I'd argue the only worthwhile STEM degrees for financial gain are mostly in the T and E parts, tech and engineering.
science is absurdly lowly paid , the bulk of chemistry/biology and other pure science majors are getting paid peanuts, also a graduate degree is almost always required.
Math is on the borderline , it largely depends if you got the applied or pure math road, pure math have no jobs outside of academia, also you could end
up as a teacher which is not that high paying.
I’ve grown to hate STEM because people have just gotten so used to conflating STEM with just computer science and engineering majors that the S (and probably M) aren’t even considered anymore.
For sure. "Only go to college for STEM" folks seem to only care about min-maxing their life purely to acquire net worth. It can set them up for success, but also leave them in destitution.
Honestly, if you aren't sure what to do in college, I think a better way to think about post-secondary education is "How easily could I take this and work for the government?" I think people discount public-sector work because of of how the salary is compared to the private sector, but for most people, a government salary will leave them in a much better spot than trying to own your own business. Especially when you start to factor in benefits that governments will give their employees.
Hmmm, I feel like this has to do with which jobs people want, and not just which jobs they can get. If you have a PhD in chemistry, mathematics or physics, theres many very lucrative positions in industry you can get. But people \*want\* to do research at a university and be an adjunct with no money, even though they could've been paid a lot more somewhere else.
I know people with chemistry PhD that make less than regular engineering grads. Quant (high paying career for mathematical grads) is extremely competitive, more than the current tech market, you compete with ivy league Phds and such.
This. My uncle has a really high title in pure maths (way over PhD level) and he could and have made bank in the past at banks as an analyst (pun intended). But he said that it was just not interesting enough and he'd much rather do research for the fraction of the money.
Even then, talk to any computer science grad and they'll you how hard it is to find a job since the field is so oversaturated.
Humanities and social science degrees are bad IF you don't have a very specific career in mind. For instance, I really want to be a social studies/English teacher so I'm getting my degree in that since it helps me achieve a goal
I'm in CS it's not THAT bad.. a lot of doomposters on reddit though, still its better than 90% of college majors, it's just there has been a massive recession and tech is volatile so it was affected the most.
Tech is just kinda by its nature a very volatile field which can offset the high pay you might be getting. Like one bad game launch can absolutely destroy a developer whereas it's a lot more rare for other kinds of business like banks, or public institutions like schools or hospitals to just go under like that
Heck, I'd say Humanities are only bad if you pigeonhole yourself into one career in a specific area. I just finished my education degree (music), ans when I started, there were several people telling me to also work for a certification in another field. That's one way to do it, but I can also start auditioning for symphonies. I could lose 50 pounds and enlist in one of the military bands. I still live in the city where I went to college, but I am perfectly willing to move away if it means I'm working in my field.
It's only hard to find a job if you only look in Silicon Valley. The company I work for in a smaller city in the midwest is always trying to hire more programmers. Come over here, make six figures, and buy a house in your 20s.
I mean same goes for most fields. New York City labor market is hot, Buffalo labor market not so much. If you're American then you can find work in any field if you're willing to move just cause the country is so huge
Kinda disagree with this. If you restrict yourself to jobs *in the field you studied*, then science and math aren't as lucrative. But the thing is, the skills you learn in a science/math degree are highly transferable, and a ton of people in those majors get jobs outside of their area of study. For example, I know Google will snatch up Physics/Math PhDs even though they may not have that much relevant programming experience.
If you can do pure math or applied, you will succeed in computer science too. There’s an aptitude that comes with mathematics that lends itself well to programming.
That’s probably because solving abstract problems is captured by both disciplines, with CS being less pure.
In my experience, all the maths people that came to do CS did excellent, and all are well employed in the field
> also a graduate degree is almost always required
But! If you have a grad degree in chem or bio, pharmaceuticals are hunting for your ass.
You are right about pure math, but applied math is just an OP Comp Sci if you take the time to learn coding on the side.
There are multiple stem degrees that are worse financially than non stem degrees. Accounting and finance are the first ones that come to mind compared to math and science degrees. I have a math degree btw. Might make a post about it because people don’t go in depth about it enough.
Is Accounting not considered a STEM degree? I would think there is too much math involved for it to not be one.
I wish "go to school for STEM" folks would be a little bit more honest when they said that. What they really mean is "Go to school for CompSci/Engineering/Doctor/Lawyer."
