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What's interesting to me about that data is the high rate of biological and agricultural sciences grads, relative to all other sciences. CS grad rates seem to

What's interesting to me about that data is the high rate of biological and agricultural sciences grads, relative to all other sciences. CS grad rates seem to fall right about where they should on XKCD's Purity Scale [1] (if CS had been included in it). 2004 was an outlier for CS, but it has reverted to its mean since. But bio and ag sciences are beating out Psychology, which is a bit of a reversal. Biology isn't easy, especially not any program with a requirement for organic chemistry. Could that be b/c the big midwest and southwest universities (Iowa, Texas A&M, etc) have large bio/ag programs to support that industry in their region? [1]:https://www.xkcd.com/435/ https://www.xkcd.com/435/

watwut 9y ago
Although biology and organic chemistry are much harder then CS anything, they can be learned in school and from school resources only. No one expects you to already come in already knowing how to code or configure linux. If you are good students willing to work, you will learn them, period. With cs, you are expected to already know a lot that was not taught in school - meaning that all kinds of cultural and social effects play the role (who your parents and friends were). Also, there is a lot less myths about biology around. Nobody assumes you have to be some kind of nerd to learn it, nobody assumes there is special in-born ability for it totally different from all other kinds of intelligence (like is often implicitly assumed even with things like operating system configuration), there is much less cultural bullshit about "hackers and their culture" around.
- violinist 9y ago
  I haven't personally taken organic chemistry, but several of my friends who have taken both organic chemistry and algorithms have said that algorithms is by far the harder of the two. So I tend to disagree that biology and organic chemistry are harder than anything in CS.
  - base698 9y ago
    Have degrees in both and agree. The amount of work require to get a B in data structures would get you an A+ in biochemistry. Physical Chemistry on the other hand...
    - fivestar 9y ago
      Eh, my college girlfriend majored in Chemistry while I was CS and Math. P. Chem was certainly a huge challenge, but I never got the sense that she was smarter than me, just maybe more determined in certain ways and better at memorizing shit. She got a 4.0 and was valedictorian, but she dropped any elective classes if they looked like they would not result in an "A" for her--I especially remember her dropping Calc II, for example. So she got her 4.0 by successfully gaming the system, whereas I never got overly focused on grades as the ultimate marker of successful learning. Btw, I have done quite well in life, not sure where she ended up; probably chasing some other kind of "grade" these days, lol.
  - watwut 9y ago
    That may depend on school. I have seen opposite - chemistry requiring much more work and being harder. I never found algorithms particularly hard.
- jandrewrogers 9y ago
  Organic chemistry looks complicated but it is, by and large, just an enormous amount of memorization. The kind of complex systems reasoning you have with any non-trivial computer science isn't there. By contrast, even though it is the same subject matter, chemical engineering is (correctly) perceived as being vastly more difficult than chemistry because it requires reasoning about complex system-level behaviors that has no analogue in chemistry. This creates the oft-observed effect that being skilled at chemistry has surprisingly low correlation with being effective at chemical engineering despite being the same domain.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Most programming jobs are easy, it takes effort and luck to find one that is not. Things like system administration and configuration are largely about remembering thing. There are some aspects of it that are harder and require being good at math - by you dont need them on practical jobs and they are still easier then real math. But realistically, a.) memorizing that much is hard b.) my friends who studied chemistry said that it becomes much easier when you understand how it works.
  - j7ake 9y ago
    trying to learn organic chemistry by memorizing mechanisms is like trying to learn maths by memorizing derivations... it might work for an intro course but you will quickly hit a wall. chemistry and chemical engineering has very little to do with each other, despite the name. chem eng is focused on scale up while (organic) chemistry is focused on novel mechanisms
- ghaff 9y ago
  I have no particular opinion on harder/easier. (There is a lot of memorization in organic chemistry earlier on because you don't have the tools to come up with answers from first principles at that point.) But, unlike CS, there isn't this assumption that you've played around with organic chemistry and/or chemical engineering in your spare time if you want to major in it in college.
froindt 9y ago
As someone who graduated with an engineering degree from one of those large Midwestern universities, yes. There are millions of acres of farmland and tons of ag companies who are making developments to eek out another 1% yield. At my university, the ag and life sciences college was only recently overcome by engineering to be the largest college. In Michigan the universities have a lot more focus on automotive because that's what runs the state. Agriculture runs a huge portion of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and other nearby states.

