 Is an aerospace engineering degree worth it? That's what we're going to be talking about today, but before we get into that, make sure to gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. On this channel, we talk about personal finance, college degrees, careers, and opportunities that are going to lead you to success. And we also go over how you can avoid some of the common financial mistakes that so many people end up falling for. If that sounds like something that interests you and you haven't done it already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. With that being said, let's jump right into it. What exactly is aerospace engineering? So aerospace engineering is anything that has to do with aircraft and spacecraft. So aeronautical engineering would be aircraft, anything that flies through the air. And then aerospace engineering comprises aeronautical engineering with astronautical, which is anything that flies through space. So we're talking about airplanes, helicopters, jets, space ships, as well as flying saucers, of course. And you can work on things that are tiny that fly through the air like a bullet or a drone, as well as things that are really large like a blimp. Around 4,000 people graduate with this degree every year. So next, we're gonna be talking about salary or earning potential. With this degree, you can expect to make around 70,000 a year starting out and 119,000 in mid-career pay. You can compare that to a really high-paying degree or a low-paying one, and you'll see that it's definitely on the higher side of things. If you were to become an aerospace engineer, they make around $116,000 a year. And one great thing about engineering degrees is even if you were just to get an associate's degree, you could probably become an aerospace engineering technician, and they still make around 66,000, which is well above the national average. However, let's say you decided you didn't wanna work on airplanes anymore. What other engineering career could you work in? Well, you could become an electronic engineer, and they make around $101,000 a year. Still pretty good. And there's a lot of different career paths you can go down. Some of the common ones I'll have pop up on the screen right now, and you can pause the video and read them if you'd like to. And I'll also remind you that going down an engineering career path, you're gonna make more money on average over a lifetime than any other type of degree. So for instance, all different degrees and all different career paths end up making around $2.4 million over a lifetime. Engineering degrees on average will be 3.5. As you can see, that's way higher than average, and they do it in a multitude of ways. Some of them are gonna work a normal 9-to-5 job, their entire careers, and they can definitely make a lot of money doing that. Some of them are gonna start their own businesses. But overall, you're not gonna be surprised that this one ranks extremely high when it comes to salary or earning potential. I'm actually gonna give this one a score of 11 out of 10. This is one of the highest on the entire list. Now, when it comes to satisfaction, I always talk about job satisfaction and meaning. And that's basically how much you enjoy doing your job and then how much do you think your job positively impacts the world. So when it comes to meaning, you see that aerospace engineering graduates are around 57%, and you can compare that to a really good one and a really bad one. And after comparing them, you'll see that it's probably average or slightly above average when it comes to meaning. So let's say you go into a very specific career, which is aerospace engineer. With that one, you can see on pay scale that their meaning score is around 64%, and then their job satisfaction is gonna be 71. Again, you can compare those to a really good one as well as a bad one, and you'll see that it's definitely above average. Now, I can't speak on this one because my dad did get an aeronautical engineering degree, which is a type of aerospace engineering, basically way back in the day before aerospace was a thing. And I can say that people who love airplanes really, really love airplanes. Like it's their number one passion in life. So if you're one of those people who is just obsessed with jets and airplanes and flying and all that sort of thing, you're probably gonna love becoming an aerospace engineer. Still to this day, my dad watches endless hours of videos on YouTube of people flying like mini helicopters and flying airplanes around and doing tricks and all kinds of stuff like that. Now, when it comes to how much a person regrets getting their college major engineering degrees are without a doubt one of the least regretted. In fact, they're the third least regretted out of all types. So you see here that only around 15% of people who get engineering degrees regretted, and the main reason is because the best jobs require advanced degrees. So to make a comparison here with this specific degree, you'd probably think like, let's say you want to be a rocket scientist and work for NASA, maybe a bachelor's in aerospace engineering might not be enough. I can't say for sure, maybe you can get into NASA. I'm just like making this off the top of my head. Some of the best careers out there, the ones that are really high positions for instance, you might have to get a master's or a doctorate. However, overall you do see here that engineering degrees in general tend to have a low level of regret. Now, one thing here that's worth mentioning is a lot of the time people will get a specific engineering degree like aerospace engineering for instance, and then they'll end up going into a completely unrelated career. And the great thing about engineering degrees is they tend to be really widely respected. So for instance, you might go into a marketing career and you graduate with an engineering degree and they'll be happy to see you. Hiring managers, business owners like to hire people with engineering degrees because they know they're getting somebody who's very smart, very hardworking. However, when it comes to satisfaction, this is gonna be the most