5 ms·

How about "Possibly, they see people making ridiculous amounts of money in tech and want a piece of it?"

smoyer 12y ago
When I started college in 1982 as a CS/EE double major, the big-money major was petroleum engineering. If I remember correctly, they lost a lot of people who had done well in high-school when they hit the calculus for engineers classes.
- Roboprog 12y ago
  Similarly, when I started in '83, we had a bunch of gonna-be computer scientists at my school. I think about half of those people were gone a year later. What I don't know is if the proportion of people who stick with it is about the same from year to year, or if the years with massive enrollment increases have much higher attrition rates. Alas, that graph shows a big peak of CS graduates around 86/87 or so. I didn't get out until 88, after the wave - and the 87 market crash-let. I had to work too much to do my upper division work in 2 years, so it took me 3 - but I got to learn "dBASE" in my intern-like job, which was largely obsolete by the time I finished school. Glad we learned some C in school (even if I liked Pascal better).
- RKoutnik 12y ago
  It's just the same now with CS. We lost 75% of CS prospects in the first semester, almost all of them due to Calculus (although I think some of them came in with the malformed idea that programming was just like video games). I kept in contact with some of the folks who dropped out or switched majors - they're working at convenience stores and the like.
hkmurakami 12y ago
See business school graduate placement numbers too. Declines in finance and huge upswing in tech (particularly the huge web software companies) Follow the money! (I think it's wise for students to be doing this.)
- phaus 12y ago
  The big money is still in finance, unless you manage to build a successful business.
  - patio11 12y ago
    There now exist options in engineering which are comparable with those in finance, and importantly, there is now a credible case that engineering is one of the best median outcome career paths for a bright student who is willing to push whatever lever and turn whatever knob required to get to professional success. Stanford undergrads with their degrees still wet are getting $1X0,000 offers from AmaGooFaceSoft. That's roughly comparable to management consulting or the anticipated returns to early-career finance majors. When I graduated, back in the mists of history in 2004, you'd be crazy to assume that a 5th year engineer salary package would be approaching $300k. There was a huge salary gap in finance's favor on day one, it got bigger every year, and it exploded once the financiers started to hit their 30s. That gap has narrowed considerably, at least for folks on that trajectory in their 20s. (I'll confess to not having a great understanding of what it looks like to be a 32 year old at Google. I mean, any 32 year old at Google who was with them in 2004 is now a multimillionaire several times over, but I don't know what the reasonable modeling is for expectations for being 32 in 2024.) The folks who think they're going to be in the top 10th of engineers AmaGooFaceSoft hire this year in terms of career success 10 years out now have a reasonable expectation that that will be as lucrative as a top 10th finance career.
    - hkmurakami 12y ago
      The gap is closing for the first few years of engineering vs finance (first 3 years of comp in finance is definitely a lot lower now vs 2007, whereas first 3 years of comp at GOOG post 2009 has exploded), but the gap grows as you approach your mid 30's. When you're getting to $300k at GOOG, your buddy is over $500k at GS as a VP (VP is middle managemnt in high finance and iirc the high fliers get there in 6 years). Fast forward a few more years, and you're making $500k at GOOG and the buddy is well over $1MM. The gap will continue to grow in size exponentially thereafter. I guess $300k vs $500k is much improved compared to $1X0k vs $500k that we would have been looking at a decade ago though :P In addition, perhaps the parity is better when you compare median results rather than upper quintiles. Btw, first year management consultants make nowhere close to $100k (though they can make up for it with Starwood points and frequent flier miles on United -- no joke). You'll only top $100k once you're an associate, which is after your 2+2 (2 years as an analyst, 2 years of bschool). Only 3-5% of the analyst class goes straight to associate. Students who enter as an analyst are doing it primarily for the great education and training McK/BCG/Bain give you, and definitely aren't making the choice based on monetary incentives.
lukasm 12y ago
I've seen a few surveys claiming that money is 1st motivator. People are attracted to high paying jobs not only for a financial gain. It's a signal that employer cares and other good people will be there.
- tomp 12y ago
  If that's the signal, it's not a very good signal. Finance jobs can be horrible, they don't care for you (they literally let you die), they only care for the top performers who then get promoted in a few years.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- asdfologist 12y ago
  I think it's a lousy signal if you don't at least control for location, job function, and working hours.
  - lukasm 12y ago
    It's not a first pass filter, but if you remove obviously bad it's pretty good.
mvzink 12y ago
True. However, as a graduating CS major, almost every non-CS major I know here and at other schools has taken some programming-focused class or done Codecademy or something. Few if any are looking for what we might think of as "tech" jobs, or are motivated primarily by any promise of money. I can anecdotally attest to the fact that all the reasons listed by the author are playing a significant role. (As a side note, a fair number of the people I know who are doing straight up startup-style "tech" jobs after graduation aren't even CS majors.)
lukeholder 12y ago
Could you please forward me jobs advertised that have the real possibility of "ridiculous amounts of money"? All the programming jobs I see are about 90k?
- jotux 12y ago
  Compared to the median income for most of the US ($40-$50k/year), $90k for a new grad is pretty high.
  - randomdata 12y ago
    Not to mention that $50K is the median household income. Individuals earn even less, on average.
    - codesuela 12y ago
      this is a perfect illustration of why people protest the Google Shuttles in SF
      - VMG 12y ago
        and the Google Shuttle is an illustration of what a CS education is good for
      - pekk 12y ago
        What? Google has the right to rent a bus as much as its employees have the right to pay for taxis. Or their own cars.
      - obstacle1 12y ago
        Perhaps if those folks spent their time learning CS instead of protesting, they could actually ride the shuttle.
      - ryanpardieck 12y ago
        I thought the further-up comment--where the poster apparently didn't realize that many would see 90K as quite a lot of money--was a better example of this.

