Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
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GandK
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by GandK »

Dragline wrote:I think people should choose college majors by what will give them some useful skills and hopefully a useful certificate within a reasonable range of their interests, since the sheepskin is what you are really paying for.
I agree with this. The current trend of using the university "experience" to self-actualize is about enriching the universities, not the students.

My advice: step away from the majors and careers paradigm for a minute, and take an inventory of what you're good at, not what you're most interested in today. Include skills like "sailing" and "writing," but also things like "conceptual thinking" and "the ability to work alone." And then look that list over for patterns, and for things you can easily monetize. Something may jump out at you.

Tyler9000
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by Tyler9000 »

@ Bizarro-Zalo:

I tend to agree with FBeyer and GandK -- If you truly want to be successful, following the same old worn road as everyone else probably isn't the best plan. Instead, take stock of your inherent skills and interests and carve out a niche in an area where you bring something new to the table.

The most important thing to remember is that a college degree is not designed to maximize your personal potential. Only you can do that. Even as useful as a STEM degree might be (I have one myself), it's still basically an industrial muffin tin and cooking process designed to churn out a consistent baked good for industry consumption. Unless you proactively supplement it to cater to your personal strengths and goals, it's more likely to let you down than to set you on the guaranteed road to happiness.

I always looked at my education and series of different jobs as building my personal marketing story that made me as attractive and well-rounded as possible in my ultimate goal -- making cool stuff.

chicago81
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by chicago81 »

Sclass wrote: Marisa Mayer said in an interview that she polled Google programmers and found 98% had exposure to computers before high school. Her conclusion (perhaps wrongheaded) was if you want to be a programmer at Google you want to get introduced to computer systems as a kid. What I think is really going on is a certain type of kid gets interested in this kind of thing and obsessively puts in the time required to get his 10,000 hours of practice to gain some proficiency. My feeling is you don't become that kind of person at age 19 when you look down a list of majors and declare one.

So I see a lot of young humanities majors or business majors around me complaining they cannot get a living wage if they cannot be info tech types. I hear regrets. But I don't think many of these folks understand [they were never in the race from the get go.
I couldn't agree more with this. I have a CS degree, and I was using computers from a very young age -- because I found it interesting and challenging. I can't even count how many people I knew at the university who studied CS in the mid-00's because they thought it was the ticket to get rich (even though they had no interest in the topic.) Hardly any of those people made it through to graduation, and even fewer ended up with a job right out of school.

Scott 2
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by Scott 2 »

You've earned freedom by learning how money works. Don't refasten the shackles trying to maximize the monetary value of your life.

Stem majors are paid well, because the people who are wired to thrive while doing it are rare. Everyone else in the field hates it. They do their damnedest to derive identity outside of work, and would run if not for the pay. You don't have to be one of them. That's great news.

If you must, pick up a couple of CS classes this year. Tick a CS or MIS style minor if you can. Look for a tech job at a large company with diversity requirements. I bet you find something pretty easily.

jacob
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by jacob »

Fully agree that if you haven't loved or don't love(*) STEM to the point of doing it to the exclusion of almost everything else such as silly but cool things like going to parties (LAN parties are okay though), watching football, kissing girls or boys, ... don't bother. You're not expending nearly enough mental fuel on this to be competitive to make it worth bothering.

(*) And by love I mean you're willing to work yourself into an early death for it if it has to come to that.

However, if you have some small interest in STEM, you could make a fairly lucrative career out of connecting the obsessive nerds with "normal humans" working in software sales, software consulting, tech support, or managing.

If I had to divide my fellow STEM students into groups, here's how my physics class of 1997-2004 (BS to PhD) has turned out so far:
Top of the class believers: perma-postdocs and professors
Bottom of the class believers: highschool teachers
Top of the class nonbelievers: renegade pf bloggers(*), six-sigma belt managers
Bottom of the class nonbelievers: small industry staff scientists, software sales consultants

(*) Yeah, that guy! Always an embarrassment when placement is discussed.

Incidentally, top/bottom was established within 3 months of freshman classes. Faith or the abandonment thereof happened several years into the studies.