subjective section by far. I mean, for one person, this could be amazing. For my dad, for instance, it's probably like 10 out of 10. But for me, it would maybe be like, I don't know, three, four out of 10. But with that being said, I'm gonna give this one an eight out of 10 overall when it comes to satisfaction score. Next on the list, we're gonna be talking about demand. And this is basically how many owners, hiring managers, businesses, et cetera, want people who have the skillset that this degree is gonna teach you. Now, if you look at aerospace engineering specifically as a career, right now there's 66,000 jobs available and over the next 10 years, only 1,900 new jobs are going to be created and it's growing at around 3%, which is average. It's not amazing and that's actually one of the big critiques that I have with engineering degrees. A lot of people go into engineering thinking that they're going to become an engineer and then they graduate and they end up going down a completely different career path because they didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Luckily with engineering degrees, you're usually gonna get saved because a lot of hiring managers and business owners will want to hire you. But that's just a problem with all degrees in general is people don't know what they're getting themselves into and that tends to happen when you're trying to make people figure out what their life purpose is at 17 years old. Now, engineering is a STEM degree and they tend to have some of the lowest unemployment rates. Of course, we don't have any data for 2020 specifically because everything's going nuts this year but in 2019, it was one of the lowest. I think it was the second lowest out of all different types of degrees, second only to health. Now, if you search aerospace engineering degree on glassdoor.com, you'll see that over 7,000 job listings pop up. That's pretty good. That means there's quite a bit of demand for it. And if people aren't specifically looking for aerospace engineers, that doesn't necessarily matter because if they see that someone applied to the job and they have that degree, they're probably gonna be pretty impressed with it and they'll likely give you a chance. Hiring managers and business owners love hiring people who graduate with engineering degrees because they know that they're getting somebody who's smart and hardworking. And a national survey of large businesses showed that engineering degrees were the number one type of degree that big organizations and corporations were looking to hire. So overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of eight out of 10. Next, we're gonna be talking about X factors. And when it comes to X factors, I like to focus on how likely it is that something is gonna be automated, outsourced, as well as the skills that you're gonna learn when you get this degree and how much those are gonna help you in life in general. Now, when you look at earnings over a lifetime, you see that engineering degrees make the most out of all types of degrees. For normal degrees, you earn around 2.4 million over a lifetime and for engineering, it's gonna be 3.5 million on average. That is the best out of any type of degree out there. So on average, people who get engineering degrees tend to do extremely well financially. But we already knew that. We already knew that engineering degrees go into careers where you make really good money. The interesting thing here is that when you look down at the types of careers they go into, it really doesn't matter. They make money no matter what career path they go down. So for instance, if you work with computers and math, you're gonna make around 3.7 million. If you go into management, you'll make around 4.1. Even if you go into arts and media, if you go into an art-related career, which of course they're kind of notorious for not making very much money, you're still gonna make well above average around 3 million over a lifetime. So there's something about getting an engineering degree that just translates really well to careers across the board. It could be that people who go into engineering tend to be really smart and so it doesn't matter what career path they go down. They would have done well anyways. Or it could be that the difficulty of getting the degree itself and the skills you learn while you're getting it are so good that it really translates well across the board. Nobody really knows. It could be correlation or causation. I think it's a little bit of both. Now, when it comes to how valuable the skill of aerospace engineering is, you're gonna see that it ranks around 66 out of 100. And again, you can compare that to a really good one as well as a bad one. And you'll see here that it's on the higher side. The skill of aerospace engineering is something that is valuable on the open market, meaning a lot of companies like to hire people who have these skills. Now that being said, the skill set of aerospace engineering is a little bit niche, meaning you are learning a very specific skill set when you go into aerospace engineering that might not necessarily translate to all different types of engineering careers. So when you compare aerospace engineering to mechanical engineering, for instance, mechanical engineering is gonna teach you more of a wide variety of skills that can apply to all different types of industries and businesses and even careers. Whereas aerospace engineering is a little more specific. You're gonna be learning specifically about things that fly through the air. So although engineering degrees in general are pretty well respected and you're more likely to get hired with a degree, even if you're applying for a job that it has nothing to do with, there are engineering degrees out there that are gonna be more flexible, meaning if you don't end up becoming an aerospace engineer, you're gonna have a lot more options. But with that being said, the likelihood of automation is only around 1.7%, meaning this is probably not going to be automated. I would imagine that engineering as a career, if it does get automated, would be one of the very last ones. When I