Wasted Education: How We Fail Our Graduates in STEM [video] | Hacker News Reader

Wasted Education: How We Fail Our Graduates in STEM [video]

youtube.com

9 pointsamichail21 comments

He seems to only be talking about tech jobs, which is actually on the sunnier side of the STEM job situation. I thought he was going to talk about how, most non-IT/CS STEM degree graduates won't find an industry position that makes use of their skills at all, beyond some very vacuous notion of being good at problem solving or technical writing. I think that's the real waste. When somebody spends their entirely early adulthood studying and practicing a scientific discipline, only to end up programming SAP applications afterwards.

Yeah, I was expecting the same kind of argument from the author, not what he actually talked about (STEM workers have to commit to life-long learning, work long hours during crunch time, feel like on a treadmill because there's always the next release ahead, etc.) in the end.

When I look at the people who finished their PhD in biotech while my wife was doing hers, the overwhelming majority of them seem to be working as project managers (not necessarily, but most likely) in the biotech industry these days - but not as scientists or even engineers, which they should be MUCH better suited for, given their decade-long training and supposed major interest in science. I hope (and so does she, ftr) she will be able to avoid that fate.

There's a bunch of biotech in my locale. What I've noticed is the rapid proliferation of what I call the "biotech sweatshop." These are production labs with hundreds or thousands of workers, performing the manual steps for repetitive biological "protocols." Transferring liquids with pipettes, moving sample plates from one instrument to another, etc. Many of these businesses run protocols on a contract basis.

A relative of mine got her undergrad biology degree, and has worked for a succession of these businesses. She changes jobs whenever it offers a small pay bump and guarantees daytime hours. There's a certain amount of mental involvement, because things go wrong, records have to be maintained and signed, and so forth.

You can recognize these jobs from the postings: "Wanted, scientists for 3rd shift."

True of any large factory operation, there's a hierarchy, and you move up the ladder as you gain experience, or job-hop. Above the production line scientists are people like QC scientists, project managers and lab managers. Another friend just moved up to a project manager job. She's a PhD scientist. At some point you're designing new protocols and interacting with clients. Understanding the regulatory system is needed at some level.

My relative's boyfriend worked at a different place, taught himself Python, and demonstrated an analysis that saved a bunch of money. I don't know the details. They moved him up to the corporate office and he was able to leave the lab bench behind. Being "at the bench" beyond about age 30 is unusual. I'm one of the few, but not in biotech.

> spends their entirely early adulthood studying and practicing a scientific discipline, only to end up programming SAP applications afterwards

Well, isn't that the point of SAP? In Germany, SAP is jokingly expanded to "Sammelplatz arbeitsloser Physiker", which translates to "meeting point for jobless physicists".

I tell students thinking of getting into coding that "you gotta want it". If you love that work, great. If you don't, you're going to have a hard time of it. Not impossible, but maybe something peripheral like tech sales would be better, etc. Same reason I'd have a hard time being an accountant.

We are not talking about a “passion” career where someone can be working poor, yet fulfilling a societal function: teachers, social workers, special needs, etc.

Programming is one of the best career investment opportunities available at the moment. You cannot take a six week bootcamp course and become a MD commanding a six figure salary. Yet that is a common enough story in this industry. Someone took bare minimum of training and is now making significantly more than traditional career opportunities.

Loving your job is great, but it is a luxury afforded to few. Might as well do the most you can to keep food on the table.

What you're writing was true a couple of years ago, but right now six week bootcamp isn't going to get you a job at all in Western world. In my country even new grads with 5 year CS degrees struggle to find jobs, especially if they don't program on their spare time. Meanwhile doctors can pretty much choose their workplace, and earn at least twice as much as average dev.

I would never recommend any technical role in this field for anyone who has no genuine interest in it. Sales, project management etc might work better.

That is a very generic piece of advice, I think. Applies to (almost?) anything. And it at (anything?) not necessarily true. I know many many people that certainly do not love their job, even almost hate it, but the money and “work/life balance” is such, that they like it “all in all”. Just anecdotal evidence, but still…

Bad advice. Most people are not deciding between coding and some other great job that they’re passionate about. I’m not passionate about coding at all and never have been but I can’t imagine anything better. Pay and work life balance are way too good

I agree with the other guy in this thread. Loving your job is a luxury that most people can’t afford

I lost most of my passion for coding when I started doing it for a living. It pretty quickly became just a job. Still one that I like doing, but I don't think about code outside of work very much.

Every once in a while I'll hear about something that sounds interesting and get into it. I taught myself Erlang/OTP but have never used it professsionally, for example. But that's like a once-every-5-years kind of thing, and it's been more than 5 years already since I did that.

Yeah, I think it's a form of self-flattery or gatekeeping for programmers to say that you need passion or drive to have a career in tech--outside of the upper echelons, you clearly don't. In this respect it's a mundane occupation like most others, and I wouldn't expect coders to be any more passionate about their work than nurses or plumbers or accountants.

My argument is that you had a harder time of it than someone who was passionate about it. I said it wasn't impossible. And I trust you wanted it enough to get it.

Edit: I've seen many students who apparently have better things to do with their time than study CS. I'm not judging. Like I said, I have better things to do with my time than study to be a CPA.

