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posted by martyb on Friday November 03 2017, @07:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the cost-benefit-analysis dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday November 03 2017, @09:57PM (4 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday November 03 2017, @09:57PM (#591900) Homepage Journal

    I really didn't want to be in the Navy, however my father, his two brothers, their father and their uncle were in the Navy.

    Mom repeatedly urged me not to disappoint my father.

    So the captain that interviewed me asked "What do you want to do?"

    "I want to get a PhD in astronomy then do research"

    "We don't do that here." That's not quite correct: had I not gone crazy I expect I would have been accepted into the Naval Postgraduate School.

    "But your interest in physics suggested that you'd be a good nuclear submarine reactor operator."

    I wanted to see the sky. I wasn't going to spend five years inside a metal tube. So I declined the scholarship.

    But years later, it occurred to me that he hadn't suggested I be a reactor operator on an aircraft carrier. I would have been into that.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @10:17PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday November 03 2017, @10:17PM (#591908)

    But years later, it occurred to me that he hadn't suggested I be a reactor operator on an aircraft carrier. I would have been into that.

    I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing there's actually a reason for that: the likelihood of you getting a carrier assignment was much lower than getting a submarine assignment, and you probably wouldn't have had a choice in the matter anyway. There's never more than 12 aircraft carriers in the US fleet, which these days equals 24 reactors (it was a little more when the Enterprise was sailing, as it had 8, but it was the only carrier like that). By contrast, there's several dozen nuclear submarines in the fleet (one site I just googled said 70). So obviously there's a lot more submarine reactors out there needing operators than aircraft carrier reactors. And the carrier reactor positions are probably in higher demand for exactly the reason you cited: submarine duty is hard, you never see the sky, you have to share a tiny bed with another dude (nasty), etc. Carriers are luxury ships by comparison, so probably everyone wants those jobs.

  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @10:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @10:30PM (#591912)

    But years later, it occurred to me that he hadn't suggested I be a reactor operator on an aircraft carrier. I would have been into that.

    So you would have seen the same amount of sun as on a submarine. There aren't many windows on aircraft carrier.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 03 2017, @10:45PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday November 03 2017, @10:45PM (#591919) Homepage

      Submariners have to breathe recycled farts through the scrubbers, and as in a prison environment even as formerly straight men submit to gay sex.

      As the old submariner joke goes, "10 submariners go down, 5 couples come up"

      Now that's camaraderie.

      As for carriers, comparing the environment of carriers compared to subs is like comparing apple orchards to baby's first preschool bulb grown. There are plenty of places to get lost in a carrier. Or any other Navy ship. Now on subs, you'd better wait until Thailand.

  • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Sunday November 05 2017, @03:16PM

    by Hawkwind (3531) on Sunday November 05 2017, @03:16PM (#592527)

    Aircraft carrier spots have no supply issues, these people sign on during their lower division years.