 Is a forestry degree worth it? That's what we're gonna 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 gonna lead you to success and we also go over how you can avoid some of the common financial traps that so many people end up falling for. With that being said, if you haven't done it already, which only around 18 to 19% of you have, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so that you never miss out. So what is forestry exactly? What is a forestry degree and a forestry major all about? This basically focuses on teaching students how to conserve and manage a forest ecosystem. You're gonna be doing a lot of ecology, biology, economics and social science. Now at this degree, you might become a conservation scientist or a forester. A lot of the time, you might end up working for a non-profit or in a government job. Some people end up going on to become firefighters as well. And ironically, some people end up working in the logging industry. So when it comes to salary or earning potential, with this degree, you would expect to make around $44,000 a year starting out and $75,000 in mid-career pay. You can compare that to a really high-paying degree like petroleum engineering or a really low-paying degree like recreational therapy. And you see that it's on the lower side, but it's definitely not as bad as recreational therapy. Now, one career path you might go down is becoming a conservation scientist or a forester and they make around $62,000 a year. And I always tell people to aim for around $75,000 to $80,000 a year because studies have shown that you increase your happiness up to a certain point and that's around $75,000 to $80,000 a year. Beyond that point, your happiness doesn't really increase all that much more and so I always say it's a good idea to aim for that just so you can maximize your happiness. And with this career, it might be a little bit difficult for you to get to that level. And that's not all that uncommon when it comes to science-related degrees and science-related careers. They're usually pretty average paying and sometimes even below average. So when it comes to the total amount of money that you make over a lifetime with a college degree, it's usually around $2.4 million. With a physical science degree, it's around $2.6 million and biological science is 2.3. So it's a little bit above average with physical and below average with biological. Overall, with this one, I'm gonna give it a score of six out of 10. Next, we're gonna be talking about satisfaction and with this one, I always like to talk about meaning as well as job satisfaction. So meaning is gonna be how much you think your career positively impacts the world. Whereas job satisfaction is just how much do you enjoy doing your job on a day-to-day basis. This one is always extremely subjective, but I do my best to break it down as fairly as possible. So when it comes to meaning, you see that forestry has a 66% meaning score, which is on the higher side. You can compare that to a really high score like radiation therapy at 91% or a really low score like plastics engineering technology at 31%. That means that a lot of people who graduate with forestry degrees tend to go into careers where they think that their career positively impacts the world. Now, if you look at a specific career that they go into like forestry, for instance, you're gonna see that the meaning score is 81%, which is really high and the job satisfaction score is 85%. You can compare that to a really good one like clergy or a really bad one like parking lot attendant and you'll see that it's definitely on the higher side. Not everyone ends up becoming a forester though that's a relatively rare job and people who end up getting into that are probably people who want to be outdoors. So like I said before, this one is extremely subjective. A lot of people will also end up working in government jobs, like I said before, and it's really gonna change depending on what type of job you go into, the people you work around, what kind of pace the environment is in, is it a fast-paced environment, is it slow-paced, the business you work for, the industry you work in, all kinds of different things are gonna contribute to the factor of how much you enjoy doing your job. But overall, I'm gonna give this one a relatively good score of 7.5 out of 10. Now when it comes to demand with a forestry career, it's growing at around 5% over the next 10 years, but there's only around 3,600 jobs available which means there's only gonna be about 1,700 that pop up. And the amount of jobs available is going to change quite a bit depending on where you live. So for instance, there's not that many jobs available in Nevada because it's sort of like a desert climate. So there's a chance that you will have to move in order to get a job. And when you type in the keyword forestry degree on monster.com, only around 1,000 jobs pop up, you can compare that to a degree where there's not very much demand like anthropology, where 800 jobs pop up, or one where there's lots of demand like computer science where 141,000. However, I always like to say this, there's lots of jobs out there that are probably completely unrelated to forestry. They have absolutely nothing to do with forestry where you just have to have a college degree in order to apply for them. And so you do have to take that into consideration. Overall, when it comes to demand, I'm going to give this one a 5.5 out of 10. Next, we're going to be talking about X factors. And this is