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This article is trying to figure out the solution to a problem that was solved over a decade ago. See: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science htt

by jgon 15y ago

This article is trying to figure out the solution to a problem that was solved over a decade ago. See: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science Science majors change their minds once they find out that they will be required to take challenging courses, yes, but it is not this challenge, in and of itself, that causes them to "change their minds". It is that people who are smart enough to be in a position to take these courses, people who the article talks about as having great scores on the SAT etc, people like these are also smart enough to do a quick ROI calculation and realize that a comparatively easier (don't take this as a rip on people with these degrees, many of them are my friends, are very, very smart, and have made this very decision themselves) degree in econ, business, or law will yield vastly greater material dividends. If you want people to stop changing their minds about science, you have to do something to change the ROI calculation that goes "I can work 2x as hard as my peers, graduate and receive 1/2 the monetary compensation or I can....not do that".

geebee 15y ago
I completely agree that PhD programs in STEM fields have become extremely uncompetitive with the professions (a RAND study on the supposed shortage of scientists and engineers that reached the same conclusion Greenspun reaches, though with a more data driven, less anecdotal approach.) But keep in mind, we're talking about undergraduate degrees here, which is a different beast entirely. Engineering and physical science majors really do have considerably better employment prospects on average than humanities or social science majors. That said, I suppose you still have to analyze it from the perspective of a student who is sure to attend professional school. If you know you're law-school bound, you're at a reputable university, and you have high grades in humanities and the ability to ace standardized tests, you can still have a high paying career in law without ever taking a serious math class. Engineering/Sci majors are often more desirable on the way out - a law school graduate with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering has more options than one with an undergrad major in English. Considering how much harder these degrees are, it could still be rational for a student to avoid these fields even at the undergraduate level - and if they harm your GPA, it might be best to avoid them (though some admissions officials do say they discount high GPAs in "easier" majors). And even if you can hack it, you'll work a hell of a lot harder in college. But if you're willing to put in the effort and have the ability, you do improve your job prospects with an rigorous Math/Sci/Eng major over a humanities major in almost every career scenario. So on the balance, I think you can make a very strong ROI case for engineering in eng/sci/math at the undergrad level. MS, less so, but it's a short program. PhD? Well, the RAND institute already crunched the numbers better than I ever could, it's pretty hard to justify a PhD in STEM relative to the professions if you're going off career ROI.
- jgon 15y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I can only speak of personal experience here as I don't have the time to do any sort of rigorous analysis of the data, but I feel like greenspun's analysis is becoming more relevant even at the lower levels of post-secondary education, such as undergrad. I'll first qualify this by saying that I wasn't talking about doing an ROI comparison against humanities or social sciences. If you have a Bachelor of Arts in Renaissance History, of course your prospects are going to be worse that someone with a Biology degree. But someone with a chemistry degree is going to do much, much worse than someone with a Business or Commerce degree, and possibly even an econ degree. Engineering changes this balance somewhat as it is quite pragmatic and has a much more industrial-friendly focus to it, so yes a chemical engineer is probably going to do alright. But even then, someone smart enough to get a Chem. Eng degree is also probably smart enough to do really well with a business degree, or get a law degree, and would probably do better monetarily in either of those fields. When I was in University I watched as many of my friends and classmates made the same calculation and acted on it. The guy who lived across the hall from me in third year busted his balls to an A in quantitative chem, working through some really hard and grueling lab sessions, looked at the effort he had just put in and promptly switched majors to Commerce. 2 years later he graduated after taking a workload that allowed to network way more and find a hot girlfriend, and now works downtown for an oil company making ~120,000 at the age of 28. This is in a place where that is real money, not New York where that doesn't go far. The sciences are already basically full of people who are taking them out of love and passion for the subject, people for whom this ROI calculation is meaningless because they can't put a dollar figure on their feelings for their discipline. Apparently this is no longer enough, and we need more people in these subjects. But unless you do something to entice the people who are capable, but are also able to be logical about their choice, then I don't see this situation changing anytime soon.
  - geebee 15y ago
    I think we may differ about the value of a commerce or business degree vs an engineering degree. My experience is that engineering grads from top schools have a very easy time getting hired into lucrative financial or other non-engineering firms, and that business/commerce is not nearly as widely respected a major (a few notable programs aside (wharton, berkeley), most top universities don't have a business or commerce major). As for the law degree... law (at least in the US) is almost always a graduate degree, so we'd be comparing a JD with either a MS (a little shorter) or a PhD (much longer), not a BA or BS. A chem engineering grad can go to law school and will have more options than most other majors (I read somewhere that IP firms have the highest per-partner profits, and getting a job is easier as there are very few law grads with this background). Of course, the presence of lucrative professions that can be entered without these difficult undergrad degrees certainly should play into the calculation. If you can do well with a law degree regardless of major, well then why bother with something hard? Ok, so your options are slightly reduced, but as long as they're really good (and they tend to be for top law grads regardless of undergrad major), people may decide that the ROI on engineering vs economics or even art history just isn't worth it. Sounds like your buddy made this calculation and acted on it. Still, I think the picture is discouraging for PhDs in STEM fields (though better than the utter misery of PhDs in the humanities), whereas I'd still say that majoring at the undergrad level in engineering or hard science puts you in the position where you have the most options leaving college, though it is also a very difficult course of study.

