To abuse an old adage about advertising "2/3s of my education was a waste. The problem is I don't know which 1/3 is useful." The usefulness of math, engineerin

To abuse an old adage about advertising "2/3s of my education was a waste. The problem is I don't know which 1/3 is useful." The usefulness of math, engineering, or computer science education in industry is typically in knowing how your tools work under the hood and being able to apply that knowledge to infrequently optimize them or extend them. It also helps to be able to transfer between similar tools/jobs/occupations with less lead time. From a society wide view, I'd argue we as a society benefit from pushing everyone toward STEM type education because even if 75% of people who go that route never utilize their training the 25% who do have an outsized impact on our collective well being. Overcommiting to STEM is necessary because we don't know who will be become our technical innovators a priori, so we try to make sure everyone with the potential to be a technical innovator is equipped with the tools to do so.