Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:52
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Two things happened at once (partly related)
1) The era of cheap money ended. Companies (especially software ones) who had aggressively hired in the post-Covid era and even before, found themselves over-extended and decided to cut back. They mostly use AI as a ruse but really it is primarily a financial matter.
2) Russ Vought (it is not Trump) declared war on science funding agencies. No one has exactly figured out his specific issue with them but none are spared. DoE, NOAA, NASA (science), NSF, NIH everyone. He's using clever ways to obey the letter of the law while gutting scientific research (fewer grants, basic research sacrificed for a few shiny baubles like AI and quantum systems etc.)
And of course vought’s degrees are in history and political science. Social scientists hate STEM, And I don’t know what their bone is against it but it’s caused so many issues.
No they do not <strong word> STEM. Is Vought the spokesperson for ALL social scientists now??
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:46
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:What is up with all the unemployed STEM majors? Is it a supply imbalance or is AI? If supply side are any STEM fields more stable (e.g. civil vs computing, etc).
It is only at the weaker schools. T15/ivy have excellent salaries and hiring for graduates, and place into top grad schools.
Delusion is real
It is not delusion. They all have jobs lined up, if they are engineering, physics, math, though to be fair about half seek masters or phD or even MD-MD/phD which is popular from BME and molecular E. The grad schools list posted by stem departments is impressive. Essentially all are T25 stem grad programs, and a large group are T10.
Last year's career data for engineering was great too. Fewer than 5% are seeking employment within 6 months of graduation and the median salary is over 100k for most ivy/elite E schools.
Bio majors with a BS and Chem majors with a BS are not doing as well but they never have been great choices if the goal is a job with a bachelors. They need med school or grad school.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:36
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How’s astrophysics and/or physics doing these days?
I have a friend who was at JPL and they got slashed too. She was able to find another job but some of her colleagues struggled.
The research cuts have been absolutely devastating to a ton of fields.
JPL is an FFRDC of NASA, which happens to be operated by CalTech. FFRDCs have been specifically targeted by Vought. Now that body shop contractors cannot be owned by companies that make widgets, the need for FFRDCs has dropped. Separately, NASA is now re-focused on manned spaceflight, such as Artemis, which most Americans support by an huge margin; JPL is all about un-manned space missions, so it has the wrong expertise given current NASA priorities. Long thread about (various) FFRDCs is in the Jobs forum.
www.NRO.mil is hiring for wide range of STEM degrees - including physics and astro.
Likely that would be a food fit for JPL folks -- but those folks really also ought to be looking at commercial options like Blue Origin and SpaceX (which both are actively hiring with lots of openings).
Blue Origin and SpaceX recruit on campus at top schools and target physics and math majors in addition to engineering, particularly mechE but they are very clear that any engineering field is fine as long as physics and math are heavily represented.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:34
Subject: STEM Delusions
Forget suckling the federal teat as the feds are bankrupt. They just haven't got the bond vigilantes certified letter yet.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:32
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:What is up with all the unemployed STEM majors? Is it a supply imbalance or is AI? If supply side are any STEM fields more stable (e.g. civil vs computing, etc).
It is only at the weaker schools. T15/ivy have excellent salaries and hiring for graduates, and place into top grad schools.
That's not a good thing at all. Look at what happened in the legal industry.
It's a good thing if your kid can get in to the top schools. They are set.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:31
Subject: STEM Delusions
The RIFs at FDA, NIH, CDC and upcoming relocation of USDA has also saturated the market with some highly qualified and experienced scientists.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:28
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How’s astrophysics and/or physics doing these days?
I have a friend who was at JPL and they got slashed too. She was able to find another job but some of her colleagues struggled.
The research cuts have been absolutely devastating to a ton of fields.
JPL is an FFRDC of NASA, which happens to be operated by CalTech. FFRDCs have been specifically targeted by Vought. Now that body shop contractors cannot be owned by companies that make widgets, the need for FFRDCs has dropped. Separately, NASA is now re-focused on manned spaceflight, such as Artemis, which most Americans support by an huge margin; JPL is all about un-manned space missions, so it has the wrong expertise given current NASA priorities. Long thread about (various) FFRDCs is in the Jobs forum.
www.NRO.mil is hiring for wide range of STEM degrees - including physics and astro.
Likely that would be a food fit for JPL folks -- but those folks really also ought to be looking at commercial options like Blue Origin and SpaceX (which both are actively hiring with lots of openings).
Anonymous
05/20/2026 09:01
Subject: STEM Delusions
Palantir. They are always looking for bodies to fill their meat assaults.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 08:29
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:What is up with all the unemployed STEM majors? Is it a supply imbalance or is AI? If supply side are any STEM fields more stable (e.g. civil vs computing, etc).
It is only at the weaker schools. T15/ivy have excellent salaries and hiring for graduates, and place into top grad schools.
Delusion is real
Anonymous
05/20/2026 01:09
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How’s astrophysics and/or physics doing these days?
Pretty poorly. Someone will inevitably respond that they can just get finance jobs when those are some of the most competitive jobs around and mostly aren’t hiring physics grads who have pretty narrow skills coming out of undergrad. Research funding is being cut left and right unless it’s DOD or DOE funded, and even then, Trump is implicitly leaking that funding over to contractors and private industry.
I would just choose math at the undergrad level and hone in on probability, statistics, and differential equations
To what end professionally? Not being snarky--genuinely interested, as the math-dumb parent of a math major.
Probability and statistics are the backbone to any good job in ML, Data science, and rigorous model building. DE is both important for mathematical modeling and any system involving heat transfer, flow, dynamics, etc.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 01:08
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:What is up with all the unemployed STEM majors? Is it a supply imbalance or is AI? If supply side are any STEM fields more stable (e.g. civil vs computing, etc).
It is only at the weaker schools. T15/ivy have excellent salaries and hiring for graduates, and place into top grad schools.
That's not a good thing at all. Look at what happened in the legal industry.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 00:45
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:What is up with all the unemployed STEM majors? Is it a supply imbalance or is AI? If supply side are any STEM fields more stable (e.g. civil vs computing, etc).
It is only at the weaker schools. T15/ivy have excellent salaries and hiring for graduates, and place into top grad schools.
Anonymous
05/20/2026 00:29
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:Two things happened at once (partly related)
1) The era of cheap money ended. Companies (especially software ones) who had aggressively hired in the post-Covid era and even before, found themselves over-extended and decided to cut back. They mostly use AI as a ruse but really it is primarily a financial matter.
2) Russ Vought (it is not Trump) declared war on science funding agencies. No one has exactly figured out his specific issue with them but none are spared. DoE, NOAA, NASA (science), NSF, NIH everyone. He's using clever ways to obey the letter of the law while gutting scientific research (fewer grants, basic research sacrificed for a few shiny baubles like AI and quantum systems etc.)
Agree but will add more to #1. Tech companies have not been experiencing $ growth from sales, the only way to pump the stock is to cut operating expenses aka labor. It’s become a game. If the tech company doesn’t execute large layoffs due to AI then the shareholders flee dumping the stock. Quietly, the labor is either outsourced or rehired later. It’s a really bad economic situation where the stock valuation is decoupled from the profitability of the company.
Anonymous
05/19/2026 23:16
Subject: STEM Delusions
physics and math are basically humanities degrees.
Anonymous
05/19/2026 22:58
Subject: STEM Delusions
Anonymous wrote:How’s astrophysics and/or physics doing these days?
I have a friend who was at JPL and they got slashed too. She was able to find another job but some of her colleagues struggled.
The research cuts have been absolutely devastating to a ton of fields.