For Half, Degrees In Computing, Math, Or Stats Lead To Other Jobs 174
dcblogs (1096431) writes The Census Bureau reports that only 26% of people with any type of four-year STEM degree are working in a STEM field. For those with a degree specifically in computer, math or statistics, the figure is 49%, nearly the same for engineering degrees. What happens to the other STEM trained workers? The largest numbers are managers at non-STEM businesses (22.5%), or having careers in education (17.7%), business/finance (13.2%) and office support (11.5%). Some other data points: Among those with college degrees in computer-related occupations, men are paid more than women ($90,354 vs. $78,859 on average), and African American workers are more likely to be unemployed than white or Asian workers.
~50% have no degree... (Score:5, Funny)
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That T includes the vast majority of degrees given out at community colleges.
Re:~50% have no degree... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:~50% have no degree... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've long said that the computing field is one where you can make decent money without a degree. I think a lot of that is due to how people in my generation started out tinkering in computers as a hobby and that mindset has still continued. Computer people value ability over certifications and degrees.
That being said, those pieces of paper open more doors (especially at larger corporations) than not having them. But it is quite possible to be gainfully employed at above median income levels without ever having taken any formal training in computer.
* I use the generic term "computers" to mean both the programming as well as the technology side. Whether that is coding in Java or Javascript or C++ or C# for programming, you can find someone that will hire you. For the technology side, it can range from desktop support to server admin or DBA. If you know what you're doing, other computer people will recognize that and respect you for it.
Re:~50% have no degree... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:~50% have no degree... (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be a programmer with no degree. I'd like to think I was pretty darn good at it... I knew several languages (C, C++, Python, Perl, Java, and several more) that I had taught myself. I did this for about 9 years, before I finally got a degree in CS, and then got a Master's in CS shortly afterward.
One thing this did for me is open up my mind quite a bit. I'm still a good programmer, but I now know programming isn't it. There's a lot more that goes on when it comes to developing good software, and though I could code up some pretty good stuff really quickly, now my code is better, more thought out, and most importantly, I am much more likely to ask the question "Is this really the problem we're trying to solve?" leading to actually useful code instead of neat stuff it turned out really wasn't what was needed.
In addition, I'm better at interacting with people. I used to have the attitude "This makes no sense to me, therefore it's stupid" and now I realize that maybe I don't have all of the information, there's something I don't know (this is key!) which would help me understand and realize my position isn't exactly right, and so I don't just get mad and storm off anymore when things don't make sense.
Getting a degree made me a more well rounded person... I found a love for history, music and literature that I didn't quite have before. I can have conversations that don't just involve the latest tech and video games. (though I still love talking about that stuff)
I guess my point is... a degree doesn't make a great programmer, but a degree can help make a better person (which is the whole point really... it's not to "learn a trade", it's to expand your horizons and explore the world and become a critical thinker) and so given the situation, I would likely lean toward hiring a great programmer with a degree over a great programmer without one.
Re:~50% have no degree... (Score:5, Insightful)
I also do not have a degree, though I'm at year 13, and I've learned those lessons you said earning your degree taught you. It is good that you learned those lessons, but your conclusion is specious bordering on elitist.
I do have a large gap in knowledge. I made a great leap over a mountain of theory and low-level practice that I must fill in, but I (lucky for me) didn't need college to teach me humility and how to be receptive to learning (even when I "know" I'm right). The more I fill in that gap, the more I realize exactly how big that gap is, and strangely, the gap grows as it fills.
The point being: Though a university degree is how you reached... well... enlightenment, there are many paths. And if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
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Yeah, I'm gonna say no. Humility, recognizing the depths of your ignorance, being open to new ideas, dealing with new people, being exposed to other things, etc. are all a continuum, not binary.
That said, you may be advanced for your age. But you seem to think that means you crossed the finish line early. What it means
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Not a continuum, a balance.
e.g. Don't be so 'open minded' that your 'brain falls out'. Don't let a confident huckster stampede you just because you're not an expert in what (s)he claims to be.
Treating it like a continuum implies the worlds chumps are in a good place. They are not.
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Real knowledge is in books and I hope people do not require a degree to read.
I think that's actually a big part of what many self-taught programmers are missing. It's not the lack of a degree that's the big problem, but the lack of having read any of the things that you would read when getting a degree. You could read them on your own, but many people don't.
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but learning all the different data structures and techniques for design and development at school helped a lot
You can teach yourself all of that, too.
