Engineering Degree Tier List (2021)

what's happening guys it's shane here again and today we are going to be doing the engineering degree tier list 2021 version this is going to be an updated list on the one that i did back in i think it was late 2019 or early 2020. and there is a lot that has happened in the world since then obviously so the meta has changed a little bit some of the degrees have gone up a bit some of them have gone down and in this video i'm going to be telling you which ones have improved and which ones are not as good as they used to be and i'm going to be ranking all of the different engineering degrees from s tier which is the best to f tier which is the worst now one thing i'm going to be doing a little bit different in this video is i'm not going to go as deep into the numbers because i've already made videos on almost all of these individually and those videos you can kind of look at the criteria i go really deep into the numbers in terms of how much they make how much job opportunity there is out there etc etc and whenever i go into the numbers with these types of videos they end up being way too long and so in order to keep this short i'm just gonna give you my opinion and keep in mind this is just my opinion make sure you always do your research on your own now my videos are a fantastic research if you're trying to choose your college degree or figure out what career you want to do however if you need a little bit more if you want a step-by-step systematized process to figure out what you want to do for your career or what college degree you want to choose you can check out my college 101 course down in the description below for a very limited amount of time i'm going to be selling it at a steep discount and if you haven't done it already go ahead gently tap the like button what are you guys waiting for come on hit that subscribe button only around 20 of you are subscribed right now even though i know you're watching the videos and then also comment down below any thoughts comments etc that you have on the video but with that being said let's start it off right off the bat with the first one on the list which is aerospace engineering this is going to be the type of engineering that's going to study everything that flies through the air both on the planet in the atmosphere or outside of the planet as well so you're going to be studying planes jets helicopters etc but also satellites and rockets now my dad actually got a very similar degree to this one this one wasn't exactly offered back in the day when he went to college but he got an aeronautical engineering degree and i can tell you that people who are obsessed with like airplanes and jets and things that fly through the air are very obsessed with them and if you think about it we've only been able to fly for about a hundred years now so i mean it actually is pretty awesome now in terms of the pay this one is one of the higher paying engineering degrees on the list however one big issue with this one is it's not nearly as flexible as some of the other ones like mechanical engineering so you do want to make sure if you want to get an aeronautical engineering degree do your due diligence figure out exactly what career you're trying to go into and figure out if that degree is the best option for you and by the way guys just a warning for like all these engineering degrees pretty much they're all very very difficult i think the smartest person i ever met was one of my roommates back when i was going to college and he was an aerospace engineer uh just super super smart guy and i saw other engineers they would just study all the time okay so you know just keep that in mind not trying to uh you know scare you or anything like that but they are very very challenging but with that being said aerospace engineering is going to go into a tier next on the list is going to be architectural engineering and this one is kind of a combination of an architect and an engineer so they're going to be focusing on the design implementation building and construction as well as the technology behind what needs to be in a building so in terms of the numbers this one looks pretty decent if you can compare it to all other degrees but when you're putting it side by side with other engineering degrees it's not quite as good okay so pay is pretty good but there's not as much job demand and this is another one where it's not as flexible as you'd probably want it to be so for that reason all things being equal i'm going to put this one into d tier next on the list is going to be biomedical engineering and this is one where i said in my last video that the numbers weren't super good for it however i think it's kind of a dark horse candidate and by that i mean it might not be amazing right now but depending on what happens in the future this one could get more and more popular and there's so much exciting technology coming out in the world of healthcare and the opportunities are just endless but with that being said when you look at the numbers on this one it isn't quite as good as some of the other degrees and on top of that there's a lot of jobs out there that you could go into with a biomedical engineering degree you could also go into with like a mechanical engineering degree and so in many cases it's better to just stick with the more flexible degree if you're not 100 sure you know what you're going for and so for that reason i'm going to go ahead and put this one into c tier next on the list is going to be chemical engineering this is one that has the reputation of being one of the hardest engineering degrees now in terms of the statistics for this one very good pay you're going to make amazing money if you become a chemical engineer