 What's happening? It's Shane here. It's that time of year again. Some of my most requested videos, the top five videos, the top 10 videos where I basically rank the best types of different degrees. So in this case, we are going to be talking about the top five master's degrees. All right, so getting a master's degree, usually, you know, you got your bachelor's first, that takes about four years or so. And then you get your master's, which is going to take probably an extra two years. So those who get a master's degree, usually, they're going to be about $66,000 in debt, according to the National Center of Educational Statistics. And according to educationdata.org, they're about $71,000 in debt. So it can be very expensive. But as I've talked about in other videos on the channel, like is a graduate school degree worth it, for instance, when it comes to master's degrees, sometimes doing those extra two years can, in fact, be worth it, at least from a financial standpoint. But sometimes it's not worth it. And in today's video, I'm going to be talking about some of the degrees where, in my opinion, as long as you do your due diligence, do your research, it can be worth it. All right, so let's jump right into it. Number five on the list is going to be a technology related master's degree, like computer science. Okay, so according to the National Center of Educational Statistics, about 12,000 people get a computer science related master's degree every year. And that, of course, is just here in the United States. But I'm sure there's a lot more than that if you look worldwide. Can't say enough about the skill set of coding and computer science. And there are some companies out there that do want to see people get master's degrees for certain types of coding. So especially the types of programming that are very complicated, you will see companies want to hire people that have master's degrees instead of bachelor's. However, when it comes to technology, it's good at pretty much every level, whether it's like an associate's degree, no degree at all, or whether you're going up to a master's or even sometimes a doctorate technology degrees and just technology skills in general are just good on every level. So there are some cases where from a financial standpoint, which is pretty much all I'm going to be talking about in this video, it is going to be worth it for you to get a master's degree. But for most types of programming jobs out there that are a little simpler, you can get along with just a bachelor's degree, sometimes even less than that. And in some cases, if you're really good at teaching yourself, you're an autodidact, you can just take a boot camp or even just learn on your own. But with that being said, according to Glassdoor, computer scientists make about $106,000 per year. And this is all different types of computer scientists. So ones who have master's degrees likely would be making more than this. And this, of course, is the average base pay. And when you work for technology companies, at least a lot of tech companies out there, they have, first of all, incredible benefits. And then on top of that, you can get some unbelievable bonuses as well. So your actual compensation would be quite a bit higher than $106,000 a year. And if you want to know exactly how much you would be making with the different positions that you would be applying for, I always recommend checking out levels.fyi. Really great website where people basically secretly share not only their base pay, but how much they bonus and how much they might get in something like stock options. And stock options for those of you who don't know is where a company actually pays you partially in the company stock. Next on the list I'm going to be talking about is an engineering master's degree. So there are certain engineering degrees where it makes a little more sense for you to pursue higher education and get your masters. One of them where it would make sense in many circumstances, of course, depending on what job you're going for, is going to be electrical engineering. And there are about 11,000 electrical engineering and electronics engineering masters that are handed out per year in the United States. So again, many jobs out there where you do not need a master's degree, you'll get by just fine with a bachelor's. However, there are some careers, some jobs, some companies that like to see people who have a master's degree because it does require a little bit of extra knowledge. So there are certain cases where doing those extra two years getting that master's degree can work out from a financial perspective, and also it can help you just from a knowledge perspective in general. So according to Glassdoor, electrical engineers make about $95,000 a year on average. And of course, if you had a master's degree, you would be making quite a bit more than that. So engineering is very solid on every level you look at from associate degrees, bachelor degrees, master's degrees, and in some cases getting a doctorate. Engineering is not something that you can get into on your own and kind of just teach yourself. It is something you do need to actually go to school and get educated in order to learn. And in some cases, getting a master's degree can be worth it. Number three on the list is going to be a master's in data science. Now, there's several different ways that you can become a data scientist. This is one of the newest and hottest careers out there. And of course, there's always some confusion about like what the heck is the difference between a data scientist and a computer scientist, because they basically sound like they're the same. And what data scientists do is they take some information and they derive meaning from that information, right? They take some a bunch of information that a company might be getting from impressions that they're doing with ads, for instance, and then they derive some meaning from that information. And it might sound like that's not very impressive, right? Sounds very simple. Probably doesn't help companies all that much. But that's actually where you're wrong, because this is one of the most profitable skills that you can possibly learn. So imagine that you're a company and you have a marketing budget of, you know, $10,000 or something like that. And you can show your ad to, I'm just going to make it simple, like 100,000 people. And let's say this ad is selling a squid game hoodie, okay? So, you