Big money awaits some graduates

By David Miller, Staff Writer

Students with plans to complete a bachelor’s degree after leaving OCCC will find that some fields are more lucrative than others.

Salaries in fields such as accounting, computer science, engineering and marketing are steadily rising for those holding a bachelor’s degree. OCCC offers associate degrees in each of those areas.

According to CNNMoney.com, engineering majors are paid the most, followed by marketing, accounting and computer science majors.

In the engineering field, chemical engineers are the most sought after in respect to salary offers. Offers being made to chemical engineers have increased 5.6 percent over the last year to an annual salary of $59,707, according to a study conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

In addition, offers being made to civil and mechanical engineers rose by approximately 5 percent.

OCCC offers a pre-engineering degree, which enables an engineering major to branch out into any engineering field offered by four-year colleges such as the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University.

“In [OCCC’s] pre-engineering program, there are basic engineering science-type courses … Thermodynamics, Rigid Body Mechanics, Strengths and Properties of Materials, and Engineering Practice I,” said Max Simmons, science and mathematics dean.

“All of those can be the fundamental things you need to go on and take the higher-level courses and become an engineer.”

According to NACE, electrical engineering follows chemical engineering with an annual salary of $54,915, up 1.6 percent from 2006. Mechanical engineering is a close third with an annual salary of $54,695, up 5.7 percent from 2006. Although last, civil engineers still make a decent salary at $47,750 per year, up 4.8 percent from last year.

However, despite high salaries, enrollment numbers in OCCC’s engineering program dropped in the 2005-2006 school year.

Simmons partially attributes the decrease to a temporary contract allowing FAA employees to take engineering classes at the college. The contract has ended.

“That decline is a little deceiving because [the college] had a special deal worked out with the FAA where we were offering our engineering courses to FAA employees at the FAA center,” Simmons said.

“When that particular contract ended, we ended a special program that had resulted in an increase (of engineering course enrollment), so we were more or less returning to our normal student body.”

Simmons also attributes the decrease to changes in the University of Oklahoma’s curriculum. He said OU is where most OCCC engineering graduates transfer.

He said the University of Oklahoma, in an effort to reduce the number of credit hours in their bachelor’s degree program, began requiring students to take specialized courses in engineering as early as a student’s first and second semesters.

“If you’re an engineering student now, particularly if you want to go to the University of Oklahoma, you have to choose in a semester or two whether you want to be a chemical engineer or civil engineer, and that’s a hard thing to do when you don’t quite know what you’re doing,” Sim-mons said.

According to the Institutional Effectiveness area of the college website, 26 engineering majors graduated in 2005, with 14 graduating in 2006.

Accounting majors follow engineering majors in terms of pay. Their starting salaries climbed 2.7 percent to $47,421, according to NACE.

“Accounting is in really high demand right now,” said accounting Professor Kayla Fessler.

Fessler said students planning to transfer to a four-year college to get a bachelor’s in accounting should get an associate degree in Science Business at OCCC, as opposed to an Associate in Applied Science Business degree.

“The AAS in Business is not a transfer degree, but when [students] are finished they are ready to enter the workforce,” she said.

The downside to the two-year AAS business degree is the lower annual pay.

According to www.salary.com, as of March 2007, entry-level accountants made an annual salary between $36,297 and $44,444.

Figures at www.degreedirectory.org listed an accountant’s base salary at $32,320.

Although in third place in regard to its annual salary, the marketing field experienced the largest jump over the past year, with salary offers increasing 10.3 percent, on average, to $41,285.

Debra Vaughn, Advising and Career Services career Specialist, credits the jump to the Internet.

“Marketing is a new world because of the Internet,” Vaughn said.

“So many people are not looking at hard copy printed material any longer. The Internet is now their focus.”

OCCC doesn’t offer specific marketing courses, but students can use the A.S. degree in business to transfer to a four-year institution where they can begin taking specific cour-ses in marketing, Vaughn said.

She said graphic design, and even film and video majors, could move into the marketing field.

“The visual arts [majors], a lot of them will work for advertisement agencies,” Vaughn said. “Even our film and video students, they’re selling the stories such as instructional videos.”

Vaughn said graphic communications or film majors who do decide to enter the marketing field would have to take the business courses outlined in the business science A.S. degree in addition to the courses required for their visual arts degrees.

According to the CCNMoney.com article, salary offers made to computer science majors rival those of engineering majors with an annual salary of $52,177.

While salary offers to computer science majors declined in 2005 and 2006, they have since risen by 2.5 percent.

Vicki Gibson, Information Technology division acting dean, attributes the decrease in computer science enrollment to the residual effects of the dot com downfall.

Gibson said the highest pay in computer science is still going to programming areas as well as cyber security.

According to www.salary.com, the annual salary for programmers in Oklahoma City ranges from $37,824 to $71,816 depending on the type and level of programmer. A web security administrator in Oklahoma City earns, on average, $64,047 to $95,328 a year.

OCCC offers A.S. computer science associate degree programs with an emphasis on computer information systems, general computer science emphasis and cyber/information security, according to the college catalog.

Gibson said the college has two versions of the A.S. computer science degree.

“One goes directly into the University of Central Oklahoma and one directly into the University of Oklahoma,” Gibson said.

“We have partnership agreements with the University of Oklahoma and the University of Central Oklahoma where it says they will absolutely take these classes if the student completes their associate degree in computer science here.”

Despite having specific partnerships established with the two institutions, Gibson said, the college would work with any four-year institution to which a student would want to transfer.

Also, the college is in the process of offering a bach-elor’s degree in computer technology.

“We’re working on a partnership agreement with Oklahoma State University-Okmulgee so we can offer their bachelor’s degree here on campus,” Gibson said.

She said she hopes the program will be available at the college in the fall ’07 semester.

Staff Writer David Miller can be reached at StaffWriter3@occc.edu.

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