Hey,

I'm a pretty young kid, aspiring to become a software engineer. My parents, however, recommended that I not do programming as:

1. The salary can't support a family (Indian, so arranged marriages and kids in the late 20s are usually expected)

2. You sit and stare at computers all day

3. You'll get bored of computers

4. You don't socialize with other workers as a programmer

They suggested I go after aeronautical engineering, or something similar (even though the salaries are usually lower :P).

I understand they're both engineering, but what're the differences between programming and general engineering (Base concepts used in all engineering jobs).

Also, what is the best path to take in order to get a good salary as a programmer? (120k+)

I'll definitely be going to college, so what classes to take?

What're the highest paying programming jobs?

1) Average programmer salary in the US is $80k, which AFAIK is enough to be a financially comfortable family. Not rich, but definitely not at all poor. Yep, the starting salary could be half that though...
2) Personally, I try to stand at mine. It's bad for your health to sit too much
3) Computers are a tool. Does a draftsman get bored of pencils? Oh wait, they also use computers these days anyway
4) I can't say how true that is. I have a large group of "work-friends" that I socialize with. Maybe that's an Australian thing though -- forming social bonds by drinking beer in the office on a Friday...

Also, what is the best path to take in order to get a good salary as a programmer? (120k+)
What're the highest paying programming jobs?

Either - the ones that take 10 years of practice and continuous learning and improvement to get to (senior, team-leader and specialist roles of any kind), Or, ones where your clients have a lot of money and responsibility -- finance, defense, aerospace, mining, etc... anything where lives or billions in profits are at stake. Hell you can earn $120k+ doing laundry for a mining company if money is your only concern in life.

To address your points:

1. nonsense. There are plenty of people who support a family on a software engineers pay. As for arranged marriages and kids, that's up to you, but this is 2015... if you don't want to get married or have kids, tell your family to get stuffed.

2. Yeah, there's a lot of that, but there's also design meetings, working together on problems, etc.

3. You might. Plenty of people don't and haven't.

4. Also nonsense. I socialise with plenty of people I've met at work.

The difference between programming and engineering? They're pretty different fields. In general, you will need a much greater understanding of physics, materials, etc in real world engineering. You can easily go your entire programming life without every needing to know any math beyond simple arithmetic/logic and no physics at all, or you might end up writing an incredibly complex physical simulation or some crazy financial wizardry.

I graduated as a mechanical engineer and programming is a hobby for me. According to my experience, the main difference is that programming is quite one-dimensional compared to mechanical engineering. That's a fundamental difference, there are obvious differences (such as materials science, mechanics, math, physics, whatever) too.

By one-dimensional I mean usually in programming (especially nowadays) you don't have to worry about the size and strength of things, how totally unrelated things have to be packed in the same place (unless you write horribly messy programs), you don't have to worry about manufacturing, materials, reproducibility etc.

EDIT: in programming, you don't have to worry about backlash+hysteresis, friction and deformation. If an algorithm's logic works, than it works, even if it's not optimized. May be slow as a snail, require huge memory, may give imprecise results (ill-conditioned calculations may be analogous to backlash), but works. In mechanics, if something logically works, but it's not optimized, the mechanism may end up not working at all. Or sometimes working. Or working 95% of the time, depending on the environment in ways sometimes it's impossible to understand ("the machine has soul").

The building blocks and how they interact with each other is much easier in programming, but the end product is usually much more complicated than a machine. The building blocks and how they interact with each other in Mechanical engineering is much harder, but the assembly itself is usually not that complicated.

So in my opinion, it's much easier to jump into programming and programming is much more tolerant to hacking, but in the end, a high-end product may require the same effort/level of expertise. Machines "have souls", if a program "has soul", you really screwed something up, or working with a buggy driver.

Wake-up post...

Indian here, so I get a little more of where you're coming from culturally. Don't think my family is as conservative as yours, though.