by jgon 15y ago

geebee 15y ago

I completely agree that PhD programs in STEM fields have become extremely uncompetitive with the professions (a RAND study on the supposed shortage of scientists and engineers that reached the same conclusion Greenspun reaches, though with a more data driven, less anecdotal approach.) But keep in mind, we're talking about undergraduate degrees here, which is a different beast entirely. Engineering and physical science majors really do have considerably better employment prospects on average than humanities or social science majors. That said, I suppose you still have to analyze it from the perspective of a student who is sure to attend professional school. If you know you're law-school bound, you're at a reputable university, and you have high grades in humanities and the ability to ace standardized tests, you can still have a high paying career in law without ever taking a serious math class. Engineering/Sci majors are often more desirable on the way out - a law school graduate with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering has more options than one with an undergrad major in English. Considering how much harder these degrees are, it could still be rational for a student to avoid these fields even at the undergraduate level - and if they harm your GPA, it might be best to avoid them (though some admissions officials do say they discount high GPAs in "easier" majors). And even if you can hack it, you'll work a hell of a lot harder in college. But if you're willing to put in the effort and have the ability, you do improve your job prospects with an rigorous Math/Sci/Eng major over a humanities major in almost every career scenario. So on the balance, I think you can make a very strong ROI case for engineering in eng/sci/math at the undergrad level. MS, less so, but it's a short program. PhD? Well, the RAND institute already crunched the numbers better than I ever could, it's pretty hard to justify a PhD in STEM relative to the professions if you're going off career ROI.

jgon 15y ago
Thanks for the reply. I can only speak of personal experience here as I don't have the time to do any sort of rigorous analysis of the data, but I feel like greenspun's analysis is becoming more relevant even at the lower levels of post-secondary education, such as undergrad. I'll first qualify this by saying that I wasn't talking about doing an ROI comparison against humanities or social sciences. If you have a Bachelor of Arts in Renaissance History, of course your prospects are going to be worse that someone with a Biology degree. But someone with a chemistry degree is going to do much, much worse than someone with a Business or Commerce degree, and possibly even an econ degree. Engineering changes this balance somewhat as it is quite pragmatic and has a much more industrial-friendly focus to it, so yes a chemical engineer is probably going to do alright. But even then, someone smart enough to get a Chem. Eng degree is also probably smart enough to do really well with a business degree, or get a law degree, and would probably do better monetarily in either of those fields. When I was in University I watched as many of my friends and classmates made the same calculation and acted on it. The guy who lived across the hall from me in third year busted his balls to an A in quantitative chem, working through some really hard and grueling lab sessions, looked at the effort he had just put in and promptly switched majors to Commerce. 2 years later he graduated after taking a workload that allowed to network way more and find a hot girlfriend, and now works downtown for an oil company making ~120,000 at the age of 28. This is in a place where that is real money, not New York where that doesn't go far. The sciences are already basically full of people who are taking them out of love and passion for the subject, people for whom this ROI calculation is meaningless because they can't put a dollar figure on their feelings for their discipline. Apparently this is no longer enough, and we need more people in these subjects. But unless you do something to entice the people who are capable, but are also able to be logical about their choice, then I don't see this situation changing anytime soon.
- geebee 15y ago
  I think we may differ about the value of a commerce or business degree vs an engineering degree. My experience is that engineering grads from top schools have a very easy time getting hired into lucrative financial or other non-engineering firms, and that business/commerce is not nearly as widely respected a major (a few notable programs aside (wharton, berkeley), most top universities don't have a business or commerce major). As for the law degree... law (at least in the US) is almost always a graduate degree, so we'd be comparing a JD with either a MS (a little shorter) or a PhD (much longer), not a BA or BS. A chem engineering grad can go to law school and will have more options than most other majors (I read somewhere that IP firms have the highest per-partner profits, and getting a job is easier as there are very few law grads with this background). Of course, the presence of lucrative professions that can be entered without these difficult undergrad degrees certainly should play into the calculation. If you can do well with a law degree regardless of major, well then why bother with something hard? Ok, so your options are slightly reduced, but as long as they're really good (and they tend to be for top law grads regardless of undergrad major), people may decide that the ROI on engineering vs economics or even art history just isn't worth it. Sounds like your buddy made this calculation and acted on it. Still, I think the picture is discouraging for PhDs in STEM fields (though better than the utter misery of PhDs in the humanities), whereas I'd still say that majoring at the undergrad level in engineering or hard science puts you in the position where you have the most options leaving college, though it is also a very difficult course of study.