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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]my kid says there's a big movement to hard and soft skills. so history and data science double major. or Econ and philosophy. [/quote]
How’s history gonna give you more soft skills? Unless you’re talking about being brainwashed is a soft skill?[/quote]

History doesn't give you soft skills.  History gives you perspective.

It's all happened before and it will all happen again.  [/quote]
STEM majors are more likely to have better knowledge in history than humanities majors because they’re generally more intellectually curious. That has been my observation.[/quote]

You have overplayed your hand.

If you wanted to argue that stem majors on average are smarter than humanities majors, I could see you winning that argument but arguing that STEM majors know more history than humanities majors is a stretch.[/quote]

History and humanities you can learn from reading books on your own. [b]Engineering and other Stem involves training and an intense curriculum[/b].  Do both and you will be well rounded.  [/quote]

There is nothing here that you cannot easily study at home at this point.....misguided to believe anything else. And, this is why the primary goal of college has to be learning how to think, evaluate, understand nuance, and communicate. Hence, SLACs and their approach to education are the right approach at this moment.[/quote]
? do you think CS majors aren't taught to think critically and evaluate?  Good gracious.  Tell me you know nothing about CS without telling me you know nothing about CS.[/quote]

PP; Since you popped in with a bit of nonsense I'll take a bit of time to help you out with context because I have context, real life day to day context.

I know a bit about CS because in my day job I am a director at a Mag 7 and I run a group of engineers, SWEs, TPMs and PMs. I drop into DCUM because it is a delightfully toxic stew of nonsense with some folks who care sprinkled in. It provides a great dopamine boost to my ADHD riddled brain.

I didn't say anything about CS majors not being able to think; I pointed out what skills are going to actually matter. AI is changing everything that my team does, everyday. And, I have said it before but I'll leave it here again.....we don't care what your major is when interviewing for SWEs. If you can code you can code for us. But everyday it is less about being able to code and more about understanding systems, constraints, optimization areas, etc.. Coding chops are becoming less valuable (there are still fantastic opportunities for coders who can go deep) and more about architecture and systems thinking. Thinking skills are quickly becoming more valuable than coding chops for many positions that would have been filled by SWEs in the past. My PMs and TPMs are also having to adjust and skill up in order to continue growing.[/quote]

Your post is a bit odd in that you say you don’t care about major as long as you can code…but I assume the vast majority of those people come from CS and STEM backgrounds because they are interested in coding and do well on your technical interviews.

It’s no different than quant firms saying we don’t care about your major as long as you can pass all our Math challenges…but it’s no surprise that 99% of their hires have STEM backgrounds.[/quote]

They need a baseline of skill but we actually get quite a few physics and math majors who get thought the screens. Had a history major not too long ago as well. I have also seen quite a few 1 year Masters grads with UG degrees completely orthogonal to CS get passed on from the screening teams.

The point is that what we need is quickly changing and the kids that do Leetcode all of the time are looking at past performance, not what things are rapidly evolving towards. I could care less what your degree is, I was a applied math major so plenty of CS but not nearly what a CS major has. I didn't make it through the first couple of times at FAANGs but I got there. The non-CS people on this board think that CS is dying but it isn't. The CS oriented people on this board think that CMU is what you need, they're wildly incorrect as well. But, the way things taught at SLACs right now is increasing in value. It doesn't have to be a SLAC, it is the structure of the education that matters.[/quote]

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