Salary influenced my career choices negatively. Knowing that degrees in literature or English paid very poorly, for example, eliminated those from consideration. And when I’d narrowed down my choices between chemistry and chemical engineering, chemistry got nixed because of that salary deficit.
And seeing what my friends who went into their passionate-pays-nothing career paths went through… whew. Dodged a bullet.
A friend of mine recently said that her 16 year old son has “making a lot of money” as a career goal. I was pretty idealistic at his age, and somehow it made me sad that he is so cynical. So, no, money wasn’t part of my thinking at that point. Luckily, it all worked out. I do what I love and get paid well enough for it.
The problem is that a lot of young people have “making a lot of money” as a vague goal. Few have “work really really hard” as one.
Salary itself didn’t really influence me, but having a job that I could do in any city without relying on a specific company was a goal. Although I realize no job is completely recession-proof, I wanted something that had the potential for longevity and different ways I could branch out.
I started with the salary list and went down it until I found a major I liked.
This was my dad’s influence. He thought 16 year old me was not listening. I was.
Dad quotes from growing up:
“Having a job you love is great. You know what’s better? Feeding your kids.”
“Do you like living in a house? They aren’t free.”
“Girls fool around with English majors. They marry engineers.”
“I don’t understand spending 50K on a degree that won’t make you 50K in ten years.”
“You want a job that pays you more than it cost you in gas to get there.”
It was harsh, but pretty much what I needed to hear. I was very fortunate to find a major that dovetailed with my skills and allowed me to support a family.*
I didn’t directly think about money, but I did make a point of having a major that would get me into a career that paid reasonably well, without having to feel my way around. I didn’t want to graduate with an English or history major with no specific job skill.
I went to college intending to major in business, in some fashion, but wasn’t sure of the specialty within business. I knew that it would pay reasonably well, but that wasn’t my primary reason for pursuing it – it interested me. I discovered market research as a college freshman, and pursued that.
While it has proven to be a reasonably lucrative career choice, if I’d really been motivated by money, I would have gone into finance or real estate – those were the folks with whom I went to school who really had financial motivation. Many of them would frequently mention how much they were planning on making once they got out of school.
I knew several people who chose actuarial science as a major / career path because it not only paid well, but was reputed to be among the lowest-stress careers out there.
I also note that I had a number of friends who went into engineering (or, at least, planned to) because of the pay level. Several of them specifically chose chemical engineering because of some study which rated chemical engineering as one of the highest-paying careers for entry-level jobs.
I laughed.
I got an English degree, and while salary wasn’t really basis of that reasoning, I did consider money in the sense that I wanted a degree in something useful, as opposed to philosophy or theater or something else with very few career opportunities.
I considered studying law, but shuddered at the idea of working long hours, which honestly seems to be a qualification for nearly any high paying job. I also didn’t want to to take the risk of starting my own business. So basically, I considered the high-paying careers and decided I wasn’t willing to suffer enough to make the big bucks.
Not really. I wanted to be a programmer, so I did a BS in CS and got a job as a programmer. It didn’t hurt that the job market for programmers has been pretty good - plenty of openings and well paid (not get-rich-quick, but enough). If it were more like the job market for, say, musicians, maybe I would have had different thoughts.
No for college, but yes for graduate school.
In college, I wanted to be a marine biologist, but ended up being a lab rat in a pharmaceutical company. Gradually, people in the lab got older and started going to grad school. The smarter ones got Ph.D.s and got saddled with huge debt, had to do slave labor type post docs, and seemed to have a lower quality of life. The dumber ones got MBAs, had less debt, and found themselves in good paying jobs after two years. I went the dumb route, even though I consider myself a smarter person, and I think I made the right choice.
It has been many (many) years since I was in school, but at the time one of the things I did for our AIChE group was track chemical engineering enrollment each semester. We had about a 50% dropout rate each semester starting sophomore year (when students could declare ChE majors), up until senior year. So for every student in the program senior year, there had been about 16 going in as sophomores.
I recall talking about salaries during school; we were all aware of what we’d be making as graduates. But all the people that were still in by our senior year were the ones who also talked about interesting things about the chemistry or the engineering.
I’m a teen, and it is. I don’t know if this is normal or not, but I’ve thought about it a lot and concluded it’s too big of a factor for me to ignore. Luckily, most of my interests are in high-paying areas so I don’t feel I have to sacrifice much in that regard either. 
When I was in high school, our career counseling moments - for all females - assumed we would
have a jobette to keep us occupied until we married, at which point we would stay home and raise babies. And, of course, keep our mates healthy and happy. Jobs like nursing, or social work, or primary teacher - woman’s work, y’know?
I had vague dreams of going to Ryerson Polytech in Toronto, writing the Great Canadian Novel, thereby becoming rich and famous. Nevermind that I had no deep writing abilities.
Reality check: Arts degree in British history and a career as a blue collar health care peon.
I don’t even like to READ much really good literature!
an seanchai
According to my mom (no hedge fund manager, but a doctor in a lucrative specialty) yes. Going from riches to rags will do that to you. If history had played out differently and she’d lived the life her mother and grandmother et al did, she would have gone to college and worked part time as a teacher. And she freely admits that.
As for the OP, I was raised with the belief that college was to get a better paying job. If I wanted to dick around with different classes and random interests that was what summers were for, but school was for finding a lucrative career that I could tolerate. I suspect this is a combination of being the kid of immigrants. School is still that for me today, though I adjusted career paths slightly through late high school and college to reflect my new desire for more down time for family and friends. If it were 100% about money I would have gone into business/finance, but I quickly realized it’s tough to have a family and do that. This past weekend I met some women who (in the past) worked for Holdman Yacks and confirmed as much.
IIRC you’re a nurse, and that’s pretty much word for word what some of my friends have said who are nurses (and living the job in anyplace thing too - one is in Haiti right now).