watwut 9y ago

Although biology and organic chemistry are much harder then CS anything, they can be learned in school and from school resources only. No one expects you to already come in already knowing how to code or configure linux. If you are good students willing to work, you will learn them, period. With cs, you are expected to already know a lot that was not taught in school - meaning that all kinds of cultural and social effects play the role (who your parents and friends were). Also, there is a lot less myths about biology around. Nobody assumes you have to be some kind of nerd to learn it, nobody assumes there is special in-born ability for it totally different from all other kinds of intelligence (like is often implicitly assumed even with things like operating system configuration), there is much less cultural bullshit about "hackers and their culture" around.

violinist 9y ago
I haven't personally taken organic chemistry, but several of my friends who have taken both organic chemistry and algorithms have said that algorithms is by far the harder of the two. So I tend to disagree that biology and organic chemistry are harder than anything in CS.
- base698 9y ago
  Have degrees in both and agree. The amount of work require to get a B in data structures would get you an A+ in biochemistry. Physical Chemistry on the other hand...
  - fivestar 9y ago
    Eh, my college girlfriend majored in Chemistry while I was CS and Math. P. Chem was certainly a huge challenge, but I never got the sense that she was smarter than me, just maybe more determined in certain ways and better at memorizing shit. She got a 4.0 and was valedictorian, but she dropped any elective classes if they looked like they would not result in an "A" for her--I especially remember her dropping Calc II, for example. So she got her 4.0 by successfully gaming the system, whereas I never got overly focused on grades as the ultimate marker of successful learning. Btw, I have done quite well in life, not sure where she ended up; probably chasing some other kind of "grade" these days, lol.
- watwut 9y ago
  That may depend on school. I have seen opposite - chemistry requiring much more work and being harder. I never found algorithms particularly hard.
jandrewrogers 9y ago
Organic chemistry looks complicated but it is, by and large, just an enormous amount of memorization. The kind of complex systems reasoning you have with any non-trivial computer science isn't there. By contrast, even though it is the same subject matter, chemical engineering is (correctly) perceived as being vastly more difficult than chemistry because it requires reasoning about complex system-level behaviors that has no analogue in chemistry. This creates the oft-observed effect that being skilled at chemistry has surprisingly low correlation with being effective at chemical engineering despite being the same domain.
- watwut 9y ago
  Most programming jobs are easy, it takes effort and luck to find one that is not. Things like system administration and configuration are largely about remembering thing. There are some aspects of it that are harder and require being good at math - by you dont need them on practical jobs and they are still easier then real math. But realistically, a.) memorizing that much is hard b.) my friends who studied chemistry said that it becomes much easier when you understand how it works.
- j7ake 9y ago
  trying to learn organic chemistry by memorizing mechanisms is like trying to learn maths by memorizing derivations... it might work for an intro course but you will quickly hit a wall. chemistry and chemical engineering has very little to do with each other, despite the name. chem eng is focused on scale up while (organic) chemistry is focused on novel mechanisms
ghaff 9y ago
I have no particular opinion on harder/easier. (There is a lot of memorization in organic chemistry earlier on because you don't have the tools to come up with answers from first principles at that point.) But, unlike CS, there isn't this assumption that you've played around with organic chemistry and/or chemical engineering in your spare time if you want to major in it in college.

froindt 9y ago

As someone who graduated with an engineering degree from one of those large Midwestern universities, yes. There are millions of acres of farmland and tons of ag companies who are making developments to eek out another 1% yield. At my university, the ag and life sciences college was only recently overcome by engineering to be the largest college. In Michigan the universities have a lot more focus on automotive because that's what runs the state. Agriculture runs a huge portion of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and other nearby states.