mike, who works with numbers all the time as a math tutor, put it to the test.

. . .

The speed limit on Collier Boulevard, where she was cited, is 45 mph. According to county guidelines, the yellow light should be 4.5 seconds.

Mogil said he tested it 15 times with an average of only 3.8 seconds.

. . .