1. The salary can't support a family (Indian, so arranged marriages and kids in the late 20s are usually expected)

It's easy to find 80k jobs, and 100k+ is common in major tech areas that have higher living costs. Wall Street finance will get you in the 200k+ range. There's not a lot of jobs out there that pay better.

2. You sit and stare at computers all day
3. You'll get bored of computers

I've been waiting twenty years for this to happen and it hasn't happened yet. In any case, if it does you simply transition to a management role as none of the techies want to do it anyway. And then you make even more money. Middle management at IBM, HP, etc can easily do 200k+.

4. You don't socialize with other workers as a programmer

This is 1) incredibly false and 2) kind of a plus point. But I have a word for programmers who aren't interacting with their colleagues: fired. This is a team sport. Honestly at some jobs, I found it tiresome how often people wanted to continue socializing after work.

They suggested I go after aeronautical engineering, or something similar (even though the salaries are usually lower ).

Which... involves sitting in front of a computer all day. It's not as if you go and build the damn rocket/aircraft/missile/whatever. You sit on a computer building CAD models and running simulations all day. Same goes for most other engineering. These are not hands-on careers. You'll have maybe the occasional day of dealing with physical objects, but it's not the norm and it's probably not applicable at entry level.

1. The salary can't support a family (Indian, so arranged marriages and kids in the late 20s are usually expected)

It's easy to find 80k jobs, and 100k+ is common in major tech areas that have higher living costs. Wall Street finance will get you in the 200k+ range. There's not a lot of jobs out there that pay better.

2. You sit and stare at computers all day
3. You'll get bored of computers

I've been waiting twenty years for this to happen and it hasn't happened yet. In any case, if it does you simply transition to a management role as none of the techies want to do it anyway. And then you make even more money. Middle management at IBM, HP, etc can easily do 200k+.

4. You don't socialize with other workers as a programmer

This is 1) incredibly false and 2) kind of a plus point.

They suggested I go after aeronautical engineering, or something similar (even though the salaries are usually lower ).

Which... involves sitting in front of a computer all day. It's not as if you go and build the damn rocket/aircraft/missile/whatever. You sit on a computer building CAD models and running simulations all day.

Hmm. What jobs involve making tons of money, socializing with people constantly, and yet not sitting in front of a computer at all? I think you're quietly being pushed towards med school. Probably as you get closer to making decisions, the idea of studying basic sciences or math and doing pre-med will come up. Watch out for that.

Also, what is the best path to take in order to get a good salary as a programmer? (120k+)

Master's degree.

I'll definitely be going to college, so what classes to take?

Master's degree classes.

What're the highest paying programming jobs?

Finance. Easy to head out to NYC and do this work for 120k a year at entry level and up from there. Sure living expenses will be 50k/year but it still works out pretty well. Do not go into games or other entertainment industries if money is a concern.

I'm also surprised that the outsourcing thing hasn't come up, or maybe you just didn't mention it. There are a number of responses to this, my favorite being that thanks to India's brain drain (which is kind of a problem for them), anyone who is still there is actually pretty damn terrible at software. Remember all those big Indian software companies? Yeah, me neither. But a more ... polite response is to suggest establishing US citizenship if you haven't already, get security clearance, and work in computer security. Can't be outsourced, pays well, and there's tons of demand and will continue to be for a long time. Living expenses in MD/DC/VA are actually great too and there are even some nice places to live.

1. The salary can't support a family (Indian, so arranged marriages and kids in the late 20s are usually expected)

Years away at college, and then a well paying job, will do wonders for dealing with family expectations. Don't sweat this for the time being. However, white born-and-bred American people will invariably try to give you (sometimes loud) advice on how you should be interacting with family. Ignore them, it will not help and they don't know what they're talking about.

Computer guys are more born than made. I don't suggest to go into it unless you feel like you are very drawn to it. It could work out fine if you are not, but many people are not really that happy with it.