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Comment by rdtwo | Hacker News Reader

What do your do with a degree in climatology? It’s not a good idea to get these odd degrees as they are not good for signaling to potential employers.

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If it's from Stanford, pretty much whatever you want. So, basically, investment banking or data science (those are still two separate jobs right?).

"If it's from Stanford, pretty much whatever you want."

That not true at all. The name of the university can only get you so far. For example, if you have a climate-related degree, can you really compete with Stanford CS majors for a SDE job? Or with ME majors for a product design position?

IMO if you get into Stanford and can pay for the degree, it would be a waste to spend it in a major like that unless you're really passionate and have very specific goals.

"So, basically, investment banking or data science"

Well, those are definitely not "whatever you want".

> if you have a climate-related degree, can you really compete with Stanford CS majors for a SDE job

For this specifically: Yes, depending on your extra curricular activities and interests. And if it was a graduate degree, then yeah almost certainly.

> if you have a climate-related degree, can you really compete with Stanford CS majors for a SDE job?

Thankfully there are fewer Stanford CS majors graduating than there are SDE jobs available.

In grad school I pursued (at the time it was considered experimental) a minor in "Sustainability Management". This was like 10 years ago and there was nowhere near the amount of stuff happening in the space then as there is now - it was basically "how do we get corporations to reduce their emissions? LOL good luck" and "how do large scale renewable energy projects make it? Only gonna happen with government help". I was a little disappointed with it at the time but I'm really happy that the field has awoken and that tech is getting involved - I would love to see how "higher" education in that space has changed.

> What do your do with a degree in climatology?

I write code, ironically. I'm in the camp that believes degrees aren't _totally_ about what you learn but more about advancing your reasoning and thinking skills and learning how to interact with people (not to say you don't learn anything in school, you definitely do but IMHO it largely depends on what you study).

It actually does make more sense to pursue a physics degree with an emphasis on fluid dynamics (atmospheric and oceanic circulation being of great interest to future climate forecasts), or a chemistry degree with an emphasis on analytical measurement and kinetics (global elemental cycling, particulate dynamics, oceanic and atmospheric chemistry all being similarly important), or a biology degree with an emphasis on ecology and biochemistry (changing species distribution, methane biochemistry etc.).

This all goes under the rubric of 'planetary sciences' of which 'earth system science' is a sort of special case. Also means you could work at NASA on Jupiter's moons etc.

Most people pursuing a degree in physics would be more interested in core physics problems (quantum computing, particle physics, cosmology, etc.) than in climate change. Perhaps it is more difficult to motivate physics majors to turn to climate science than to teach climate scientists physics (since only a subset of physics is needed, mostly fluid dynamics). Otherwise, universities would have climate science in a physics department.

How would that be any different than the people who get a degree in Petroleum Engineering (aside from the audience they are signaling) ?

It’s a bad choice too better to generalize in chem e

Ironically, I suspect a lot of them might end up in fossil fuel companies and do greenwashing R&D.

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