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

danwang.co

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

#91
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.

" seem to be able to spend their entire day focusing on a computer screen, even on weekends."

I absolutely can and have done that. Many times. In fact, it used to be most of the time.

But I'll admit that the majority of the programmers (or other IT, for that matter) I've worked with didn't seem like people who went home and played on the computer all night and all weekend.

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

#92

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).

Of course, status is multidimensional, so to say it's "zero" is a bit immoderate. I studied CS in the UK (Cambridge) and I'd agree that it's not a prestigious field. Having said that, CS academics are generally fairly well off, some being posher than others. I think a major factor in the low status is their lack of cultural knowledge (cultural capital), even if they know or are related to others who do have it.

Much of what can be said about CS in the UK is true of the "technical middle class" in general.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Class_Survey#Tec...

"The technical middle class, about 6 percent of British society, shows high economic capital, very high status of social contacts, but relatively few contacts reported, and moderate cultural capital. Occupations represented include medical radiographers, aircraft pilots, pharmacists, natural and social science professionals and physical scientists, senior professionals in education establishments, and business, research, and administrative positions.[17]

The technical middle class is relatively well to do, with an average household incomes of £38,000, average savings of £66,000 and houses worth an average of £163,000. Members of the class report the lowest number of social contacts of any of the classes, though these do tend to be high status, probably mostly other professional experts. It is relatively culturally disengaged with both highbrow and emerging culture. Women comprise about 59 percent of this class. Many of technical middle class do research or scientific and technical work; a portion of the graduates are from established and prestigious universities with strong reputations for science, such as University of Birmingham, University of Warwick, University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Southampton, and Imperial College London with degrees in science and technology. Many of the technical middle class live in South East England where scientific and technical jobs are to be found. If they live in an urban area they live in the suburbs. Many of them have middle-class origins but are less engaged socially and culturally with the arts and humanities."

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

#93
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…

Yeah, this is it.

Most people don't enjoy computers.

Most geeks don't enjoy people.

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

#94

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…

> lawyers, doctors, biologists, physicist, mathematicians

CompSci is a very young field compared to those. It wasn't even a college subject before the 70s or so.

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

#95
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.

The nerd stereotype is part of it. But there's also a part that runs along the lines of "Why would you go into CS if you haven't been fooling around with computers a whole lot in high school? Because that's what all your classmates will have been doing."

There's probably at least some analog to majoring in music. Sure, you'll probably spend a lot of your time in college learning about musical history and theory but it would probably seem a bit odd--and you'd probably be at a significant disadvantage--if you'd never had any music lessons or otherwise learned anything about music.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My suspicion is that people don't hate SAP because of bad looking GUI, but because it implements rigid, hard-to-discover business processes that make everyone miserable (but make the company as a whole efficient).

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

#97

The reason is because it is a terrible job. Unlikely 90% of other jobs, you have to mentally burn your brain out each day, constantly learn new things, and focus intensely, supposedly for 8 hours. The reward is nothing, not even good pay outside of a couple of tech giants in the USA. If you compare it to a trade, there is a night and day difference to your mental health. The wage data in this article is meaningless b…

> not even good pay outside of a couple of tech giants in the USA

That's a huge exaggeration. In what other field can a bright kid take a 12 week bootcamp and get a job that pays $80k?

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nothing quite matches that triumphant moment when you finally discover the root cause of an issue that's been bothering you for days.

At which point you bang your head into the wall because the fix is so bloody obvious. :-)

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

#99
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

I think this is a really good summary. You do often get some kind of kudos when people say they're rubbish at computers/IT but then they bring you down to earth by asking you for help with their bluetooth or some random app on their smartphone :-)

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

#100
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a meeting just this morning regarding how we measure the performance of something which ended up with reading a paper on queue theory to help with the design. CS and SE are very related. Also, Civil Engineers do learn physics as part of their course.

> Also, Civil Engineers do learn physics as part of their course. The analogy is apt for exactly that reason. Some knowledge in physics is fundamentally required, but for the civil engineer it's only professionally relevant to the extent that they can apply it to solve practical problems. A solid understanding of physics (and indeed how to come out wiser after reading a paper relevant to your field) is just one part…

What would you learn in a BSc Software Engineering that's not in a BSc Computer Science course that's not going to become redundant after a couple years and couldn't be covered in a module? I have thought about this before and argued for Software Engineering to be a specific course/field, but it's just too ephemeral at the moment with a lack of 'core' elements to warrant a 3 year course.

Edit: To be clear, I want the field to mature and develop into something similar to other engineering fields like EE, but it's not there yet.

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