 The best double majors for science degrees, that's what we're going to be talking about today, and this is a highly requested video. I get these questions all the time. But before we get into it, 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 traps that so many people end up falling for. If you're new here and you haven't done it already and it's something that interests you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Only about 18, 19% of people have actually subscribed. And then after you've done that, bring the notification bell so that you never miss out. Now with that out of the way, let's jump right into it. I get asked questions all the time about what degrees make good combinations, what degrees make good double majors or dual majors. And the truth is most of them don't. Most of them probably don't combine very well, but there are a few that do combine pretty well and they're synergistic. Of course, this is going to depend completely on your own personal interests and what career paths that you might want to go down. Most of these degree combinations will not be for everyone, but there might be a few people out there that will see one of these and end up looking into it and discover that it's the right one for them. But first off, let's jump into it. First, we're going to talk about science degrees and engineering degrees. So this is an example that can sometimes be pretty decent. So one combination here would be a chemical engineering degree as well as a material science degree. And they would start off making $74,000 a year and then $137,000 in mid-career pay. Another example might be the combination of a polymer science degree and an engineering degree. And they would start off making $69,000 a year and $103,000 in mid-career pay. So one industry you might end up working for if you got the first combination, for instance, would be the natural gas industry. And one career path you might go down is becoming a petroleum engineer. And they make around $137,000 a year. There's 33,000 jobs available and it's growing at 3%, which is around average. Now, one thing I will say about engineering degrees is they're going to be very difficult. A lot of people actually have trouble graduating with an engineering degree in just the four-year time frame. So if you're doing an engineering degree and then double majoring in something else, it's probably going to be even more difficult to graduate in four years. With that being said, depending on what school you go to and the curriculum that they do, some of them make it easier than others. Another thing to keep in mind is sometimes if you just get a four-year bachelor's degree and a science major, it can be very difficult to get a job. A lot of the time they have to end up going back to school and getting a master's or a doctorate or a professional degree. That isn't nearly as much of a problem when it comes to engineering. Even if you don't end up working as an engineer, you'll likely be able to get a job in all kinds of different careers. So sometimes the combination of an engineering degree and a science degree would enhance your chances of getting a job rather than if you just got a science degree. Historically speaking, engineering in general does pay extremely well, especially when you look at things over a lifetime. According to the latest census, people who graduate with engineering degrees make on average about $3.5 million over a lifetime, whereas people that graduate with just any type of degree make around $2.4 million. People who graduate with a physical science degree like chemistry, for instance, make around $2.6 million over a lifetime. And those who graduate with a biological science degree make around $2.3 million. As you can see here, engineering is by far the best one on the list. And that's pretty much all across the board. Even if you go down and look at the science-related jobs, they still make $3 million on average over a lifetime. I think this has to do with a combination of things, but one of the big ones is the fact that it's just so well respected. A lot of the time, companies will hire engineers, even if it's for positions that they don't necessarily think they're qualified for. A lot of companies have the philosophy of just hiring the smartest possible people, and they know that engineers are very smart and they're probably also very hardworking. Next on the list, we're going to talk about a science degree mixed with another science degree. So a few examples of this would be a biochemistry degree and a molecular biology degree, where you'd start off making $50,000 a year and mid-career pay would be $103,000. Another one would be a chemistry degree and an environmental science degree, where you'd start off making $46,000 a year and mid-career pay would be $91,000. And yet another one would be a microbiology degree mixed with an immunology degree, where you'd start off making $51,000 a year and mid-career pay would be $91,000. Now to be honest with you, science-related degrees out of all the different types of degrees probably are the least good when it comes to double majoring. They just don't tend to go all that well with other types of degrees. They're not very synergistic. But with that being said, I think one of the best ones is when you combine a science degree with another type of science degree. So one career path you might go down with these types of degrees would be becoming a microbiologist, and they make around 75,000 a year. There's 20,000 jobs available, and it's growing at 3%, which is average. Now I don't think that science-related degrees are going to be as hard as engineering degrees or mathematics degrees, but they are relatively difficult. A lot of them are probably going to be in the top 20 or 30 hardest majors. So again, you want to keep that in mind if you're thinking about double majoring in two different science-related degrees. And as always, I recommend making sure that you have a really good plan and knowing exactly what you need to do in order to reach your goals. So you want to figure out what types of career paths you're thinking about going down, and then know exactly what steps you need to take in order to get there. And the best way for you to do that, besides watching my videos and doing research on it, is to actually reach out to people who are currently doing these careers and ask them what they would recommend that you do. Because if you're going to put in all that work in order to double major in something, you want to make sure that you're not wasting your time. Next one on the list is going to be a science degree mixed with a communications degree. Now I admit I was a little bit surprised here. I didn't expect a communications degree to pop up on the list. But when I was researching this, I did see several programs where there was either dual degrees or double degrees that were a mixture of science and communication. So one that I found was technical and scientific communication where you'd start off at $48,000 a year and mid-career pay would be $92,000. And I guess this one kind of makes sense because you know, when somebody reads a scientific paper, for instance, unless they're highly trained, they're probably just going to think it's a bunch of nonsense. And I do think it is a skill that you have to learn when you're kind of interpreting a scientific paper or some type of statistics, for instance, and then relaying that information to someone who might not understand the paper itself. So one career path you might go down would be becoming a meteorologist. They make around $95,000 a year. There's 9,000 jobs available and it's growing at 6%, which is faster than average. Now I will say here that you have to be very careful in what I said before about making sure that you do your due diligence and you know, have a