Major vs.

Salary

Group 4: Ayat Asse, Christina Meyer, Paige

EDT 180A

Mr. Lewallen

April 23, 2017

We decided to research a topic that many college students have found themselves

struggling with: do you choose a career based on the salary or based on your passion? First, we

asked the basic questions, such as what the students grade level is, what their gender is, and

what college they are enrolled in. Then, we asked which was the most important out of the three
 Group 4: Major vs. Salary

options for the student when looking at a career: job outlook, money, or passion? After that, we

asked the student how much debt they anticipate to be in after graduating because the amount of

debt they have certainly might affect the career they choose because if they will have more debt

than normal, they might think of having a career with a good financial outlook in order to be able

to pay off the debt more quickly. Lastly, we asked the student how much of a concern it is to

them that their major of choice might not support them as an adult and if they were considering

changing their major. Undoubtedly, these questions lead us to answer the main question: which is

more important to students when choosing a career, their passion for it or how much it pays? We

used Google Forms to collect the data and received 125 responses.

To begin, this chart shows the difference between what the males and females chose in

terms of what is more important to them. There is a significant difference between how many

women said they believe passion is more important to them than money than men. More than

75% of the females surveyed said they would pick passion over money, while only under 25% of

males did. However, many more females took the survey. The unequal number of females and

males who took the survey makes it somewhat more difficult to conclude that females care more

about passion than males. In addition, those who chose salary were equal. An equal number of

males and females picked money over passion. On the other hand, more males chose job outlook

as important than females.

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In this next chart, grade level is the focus. About 50% of the freshmen who took the

survey chose passion over money and job outlook. The number of sophomores and juniors who

chose passion is almost equal. In addition, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors all said that salary

is important to them equally. We believe that so many freshmen chose passion over money and

job outlook because freshmen just got into college and they are still very young; therefore, they

would place their dreams and desires over how much money they will be making. Students who

are older might think more about their finances and how much their salary will affect them in the

future.

Furthermore, this chart shows how many students from each grade took the survey. Many

more freshmen took it than any other grade level. About an equal number of sophomores and

juniors took the survey. Lastly, very few seniors took it and that is most likely because there are

not that many seniors in EDT. Students usually take the class during their first two years of

college. Therefore, it makes sense as to why not that many seniors took the survey.

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Moreover, the difference in gender is apparent in this chart. It shows that many more

females took the survey than males. 94 females took the survey, while only 31 males did. This

could be due to the fact that there are more females in the teachers college than males. In

addition, most people who take EDT 180 are in the teachers college. Therefore, it makes sense

as to why more females would take it than males. This also changes how the answers to the

questions are affected, especially the answer to the main question. Because more females picked

passion than males, and more females took the survey to begin with, this shows that the answer

to the question would be passion. Therefore, it certainly affects our conclusion.

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Additionally, this chart shows the colleges that the students are enrolled in. As you can

see from the first bar on the chart, most students who took the survey are enrolled in the teachers

college. As we stated before, most students who take EDT 180 are in the teachers college.

Therefore, it makes sense as to why most students who took the survey stated they are in it. This

also affects the main question we have because people who usually go for a teaching degree do

not do it for the money. Therefore, passion would most likely be the most chosen answer to the

question. Other colleges that most students who took the survey said they are enrolled in were

the public service college and the interdisciplinary college. Not a lot of students who took the

survey are in the other colleges. Ultimately, this chart shows that most of the students who took

the survey are enrolled in the teachers college.

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The last chart is the most important; it shows the answer to our topic. As we have

mentioned before because of the information we have gathered from the other charts, most

students who took the survey were freshmen, female, and enrolled in the teachers college. All of

these factors contribute to why passion would be the most chosen answer. Almost 100 students

chose passion to be the most important compared to money and job outlook. Only about 10

chose salary and 15 chose job outlook. This certainly shows that salary and job outlook is not as

big of a factor as passion is when it comes to choosing a career to college students.

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When looking at all of the charts, the conclusion we have come to in the end is that when

students decided what career they wanted to pursue and what major to choose to get to that

career, they did not have money and the job outlook of the career in mind as much as they had

whether they are passionate about it or not. This is understandable because many would argue

that pursuing a career solely for the financial aspects of it might lead to a life of misery because

you would be studying for a career you do not truly enjoy studying for, and then working in it

without having an interest in it. This might lead the student to have a life filled with unhappiness.

Other questions we might have asked in the survey are whether the students family had any

influence on the students choice of major and what passion might mean to them because like

Mr. Lewallen stated, some students might be passionate about money. Therefore, choosing

passion over money when answering the question on the survey would not really make sense. If

we did this again, we would change it by keeping that in mind. We would maybe change the

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word passion to interest in order to eliminate the confusion between being passionate about a

career and being passionate about the money that a career brings. Undoubtedly, this research

project showed us what we wanted to know: students care more about their passion when it

comes to a career than the financial outlook of it.