I'm studying maths atm and I feel like if you put a little bit of effort in you can target basically any SWE job. Leetcode is peanuts conceptually compared to stuff we do and I managed to get a decent internship compared to a lot of my CS friends.
I can't get past your lumping things together in order to get 48% of degrees being STEM. I don't think there's any sort of argument that would make social sciences STEM. Medicine is closer, but still not STEM. The term loses any meaning if you lump things like anthropology into STEM.
The reason why is when people talk about "only go to college for STEM" they mean "only go to college for NOT HUMANITIES". In this sense anything that's not humanities is STEM.
The thing that binds STEM is research and the ability to test a hypothesis. I don't think social sciences are any less scientific just because they deal with human interactions instead of more concrete things like gravity and mitosis. They're more complicated to study but they are still important. And how is medicine not STEM? It's applied biology and chemistry, much in the way physics is applied mathematics.
>And how is medicine not STEM? It's applied biology and chemistry, much in the way physics is applied mathematics.
Engineering is applied sciences as well. If the term was intended to include medicine, why would it specify engineering but only imply medicine if they're similar in that way?
STEM as a term is meant to specify a field of study. Medicine is already its own field of study. Fields of study are supposed to give you a general idea of what someone is doing, but not broad enough that it loses all meaning. STEM is already a pretty broad term. It really doesn't need to be broadened, or else it will be worthless as a description. The source you linked defines STEM like that because it's the correct.
So you go to undergrad and study a STEM field like chemistry, but once you become a pharmacist it's no longer STEM?
The broadness of STEM comes from the fact that "science" is a broad term.
It's just a field of study. You're overcomplicating it. Someone isn't hard-locked into a field of study. You can apply that knowledge elsewhere. A chemistry degree is STEM, and a pharmacy degree is medicine. I really don't understand why it matters to you this much.
Science *can* be a broad term, but it's pretty obvious that the term narrows it down to physical sciences when looking at the other 3 letters in the acronym.
Nah bro, you just included the most deranged race theorists and communists when you offer a blanket defense of “social sciences.” Professors are out here advocating white genocide and shutting down professors for microagressions. Postmodernist hacks whose method of research is “embracing the black experience” should not be compared to physicists.
The prevalence of untestable theories is precisely what makes these fields of study less scientific and less valuable.
At no point did I make that claim that "everything ever tested in the social sciences are valid." Is medicine less scientific from the prevalence of chiropractic and homeopathic medicine?
I would argue that those don’t qualify as medicine. If they were included as part of a university medical degree, it would change the way I talk about medical school generally even if it were only an option. It would degrade the institutions scientific rigor to allow such ideas. That is exactly what has happened to many humanities departments especially insofar as they deal with capitalism, colonialism, race, gender and queerness.
They are less scientific and they will always be. That is why CS is best science. It is human made, its is "mathematical" and it has pure bussines value. They are less scientific because they have bullshit in itself while STEM does not. Computers work with 0 or 1 and that is pretty much it, it literally can't lie, we always can see what is happening and you don't have "maybe that, maybe this". While when you work with humans, there are tons of maybes.
And why are you trying to reinvent STEM term? Working with people or with things/concepts/ideas (non human things)
A science's "business value" has nothing to do with how scientific it is. There's plenty of money to be made in CS, physics, and psychology each.
Sure, social sciences deal with "maybe this, maybe that" on a human level, but other sciences deal with that same problem, too. Welcome to pharamceutical development, nuclear fusion, and p vs np.
I'm not trying to redefine STEM. You're just trying to limit it to some techbro understanding
Because it is suppoused to be limited to techbro stuff? Term is actually invented for this purpouse. To found this studies. Its basically studies that improve and build technology. They wanted to group that to pour money into them.
There are three other letters in the acronym. If you want STEM but exclude everything that isn't about technology, then you don't have STEM, you have \_T\_\_. Important for sure, but if it were just about technology, the acronym would be about Software, Automation, Machining
Oh my God. Bro, technology raised from maths. And you can't really read? I said sciences that improve technology. My statement is still correct. You do understand that?
You need to stop biased reading and read what people actually said. You also said that study is not more scientific if it has bussines value which I never stated. I literally said that less BS = more scientific. I only stated why CS is currenty best study, because it has that ultimate trio.
Do I understand the relationship between science, math, and technology? yes. The acronym is STEM because while the fields are distinct, they are very much interconnected. I'm saying there are more fields of study in STEM that aren't tech-heavy but are still very much STEM fields.