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Which is the point of doing them to begin with.
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Wow. Sounds like sour grapes from somebody who has chosen not to seek a degree or, for perhaps, maybe couldn't afford one, overly smart and found school boring or simply didn't have the necessary non-technical skills to get into college?
A four year degree, in most disciplines, might teach some technical skills. But, the value of an higher education is, as blazer1024 pointed out, is it prepares you to be able to think and learn and it improves the gene pool you are exposed to as well as to get laid. This
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Wow. Sounds like sour grapes from somebody who has chosen not to seek a degree or, for perhaps, maybe couldn't afford one, overly smart and found school boring or simply didn't have the necessary non-technical skills to get into college?
You sound like someone who can't stand the thought that some people learn differently from you and can, in fact, teach themselves quite effectively. No need to be so elitist about it.
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A good degree will surround you with people that are smart but NOT like you and they think differently.
You know what else will do that? Life.
You will also learn things that you normally would not learn because
Because you didn't self-educate yourself properly. You must understand even the 'boring' stuff.
Can someone just admit that you don't need to go to college to get an education, that everyone is not cut out for the formal education environment, and that it's possible to self-educate *properly*? Is this some sort of elitism where people assume that because they had to go to college to learn, that everyone else must have the same limitations as they do?
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I don't believe anyone in this thread said college is a requirement for an education.
They basically did, as they speak as if college is a requirement for getting a good education, and that it has all these mystical benefits one can't get anywhere else.
However, reading some of your replies, you certainly seem to have this really big common-man-elitism chip on your shoulder.
Useless assumption on your part, and the meaning is unclear. People just tend to assume that because they derived benefit from something, it would work as well for someone else, or because they can't do something, no one else can.
well rounded cool but not at today's price levels. (Score:2)
well rounded cool but not at today's price levels.
In the past when you where able to work part time and go to school without big loans all of that well rounded stuff was ok. But now days the costs are to high and people need to learn more hands on skills in IT in school. Why should be forced to take an PE class at a cost that is way more then BUYING a 2 YEAR fitness club membership.
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Talking about the non theory classes that are pure filler and fluff that are Not part of your core or gen edu's. can be replaced with classes that cover the more hands on parts of your core classes.
And comparing the cost of just one forced "PE" class (some schools want to have more then just 1) in a degree to the MUCH LOWER COST of a 2 YEAR fitness club membership that is OPEN 24 hours a day as well.
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I guess my point is... a degree doesn't make a great programmer, but a degree can help make a better person
It can, if you fit into the formal education environment *and* need someone to teach you; going to college when the former is false will just make you miserable, and going to college when the latter is false will just waste your time and money. Especially in the age of information, there is no reason one can't teach oneself. Yes, that includes the 'boring' stuff: theory. I get tired of it when people act like college/university is some one-size-fits-all solution and anyone who doesn't use it is really missi
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Clearly your ability to rationalize and look at the big picture had nothing to do with the roughly 6 years between when you hacked code and when you re-entered the market as an experienced software engineer. Don't get me wrong, eduction is great to help become a 'better person' (though I wouldn't judge them more capable than one without based on many job categories), but to assume your radical transformation had nothing to do with simply growing up is a little disengenous.
I know that when I left school, I w
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I've long said that the computing field is one where you can make decent money without a degree
Overall, software development is one of the few engineering fields where you can learn on your own without paying up front through the nose for oscilloscopes, CNC machines etc., and without attending an institution that would let you touch their gear either.
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That also used to be more true of the economy as a whole, but I think that would be a super-risky plan for a young person starting out today. An ever-higher percentage of applicants have a degree, raising the bar.
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I've got a good friend that is a pretty spectacular programmer. He was almost released from one job, because he didn't have a degree. His co-workers and boss put up a big fight to keep him around. I've been passed over for a job, when another friend got it, with far less qualifications, because he had a degree.
A degree doesn't make you a good or bad worker. It gives you some sort of base line. It also opens some doors, and keeps others open. Those two reasons above are the primary reason I went back t
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Why not?!
Because, simply put, not everyone fits into the formal education environment; such people would just make themselves miserable. Furthermore, they might not *need* to. Have you thought of that? Not everyone wants to get a piece of paper for the sake of getting a piece of paper. Not everyone wants to surrender to the disgusting status quo that says 'Everybody's gotta go to college!' I would refuse on principle, even if the other reasons were absent.
