Does Engineering Pay More Than Liberal Arts?

文科生不如工科生赚得多?

The starting pay of certain liberal arts majors generally is well below that of graduates in engineering fields.

某些文科专业毕业生的起薪远远低于工科毕业生。

Graduates with engineering degrees earned average starting pay of $56,000 in their first full-time¹ jobs out of college. Communications and English majors only earned $34,000 in their first jobs.

工科学生毕业后第一份全职工作的平均起薪是年薪5.6 万美元，而传媒和英语专业学生毕业后第一份工作的年薪只有3.4 万美元。

The survey, which was conducted by PayScale.com between April and June of this year, was answered by about 11,000 people who graduated between 1999 and 2010. The reported starting pay was adjusted for inflation to make the salaries of graduates from different years comparable.

PayScale.com 今年4 月至6 月间对1.1 万名1999 年至2010 年间左右的毕业生进行了收入调查。为了使不同时间毕业的学生的薪水具有可比性，调查报告数据剔除了通胀因素。

The pay advantage of graduates with technical degrees often persists throughout their careers, said Fort Collins, Colo.-based career counselor² Katy Piotrowski. Although liberal arts majors have a wide range of salaries, Ms. Piotrowski said that mid-career liberal arts majors she works with in northern Colorado make between $60,000 and $70,000. Those with technical degrees make at least $10,000 more.

科罗拉多州职业咨询师皮奥特罗斯基说，技术专业毕业生相较于文科毕业生的薪水优势通常会贯穿于整个职业生涯。她说，尽管不同的文科专业，薪水差别也比较大，但她在北科罗拉多州接触到的处于职业生涯中期的文科专业毕业生的年薪在6 万到7 万美元之间。毕业于技术专业的人的薪水至少高出1 万美元。

“Technical majors even have an advantage in fields that are typically hotbeds for liberal arts majors ” , she said. “Technical degrees are valued in all fields. I’ve seen a company communications department actually prefer that someone have an engineering degree rather than a communications degree,”she said.

她说，甚至在文科专业本应该很吃香的领域，技术专业也占有优势。所有的行业都重视技术专业人才，我曾看到一个公司的沟通部门竟然更喜欢工程学毕业的人，而不是传媒系。

In the study, among the highest-paying liberal arts majors in the study was economics, at $42,000.

调查还发现，经济学是起薪最高的文科专业，年薪为4.2 万美元。

The most successful liberal arts majors either go to grad school or begin to develop their career through internships while still in school, Ms. Brooks³ said.

布鲁克斯说，最成功的文科专业人才不是去读研究生深造，就是在还没毕业时就开始通过实习为自己的事业打基础。

The PayScale survey was done as part of The Wall Street Journal ’s Paths to Professions project, which looked at a selection of jobs in careers deemed satisfying, well-paid and with growth potential. PayScale surveyed people who hold jobs in industries such as health care, finance and government.

PayScale 的这份调查是《华尔街日报》“职业道路”项目的一部分，该项目旨在找出那些最令人满意的、待遇优厚、潜力巨大的职业。PayScale 调查了在多个行业工作的人，包括医疗、金融或政府部门等。