Carnegie Mellon SCS grads are tops in salary, says nerdwallet

I'm not sure I agree, for many reasons.

1 - a lot of grads have loans to pay off, and that $100k/yr job sure helps get it done quickly so you can focus on anything you want without that on your back.

2 - That $100k/yr job can help you meet a lot of great people to work on projects with at a later time. A lot of SCS grads come out having done nothing but stare at code for 4 years (I'm one, and I was saddened by the number of my classmates who made no connections on campus outside of SCS, connections that would be vitally useful in a startup). Working at a great company in the valley can help get you into the startup scene in a way that Pittsburgh might not.

3 - Nothing says you can't work on a startup outside of the 40-50hrs/wk you put in at your 100k/yr job. SCS grads are used to loooong work weeks; a normal work week seems short in comparison, especially right after graduation when you aren't (probably) supporting a family or anything else. That leaves time to make money AND try out some projects.

4 - Not being part of a startup =/= slaving your life away. There's a lot of great, rewarding work to be done in the valley and in the tech industry, it isn't an all or nothing thing with the all being becoming a startup founder. Being part of a company growing quickly and doing cool things can be just as rewarding as being a founder.

> While you still can, while the market is still hot, why not aim for something better like creating the next instagram or dropbox?

I guess not everyone wants to build yet another website/app. A lot of interesting/hard/capital-intensive R&D is done outside of the startup bubble and there are only so many job openings at SpaceX.

I think your chances of succeeding in your startup increase tremendously if you've taken a couple of years to work at another startup, see what is required to make it work, and see what problems you want to avoid, before starting your own. I also think, for CMU in particular, students have less exposure to the Silicon Valley startup culture than Stanford students. Hopefully that is better now than when I went, but being naive about the business side of things can have some pretty negative consequences when you try to start your own thing.

Of course, if you really have an idea you are passionate about you should go out there and make it happen. But maybe find some other more experienced CMU folks to give you some advice while you do it :)

I was on a panel at CMU, as part of a NYC startup tour designed to encourage students to move to NYC and/or join a startup. Of all the schools we went to, the CMU event had the best attendance and students I talked to afterwards seemed the most interested in entrepreneurship.

"Other people in my class aren't doing what I want to do, and this saddens me."

Startups aren't the One True Path of computing, and some people appreciate clocking out at a consistent time every day (or have an eye on a family, or whatever); the Silicon Valley life is not for everyone, and being saddened by other people not choosing your lifestyle is just silly. Why does this matter to you?

SCS grad here, I echo your sentiments. There are lots of CMU grads in startups, though from companies like Dulingo, Homerun, Everlane, Gazehawk, etc. Seems that the school is doing more for the entrepreneurship program which is encouraging.

"...if you have practically nothing to lose."

My student loans say differently. :)

But honestly, so many factors go into post-undergrad job hunting these days that it's difficult to simplify the issue into "go to a startup" and "don't go to a startup."

I also wouldn't say that 100K is "slaving your life away" if you want to raise a family and live a comfortable life. I went to a small school in southwest Indiana (Rose-Hulman) and most graduates want nothing more than to work a 9-5 engineering job and find the love of their lives.

And frankly, I can't find the heart to advise them otherwise.

Another CMU grad here, and I can't agree more.

Attention all new CMU SCS grads: I envy you. You have the brains, the skills, and the YOUTH to do whatever you want! DO IT! It doesn't have to be a startup, but it should be something that you really really want to do and would do even for free. You literally have nothing to lose.

If you think you would work for someone else for free - then do it. The minute you take a job for the pay however, you're on the slippery slope of selling your soul for money.

You can always make money. Your youth is ticking away by the minute. You will never get it back.

I graduate from CMU 6 years ago. I took the safer route. Instead of searching for something I am passionate about, I settled for the paycheck. It took me 4 years to gather up enough courage to admit that I was miserable on the paycheck treadmill.

See, when you work for a paycheck, you sell yourself to the person in control of your pay - your manager. Your incentive is to please your manager so that you can get your raise. Often times, this means that you have to compromise your own judgement to be “in alignment with the management”. Each time you compromise your own judgement, you actually become more adversed to making your own judgement. And as you lose your sense of judgement, you lose your confidence in yourself to do any differently. This is when you are really in trouble. You become risk adverse: the more you compromise your soul to gain your material belongings, the more you become committed to holding on to your material goods for dear life.

I saw this happening to myself but I didn't have enough courage to just quit outright, so I took the only other socially (parentally) acceptable route: go back to school.

At my MBA program I found a whole collection of folks similar to me. Regardless of whatever we wrote on the application to get in, most of us were just soul searching. Searching for the meaning of our lives beyond our paychecks. There, I observed a phenomenon. The “I want to do something else BUT” disease. Usually, the BUT is a “but I have sustain my materialistic life”. So even as most of us were soul searching, by far the majority went right back onto the paycheck treadmill. And that is sad. Really sad.

Avoid the treadmill altogether and you will be happier for it. If you can’t, if you need the money to sustain yourself and your family, then at the very least keep your conciseness in check and remember that you’re just working for a paycheck. In your spare time, do what you truly want to be doing, challenge yourself and don’t listen to what the majority wants you to do. Be different. You only live once. Live it.

I dunno, I feel like my life has been a constant cycle of big-fish, little-pond- and I'm grateful for it. It drives me to achieve more.

How do you find CMU to be a 'surprisingly high ranked school'?

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

Those are 4 top notch engineering schools. Why is it a surprise that they would be popular with employers. (Disclosure: I'm a CMU alum.)

GaTech ranks very high (inter)nationally in most engineering disciplines. Resulting salaries are not surprising.

It says at the bottom: "some schools do not report salary data."

http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/education/college-and-career-...

I know for a fact that Stanford CS majors are making on average $80,000 per annum upon graduating from the undergrad program. A document circulating the CS mailing lists a while ago had all the figures. Note that despite the increasing difficulty to dismiss its allure, I am not a CS major.