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Some things need domain knowledge especially in programming but also at some level with mechanical engineering things. They can't do everything but a gear head that lives and dreams of cars might have better ideas of how to mount a suspension on a frame than a 4 year mech eng grad that has been taking the bus their whole life. An artist that is a competent coder might be more useful working on Maya than a computer ninja that doesn't understand the workflow of an artist. Similarly for medical software, accou
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Around half of STEM workers have no four year degree, to me that is more interesting.
I'm one of them. I guess some poor SOB slaved away on a STEM degree while I took 3 years of fine art. Then I took his job.
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Now I argue to anyone who is thinking about skipping a degree to go straight to work is a bad idea. Because your job even with a 2 year degree will tend to have your career max out rather quickly.
But in terms of getting a job if you graduate with a 2 year degree or a 4 year degree you will tend to start out with the same types of jobs. So if you are not ambitious in moving up the food chain you can get a good job without the hassle of extra college education.
And still in most institutions you will be able
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That's not at all what the data says. It says half of STEM graduates work in STEM. It could still be the case that 100% of STEM workers have STEM degrees.
The fact that this poster made this bad of a mistake in mathematical reading comprehension, and three other people already responded to his post without mentioning the mistake, shows why anyone with proper math training can be successful in almost any profession. People even marked the post as Insightful and Interesting when it was really just Ignorant.
What about those of us who aren't sure anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
My degree is in Computer Engineering, with some Master's work in Comp Sci...
And these days I mostly work system accreditation. That is, certifying that a given system is secure. I do relatively little of the tech work, but push a lot of paper.
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How does pushing paper ensure a system is secure?
Re:What about those of us who aren't sure anymore? (Score:5, Informative)
It's all the documentation on the system. Because it's not just enough to say "yes, we've secured it", we have to write it down.
It's all paper trails, man.
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I feel your pain.
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Save a tree and use e-paper, man... =)
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How does pushing paper ensure a system is secure?
You've clearly never worked in security.
You can never fully secure anything. All you can do is shift liability away from your business.
You need to reduce the chances of a breach to the point that the number that occur and lead to lawsuits costs you less than the effort to make it more secure.
You could technically require every customer to drive down to your main office in person and show ID before logging in... but what would that do to your business?
Secondly, procedure is everything. How do people handle d
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>You've clearly never worked in security.
Quick! Someone is wrong on the internet.
Incomplete data (Score:5, Insightful)
As usual, jumping to conclusions with incomplete data.
First, why analyze the percentage of computer and math degree holders who hold an IT job? Why is a mathematics degree automatically equivalent to a CS degree?
Then we get leaps like the pay gap between men and women. Most likely it's the usual thing: comparing men and women of the same age, without accounting for the fact that the women took more time off for child-rearing, worked part-time, etc.. Compensate for these things, and watch the pay gap disappear.
Why do many people with STEM degrees not work in STEM jobs? They apparently count management and education as non-STEM, even if these people are managing STEM projects or teaching STEM courses. That already accounts for the two biggest groups.
The rest of the conclusions are just as shaky. This appears to be a crappy study, deserving of no attention whatsoever...
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As usual, jumping to conclusions with incomplete data.
First, why analyze the percentage of computer and math degree holders who hold an IT job? Why is a mathematics degree automatically equivalent to a CS degree?
Then we get leaps like the pay gap between men and women. Most likely it's the usual thing: comparing men and women of the same age, without accounting for the fact that the women took more time off for child-rearing, worked part-time, etc.. Compensate for these things, and watch the pay gap disappear.
Why do many people with STEM degrees not work in STEM jobs? They apparently count management and education as non-STEM, even if these people are managing STEM projects or teaching STEM courses. That already accounts for the two biggest groups.
The rest of the conclusions are just as shaky. This appears to be a crappy study, deserving of no attention whatsoever...
Well, it was really surprising that people who get STEM degrees don't go on to become musicians, actors and entertainers.
I thought the Brian May, Tom Scholz and Msai Oka was pretty common. Thanks to this study I now am more informed.
The whole STEM stars was a lie!
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Yeah, the first thing I thought of was: how many people who graduate with any 4-year degree stay in their field of study? Without having anything to compare this to, how do we know that the numbers for STEM graduates are abnormal?
I would guess that those figures for the STEM graduates aren't too different from any other field.
