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Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

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Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#121

Post by eastbound »

wharvle wrote: post #50
CydeWeys wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CS grads are the most likely to work in their field post-graduation. It's the other majors bringing STEM down, like biology.

That's my point, and why I quoted that part. The only bit of this that needed some kind of big training push was computer nerdery, and that, mostly for selling ads better. Putting that under the "STEM" umbrella gave that crap an association with, you know, things that actually matter, which made selling it easier and generally raised CS' prestige (in a PR-campaign sort of way).

I’m sorry but B2C startups are an anomaly in the overall history of IT. I agree it’s a sad turn of events but IT is way bigger. Banks, accounting, industry, military, maps, GPS, health, and infinite ways it helps humans. Selling ads was only a way to monetize, and Google is tanking like the Titanic since ChatGPT arrived (at least its 7 tanks are pierced, but the captain said to not evacuate), and most platforms even have a non-ads way to monetize, although the real price is high (Facebook $16, Netflix, Twitter, etc.).

It is very possible, with the post-covid changes, that platforms become paid-for and that there is much less of a focus on dark patterns in the future.

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#122

Post by Animats »

0763e39aa wrote: post #89

Anyone 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.

> 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.

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#124

Post by wharvle »

lolinder wrote: post #100
wharvle wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge market distortions can come from a small absolute proportion of the market. Say, those with spying-advertising money-spigots. Nothing I wrote contradicts what you've written—rather, and the phenomenon paying incredible wages to capture the top talent—so, those with both a lot to gain from improving labor supply— and the coincidence of having a whole lot of money to fund PR and lobbying pushes to get more grads i…

It's a nice theory, but do you have any evidence for it at all? STEM is a new acronym, but the same line has been being pushed ever since Sputnik. What makes you think that this new version is suddenly ad tech and not just a continuation of the same old national security concerns that it's been about for generations?

1) The timing of when the term and the push for more "STEM" education got a huge boost and became far more prominent (again—you're right that there was another freak-out over science and math education during the space race, fizzling out a bit when it became tied to the disastrous "New Math" approach). Having some insight into the education side of things, the sudden renewed vigor in that movement always struck me as suspicious.

2) The actual outcomes for STEM grads, as covered in this article. Looks like only one of the letters reaped large benefits from the push more more grads in those areas. Surely anyone could have looked at science, engineering, and (non-actually-CS) math and noticed that wages weren't acting like there was a major shortage, back in, say, the '00s and early '10s? But they were in programming. So now we've told a generation of kids there's a bright future in STEM (all four letters!) but it was kiiiinda a lie, and it kiiiinda wasn't hard to see it was a lie back when these kids were in grade school.

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#125

Post by CydeWeys »

TimPC wrote: post #82
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CS grads are the most likely to work in their field post-graduation. It's the other majors bringing STEM down, like biology. Source? (Not challenging you. Curious to see how wide the range is across majors.)

It seems kind of obvious that if you explicitly exclude medicine jobs from STEM you end up with a low % of biology grads in STEM. My experience at University was that 80% of Biology as a program was doing it as pre-med.

The vast majority of biology majors do not end up becoming doctors. If you include all of healthcare then you're getting closer, but still not a majority.

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#126

Post by [deleted] »

legerdemain wrote: post #120
NanoYohaneTSU wrote: post #83

Extremely 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... I'm going to do a better job t…

> Extremely poor journalism... some shmuck journo... This is a guest opinion column by a book author to promote a book. All of these facts are very visibly stated on the page, including the word OPINION (in all caps at the top of the page), the author's professional bio, and the title of the book being promoted.

[deleted]

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#127

Post by tzs »

> 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?

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#128

Post by robertlagrant »

eastbound wrote: post #112
al_borland wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with a guy in a data center who had a degree in geology. Computers paid better I guess, so he transitioned over.

Makes me question our decentralized assignation of studies. With communist centralized planning, the country makes a 5-year plan and students are assigned to the fields in demand, with the (high) risk that the central planner was wrong (because his pay doesn’t align with accurate planning). With decentralized capitalism, students decide for themselves, agree to be in debt for life if they’re wrong, attempt to collect…

With communist central planning the world lost about as many people to starvation and murder by their own governments as were killed in WW2 in an actual enormous war. It might be worth letting people make their own decisions rather than forcing them to be what you want them to be.

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#129

Post by jiggybling »

snakeyjake wrote: post #76

I 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 b…

What's your company and how can you get experience in this kind of engineering?

Re: Most STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs

#130

Post by linuxftw »

snakeyjake wrote: post #76

I 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 b…

1000 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.

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