Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by jkire » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

FWIW I've been coding since my early teens and enjoyed it a lot, but when it came to university (in 2009) I had very little interest in doing a CS degree and instead opted for Maths. The two main reasons were: a) I knew that doing Maths instead of CS wasn't really going to hinder my job prospects in any way, and b) CS sounded a lot drier and had fewer options and choices than the Maths degree (in the UK you apply for the course and you generally don't do anything from other courses, so your choice matters a lot).

The first point I think has born out fairly well, even if it was probably a bit arrogant. Certainly when I'm interviewing grads I'm not actually that interested in if they did a CS degree (though that might be more because I didn't do one...). We don't really do early stage training so we're looking for evidence that the grads can actually code, whether its by pair programming, via questions or looking at personal projects, etc, its the people who have done it as a hobby that tend to shine there.

The second point is highly subjective and obviously quite personal, but equally if people know they can get into software engineering without a CS degree then I think they're more likely to do a course that really interests them. After all, if you it doesn't effect your job prospects that much then why wouldn't you? There is a fair argument to be said that the industry should be better at hiring CS and code camp graduates and doing on the job training, but that's not where we're at currently, alas.

If anything I tend to view CS as the academic arm, and software engineering as the practical/vocational arm. In the same way e.g. law works (at least in the UK), where actually most lawyers haven't done law as their first degree and do a conversion course after instead (often getting a contract before doing the conversion cause and then having the firm fund it). Really, its the classic argument about how much university degrees should be academic vs vocational.

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

#102

Post by marcus_holmes » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #78

silveroriole wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ("busin…

I think it's because they can't relate. If I had a degree in English, then there could be a conversation about all sorts of things.

But I work "in computers", and the only thing to talk about is "so, my computer has started making this funny noise..."

I find the same bias against people who do things in work life too. I have an MBA, but routinely find myself marginalised in meetings because I code. Somehow the guy from Sales who doesn't understand how the product works has a more respected opinion on our market strategy than the guy with the MBA who literally understands everything about both the market and the product (because I designed the product to meet the market). It's frustrating.

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

#103

Post by jatinshah » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

It's more to do with existentialist crisis of computer science education, not status or pay for computer science grads.

Computing has become a part of every major industry and computer science by itself is closer to applied math and such fields, valuable but by itself not very useful.

Most professionals in most industries need to know quite a bit of computing skills to be effective.

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

#104

Post by tim58 » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #64

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…

That pretty much lays out one of the more standard explanations for why more women don't go into CS. Things arguably changed in the early 80s with the rise of PCs and gaming. While programming certainly existed before that, it wasn't something that most kids were exposed to in high school and CS curricula in general were heavily theory oriented and often in the Math department. Today, if you want to be a mechanical e…

> Whereas, a lot of CS curricula today at least implicitly assume that you're comfortable with computer command lines, basic programming, etc. And, if not, you'd better get up to speed in a big hurry.

I graduated a CS program in 2013. In my program there was no assumption of familiarity with the command line. I specifically remember several lectures about how to navigate a file tree on a command line, how to run programs on a command line, what STDIN and STDOUT were, what pipes were, etc.

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

#105

Post by lammalamma25 » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

This isn't a full explanation, but might be worth thinking about. CS bachelor's education track is unique enough it is hard to switch into. If you are electrical/mechanical/aerospace engineering you're taking a lot of the same classes until your 3 year or so. You can change your mind and switch majors within the hard engineering fields. It is similar if you want to switch from biology to chemistry etc. At least in my experience a CS degree starts and ends there. If you want to switch into CS you almost have to start your courses over unless you were computer engineering. So out of the average % of students switching majors, some switch out of CS, but very few switch into it.

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

#106

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

misja111 wrote: post #6

The author notices that the nr of bachelor degrees went down every year from 2005 until 2014, at which year it went up again. It takes 4 to 5 years from the moment of choosing your study until earning your degree. That means relatively many people chose a CS study in 2000 and also in 2009. I guess the explanation for 2000 is that the dotcom bubble was still alive and well, the explanation for the popularity of 2009 m…

>I guess the explanation for 2000 is that the dotcom bubble was still alive and well,

Storm clouds were on the horizon by late in 2000. But there was probably some delay, even maybe post 9/11, until the full scope of the carnage was obvious--and by then most students who entered in 2000 or even 2001 were more or less committed.

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

#107

Post by drewg123 » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

non-entity wrote: post #59

Spooky23 wrote: post #32

Easy. The educational aspect is pretty awful. And after you get through that, the big companies treat you like a leper unless you went through a few chosen schools. I went to a big state school in the 90s. The first two years were a hazing, with a brutal curve designed to drop class size from 1000+ (CSI 200) to about 80 graduates. It was sink or swim and awarded grit. The only major worse was biology where organic ch…

> the big companies treat you like a leper unless you went through a few chosen schools. I was under the impression that they didnt care about your background, but you had to slave away on leetcode to have a chance to pass the interviews.

I agree with the GP. I had a similar experience at SUNY Buffalo in around the same time.

I terms of working for a FAANG, in order to pass the interview, you have to first get the interview. If you attend Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, etc, FAANG's will have career fair booths, and lots of other opportunity for internships and networking. You will be at the top of the pile and you're almost guaranteed a look.

Contrast that to attending a school like SUNY Buffalo. FAANGs don't generally recruit from schools like that. When I worked for Google, I offered to help with recruiting from SUNY Buffalo (which they called a "long tail" school). Their response was, rather than send people to the school, they set up a giant hangouts/meet video chat with auditoriums of kids from 4 different schools. The especially irritating thing to me was that my alma mater was not even included in the session that I led.

I think this sucks because I went to SUNY Buffalo because they offered me a much, much better deal financially than the "elite" schools did. I could have attended one of the favored few, but decided that I'd rather graduate without massive debt. Some of the smartest people I know I met there. They definitely weren't the rule, but a lot went on to get PhD's from places like Stanford and Caltech. So its not like big state schools have no qualified candidates. Its just hard to get the FAANGs to see that.

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

#108

Post by _wldu » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

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…

This is why I got a BA (liberal arts and sciences) and a MS in CS. I wanted a traditional, classical university education not just a CS degree. I did not want to be stereotyped.

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

#109

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

lammalamma25 wrote: post #105

This isn't a full explanation, but might be worth thinking about. CS bachelor's education track is unique enough it is hard to switch into. If you are electrical/mechanical/aerospace engineering you're taking a lot of the same classes until your 3 year or so. You can change your mind and switch majors within the hard engineering fields. It is similar if you want to switch from biology to chemistry etc. At least in my…

Electrical is fairly different from mechanical. Mechanical engineers do take some electrical engineering (and there are analogs between the two fields in areas like system dynamics although the examples are different) but there's quite a bit of fairly early-on coursework about fluids, material behavior, mechanical design, etc. Mechanical is closely related to aero and ocean but not so much electrical. (At least beyond basic core physics, calculus, etc.)

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

#110

Post by squeaky-clean » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

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…

> Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody.

Not true at all. They get excited because you can build their amazing app idea. It's just like facebook but for... Oh no, you won't? Oh okay. Well let me give you my card in case you change your mind.