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I don't like how the word STEM gets thrown around because I feel it whitewashes the fact that most of the opportunity is in ad-supported web apps. Anyone tryin

I don't like how the word STEM gets thrown around because I feel it whitewashes the fact that most of the opportunity is in ad-supported web apps. Anyone trying to work in chemistry or physics finds this out the hard way.

Fomite 5y ago
Or Biology.
BadCookie 5y ago
Yeah. My friends with PhDs in physics are working in software engineering departments at startups and FAANG, their educations almost completely irrelevant to the work they do. At our college reunion, a beloved physics professor was disappointed that not one of his former students at the reunion was still in physics. But I am not sure why he was surprised given how hard and unpleasant it is to stay in academia/research. I didn’t even work at a FAANG, but leaving grad school and getting a programming job immediately cut my workload in half and increased my income by almost 4x … roughly an order-of-magnitude better deal. There’s no real opportunity in physics or math without essentially switching to software eventually.
- foolinaround 5y ago
  > There’s no real opportunity in physics or math without essentially switching to software eventually. In a real free-market scenario, would'nt those PhD programs be drastically reduced? I suspect this is because this physics PhD program is providing an implicit signalling function, that the fellow out of this program is worth more than the ave college guy - doing the same programming job - because he proved himself on more complex study materials.
  - booleandilemma 5y ago
    This is definitely how it’s interpreted. Especially when a lot of the people in the industry nowadays are clueless PMs who spent college going to frat parties and who can’t do anything in life besides be a PM (or account manager, business analyst, etc), whose first reaction is “oh wow, physics” and the deference begins from there.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Plenty of opportunity in all kinds of software. Ad supported webapps get the headlines because they (or at least the ones you're thinking about) aggregate really well, but there's a lot of work out there. Academic physics research is not very useful economically, since we've figured out most of the stuff that will ever contribute to engineering needs -- building stuff that real people benefit from -- in our lifetimes. Not all! But most. Mechanical/structural/chemical/etc. engineering on the other hand (a.k.a. physics and chemistry applied to real world problems) are very well-compensated skill-sets.
- roughly 5y ago
  > Plenty of opportunity in all kinds of software. Ad supported webapps get the headlines because they (or at least the ones you're thinking about) aggregate really well, but there's a lot of work out there. I mean, take a look at the next "who's hiring" page. Ad supported webapps seem pretty well represented. > Academic physics research is not very useful economically, since we've figured out most of the stuff that will ever contribute to engineering needs -- building stuff that real people benefit from -- in our lifetimes. Not all! But most. My phone lasts a day on a battery because we've managed to turn off the CPU as much as possible - we've got a supercomputer in our pocket that we can't use at its full capacity because battery technology isn't advancing. Academic physics research is not very useful economically because we've defined "useful economically" as "able to be converted into profits within 2-5yrs", and unfortunately we did that about 20 years ago, so the whole thing's sorta running on fumes right now.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    > I mean, take a look at the next "who's hiring" page. Ad supported webapps seem pretty well represented. This is hackernews. The organization that founded this site has mostly made its billions by investing in web properties. They are branching out these days, but that's the demographic. > battery technology isn't advancing. Academic physics research is not very useful economically because we've defined "useful economically" as "able to be converted into profits within 2-5yrs", and unfortunately we did that about 20 years ago, so the whole thing's sorta running on fumes right now. If I'm understanding the claim, we aren't doing enough battery R&D, so battery technology advancement is slow? First off, I don't think most physics labs are researching anything even remotely useful to improving batteries. But for the ones that are, let's do fund them. Second, battery technology is and has been advancing rapidly. See for example the slide in the presentation on the following website ("Battery cell energy densities have almost tripled since 2010 [as of 2020]"): https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years... That being said, it's far from clear that we are spending less than the optimal amount on battery R&D (the current amount is many billions of dollars per year -- Samsung alone spend ~$1B on research and development for just electric vehicle batteries in 2020). How much do you think we are spending? How much more should we spend?
Callusing 5y ago
That's the attention-share majority, and it's the majority that gets the most press largely because it's so relevant to the press and to people who read a lot of press (investors, other media), but it's an overstatement to say it's the entirety. Just looking at some quick stats, a little more than half of all STEM occupations are outside of "Computer Occupations", though that one chunk is by far the largest single chunk. And far from the entirety of "Computer Occupations" is ad-supported web apps. https://www.rclco.com/publication/2021-stem-job-growth-index/ https://www.rclco.com/publication/2021-stem-job-growth-index... There are a lot of fucking engineers (traditional engineers - based on the definition of 20-30 years ago) out there, and a great many of them make a solid living off it. Most of them simply do their job in relative obscurity compared to the computer workers these days.