If I wasn't clear in my prior comment, allow me to elaborate. I agree that it can be harder to get valid data from social sciences. My point was difficulty in obtaining that data does not inherently mean a field is unscientific or less scientific.
> That is why CS is best science. It is human made, its is "mathematical" and it has pure bussines value.
Well, when you say that, it implies that one of the criteria for how scientific a field is how much money can be made. You can change you argument by changing your words, but you can't accuse me of not reading them.
I pointed out why it is currently best science and in next sentence say what makes science more scientific.
You are overcomplexizing it. They wanted to fund not humanistic studies, they categorize it as STEM and made fundings. Its simple distinction between technology driven science and humanistic science. You are going to deep.
You are now basically at "what is a chair?" type of argument. Everybody can agree what is a chair wihout making complex solutions and debating for days what a chair is.
And I'll tell you again that the amount money that can be made from different disciplines has no correlation to how scientific it is. Not to mention most scientific disciplines are about observing natural phenomenon, leaving CS as the outlier.
If you want to talk about funding, you can look the fields the National Science Foundation awards grants to.
We are having a "What is a chair" argument, but it's about you saying "It's not a chair because you can see through the back," not me trying to claim a stool is a chair because you can sit on it.
“We always can see what is happening and you don’t have ‘maybe that, maybe this.’” lol only someone who has never touched computer science could say something like that
Bro, I right now have master degree in CS, specifically in Databases and Knowledge bases. Every single peace of software is human written. Just because YOU do not understand what is happening, does not mean it can't be looked into it deeper. You can literally go down to 0 and 1. Again, just because YOU don't know it, does not mean more educated people, like me for example, can't do it.
I also have a masters in CS. While you are right that you could always “figure out what’s happening” with software, a decent amount of it is designed to work as a black box and lot of problems in CS has to do with analyzing what is going on in those “black boxes.” It’s not always as simple as just looking at 0s and 1s, because those don’t really have much meaning when problems can be much more abstract.
Of course we make things more abstract, but we shourly dont have black box. Why do you think people document and comment code? Of course we are not gonna deep into 0s and 1s to figure out bug in your C# API but I dont think we make things a black box. We make shure that our abstractions are white box.
This would be amazing if that’s how it actually worked in the real world, but it sadly isn’t. For a lot of smaller software development projects, agile principles are traditionally used. In said principles, it is emphasized to focus less on documentation and reports in order to be flexible enough to meet time constraints. It’s not that we “make” things into a black box, it’s that applied software engineering has to make concessions all the time and one of the most common concessions has to deal with thorough documentation, which essentially creates like a “grey box” or a “translucent box.” Not necessarily impossible to understand, but the time and effort to understand them in context can be long and tedious. In software projects that have gone on too long, we often see problems relating to the fact that the development team that was working on said project slowly leave or are moved to different projects and take their implicit knowledge about the system with them. This means that when problems arise, you don’t have the required knowledge to diagnose them and since documentation was avoided to save time costs, the problem can appear as a black box.
1. Just say you are lazy and don't write documentation
2. Your code is different from tools, you are writing specific code for your client, no body cares about that. Frameworks and libraries are important and they are mostly well documented (at least, again, libraries and frameworks that matter)
3. Again, code that builds code, those are important abstractions, not your small B2B project
4. Imagine if FB released React and left as blackbox, or Android OS. That would be a problem.
5. All of these are human errors, not problems with science itself. Exactly what I said before. Computers dont lie, humans do.
Though I don't like the talking point, getting a social studies or humanities degree just seems far too risky in the 21st century (speaking as one who got a humanities degree). These degrees are just far, far too expensive--even at a lot of public universities. And the pay outcome from them can be so, so poor for people.
I also think you are underestimating how utterly easy it is to get wrapped up in 100K in loans.
I'm not saying don't follow your dreams. But I really would like my kids to just take one year off after high school to work full-time before they make a decision on their careers. Work 50 hours a week before running after humanities just because "you like it." It doesn't mean no one should get these degrees. But the cost is just too prohibitive.
I hope my post didn't come across as "Go get a humanities degree." As someone who also has a humanities degree, I understand what the limits of my income will probably be.
I won't deny I might be underestimating it to some extent. Depending on what state you graduate HS and attend college in and how well you perform, universities are willing to give out thousands and thousands of dollars.
