How to choose your college degree (2021) | Hacker News Reader

How to choose your college degree (2021)

giansegato.com

I think one thing that’s missed here is that a degree is like a key that opens some number of doors. If you get a degree in material science you open a few doors. If you do a degree in mech engineering you open most of the same doors and then a whole bunch more, but a few are now locked. It’s important to pick a broad well known accredited degree so you can earn a key that opens the most doors. Don’t get bs degrees in shit like “robotics”

This.

There are a handful of majors that are wide gateways: accounting (NOT finance), the core engineering disciplines, the core sciences, the core humanities (including Math). Choose one of those that matches your interests. Avoid the fashionable majors no matter what. Even CS can be underpowered and CE almost always is (do EE with a CS minor if you can handle the rigor of EE)

Some analysis I was reading suggested that the biggest driver in the increasing cost in universities was caused by the proliferation of different majors and classes (basically, these additional classes drove down the student/teacher ratio, even while most core classes remained full).

By offering niche degrees, modern universities are screwing over students in two ways:

- adding to their costs in the present

- narrowing the range of career opportunities in the future

By focusing on only the most useful degrees, a university could very easily compete on price and expected value.

^ This. It's why I was upset when my alma mater added a "Data Science" degree. Dude. Just double major in CS and math and take a few specific courses if this is your bag, we don't need a separate degree for this.

The data science degrees are essentially a vocational program for the students that would not be successful tackling the CS/math program.

People who major in CS/math are usually great data engineers but terrible data scientists. They don’t understand how to ask questions the right way, experimental design, how to evaluate the evidence. They are often more focused on the technical aspects and lack the domain knowledge. I strongly encourage my students to get a minor in a natural or social science for this reason.

100% agree about the DS degree. I have plans on getting a MS in stats starting in a year or 2. All the DS degrees list that you have to take a programming (Python/R) course and database course. I don't need those.

I want to know WHEN and WHY to use one stats method versus another.

A stats class won’t teach you that either. You probably want to look into a research methods or similar offered by a Sociology department. If you want to see how to apply stats to the real world, social science is your friend.

Partially agree, but over a lifetime, many of us need only open a few doors. Picking an area of study that opens the doors you will want to open at some unknown time in the future is still hard. More is not necessarily better for everyone.

I got my first coding job merely by being in a CS degree program. There was a job board, people posted jobs, I answered a post, here's what I can code, I got a job. Degree not needed.

The degree was not the key. There were no gatekeepers.

Do I want that? It's sort of crazy. I'm getting old, I will need doctors at some point to keep me alive. "Don't worry, I answered a post on a job board, I totally know what I'm doing", the doctor said.

Don't want that. But it worked out for me.

IMO, this is terrible advice. The core concept that school is passive and life is active is, at best, partially true. Very few people answer to no one and the rest get told what to do, all too often, throughout their lives. The rest is mostly based on the author's life in the academic bubble pretending they know what the 'outside' is all about. For example, the claim that college "is fond of seeing imaginary connections, like Arts and marketing, or Maths and computer programming" obviously doesn't understand any of those subjects.

The core advice is to figure out what you want to do in your career, and choose an academic path that supports that. He's pointing out that the mistake people make is to choose an academic subject and assume there'll be a job that maps perfectly to that subject, when there usually isn't.

The issue I have with it is that when I was in college, one of the few things I knew least about is what I wanted to do with my life.

I was the other way. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but my university had extremely competitive programs, so getting into the CS program was nearly impossible, even if you were already admitted to the university.

> Very few people answer to no one and the rest get told what to do, all too often, throughout their lives.

I don't know about this. I run a team of ML engineers, and the ones who require being told what to do in order to be productive are simply worth less to the team. Sure, the scope of work is very specific (often limited to the teams purpose/mission), but autonomy is very much sought after and rewarded where I work. I simply don't want to work on a team where I, as the boss, am the sole person responsible for finding high leverage problems to solve, and have to then package the work then assign it.

"the scope of work is very specific" and not under your control. Word.

