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How's that STEM education working out?
Much of the public enthusiasm for STEM education rests on the assumption that these fields are rich in job opportunity. Some are, some aren’t. STEM is an expansive category, spanning many disciplines and occupations, from software engineers and data scientists to geologists, astronomers and physicists.
What recent studies have made increasingly apparent is that the greatest number of high-paying STEM jobs are in the “T” (specifically, computing).
Earlier this year, Glassdoor, a jobs listing website, ranked the median base salary of workers in their first five years of employment by undergraduate major. Computer science topped the list ($70,000), followed by electrical engineering ($68,438). Biochemistry ($46,406) and biotechnology ($48,442) were among the lowest paying majors in the study, which also confirmed that women are generally underrepresented in STEM majors.
So study cybersecurity, not slime molds.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Friday November 03 2017, @08:31PM (4 children)
Ha. Ha! You really think STEM pays well because we work hard at it? LOL.
First of all, STEM != Computer Programming. The latter is a lucrative subset of the former.
Second, Computer Programming pays well because...the people that pay for it don't understand it. A programmer's productivity can't be measured, and the ones that are good at talking to the rest of the business get promoted out of programming.
Programming is a weird job where only the people doing the actual ground-level work actually understand how the business operates. Everybody knows it and pays for it.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @08:39PM
If you're lucky, your managers and leaders up through CTO are people that got promoted because they were great developers, not because they sucked and it was a way to get them away from the code.
I'm lucky. Most people in our field aren't.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 03 2017, @09:10PM
I don't know where this meme of programmers being paid more than engineers comes from. What are they doing, comparing software guys with 10-20 years' experience with entry-level engineers?! Do these bullshit statistics assume that the only people who studied computer science all go on to launch successful and overvalued startups?!
I think it's a conspiracy. The ongoing conspiracy to flood the job market with Compsci grads to drive the wages down. The obligatory Muh shortage of Wymyn in STEM confirms that theory.
I been working in the goddamn industry for 15 years and even lowly entry-level technicians will call bullshit on this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Saturday November 04 2017, @03:04AM (1 child)
I wasn't even indirectly referring to computer programming. I was talking about all of STEM. All of it. I'm not a programmer really so I don't know what that field is like. Engineering and mathematics (mat=quant=wallstreet for the most part) get paid pretty well.
I absolutely do not think ground level people in programming understand how the business operates. Much like in engineering or many other technical fields, these people can recognize intelligence in other programmers (or engineers). They cannot recognize intelligence as well when a marketing person or manager applies it. Many Ground Level Workers do not understand those jobs. Oh, they think they do. But they do not. They do not understand the dynamics and they do not posses the skills. Like anyone else who is a master at one area: they frequently believe their intelligence and mastery of that area in any way shape or form translates to knowing their dick from a shovel in some other area. It doesn't. They are rank amateurs. They do not understand how the business operates.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Sunday November 05 2017, @01:26AM
There’s a kind of understanding that only ground level employees in any role understand. It’s not how the business runs itself; that much is true. It’s sknething much more important: the business’s relationship with its customers.
Even programmers understand this better than upper management. Fundamentally, if your customer took their business elsewhere, the programmer knows why, the call center person knows why, the retail clerk knows why...and the CEO is clueless.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?