Thinking about career goals and employer demand can help graduate students chart their futures.
When considering going to graduate school, the career potential of your chosen field of study can be an important factor to take into account. Certain industries right now are undergoing tremendous growth, opening up exciting professional opportunities next year and in the years ahead.
Salary potential
When selecting a graduate program, students may want to consider the salary potential of career roles they may become qualified for.
“Education is like any other investment, in that one needs to do some cost-benefit analysis before taking the plunge,” said Katie Bardaro, lead analyst at PayScale.com, according to Monster.
To this end, Monster compiled a list of the best-paying master’s degrees. No. 1 was nurse anesthesia, with a median annual pay of $165,000. Second was telecommunications engineering, with a median pay of $141,000, followed by finance and economics, with a median pay of $134,000.
Other degrees on the list included those related to computer engineering and science. Skills connected to these areas are in particularly high demand by employers in a range of industries, not just IT, according to a 2017 report from Burning Glass Technologies.
“By a wide margin, the fastest growing and highest paying jobs require computer science skills, and the ability to work with and analyze data – any kind of data, in any industry – is increasingly linked with computer science skills,” the report noted.
Burning Glass also explored demand for talented professionals with computer science skills in the five areas most notably searching for talent: data analysis, engineering and manufacturing, design, marketing and programming and information technology.
Job growth
Certain job types are also expected to experience growth over the next several years, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some of the top-paying jobs forecasted to see significant growth include:
Exploring career demand and salary potential can help undergraduate and graduate students map out their future careers and desired goals.
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