https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-09/science-jobs-technology-stem-majors "Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. ... about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages." "Employers, and the investors who drive their behavior, depress the national returns on STEM education investments. ... Some of the wealthiest companies — Apple, Google, Adobe Systems and Intel — settled a class-action lawsuit for $415 million in 2015 after workers alleged employers used illegal means to prevent salary increases." "We’ve been bombarded by images of young, happy-go-lucky STEM workers playing foosball and skateboarding to free snacks or meditation pods. But the more common experience, especially in tech, is grueling “crunch time” to rush a product out the door while worrying about the next performance review." "Especially vulnerable are expensive older workers and those who didn’t, or couldn’t, self-train to keep their skills relevant — an increasingly important practice because employer-provided training has dwindled over recent decades." "The poor return on investments in STEM education can improve. Employers facing STEM worker shortages must understand that their wounds are self-inflicted. They can raise wages, utilize worker-friendly management, re-train obsolete workers rather than lay them off, follow best practices on workplace inclusiveness and eschew destructive business models. But investors repeatedly reward employers for treating STEM grads like fast fashion — discarded when broken or no longer appealing — or for deploying STEM skills in lucrative yet harmful business models."
Anecdotal evidence but, STEM education was the best return on investment I have ever done in my life. (And this includes comparing it to some of my pretty strong gains from stocks, Bitcoin and RE)
By STEM education, do you mean you did a CS major or some other STEM degree?
I am EE. But worked all my career in gaming. (20+ years) Well EE is very common to find in gaming or even in other software shops.
I have a degree in chemistry and went to sales to make money. I do nothing with my degree
Impressive. Let’s see the statistics on career outcome of political science and communications majors.
What if I did communication as an undergrad, realized my mistake and did MS in CS 😂
My art history major friend is doing so well!
This is a great time for young people to apply for top STEM degree programs. The skills in STEM are invaluable. Math always helps. In-fact as people keep reading such articles, competition for top schools and top jobs will reduce eventually and that is the time for smart people to swoop in.
If you are going to invest in education, it should be STEM for the ability to reason and solve problems. What you do later with that base is on you.
If you’re STEM, you have to be crazy good at it, not some mediocre graduate. Real life experience counts more these days.
You’re telling me that “STEM” majors like [checks notes] sociology and psychology don’t lead to jobs? I’m shocked, absolutely shocked.
Politics
Be a good STEM major and look at the data instead of some idiotic opinion piece. The right majors still have massive ROI
The irony is, this data isn't a dunk on the opinion piece you think it is.
I wouldn’t trust an ROI graph that doesn’t know how to calculate ROI. ROIs are the ratio of the financial outcome to its investment. This appears net income
The TE is what's important in STEM - unless you pursue specialized grad school or go to a prestigious uni
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STEM was never good to pursue. Pure science majors go nowhere. Math majors also go nowhere unless they augment their knowledge with something applied like finance. These days non-CS engineers also go nowhere. STEM was always just a broadly inclusive euphemism for "knowing computer stuff".
I know many non CS engineers (EE very common) that are in high positions in software engineering?
Yeah but that basically means they're self taught and wasted 4 years of undergrad. Doing a CS degree is actually super useful. Almost every course is applicable to the profession. A self-taught person will never get such a comprehensive survey of the subject.