"Money isn't everything, but without money one can do nothing."
Author Unknown
A recent survey of Canadian college and university students found that the students' salary expectations are high, sky high. The results showed that the average expected starting salary among those who took the survey is $43000 per year. In other words, if you live a very lean University life (i.e. no movies, no TV, having a starvation diet, buying 3rd-hand texts, living in a dank, no alcohol, walk whenever you leave the dank, and so on), you can recover almost all the money spent on attending university. If you don't think $43000 is high, consider this — on average, those surveyed expects to earn $60000+ per year within 5 years.
It is good to have high expectations, but we have to be realistic. All right, most of the mathies are in high demand and we are in a great program known as UW Math. However, there is high expectation and then there is unrealistic expectation. I also think of how much I'll earn when I leave UW, but I would rather not tell about it (who really talks about starting salary in the Comfy, anyway). Many of us might have been influenced by the dot-com-earn-a-million-in-one-night geniuses. Since those people earn so much in so little time, many people's expectations skyrocketed. Sure, many companies will dole out a lot of dough to lure us, but don't expect so much that nothing satisfies you.
Speaking of starting salary, I recently saw an ad in which a man chose DeVry College (the school many of us love to hate) because its graduates have high starting salary. To him, and those who study to get a high-paying job, I say: "If having a great beginning salary is the only reason you are attending (insert institution), then you are wasting your time and money." Plumbing is a well-paying job, too. You get to work on your own hours and you don't have to spend a lot of time to learn the trade. Why waste your (and others') valuable time and money if the only motivation is getting a high-paying job, when there are many other opportunities waiting for you?
Many of us long to work in the U.S., where the pay is higher, the taxes are lower, and the dollar is much stronger (let's hope this changes soon). Many believe that living and working in the U.S. is a better choice than staying in Canada. Unless you lived in a cave for the past decade, you probably have heard of the term "Brain Drain", where people graduating from Canadian institutions move south in search of a better life. For some, they have struck gold, for some others, it could be an experience one doesn't want to recall. Life in the U.S. may not be as wonderful as it sounds. Many consumer products in the two countries have the same DOLLAR AMOUNT. So if you are buying the same product, you pay relatively more in the U.S. You also have to pay for many things that we take for granted here in Canada. Besides, earning more doesn't mean you are guaranteed to be happier or to have a better life.
Many of us complain about how high tuition has gone up over the past decade. After all, tuition across Ontario has at least doubled in the 1990's (sounds like a long time ago, doesn't it?). Our cost of getting an education is high, but not as high as earning a degree in the U.S. of A. Studying in a public (state-funded) university costs about $1000 U.S. per quarter (3 months) for a resident of that state. Factor in room and board and the cost rises to $4000+ U.S. every 3 months. So a state resident would have to spend about $50,000 U.S. (or about 75,000 loonies) to earn a 4-year degree. I wouldn't even say how much it would cost for us Canadians to study in the States (hint: if you guess 6 figures you are in the right range). Of course, the cost of education shouldn't go up to that level, but we are, in some ways, a lucky group.
Jason "the Screamer" Lau