What are the best graduate degrees for the future?
People Having Informal Meeting about best graduate degree.
Like many questions regarding education, this is not a simple question. There are many things to take into consideration while you investigate the answer.
First of all, what are you interested in? The absolute BEST graduate degree for YOUR future is one that you feel passionately about. Graduate school is very hard work. It takes passion, dedication, perseverance, endurance, sacrifice, and a lot of love for your subject. There may indeed be people who get through school without a lot of fuss or love for their field of study, get a good job right out of school, and make a lot of money, and there’s a good chance a lot of those people hate it and hate their lives 10 years later. For some, that well-paying job at the end is worth whatever you have to go through, and whatever you continue going through, and for others, it’s important to have a balance between loving your job, and loving your paycheck. Therefore, it’s important to weigh your own priorities when deciding on the best graduate degrees for the future for YOU.
Secondly, what are you good at? It doesn’t do you a lot of good to go to graduate school for something that you’ll struggle with the whole time. As previously stated, graduate school is hard! Give yourself every advantage you can. Play to your strengths.
Now we get to the good stuff! Third, and what everyone wants to know, what are the best-paying graduate degrees right now? A quick tip for the question of the best graduate degrees for the future is does it have “engineering” in the title? STEM is *BIG* right now. If you haven’t heard that acronym yet, it means Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Oh yes, you want to go into STEM! If you happen to be interested in Education, everyone’s all about STEM in schools, getting young girls into STEM during grade school, and encouraging college-age women to get into and stay in STEM fields, and improving the US’s ability to compete with the rest of the world in STEM fields. STEM is where it’s at, my friends! Ok… and Business. STEM and Business are where it’s at, my friends!
To be more specific, here is a list of high paying jobs that are projected to be growing fields in the future, for 2016:
- Petroleum Engineering – MS
- Nurse Anesthetist – MS
- Post-Secondary Chemistry Teacher – PhD
- General & Strategic Management – MBA
- Finance & Real Estate – MBA
- Electrical & Computer Engineering– PhD
- Computer Engineering – PhD
- Chemical Engineering – PhD
- Biomedical Engineering – PhD
- Physical Therapist – Doctorate
- Bio-Physicist – PhD
STEM is such a burgeoning field that businesses have begun sponsored scholarships to encourage and enable women to participate in STEM programs in college. Han Ngo, age 20, winner of one of these scholarships said,
“To my women out there who are interested in STEM fields but are held back by the negative stereotypes, be brave and do what you love. Don’t let other people steer you or pressure you into doing something you don’t like. Believe in your own ability, and consistently remind yourself that you can do it.”