TopHatFox
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by TopHatFox »

Sclass wrote:(specifically you Olaz...what happened to Zalo anyway?
I spelled it backwards for greater search engine privacy if someone googles my full name. I suppose it'd be a good idea to write it olaZ instead of Olaz so that's more clear. Maybe Jacob would be willing to help one more time? :D

KevinW
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by KevinW »

This is somewhat redundant with the excellent posts above, but I'll weigh in anyway.

There is a common omitted variable bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding) that causes people to believe that "CS degree implies high salary." Actually, "excellent programming skills implies high salary" and "applied computer science implies high salary". Good programmers are in demand regardless of credentials. And people with the aptitude, interest, and dedication to master conceptual CS (which is distinct from programming) are also in demand.

But there are all these statistics floating around that say that CS degrees are correlated with good employment outcomes. So people with no real interest or aptitude for CS sign up and try to coast, grade-grub, and cheat their way to a degree, thinking that the diploma is a golden ticket. It's not. It's the skills and knowledge, and willingness to do a lot of work with them, that are valuable in the job market. The coasters tend to flunk out, or barely graduate and then be unable to land a job. And frankly they were annoying to those of us that were sincerely interested in doing a deep dive into the material. I suspect the poor statistics in UK come from a glut of these sorts of graduates.

As a rule, the CS majors that excelled after college had a sincere interest in programming, or something else involving computational thinking, before college. That interest made it fun to put in many long hours cultivating hard-won skills. It's not a matter of stuff coming easily, but rather an inclination to excel at something that most people find boring and discouraging. This is where Meyers' 98% figure comes from. Personally, I was coding at 7 and had put in my 10,000 hours long before college.

Making code work involves getting something objectively wrong a few hundred times before it finally works. Code, test, wrong, fix; repeated dozens of times. Few people have the combination of humility, obsessiveness, and patience necessary to do that for hours on end. I think "teach to the test" and "everyone gets a medal" is making this worse. People have a thin skin about being told they're wrong, and can't handle a situation where there is no answer book and you just have to think harder until you solve the puzzle.

So, friend Olaz, I tend to think a CS major would not be a great fit for you. The fact that you don't have a history of intrinsic interest is a red flag. The fact that you took one CS course and disliked it is another. Your posting patterns make me think that you are a lateral thinker that likes to talk things out with other people; not someone who enjoys grinding away on a logic puzzle that no one else cares about solely for the satisfaction of eventually solving it on your own.

As others said, I'd caution against thinking in terms of proscribed "major -> job -> career -> salary" paths. That's an old economy, salary man, system that seems to be dying. Instead, figure out what your goals and distinct strengths are, and then choose whichever major (or other plan) advances those the best. That's more of a renaissance man approach, that I expect will be more robust in the globalized job market, and more personally satisfying.

FBeyer
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by FBeyer »

I always tell my colleagues about programming: If you aren't stuck on something, you're not working fast enough.(*)


(*) Or just compiling

plantingourpennies
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by plantingourpennies »

Short answer-no, you didn't.

Achieving a good work/life balance while saving for FI can be done with any sort of degree. I have a Philosophy degree and will be FIRE in two years (at 35). If I was as skilled/intelligent/capable as the other people on this forum I could pull the cord tomorrow.

What others said about your lateral thinking can pay off very well in other areas. I found my "niche" in sales training, but before that I was in B2B sales, tried to buy a business, start a business, worked as a roofer, at a auto parts counter, and a few retail jobs. What finally worked was taking incremental steps towards my goal (even if the goal itself wasn't fully formed in my mind before I found Jacob's writings), even if many of those steps felt lateral at the time.

KevinW
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by KevinW »

@FBeyer
Ha!

