3 ms·

The whole idea that people pick their education based on rational assumptions when they are 18, know essentially nothing and are coming straight out of an envir

by cynusx 9y ago

The whole idea that people pick their education based on rational assumptions when they are 18, know essentially nothing and are coming straight out of an environment where perceived status is all that matters on the playgrounds is ridiculous. The choice of what to study is not a rational decision but a social decision. People follow their friends, guys go study what the hottest girls he knows are going to study, parents push kids to study fields that they themselves perceive as high-status like finance, law or medicine. The biggest problem with computer science degrees is that it is a relatively new field and it hasn't been embedded in society as high status yet. This will change, but it will take generations for it to take effect. The field is obviously difficult but you don't have to be a genius to get a CS degree, it doesn't require much more determination to study ridiculous amounts of jargon for law or medicine degree then to understand complex discrete mathematics problems. The social cost of "failing" a law degree is much higher (parents complain son of X did pass and he had similar SATS) then failing an engineering degree (parents understand "it", they don't understand computers either).

lithos 9y ago
I exited out of IT programming degree for the military. A big reason was I did math on what my future loans would mean to me to get a bachelor instead of just my associates. Sweating through the nuke program for 3-4 more years (extra compared to college), having no debt at the end, and a program that if you complete it is more valuable than a lot of degrees. It also seemed that there were two types of programmers. The Office Space guy, that is a cost to their company. And the Cult Of IT guy, that pretends to only think about IT. I wouldn't have the patience for the first, and after learning enough Lisp to make simple macros (and rip apart some of Paul Graham's mediumish ones) I realized that I just saw a system that does what it's told (and probably wouldn't be able to keep a straight face when Cult Of IT people worshipped beauty).
curun1r 9y ago
> it is a relatively new field and it hasn't been embedded in society as high status yet I'm not sure status plays into it, but I think you're onto something in that it's not fully established yet. If you want to be a doctor, you need an MD. If you want to be a lawyer, you need a JD. If you want to be an engineer in the physical world (civil, mechanical, nuclear, chemical, etc), you need that degree. But if you want to be a developer, you just need to demonstrate and ability to do it. You can have your degree in a completely different subject, and you're still able to get the job. I've even seen places that preferred hiring mechanical engineers and physics PhDs to write code. Likewise, there's no professional accreditation board and certifications are often viewed negatively by employers. In time, as programming develops as a discipline, one of two things will happen. Either these barriers to entry into the field will spring up and the CS degree and subsequent licensing exam will become a prerequisite for working in the industry or programming will become a part of the curriculum for many other disciplines and the days of being a specialist in programming will he over. But it's still new enough that neither end state has been reached. And in the current state, the only purpose of a CS degree is to learn. On paper, after four years in college, you'll be a less desirable hire than someone who spent six months in a developer boot camp and then got 3+ years of industry experience. I'm not saying a CS classes are worthless...I greatly enjoyed everything I learned in them and I feel I'm a better developer for having taken them. But the degree, itself, is no different than a math or physics degree when applying for work, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's not as popular as a major.
home_boi 9y ago
> but you don't have to be a genius to get a CS degree But most people don't know that. They don't know that you can make $160,000 total comp right out of undergrad by going to a mediocre school where other students are not bright, failing every test but getting B's and C's from a generous curve (because of your competition) and studying Leetcode for a month.

by cynusx 9y ago

lithos 9y ago

I exited out of IT programming degree for the military. A big reason was I did math on what my future loans would mean to me to get a bachelor instead of just my associates. Sweating through the nuke program for 3-4 more years (extra compared to college), having no debt at the end, and a program that if you complete it is more valuable than a lot of degrees. It also seemed that there were two types of programmers. The Office Space guy, that is a cost to their company. And the Cult Of IT guy, that pretends to only think about IT. I wouldn't have the patience for the first, and after learning enough Lisp to make simple macros (and rip apart some of Paul Graham's mediumish ones) I realized that I just saw a system that does what it's told (and probably wouldn't be able to keep a straight face when Cult Of IT people worshipped beauty).

curun1r 9y ago

> it is a relatively new field and it hasn't been embedded in society as high status yet I'm not sure status plays into it, but I think you're onto something in that it's not fully established yet. If you want to be a doctor, you need an MD. If you want to be a lawyer, you need a JD. If you want to be an engineer in the physical world (civil, mechanical, nuclear, chemical, etc), you need that degree. But if you want to be a developer, you just need to demonstrate and ability to do it. You can have your degree in a completely different subject, and you're still able to get the job. I've even seen places that preferred hiring mechanical engineers and physics PhDs to write code. Likewise, there's no professional accreditation board and certifications are often viewed negatively by employers. In time, as programming develops as a discipline, one of two things will happen. Either these barriers to entry into the field will spring up and the CS degree and subsequent licensing exam will become a prerequisite for working in the industry or programming will become a part of the curriculum for many other disciplines and the days of being a specialist in programming will he over. But it's still new enough that neither end state has been reached. And in the current state, the only purpose of a CS degree is to learn. On paper, after four years in college, you'll be a less desirable hire than someone who spent six months in a developer boot camp and then got 3+ years of industry experience. I'm not saying a CS classes are worthless...I greatly enjoyed everything I learned in them and I feel I'm a better developer for having taken them. But the degree, itself, is no different than a math or physics degree when applying for work, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's not as popular as a major.

home_boi 9y ago

> but you don't have to be a genius to get a CS degree But most people don't know that. They don't know that you can make $160,000 total comp right out of undergrad by going to a mediocre school where other students are not bright, failing every test but getting B's and C's from a generous curve (because of your competition) and studying Leetcode for a month.