re: Highest First Job Salaries

I was already working in my field (IT) part time for a large company, so the transition was easier for me. I started at 35k but that was 12 years ago.

From our industry, infrastructure engineers will make about 45K out of school and programmers will make about 50k. But I would suggest working part time in your field for the experience and leg up on the other slacker grads.

Eta: also helps to get certified if in IT

$55K with a fresh PhD in chemistry. Essentially an industry postdoc.

225k

graduated last month. started at a small oil and gas company here in Lafayette as a purchasing specialist making 36k.
There is only one other guy in purchasing and he is in his mid 60's so I was hired by him to be his eventual replacement. Should see a nice bump in pay over the next few years as well.

I need a purchasing guy

Yes, but not without difficulty. I messed around my first 2-3 years of school before I switched majors. It took another 4 semesters with 3.5-4.0s to get back to 3.0. I didn't get in my first application round b/c of the low gpa i'm sure. So I did a semester of graduate level classes and destroyed them. Got in a few months later. I think I had the lowest gpa in my incoming class. Good thing we get a clean slate once we started though - finished with 3.55

55K in engineering

dont know how I even made ends meet back then

$200/week as a farm hand until I found a real job

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$36k as a first year resident 2000
$250k first year in practice 2003

Wife started out at $75k as a pharmacist in 1999