BlueNote
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by BlueNote »

I studied computer programming in college in Canada. The Canadian college system is the equivalent of community college or technical school in some other countries (sort of between university and high school academically). It was hard but I enjoyed coding and didn't mind the iteration required to produce good programs. I then went to University for comp sci and I was overwhelmed by the math requirements because I had to cram in a couple of years of University level math in one year. I switched to a business degree and it was,relatively speaking, really easy. I had a job doing tech support on the side that paid the rent and I graduated near the top of my class. The hardest math I had to learn was some basic calculus for an economics class. I had an apartment and lived with my G/F. I had an active social life and I partied. OTOH I would have been lucky to be in the top 50% of my University comp sci classes and even that would have meant relentless 12-16 hour days of studying to have gotten up the curve. After getting my degree I kind of felt like a fake because I knew that the STEM people worked much harder but weren't eligible for the accolades and scholarships I was because their standards were much higher then the ones set for me. I have a lot of respect for people with STEM degrees. So take a STEM degree if you are really good at it and you really like it and you're ready to trade off some social/personal time.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by Kriegsspiel »

If you do not major in computer science, how will we progress as a culture? Will we always have to come up with 140 characters of thoughts?

BRUTE
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by BRUTE »

Kriegsspiel wrote:If you do not major in computer science, how will we progress as a culture? Will we always have to come up with 140 characters of thoughts?
easy to make fun of, but where would humanity be without 140 character tweets? brute thinks of all the children in Africa that couldn't tweet, or all the underprivileged hungry poor inner city kids that couldn't tweet. there's a billion children in China that can tweet now, after not being able to their whole lives.

won't anyone please tweet about the children?!

Kriegsspiel
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by Kriegsspiel »

If someone did decide to go on living in this pathetic, Twitterless hell you describe, I guess they could lead a worthwhile life putting pokemons, and their enslavers, in my way everywhere.

Scott 2
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by Scott 2 »

My experience in CS was different than some are describing. I am one of the (un)lucky ones who is just wired for it. The math came readily. My final year, I took 75% major classes. I doubt I spent even 40 hours a week on school. I coasted to A's. It all seemed both interesting and obvious - "oh, so that's what I type..." I switched into the major my junior year, because it was the easiest path to graduate.

I didn't recognize it at the time (I assumed everyone was having the same experience, I didn't go to class...), but I had the dumb luck to pick something I have an aptitude for. I've since had plenty of experience failing at other things - the unlucky part of my wiring. Success in life is so much easier if you play your strengths.

BRUTE
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by BRUTE »

;)

enigmaT120
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by enigmaT120 »

I was doing fine in cs, until I foolishly took a chemistry class. The real world sucked me in, though I still found a minor in math.

Scott 2
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by Scott 2 »

Organic chemistry made my choice to switch into CS even easier. I dropped it after the first week and can't say I ever regretted the decision.

The real world is too damn complicated.

slowtraveler
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by slowtraveler »

Great thread. I have to reply because I'm where it sounds you wish you had started- I'm majoring in CS... and highly doubting it. I have an aptitude for learning many new things- part of why FI appeals so much to me.

I finished all my lower division for Biology so I have all the math, chemistry, physics, ge finished and when I realized Bio majors get few job opps with horrible pay, I jumped to what had the best pay and job opportunities. I dread every class, though I've gotten straight A's in my 2 computer classes so far. I'd enjoy more time and easier classes. I don't enjoy CS much until I have the aha of how the program I'm writing is supposed to work and oscillate between agony when I'm stuck and bliss when it runs. I'm able to tinker till I figure it out but it's no cake walk-couldn't imagine working 60 hour weeks doing this stuff.

I think you dodged a bullet by not doing CS, if it's not in your aptitude, good luck trying to force it and compete with all the enthusiasts who can't wait to binge code all weekend. I'd rather read about FI or hike with friends.

I'm considering Econ for a financial analyst or budget analyst-good pay and they at least sound fun without as much forcing of my nature.

Did I fuck up by not going into Econ? :lol:
Last edited by slowtraveler on Tue Oct 11, 2016 1:58 am, edited 2 times in total.

singvestor
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Re: Did I fuck up by not majoring in Computer Science? STEM Vs. Liberal Arts

Post by singvestor »

Studied political science in a very unimportant European university and broke through the USD 100k/year barrier 6 years after graduation. I would not get too hung up on the field of study but rather find your niche and acquire additional skills.

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