patrick.net

I go by Futurama's guidance on intergalactic ediblity (I will eat anything that was stupid enough to blow its money gambling...including gambling on flipping real estate).

BSes

I wasn’t sure how to say BS in plural.

The accepted plural form (American) for "Bullshit" is "Horseshit", although most people will use the colloquial "load of Bullshit", or the idiomatic "pile of Bullshit".

BSes = bachelors of science.

I'll try B.S.es next time, and hope that's more clear.

SFWoman2

Horseshit (see above post).

http://media.ft.com/cms/c51a4c7c-8f2d-11da-b430-0000779e2340.pdf

(2005 data)

Haas: $123,968
Stanford: $156,126
Columbia: $148,778
Harvard: $159,973
Chicago: $140,602
Wharton: $153,415

to find a salary under $100K for US b-school you have to go down the list to Michigan State.

Didn't we already cover this a couple threads ago?

One of the things I have noticed is some of posters who work in Tech or support infer six figure incomes. I lived in the LA metro for thirty years and I know that until five years ago you could still live decent on 45k yr.

Well, that's the double-edged sword of engineering degrees. You tend to start out higher than everybody else. But your friends in "money-related" fields (investment banking, capital allocation, stock brokerages, etc.) will eventually earn 1.5-2x more. Of course, they will also kill themselves during the early parts of their careers attempting to reach the big money plateau. In addition to their MBAs and graduate degrees from good schools, they tend to graduate with a lot of debt. Most people at my firm went to state schools, and my employer paid for their masters degrees and MBAs. And there is something to be said for working a consistent 40-50 hour week for your entire career.

People with engineering degrees can be snotty about the "E". Myself included. Hey, at least I admit it. :) But seriously, you go through a lot more punishment in math and physics for the difference to a similar major. My reference list of engineering is basically: chemical, mechanical, electrical, civil, computer/semiconductor, industrial, mining/petroleum, nuclear.

I'm not sure what financial engineering would entail. It sounds like it could be one of two things: 1. some sort of big money job that leads towards CFO positions, or 2. an impostor engineering that ends up somewhere between Sanitation and Software on the bogus title scale. :)

Kidding, KIDDING for all your Sanitation Engineers out there!

Sanitation engineers...are those the guys who come by in big stinky noisy trucks every Tuesday morning (at 6AM)? I heard there's good money in that, esp. if you're Italian.

SFGuy,

No, I'm not actually a cannibal. There's an ancient Chinese saying that human meat is sour and foul. I heed that and stay away from human meat.

I'm still working on a loophole so I can consume popplers.

Wouldn't BScs lead lay people (like me) to think I'm talking about a Bachelor of Science in CS, rather than the plural Bachelors of science?

Isn't the proper term singular-only? I think it only turns plural if you use it as slang to refer to people. You can just call them BSers, I guess.

Sanitation engineering is very lucrative in Chicago. 364 days of the year it's picking up trash, crushing it and burying it. But there's always that occasional call from Uncle Antonio, who needs a special pickup for immediate disposal.

Brand

http://mfe.haas.berkeley.edu/

It's a new program. It probably would be more accurately titled "Masters in Financial Mathematics", but "Financial Engineering" is commonly used in the industry, so thus the name of the degree.

The mathematical rigor required for MFEs is an extension of the most rigid engineering, computer science, or physics undergrads. A lot of the folks who go into MFE are physics or math undergrads, and most already have a masters engineering degree of some sort, if I'm correct.

astrid and SFGuy,

I believe the proper grammar and punctuation you seek is to add an apostrophe when pluralizing an acronym term ending in S. For example, you learn your ABCs, or read some EKGs, but your college granted many BS's and the realtwhore flipped many POS's.

skibum,

Thanks for clearing that up.

SFGuy,

I prefer to think that popplers look like "breaded shrimp" with eyes. Though you don't see the eyes until they're old enough speak.

SFGuy,

Thanks for the link. I had no idea that there were so many IBs ahead of investment banking.

