7 Ethical Career Paths That Make the World a Better Place

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The world needs more ethical professionals to step forward and provide service in industries that require the expertise of individuals with sound moral compasses. There are certain jobs that the average citizen won’t entrust to just anyone. Sometimes, trusting a service provider is a matter of having confidence in their knowledge and experience, while in other cases, it’s merely a matter of trusting their sense of ethics.

You wouldn’t want the guy who makes your sandwiches at the deli working on your vehicle – not because you don’t trust that he intends to fix your car, you just don’t think that he’ll actually have the ability to do it. On the other hand, you might not want your mechanic making you a sandwich, either. In the global economy, every professional plays a specific role that they’re entrusted with by a customer or consumer.

If you feel like you’re a trustworthy person who wants to have a positive impact on society, consider the following seven ethical career paths:

1. Family Nurse Practitioner

According to a recent Gallop poll, nurses are the most trusted ethical professionals in the United States. If you’re on the fence about becoming a nurse because you’re a man, don’t be. Males are more likely to be hired than females as the industry is trying to correct the overwhelming majority of nurses who are white females in the U.S.

In other words, if you’re not a woman and you have a nursing degree, you can get hired very easily because you’ll be viewed as part of the solution to nursing’s lack of gender diversity. If you are a woman, you still have an excellent chance of being hired due to the ongoing nursing shortage. If you take the time to pursue a more advanced online nursing program from a place like Baylor University, you can earn a salary as high as $90,000+.

2. Veterinarian

This one’s easy to justify from an ethical point of view – wounded and sick animals need people to help take care of them and you get paid to do that as a vet. It’s good for your salary, you get to feel good about yourself, and animals are helped, healed, and saved in the process. One could argue that it’s almost like you’re being paid to acquire good karma.

You’ll probably be surprised to learn that high-paid vets can make $160,000 per year, with the median salary being approximately $88,000. Even the lowest-paid vets earn more than $50,000 annually, so on the low end you’ll be bringing in roughly $4,000 month and on the high end you could be making as much as $12,000+ per month. That’s a pretty nice income and most of the job is enjoyable, but keep in mind that not all of your animal patients will make it and you’ll have lots of responsibilities to deal with.

3. Nutritionist

As a nutritionist, you can help people live their best lives by providing guidance about what kinds of foods and supplements they should be consuming. Helping someone design a custom diet plan is a simple job. Still, not everyone can just call themselves a nutritionist. Physiology and diet can be highly complex subjects and you should expect to commit to several years of studying before you can be taken seriously as a professional nutritionist or dietician.

As you might expect, such a straightforward job won’t be the highest-paying in the world, with hourly wages averaging around $26/hour. High-paid nutritionists can sometimes earn as much as $76,000+ per year. However, be prepared to spend about 4-5 years in education before you can earn the degree and certification required to be called a Registered Dietician Nutritionist (RDN).

4. Counselor or Therapist

Counselors and therapists don’t have the highest salaries on this list, but the roles they play will leave a long-lasting positive effect on the lives of others. You’ll also need to endure an education of at least 2-4 years, with some therapists taking as long as seven years after graduating high school to land their first job in the field.

Vocational and career counselors are paid the most, with salaries as high as $60,000 or more, while mental health counselors earn the least with median salaries of around $40,000. If money is your sole motivation, this probably won’t be the best career path. However, when you consider how easy the job is in comparison to other options on this list, earning only $60,000 annually may be a fair trade-off for the convenience of the job.

5. Dentist

Dentists have to be ethical for obvious reasons. After all, you don’t want an unethical person digging around in your mouth. Dental procedures also require great attention to detail and precision skill. If done improperly, dental work can lead to problems for the patient later on, so the dentist has to make an ethical commitment to do their best work every time.

Of course, dentists are some of the highest paid professionals mentioned on this list, with a median salary of approximately $160,000. In fact, roughly a quarter of all dentists make more than $200,000 per year, so you’re compensated well for your expertise. Be prepared to spend 4-8 years in school before you can start your career as a dentist. 

6. Engineer

Construction and innovation are on the rise and the world needs more engineers to design everything safely. As an engineer, you’re entrusted with some very complicated tasks and decisions. Engineering mistakes can be costly not only in terms of financial loss but also the potential for bodily injury, or worse.

Not everybody has what it takes to become an engineer, so if you think you can pull it off, then you could find yourself earning a very decent salary ranging from $60,000-$120,000+ depending on your specialty.

7. College Professor

You can’t just wake up one day and decide you’re going to be a college professor. It takes eight years of ongoing education and proving yourself in an academic environment, and about 19 steps, before you can even be considered for the job.

And yet, somebody has to do it. Earning a faculty position at a university is a major accomplishment. However, the pay isn’t highly prestigious, with the median income for a professor being around $70,000.

Pick a Path and Follow Through

Think long and hard about which career path you’re most interested in. When you’ve found one that is really calling you, make the commitment to follow through and start looking into the first steps you can take to launch your career.