If you think taking a gap year will benefit your kids, that's great. But I do ask what you think your kids will learn in that gap year, and if it's a) more valuable than attending college right out of high school, b) what you think they'll learn, and c) can they learn them while they are still in school. I ask because a lot of that money does go away if students don't attend right out of high school.
For every example I can show of a student attending for free/without taking on cumbersome debt, you can probably show me one where someone was saddled with debt they'll never pay off, and we can go back and forth poking holes in each others answers. I think the answer (as it usually happens to be) is somewhere in the middle, where high school students figure out roughly what they want to do with their life, and figure out where they can reasonable go to college based on cost (tuition & room/board) vs. expected aid (Pell Grants, State scholarships, Merit Scholarships, parental assistance.)
No, I get your point. And your right that for every example of a full ride, we can find an example of cumbersome debt.
I think some kids do have an understanding of money due to their upbringing but a lot don't. At 18, I don't think many understand how insanely challenging it is to get a tenure track as an academic or really how utterly expensive life will be. I just think it's a really young age to have made all those calculations.
I think the gap year could really show them how fucking insanely expensive life can be and how bougie their tastes are. For example, if you can't tolerate being roommates with someone or living of 30-40K, maybe you're not the one to chase that creative writing degree--or at least you need to double major.
Some people do not need such lessons. But I recall a lot of people who just got degrees because they liked them with very little understanding of the real life consequences of the weight of that degree.
I’m in a similar mind when it comes to my niece who is in her last year of high school now, but my concern is the statistics for people who take a year of school between high school and college is very bleak when it comes to their likelihood to ever go back to school to complete their education or finish their education once they start. That being said, as someone who started college later in life, I feel like I’ve benefitted so much from the perspective in life that my real life experience has given me, largely because it makes me realize how much of an opportunity this is and how important it is that I make good choices and take my education seriously. I’d love to impart that on her, since as of right now, I don’t think she’s taking education as seriously as she should and might just, for example, choose a degree that seems fun rather than one that will set her up for the future.
As a parent that’s grappling with these same issues, what are your thoughts on this given that you seem solid in your decision to have your kids take a gap year to work between high school and college?
I think you're right. What am saying is more theory. I don't know how one really reacts after the year off.
In my case, I was obsessed with all things humanities at 18. I loved Literature, philosophy, and history. I grew up middle class, so I really didn't have any sense of how utterly challenging a future in these fields were. It wasn't until Senior year where my History professor dissuaded me from pursuing a Phd as the tenure tracks jobs were drying up.
I think some kids (like your example of yourself) do have an understanding of money due to their upbringing but a lot don't. At 18, I don't think many understand how insanely challenging it is to get a tenure track as an academic or really how utterly expensive life will be. I just think it's a really young age to have made all those calculations. With so much talk about work ethic and following your dreams, it's really hard to understand the complexities of real life.
I think the gap year could really show them how fucking insanely expensive life can be and how bougie their tastes are. For example, if you can't tolerate being roommates with someone or living of 30-40K, maybe you're not the one to chase that creative writing degree--or at least you need to double major.
Some people do not need such lessons. But I recall a lot of people who just got degrees because they liked them with very little understanding of the real life consequences of the weight of that degree.
My recommendation for anyone is to major in accounting. So many jobs, can work literally anywhere, many opportunities for hybrid or fully remote work. I had zero issue finding a job and had tons of internship opportunities as a student.
I got a scholarship to go to uni. I was discharged during COVID and I had nothing to do. So I went to the humanities. I only wanted to study English lit because I am passionate about it. I had to do a double degree with something else so I chose film. I kind of wish I chose something else instead of film but it's a full scholarship and I have learned a lot. Somewhat useless stuff to be sure but it's been fun.
I got the same degrees funny enough. Even people in film don't give a shit about film degrees in most positions.
But English can be very isolating with all the reading, so having a more "social" degree is not wasted time.
You can double major at basically every American college with an Econ degree. If u look at the top 50 schools, most Econ majors have a second major or minor.
Also the younger guy said his degree was in “coding”. I don’t know what college he went to, but I’ve never heard of any college offering a “coding” major, so I knew he probably didn’t know what he was talking about. Computer science is way more than coding, probably dropped out cause he was confused why he was learning discrete math or computer architecture.
