What if instead of being able to get a CS degree, degrees in engineering were required to be spun around a topic. So that you left college with a degree in "Mid Nineties Adventure Games".
On the surface you might examine this course of study to be completely useless. Very few adventure games exist any more. But to spend 4 years trying to truly understand the topic you would have to learn to code to see how that code interacts with visual and artistic objects to understand the history of the business model and examine ideas of story and context and finally to understand why the industry moved passed it.
No one would expect that you would go out and build your own game, but in that course of study maybe you discovered that there was a piece you were good at , the code and that in understanding it through the vehicle of something you were interested in you found a passion for a profession.
Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options?
No you would say "wow she's a brilliant coder.... and a little weird if you get her talking about adventure games"
Maybe the realities are that we need to make CS, that is basically vocational training, have a little more liberal arts to it.
I'm not sure were you went to school, but at most schools the complaint is that CS doesn't have enough vocational training, i.e., there's too much math/theory not enough programming/engineering.
> a little more liberal arts
A 4 year CS degree in the US requires about 2 years of general education, we get plenty of liberal arts in that time.
>Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options?
Yes, I would. I don't think an adventure game degree would make you very marketable. Just like a Russian lit degree doesn't make you very marketable. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with a Russian lit degree, just that for the average person, a bachelor's degree in Russian Literature isn't going to land you a job. That doesn't mean you won't find a job, but it won't be because of the degree.
I'll point out that I had 90 hours of a history degree before I switched to CS (I originally planned to go to law school).
You keep back treading in your own argument. You can't argue that CS isn't vocational training and then say:
>I don't think an adventure game degree would make you very marketable
If the goal of further education is to gain a degree that shows specific marketable skills then it is by its nature vocational training(even if you feel like you got more theory than practice). Just because you go to a school with "University" in the title doesn't change that.
> You can't argue that CS isn't vocational training and then say:
Yes I can. Being vocational and making you marketable are orthogonal.
A math degree makes you very marketable--you can't argue that a math degree is vocational.
A computer science program isn't designed solely to teach you to be a professional programmer. Computer science to is designed teach computer science. Some people use that skill to be professional programmers, while some people go into research.
> Just because you go to a school with "University" in the title doesn't change that.
"Universities" do have actual job training programs, where they help you become certified members of a profession, and even require short term apprenticeships. Nursing and teaching are 2 of them. Even those degrees however require 60 hours of general education, which separates them from what are commonly called "vocational" programs.
So yes I can say that the general education requirement means that a degree program at a University is automatically not a vocational program.
I'm not really sure what you're arguing about. Your first point was that your SO's Russian lit degree was at least partially responsible for her making a lot of money.
My point was that a Russian lit degree by itself is not worth very much, financially.
If money doesn't really interest you, or you have enough already, or you are planning on some kind of post-graduate education, then a Russian literature degree is great.
However, if like the vast majority of students, you are in college for financial reasons and only for 4 years, Russian literature is a poor choice.
Keeping in mind I only brought this up because the OP seemed to imply it was a completely useless degree with which I disagree.
My point is and has been that there are a number of skills gained from studying say Russian literature that are highly useful but not immediately obvious.
If you identify a few skills required to succeed in that area of focus and look at them through the filter of a specific profession, in this case being a lawyer.
You can see how rightly applied the study of a seemingly narrow field can prepare you for a more general one.
>A math degree makes you very marketable--you can't argue that a math degree is vocational.
not sure how recent the data is but that point doesn't really hold its just something you are throwing out there based on truthiness. Math majors are, maybe, at best reasonably marketable, and well within the margin of error of say history majors.
But I agree with the thought that a math degree is not vocational but is more like Russian history in this regard.
>if like the vast majority of students, you are in college for financial reasons
Besides the fact that this is a fallacy of composition if this statement were true, then all students would study electrical engineering(per linked data).
>You can see how rightly applied the study of a seemingly narrow field can prepare you for a more general one.
Studying Russian literature to prepare you for a job not involving Russian literature is the most roundabout way of preparing yourself for a career I can imagine. Given the opportunity costs (as well as the direct costs), I highly doubt it's worth it financially.
Again, if you're goal isn't money, then Russian literature is great.
>Math majors are, maybe, at best reasonably marketable, and well within the margin of error of say history majors.
That's not true at all. Look at that chart again. Math majors ranked 18th by starting salary History Majors are 30th. If you sort by salary mid career the difference is even greater--math majors are 10th, making over 20k a year more than history majors. If you look at 90th percentile mid career salary Math majors are number 4.
>But I agree with the thought that a math degree is not vocational but is more like Russian history in this regard.
How then is CS vocational? Because you take a few programming classes? In many programs (like mine which split off from the math department about 10 years ago), you take more math classes than programming classes (5 total required programming classes out of about 40 unless you specifically took more as electives.)
>Besides the fact that this is a fallacy of composition
How is that a fallacy of composition? Most students are going to college so that they can make more money. Therefore any given college student is likely to be in college so that he can make more money.
If that is the case Russian literature doesn't make much sense.
>if this statement were true, then all students would study electrical engineering(per linked data).
First, where did you get electrical engineering from, it wasn't the highest ranked for any of the columns?
Second, not all students choose the optimal path to reach their goals. That doesn't mean it's not the optimal path.
In addition most students aren't prepared for the math involved in engineering. Engineering is also much more time intensive than most other majors and has an insanely high failure rate.
What if instead of being able to get a CS degree, degrees in engineering were required to be spun around a topic. So that you left college with a degree in "Mid Nineties Adventure Games".
On the surface you might examine this course of study to be completely useless. Very few adventure games exist any more. But to spend 4 years trying to truly understand the topic you would have to learn to code to see how that code interacts with visual and artistic objects to understand the history of the business model and examine ideas of story and context and finally to understand why the industry moved passed it.
No one would expect that you would go out and build your own game, but in that course of study maybe you discovered that there was a piece you were good at , the code and that in understanding it through the vehicle of something you were interested in you found a passion for a profession.
Would you say that people with that degree that went on to work at X big startup were doing it because they had no other options?
No you would say "wow she's a brilliant coder.... and a little weird if you get her talking about adventure games"
Maybe the realities are that we need to make CS, that is basically vocational training, have a little more liberal arts to it.