PayScale.com periodically updates their list of Best Undergrad College Degrees by Salary and earlier this year the list was led by Aerospace Engineering – rocket scientists. It’s not surprising to see that much of the top ten is unchanged, it’s still filled with engineers of all varieties, from Chemical to Electrical to Nuclear, but this was the first time I’ve seen Petroleum Engineering on the list.

My lovely wife graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree several years ago and many of her friends went to work for large energy companies working with petroleum. I don’t know how Petroleum Engineering differs from Chemical Engineering, other than being a specialization, but it’s been a poorly kept secret in the Chemical Engineering world that the best salaries are in working with oil.

Does this mean you should rush out to get a petroleum engineering degree? PayScale.com looks at median starting pay as well as “mid-career” median pay, so it’s a little more balanced, but a lot can change in four years. Petroleum engineering may be hot now but unless you love it, it may not be what you expect in four years. Or ten. I went to school for computer science in 1998 because it was the hot thing, fast forward three years and you hit the point people remember as the dot com bust (March 2001). So here I was, graduating early into a busted market and everyone in lockdown mode. It’s since recovered but it still hasn’t reached the excesses I was hoping to enjoy back in the day!

That being said, I’m now of the mind that if you work hard and do what you enjoy, you will succeed. You may not uncork untold fortunes but at the very least you’ll enjoy the ride. If that happens to be Petroleum Engineering, then PayScale.com thinks you’ll be pulling in over $150k a year by mid-career.

I remember when I received my first real pay stub, it was a mixture of happiness and absolute horror. It was my first summer internship after my freshman year of college. I was earning something like $12 and I was pumped that in my first week I’d earn $480. Then I saw my paycheck.

At first glance, your paycheck is a lot of numbers in tables. If you spend a few minutes, you can generally decode and understand what’s going on. However, sometimes it takes a little extra work because your company will use acronyms you aren’t 100% familiar with. When I looked at my first paycheck, I was able to decode it pretty easily… the Feds got their piece, NY state got their piece, and then this weirdo named FICA took a little slice. What? Who the heck is FICA?

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Every year, Forbes puts out it’s full list of the Top 100 companies to work for and every year I look for the two employers I’ve ever had… only really expecting to see one of them (and fairness, there aren’t any major defense contractors on the list). This year, my last company, Booz Allen Hamilton, retained the 52nd spot on the list despite going through some huge organizational changes. I have nothing but good things to say about the organization and the people I had the pleasure of working with while I was there.

But, enough about why *I* look at the list, let’s see which companies stack up where it matters most – pay.

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I always enjoy looking at these lists because they give a little glimpse into some of our nation’s most storied firms. I think these are more for entertainment purposes, much like the top paying undergraduate degrees, because the average total pay isn’t something you’ll get right out of the gate.

It’s fun to read are the various perks employees get because often times the companies that compensate the best tend to have great benefits as well. A popular company to talk about when you list slick benefits is always Google’s plethora of employee benefits.

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I had lunch today with a few friends and the topic of private versus public college came up, a topic they recommended I put on my blog (so to appease them, I did!). As the graduates of private colleges, we were all curious what the difference in salary between graduating from a private college, paying $30,000+ a year for tuition/room/board/etc, and graduating from a public college, paying $10,000 a year for room, board, etc. The impetus of the conversation was that one friend knew someone who was graduating as a radiation oncologist and did a similar analysis between doctors and typical engineers (his analysis said it took twenty years for the doctor, a radiation oncologist, to “catch up” to an engineer, after accounting for typical raises, college loan debt, and other factors). So what’s the break-even point between private and public college graduates?

The answer …?

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The New York Times posted an interesting article about salary transparency in late August and I thought it would make some fantastic Your Take fodder.

Salary transparency doesn’t bother me because my primary goal is to complete my job and ensure that my team completes our job. If someone on the team isn’t pulling their weight, it doesn’t matter what their salary is – they’re overpaid. If someone is pulling their weight, you can pay them more! I believe my salary is tied to my performance and my performance is tied to my team’s performance, so as long as all the cogs in the wheel are running well together then we all win.

