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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

I have friends from university with degrees in history, classics, theology, that make 3x what I do as a software engineer with a PhD. They work in things like corporate intelligence, risk analysis, planning and operations. Really high-powered serious stuff that makes what I do look rather trivial. They get hired as their companies want diversity of thought and the main job requirement is just being smart, switched-on, and understanding the bigger world (hence the history and theology). It's not about knowing technical details. They wouldn't want a grey man who studied 'business operations' - that's not their style.

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A couple interesting anecdotes. My first boss had multiple degrees in music, and was a professional touring classical musician. He self taught himself programming because he needed to actually make some money. Now he's a CTO at a large company.

My next boss had a degree in English. His thought was that no matter what he did with his life, communication was always at the center. He had founded 2 different tech companies before I met him, and he's now the CTO of a large company.

One of the smartest people I've ever personally worked with went to seminary (I'm not sure if he was an atheist before or after, but talk about fun conversations over a beer). He was preoccupied with finding meaning in life, and did things like math and CS with what seemed like his spare cycles.

The point is that a persons degree really only matters for their first job, and often even then only if they want to work at a FAANG for that first job. Where people end up 5-10-15-20 years later in their career has little to do with their degree.

Yes most jobs don't care whatsoever what degree you did.

You can do a degree in history of art and then become a fighter jet pilot if you want.

> often even then only if they want to work at a FAANG for that first job. Where people end up 5-10-15-20 years later in their career has little to do with their degree.

As someone who doesn't have a CS degree, I found that FAANG companies were much more willing to take a risk on someone without a degree getting their first job than many smaller companies.

Great point. The only caveat I would point out is that a candidate has to pass what is effectively a test of what a typical undergrad in CS learns. A 20 year old could certainly study and do that on their own, but the typical self-taught person is not necessarily learning those quiz type questions.

I’m guessing they went to top schools. That’s the issue. Humanity degrees at lower tier schools don’t open doors, and a lot of people are borrowing a lot of money to get degrees with a poor ROI.

Precisely, I would also expect they went to top schools. A philosophy degree from Harvard looks interesting and eccentric. A philosophy degree from a school outside the top ten or so is not interpreted the same way.

I majored in philosophy before moving to mathematics - it was phenomenally interesting, but I wouldn't be impressed by a candidate with a philosophy degree these days. A lot of people who hire humanities degrees from top schools talk about things like "diversity of thought", but I think if that was the real reason they might look for candidates outside the top schools.

I don't think that is limited to the humanities.

I have a hard time believing this would be the norm at a sufficient number of companies that it would justify picking up one of these degrees. Knowing technical skills when applying to technical companies seems like a safer bet.

Well maybe but I think that's an issue - encouraging people, especially from those form working-class backgrounds, to take the safe bet rather than fulfilling their potential. Working-class young people are encouraged to take a safe job in the local area living a limited life, while middle-class young people with the same ability are encouraged to stick their necks out more to go to the top universities and try for the top jobs.

And for good reason, because if those working class young take a risk and it doesn’t work out (and it usually doesn’t) they are doomed to a lifetime of poverty and anguish from which there is no escape. There is value in taking the safe bet. Having a degree in English will be a cold comfort then.

But that's rational isn't it? The expected outcome is much lower for someone from a working class background so play safe. You won't have access to connections or sound advice from mentors in the know. You're less likely to be going to a top school where you could 'get away with' a humanities degree.

Agree that I'd like to see more working class kids being ambitious and going for top schools, moving away from home etc but at least play safe and go for something with job prospects.

Good point. The one thing in the article I agreed with is that it's better to do a traditional humanities subject rather than a vocational one (like communications, operations management, business operations). The latter seem to narrow and subject to fashion.

I'm not sure there's a really great correlation between earnings and skill when it comes to jobs with titles such as those. You tend to find them a lot in financial firms and some of these industries have a lot of people who float straight from Oxbridge type universities into generic highly paid jobs because the firms don't know how to hire effectively. They just delegate to degrees. I've not been particularly impressed whenever I encountered most corporate planning or corporate intelligence type roles.

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