 Is a systems engineering major or systems engineering degree worth it? That's what we're going to be talking about today and let's jump right into it. First thing we need to ask is what the heck is systems engineering? Systems engineering is all about building, managing and analyzing a system. Whether that be technology, chemical, mechanical, electrical, etc. So the best way to describe this is let's say you have a car. So obviously the mechanical part of the car is going to be the engine. But you also have an electrical component to the car. So you have electricity running to the lights, etc. And then on top of that, you might have some computer engineers working on it to create the hardware part of things and some software engineers working on it to create the software side. So as a systems engineer, you'd be working with all of these different types of engineers and you'd have some expertise in every single category. So you know a little bit about mechanical, electrical, etc. And you'd make sure that everything is gelling together and working together to create that final product, which is the car. So in some ways systems engineering is sort of like engineering mixed with project management. Now as always, I'm going to talk about four different categories here. First, we're going to be talking about the earning potential or salary. According to pay scale, you're going to make around $74,000 a year starting out and $132,000 in mid-career pay. So if you compare that to a really high paying degree and a really low paying one, it's definitely on the higher paying side. This one is excellent. Now systems engineering as a career is relatively new and so BLS doesn't have it listed. It's also pretty rare. However, one similar career might be an engineering manager and this would make a lot of sense because systems engineers are kind of overseeing everyone else anyways. So it's sort of a managerial position right off the bat. So as an engineering manager, you'd make around $144,000 a year and $69 an hour. But there are technically a lot of different career paths you could go down. You could work as a different type of engineer, like a mechanical engineer, or you could work as a project manager. I will say that most of these career paths are going to be very well paid. And if you look at engineering degrees in general, over a lifetime, they make around $3.5 million, which is much higher than the average degree, which is $2.4 million. And combining this engineering skill set with some business skills as well that you would learn with the project management side of things is a great combination in my opinion. And so this one easily is going to get a 9 out of 10 when it comes to salary. Next, we're going to be talking about satisfaction. And I like to divide this one into meaning as well as job satisfaction. So when it comes to meaning, which is basically how much you think your career positively impacts the world, this one has a score of 54%. Now you can compare that to a really good one, radiation therapy, or a bad one like plastics engineering technology. And you'll see that it's on the higher side, maybe average. Now, if you look at meaning for a specific career, systems engineer is going to be relatively rare. So let's go ahead and use aerospace engineer. It's around 64% and 71% when it comes to job satisfaction, which is above average if you compare it to a really good one and a bad one. So when it comes to satisfaction, it's extremely subjective. For one person, it could be like a 10 out of 10 amazing career. And for another person, it would be one out of 10. And you'd want to quit as soon as possible. Now, when it comes to how much people regret getting a degree, engineering is the third least regretted type of degree, only around 15% of people regret it. And the reason for that is because sometimes some of the better jobs require advanced degrees, so a master's or a doctorate. However, this is one of them that might fall under that category. And the reason for that is because generally, if you work as a systems engineer, it's because you have several years of experience. The fact that you know quite a bit about, you know, several different areas, electrical, mechanical, et cetera, that kind of shows that you probably have some experience working kind of hands-on with those people. And so you're probably not going to be able to do that right out of school. But with that being said, let's say you don't end up working as a systems engineer, I think this one is relatively flexible. Or maybe you do end up working as a systems engineer and you don't like it. Again, you're going to have a plan B. You're going to be able to do other things relatively easily because of the skill set that you learned. You're going to have some really good business knowledge, as well as engineering knowledge. And there's so many different careers out there that you could do well in with that skill set. I do like to always say that keep in mind, it could have a lot to do with the place you work, the people you work with, the company you work for, the industry you work in, et cetera. There's so many different factors that are going to influence job satisfaction. And so this is kind of just very subjective. So take this section with a grain of salt. For you, it might be a 10 out of 10. And the only way you're going to know is if you just really research it and look into it and you know what you enjoy, what your passions are, what your strengths are, et