[By Kate Lorenz]

"Let's admit it: We all need to feel special sometimes. Well, if you're a firefighter, scientist or teacher, you should. After all, a new Harris poll indicates that plenty of Americans already think you are.

U.S. adults, according to a recent survey by Harris Interactive, see firefighters, scientists and teachers as the most prestigious occupations while bankers, actors and real estate agents are the least prestigious occupations.

The 2007 "Most Prestigious Occupations" poll measured the public perceptions of 23 professions.

Participants were asked to rank these professions as having "very great prestige," "considerable prestige," "some prestige," or "hardly any prestige at all." They could also opt not to rank them or say they weren't sure.

Sixty-one percent of adults consider firefighters to have "very great prestige," making this occupation the most prestigious on the list.

Five other occupations were ranked as having "very great prestige" by over 50 percent of the adults surveyed: Scientists and teachers are considered very prestigious by 54 percent of adults, followed by doctors and military officers, who earn the prestige of 52 percent of Americans, and nurses, whom half of all adults consider very prestigious.

Among the least prestigious occupations are real estate brokers, actors and bankers. Only 5 percent of survey participants ranked real estate brokers as very prestigious; 9 percent gave actors this label, followed by 10 percent for bankers.

Accountants, entertainers, stockbrokers, union leaders, journalists, business executives and athletes all also ranked low on the list: Less than 20 percent of adults consider any of the aforementioned occupations to have "very great prestige.""

Read more at http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/worklife/11/23/prestige/index.html.

I direct e-learning at a small university and I find that people are far more impressed by that than it warrants.

-=Steve=- 

I'm genuinely surprised (and pleased) that teachers ranked as highly as they did.  Educators often struggle to be acknowledged as peers with their "professional" counterparts, such as Doctors and Lawyers.  Though this survey was not a direct measure of peer appreciation, I think it can go far in boosting the collective morale of professional educators here in The States.

 It's especially pleasing to me, as a Science Teacher, to see that Scientists are again held in esteem after the recent anti-intellectual push of the past eight years or so.

 

 

I wonder if Scientists have lost a measure of prestige because of the ePharmacy that television has become.

I don't consider anything past the R&D phase of the Pharmaceuticals industry to be "science", but when the public sees men and women in lab coats hawking a product...well, I can see why they might get the wrong idea.

 

Boy, that would be great. Hanging out with your buddies. Lifting weights, watching tv and generally lounging around until someone has an emergency and calls. Then you show up just in the nick of time and pull someone out of harms way while the cameras flash and crowds cheer. When people ask you what you do all day you can say "I'm polishing my prestige and working on my biceps, how am I doing?"

Meanwhile the overweight, overstressed and overworked loser standing at the police line tape merely watches on with a jaundiced eye towards the fire and the crowd at the same time. He will of course have to catch the guy that set the fire, notify the families of anyone lost in the fire and when he gets done with that, go on to some other mundane task like breaking up a familial punch-out, catching a rapist, processing a shoplifter and when nothing is going on, he should be expected to get out there and write tickets only to have the offender whine about wasting time and not catching “real criminals” and listen to sarcastic donut jokes or sneering under the breath references to pork products.

If only cops got to sit around until an emergency happened. Oh well…

But hey, at least cops are cool on TV.

Cajun-

Think of it this way: cops may not have as much perceived prestige but they DEFINITELY have better accessories.  We're comparing rubber pants v. guns and handcuffs.