Fomite 5y ago

Or Biology.

BadCookie 5y ago

Yeah. My friends with PhDs in physics are working in software engineering departments at startups and FAANG, their educations almost completely irrelevant to the work they do. At our college reunion, a beloved physics professor was disappointed that not one of his former students at the reunion was still in physics. But I am not sure why he was surprised given how hard and unpleasant it is to stay in academia/research. I didn’t even work at a FAANG, but leaving grad school and getting a programming job immediately cut my workload in half and increased my income by almost 4x … roughly an order-of-magnitude better deal. There’s no real opportunity in physics or math without essentially switching to software eventually.

foolinaround 5y ago
> There’s no real opportunity in physics or math without essentially switching to software eventually. In a real free-market scenario, would'nt those PhD programs be drastically reduced? I suspect this is because this physics PhD program is providing an implicit signalling function, that the fellow out of this program is worth more than the ave college guy - doing the same programming job - because he proved himself on more complex study materials.
- booleandilemma 5y ago
  This is definitely how it’s interpreted. Especially when a lot of the people in the industry nowadays are clueless PMs who spent college going to frat parties and who can’t do anything in life besides be a PM (or account manager, business analyst, etc), whose first reaction is “oh wow, physics” and the deference begins from there.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

Plenty of opportunity in all kinds of software. Ad supported webapps get the headlines because they (or at least the ones you're thinking about) aggregate really well, but there's a lot of work out there. Academic physics research is not very useful economically, since we've figured out most of the stuff that will ever contribute to engineering needs -- building stuff that real people benefit from -- in our lifetimes. Not all! But most. Mechanical/structural/chemical/etc. engineering on the other hand (a.k.a. physics and chemistry applied to real world problems) are very well-compensated skill-sets.

roughly 5y ago
> Plenty of opportunity in all kinds of software. Ad supported webapps get the headlines because they (or at least the ones you're thinking about) aggregate really well, but there's a lot of work out there. I mean, take a look at the next "who's hiring" page. Ad supported webapps seem pretty well represented. > Academic physics research is not very useful economically, since we've figured out most of the stuff that will ever contribute to engineering needs -- building stuff that real people benefit from -- in our lifetimes. Not all! But most. My phone lasts a day on a battery because we've managed to turn off the CPU as much as possible - we've got a supercomputer in our pocket that we can't use at its full capacity because battery technology isn't advancing. Academic physics research is not very useful economically because we've defined "useful economically" as "able to be converted into profits within 2-5yrs", and unfortunately we did that about 20 years ago, so the whole thing's sorta running on fumes right now.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  > I mean, take a look at the next "who's hiring" page. Ad supported webapps seem pretty well represented. This is hackernews. The organization that founded this site has mostly made its billions by investing in web properties. They are branching out these days, but that's the demographic. > battery technology isn't advancing. Academic physics research is not very useful economically because we've defined "useful economically" as "able to be converted into profits within 2-5yrs", and unfortunately we did that about 20 years ago, so the whole thing's sorta running on fumes right now. If I'm understanding the claim, we aren't doing enough battery R&D, so battery technology advancement is slow? First off, I don't think most physics labs are researching anything even remotely useful to improving batteries. But for the ones that are, let's do fund them. Second, battery technology is and has been advancing rapidly. See for example the slide in the presentation on the following website ("Battery cell energy densities have almost tripled since 2010 [as of 2020]"): https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years-away-no-batteries-are-improving-under-your-nose/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-years... That being said, it's far from clear that we are spending less than the optimal amount on battery R&D (the current amount is many billions of dollars per year -- Samsung alone spend ~$1B on research and development for just electric vehicle batteries in 2020). How much do you think we are spending? How much more should we spend?

Callusing 5y ago

That's the attention-share majority, and it's the majority that gets the most press largely because it's so relevant to the press and to people who read a lot of press (investors, other media), but it's an overstatement to say it's the entirety. Just looking at some quick stats, a little more than half of all STEM occupations are outside of "Computer Occupations", though that one chunk is by far the largest single chunk. And far from the entirety of "Computer Occupations" is ad-supported web apps. https://www.rclco.com/publication/2021-stem-job-growth-index/ https://www.rclco.com/publication/2021-stem-job-growth-index... There are a lot of fucking engineers (traditional engineers - based on the definition of 20-30 years ago) out there, and a great many of them make a solid living off it. Most of them simply do their job in relative obscurity compared to the computer workers these days.