cetera. But with that being said, when it comes to the objective measures that I always look up on these, it scores pretty well. I'm going to give this one an eight out of 10. Next, we're going to be talking about demand. And when it comes to demand, engineering degrees can be a little bit weird. So I've talked about quite a bit on this channel, how some of the classical or traditional career paths that are supposed to be amazing just because of the fact that they've been so popular for decades, a lot of the time they end up getting saturated. So some examples of this would be lawyer, of course. You know, there's a lot of very unhappy lawyers out there. You know, their parents told them that they need to become a lawyer. They got into it and they end up extremely unhappy because it's saturated and it's super competitive and it's not nearly as good as it's made out to be. Engineering to some extent has gotten a little bit saturated as well. It's definitely not as good as it used to be. So for instance, if you look up an engineering manager, you're going to see that it's only growing at about 3%. So there's 198,000 engineering manager jobs and that means over the next 10 years, 5,100 new jobs are going to be created. If you look at electrical engineer, it's kind of the same thing. 328,000 jobs growing at 3%, which is average, meaning over the next 10 years, 10,800 new jobs are going to pop up. So when you first look at this, you might think it's not a good idea to go into these careers. And I have to admit that is a little bit of a red flag, but it's not the full story. One thing that you should keep in mind when it comes to these engineering degrees is even if you don't end up becoming a systems engineer or an electrical engineer, a lot of the time, just because of the fact that you've got one of these degrees, companies are going to respect you and they'll hire you for jobs that might not have anything to do with engineering. A lot of companies have the hiring philosophy of they just want to hire the smartest possible people and the people that are the hardest workers and they're familiar with engineers and they know that they're very smart and very hardworking. And so a lot of the time, they'll give them a chance. But with that being said, when you compare systems engineering to something like mechanical engineering, most hiring managers and business managers are much more familiar with mechanical. So when they see a systems engineer, they might be a little bit confused. It's almost like because of the fact that mechanical is so popular, it has real estate in people's brains and they have a lot of reference experience where they've likely hired a mechanical engineer before and they probably had a pretty good experience whereas they don't have any experience with systems engineers. So that can be a little bit of a disadvantage and it can make it a little bit harder for you to get your first job. Now, of course, once you've got a couple years of experience and you've built skills, it'll be much easier for you to get your second job after that. Now, when it comes to unemployment, STEM degrees tend to be pretty good. Their unemployment rates are relatively low. Of course, who knows what's going to happen in 2020. Everything is just totally out of whack right now. But engineering degrees tend to be some of the better performing STEM degrees when it comes to unemployment as well. Now, in my opinion, systems engineering is very new, okay? It's kind of one of the new kids to the block, but I think this one is going to really take off in the next 10 to 20 years. It's not amazing right now, but or at least there's not a lot of data, in my opinion, that shows that it's amazing right now. But I think it's kind of a dark horse candidate. I think it's going to be one of the best engineering degrees if you look back at this video 10 or 20 years from now. It's just a great combination of business skills and engineering skills. And you can do things that nobody else has the ability to do. So for instance, if you look up systems engineering degree on monster.com, you're going to see that there's 31,000 job postings that have that as a keyword. And that's with less than 1,000 people graduating with a systems engineering degree every year right now. So a less than 1,000 people graduating and 30,000 people posting about the degree. To me, that looks like a good sign. You can compare that to a degree that has lots of demand like computer science or one that doesn't have much demand at all like anthropology. On top of that engineering degrees in general, even though people might not necessarily be searching them out, you see when you survey big companies and you ask them what types of majors are they hiring, engineering is usually at the very top. So business majors and engineering majors are almost always number one or number two. So with that being said, when it comes to demand, this one scores pretty well. I'm going to go ahead and give it an eight out of 10. Next, we're going to be talking about X factors. This is anything that's important that I didn't already mention. So first of all, when it comes to how much you make over a lifetime, I already mentioned engineering degrees make around 3.5 million. Whereas the average degree only makes around 2.4. Engineering degrees are by far the highest. Now I will mention here that, you know, this is the last 40 years. This is a census data from the last 40 years or so. So maybe the next 40 