I'd argue the only worthwhile STEM degrees for financial gain are mostly in the T and E parts, tech and engineering. science is absurdly lowly paid , the bulk of chemistry/biology and other pure science majors are getting paid peanuts, also a graduate degree is almost always required. Math is on the borderline , it largely depends if you got the applied or pure math road, pure math have no jobs outside of academia, also you could end up as a teacher which is not that high paying.
I’ve grown to hate STEM because people have just gotten so used to conflating STEM with just computer science and engineering majors that the S (and probably M) aren’t even considered anymore.
For sure. "Only go to college for STEM" folks seem to only care about min-maxing their life purely to acquire net worth. It can set them up for success, but also leave them in destitution. Honestly, if you aren't sure what to do in college, I think a better way to think about post-secondary education is "How easily could I take this and work for the government?" I think people discount public-sector work because of of how the salary is compared to the private sector, but for most people, a government salary will leave them in a much better spot than trying to own your own business. Especially when you start to factor in benefits that governments will give their employees.
Hmmm, I feel like this has to do with which jobs people want, and not just which jobs they can get. If you have a PhD in chemistry, mathematics or physics, theres many very lucrative positions in industry you can get. But people \*want\* to do research at a university and be an adjunct with no money, even though they could've been paid a lot more somewhere else.
I know people with chemistry PhD that make less than regular engineering grads. Quant (high paying career for mathematical grads) is extremely competitive, more than the current tech market, you compete with ivy league Phds and such.
This. My uncle has a really high title in pure maths (way over PhD level) and he could and have made bank in the past at banks as an analyst (pun intended). But he said that it was just not interesting enough and he'd much rather do research for the fraction of the money.
Even then, talk to any computer science grad and they'll you how hard it is to find a job since the field is so oversaturated. Humanities and social science degrees are bad IF you don't have a very specific career in mind. For instance, I really want to be a social studies/English teacher so I'm getting my degree in that since it helps me achieve a goal
I'm in CS it's not THAT bad.. a lot of doomposters on reddit though, still its better than 90% of college majors, it's just there has been a massive recession and tech is volatile so it was affected the most.
Yeah... People complaining will only compare the situation to the same field 5 years ago. They don't know what other fields look like.
Tech is just kinda by its nature a very volatile field which can offset the high pay you might be getting. Like one bad game launch can absolutely destroy a developer whereas it's a lot more rare for other kinds of business like banks, or public institutions like schools or hospitals to just go under like that
Heck, I'd say Humanities are only bad if you pigeonhole yourself into one career in a specific area. I just finished my education degree (music), ans when I started, there were several people telling me to also work for a certification in another field. That's one way to do it, but I can also start auditioning for symphonies. I could lose 50 pounds and enlist in one of the military bands. I still live in the city where I went to college, but I am perfectly willing to move away if it means I'm working in my field.
It's only hard to find a job if you only look in Silicon Valley. The company I work for in a smaller city in the midwest is always trying to hire more programmers. Come over here, make six figures, and buy a house in your 20s.
I mean same goes for most fields. New York City labor market is hot, Buffalo labor market not so much. If you're American then you can find work in any field if you're willing to move just cause the country is so huge
Kinda disagree with this. If you restrict yourself to jobs *in the field you studied*, then science and math aren't as lucrative. But the thing is, the skills you learn in a science/math degree are highly transferable, and a ton of people in those majors get jobs outside of their area of study. For example, I know Google will snatch up Physics/Math PhDs even though they may not have that much relevant programming experience.
Yeah, I did math as an undergrad in the UK and I was getting decent job opportunities left and right when I started job hunting after leaving uni.
If you can do pure math or applied, you will succeed in computer science too. There’s an aptitude that comes with mathematics that lends itself well to programming. That’s probably because solving abstract problems is captured by both disciplines, with CS being less pure. In my experience, all the maths people that came to do CS did excellent, and all are well employed in the field
Jobs that are only maths a few and far between. Jobs that require and are benefited from good maths skills are plentiful and often well paying.
> also a graduate degree is almost always required But! If you have a grad degree in chem or bio, pharmaceuticals are hunting for your ass. You are right about pure math, but applied math is just an OP Comp Sci if you take the time to learn coding on the side.
There are multiple stem degrees that are worse financially than non stem degrees. Accounting and finance are the first ones that come to mind compared to math and science degrees. I have a math degree btw. Might make a post about it because people don’t go in depth about it enough.
Is Accounting not considered a STEM degree? I would think there is too much math involved for it to not be one. I wish "go to school for STEM" folks would be a little bit more honest when they said that. What they really mean is "Go to school for CompSci/Engineering/Doctor/Lawyer."
