00:00is a materials engineering degree or a
00:02materials engineering major
00:04worth it is it going to be worth going
00:0640 000 in debt and spending four years
00:09grinding studying like 10 hours a day
00:11that's what we're going to be talking
00:12about today and let's jump
00:14right into it first of all what is
00:16materials engineering well materials
00:18engineering is all about developing
00:20creating and processing a range of
00:22different materials that can be used to
00:25products this could be anything from
00:28biomedical devices stuff that you put
00:31super conductors there's all kinds of
00:34different materials out there that can
00:35be used to meet different needs when it
00:37comes to creating new devices
00:39now in the united states every year
00:41around 1522 people graduate with a
00:44materials engineering degree however
00:46there are several degrees that are very
00:48similar and i'm going to have them pop
00:50up on the screen right now you've got
00:51materials engineering materials science
00:53and then materials science and
00:55engineering and they are very similar in
00:57fact a lot of the time they're going to
00:59be competing for the exact same jobs
01:01however in ces the national center of
01:03educational statistics basically just
01:05groups them all together
01:06depending on what program you go to
01:08there will be some subtle differences
01:09some are going to be more on the
01:12of things the scientific side whereas
01:14some are more practical now in these
01:16videos i like to break them down into
01:18four different sections to figure out
01:19whether they're going to be worth the 40
01:21000 of student loan debt that you'll
01:23likely have to take out
01:24salary satisfaction demand and then x
01:27factors and the first one we're going to
01:30is salary or earning potential now
01:32according to pay scale with this degree
01:34you would expect to make around 69
01:36000 a year starting out and 117 000
01:40in mid-career pay you can compare that
01:41to the highest paying degree which is
01:43petroleum engineering or a very low
01:45paying one and you'll see that it's on
01:46the higher paying side
01:48now let's say you get this degree and
01:49you decide to become a materials
01:51engineer you would expect to make around
01:53ninety three thousand dollars a year and
01:55that's around forty four dollars per
01:57hour let's say you decide to become a
01:59materials scientist according to bls
02:01you'd make seventy eight thousand a year
02:03or thirty seven dollars an hour
02:04a few other occupations you might look
02:06into with this degree
02:08that are somewhat common for people to
02:09go into if they major in this would be
02:11aerospace engineer architectural
02:15biomedical engineer chemical engineer or
02:17chemist and material scientist
02:19and as you can see all of them pay
02:21relatively well now i always recommend
02:23trying to make at least 70 to 80 000
02:26a year because studies have shown that
02:28that's where your happiness maxes out
02:30and by that i mean your happiness does
02:33increase the more money you make up to a
02:35certain point and that is around 70 to
02:37000 a year of course there's a bunch of
02:39other factors for instance if you live a
02:42it's going to be more than that now when
02:44you look at how much people who graduate
02:45with an engineering degree make over an
02:48it is the best by far they make around
02:53over a lifetime versus 2.4 for all other
02:56degrees that go into all
02:57other careers so when it comes to salary
02:59or earning potential engineering degrees
03:01are fantastic you got to give them props
03:04this one is going to get a 9 out of 10
03:06for salary next we're going to be
03:08talking about satisfaction and i like to
03:12into two different areas meaning and
03:14then job satisfaction
03:16meaning is how much do you think your
03:17career positively impacts the world
03:20whereas job satisfaction is just how
03:21much do you enjoy doing your job on a
03:24so for instance if your job was playing
03:26video games it might have very high job
03:28satisfaction but very low meaning now
03:30with this degree pay scale has it at a
03:33meaning score and you can compare that
03:35to a really high one like radiation
03:37therapy or low one like plastics
03:39engineering technology
03:40and you'll see that it is on the lower
03:42side i guess this kind of makes sense
03:44you're basically working with plastic
03:46inanimate objects that sort of thing
03:48you're not necessarily
03:49helping other people at least directly
03:52now when you look at the exact career of
03:54materials engineer it's a little bit
03:5750 percent meaning score but still
03:59that's average or below average at best
04:01however the job satisfaction is around
04:0365 percent and if you compare that to a
04:06higher one and a lower one
04:07you see that it's average or maybe
04:09slightly above average now another thing
04:11very important to talk about is how much
04:15getting their college degrees we hear
04:17about this all the time how people will
04:18get a degree they think it's going to be
04:21and then it ends up being completely
04:23different for instance a lot of the time
04:24people will get a degree thinking they
