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Even if "how fast can you pick up a programming language" is your only metric, I would imagine that individual talent/intelligence/determination are better indi

Even if "how fast can you pick up a programming language" is your only metric, I would imagine that individual talent/intelligence/determination are better indicators than college major. I.e. I'd bet that between two identical people, one a Humanities major and the other a CS major, the CS major would obviously pick up a PL faster, but between an average CS major and an excellent Humanities major, I'd put my money on the Humanities. It's wholly possible that I'd lose that bet. The bigger point, though, to me, is that "how fast can you pick up a programming language" isn't what I thought about when choosing a major. That's not what I thought college was about. I honestly believe that employers would do better to consider Humanities majors who did very well in school, and otherwise demonstrate that they're intelligent, disciplined, and capable if not yet specifically qualified for the job. That's probably harder to figure out, but filtering by degree, then, is just laziness. It does appear that college is becoming a more vocational education, which I think is unfortunate. And that's probably because employers think like you do. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

VMG 15y ago
Why signal your intelligence with a degree that you worked hard for but has no intrinsic value? Why signal it in a fields that sometimes don't even really depend on any skill at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) rather than show off your discipline and intelligence in something like engineering or physics?
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Why signal your intelligence with a degree that you worked hard for but has no intrinsic value? I think your understanding of my position is colored by your assumptions about value. If you mean "no intrinsic value" as 'employability' or 'earning potential,' I would say that I value other things more than either of those. To answer the question, though, I wasn't trying to signal my intelligence when I chose my degree. I was trying to learn. I was exploring fields that I found interesting. I chose Comp Lit specifically because it offered me the broadest set of opportunities for learning. (I minored in Linguistics, and would have probably double majored if I thought I could afford to spend another six months in school.) As for skill, I think you misrepresent what the Sokal hoax was about, and what it proved. I actually did start school as a CS major, and I found it interesting and still do, but the CS curriculum was prohibitively restrictive and exclusive to other fields, and I wanted to explore more. If any of the 'hard' fields had given me more cross-disciplinary opportunities, I probably would have chosen one of them.

VMG 15y ago

Why signal your intelligence with a degree that you worked hard for but has no intrinsic value? Why signal it in a fields that sometimes don't even really depend on any skill at all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) rather than show off your discipline and intelligence in something like engineering or physics?

joebadmo 15y ago
Why signal your intelligence with a degree that you worked hard for but has no intrinsic value? I think your understanding of my position is colored by your assumptions about value. If you mean "no intrinsic value" as 'employability' or 'earning potential,' I would say that I value other things more than either of those. To answer the question, though, I wasn't trying to signal my intelligence when I chose my degree. I was trying to learn. I was exploring fields that I found interesting. I chose Comp Lit specifically because it offered me the broadest set of opportunities for learning. (I minored in Linguistics, and would have probably double majored if I thought I could afford to spend another six months in school.) As for skill, I think you misrepresent what the Sokal hoax was about, and what it proved. I actually did start school as a CS major, and I found it interesting and still do, but the CS curriculum was prohibitively restrictive and exclusive to other fields, and I wanted to explore more. If any of the 'hard' fields had given me more cross-disciplinary opportunities, I probably would have chosen one of them.