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Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

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Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#71

Post by chrisseaton »

chvid wrote: post #40
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…

The premier minister of Singapore is a computer scientist ... (Though that might not be his primary qualification.)

But he mainly had a career as a military officer. He gets his social status from that, not from being a computer scientist.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#72

Post by tosser0001 »

The problem is CS is just a miserable field to be in unless you really, really enjoy the grind of it.

To me it comes down to some CS-specific version of Mike Tyson's (perhaps apocryphal) quote "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" - something along the lines of "Everyone has fun programming until they have to start debugging".

My city has several years of programming courses at the high school. A lot of kids sign up for the first year but the numbers rapidly fall off. They start the kids off with the basics and doing simple programming exercises. Generally they have fun while they are being successful getting boxes and lines to appear on the screen, but as soon as things get the slightest bit complicated and the students get into the weeds of debugging the enthusiasm dissipates pretty quickly.

It's not that most of these kids don't have the intelligence to tackle it if they wanted to; they personally just don't find it fun at all.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#73

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

silveroriole wrote: post #62
ghaff wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have heard of and will probably be at least mildly impressed by the big consumer-facing FAANGs plus maybe a few others like Microsoft, IBM, etc.. But Oracle, Salesforce, SAP (to say nothing of a myriad of other software and hardware companies)? The average person hasn't even heard of most of them.

And if they have heard of them it’ll be like “oh, [software], that thing the data entry guy uses? Cool, I guess...” I mean, how impressed would you be meeting a guy who works at a big office supply company? Most software, to the users, is equivalent to other basic office tools like pens and staplers (except more frustrating to use). It doesn’t exactly have that wow factor.

Hah that's if you're lucky.

Most of the time when someone says they work at SAP or Oracle they get a "God I hate SAP" because they're using a GUI from 1990 that looks like ass and is not intuitive.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#74

Post by conjectures »

chrisseaton wrote: post #4

I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…

Mostly agree, but politics is hardly chock-full of other STEM graduates. PPE, history and law:

https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media/

(The civil service is stuffed with PPE grads too.)

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#75

Post by buran77 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #53
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…

I am not even mad that the social status is zero to be honest, but I think you are completely correct. People do think that I am rich and can do math though, but that is about it. I think my education was horizontal enough to have an opinion to things outside my field too, but it is generally disregarded because I am just the computer guy. I know more about medicine than the common doctor knows about computers though…

I think you hit the nail on the head. On one hand so many successful IT people have no formal CS training or related degrees, which is less likely in other fields. This is exactly how a lot of people end up being good in this field. The barrier for entry is low so people get to hone their skills while doing the work. Compare this to medical doctors where the barrier for entry is years and years of study, making it more exclusive, even if not completely related to actual skill.

So it's easy to assume IT requires less skill, it's accessible to anyone. Since everybody has some knowledge of computers, they keep their computer chugging along, they assume IT is that just at a slightly higher level. They know enough to form an opinion but not enough for a good opinion. This leads to plenty of misconceptions like thinking game testers spend their days playing games and having fun, sysadmins reboot machines and reinstall some software, etc. (some, in all honesty, aren't that far from the truth :D).

An IT job is probably seen like a mechanic's, the kind of job people can't live without, can't do themselves, and will never really appreciate or hold in high regard. IT is the blue-collar of white-collar working.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#76

Post by Lammy »

chrisseaton wrote: post #4

I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…

I don't need the validation of corrupt and incognizant meatspace organizations to justify my love and respect for computers and computer science. The only winning move is not to play :)

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#77

Post by arethuza »

tosser0001 wrote: post #72

The problem is CS is just a miserable field to be in unless you really, really enjoy the grind of it. To me it comes down to some CS-specific version of Mike Tyson's (perhaps apocryphal) quote "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" - something along the lines of "Everyone has fun programming until they have to start debugging". My city has several years of programming courses at the high school. A…

An an aside: I would say debugging is one of my favourite bits of programming!

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#78

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

silveroriole wrote: post #29
chrisseaton wrote: post #4

I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…

You’re right. I went to a slightly posh school and my parents actually got commiserations that I was going on to study comp sci. “I.T.” is still not a high status field in the LEAST in the UK. It went down like telling people I was going to drop out and become a mechanic (not that there’s anything wrong with that either, but it’s all about the perceived status of the field).

The UK - especially the UK Establishment - is spectacularly clueless about STEM.

When I did my EE degree a friend of the family was pleased that I'd be able to use my Honours Degree and mathematical insight into Maxwell's Equations to get a good job as a TV repairman.

There's a strong class bias against people who do things. The class ideal is someone who owns things and tells others what to do in broad terms ("business strategy") and then leaves the little people to fill in the details.

One of these people asked me to contribute to a course in iOS app development. There was a lot of fluff about work ethic and marketing, and then I was supposed to come in for half a day at the end and explain to a room full of teenagers who had never done any programming of any kind how to build a complete working iOS app - "Something simple, like a map of house prices in the UK, or something like that."

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#79

Post by christiansakai »

cs702 wrote: post #51

There's one other possible, additional reason. I recently asked a 17-year-old high school senior who is heading to college what she's planning to study, and she said it would be mathematics, biomedical engineering, or some other kind of engineering. She's self-motivated -- says she will be studying multi-variate calculus, PDEs, and abstract algebra on her own this summer. She maxed out her high school math curriculum…

I don't understand where did this perspective come from? Is it from movies? I've been in this field for 6 years now, and I never encountered the stereotypical nerd in this field whatsoever. Not during my CS course not during my career.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)

#80

Post by deeg »

cs702 wrote: post #51

There's one other possible, additional reason. I recently asked a 17-year-old high school senior who is heading to college what she's planning to study, and she said it would be mathematics, biomedical engineering, or some other kind of engineering. She's self-motivated -- says she will be studying multi-variate calculus, PDEs, and abstract algebra on her own this summer. She maxed out her high school math curriculum…

My niece had almost the exact same opinion despite having multiple family members who didn't fit that description, including her mother! It wasn't until I introduced her to some of my younger female co-workers that she committed to being a CS major. She's now a third generation software engineer, which has to be fairly unique.
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