Social Good Engineering Magazine: GineersNow Social Innovation GineersNow Engineering Magazine Issue No. 001 | Page 30

Want to be a Billionaire?
Study Engineering!
C
hances are, like me, you
have already heard or read
a lot of other people’s suc-
cess stories. I can, without
any pretention, say that I
am genuinely happy for a
successful person, but at
the same time, I also feel a little jealous.
Maybe not green with envy, but I ask
myself what that successful person has
done to achieve more success than I have.
Of course, there are different measures of
success, but the most tangible, at least up
to this day, is obviously wealth. So, when I
hear or read stories about how this or that
person has become a multi-billionaire, I
wonder how he ever did it.

Some people made it big
through sheer work, with a dusting of
good luck. Some inherit the wealth of their
family. Yet some are just more education-
ally fit than others, in that their formation
proved to be the most essential through of
the arc of the generation when they lived.

A recent study conducted
by Approved Index, a UK-based busi-
ness-to-business platform, showed that
22% of the world’s wealthiest people stud-
ied engineering in college. This is in stark
contrast to only 12% who had a business
degree, nine per cent who had an Arts
degree, and six per cent who studied either
Science, Maths or Law.

Engineering-graduate billion-
aires are not only more, they are actually
richer than their ultra-wealthy peers. They
have an average net worth of US$ 33 bil-
lion, compared to US$ 29 billion for those
with a Finance degree.

Curiously, the study indicated
that having a degree was far from being
a stringent requirement to be a fat cat. A
third of the world’s top 100 billionaires
had no university degree, and they have
a net worth or US$ 31 billion, hot on the
heels of those with Engineering degrees.
In fact, those without degrees have the
most fabled success stories, read Mark
Zuckerberg of Facebook and Bill Gates of
Microsoft.

Though the billionaire’s list was
dominated by those with Engineering and
Finance degrees (like Carlos Slim who
studied Civil Engineering), and those
without (like Gates and Zuckerberg),
experts say that the results of the study,
which showed people of other specialisms
make it to the list, underline the impor-
tance of having a society in which people
have varied range of specialization to a
thriving and diverse economy.

Sure, not everyone dreams
of becoming a billionaire. We all have
different measures of success. To some, it
lies on the stability of their job, the hap-
piness of their family, the good manners
of their children and other people’s regard
of them, among others. It doesn’t matter
whatever “success” you may be enjoying at
the moment, what is important is that you
worked for it and that you’re happy and
proud about it.
Photo Sources:
Zuckerberg: Born Rich;
Gates: Business Dictionary;
Slim: Business Insider
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