How many more engineering and CS majors do we need?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like that’s all kids are majoring in. Many without the passion for it. Both fields are oversaturated with a lot of kids having no business being in these programs. Can we get a pendulum swing and have a push into humanities and trade schools?

It's all about tech and tech-adjacent fields.

Engineering and CS majors will do just fine.

Lots of the is being outsourced and replaced by AI. Labor market is changing.

No, jobs are not being replaced by AI. You can use AI right now. That is about as advanced as AI gets. There is no professional grade AI that gives better answers, or unlocks more advanced reasoning capability. It's capable of summarizing text and suggesting some write-ups for emails. That's about it.

Nowhere on the horizon is there some more advanced AI about to be unleashed. This is a speculative bubble on par with the old Tulip craze. You are simply parroting the words of a complicit tech media who is in on the bubble. Do not make major life decisions assuming any of this is real.

I hope you are correct. My daughter is an accounting major. I’ve read (granted, Reddit) that entry level accounting jobs are being outsourced and it’s difficult for those without a few years experience to find a job. It’s not deterring her though.

[Anonymous]

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.

[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.

lol. Just stop.

[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.

If you look at top schools, only like 50% of engineering and CS majors work in fields directly related. The other 50% work for banks, hedge funds, consulting firms, etc.

[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.

so, you've never actually met a CS or Engineering major then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trades are hard work and hard on the body. Many of them at least.

But the CS and Engineering majors can always get into them. They would have a major leg up.

That is true. I hope we do get more people back in trades instead of it being looked down upon. However, the physicality of it is rough. But, what’s better? Sitting in an office for 40+ hours staring at a screen or being active on a construction site?

I spent 3 days correcting the work of a well known and established licensed plumbing outfit in Chevy Chase.
I suspect if some of those CS majors did the job, I would not have needed to buy a torch, butane can, some copper pipes and spend hours watching videos on sweating copper. Physical labor also requires an exacting mindset. The plumber was paid quite well yet they were sloppy.
People should not look down on physical trade work. They are quite respected in some European countries with strict education requirements and qualifications. But here in the US, the trades have been tarnished by bottom of the barrel sub sub contracted labor, mostly cheaply compensated immigrants. And so the expectations and delivery are low.

[Anonymous]

BSCS grads who took the harder upper level electives (e.g., compilers, real-time systems, embedded programming, assembly, advanced neteorking) have a much easier time finding job than those who took easier upper level electives (web programming, scripting with PHP or Python). It totally matters which set of upper level CS courses one takes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like that’s all kids are majoring in. Many without the passion for it. Both fields are oversaturated with a lot of kids having no business being in these programs. Can we get a pendulum swing and have a push into humanities and trade schools?

Humanities how will they support themselves?

Trade schools are fabulous if a kid is interested.

MAGA please go back to the ignorant hole you climbed out of.

Trump's idea of more trade schools isn't the fix you think it is. Find your brain cells.

[Anonymous]

I think it would be beneficial if we started tracking kids after middle school. There is no reason for a bad student to flunk out of engineering or cs when they could have been preparing for a trade. The top kids can still go to college. There’s just no need for all these kids with 950 SATs to be competing for the same jobs as the kids with 1500 SATs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trades are hard work and hard on the body. Many of them at least.

But the CS and Engineering majors can always get into them. They would have a major leg up.

That is true. I hope we do get more people back in trades instead of it being looked down upon. However, the physicality of it is rough. But, what’s better? Sitting in an office for 40+ hours staring at a screen or being active on a construction site?

Make as much money working with the least amount of risk.

What do you think?

Tech hands down. Not even close.

[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.

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it would be beneficial if we started tracking kids after middle school. There is no reason for a bad student to flunk out of engineering or cs when they could have been preparing for a trade. The top kids can still go to college. There’s just no need for all these kids with 950 SATs to be competing for the same jobs as the kids with 1500 SATs.

My friend’s son is planning on finishing college since he has only one year left , but he is already submitting applications (tests?) to city fire departments. It’s a long process, so maybe he’ll work in his field first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I think education is important and community college everywhere should be free, the overeducation is causing the US to struggle in important fields. I know being a plumber isn’t as sexy as a software engineer but at least it’s a stable job and income. Too many kids saw their favorite TikTok influencer working remote and making 6 figures. The amount of CS and engineering majors graduating all can’t be quality nor should have graduated with the lax education standards since COVID.

I’ll retract my earlier statement. Forget the humanities. We need more people in trades.

Overeducation?

Really?

MAGA and anti-intellectualism

Don't be ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I think education is important and community college everywhere should be free, the overeducation is causing the US to struggle in important fields. I know being a plumber isn’t as sexy as a software engineer but at least it’s a stable job and income. Too many kids saw their favorite TikTok influencer working remote and making 6 figures. The amount of CS and engineering majors graduating all can’t be quality nor should have graduated with the lax education standards since COVID.

I’ll retract my earlier statement. Forget the humanities. We need more people in trades.

Overeducation?

Really?

MAGA and anti-intellectualism

Don't be ridiculous.

Is this a Bot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone ignored the trade school part and went straight into circle jerking tech and engineering. My bad. I forgot DCUM would rather have their kid go to Elon or High Point than a trade school.

Send YOUR kid to trade school.

Let us know how it goes.