How much money do you see yourself realistically making ten years from now?

[SampSon]

This thread is still going.

I see this becoming a thread of shattered dreams and disappointment.

 

[SithSolo1]

$35K

 

[sobriquet]

Somewhere in the range of $55-80k. Unrealistically, but still within the limits of my attempted career, $100-120k.

 

[Special K]

Now I understand why my parents said it is generally rude to discuss personal finances in casual conversation. If I were having this conversation with people in real life, I suspect I would have made a lot of enemies by now.

Envy pwns me, big time.

 

[neutralizer]

This is a no-brainer, eleventy billion dollars.

 

[patentman]

Originally posted by: erwos
I'm really surprised to hear NRL screwed you like that. My wife (who has a MS in MechEng, albeit) is doing pretty well in terms of salary over there. Of course, no surprise hearing the patent office pays well - they seem to be desperate for people, and that means you can't have lots of turnover.

I gave thought to joining the patent office, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it - sounded too boring. Thankfully, good jobs are easy to find here, and I don't mind hopping around a bit for good salary increases and such. I'm actually leaving my current job at the end of next week for a new one down in Reston (what large corporation has a major ops center in Reston? you can figure it out), so that ought to be pretty exciting .

-Erwos

Ywah a BS a chemistry doesn;t get you much in terms of pay anywhere. You can be a lab rat or you can do something else aside from chemistry. Engineers are generally much better compensated.

Good luck with the Reston gig. I know just the place you are talking about

 

[kalster]

Originally posted by: 6000SUX

Originally posted by: erwos

Originally posted by: 6000SUX
You have a sneering tone. It doesn't faze me.

Obviously it does. Otherwise, you wouldn't have wasted all that time responding, and just repeating the same stuff you said before. But, forgive me: it was more of a disbelieving tone than anything else. Maybe you interpreted it that way because you're used to people sneering at you. I don't know.

There you go with your snotty-ass tone again. You won't get very far in life if this is how you treat people face-to-face. I suspect you haven't had all that much success if you do.

It took a few minutes to type that text, nothing major. I type fast. I didn't repeat what I said before; I addressed each of the points you raised. You must have missed that in your haste to respond again.

Originally posted by: erwos
We're not talking about me, because I wasn't the one making claims of being at the 95th percentile of my salary range in ten years before I even had the qualifications to work in the field.

I made no claim. I gave an estimate. In addition, the figure I gave was from Department of Labor figures for lawyers employed in the private sector, many of them working for companies as relatively low-paid corporate lawyers. Your 95th-percentile figure is what I like to call an "asshat figure": you pulled it either out of your ass or out of a hat. There is no reason to think that lawyer's salaries occur on a perfect bell curve, based just on what I said.

Originally posted by: erwos
The fact that you took my admission of a low GPA and decided to call me lazy or dumb is immature.

I didn't call you lazy, I called you dumb.

Originally posted by: erwos
In fact, the reason I had such a low GPA was that I had bad personal discipline.

In other words, you were lazy-- unless you are claiming that you transgressed against yourself and didn't punish yourself hard enough.

Originally posted by: erwos
It's not quite the same as being lazy or dumb. Is it any better now? A little. I can evaluate myself fairly.

That's good to hear.

Originally posted by: erwos
We don't know where you're going to law school, or where you did undergrad. You can impress us all now by telling us you got into Harvard, but I suspect you might have mentioned that along with your 100k salary if that was the case.

I'm not trying to impress you. I don't think a 100k salary is all that impressive, unless you figure in the fact that I had no credentials to start.

Originally posted by: erwos
It isn't hard to graduate college these days, depending on where you go to school and what major you take. It's not even that hard to get into law school, honestly - there's a lot of smaller places around that don't have crazy admission standards. This isn't meant to disrespect on either your undergrad degree, or your chosen law school - far from it, you should be congratulated for beating the statistics.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth again. In fact, as most would agree, you are trying to put me down in a small way, not that it matters; the place where I go to school has nothing to do with my two main claims. They are merely that I am smarter and harder-working than most people. Why you have such a tough time with this is hard to understand.

Originally posted by: erwos
You misinterpreted my comments about you dropping out of high school. I was not trying to imply you were dumb.

No, I didn't misinterpret anything. I never said that you were implying I was dumb, on that basis or any other. Find me the statement where I said that (or achieve enlightenment when you can't).

Originally posted by: erwos
I was trying to point out that if you didn't have the discipline or motivation to stay in then, what does that say about what you need to be concerned about with law school? Maybe it was indeed a personal situation - but that's just not the case with most high school dropouts.

It doesn't take much discipline or motivation to stay in high school. It is effectively the work of most students, and they go to it with the same enthusiasm and regularity of any worker at any job. Dropouts are not the norm.

Originally posted by: erwos
As for your "realistic" assessment, it ismy experience that people are almost always badly calibrated in terms of taking guesses and assessments. This is not just personal anecdote; if you studied some behavioral economics, you'd see just how AWFUL people are at assessing values and risks. It's not just financial instruments, either - ask someone how high the tallest mountain is, or what the lowest point on Earth is, and you'll see that they get nowhere near the point in absolute values. Maybe you're just smarter and harder-working than the people you know - which is probably not quite a random sample of the entire country.

My assessment is perfectly realistic. You never successfully explained how it is that I am being unrealistic. Is it because of my high LSAT scores, my high IQ score, my good salary, my sterling work ethic, what? What of these things don't I have? On what basis am I being unrealistic when I say that I am smarter and harder-working than average?

If you are really as smart and successful as you say you are, you should have the confidence and belief to ignore people who doubt you. I dont see what you are trying to gain by explaining how smart you are trying to put down people at the same time. It just makes you looks bad that is all.

 

[engineereeyore]

$150K/yr.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: kalster
If you are really as smart and successful as you say you are, you should have the confidence and belief to ignore people who doubt you. I dont see what you are trying to gain by explaining how smart you are trying to put down people at the same time. It just makes you looks bad that is all.

So, basically, being smart and successful means that I should ignore posts on an Internet discussion board, one where I go to conduct discussions. I don't follow you. I'm not trying to gain anything; I'm just having an idle discussion, same as you.

It doesn't make me look bad. You look bad for your simple-minded, unfounded attack. The consensus between two malcontents who attacked me (not erwos) seems to be that I have a big ego, which isn't true; this seems to me to point to jealousy. To them I say, if you are jealous of what someone else has, go after it for yourself. I'm not jealous of anyone, even though I will never be the richest, most famous, healthiest, most capable person in the world.

I agree with a previous poster that money discussions can go in the wrong direction. It's no big deal here, luckily-- none of us can lose anything, not even face in this anonymous community. I do feel that the attacks on me are unjustified. I never said I was all about the money, and I never tooted my own horn, just answered the OP's question and the attacks that followed. For the record, I am going to law school because I think I will enjoy the work.

 

[LanceM]

I live in Texas, where $100k obviously means something different than $100k in NY or CA. In five years, I'll probably be averaging $45-50k, and likely $75-90k in an additional five beyond that.

Where I live, that's a load of cash.