years, computer science will be number one or something else. Who knows? But the cool thing to look at when it comes to engineering degrees is it really doesn't matter what career path you go down. They tend to be extremely high paying. So for instance, people who go into arts still make around 3 million dollars a year over their lifetime, which is much higher than average. It's pretty much good across the board. So even if you don't end up becoming an engineer, it's still probably going to be a good investment. Now, if you look at Zip recruiter skills index, I was shocked to see that systems engineering is actually on there. And it's really shocking to see this because it's such a rare degree and it's a pretty rare profession as well. So it came in at 69 out of 100. And you can compare that to a really good one and a really bad one. And you'll see that it's definitely on the better side. So this is a skill that a lot of companies are looking for. They're looking for people who are skilled when it comes to systems engineering. And when it comes to automation, I couldn't find this exact career, but pretty much all of the engineering degrees range from 0% chance to 10% chance. So very low chance that it's going to be automated. On top of that, pretty low chance that it's going to be outsourced as well. Pretty much most of the time, you have to be there in person in order to be an effective systems engineer or really just any type of engineer because engineers are basically the middleman between a scientist and a technician. So you're going to get your hands dirty sometimes. You're going to be there touching things, solving problems, figuring out what's going on. And you're also going to be behind the scenes sometimes as well. And I also mentioned here that engineering degrees create the most millionaires and billionaires. And I think the reason for that is because engineers make amazing entrepreneurs. Engineering is pretty much just practical problem solving. And that's what entrepreneurship is all about at the end of the day. So that's why engineering is so flexible. There's tons of different career paths that you can go down. And on top of that, it makes a really good prerequisite to becoming an entrepreneur. Now I always like to mention here as well that engineering is very tough. Pretty much any type of engineering major engineering degree is going to be extremely difficult. Keep that in mind if you want to pursue this degree and you also want to enjoy college that's going to be pretty difficult for you unless you're a genius. But overall, I am going to give this one a nine out of 10 when it comes to X factors. I think that it's not very good right now. I think that if you want to play it safe and you may want to become a systems engineer in the future, but you want to play it safe, I would recommend maybe just getting a mechanical engineering degree and then working towards becoming a systems engineer somewhere down the line. But in my opinion, and I have to admit this is a total prediction, I think this one is going to be very good in the next 10 to 15 years. But again, if you want to play it safe but you're still interested in systems engineering, you might want to just get a mechanical engineering degree. Because spoiler, I'm wrong sometimes, okay? At the end of the day, this is just my opinion. I do tons of research on this and I try to give you guys really good information, but it's just my opinion. Make sure you do your own research, make sure you plan things out, talk to people who are systems engineers and you'll get some really good insight. So some of the pros here, salary is great, just like pretty much any type of engineering degree. There's a good amount of different specializations that you can go down here. The skill set that you learn is going to be extremely flexible even for an engineering degree. And I think there's going to be good demand and opportunities, especially in the next 10 to 20 years. I think a lot of companies are going to invest heavily in people who have the skill set of systems engineering. Some of the cons here are that it's a very competitive occupation. There are people who have different degrees outside of this, like mechanical engineers, for instance, that can take your job, whereas you wouldn't necessarily be able to take their jobs nearly as easily. The workload can also be very challenging. Project management is tough in general. And then when you add on the technical side of things, the systems engineering part, that can make it even more difficult. And on top of that, you may need lots of experience. So you might have to work five or 10 years before you can actually become a systems engineer. Overall though, I am going to give this one an 8.5 out of 10. I'm very bullish on this one. It's one of the most exciting careers out there, in my opinion. Now, if you want help researching your college degree, but you don't want to wait for me to make a video about it, check out my college degree ranker down in the description below. It is in my Patreon. I worked really hard on it, and I think it's the best resource out there right now it's version one pretty soon. When things calm down in the world, I'll be making the next version. Also, gently tap the like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. Hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. Sharing the video is always appreciated. And before you leave, check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.