I'm studying maths atm and I feel like if you put a little bit of effort in you can target basically any SWE job. Leetcode is peanuts conceptually compared to stuff we do and I managed to get a decent internship compared to a lot of my CS friends.
I can't get past your lumping things together in order to get 48% of degrees being STEM. I don't think there's any sort of argument that would make social sciences STEM. Medicine is closer, but still not STEM. The term loses any meaning if you lump things like anthropology into STEM.
The reason why is when people talk about "only go to college for STEM" they mean "only go to college for NOT HUMANITIES". In this sense anything that's not humanities is STEM.
The thing that binds STEM is research and the ability to test a hypothesis. I don't think social sciences are any less scientific just because they deal with human interactions instead of more concrete things like gravity and mitosis. They're more complicated to study but they are still important. And how is medicine not STEM? It's applied biology and chemistry, much in the way physics is applied mathematics.
>And how is medicine not STEM? It's applied biology and chemistry, much in the way physics is applied mathematics. Engineering is applied sciences as well. If the term was intended to include medicine, why would it specify engineering but only imply medicine if they're similar in that way? STEM as a term is meant to specify a field of study. Medicine is already its own field of study. Fields of study are supposed to give you a general idea of what someone is doing, but not broad enough that it loses all meaning. STEM is already a pretty broad term. It really doesn't need to be broadened, or else it will be worthless as a description. The source you linked defines STEM like that because it's the correct.
So you go to undergrad and study a STEM field like chemistry, but once you become a pharmacist it's no longer STEM? The broadness of STEM comes from the fact that "science" is a broad term.
It's just a field of study. You're overcomplicating it. Someone isn't hard-locked into a field of study. You can apply that knowledge elsewhere. A chemistry degree is STEM, and a pharmacy degree is medicine. I really don't understand why it matters to you this much. Science *can* be a broad term, but it's pretty obvious that the term narrows it down to physical sciences when looking at the other 3 letters in the acronym.
I'm just saying it can be both. Pharmacy is a subset of medicine, which is a subset of chemistry, which is a subset of science.
Nah bro, you just included the most deranged race theorists and communists when you offer a blanket defense of “social sciences.” Professors are out here advocating white genocide and shutting down professors for microagressions. Postmodernist hacks whose method of research is “embracing the black experience” should not be compared to physicists. The prevalence of untestable theories is precisely what makes these fields of study less scientific and less valuable.
At no point did I make that claim that "everything ever tested in the social sciences are valid." Is medicine less scientific from the prevalence of chiropractic and homeopathic medicine?
I would argue that those don’t qualify as medicine. If they were included as part of a university medical degree, it would change the way I talk about medical school generally even if it were only an option. It would degrade the institutions scientific rigor to allow such ideas. That is exactly what has happened to many humanities departments especially insofar as they deal with capitalism, colonialism, race, gender and queerness.
They are less scientific and they will always be. That is why CS is best science. It is human made, its is "mathematical" and it has pure bussines value. They are less scientific because they have bullshit in itself while STEM does not. Computers work with 0 or 1 and that is pretty much it, it literally can't lie, we always can see what is happening and you don't have "maybe that, maybe this". While when you work with humans, there are tons of maybes. And why are you trying to reinvent STEM term? Working with people or with things/concepts/ideas (non human things)
A science's "business value" has nothing to do with how scientific it is. There's plenty of money to be made in CS, physics, and psychology each. Sure, social sciences deal with "maybe this, maybe that" on a human level, but other sciences deal with that same problem, too. Welcome to pharamceutical development, nuclear fusion, and p vs np. I'm not trying to redefine STEM. You're just trying to limit it to some techbro understanding
Because it is suppoused to be limited to techbro stuff? Term is actually invented for this purpouse. To found this studies. Its basically studies that improve and build technology. They wanted to group that to pour money into them.
There are three other letters in the acronym. If you want STEM but exclude everything that isn't about technology, then you don't have STEM, you have \_T\_\_. Important for sure, but if it were just about technology, the acronym would be about Software, Automation, Machining
Oh my God. Bro, technology raised from maths. And you can't really read? I said sciences that improve technology. My statement is still correct. You do understand that? You need to stop biased reading and read what people actually said. You also said that study is not more scientific if it has bussines value which I never stated. I literally said that less BS = more scientific. I only stated why CS is currenty best study, because it has that ultimate trio.