unfortunately a lot of the jobs for chemical engineers are going to require you to move this is not one of those degrees where there's going to be jobs in every city and so the demand for this one is good but with a caveat right with an asterisk on it because a lot of the time you are going to have to move now if you become a chemical engineer and then you go into the natural gas industry which is a common career path a lot of the time that's going to be fluctuating quite a bit right so you know sometimes there's a ton of jobs in the national gas industry and then a lot of the time there's not going to be any jobs at all so any type of energy related industry oftentimes is going to fluctuate so for instance during the pandemic natural gas industries got absolutely demolished and energy industries in general kind of just got destroyed as well i talked about this in my stock tier list video where i basically analyzed uh what happened with different industries and what stocks did well during the pandemic and which ones didn't do so well so overall if you're okay with moving and you know what you're getting yourself into this one can be fantastic i would say this one is kind of similar to petroleum engineering but it's a little more flexible so it's a good option if you're considering petroleum so overall i'm going to put this one into b-tier next on the list is going to be civil engineering so this one is similar to architectural engineering but there's more of an emphasis on roads bridges dams etc now i would say overall when it comes to civil engineering it's just kind of solid when it comes to the numbers it's not amazing it definitely doesn't jump off the page you know you're gonna make a decent salary there's a decent amount of demand out there it's relatively flexible so it's pretty good um if you're someone who's passionate about civil engineering then definitely go into it but it just doesn't jump off the page so for that reason i'm going to go ahead and put this one into b tier next on the list is going to be computer engineering and this one is fantastic so it's becoming increasingly obvious that technology is taking over the world automation is coming and computers and technology is just getting better and better now the software side of things is fantastic but let's not forget the hardware side of things as well which is what computer engineers generally focus on this one is just really good in every single category right you make incredibly good money it's a very flexible you can work in all kinds of different jobs for instance you could get a computer engineering degree and then you could become a software developer pretty much every industry out there is in need of people who have computer engineering expertise so it's a very flexible degree there's tons of demand it pays really well also if you go into the technology industry businesses tend to treat you better so there's going to be higher job satisfaction i've talked about that in my videos before where you know there are certain industries for instance where you consistently see people reporting higher job satisfaction and that's not just how much you enjoy doing the job itself but it's how much the company values you and how much you think you're contributing to the world and so this one is a no-brainer this one goes into s-tier however there is another one that after doing a ton of research on it this one has also moved up to ester it was not ester in the last video that i did and that is electrical engineering now electrical has a lot of the upsides that computer engineering has but it's even more flexible so you're not going to be making quite as much as a computer engineer however you're going to have access to a lot of the same jobs and it's even more flexible so you're basically going to be designing and creating products any type of product that uses electricity however a lot of electrical engineers end up working in the technology industry of course so for a lot of the same reasons that i ranked computer engineering high this one is also ranking up there as well it's just a little bit more flexible so if you're not 100 sure what you want to do this one might be a slightly better option for you but overall this one goes into s tier as well so next on the list is going to be environmental engineering and this is exactly what it sounds like it's going to be engineering that involves helping the environment right so an environmental engineer might try to create a machine that turns plastic into oil or maybe a machine that gets rid of some of the co2 in the atmosphere so really cool degree a lot of people are passionate about this obviously but unfortunately when you compare to some of the other engineering degrees i have to be fair here the numbers just are not as good you know if you want somebody to lie to you about these things there's plenty of channels out there that'll do that however on this channel i'm going to be fair and objectively evaluate these and objectively speaking this one just is not as good as some of the other engineering degrees that doesn't mean that you can't go into it that's awesome if you know you're passionate about it and you want to go into it but when it comes to the numbers it's just not as good maybe it will be better in the future that would be awesome but at this point it's just not as good and so for that reason i'm going to go ahead and put it into c tier next one on the list is going to be industrial engineering and this is actually one of my favorite engineering degrees i am very bullish on this one it combines a lot of business knowledge with engineering knowledge and that is just a deadly combination so you're going to be learning a lot of the practical like you know how to make money