When I started college in 1982 as a CS/EE double major, the big-money major was petroleum engineering. If I remember correctly, they lost a lot of people who had done well in high-school when they hit the calculus for engineers classes.

Roboprog 12y ago
Similarly, when I started in '83, we had a bunch of gonna-be computer scientists at my school. I think about half of those people were gone a year later. What I don't know is if the proportion of people who stick with it is about the same from year to year, or if the years with massive enrollment increases have much higher attrition rates. Alas, that graph shows a big peak of CS graduates around 86/87 or so. I didn't get out until 88, after the wave - and the 87 market crash-let. I had to work too much to do my upper division work in 2 years, so it took me 3 - but I got to learn "dBASE" in my intern-like job, which was largely obsolete by the time I finished school. Glad we learned some C in school (even if I liked Pascal better).
RKoutnik 12y ago
It's just the same now with CS. We lost 75% of CS prospects in the first semester, almost all of them due to Calculus (although I think some of them came in with the malformed idea that programming was just like video games). I kept in contact with some of the folks who dropped out or switched majors - they're working at convenience stores and the like.

hkmurakami 12y ago

See business school graduate placement numbers too. Declines in finance and huge upswing in tech (particularly the huge web software companies) Follow the money! (I think it's wise for students to be doing this.)

phaus 12y ago
The big money is still in finance, unless you manage to build a successful business.
- patio11 12y ago
  There now exist options in engineering which are comparable with those in finance, and importantly, there is now a credible case that engineering is one of the best median outcome career paths for a bright student who is willing to push whatever lever and turn whatever knob required to get to professional success. Stanford undergrads with their degrees still wet are getting $1X0,000 offers from AmaGooFaceSoft. That's roughly comparable to management consulting or the anticipated returns to early-career finance majors. When I graduated, back in the mists of history in 2004, you'd be crazy to assume that a 5th year engineer salary package would be approaching $300k. There was a huge salary gap in finance's favor on day one, it got bigger every year, and it exploded once the financiers started to hit their 30s. That gap has narrowed considerably, at least for folks on that trajectory in their 20s. (I'll confess to not having a great understanding of what it looks like to be a 32 year old at Google. I mean, any 32 year old at Google who was with them in 2004 is now a multimillionaire several times over, but I don't know what the reasonable modeling is for expectations for being 32 in 2024.) The folks who think they're going to be in the top 10th of engineers AmaGooFaceSoft hire this year in terms of career success 10 years out now have a reasonable expectation that that will be as lucrative as a top 10th finance career.
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    The gap is closing for the first few years of engineering vs finance (first 3 years of comp in finance is definitely a lot lower now vs 2007, whereas first 3 years of comp at GOOG post 2009 has exploded), but the gap grows as you approach your mid 30's. When you're getting to $300k at GOOG, your buddy is over $500k at GS as a VP (VP is middle managemnt in high finance and iirc the high fliers get there in 6 years). Fast forward a few more years, and you're making $500k at GOOG and the buddy is well over $1MM. The gap will continue to grow in size exponentially thereafter. I guess $300k vs $500k is much improved compared to $1X0k vs $500k that we would have been looking at a decade ago though :P In addition, perhaps the parity is better when you compare median results rather than upper quintiles. Btw, first year management consultants make nowhere close to $100k (though they can make up for it with Starwood points and frequent flier miles on United -- no joke). You'll only top $100k once you're an associate, which is after your 2+2 (2 years as an analyst, 2 years of bschool). Only 3-5% of the analyst class goes straight to associate. Students who enter as an analyst are doing it primarily for the great education and training McK/BCG/Bain give you, and definitely aren't making the choice based on monetary incentives.

lukasm 12y ago

I've seen a few surveys claiming that money is 1st motivator. People are attracted to high paying jobs not only for a financial gain. It's a signal that employer cares and other good people will be there.

tomp 12y ago
If that's the signal, it's not a very good signal. Finance jobs can be horrible, they don't care for you (they literally let you die), they only care for the top performers who then get promoted in a few years.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
asdfologist 12y ago
I think it's a lousy signal if you don't at least control for location, job function, and working hours.
- lukasm 12y ago
  It's not a first pass filter, but if you remove obviously bad it's pretty good.

mvzink 12y ago

True. However, as a graduating CS major, almost every non-CS major I know here and at other schools has taken some programming-focused class or done Codecademy or something. Few if any are looking for what we might think of as "tech" jobs, or are motivated primarily by any promise of money. I can anecdotally attest to the fact that all the reasons listed by the author are playing a significant role. (As a side note, a fair number of the people I know who are doing straight up startup-style "tech" jobs after graduation aren't even CS majors.)

lukeholder 12y ago

Could you please forward me jobs advertised that have the real possibility of "ridiculous amounts of money"? All the programming jobs I see are about 90k?

jotux 12y ago
Compared to the median income for most of the US ($40-$50k/year), $90k for a new grad is pretty high.
- randomdata 12y ago
  Not to mention that $50K is the median household income. Individuals earn even less, on average.
  - codesuela 12y ago
    this is a perfect illustration of why people protest the Google Shuttles in SF
    - VMG 12y ago
      and the Google Shuttle is an illustration of what a CS education is good for
    - pekk 12y ago
      What? Google has the right to rent a bus as much as its employees have the right to pay for taxis. Or their own cars.
    - obstacle1 12y ago
      Perhaps if those folks spent their time learning CS instead of protesting, they could actually ride the shuttle.
    - ryanpardieck 12y ago
      I thought the further-up comment--where the poster apparently didn't realize that many would see 90K as quite a lot of money--was a better example of this.