I'm a 29 year old that lives near Chicago and graduated college 2 years ago. I have an "Industrial Technology" degree, which is a branch of the engineering department at Northern Illinois University, but is an easier major than an engineering degree. Usually if someone can't keep up w/ the engineering courses they'll switch their major to Industrial Technology. In this major I had to pick an emphasis (Safety, 3D Modeling, etc) and I picked 3D modeling. I had an internship during school which turned into a full-time job while I took classes (lightened class-load), and then 2 years ago I quit the job to finish school, then found my current job as a "Project Design Engineer" where I help design RF shielded chambers for electronics testing. I started at $47,000 2 years ago, got small raises each year, and now make $49,000 plus a small yearly bonus (avg $1000/yr extra), and good benefits including medical, 401k 5% match, stock purchase plan, and dental. Overall I'm pretty happy with the job, but it's not looking like I'll be making more than the standard 3.5% raise anywhere in the near future.
Considering my age, my degree, experience, etc am I where I should be for compensation? Sometimes I feel like I should be making more, since I have friends with psychology degrees and a friend with no degree that makes better money than I do. I dont really have a clue about what my coworkers make, so it's hard to get a reference point of where I should be. Most of my coworkers have better degrees than I do (Mechanical Engineering degree from University of Illinois and one from Purdue, an arch degree from Iowa, Mechanical engineering degree from Milwaukee school of engineering, etc). It's possible they make a fair amount more than I do, and also possible they're just selling themselves short by working here.
I've heard people here say that some people with "engineer" in their title are just glorified Cad drafters, and I probably fall into this category. I'm talented with Autocad, and I often use Revit, and now getting familiar with Solidworks.
Anyways, I'd like to know if you think I am where I should be. I dont love the job, but it's somewhat interesting and I'd probably be happy staying here if I knew I could make more money.
Edit: To be clear, the reason I graduated at 27 is because I was originally a Physical Education major and decided to change majors my Junior year in college because around here it's extremely difficult to get a phys. Ed. job. Also I took school slowly while working full-time, which set me back a bit.