Also, it would have been more meaningful if they had limited the time after graduation. For example, if 50% of STEM graduates were working in an unrelated field 10 years after gra
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But everybody knows that people with degrees in Communications and Political Science aren't going to work in those fields (if they even exist). But to get a job that requires "a degree" (of any type), going through an EE or physics program is hardly the most efficient route.
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Re:Incomplete data (Score:4, Informative)
> First, why analyze the percentage of computer and math degree holders who hold an IT job? Why is a mathematics degree automatically equivalent to a CS degree?
Computer Science is ultimately a branch of mathematics. That much should be obvious to anyone that's been through a decent University program.
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And mathematics is ultimately philosophy.
Practically, CS should be considered Engineering. Which is ultimately the union of business, applied science and art.
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There are lots of missing data from that article. Do we have access to the actual survey? It seems very biaised.
If I become a high school math teacher, I am not holding a STEM position. But clearly I am using my training. Same goes with any kind of teaching job. It is very likely that these people are actually using their training.
If I manage at a non-STEM business, that does not mean that I do not manage STEM workers.
Counting business/finance as non STEM worker is ridiculous. Finance companies have been hi
Incomplete data (Score:2)
As usual, jumping to conclusions with incomplete data.
You don't seriously expect people to read beyond the article title before jumping into the comments?
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Perhaps you're right about managers, but that wasn't my impression, nor is it the impression of the authors of the Computer World article: "Rothwell points out that Google's co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, would both be classified as non-STEM managers by the Census". They may not be technical managers, but their technical background is entirely relevant to the management duties. Lots of people in roles like that.
I imagine it's much the same for education. As an example, I am faculty in a business s
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Statistics is an Applied Arts degree.. {The art of making numbers support your argument when they don't}
Anyway tfa doesn't have enough information on how they classifying STEM and non-STEM businesses and positions to draw those conclusions.
The largest numbers are managers at non-STEM businesses (22.5%), or having careers in education (17.7%)
This does not explain how businesses are categorized or if education encompasses all education or excludes the obvious teaching STEM courses.
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hogwash. a lot of modern topics in CS are basically statistics: natural language processing; computer vision; most of machine learning; data mining; most of bioinformatics; etc.
statistics just has terrible marketing (at least in the US) and they've been a bit too focused on silly things, so they ceded a lot of ground to CS for no really good reason.
as for the other topics, if you follow the links you'll eventually come to the definitions. the article itself is terrible.
And for the other half (Score:2)
Their degree is in Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
Do you want fries with that?
STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:5, Insightful)
The lure of a liberal arts degree has always been to have a very well rounded education that just makes you a smarter person instead of just teaching a certain profession. In today's technological world, STEM education is performing a very similar role. Learning high level math provides extreme advances in our current economy regardless of your actual job.
Hopefully colleges start to understand this and increase the level of math that all college graduates are required to learn. Perhaps in 20 years the average Gen Ed requirements of a Bachelors will require 20+ credits of math related courses to help prepare students for the modern world.
Re:STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:4, Informative)
In today's technological world, STEM education is performing a very similar role.
Yes, and to be blunt, I also think that in the past 20 years the rigor of the liberal arts degrees has been greatly reduced, making them even less valuable than they otherwise would have been.
For instance, math or compsci either one, you're going to learn about deductive and inductive proofs, which are highly valuable reasoning skills that will serve you well throughout life. In the old days, a philosophy course would have exposed the liberal arts major to a version that, while somewhat less rigorous, would have been greatly beneficial. These days that same student is likely not to be exposed to that at all, and worse may have his critical-thinking skills permanently damaged by the inane bullshit of deconstructionism.
Re:STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all down to the idiocy that is relativism. Logic, math and science are socially constructed and hence may be ignored at no cost.
Re:STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know what you consider "high level math", but if it is the same thing I am thinking of, I totally disagree with you.
I've been in the industry for over a decade, and have used the calculus and statistics required for my CS degree precisely never. And honestly there are hardly any professions that need either of these disciplines. Yes you should know some VERY BASIC statistics but the idea that everyone needs a university-level course in it is flawed.
IMO in CS degrees, the time spent on these courses would be much better spent on more algorithms courses and courses on actual development practice, both of which are VERY lacking with people coming out of university nowadays.. theyre' all hot-shot python hackers but have no idea what the difference between a linked list and an array list is.
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I've been in the industry for over a decade, and have used the calculus and statistics required for my CS degree precisely never.