04:26can get a job after just four years
04:28after they get their bachelor's
04:29and then after they graduate they figure
04:31out that they're not going to be able to
04:32get a job until they get a master's or a
04:35engineering though is the third least
04:37regretted type of college degree only
04:39around 15 percent of people regret it
04:41and the main reason is because the best
04:44advanced degrees that's talking about
04:46all engineering degrees it doesn't
04:48really break it down further i wish
04:50there was better data on that maybe
04:51there will be in the future
04:53but you know materials might not be as
04:55popular as some of the other ones
04:57keep in mind here that this is extremely
04:59subjective for one person it might be
05:00the most fascinating thing in the world
05:02for another person it might make them
05:04fall asleep within a few minutes
05:06it also depends a lot on your
05:07personality and the specific job
05:10that you have for instance your
05:11co-workers the company you work for the
05:13industry you work in etc
05:15but with that being said this one does
05:17score relatively low when it comes to
05:19satisfaction for the average person
05:21i'm going to give it a 7 out of 10. next
05:23we're going to be talking about demand
05:25and this might be the most
05:27important factor out of all of them and
05:29the reason for that is because
05:30a lot of other things tend to come from
05:32demand so for instance if you have a
05:34skill that a lot of business owners and
05:37want and there's not a lot of people out
05:38there that have that skill they're
05:39probably going to pay you more
05:41they're going to treat you better
05:42they're going to give you lots of
05:43opportunity so for the specific career
05:45of materials engineer
05:47there's 27 500 jobs available here in
05:51it's growing at two percent which is
05:52slower than average meaning over the
05:54next 10 years there's only going to be
05:56200 new jobs that pop up if you look at
05:58material scientists there's 93
06:00000 jobs available and it's growing at 5
06:02which is a little faster than average
06:04now luckily when it comes to
06:06unemployment rates stem degrees are
06:07great they usually have very low
06:09unemployment and engineering degrees are
06:11even better now of course everything is
06:13really weird right now in the world so
06:14who knows what the unemployment rates
06:16are but before this whole situation
06:18happened stem degrees were pretty good
06:20now one thing i like to do is to search
06:22the name of the degree on a site like
06:25indeed.com and when you search materials
06:27engineering degree you'll see that 10
06:30400 job listings have that as a keyword
06:32in the job description
06:34compare that to a degree that's in high
06:35demand like computer science or one that
06:37doesn't have much demand at all like
06:40and you'll see that it's definitely on
06:41the higher side i know that 10 000 might
06:43not seem like very much but computer
06:45science is an outlier and 10 000 is
06:48in the top 10 or 20 percent now when top
06:50companies are surveyed and asked what
06:52types of majors they're hiring from
06:54people who just graduated from college
06:56engineering is almost always either
06:58number one or number two along with
07:00and when you break that down even
07:01further you'll see that materials
07:03engineering is kind of in the middle so
07:06it's not one that's getting hired a lot
07:08and it's also not one that is getting
07:10completely ignored now one thing that a
07:12like mechanical engineering for instance
07:14has that's a huge advantage
07:17is there are so many of them out there
07:18that chances are hiring managers or
07:22are very familiar with the type of
07:23person that they might get if they hire
07:25a mechanical engineer
07:27whereas there is a lot of uncertainty if
07:29they hire someone from a degree that's
07:31rare it's almost like having mental real
07:33estate inside a business owner and
07:34hiring managers brains
07:36so this gives mechanical engineers a
07:38huge advantage just because of the fact
07:40that their degree is so
07:41flexible so overall for this one i'm
07:43going to go ahead and give it a
07:447.5 out of 10. next we're going to be
07:49x factors and this is anything that's
07:51important that i haven't gone over
07:53already so i mentioned before that
07:55engineering degrees over a lifetime will
07:57make around 3.5 million
07:59versus 2.4 million for all other types
08:02now of course this is like the last 40
08:04years or so so maybe 40 years from now
08:06this could be completely different but
08:08overall that is a really good sign and
08:10what's even better about engineering
08:12degrees is it doesn't matter what career
08:14path you end up going down
08:15it's usually going to pay a lot better
08:18so for instance engineers that become
08:20artists earn three million dollars over
08:23versus the average degree that becomes
08:25an artist only earning around 2.3
08:27engineers that go into community or
08:29legal services will earn
08:303.2 million versus the average that only
08:34and you see this pretty much
08:36consistently across the board engineers
08:38no matter what career path they go
