Very interesting thread, with some great comments. I'm kinda on Prof Cliffs side though. A question that does come to my mind is what exactly to you expect from life?
ROI I assume means "return on investment". In the surveying world it can mean many things, including "roller coaster into divestment", or even "ride our individualism". Even "rote on inside" (of the stake - cut when you meant fill $$$)
Without deciding what you want from life, it's a tough call. I'm one of those who started in college to be a forester. I love trees, nature, water, and am conservative with my consumption of things. I ended up being a surveyor with a BS in forestry. Any regrets? Nope, I'd do it again if I had those 40 yrs back.
You'll never be rich, but you can actually say the same thing most of us surveyors say every day - "....I love my job....".
Best of luck to ya kiddo.
No way is the ROI on 4 survey year degree worth it.
I'd go to school and get a degree in Computer science or business.
My brother still laughs at me for following in the footsteps of my old and becoming a surveyor.
I can't see how the ROI on any college degree is quantifiable in any meaningful way. My dad and Jack Welch have the same undergraduate degree but I'm pretty sure dad's net worth was never 750 million dollars.
A friend of mine entered a Catholic monastery less than a year after graduating from Yale law...bet that plays hell with the ROI numbers.
Just because the the chemical engineering and Yale Law grad data sets contain outliers doesn't render them unmeaningful.
It is still a useful thing to know what median salaries are from these cohorts at 0, 5, 10, 20, and 30 years out. What is rather likely to happen is important to know, even though a wise person will not confuse this with certainty.