business side of things but also some of those skills that are so valuable when it comes to problem solving which is what engineering teaches you how to do you know there's a reason that when you look at what degrees create the most millionaires the top two by far are engineering degrees and business degrees and a lot of the time when you see people start companies the best two combinations of people are engineering type people who you know are focused on creating the best possible product they're builders and then the other person is more of a salesman right more of a business type person that is just a great combination a lot of the time people who evaluate startups try to look for founders if it's you know a two-person founder business that have both of these skills and if you study industrial engineering you are going to learn both of those skills together so in terms of the numbers this one is pretty solid uh you know it doesn't like really jump off the page it's not amazing like computer engineering electrical engineering etc however i think it's pretty flexible there's so many different positions that you can get into with an industrial engineering degree and so i am very happy with this one right now i'm going to put it into a tier but i could see this one actually rising into estier in the near future next one on the list is going to be marine engineering and this is going to be the type of engineering that is going to be focused on vessels that float in the water and not just ones that float like boats and oil rigs but also submarines now this one has decent stats when it comes to how much you make but i will say that this one does suffer when it comes to the job opportunities out there the big problem with this one is a lot of the time jobs that can be done by a marine engineer can also be done by a mechanical engineer however with mechanical engineers they have tons of other options and marine engineers kind of pigeonhole themselves so when it comes to the stats comparing this to other types of engineering degrees it's not amazing if you compare to all degrees out there it's still relatively decent so if you're someone who is super passionate about submarines and ships and stuff like that still go into it however you know just being fair here i'm going to put it into c tier next one on the list is going to be materials engineering now materials engineering is going to focus on working with metals ceramics and plastics in order to create new materials that can be used in products and there are of course a ton of really amazing uses for this you see you know quantum computing for instance that's one obvious example a professor just recently created a new material that can keep buildings cool without using air conditioner that's another example but the only problem here is this is a professor of industrial and mechanical engineering right not a materials engineer and you see that over and over again where a lot of the time materials engineering inventions are you know created by chemical engineers and mechanical engineers so it kind of has that same problem where there's a reason why there are so many other people that can do their jobs however they are kind of pigeonholing themselves into certain careers right so flexibility is very important here um you know comparing this one to a lot of other careers out there it's still pretty solid however if you're going to compare it to engineering degrees unfortunately the numbers just aren't going to be as good i will say though that this one is a little bit of a dark horse candidate for me right now i'm going to be putting it into d tier however i could see in the near future this one rising up next one on the list is going to be mechanical engineering and this is the perfect degree if you're not 100 sure what you want to do because i think it's the most flexible engineering degree there are so many different directions you can go with a mechanical engineering degree you know if you do your due diligence you do your research and you know exactly what career you're going to go into some of these other degrees are better however if you're not 100 sure mechanical engineering is a really good go-to engineering degree this one has relatively solid numbers pretty much across the board and it's also very flexible so this one is going to go into a tier next one on the list is going to be one that was highly requested people were so mad that i left it off the original list and that is mechatronics engineering so this one is kind of a combination of mechanical engineering with electrical engineering and robotics and this one has so much hype behind it people are super super excited about this one and i did an entire video on it and to be honest with you there's not a whole lot of really solid data out there about mechatronics engineering just because it's so new but with that being said the data that is out there is extremely promising and this one is just really cool i'm pretty bullish on this one i think it's going to be fantastic right now i'm going to give it an a tier status but i could see it moving to s-tier in the near future next one on the list is going to be a degree that's technically not an engineering degree and that's going to be most engineering technology degrees right so one thing i saw when i was reading comments on my youtube videos and doing research is a lot of people get these mixed up with engineering degrees engineering technology degrees are not the same as engineering degrees and a lot of people think that schools do this on purpose where they kind of make it sound like it's an engineering degree when in reality it's not and when you look deep into the numbers on these the numbers are not nearly as good as engineering