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Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs
- frantic2821 3y agoThey tend to all become BDRs or Consultants from my circles. Academia-Research trauma is tough too
- jprete 3y agoBDR?
- makk 3y agoExactly.
- ianbutler 3y agoSDR == sales development rep: inbound sales BDR == business development rep: outbound sales
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoThe jobs that AI will automate away?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- panzagl 3y agoWill AI take an oil company exec to a strip club?
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoNot yet.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> BDR Business development...representative? Role?
- archero 3y agoI wonder if some just realize that they don’t like STEM. Maybe they only studied it for family or social pressures, or they heard that engineers can get paid a lot. Anecdotally, I feel like some of my classmates had no interest in engineering. They seemed to stick around for the money or the benefits or the clout. But if landing a job in the industry became more trouble than it’s worth, I don’t see why they wouldn’t turn elsewhere.
- whispersnow 3y agoDefine “STEM” jobs
- jansan 3y agoWearing a lab coat and writing very difficult math equations and complicated lewis structures on a huge piece of acrylic glass. Everything else does not count. Joking aside, every job that requires knowledge from a STEM field that goes beyond standard high school education.
- TimTheTinker 3y agoType "STEM career poster" into Amazon. You'll get a taste of the kinds of jobs that are being promised to kids who go into STEM.
- wharvle 3y ago> The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages. I’ve long suspected that the whole “STEM” education movement is a way for big tech to attach prestige-by-association to computer nerdery that’s mostly employed to sell ads better, then use that to improve their hiring pipeline. STEM promise: progress! Science! Engineering marvels! A new age of exploration and advancement on all fronts! STEM reality: we got you to confuse an ad for a search result 0.5% more often. [EDIT] Since I seem not to have communicated it well, judging from the responses, I mean those two examples at the end as 1) What the "more STEM education!" movement was selling, by choosing to frame it that way, if not explicitly, (though, often, explicitly) and 2) What I suspect was the kind of work that the folks funding & lobbying for that movement actually had in mind. I don't mean that everyone working in tech is working on ads, as some have taken it—rather, easier hiring for that kind of work was the point of the STEM push, to the organizations largely driving it. (I strongly suspect, to be extra-clear). I think it was sold as 1 because selling 2 would have been a whole lot harder, and more-closely associating programming with those other things isn't bad PR for the industry as a whole, besides ("STEM" as a buzzword has been incredibly successful in education—a whole generation now lumps all those things together, and they're working on a second, so, mission accomplished)
- CydeWeys 3y agoCS grads are the most likely to work in their field post-graduation. It's the other majors bringing STEM down, like biology.
- Ekaros 3y agoHere in European country my understanding is even if physics is hard Science job. There really isn't much demand for it. So either you got to teaching or computers. If not later, yeah you are doing something else... Other areas can be similar.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
- devwastaken 3y agoSTEM students can't apply for internships because they are on site and will not pay for relocation, will not pay for housing, and rent leases rarely will do short durations. Most grads get those because their family+friends had the resources to help them be successfull. Living in a large city with stem jobs and having an extra room. As housing capital is squeezed so is the nation. The trend is not improving, many otherwise successfully people are or will be homeless and written off. The haves vs the have nots.
- kai_ferr 3y agoThe only one benefit of proximity between industry and education is apparent. However, the current financial burdens and stringent prerequisites render these institutions inaccessible to many. High cost of living necessitates parental intervention, often negating the possibility of self-funded students. Prudent individuals are unwilling to jeopardize five years of their life and accumulate substantial debt for a potential. This perhaps elucidates the high attrition rates among higher education students.
- lumost 3y agoaye - we've made the sciences into a bit of a hobby career, or a short career for those who want to pursue passion project for a few years. Of my physics undergrad, around 1/10th were independently wealthy - guess who is still working in physics. The rest either did it for a few years, or got the picture over the course of the undergrad. A 40k/year job is great if you are getting an additional ~120k in cash from existing investments at 22.
- chihuahua 3y agoIs Microsoft not considered STEM? They have always had a lot of interns, and the interships are paid lavishly.
- devwastaken 3y agoThe num of interns hired is very small, same as how tech has almost no scholarships.
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- mechhacker 3y agoAs a STEM working remotely in the area of this newspaper, I'd definitely consider a non-stem job that paid more than what I make working remotely...but I haven't seen an obvious opportunity like that.