Well, I've been in the industry for over 30 years and I've found one good use for statistics during that time - it's great to sniff out BS. Like the crap spread by the VP of Quality who touts a 2% decline in customer calls YOY when the variance in this yearly data is around 5% and you didn't put out a major product release this year. Not that you're politically well-connected eno
Re:STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:4, Informative)
Let's match anecdote for anecdote: I've been in the industry for nearly 25 years, and I've used calculus quite a few times and statistics (beyond just mean/stddev type stuff) fairly regularly. Also a wild FFT and/or DCT has appeared a few times here and there. I'll readily admit my career has been a little different than most, including a near decade long stint at a NASA-funded research lab, but I've also had some of that stuff rear its head in odd places you might not expect, like doing predictive analysis programs for a manufacturing company, or programs to optimize course scheduling for college students. These tasks could not have been completed without at least exposure to more advanced mathematics.
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Re: STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:2)
Sure of course there will always be a small subset of jobs in industry that need this. But the idea that it provides inherent value to all CS is wrong. Calculus has nothing to do with CS at all in reality.
There are also lots of jobs in industry that need high levels of security domain knowledge or networking domain knowledge, but the stuff we need is not even taught in university let alone required for a degree so your example really has no meaning.
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Well, if you've used it every job you've ever worked at, then clearly every liberal arts major should be mandated to learn it too. And by that vein, all CS grads will be required to take Latin Studies and Advanced Musical Therapy because, who the hell knows, some day you may need to learn these things.
Re:STEM is the new liberal arts degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in the industry for over a decade, and have used the calculus and statistics required for my CS degree precisely never.
That is no different than a philosophy student saying "I've been working for over a decade, and haven't had Plato's cave brought up in a single board meeting yet." The goal of a general education is not to train students in the tools they will use in their jobs, it is to train them how to think.
If you haven't used your increased capacity for logical thinking, or your ability to understand statistics greater than the average person, then you either never learned much in those classes or you just aren't being honest about how much you actually learned.
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theyre' all hot-shot python hackers but have no idea what the difference between a linked list and an array list is.
Actually I think this is precisely what a lot of non-STEM employers are looking for. When they say they want a computer programmer, what they mean is they want someone who can be the local Excel-macro whiz.
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50% of programmers are coding UIs/web pages or doing computerized bean counting. But those are the losers in 'the game'.
There is no way of knowing, a priori, which students will get to do interesting work. So you have to equip them all with the math for it.
I worked for one man, who was so sick of coders with atrophied math skills, that he put 'what is the first derivative of 1/x' into the HR screening process. Pass/fail.
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Yes you should know some VERY BASIC statistics but the idea that everyone needs a university-level course in it is flawed.
Our world would be better if everyone took an advanced statistics class, starting with the presidential debates wouldn't be so utterly inane. If you don't use the stuff you learned in a statistics class, it's because you didn't learn anything.
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The presidential debate would be less insane if civics and debate were required courses. Most Americans are clueless to how the government is supposed to work, and aren't capable of disecting a serious argument to separate the lies from the truth. Political pundits have reduced the presidential debates to another form of entertainment for the masses who want to be told to think because forming, analyzing and defending their own opinion hard work.
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and have used the calculus and statistics required for my CS degree precisely never. And honestly there are hardly any professions that need either of these disciplines.
It's not that everyone absolutely has to have the knowledge to get by: it's that it is useful.
You use it, or lose it.
Chances are, in one way or another --- what you learned in Calculus helped you.
Either that, or you never really learned calculus, or you just did the homework, and you forgot about it after the test: instead of explo
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Even as (currently) a business web app programmer, the more mathematical/theoretical parts of my CS education come in handy from time to time for things like understanding why our decimal and/or floating-point calculations were coming out wrong or rounding funny when such things mystified my much more experienced coworkers.
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Liberal Arts education long ago stopped being about becoming a well-rounded, intelligent individual and became an indoctrination in fitting in to the social machine. STEM degrees are going the same way, churning out cogs for the machine, willing to take whatever they can get to pay off the indentured bond.
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> What's wrong with that? It's one of the cores of the only fair type of government we've found so far that works, communism.
Yes. It worked out so well that corruption caused it to implode in a most spectacular manner. Just ask anyone from the former Soviet block how much communism "works".
You're a silver spoon member of the 1% by comparison.
It takes more than wishful thinking and a single political party with no check on it's power to run a country effectively.