@SFGuy,
Thanks for clarifying. Re-stated: "The FBs try to flip many POS's."

SFGuy,

Okay, point taken. I will try to avoid ordering fictitious intelligent dog-poop colored creatures in the future.

Well, cannibalism is technically illegal...and in bad taste.

BA company importing consumer products from Asia. ... I’d bet they relocate to Charleston SC - good port, low wages, interesting city, inexpensive housing compared to BA.

Uh, they must be flying the goods in by plane, then? If it's water-based shipping, then I would suspect some Oregon port as a more likely target.

Anyway dryfly, I guess our anecdotes are different. My BA perceptions are admittedly skewed because I know only Californians from my own firm and from our customers. All are doing hardware engineering; most are Fortune 500's. I would point out again that 60-65K in the continental U.S. is equivalent to 70-80K in Silicon Valley, just based on cost of living.

It is actually difficult for salaries to drop at large, existing firms. Once they gain some experience, the new hires start comparing themselves to their peers, and realize that they are making a lot less for comparable work. If you were to tell them that they would never catch up, based solely on their hiring date, you would run the risk of losing young talent. That is particularly dangerous for any firm.

Randy, after reading the description of Financial Engineering, I conclude that it is option #1 on my list. A big money major targeted towards CFO and other elite financial positions.

People, please…. education is key. These are real life figures. But, I don’t know.. i’m just a realtor

Hey Confused,

Aren't you just pining away, hoping for one of these MBA grads to knock on your door and hire you as a RE agent? Maybe if you try harder to troll around this and other boards, our vast influence on the impending real estate crash will end, and you will get your customers.

Good luck, and go and enjoy the weather, and/or watch some football!

"At current housing costs, 60-65K in the continental US is more like 150K in SV!!"

Depends on whether you're renting or buying at current prices. BA rent is relatively high but quite bearable. Buying - I'd say it's even worse than that...$250K in the continental US (not touching salty water) will buy as much or more than $1M in the BA.

Brand,

MFE is not really targeted at CFO or other operational finance type of positions. Those are really more fed from accounting professions with the "Big 8/6/5/4" being the historical feeders. Those folks get MBAs not MFEs.

MFEs are more your uber quant types who end up at hedge funds, investment firms, and certain large transnational corporations.

dryfly,

I'm too ignorant to comment on anything else you've said, but I don't think Bio Med Engineering would be considered engineering by most engineers. That field sounds suspiciously similar to bio chem to my non-engineering ears.

dryfly,
Cornell, and maybe Columbia are the only Ivies that offer anything close to a nationally-ranked engineering program. Am I warm?

dryfly,

Your numbers must be for MBAs. MBAs do MUCH better but not many 22y/o coming out have MBAs - yes/no?

You are correct. The average age is still around 28 for full-time top-ranked MBA grads. It is falling, which is cause for some recent concern amongst those who worry about such things.

The usual suspect is the BS/BA grad who went straight into a tracked ladder, like the investment banks, many large corps with management training programs, or public accounting. A much smaller number of FT MBAs are engineers, comp sci, etc. who go for management credentials ... they usually are older and go into part-time programs.

The numbers I posted were for *global* rankings of *full-time* programs. There is a separate report done for executive programs. EMBAs tend to be young 30s and have *much* higher average salaries due to the fact they've been in the work force for many years already. Also, top EMBA programs are over $100K in tuition, so few low-earners go into these programs. Last time I looked a lot of the EMBA salaries for the top 5 schools were over $200K. My personal theory about the reason EMBA salaries don't increase as much as FT-MBA salaries is that many EMBA grads switch functional roles, industries, or both. They usually incur at least a temporary salary setback doing that. EMBAs are also popular for unique-situation folks who want the degree to build a rolodex and have creds to re-enter the workforce after a hiatus. Career women who take time out after having children, people who just take personal sabbaticals, successful entrepreneur types who have patchwork career histories but nonetheless made respectable money.

What sort of realtor trolls on online blogs Saturdays and Sundays? Even a bad one should be hitting open houses to hunt for work.