- makk 3y ago[flagged]
- cpursley 3y agoFlorida is currently eating the lunch of most other states in terms of domestic migration, so while we might not check off the "elitist" boxes, we're apparently doing something right.
- panzagl 3y agoAttracting old people?
- cpursley 3y agohttps://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-people-moving-florida-home-prices-cost-of-living-2023-12#:~:text=Young%20people%20are%20flocking%20to,there%20comes%20with%20hidden%20costs.&text=People%20are%20moving%20to%20Florida,tax%2C%20and%20more%20job%20opportunities https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-people-moving-florid....
- mp05 3y agoBy now you have to know that sort of commentary is unwelcome here.
- ryandamm 3y agoThe author is a professor at UC San Diego.
- majormajor 3y agoSome of the way this is being presented makes it seem like "bad for the workers" findings, "don't study STEM after all" but this is more about "is this the best way to employ people with STEM degrees", with a central complaint being something along the lines of "innovative IC STEM work is underpaid compared to neighboring business/management-ish fields that capture a lot of graduates" > Many able STEM grads bolt for better-paying careers, especially in business, finance, management and medicine (government programs focused on STEM exclude medical practitioners and are not designed to increase those numbers). Some do find high salaries in STEM jobs, many right out of college, especially in hot fields such as AI. But STEM grads even in the most dynamic sectors, including computer science and engineering, see their salary advantage fade over time, increasing the odds that they’ll leave for greener pastures. > Employers also incentivize moves from technical work to management with higher salaries at their own firms, yet many bemoan a shortage of technical STEM workers, not managers. This article is not so much anti-education as anti-management/investor-class-incentivization.
- smarx007 3y agoI fail to see how being a software developer in a financial sector or in healthcare is not a STEM career? Equally, having many STEM professionals move to management doesn't mean that a STEM degree is oversold. There are a lot of STEM management positions where a STEM education and industrial experience are a mandatory job requirement.
- BobaFloutist 3y agoAlso "Why is the best path to a lot of non-STEM jobs to get an unrelated STEM degree, why don't jobs the primary duties of which are well covered by liberal arts (reading, writing, interpersonal communication) hire for liberal arts degrees?"
- anon291 3y ago> Employers also incentivize moves from technical work to management with higher salaries at their own firms, yet many bemoan a shortage of technical STEM workers, not managers. Well... yeah if you have X engineers in the class of 1990, then in order to continue to be able to provide STEM services at the same rate a decade after that cohort retires in 2055, you'll need X graduates in 2000. Obviously, you can't just depend on aging workers, or you'll run into the retirement and death problem and be unable to continue the endeavor. This is not unique to STEM. All industries require new workers to be produced. Humans die, retire, and move on. Without a constant supply of new workers, industries fade, inventions never happen, progress ceases. Also, a STEM manager is very much a technical worker. You have to be delusional to think you can substitute an MBA for an Engineering Manager.
- mp05 3y agoI say this with 90% sincerity: I thought this was STEAM now? But with all seriousness... I went to university out of high school in 2005 to get a mech engineering degree but never finished because I liked to party too hard and web dev was easy and paid better than most people I knew with entry-level engineering jobs. Flash forward to now as a non-trad student and I'm in my 400-level coursework. It's all easier than it was, 100%. "We only need you to pass the FE" is what they say. I'm getting a 3.7 GPA by just showing up to class and doing the homework they assign. It wasn't like that ~20 years ago. Makes me wonder about the quality of the graduates we're cranking out even at ABET-accredited schools.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> thought this was STEAM now? What's the A? EDIT: It's the arts [1]. It looks like a classical education. [1] https://theconversation.com/explainer-whats-the-difference-between-stem-and-steam-95713 https://theconversation.com/explainer-whats-the-difference-b...
- lainga 3y agoArts
- lebean 3y agoAn asinine addition to an already asinine acronym.
- mp05 3y ago> It looks like a classical education. "[...]humanities, language arts, dance, drama, music, visual arts, design and new media." I think of a classical education as debate/rhetoric, philosophy, and Greek/Latin but I went to public school so I'm just going off of hearsay.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> classical education as debate/rhetoric, philosophy, and Greek/Latin It should also include music and art, both creating and appreciating.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- LASR 3y agoThere is a huge difference between software and non-software STEM jobs. The required education/qualifications are different. The job market is different. I graduated with a degree in Engineering Physics (non-sofware). I loved writing software as a hobby, but I wanted to "change the world" working at NASA or CERN or something. In my 3rd year a FAANG offered an internship that paid better than what I would hope to make at NASA. I took it. Been in software ever since, bouncing between FAANGs and startups. I don't think I'll ever change the world. But hey, I have a family I can support. Big tech steals you away with offers you can't refuse. Basically my expected, actual diverged in this manner: Path1: Not software - Complete undergrad - Join an engineering firm - Definitely make <6-figures - Wait years before you become a professional engineer - Maybe make 6-figures Path2: Software - Maybe complete undergrad - Join a FAANG - Make 6-figures as a new grad
- torginus 3y agoIt's kinda weird that your 1%er flex of owning a home would've been absolutely unremarkable for your typical working class Joe a couple of decades ago - sign of the times I guess.