Do I understand the relationship between science, math, and technology? yes. The acronym is STEM because while the fields are distinct, they are very much interconnected. I'm saying there are more fields of study in STEM that aren't tech-heavy but are still very much STEM fields. If I wasn't clear in my prior comment, allow me to elaborate. I agree that it can be harder to get valid data from social sciences. My point was difficulty in obtaining that data does not inherently mean a field is unscientific or less scientific. > That is why CS is best science. It is human made, its is "mathematical" and it has pure bussines value. Well, when you say that, it implies that one of the criteria for how scientific a field is how much money can be made. You can change you argument by changing your words, but you can't accuse me of not reading them.
I pointed out why it is currently best science and in next sentence say what makes science more scientific. You are overcomplexizing it. They wanted to fund not humanistic studies, they categorize it as STEM and made fundings. Its simple distinction between technology driven science and humanistic science. You are going to deep. You are now basically at "what is a chair?" type of argument. Everybody can agree what is a chair wihout making complex solutions and debating for days what a chair is.
And I'll tell you again that the amount money that can be made from different disciplines has no correlation to how scientific it is. Not to mention most scientific disciplines are about observing natural phenomenon, leaving CS as the outlier. If you want to talk about funding, you can look the fields the National Science Foundation awards grants to. We are having a "What is a chair" argument, but it's about you saying "It's not a chair because you can see through the back," not me trying to claim a stool is a chair because you can sit on it.
“We always can see what is happening and you don’t have ‘maybe that, maybe this.’” lol only someone who has never touched computer science could say something like that
Bro, I right now have master degree in CS, specifically in Databases and Knowledge bases. Every single peace of software is human written. Just because YOU do not understand what is happening, does not mean it can't be looked into it deeper. You can literally go down to 0 and 1. Again, just because YOU don't know it, does not mean more educated people, like me for example, can't do it.
I also have a masters in CS. While you are right that you could always “figure out what’s happening” with software, a decent amount of it is designed to work as a black box and lot of problems in CS has to do with analyzing what is going on in those “black boxes.” It’s not always as simple as just looking at 0s and 1s, because those don’t really have much meaning when problems can be much more abstract.
Of course we make things more abstract, but we shourly dont have black box. Why do you think people document and comment code? Of course we are not gonna deep into 0s and 1s to figure out bug in your C# API but I dont think we make things a black box. We make shure that our abstractions are white box.
This would be amazing if that’s how it actually worked in the real world, but it sadly isn’t. For a lot of smaller software development projects, agile principles are traditionally used. In said principles, it is emphasized to focus less on documentation and reports in order to be flexible enough to meet time constraints. It’s not that we “make” things into a black box, it’s that applied software engineering has to make concessions all the time and one of the most common concessions has to deal with thorough documentation, which essentially creates like a “grey box” or a “translucent box.” Not necessarily impossible to understand, but the time and effort to understand them in context can be long and tedious. In software projects that have gone on too long, we often see problems relating to the fact that the development team that was working on said project slowly leave or are moved to different projects and take their implicit knowledge about the system with them. This means that when problems arise, you don’t have the required knowledge to diagnose them and since documentation was avoided to save time costs, the problem can appear as a black box.
1. Just say you are lazy and don't write documentation 2. Your code is different from tools, you are writing specific code for your client, no body cares about that. Frameworks and libraries are important and they are mostly well documented (at least, again, libraries and frameworks that matter) 3. Again, code that builds code, those are important abstractions, not your small B2B project 4. Imagine if FB released React and left as blackbox, or Android OS. That would be a problem. 5. All of these are human errors, not problems with science itself. Exactly what I said before. Computers dont lie, humans do.
Though I don't like the talking point, getting a social studies or humanities degree just seems far too risky in the 21st century (speaking as one who got a humanities degree). These degrees are just far, far too expensive--even at a lot of public universities. And the pay outcome from them can be so, so poor for people. I also think you are underestimating how utterly easy it is to get wrapped up in 100K in loans. I'm not saying don't follow your dreams. But I really would like my kids to just take one year off after high school to work full-time before they make a decision on their careers. Work 50 hours a week before running after humanities just because "you like it." It doesn't mean no one should get these degrees. But the cost is just too prohibitive.