I think there is a large gap between "go solve this large engineering problem, how is up to you" and "here are pre-groomed tickets, do not deviate from them". Do you disagree?

> Maths and computer programming

I’ll have to inform the 50+% of math PhD’s I graduated with that now work in tech…

> The core concept that school is passive and life is active is, at best, partially true. Very few people answer to no one and the rest get told what to do, all too often, throughout their lives.

I don't agree with your framing. Yes, people vary on how much autonomy they have in their job, but your life is still yours to live. A big part of being an adult is getting to make choices you didn't have as a kid.

Even if your job is very rote, you can still try to find other jobs, or move to a new place, or whatever.

Many people don't exploit the autonomy they have because they don't have the mindset that they can make choices. Instead they do everything they can let other people make choices for them. I beleithr author is encouraging the mindset of making the most of whatever autonomy you do have.

Well-intentioned, I suppose, but this seems more of a scattershot blog post than a thoughtful answer to 'how to choose your college degree'.

I've heard a lot recently about 'picking the right college major'. It's normal to worry about such things. I remember.

But I think obsessing over picking the 'right' college degree is a waste of time. If you have particular interests, follow them in college, but waste no more time worrying if you've made the 'right' choice.

I'm in my 50s. I've heard hundreds of stories of the twists and turns of lives and the role of college in them--including my own. I was dead set on being an electrical engineer, and the first year and a half of college was in that subject. I was certain I was destined to invent the next power source and change the world with it.

I ended up with an undergrad in history, and (years later) a graduate degree in urban planning. I've been in the 'tech' business for 30-odd years as a technical writer, then usability engineer, then software developer, then analyst/product owner/whatever.

The best 'engineer' I know has an undergrad in fine arts. They own three software patents; they also make pottery.

My 'old guy' advice to those staring down college decisions:

The road doesn't matter very much. Taking steps matters. Just keep taking action and learning and adjusting and, for god's sake, enjoy your life. It's a dance, not a long march towards 'eventual' happiness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

I support the spreading of Alan Watts teachings.

https://youtu.be/ZzaUGhhnlQ8

tl; dr: Intern, side projects, make stuff.

If you don't know what to get a degree in, choose accounting. You're going to be dealing with money and taxes the rest of your life, might as well get good at it. This is doubly true if you want to be a rock star or sports hero or famous actor, all jobs where a lot of money comes into the hands of people who aren't prepared for it.

Ditto English!

Accounting has a clear career path though...english doesn't. Unless things have dramatically changed since I graduated college.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5OshYCOieXk

>If you don't know what to get a degree in

I'd suggest economics or business for the same reasons... accounting is a very "hands-on" degree, whereas economics will give you a broader perspective on the world. Same goes for business - we're all in business, whether we realize it or not. Both econ and business are good background for a range of careers or paths of additional study.

There’s a better way:

1. If there is a subject you’re passionate about, go for it

2. Cost matters. If you select a degree that doesn’t earn a lot and you live in a country where higher education can be expensive, unless if you have the opportunity to study at a game changing institution, consider going for a low cost program

3. If you don’t know what you want to study, pick two or three relatively high earning degrees that you may enjoy, take introductory classes in all of them and build your study path around the one you find most enjoyable

4. Work experience and internships matter. Outside of some notable exceptions, you will likely have more success if you have a somewhat lower GPA and several internships on your resume

Can be summarized in one quote:

> As you start thinking about what to major in, start pondering this very scary question: what professional area do you want to get in?

That's probably one of the least inspiring posts I've read on the topic, I doubt many people would choose to study challenging and rewarding degrees like philosophy based on that thinking. Fortunately that's not the only way to rationalize a degree choice. Not everyone gets an education in order to found a VC-backed startup, the only thing that seems to really count as a worthwhile life goal to this person. Maybe apart from becoming a NASA engineer (preferably before starting a VC-backed tech startup).

It would be nice if the authors of this genre of blog post explicitly outlined what they think education is and what they think it should be for.

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