- Workaccount2 3y agoYou don't even have to finish school to out earn non-tech STEM workers.
- drngdds 3y agoI don't know how accurate/inaccurate the overall argument here is, but they're saying "STEM" a whole lot when their criticisms are pretty specifically about tech, and mostly software companies.
- tekla 3y agoProgramming is easy money, very little effort, much larger salaries.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- fhub 3y agoCensus.gov has a less opinionated article which appears to be the source. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring...
- adverbly 3y agoI can't speak to the international community at large, but at least in Canada, post-secondary education is not a stream for prospective employees to undergo training. It is a product which is marketed and sold for profit. They will enroll as many people as they can convince to apply(rate limited by how quickly they can expand infrastructure and enrollment). I remember 10 or so years ago when I was in school, if I wanted to get a real challenge when preparing for a test, I could just go back to look at exams from 10 years prior and things would be noticeably more difficult. I can't imagine things have improved significantly since then, and more likely they've gotten worse.
- gnicholas 3y agoThis may be true, but does that mean they didn't benefit from a STEM education, either because of the skills they learned, or the signaling value? I used to be a lawyer, and it was generally accepted that a student who had a STEM major would be given more leniency on GPA than other students. This was because of the perceived rigor of STEM disciplines. Applicants who were looking to work in patent law would get a boost since they would presumably know some things relevant patent cases they would be assigned to, and I don't know if this article would consider 'patent litigator' to be a STEM job. I do think that the STEM push has been a bit overdone at times, but we should still consider that people who majored in STEM may still have benefited from their degrees because it allowed them to stand out, and to learn things that are useful in some jobs that may not be considered 'STEM jobs'.
- snakeyjake 3y agoI feel like I'm living in a parallel universe. My company has approximately 1,000 open positions for engineers. Not "build a website" or "use AI to sell ads" engineer but "build a TX tuner for spaceborne synthetic aperture radar from scratch" engineer. We don't grant massive quantities of stock as part of a get rich quick lottery scheme, but I make over 3x the current US annual household income in an area where a 4 bedroom house on an acre and a half is $400k and that's enough. Anyone who thinks that isn't enough is crazy-- sociopathic, even. Maybe there's not a shortage of biology and IT skills and coding bootcamp grads but there is a shortage of people who took, and paid attention in, a linear algebra class. There is 100%, irrefutably, undoubtedly, unquestionably, a shortage of engineers. Actual engineers not "use AI to sell crypto ads" engineers.
- jiggybling 3y agoWhat's your company and how can you get experience in this kind of engineering?
- linuxftw 3y ago1000 open positions? They should hire people for work/study programs, train them, pay for their education, and then they'll have a pipeline of engineers they so desire. Unfortunately, companies think they can skip investing in their people and expect people to spend $100k+ just for the privilege of applying to some company that doesn't respect their work/life balance and wants to pay them $50k/yr to start. Hard pass.
- snakeyjake 3y agoThey should hire people for work/study programs, WE DO train them, WE DO I started over a decade ago as a technical writer and am now a senior principal engineer. pay for their education, WE DO I had to get a degree and the company paid for almost all of it. They flexed my schedule and looked the other way when I slacked off due to fatigue because I was a single parent of three daughters at the time. Any cert I want, any conference I want, any class I want- gets paid for. Gratis (except owing them time). and then they'll have a pipeline of engineers they so desire. WE DON'T Highschool work study participants are paid $34.62/hr which is $72k full time, which is just below what techs earn. College engineering interns are paid more. New hires even more. Also highschool work study participants are given full benefits. Have you ever tried to explain health insurance and 401k to a 17-year-old? Like I said, I feel like I'm living in a parallel dimension. I do not know where people work. I do know that if you're a god damned receptionist at my company or any of our competi-mates and you say "hmmm.. can I take some classes to try to get more technical" they will throw wheelbarrows full of cash at you. They will give you WAAAAAY past the non-taxable benefit for education and then give you a raise or bonus to cover the taxes.