think of careers that will probably never be automated, the ones that really come to mind are engineers, doctors, and people who work in the medical field. There's too many skills that it requires that I just don't think you could teach to a robot. There's communication, creativity. A lot of the times, you're gonna be working with your hands, using your fingers in order to diagnose problems and then fix them. Now, when it comes to these skills being outsourced, I also think they are highly unlikely. Usually, if you're working on a project, you're gonna be working in a team and you'll be meeting up in person. A lot of the times, these things are so complicated that it would be very difficult to do them over a Zoom meeting. You need to be there in real life so that you can see what you're working on. Being able to touch it, being able to move things around, mess with the wires, things like that, you just wouldn't be able to do that over Zoom. Now, another thing I like to mention here is engineering degrees are the most likely degree to create a millionaire. Meaning, out of all the different types of degrees, if you go into engineering, you are the most likely to become a millionaire. Now, of course, you can become a millionaire very easily with a normal job by investing. I talk about that a lot on the channel. That is the easiest way to become a millionaire, but it's also the one that takes the most patience and time. A much faster way to get there is to start your own business. And I think this is the reason that so many engineers end up becoming millionaires. Engineering basically teaches you a skill set where it's practical problem solving. And entrepreneurship is all about solving people's problems. And I think it would be easier to teach an engineer business skills than to teach a business person engineering skills. And so many engineers end up working for a few years and then they'll recognize an opportunity somewhere down the line where they can actually create a product or a service that helps people out. So for instance, let's say you are an aerospace engineer about five or 10 years ago when drones were first starting to come out and you recognize the popularity of the drones and how clunky and not easy to use they were. And then you started up a company that makes them even better. That's one obvious example of using your aerospace engineering skills to start a business. And a lot of the time it won't be that glamorous. You might create a battery, for instance, it's like 10 or 20% more efficient and then a bigger company buys you out. But overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of eight out of 10 when it comes to X factors. So some of the pros here are the salary is extremely good. I mean, you can easily get to six figures. Some people might even start off right after school with a six figure job. And there's pretty high satisfaction overall for people who go into aerospace and they want to become an aerospace engineer. And there's gonna be some good entry level occupations that are available for people. So you're not gonna have to wait 10 or 20 years before you start making pretty good money. Some of the cons here are that you're probably going to have to relocate for work, especially if you wanna become an aerospace engineer. You may have to move somewhere where there's aerospace engineering jobs available. And that might not be the nicest place. Luckily, once you get a few years under your belt, you get some experience, you'll likely have a lot more options. Another thing here, there's a high level of workload stress, especially when you're in school. One of my roommates in college was an aerospace engineer and it is not easy. Trust me when I say that. Additionally, if you want to be like a rocket scientist, for instance, you're probably going to need to do further study. So you'll likely need to get a master's or a doctorate level degree. But overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of 8.75 out of 10. Excellent for the right person. It's definitely worth the money. Don't go into this one just because I say it's good or just because the pay is high. If you hate math, you probably don't wanna become an engineer. Make sure you do your own research. Make sure it's something that you would actually enjoy doing. Best thing for you to do if you're looking into one of these careers is first of all, do lots of research online. And then second of all, contact people who are currently in the career. Ask them questions on what they would recommend that you do. Should I do an internship? Should I get work experience? Does joining a bunch of clubs matter? All those sorts of questions that are relevant to your specific career that you're trying to go for. Now, if there's other degrees that you're interested in and I haven't gotten to them yet and you wanna leave a bunch of comments down below, you might speed that process up by checking out my college degree ranker down in the description below. Right now it's version 1.1. I've basically compiled all the best information from the best sources across the internet into one very convenient spreadsheet just for you. I also rank them based on what I think are the best possible standards. I am going to be updating it after all this madness in the world is over with because right now the demand is just really weird. Like for some careers it's super low, way lower than it usually would be and for some careers it's a lot higher. So it's really wonky right now. So once all this stuff is over, I am gonna be updating it to version two. But yeah, check that down in the description below in my Patreon if you don't wanna wait for the video to come out. And if you haven't done it already, go ahead and gently tap the like button. Hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you might have on the video. Sharing the video helps a ton that actually does help with the algorithm. The whole like button thing is just kind of goofy. It doesn't really help that much but sharing the video really does help. So if you wanna do that, that's awesome. And don't leave, check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.