Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Best Jobs of 2011

Have you seen the list of the best jobs of 2011? Here it is. (If you do decide to follow the link, make sure you read the comments. I am laughing so hard that I'm afraid I will hurt myself. The part about college professors only making $150,000 - $200,000 per year is especially lovely.) In case you have no time to follow links, though, here is the list:

1. Software Engineer
2. Mathematician
3. Actuary
4. Statistician
5. Computer Systems Analyst
6. Meteorologist
7. Biologist
8. Historian
9. Audiologist
10. Dental Hygienist

"Would that it were so," I say as the wife of somebody who occupies the first 4 slots on the list (4 and 3, a little more than 1 and 2). Still, in spite of these or any other rankings, I am intimately convinced that the best job of this or any other year is being a scholar of Hispanic literature.

Historians making it to the list is curious and encouraging. Is it true that historians are so highly appreciated? That would be really great.

6 comments:

Anita said...

Many years ago, I had job number 5. Would I say that it ranked that high? Hmmm...
I'm very thankful to have landed on that path; one that provided for me more than adequatedly, and one that challenged me intellectually.
But it was stressful! The corporate world, I think. LOL
I'd highly recommend it though.
Best wishes to you for a peaceful and fulfilling new year.

Clarissa said...

Thank you! Same to you, Anita.

Jonathan said...

I agree that being a professor of Spanish is the best job possible. They actually pay me to read, teach, and write about Spanish poetry. It's unbelievable.

Anonymous said...

I really doubt historians are #8.

According to one comment in the page, these are jobs for someone with skills with 'Historian' the data anlaysis software package. Making them more part of #4 Statistician.


http://global.wonderware.com/EN/Pages/WonderwareHistorian.aspx

BenYitzhak said...

I'm sure that the mathematicians that put the job into the number two slots are the same ones that think that a mathematician will have done all his best work before the age of 25, ie: The ones who stopped doing research in mathematics when they left academia.

Pagan Topologist said...

I am a 66 year old mathematician who has never left academia. I have to say that I did what most people regard as my best work in my 30's. I still do some research, but not at the rate I did when I was younger. Partially, this is because i work on much harder problems than I did when I was striving for promotion, so my work is still interesting and deep, but not as flashy as it was once, I fear.