- NanoYohaneTSU 3y agoExtremely poor journalism. Very misleading and a misunderstanding of what's actually going on. Example: "The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs." It's not 28% of all STEM grads, it's 28% of physical science STEM grads. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring-in-stem-lead-to-stem-job-after-graduation.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/06/does-majoring... I'm going to do a better job than some shmuck journo. "37% reported a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering but only 14% worked in a STEM occupation" & "About half of workers who majored in engineering (52%) or computer, mathematics, and statistics majors (51%) worked in STEM." This makes a lot of sense, about half of all STEM grads are going into STEM jobs. It's in tandem with the famous 50% of lawyers are not practicing law. I'm certain that if you started doing breakdowns of demographics you would result in it making even more sense and easily explainable.
- albrewer 3y agoI exited a traditional mechanical engineering role because 90% of my job was not engineering. I loved what I covered in undergrad, but most "engineering" jobs were 80% project management / paper shuffling / oversight, with a bit of engineering tacked on. My last job was BA/QA work at an engineering software company, and it was by far the most "engineering" I'd done at any job. Even there, though, it was only about 1/3 of my responsibilities. I got good enough at the software stuff that I qualified for a 25% pay bump by moving industries. Year for year, my software experience pays more than my engineering experience.
- syntaxing 3y agoI was a mechanical design engineer for a decade before switching to a software based role. The biggest thing to keep in mind is MechE is the paintbrush with the broadest stroke in engineering. You can work in a lot of different roles or industries. But I experience a lot of what you said but not to that extreme. I would say I did 50/50 fun stuff (engineering) vs boring stuff (project management and documentation).
- legerdemain 3y ago
- 0763e39aa 3y agoAnyone can get into a college program (and anyone does); one has to self-select into the "rigorous" fields of study to attempt to signal intelligence. What used to require a HS diploma now requires a college degree and so forth. Humanities are now just a dumping ground for morons when they used to be the smartest people on the campus.
- Animats 3y ago> Humanities are now just a dumping ground for morons when they used to be the smartest people on the campus. It's hard. An old friend of mine was a music major. Masters in music from Harvard, majoring in early music. Read and wrote Latin and Greek. Read and wrote early music notations. Could play a wide range early instruments. Never got a job that used those skills. Died recently, forgotten, in a Maryland suburb, her most visible lifetime accomplishment a book on needlework. Another, younger friend also got a music degree from an Ivy League school. But she went to work for an app toolkit startup which was acquired by Microsoft. She's done very well.
- hotpotamus 3y agoAll of us will be forgotten sooner or later, and sooner for the vast majority. While it wouldn't be for me, I can see a lifetime spent studying music would be more meaningful to some than building an app toolkit. I'm not naive enough to say that money isn't important, but it's not everything either.
- swader999 3y agoI wish more STEM grads would work in journalism.
- albrewer 3y agoThe reason they're not working in STEM jobs is due to pay, usually. Journalism famously pays poverty wages.
- nmstoker 3y agoWait till they notice what's happening with History majors
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tzs 3y ago> Their goals include reducing perceived shortages of STEM workers, boosting American innovation and competitiveness and diversifying this highly paid workforce. The message of lucrative STEM careers appears to have reached students and tuition-paying parents — the number of STEM majors has surged in recent years. > But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. Isn't that at least partly to be expected? When you have a shortage of workers in a field where it takes a fair bit of talent and years of training to do the job well and we don't have any good way to identify up front which people will be good at it the you are going to have to put more people through training that you actually need in order to get the number you need. If we decided for example that the US does not produce enough chess grandmasters probably the most effective way to increase grandmaster production would be to make chess a competitive school sport starting in elementary school and continuing through college, much like we do with football, with funding for coaches, scholarships, and all that. 99.99% of the kids who go through that would not become grandmasters, but it would greatly increase the chances that kids with the talent to become grandmasters get discovered and get the resources they need to do so. Maybe having 72% of STEM graduates (just using the article's numbers, but note that other comments have disputed those numbers) end up not going into STEM is just a reflection of how many you have to train to find the 28% that are suited for the available STEM jobs?
- karmakaze 3y agoSounds like the story about there being no devs to hire without mentioning that they want the best for predefined salary bands. Those who would meet the hiring standard find the salary doesn't meet their standard.