How many more engineering and CS majors do we need?

[Anonymous]

Stop accepting foreign students into STEM and other degrees also stop H1Bs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

Yes. A decent amount of SLAC grads go to good grad schools upin graduation.

Now, if your post is implying that they could not get into some of the schools as undergrads, well, they got accepted to Williams. 🙂 MIT and CalTech are niche tech schools at the undergrad level. If you can leverage a CS degree at a top SLAC for MIT, or CalTech to expand your CS education in grad school, great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did engineering major in undergrad. Now I’m in a (highly educated) trade. I work with my hands. I don’t have a desk job or sit in front of a computer. Engineers are more qualified to a trade than humanities majors.

Not sure how you would come up with such an assertion. I worked in heavy unionized trades out of HS and after college (went through an apprenticeship), spent time in skilled trades (nuclear), and have been in tech for the last 25 years currently leading a decent size engineering team at a FAANG. My degree is in Math and I'm confident that a humanities major could do just fine as a union craftsman. Even at the nuke there was nothing that could possibly require anything beyond a CC degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

I would venture to guess that the larger programs primarily focus on employer outcomes in their marketing. Do you think a SLAC necessitates a graduate degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

Yes. A decent amount of SLAC grads go to good grad schools upon graduation.

Now, if your post is implying that they could not get into some of the schools as undergrads, well, they got accepted to Williams. 🙂 MIT and CalTech are niche tech schools at the undergrad level. If you can leverage a CS degree at a top SLAC for MIT, or CalTech to expand your CS education in grad school, great.

I was pointing out that CS grads from Williams are obviously trained well. I have a kid at Midd who is a Math/Econ major and she says that intro to CS is a pretty brutal 'weedout' class for CS wannabes with a majority of kids dropping or switching to Pass/Fail over the course of a semester. I confident that the top LACs are pretty rigerous like any other top school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

Yes. A decent amount of SLAC grads go to good grad schools upon graduation.

Now, if your post is implying that they could not get into some of the schools as undergrads, well, they got accepted to Williams. 🙂 MIT and CalTech are niche tech schools at the undergrad level. If you can leverage a CS degree at a top SLAC for MIT, or CalTech to expand your CS education in grad school, great.

I was pointing out that CS grads from Williams are obviously trained well. I have a kid at Midd who is a Math/Econ major and she says that intro to CS is a pretty brutal 'weedout' class for CS wannabes with a majority of kids dropping or switching to Pass/Fail over the course of a semester. I confident that the top LACs are pretty rigerous like any other top school.

+1

Agreed.

And Middlebury is a top LAC, so the pedigree and "training " is there regardless of major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

uh yes they do, at least from Stanford and ivies. We know many engineers from these schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

I would venture to guess that the larger programs primarily focus on employer outcomes in their marketing. Do you think a SLAC necessitates a graduate degree?

The majority of heads of research divisions in engineering private industry have graduate degrees most often phD. A BS in engineering leads most often to a mid-level engineering job(save the startup ceo/engineers). Phd outside of academia is becoming the norm the past 8-10 years. The exceptions are in their 40s or they came from super-top engineering programs which have the leadership skills as well(Stanford, MIT, cmu, penn, harvard, princeton, Berkeley )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

uh yes they do, at least from Stanford and ivies. We know many engineers from these schools

+1 indeed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

I would venture to guess that the larger programs primarily focus on employer outcomes in their marketing. Do you think a SLAC necessitates a graduate degree?

The majority of heads of research divisions in engineering private industry have graduate degrees most often phD. A BS in engineering leads most often to a mid-level engineering job(save the startup ceo/engineers). Phd outside of academia is becoming the norm the past 8-10 years. The exceptions are in their 40s or they came from super-top engineering programs which have the leadership skills as well(Stanford, MIT, cmu, penn, harvard, princeton, Berkeley )

Only 3 of the schools you listed are Top 5 Engineering. The list is MIT, Stanford, Berkley, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech. In that order according to USNW https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop accepting foreign students into STEM and other degrees also stop H1Bs

We would lose all our grad students. STEM PhD programs are often majority international students because Americans don’t want/aren’t well prepared enough to do them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

Yes. A decent amount of SLAC grads go to good grad schools upon graduation.