> I tell students thinking of getting into coding that "you gotta want it". If you love that work, great. If you don't, you're going to have a hard time of it. Not impossible, but maybe something peripheral like tech sales would be better, etc. Same reason I'd have a hard time being an accountant.

i hear/see this all the time here on hn. it does not reflect my experience in

1) elite school

2) FAANG

first of all, an enormous number of people (undergrads) i met while doing my phd in cs at xyz-elite school did not love cs and they were almost all uniformly excellent. the ones i kept track ended up in FAANG or quantfi or whatever tough/challenging software engineering role.

second of all, not a single person/manager/intern/etc i met during my several internships in FAANG ever professed a love of the job. they all professed a love of money/prestige/benefits. they were almost all uniformly excellent.

> Same reason I'd have a hard time being an accountant.

i wonder who you think enjoys being an accountant, or a lawyer, or in IB, or whatever other professionally and intellectually demanding role that's highly compensated? a similar question: who do you think enjoys leetcode? yes i'm aware there are a few CP people around but that vast majority of people that have cleared the LC gauntlet aren't that.

there's a word for this: it's called grind. i know, it's shocking and hard to believe, but some people can muscle through a terrible job that they hate, and still be good at it, purely for the money.

so i tell students, the job sucks, it's stressful, it's tedious, you'll be surrounded by people that don't relate well with others, etc etc etc and then i ask them: what's your pain threshold? because the higher it is, the more money you can make in software, and you don't need a cert/MS/PhD/MD/JD/etc. that last bit is what makes it unique amongst the other highly-skilled labor jobs.

EDIT:

i'm gonna say something that'll borderline get me cancelled: there's an implicit bias in the "you gotta love it" trope. it's enormously colored by a US/western centric perspective. I'm american and white but I'm friends/friendly with many chinese/indian immigrants in tech (you know - the huge number we're all surrounded by...). not a single one of them has ever said they picked this job because they love it. many of them say they picked it because either it was a way out of their country or a way to help their families. again: uniformly excellent engineers. you might say it's because they've made it through two filters (finishing an engineering degree and being good enough to land a US job) but nonetheless.

> an enormous number of people (undergrads) i met while doing my phd in cs at xyz-elite school did not love cs and they were almost all uniformly excellent. the ones i kept track ended up in FAANG or quantfi or whatever tough/challenging software engineering role.

These sound to me like people who "wanted it", and probably had a harder time than people who loved the work.

> i wonder who you think enjoys being an accountant

I admit to only knowing two accountants, but they love it. For me, accountancy books are good as a general anesthetic.

Let me put it this way, instead: if you hate programming with a passion, you're going to have a lot of trouble motivating to put in the work to get good at it.

> These sound to me like people who "wanted it", and probably had a harder time than people who loved the work.

yea all of these elite engineers at FAANG had a harder time than all of the lisp/hobby/gamedev/etc coders that just love it. totally.

> if you hate programming with a passion, you're going to have a lot of trouble motivating to put in the work to get good at it.

i absolutely hate programming. i hate it more than any other job i've done. i put in the thousands of hours over the last ~2 years getting good at it and i am very very good at it. and i'm not talking about research code, i'm talking clean, production quality, engineering code. the reason i did this is because i knew i'd get paid a fat signing bonus/RSUs/cash base at the end. simple.

so you're just wrong.

I guess so. You hate it with a passion but you're totally motivated to do it; you get up in the morning rearing to go and spend every waking moment considering how to improve the craft. Well done you.

> you get up in the morning rearing to go and spend every waking moment considering how to improve the craft

Are you unfamiliar with the concept of money?

So it's just a author talking about his book where the central point is that we're "failing our STEM" majors because according to one figure as many as 70% of "STEM graduates" don't end up working in "STEM jobs".

I'm just generally not a fan of this kind of absolutist thinking.

"STEM" is a massive umbrella that encompasses dozens of fields, many of which might not have a robust undergraduate-to-employment pipeline the way that something like CompSci did until very recently. Lots of STEM undergraduate degrees are not by themselves that useful for employment, but generally are part of a track which includes postgraduate education.

It's not that crazy that some 18 year old might think they want to be an MD or PhD, but have changed their minds by the time they complete undergrad. Also lots of Science and Engineering departments at universities have degree plans which are coded as "Science" or "Engineering" degrees but are academically much less rigorous than other programs at the college. Graduates of these majors typically don't end up in jobs that would be coded as "STEM jobs" in official statistics.

So what's the takeaway? That often people end up in careers that differ from their education? Ok sure, but is a sensational title like "Wasted Education" warranted?

S,T,M isn't actually a path to a stable or lucrative career.

Engineering and Computer Science are, though.

We're in need of a new acronym.

Biology is pretty firmly a science degree, and a degree in that leads to some quite lucrative careers. Doctors, for example. Chemistry is another good one, as oil is still quite a large industry that uses chem majors. Not $500k upper grade FAANG salaries, but to be fair those are also fairly rare in the computer industry.

Honestly? There is too much graduate. We need competent people, of course, but an army have more troops than officers, not the contrary. Most STEM paths are not STEM, are designed to create useful idiots [1] and chosen by people with zero attitude toward STEM simply because "that's the trend of the moment". As a result we have many with a piece of paper and not really competence good enough for almost anything to the point they fails to even understand their incompetence.

Having them in a path meaning adapting to them, as a result many talents simply loose interests/get frustrated by an environment not designed from them.

The triumph of the mediocrity kill evolution, and we see the results in general.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-usef...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com