I'm beginning to think CR is lower than a realtor...maybe he or she is a realtor's assistant.

What sort of realtor trolls on online blogs Saturdays and Sundays? Even a bad one should be hitting open houses to hunt for work.

I’m beginning to think CR is lower than a realtor…maybe he or she is a realtor’s assistant.

Actually, he could just be a *really* bad realtor without any real clients.

ConfusedRenter Says:

"...Time to enjoy the sun guys!"
_____

Have fun!

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Ta, ta!

Allah
Do make sure you cook the scraped up roadkill before you eat it.

was this an attempt to offend me?

Huh?

SFWoman2

If you include more than 1 link, the post automatically gets sent to the moderation queue. Most spam-bots are posts with multiple links.

The moderation queue is overloaded, and we admins can't really read through it anymore. Everytime I look there are over 500 posts in there, 99.9% spam.

RPI is "low level" ivy?

That's stretching it quite a bit, isn't it? Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a good school in its field, but it's a looooong way from MIT/CalTech. I originally had guessed that your daughter went to UVA or GeorgiaTech, then UPenn or Cornell, but RPI didn't really enter my mind.

Before I get accused of overwhelming snobbishness, I do want to emphasize that of my friends from HS, the ones who went to University of Maryland undergrad did about as well as the ones who went to MIT/real Ivies - maybe better, they seem to be better adjusted as a group.

it’s a simple question. This forum sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish between a simple joke and an attempt to rudely offend. So when in doubt, I ask. If you meant to offend, I wouldn’t want my low IQ to get in the way of knowing it.

Of course I wasn't trying to offend you. I don't even know anything about you, that should have been a clue. I guess not everybody appreciates my jokes.

There's nothing wrong with eating fresh roadkill, provided that some precaution is taken. In fact, eating roadkill is quite commendable; doing so clears up the road, gets rid of a possible disease vector, conserve food resources and adds extra interest to one's diet.

I don't want to hear anyone here badmouth scavengers or their vital role in natural ecology. :)

...vital role in natural ecology.

I tend to believe the 'chef de cuisine' at our college cafeteria studied at the Lagos Culinary institute. Just shows the utility of the expression 'casserole'.

I’m sorry. I was not trying to be abrasive, just trying to be clear. It’s not your fault I didn’t get the joke. It’s the nature of the forum.

No problem here.

I'm uncertain of Patrick.net etiquette regarding proposing topics, but am interested to know if any of the posters here are considering building a home as opposed to purchasing an existing one and remodelling.

Since builders are caught up in the forces we're discussing here, is there an ideal point in the proceedings when the circumstances are better or worse for pursuing new construction of an architect-designed home?

ConfusedRenter Says:

> I don’t know a single person over 28 years old
> making under $200,000. Most make around $300-350K.

First we get homes in the Marina selling for $250K over list, then we have condos going up in value by almost 20%, now this...

Why has CR not been banned from the BLOG?

dryfly,

Thanks for answering my questions. That sounds like an interesting specialty. I am a "she" though that's a shrewd guess. "astrid" is the name of a defunct boy band. I'm also a pretty useless liberal arts grad, so my knowledge of such things tend to be gossip at drunken Christmas parties and such.

MIT and CalTech are fundamentally different schools. I'd agree that that MIT probably has a weaker average student - those biology majors who went because they got in, but from what I hear, I'd hardly call MIT's curriculum a cakewalk and the top students there are plenty sharp.

You originally didn't mention your daughter's field, you just said east coast engineering school. Based on what I know, Georgia Tech and UVA have good engineering departments and excellent overall reputations. Once again, I apologize for sounding so snobby, but a heck of a lot more people know Georgia Tech and UVA than RPI.

I'll put up a thread re building from scratch, give me 10 minutes.

dryfly,

Whatever RPI alumni and administration wish for, RPI's national reputation is a heck of a long way from "lowly" MIT, Georgia Tech and UVA. And the "new Ivy" media hype completely passed my radar.

That is all. New topic is up.