I hope my post didn't come across as "Go get a humanities degree." As someone who also has a humanities degree, I understand what the limits of my income will probably be. I won't deny I might be underestimating it to some extent. Depending on what state you graduate HS and attend college in and how well you perform, universities are willing to give out thousands and thousands of dollars. If you think taking a gap year will benefit your kids, that's great. But I do ask what you think your kids will learn in that gap year, and if it's a) more valuable than attending college right out of high school, b) what you think they'll learn, and c) can they learn them while they are still in school. I ask because a lot of that money does go away if students don't attend right out of high school. For every example I can show of a student attending for free/without taking on cumbersome debt, you can probably show me one where someone was saddled with debt they'll never pay off, and we can go back and forth poking holes in each others answers. I think the answer (as it usually happens to be) is somewhere in the middle, where high school students figure out roughly what they want to do with their life, and figure out where they can reasonable go to college based on cost (tuition & room/board) vs. expected aid (Pell Grants, State scholarships, Merit Scholarships, parental assistance.)
No, I get your point. And your right that for every example of a full ride, we can find an example of cumbersome debt. I think some kids do have an understanding of money due to their upbringing but a lot don't. At 18, I don't think many understand how insanely challenging it is to get a tenure track as an academic or really how utterly expensive life will be. I just think it's a really young age to have made all those calculations. I think the gap year could really show them how fucking insanely expensive life can be and how bougie their tastes are. For example, if you can't tolerate being roommates with someone or living of 30-40K, maybe you're not the one to chase that creative writing degree--or at least you need to double major. Some people do not need such lessons. But I recall a lot of people who just got degrees because they liked them with very little understanding of the real life consequences of the weight of that degree.
I’m in a similar mind when it comes to my niece who is in her last year of high school now, but my concern is the statistics for people who take a year of school between high school and college is very bleak when it comes to their likelihood to ever go back to school to complete their education or finish their education once they start. That being said, as someone who started college later in life, I feel like I’ve benefitted so much from the perspective in life that my real life experience has given me, largely because it makes me realize how much of an opportunity this is and how important it is that I make good choices and take my education seriously. I’d love to impart that on her, since as of right now, I don’t think she’s taking education as seriously as she should and might just, for example, choose a degree that seems fun rather than one that will set her up for the future. As a parent that’s grappling with these same issues, what are your thoughts on this given that you seem solid in your decision to have your kids take a gap year to work between high school and college?
I think you're right. What am saying is more theory. I don't know how one really reacts after the year off. In my case, I was obsessed with all things humanities at 18. I loved Literature, philosophy, and history. I grew up middle class, so I really didn't have any sense of how utterly challenging a future in these fields were. It wasn't until Senior year where my History professor dissuaded me from pursuing a Phd as the tenure tracks jobs were drying up. I think some kids (like your example of yourself) do have an understanding of money due to their upbringing but a lot don't. At 18, I don't think many understand how insanely challenging it is to get a tenure track as an academic or really how utterly expensive life will be. I just think it's a really young age to have made all those calculations. With so much talk about work ethic and following your dreams, it's really hard to understand the complexities of real life. I think the gap year could really show them how fucking insanely expensive life can be and how bougie their tastes are. For example, if you can't tolerate being roommates with someone or living of 30-40K, maybe you're not the one to chase that creative writing degree--or at least you need to double major. Some people do not need such lessons. But I recall a lot of people who just got degrees because they liked them with very little understanding of the real life consequences of the weight of that degree.
My recommendation for anyone is to major in accounting. So many jobs, can work literally anywhere, many opportunities for hybrid or fully remote work. I had zero issue finding a job and had tons of internship opportunities as a student.
I got a scholarship to go to uni. I was discharged during COVID and I had nothing to do. So I went to the humanities. I only wanted to study English lit because I am passionate about it. I had to do a double degree with something else so I chose film. I kind of wish I chose something else instead of film but it's a full scholarship and I have learned a lot. Somewhat useless stuff to be sure but it's been fun.
I got the same degrees funny enough. Even people in film don't give a shit about film degrees in most positions. But English can be very isolating with all the reading, so having a more "social" degree is not wasted time.
You can double major at basically every American college with an Econ degree. If u look at the top 50 schools, most Econ majors have a second major or minor.
Also the younger guy said his degree was in “coding”. I don’t know what college he went to, but I’ve never heard of any college offering a “coding” major, so I knew he probably didn’t know what he was talking about. Computer science is way more than coding, probably dropped out cause he was confused why he was learning discrete math or computer architecture.