know, people who are huge fans of the show might want to buy this hoodie. If you show this hoodie to 100,000 random people, you might get like, I don't know, one or two purchases. However, if you show this ad to 100,000 people that through data science, you have verified our fans of the show, that might increase your sales from one or two to 20. And if you can go even further with data science, let's say you are able to figure out that, okay, I'm going to show it to 100,000 people who are fans of the show, but you even go one step further and you show it to 100,000 people who are fans of the show. And it's been shown in the past that they like to purchase merchandise for shows that they really like, that might increase your sales from one to two to one to 200. So data is incredibly valuable. It's something that has just absolutely exploded, especially over the last 10 years. There's also a ton of controversy around it because some giant companies, you know, are harvesting your data against your wishes or against your will. So anyways, what a data scientist actually is, is either a statistician who's pretty good at programming or a programmer who's really good at statistics. And then they basically create models that use data in order to solve big problems for a company. So one of the most common ways of becoming a data scientist is graduating with a master's in statistics, which 3,100 people actually do that every year in the US. And a data scientist, according to Glassdoor, makes about 117,000 dollars per year. And data science is very new. This is one of those careers that probably didn't even exist when you were born. And there is a ton of debate, especially in the technology industry, whether you actually need to get a master's in order to get into data science or not. But many people think that you do. So in some cases, it can be worth it for you to get a master's over a bachelor's. However, the next one on the list is a career where you absolutely have to get a master's in order to get into it. And that is going to be number two, nurse practitioner. Alright, so nurse practitioners are basically super nurses. They are able to diagnose as well as prescribe medications almost like a doctor. And they don't even have to be under doctor supervision. In order to become a nurse practitioner at the master's level, you're going to need a master's of science and nursing. And last year, there were about 28,000 people who graduated with this degree, one of the best careers you can go into a ridiculous amount of demand also has very high meaning medical careers do tend to have very high meaning scores. So that means over a long term basis, you're probably going to be a little bit more satisfied with your career. Medical jobs also tend to be incredibly stable. And according to Glassdoor, you're going to be making a cool $121,000 a year. Now, this is actually very similar to the next one on our list, which is going to be physician assistant now known as physician associate. So apparently all of the PAs, the physician assistants got together and they were like, you know what, it's a little bit degrading the doctors refer to us as their assistants. So effectively immediately, I am promoting you from assistant to the regional manager to assistant regional manager. And so now they want to be known as physician associates, right? They are not assisting the doctors, they are just associated with them. However, pretty much every major government organization that collects statistics on this stuff that I you know, use for these videos still refers to them as physician assistants. But there's about 8,500 of them that graduate every single year. And this is a master's degree. And they are very similar to nurse practitioners in that they're almost like mini doctors, they can diagnose, they can prescribe. However, they do have to be under the supervision of a doctor. So this is a great career for somebody who kind of wants to do a lot of the things that doctors get to do. But they also don't want to have to deal with going to medical school, you know, spending 12 years in school and then doing a residency that can be up to like seven years. And then sometimes doing an extra two years in a fellowship, it can just be a little bit overwhelming how you know, you spend all the best years of your life studying like 80 hours a week. And then you're like working 80 hours a week in residency. And you're probably $500,000 in debt by the time you actually start to make money in your mid 30s or something, sometimes even late 30s. And so if you don't want to deal with that whole headache of a process, you know, looking into something like nurse practitioner or physician associate might be a good idea for you. So yeah, ridiculous amount of demand for this one, according to Glassdoor, they make around $101,000 per year. So yeah, not too bad. One reason why I actually rank them slightly better than nurse practitioner, which is different than last year, is because there seems to be some signs that nurse practitioner might be headed towards getting oversaturated. Now, I'm not saying they're getting oversaturated at this point. And actually, they're not getting oversaturated at all. I mean, I don't even know why I said that really just a little bit saturated. And really, all that has to do with is how the accrediting boards and the people who regulate universities operate. So if they give universities the green light, the go ahead to basically churn out as many people as possible in these different careers, of course, eventually it is going to become saturated. This is a huge problem in pharmacy right now, for instance. And it appears that the people in charge are kind of limiting that when it comes to physician associates. And when it comes to nurse practitioners, they are kind of getting the green light to go ahead. But again, nobody knows what happens. They could change this tomorrow for all I know. There's only indicators out there. Both of these careers are fantastic at this point. So yeah, definitely a few options for you to look into. If you are somebody who is interested in higher education, you are interested in getting a master's hope you enjoyed the video. I forgot to ask you to like subscribe and all that sort of thing. I think I was supposed to do that the beginning of the video. Hopefully we can get to like 1000 likes. That'd be cool, right? That's a decent goal. And I will see you guys next time. Have a good one.