anything that didn't make it into any of the other sections. Now forestry would probably be classified as a biological science degree. And they make around $2.3 million over an entire lifetime. That's a little bit lower than the average degree in all different types of jobs of around 2.4 million. So when you see science degrees, they're usually about average when it comes to your earnings over an entire lifetime. However, it's going to vary differently depending on what career path you go into. So you can see that this one does actually have a decent range of careers you can get into. So for instance, if you went into technology, you work with computers, you might make over 3 million over a lifetime. So when it comes to science degrees, a lot of the time, the skill set that you learn is relatively narrow. So you're going to be learning a lot about trees and that sort of thing. And that might not directly help you if you don't end up going into forestry. However, indirectly, a lot of the skills that you learn will probably help you quite a bit. This is probably why you see people who get science degrees having success in completely unrelated fields. Now, when it comes to skills and how much those skills are valued on the job market, when you look at the skill of environmental field work, you're going to see it only has a 27 out of 100 score. Compare that to software engineering at 88 out of 100 and industrial sewing at eight. So it's definitely on the lower side and that doesn't mean that it doesn't have value. It's just at this particular time in history, the skill of environmental field work is not going to be something where a lot of people are looking to hire people for. Now, weirdly enough, that's surprised me, but apparently there's a very high chance of automation for a lot of the forestry related jobs. So for instance, forest and conservation workers have an 87% chance of being automated. That's according to the study on willrobotstakemyjob.com. However, the people who responded to the poll said there's only about a 27% chance. So a lot of people think that it won't be automated, but the scientists that conducted the study think that it will. So overall, I'm gonna give this one a six out of 10 when it comes to X factors. So some of the pros here are that it's gonna have a pretty good satisfaction rating as well as meaning. Another great thing is you might be able to get a job where you're gonna be out and about in nature working outside instead of having to do a lot of office work, which can be great for the right person. The cons here are that some of the jobs are very likely to be automated. The salary is not very good, especially when you first start out and on top of that, there's not gonna be very much demand for this one. Overall, I'm gonna give this one a score of 6.25 out of 10. Now, I always say this, but it's extremely subjective. For one person, it might be 10 out of 10. Another person, it might be one out of 10. It really just depends on what your goals are, what you're looking for, et cetera. So if your goal is to work a government job where you're not really making all that much money, but you're not somebody who needs to make that much money to be happy, then this can be a really good option for you, especially if you know exactly what you're going for. My goal here is just to make sure that you do your due diligence and figure out what your goal is, what career you're going for, talk to people who are in that career, and then ask them whether they need to even get a forestry degree in order to get into it. For instance, a lot of people get a forestry degree and then they become a firefighter. And the truth is, you don't actually have to get a forestry degree in order to get into that career, at least most of the time, depending on what career path you're looking at. Now, a lot of the careers out there are going to be for the local, state, or federal government. You might also end up working for a logging company, which might sound a little bit weird and might be the opposite of what you wanted to do when you first got into it. You might be doing some watershed, recreation, or wildlife management. Now, a lot of these careers are going to require you to work outside no matter what the conditions are. So you're going to be working outside when it's really nice, but also if it's raining or snowing as well. But you're also going to be doing a lot of office work. It's not just always being outside. It's also a good idea to learn extra skills, maybe even double major in something. Statistics, for instance, would be a great skill to have. Geographical information systems would make a great combination with this one and if you want more help on doing research on college degrees and you're too impatient to check out my videos, then go ahead and look at my college degree ranker down in the description below. That'll make the whole process a lot easier. It's going to be in my Patreon where I post exclusive content for you guys. If you haven't done it already, go ahead and gently tap the like button. Hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, share the video with all your friends, comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera that you have on the video, especially if you've gotten this degree. I'd love to hear your opinion. Even if you think I'm wrong, I love to just start a discussion and a dialogue so that everybody can learn from it. And definitely do not leave, check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you.