08:40into are earning well above average now
08:42there could be many different factors
08:44here it could be that people who do
08:46engineering tend to be really smart
08:48and so they would have been successful
08:49anyways but if you look at degrees like
08:51mathematics or physics
08:52they're good they have some of that
08:54going for them but definitely not as
08:57average for engineering degrees so i
08:59think it also has something to do with
09:01the fact that engineering focuses on
09:03problem solving and it teaches you
09:05skills that are going to help you no
09:06matter what career path
09:08or what life path in general you end up
09:10going down now when you look at the zip
09:11recruiter skills index materials
09:13isn't on there however one that's very
09:17chemical engineering and that scores 59
09:20you can compare that to a really good
09:21one like software engineering or one
09:23that's not so good like industrial
09:25sewing and you'll see that it
09:26is on the higher side on top of that
09:28materials engineering has a
09:30very tiny chance of ever being automated
09:32only about two percent according to will
09:34robots takemyjob.com
09:36i also think that engineering is
09:37relatively safe when it comes to
09:39outsourcing just because of the fact
09:41you kind of have to be there in person
09:44a lot of this engineering is sort of
09:45like the middle man so to speak
09:47between technicians and scientists and
09:50so they basically have to be able to do
09:52both jobs on some level and in order to
09:54be a technician you have to be there
09:56touching things you know figuring out
09:58what's going wrong and diagnosing
10:00and it would be very difficult to do
10:01something like that over zoom now one
10:04great about engineering degrees is how
10:06flexible they are and this shows when
10:08you look at the degrees that create the
10:11and billionaires engineering is number
10:14and the salary is great don't get me
10:15wrong but the main reason for that is
10:17because it makes such a good segue into
10:19becoming an entrepreneur like i
10:21mentioned before engineering is
10:22basically just practical problem solving
10:24and that's basically what
10:26entrepreneurship is as well now one
10:28thing i always like to tell people here
10:30and this could be a positive or a
10:31negative depending on
10:33you know what frame you're coming from
10:34but engineering is extremely
10:37tough there's a very high dropout rate
10:39for a lot of different engineering
10:41and there's a reason for that it's
10:42because it's hard you're going to be
10:44studying a lot you're going to see your
10:45business major friends just partying it
10:47up all the time and then you're just
10:50and uh you know that can be tough so
10:52keep that in mind it could be a good
10:54thing just because there's going to be a
10:55higher barrier to entry
10:56or it could be a bad thing you know it
10:59really depends on the situation but
11:00overall when it comes to x factors i'm
11:02going to give this one a score of 8 out
11:05so when you add everything up and then
11:07divide it by 4 you're going to see that
11:117.875 that is pretty good
11:14it can definitely work for the right
11:15person depending on what career you're
11:18it might be a better idea for you to
11:20just play it safe and get something like
11:22a mechanical engineering degree or a
11:24chemical engineering degree and the
11:26reason for that is because many of these
11:29by mechanical or chemical engineers
11:31whereas this isn't as much of a flexible
11:34and it kind of goes back to that thing
11:36that i mentioned before where it's just
11:38hiring managers and business owners are
11:40very used to mechanical engineers and so
11:42they sort of just have real estate in
11:44it's not that mechanical engineers are
11:46better than materials engineers
11:48it's just that people are more used to
11:50seeing them however that does make
11:51mechanical a more flexible degree
11:54and so if you're somebody who is a
11:56little bit worried and you're not 100
11:58sure what career path you want to go
11:59down you might want to just play it safe
12:01and go for one of those
12:03however if you've really done your
12:04research you've done your due diligence
12:06you've called people
12:07you've talked to them you know what
12:08career you're going for and you're 100
12:10sure about it then this can be a great
12:13now keep in mind these scores are all
12:15somewhat subjective for one person it
12:17could be a one out of ten for another
12:19person it could be a 10 out of 10.
12:20so take it with a grain of salt always
12:22do your own research
12:24and if you do want help doing research i
12:26have a college degree ranker down in the
12:28description below and my patreon that
12:30i've been working extremely hard on
12:31if you haven't done it already go ahead
12:33and gently tap the like button hit the
12:35subscribe button ring the notification
12:36bell and comment down below any thoughts
12:38comments criticisms etc that you have on
12:41uh share the video as well that helps
12:43quite a bit with the channel and
12:44don't leave check out my other videos
12:47right here i made them
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