Can I see a scenario where people are pissed off that someone next to them, doing the same job, is being paid more? Yes, but remember that people don’t set their own salaries (unless you’re in Congress!). If you feel you deserve more, you need to appeal to your boss, not be upset with your coworker.

I’m not saying transparency is a great idea or a terrible idea (I am aware that emotions do come into play) but I think that getting to a point where compensation isn’t such a big deal would be kind of nice.

Your thoughts?

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Yahoo HotJobs recently published a list of the top ten happiest jobs and, surprisingly, professional blogger did not make that list. Who did? Clergy took the top spot with a reported 67.2% “very happy,” far exceeding numbers two (firefighters, 57.2%) through ten (airline pilots and navigators, 49.1%). In addition to listing the percent “very happy,” they also listed salary for someone in that role with 5-9 years of experience. The highest paid were #7 science technicians with a median salary of $72,435 and the lowest paid were #3 travel agents with a median hourly rate of $14.23 (or ~$28,000 if you assume a standard work schedule).

There isn’t much you can take away from lists like this, except we can ask ourselves how happy are you? I’d say I’m about 70% very happy. I get to set my own hours, I get to work on my own projects, and I get to reap the fruits of my labor. The 30% unhappy goes to how I have to figure out what projects I’m working on, I suffer the consequences of poor decisions, and I have limited social interaction with other people.

One interesting thing is that my stress is a little different. Before, I’d be stressed out over presentations to clients and whether I’d screwed up. Now, I’m stressed whether I’m making the right strategic decisions; decisions that won’t prove right or wrong for months.

How about you? Are you happy at your job? How many percent and what affects it either way? Would you trade less happiness for more money (or vice versa)?

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I was reading Salary.com’s 2008 Employee Job Satisfaction & Retention Survey and saw that, not surprisingly that the number one reason people leave their jobs is because of inadequate compensation (i.e. they’re underpaid). What also interested me were the four other reasons (of the top five) that people left for – lack of career advancement, insufficient recognition, boredom and inadequate development opportunities. So here’s a tip that I have, from when left one company for another, remember to consider all the other factors when making your decision of whether or not to leave.

One factor that isn’t listed is stress.

Another useful stat, 50% of employers believe an offer of 8-15% is enough to lure away an employee but 38% of employees would only leave for 16-30%… use that to your advantage!

So, how do you evaluate a job offer if money isn’t the only metric?

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A friend recently learned that a co-worker, with similar responsibilities and credentials, found a new job for slightly more pay. The difference in salary was, percentage-wise, in the single digits and the move was a lateral one (no significant added responsibilities). She was wondering whether she should start looking for a job too because money’s getting tighter and everyone’s looking for an edge.

There’s no harm in looking.

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For the last three years, I’ve watched for and written about the list Yahoo releases every year for the best jobs for graduates. The 2008 best paying job for graduates was in the field of Chemical Engineering. Last year, the 2007 best paying job for graduates was Chemical Engineering. The year before that, the 2006 best paying job for graduates was Chemical Engineering. I think it’s safe to say, Chemical Engineering is here to stay.

The problem with looking at these types of lists is that if you were equally capable of doing any of the jobs on the list and if money were your primary driver, by the time you graduated, the list could change. When I started college in 1998, I was lucky. All the hot job lists had computer science, computer engineering, information systems and information technology all over the top spots. I wanted to study computer science and so the appearance high on the list for salaries merely cemented the decision. However, when I graduated in December 2001 (for all you math majors, I was done a semester early partly because of AP credits), computer science wasn’t really a hot job in too many places because of the dot-com bust.

Despite that, one thing is clear by looking at these lists year after year. Engineering is hot. While the non-engineering jobs on the list, the doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. are stable, high-pay (eventually), and high-demand, the competition for top engineering talent will always keep salaries for new graduates in those fields very high.

Chemical engineering may not always be the top paying graduate job (though it’s prospects do look good), but chances are #1 will have ‘engineering’ in there somewhere.