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In other words. Hopefully, someday, a liberal arts degree will actually be 'well rounded'. Right now it's very focused on 'easy subjects that don't interfere with constant partying'.
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The lure of a liberal arts degree has always been to have a very well rounded education that just makes you a smarter person instead of just teaching a certain profession. In today's technological world, STEM education is performing a very similar role. Learning high level math provides extreme advances in our current economy regardless of your actual job.
Hopefully colleges start to understand this and increase the level of math that all college graduates are required to learn. Perhaps in 20 years the average Gen Ed requirements of a Bachelors will require 20+ credits of math related courses to help prepare students for the modern world.
How, exactly, does advanced math help anyone not actually working in some STEM related field in the modern world?
Unless you're talking about basic finance, understanding interest rates, rates of return and so forth - but for me this is not 'advanced' math.
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How, exactly, does advanced math help anyone not actually working in some STEM related field in the modern world?
Unless you're talking about basic finance, understanding interest rates, rates of return and so forth - but for me this is not 'advanced' math.
Since the article was mentioning STEM degrees, the definition of 'advanced' math here is college level math. That basically means calculus and statistics, and then even more advanced as you start 300+ level courses. Most STEM degrees only require about 3-5 math courses, although math is often applied in many other courses taught in a STEM degree. I was a Physics major, and I did just as much math in my physics courses as I did in my math courses.
And as I mentioned in another post, math teaches logical thoug
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How, exactly, does advanced math help anyone not actually working in some STEM related field in the modern world?
Unless you're talking about basic finance, understanding interest rates, rates of return and so forth - but for me this is not 'advanced' math.
Since the article was mentioning STEM degrees, the definition of 'advanced' math here is college level math. That basically means calculus and statistics, and then even more advanced as you start 300+ level courses. Most STEM degrees only require about 3-5 math courses, although math is often applied in many other courses taught in a STEM degree. I was a Physics major, and I did just as much math in my physics courses as I did in my math courses.
And as I mentioned in another post, math teaches logical thought, the use of precise definitions, the use of careful and rigorous arguments, etc. It is not the ability to do integrations that's important, it is the act of learning how to do integrations that matters. Or at least that is how the argument goes (which I agree with).
The same argument might be used to justify learning chess or debating legal positions or, indeed, any activity that requires logical thought and planning.
So not sure I agree with you that schools should teach higher math for this reason but okay, I understand your reasoning.
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Learning high level math provides extreme advances in our current economy regardless of your actual job.
How so? That's a pretty bold statement.
I don't doubt your claim (I have a math bachelors degree, and a comp sci masters in progress), but I'd just like to hear your arguments.
The arguments are pretty standard. Math teaches logical thought, the use of precise definitions, the use of careful and rigorous arguments, etc, It involves taking a general problem and defining a set of very clearly stated problems and finding precise solutions to them. Those are the abstract answers, but in a world that is becoming more and more data driven, mathematical fields such as statistics even have practical applications for most fields. The mistake made by the first poster who claimed the article
Even higher for other degree fields. (Score:5, Funny)
That has always been true. The share is even higher for other degrees. Probably 70 percent with degrees in Liberal Arts lead to other jobs -- waiting on tables, for instance.
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Exactly what I was thinking even without tongue in cheek. Perhaps communications majors do communicate (as don't we all) but, unlike in technical fields, I haven't seen too many job postings requiring a degree in communications. But those people are by-and-large working in law, advertising, insurance, etc. yet nobody seems to feel the necessity to do a study on how many communication majors aren't working in communications.
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Back of Liberal Arts.
I know a lot of smart people who are successful with liberal arts degrees becasue they wanted to learn about a lot of different things.
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I think the problem here is, to some extent, people assume that "STEM" degrees are somehow special. I suspect that impression largely comes from the egocentrism of people who hold "STEM" degrees.
I keep putting "STEM" in quotes because it's a dumb term. I don't know why people have suddenly decided to use this term. I suspect it was come up with by some marketing/propaganda professional, at the request of either a politician or businessman who was looking to push an agenda. Otherwise, I can't think of h
What about non-computing/engineering fields? (Score:3)
The STEM label mushes together computing fields and engineering, which have high pay and demand for jobs, with the sciences, which to be completely honest with you don't pay that great and have about a twenty to one candidate to job ratio. What would the result be like if we split them, I wonder?
