Which major prepares you for the best jobs? It partly depends on how you define “best jobs” but CareerCast ranks jobs on the basis of work environment, income, outlook, and stress. These are broken down into subcategories (for “stress” they use level of risk, toughness of deadlines, and 9 other factors), the scores are added up and the 200 jobs in the CareerCast list get ranked. And the winner is … MCSP! The number one job in the 2014 ranking is Mathematician; number three is Statistician; number four is Actuary; number seven is Software Engineer; and number eight is Computer Systems Analyst. A major in any of the MCSP disciplines lines you up for a top career! Here are some of CareerCast’s comments about what those careers entail.
Mathematicians “are the people who figure out if a decision makes sense for a company or organization, be it digging for oil or building a car. They work in a variety of sectors, including energy, transportation, and IT…. They’re hired in the public and the private sector … (and by) nonprofits.”
Statisticians “are the people who determine the statistical likelihood of things. They figure out how many people will buy that new Ipad or if that breakfast cereal is selling well due to changing demographics; basically, any kind of planning for the future. And they can work across most industries.”
Actuaries “are the people who determine how long something is going to last. Typically, they work for insurance companies estimating how long people are going to live or the statistical likelihood that they will get a particular disease. However, they’re increasingly being used for other industries, such as infrastructure.”
Software Engineers “are the people who write software code for programs that manage everything from online shopping to home heating and airport-landing schedules.”
Computer Systems Analysts “are the people who work with the actual hardware (from servers to laptops) to make sure that it’s the right equipment in the right amount, it’s doing what the company needs it to do, and there are no outages. They’re always working to increase speed and efficiency, and there’s a huge demand for what they do.”
You might be wondering what the worst jobs are. At the bottom, number 200, is lumberjack. Next to last may surprise you: newspaper reporter, partly due to an expected decline in number of jobs by 13% in the next ten years.
But, if you’re taking MCSP courses, you’re preparing for the best jobs and the best careers, and that is no surprise.