good plan and you know, figure out what goal you want and then what steps it's going to take in order to get there is even more important than this section. The reason for that is because quite a few people who get science degrees and communications degrees end up regretting their choice. According to Zip Recruiter, the second most regretted degree is going to be a biological or physical science degree. And the reason for that is because it's hard to find a job without an advanced degree or a license. And then the fifth most regretted type of degree is a communications degree. And the reason was because it's too general. You definitely want to be extremely careful here. Make sure that you don't go into it without doing your research. A lot of people think that if they get any type of STEM degree, which you know, the S stands for science, of course, and they're just going to be good to go. And that's unfortunately not true. Science degrees are definitely the weakest out of the four types of degrees in STEM, which is science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And I've honestly seen this happen over and over again in real life where people get a science degree and they think they're just going to be good to go. They're going to be able to get a great job. And that usually doesn't happen. Next one on the list, number four, we're going to be talking about science degrees mixed with social science or liberal arts degrees. This is another one that kind of surprised me a little bit. But when I was doing my research, I did see quite a few double majors or dual degrees that had to do with science as well as social science or liberal arts. One example would be environmental science and policy. And this one you'd start off at $47,000 a year and $90,000 in mid-career pay. One career path you might go down is becoming an economist and they make around $105,000 a year. There's 20,000 jobs available and it's growing at 14%, which is much faster than average. However, you're generally going to have to get a master's degree. This is another one where I can kind of see it working out as long as you have a really good plan. Liberal arts and social science degrees do tend to teach a lot of soft skills that some of the more hard sciences leave out. Things like formulating an argument, critical thinking and communication. A lot of social science degrees are going to emphasize giving speeches for instance and you're going to be forced to think on your feet more. Whereas science is going to teach you more hard skills of course. Next one on the list is going to be a science degree and a business degree. So one example of this one was animal science and management and they make around $42,000 a year starting out and $70,000 in mid-career pay. One career path you could go down is becoming an agricultural and food scientist and they make around $65,000 a year. There's 34,000 jobs available and it's growing at 6%, which is faster than average. Now when it comes to business degrees, generally speaking, I think they make the best double majors. The reason for this is because they can apply to just about anything. It really doesn't matter what industry you go into, what business you work for, or even what career path you go down. A lot of the time everyone is going to be hiring business majors. If you look at skills for instance and Zip Recruiter did a skills index, you're going to see that business related skills oftentimes score extremely high. So for instance, project planning and business process management are both rated 86 out of 100 and that's two out of the top five skills on the entire list. Another great thing about business degrees is let's be honest, they're not going to be nearly as hard as a lot of other types of degrees and that can be a really good thing in this case just because of the fact that if you're double majoring in something that's going to be pretty difficult and so you probably don't want to double major into extremely difficult degrees. Next on the list would be a science degree plus any degree that you're interested in. Now you do have to be extremely careful here like I said before just because of the fact that science related degrees, a lot of the time do tend to be kind of overrated in my opinion and I always recommend to you guys that you make sure that you secure the bag so to speak with your undergraduate degree and by that I mean you want to make sure that you can get a job with just a four-year bachelor degree. If at that point you decide hey I want to go get a master's, I want to try to become a doctor, something along those lines that's great. You should definitely go for that but a lot of the time unfortunately life goes in a different direction and your plans don't always work out and so you want to be able to fall back on your bachelor's degree and make sure that you can get a job with just that. So one degree here that I think would be really valuable that I could see you double majoring in would be a graphic design degree mixed with a chemistry degree for instance. With a graphic design degree it's probably not that great on its own you're only going to be making around 42,000 a year starting out and 65,000 in mid-career pay and of course that's if you're able to find a job in the first place because a lot of art-related majors unfortunately have very high unemployment rates but you'd be able to design graphics where you could show the results of studies for instance which would be extremely useful to people that want to read about them. And number seven I think this would be the correct choice for the majority of people watching this video which would be a science degree plus not double majoring in anything else maybe just minoring in it and the reason for this is because science degrees in my opinion are not as good as a lot of other types of degrees when it comes to double majoring as I always recommend you would want to make sure you know what career path you're looking at what career paths you're trying to go down and you want to talk to people who are doing those careers and figure out what steps you need to take you need to reverse engineer it figure out what steps you need to take in order to get there and I think most of the time especially when it comes to science related career paths they're probably not going to tell you that double majoring is going to help you that much they might tell you that getting internships will help you getting work experience making sure that you have extra skills doing projects on the side maybe some leadership experience as well all of those things might help you but chances are double majoring probably won't help you that much and I know for a fact there's always going to be a few exceptions here and there but for the most part this is going to be true with that being said check out my new project that I've been working on down in the description it's going to be version 1.1 and I'm only going to be releasing it for a limited time it's going to be in my patreon down below this is basically going to be the college degree ranker and it's my attempt at making the best list at ranking all of the different college degrees on a number of different factors I'm putting all the most important factors from the best sources that I've found doing hundreds of hours of research in one place so you don't have to scour the internet I'm also planning on putting other exclusive content in there for instance I'm going to be doing my own investment portfolio here pretty soon and if you haven't done it already go ahead and gently tap the like button hit the subscribe button ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts comments criticisms etc that you have on the video share it with all your friends and before you leave check out my other videos right here I made them just for you