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1) Thanks for counterbalancing my laziness
2) That's an amazing visualisation
compiling things form the article (Score:3)
Shocking! (Score:3)
And you know what? I bet the same holds true of accouting, finance, marketing and certainly humanities degrees too.
um (Score:3)
Because the majority of the people getting CS degrees now-a-days have no idea what they are doing.
And I don't mean, they just aren't good. I mean they barely even know how to type.
I worked with a guy a while back that was given 4 projects in a row and did absolutely no work on them. I liked the guy personally so he felt safe in asking me questions... He didn't even know how to define a variable or call an Object in the Language he specialized in. And I've met LOTS of people like that. He was probably the worst, but the quality of people with degrees in programming is awful. I'm not sure if it's just because it's something really hard to test for or if cheating is rampant. But there is definitely a problem. Most of the people I work with that don't have a degree and had to claw their way up are a lot better than the people that have 4yr degrees.
Also, programming jobs don't pay crap anymore. Managers at McDonalds make about the same as entry level program jobs.
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Yeah, I can tell you that a CS "degree" which involves being "specialized" in a particular programming language is a bullshit trade diploma. It's not surprising that such an applicant is garbage; degrees in programming are for idiots. Smart people program on their own, or go to college for formal maths/sciences, or ideally both.
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McDonalds managers work insane hours. Nobody could be a productive coder working fast food manager hours. You'd be a zombie...not unlike a fast food manager.
Here is the relevant stat... (Score:3)
We have fewer engineering jobs in the US then we did 20 years ago.
That's the stat that matters. End of discussion.
what about black workers? (Score:2)
Sorry, you've called out the African Americans, white, asian.. what about Black, Afro-Carribean, African, Arab workers? What about hispanics, European-American, Irish American, the "My great grandfather had a niece whose mother's great uncle was Scottish"-American?
Fuck you and your racist focus. Try breaking down employment by social background, place of abode and other factors before throwing racial fucking stereotypes at us.
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They are broken down by college graduates.
The article breaks it out into other factors.
Fact is., give same experiences and degree, some people are treated differently due to the shade of their skin.
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They are broken down by college graduates. The article breaks it out into other factors. Fact is., give same experiences and degree, some people are treated differently due to the shade of their skin.
You claim to be a college graduate and yet you seem to have a problem with reading comprehension. The parent is pointing out that there is a difference with regard to cultural background between African Americans who trace their lineage back to the slave trade in America and those who come from the Caribbean or even recent immigrants from various African nations. Africa is a continent, not a country. The same goes for Europe. We Europeans are not a large homogeneous group with the same culture and attitudes
The question is nonsense. (Score:4, Insightful)
"STEM trained workers? "
They have degree in the field, not 'trained workers'.
You can have a BS Mathematics, and go into a number of fields that aren't specific to mathematics.
You think you get a degree in Mathematics and then go to the mathematics factory and churn out maths?
Plus, you can get a degree in something simply because it interests you, and not because you want a career in that field.
University is not job training. Please stop treating it as such.
Half get other jobs .... (Score:2)
So what? (Score:2)
Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Why? This post seems to imply that your entire career should be determined by your major in college. Thank goodness that isn't true. How many people really know what they want to do at age 20? Lots of people change fields several times over their careers.
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Logical, but probably not the case; surveys matching career stage and field put the male-female wage gap on the order of 10%, which is in line with these results. (I forget the exact amount; it's likely to be a little more.)
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Logical, but probably not the case; surveys matching career stage and field put the male-female wage gap on the order of 10%, which is in line with these results. (I forget the exact amount; it's likely to be a little more.)
Depending on how "career stage" is measured, the value may still be skewed due to the greater tendency for females to take years off for family care, etc. When returning to work, she may have to take a pay cut due to percieved "staleness" of her knowledge. This was the case for my wife and I (both engineers). She made more than I did before she quit to raise our kids. Ten years later, she could not hire back in at the same wage she left at, due to the employment gap. So even if you evaluate "career stage
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Seven years of inflation is at least 15%. Depending on whose stats you use.
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uh, yeah, a Ph.D. in mathematics might once have been a death sentence, but nowadays it's more like a license to print money (almost literally, in the case of Wall Street) if you're willing to hold your nose, check your ego, and get back out of pure math.
similarly, a four year math degree from a respectable (not even necessarily great) university, coupled with the right research experience, extracurriculars, and/or job experience/internships, is a solid credential. maybe not as much of a sure bet as enginee