Smart Career Choices: Do what you love, make what you deserve
“Why are you getting your degree in that? You’ll never make any money.” Your (insert old, skeptical relative here) might be right. But not everybody is cut out to be a highly-paid suit. That doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made in a field that suits you. The key is guiding your degree toward a job in your chosen field that will pay the bills. Here are the high and low ends of the pay scale.
This field offers the pleasure of developing new products and building things from the ground up, whether it’s engineering spaceships, biomedical equipment, bridges and buildings, or just surveying construction sites.
Surveying and mapping technician
Average annual salary: $35,900
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree
Experience: State licensing
Employed in field: 72,410
Day-to-day: Assist surveyors and cartographers by collecting data, drafting and calculating.
Petroleum engineer
Average annual salary: $113,890
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree
Experience: State licensing
Employed in field: 16,060
Day-to-day: Travel the world searching for oil and natural gas reserves and determine how to harvest them.
Sales puts you in position to be the middleman on a wide range of transactions: broker real estate deals, sell products for all kinds of firms, or ring up Mrs. Schmiddleschmidt’s cat food at your local corner market.
Cashier
Average annual salary: $18,830
Higher education: None
Experience: Little or none
Employed in field: 3,545,330
Day-to-day: Keep track of money, operate a checkout station, and accommodate customers.
Sales representative of technical and scientific products
Average annual salary: $76,460
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree is very helpful, but not required
Experience: Communication skills and a persuasive personality
Employed in field: 403,320
Day-to-day: Travel within a sales region and represent products to potential buyers. It may be possible to set your own schedule.
The art field includes everything from crafts to multimedia: illustrate for Pixar, work for yourself and paint the next Mona Lisa, or exhibit your pottery at the local craft fair.
Craft artist
Average annual salary: $30,110
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree (not strictly required, but usually needed)
Experience: Portfolio of self-produced art from college and internships
Employed in field: 5,390
Day-to-day: Set your own hours and create original pieces in a chosen medium.
Multimedia artist and animator
Average annual salary: $61,010
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree
Experience: Portfolio of self-produced art from college and internships
Employed in field: 29,440
Day-to-day: Work for a company, draw, computer animate and create storyboards.
Get your number crunching on, negotiate contracts for athletes and celebrities, or map out individuals’ road to wealth in the financial operations industry.
Tax preparer
Average annual salary: $34,890
Higher education: None necessary (not a certified public accountant)
Experience: On-the-job training, accreditation and certification are all helpful
Employed in field: 61,890
Day-to-day: Prep small business and individual tax returns.
Personal financial advisor
Average annual salary: $89,220
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree
Experience: Licensing by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
Employed in field: 132,460
Day-to-day: Help individuals manage their money to meet their goals.
This field has some of the highest-paying jobs in the U.S. and includes everyone from dentists and doctors, to physical therapists and home health aides. Employees in the healthcare industry directly impact the quality of life for those they serve.
Home health aide
Average annual salary: $20,850
Higher education: None
Experience: On-the-job training and, in some cases, state certification
Employed in field: 834,580
Day-to-day: Help patients live in their own homes by providing personal care.
Anesthesiologist
Average annual salary: $192,780
Higher education: Medical school and degree
Experience: 3 – 8 years of internship and residency, also government licensing
Employed in field: 31,030
Day-to-day: Dull the pain and help keep patients alive during surgery.
Working in the media lets you communicate information to the public, write journalistic prose, produce film and still images, and get blamed for reporting the news.
Photographer
Average annual salary: $34,010
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree needed for journalism, industry and science photography
Experience: Technical proficiency with equipment and a portfolio
Employed in field: 62,370
Day-to-day: Search out and tell stories with pictures, and reveal subjects’ personalities.
Broadcast news analyst
Average annual salary: $70,370
Higher education: Bachelor’s degree
Experience: Internships at college or professional stations
Employed in field: 6,550
Day-to-day: Deliver local, national and international news. Read a teleprompter and look professional doing it.
More than 154 million American civilians were employed in February 2009. With a labor force of that size, you can find your niche, pursue your passion, and still make some cash. It might take hard work, wise job choices, and higher education, but the United States is the land of opportunity–-you just have to make the most of yours.
Sources: bls.gov; nih.gov; forbes.com; nj.gov; bbb.org; acatcredentials.org
if we switched the salaries of sales clerks and petroleum engineers, would we save the economy from ever having another crisis, while simultaneously saving the environment? i mean, if we need sustainability in order to survive and there are too many people willing to be sales clerks right now because its and easy clean job to make cash(i know for a fact because this is my current status), and there are How many people without jobs right now? on top of that there are young industries in the field of engineering (green technologies, waste management technologies) that deserve to be making six digit salaries, while petroleum engineers are making good money destroying everything we have... literally. if we switched those salaries, ... somehow, would that not redistribute things in a way that allows for the destruction of companies like staples that refuse to recycle plastic, put money in the pocket of those who are allowing everyone that is propping up the economy during the crisis (resilient small business owners that are making safe decisions with their money unlike the S&Ls that trounced us all a couple years back) to take their place? This may seem radical and slightly anarchistic, but i think that is just a corporate instilled mindset. Corporate retail is the industry that has the general public by the gonads, because they have large quantities of cheap product for those business owners, but if they were out of the way so that smaller business owners with better policies would be free to take their place, and sure prices may go up a bit, but the quality of general product would increase. people would be willing to run these companies for the owners. it would be something like a corporate fold over. this is kinda speculative, but it seems like the risks made my the higher income brackets have affected everyone so greatly in such a short amount of time that the economy needs to be turned like a vehicle itself, rather than built on like a house of cards. With every bubble, the impact of crisis becomes larger, and every time it produces a boom that progresses us toward another crisis. while this is only half of that equation the other half is cutting losses on a larger scale than those in power are willing to make because of what? Obama is focused, but has things like foreign policy and his adopted war on terror to deal with. It seems like the people that were making fortunes off of the things that are allowing the economy to be in this state, as well as allowing the climates to cause people in Alaska to wear face masks because of china's pollution and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa to melt because of America's pollution need to take one for the team and get a bit more humble about this whole life thing and allow smarter people with better healthier ideas to get richer. it may be too soon to be thinking like this, and if you think so ill slap you later... but with every economic bubble, the state of all things available for the race to sustain itself on worsens and diminishes. because of the re bubble that it causes. a sustainable economic theory would be needed and the changes needed would be radical enough to be whined about by those who are so focused on their own success as being separate from that of the success of everyone else (i literally mean all other humans).
Hey Tony,
Thanks for your opinion.
You don't mention many jobs related to construction us as roofers for Roof Repair . There are many jobs in the construction industry that pay very well and offer quite a bit of opportunity to grow and move about. Of course there are more jobs in construction than just roofing, but it is a great option for many people.
Hi Seth. Construction jobs do pay well. The problem is finding a steady job. With the credit and housing markets on wobbly legs, the construction industry isn't what it used to be.
Covidien is hiring for
The medical field is a great choice.
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