Now, if your post is implying that they could not get into some of the schools as undergrads, well, they got accepted to Williams. 🙂 MIT and CalTech are niche tech schools at the undergrad level. If you can leverage a CS degree at a top SLAC for MIT, or CalTech to expand your CS education in grad school, great.

I was pointing out that CS grads from Williams are obviously trained well. I have a kid at Midd who is a Math/Econ major and she says that intro to CS is a pretty brutal 'weedout' class for CS wannabes with a majority of kids dropping or switching to Pass/Fail over the course of a semester. I confident that the top LACs are pretty rigerous like any other top school.

+1

Agreed.

And Middlebury is a top LAC, so the pedigree and "training " is there regardless of major.

You breeding dogs or people in your house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

I would venture to guess that the larger programs primarily focus on employer outcomes in their marketing. Do you think a SLAC necessitates a graduate degree?

The majority of heads of research divisions in engineering private industry have graduate degrees most often phD. A BS in engineering leads most often to a mid-level engineering job(save the startup ceo/engineers). Phd outside of academia is becoming the norm the past 8-10 years. The exceptions are in their 40s or they came from super-top engineering programs which have the leadership skills as well(Stanford, MIT, cmu, penn, harvard, princeton, Berkeley )

Im sure that's true, but PP was referring to graduate school enrollment for CS undergrads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Engineering and CS majors can work in many industries including going to law school and taking jobs at investment banks, no need for them to be humanities majors

They don’t often have the other soft skills necessary to complete those jobs though. So they would never be hired to begin with.

Actually, engineering majors are often the best read and most empathetic kids you'll meet these days. Because they are smart and they are curious. At my kid's top 20 school, the engineering majors are highly recruited by MBB and Wall Street. So I think your assumptions are very dated. It's not 1987 anymore. The smart kids aren't going into history or political science or other soft majors these days. Engineering is vacuuming a lot of the talent now. Whether it's the right fit for everyone is a different discussion. I would never encourage anyone who doesn't have the aptitude and discipline to choose engineering. It is a very tough major everywhere.

No need to overdo it. The big reason so many students are majoring in STEM is the shift by institutions to make STEM accessible. CS, particularly, has been softened to play-doh at many institutions and you can coast through a degree with the hardest math class maybe being an application-based linear algebra course. Smart kids still major in any and everything, and there's many social science students going into banking/finance and consulting.

It's actually surprising how little you need to do a CS major at these schools.

Williams: one math course (Discrete), intro course/intro data structures, two core courses (only one in algorithms), and 3 electives...that is hardly a CS degree. That is just baby software engineering bootcamp; you might even learn more in a boot camp.

A CS degree from Williams sounds good to me.

They are well trained given this little blurb from their CS page:

"In just the last several years we have had students admitted to such top computer science graduate schools as M.I.T., Carnegie-Mellon University, Yale University, Cornell University, CalTech, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, New York University, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, University of Rochester, and the University of Massachusetts."

I would venture to guess that the larger programs primarily focus on employer outcomes in their marketing. Do you think a SLAC necessitates a graduate degree?

The majority of heads of research divisions in engineering private industry have graduate degrees most often phD. A BS in engineering leads most often to a mid-level engineering job(save the startup ceo/engineers). Phd outside of academia is becoming the norm the past 8-10 years. The exceptions are in their 40s or they came from super-top engineering programs which have the leadership skills as well(Stanford, MIT, cmu, penn, harvard, princeton, Berkeley )

Only 3 of the schools you listed are Top 5 Engineering. The list is MIT, Stanford, Berkley, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech. In that order according to USNW https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc

I’d rather listen to what the industry is saying over a magazine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop accepting foreign students into STEM and other degrees also stop H1Bs

We would lose all our grad students. STEM PhD programs are often majority international students because Americans don’t want/aren’t well prepared enough to do them.

We would not. Americans would fill those slots.

Foreigners flock to STEM grad programs because a grad degree is required for certain immigration-qualified visas, not because they are smarter or better.