degrees are now there's still a few that are all right and i talk about those in some of my other videos but overall engineering technology degrees are going to get f-tier status next on the list is going to be network engineering and this is kind of a combination of information technology and engineering so you're basically going to be working on different networks in order to store and transfer information now after hearing that you probably think that that sounds fantastic but after doing some research on this one it's just not as good as a lot of the other engineering degrees and i think one of the big reasons for that is because of the fact that you're basically competing against different information technology information technology management degrees and there's already plenty of people who are very very good at that so it's a bit of a redundant degree in many cases you're going to be competing against a big pool of people who are very experienced in information technology that doesn't mean that there are some things that you can do that they wouldn't be able to do but overall when it comes to the numbers here this one is not super good still decent i'm going to go ahead and put it into c tier next on the list is going to be nuclear engineering this is another energy related engineering degree and like i said before all of the energy related degrees are going to be very volatile right so whether it's petroleum engineering environmental engineering or nuclear engineering all of them are extremely volatile there's so many different things that could happen in the world a war could break out a new politician a global pandemic and all of a sudden you go from you know having a fantastic job to pretty much all of the employees get laid off but then a few years later it might reverse and you can get your job right back now i'm personally a huge fan of nuclear engineering i think it's a fantastic way of collecting and storing energy but overall when it comes to the numbers this one is going to go into c tier next on the list is going to be petroleum engineering and this is the highest paying engineering degree on the entire list it is almost ridiculous how much money you can make straight out of college with a petroleum engineering degree in fact it's the highest paying degree period at the bachelor level but with that being said there are a lot of downsides to it i talked about the problem with different energy related degrees and we saw in the last year or so they got absolutely crushed petroleum companies and just energy related companies in general had to lay off a ton of people another bad thing about this one is a lot of the time you are going to have to move somewhere in order to get a job sometimes these are not going to be very desirable locations they might be in the middle of nowhere next to a tiny town in texas or out on an ocean rig or something along those lines however if you're willing to do that you can get paid a ridiculous amount of money now it does look like these companies are recovering as we're getting towards the end of the current situation and so for that reason this one is going to just sneak into b-tier if i did this a month ago i'd probably say this is in c tier but i've been kind of monitoring the market and everything and it's looking like it's going to recover and so this one is just going to sneak into b-tier for now next one on the list is going to be software engineering another one that i left off the list last time and one thing i will say about this is uh and actually i just kind of want to say this in general is sometimes i get comments like from people from other countries and in some countries software engineering and computer science are essentially the same thing and there is a ton of overlap there so it kind of makes sense however here in the us they are not exactly the same thing there are some differences however when you look at the numbers they are both fantastic software engineering numbers look amazing now one thing i'll also say is a lot of the time i'll get comments from people from india for instance saying that engineering degrees in india are not good right so engineering degrees have basically become saturated in india and you can't get a good job unless you go to a really good college or really good university so that's why i always try to remind you guys you know i do my research based off of u.s statistics there is going to be some overlap with other countries however it's not always going to be the same and so you definitely need to do your research but with that being said software engineering easily makes it into s-tier status before you leave check out my other videos right here i made them just for you go ahead hit that like button hit the subscribe button ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts comments criticisms etc that you have on the video especially if you're somebody who's actually gotten one of these great degrees i want to hear your opinion on it let me know if i got the meta right if there's anything i should change here and i will see you guys next time have a good one

Channel: Shane Hummus

Views: 223,152

Keywords: Shane, Hummus, Shane Hummus, robinhood, college degrees, college majors, degrees, majors, engineering degree tier list, college degree tier list, engineer, engineering, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, chemical engineer, best engineering degree, aerospace engineer, computer engineer, petroleum engineer, civil engineer, industrial engineer, biomedical engineer, marine engineer, environmental engineer, the success gps, engineering degree types, software engineering degree

Id: Ljx0fDKs8-k

Length: 20min 47sec (1247 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021