# Are we being lied to about the value of STEM degrees? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 26, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291 "2017-12-26T01:03:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/141 "2018-01-10T22:21:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s a bit hard to sympathize if you decide to stay at the same job for an entire decade. > The way a lot of people are talking, it’s almost as if the expectation is they get a degree, then they take a job doing the same thing forever. Do people not plan to progress in their careers or go into management at some point? Not everyone likes management. Not everyone is good at management. The real problem I think is that it is easy to be the comfortable frog in the pot while the company slowly turns the heat up on you. Companies these days don’t want you to take time out for training, since there is always another deadline. And with longer hours and the expectation that you need to check your email throughout your off hours, it is not easy to learn something new in your copious free time. So they discourage you from learning anything new - then lay you off because you have fallen behind. This is not from personal experience. Companies at least pretended to care about training until I became old and experienced. Then when they told me not to be involved in outside technical activities, I said I understood and did whatever the hell I wanted. And laughed when it turned out that my illicit learning and networking were needed after all. But this is not so easy for a junior person to pull off. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/142 "2018-01-11T02:01:31Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > All I know is in our area all the kids get pushed into STEM. Even at the [skating rink](https://skatecitykansas.com/stem-field-trips). > > I have a hard time believing this area wont be filled up pretty fast. The problem is that most of them are going to suck at it. They will not make it to a STEM career. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/143 "2018-01-11T13:50:03Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The way a lot of people are talking, it’s almost as if the expectation is they get a degree, then they take a job doing the same thing forever. Do people not plan to progress in their careers or go into management at some point? The problem is that so many conflate “go into management” with “progress in their career”. You _can’t_ have everyone go into management because that leads to all managers and no one managed. Not everyone is suited to managing other people. Not everyone _wants_ to mange other people, even if they could. Where are the non-management career paths? Also, and this may also shock you, “get a job and keep it for decades” used to be the norm. Certainly when I started out in the work world “job hopping” was seen as a negative and employers _wanted_ people to stick around decades. The current “job hop and don’t stay anywhere longer than 2-3 years” with holding a job for 10 years as a negative is a relatively new paradigm. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/144 "2018-01-11T18:39:52Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > The problem is that so many conflate “go into management” with “progress in their career”. You _can’t_ have everyone go into management because that leads to all managers and no one managed. Not everyone is suited to managing other people. Not everyone _wants_ to mange other people, even if they could. Where are the non-management career paths? Most tech companies have non-management career paths, where the best technical people can get promoted into well paying and well respected high level positions. This often involves some team leading work, but none of the crappy management paperwork. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/145 "2018-01-11T23:33:44Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Many managers these days find it in their short term interest to chain their engineers at their desks. Why go to a conference when you can write 100 more lines of code. > And then these companies wonder why they fall behind. Or worse. One of the things I do at my company is I seek out and target the underachiever or underappreciated person who is chained to their desk. I look for the people who want to grow but have been limited (almost always it’s by just bad luck or shyness), and I mentor them during lunches, after hours, and during the work day to help them grow. I’ve helped two engineers move into project management, and turned a couple more into educators and mentors themselves, and helped many, many more either start kicking butt at their current job and moving up the ranks, or changing positions and finding something where they can kick butt. No one asked me to do these things, I just do it because I know more than anyone how it feels to be denied your true potential because you’re too scared to take the leap of faith. If one person had been there to guide me and help me out, who knows how much better my life might have been. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/146 "2018-01-12T01:03:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s a bit hard to sympathize if you decide to stay at the same job for an entire decade. > The way a lot of people are talking, it’s almost as if the expectation is they get a degree, then they take a job doing the same thing forever. Do people not plan to progress in their careers or go into management at some point? I just see market weakness; look at one of the links in my other posts - you get rewarded with a nice pension for staying a long time in certain jobs. Similar opportunities should exist if the demand in the labor market is truly strong or if STEM proficiency really had that much leverage. It’s not particularly strong however - every single post hints at this lack of strength to me. The STEM degrees do provide a certain cache, they provide an opportunity to do certain things, but they don’t even punch at their own weight class it seems to me. This isn’t to say one shouldn’t do something stemmy if that’s what they want - I know a couple people who love what they do so much it makes up for what they consider low pay. On the other hand I’ve seen the other end of the spectrum too. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/147 "2018-01-12T05:03:53Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > This isn’t to say one shouldn’t do something stemmy if that’s what they want - I know a couple people who love what they do so much it makes up for what they consider low pay. On the other hand I’ve seen the other end of the spectrum too. Just as a datapoint, a few years ago new Computer Engineering PhDs were getting hired at salaries well over $100K. And we paid competitively, but not top 10%. I don’t know what bachelors and masters people were getting, but it wasn’t chump change. Not everyone is going to make this, but the opportunities are there - for the T and E, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/148 "2018-01-12T14:52:23Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > That used to be the case, but no more. Take a job at McDonalds. A couple decades ago it was seen as a sort of training ground for the adult world. High schoolers would take a part-time job at minimum wage where they learned the importance of showing up on time ready to work, doing things that aren’t as much fun as partying or playing with your X-box, and being compensated for that by making a little money you could spend on what you liked. At one point, something like 25% of the American work force had worked at McDonalds (literally) at some point in their school years. > > Next time you’re at MickeyD’s take a look – take a real look – at the people behind the counter and in the kitchen; they aren’t [teens](http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/30/news/economy/fast-food-educated-older/index.html) any more. Also notice that, far from being lazy, they’re working their asses off. They’re not there because they want to be; they’re there because it is the only job they can find. Some of this might be due to poor life choices but with 20% of them having attended college certainly not all. I think I saw somewhere that about 15% of waiters/waitresses and about 16% of bartenders have a college degree. And supposedly 5% of janitors. Like someone said out in Los Angeles, nobody is just a waiter - they are really an actor or writer just watiing for a big break. ---
**Author:** ![JcWoman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jcwoman/32/2889_2.png) [@JcWoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JcWoman)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/149 "2018-01-12T18:13:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Most tech companies have non-management career paths, where the best technical people can get promoted into well paying and well respected high level positions. This often involves some team leading work, but none of the crappy management paperwork. The problem with those career paths, though, is that they are even more of a “pyramid” than management is. A company of, say, 500 people might have 25 people at the management level, but only one or two technical architects. And team lead isn’t very high in the career ladder. Team lead responsibilities are assigned generally around the mid-level developer stage. So that’s a different issue, where you can have lots of developer team leads in a company, but there’s no career ladder rung above that (other than architect). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/150 "2018-01-12T21:22:38Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > The problem with those career paths, though, is that they are even more of a “pyramid” than management is. A company of, say, 500 people might have 25 people at the management level, but only one or two technical architects. > > And team lead isn’t very high in the career ladder. Team lead responsibilities are assigned generally around the mid-level developer stage. So that’s a different issue, where you can have lots of developer team leads in a company, but there’s no career ladder rung above that (other than architect). Depends on the company. At Sun the senior non-management guy (who was the master debugger of processor issues) went from his role directly to the head of the Microelectronics division. It was a one step promotion at most. As for team leader jobs, there are little teams and big teams. Top technical people also make more than a lot of managers do. And more authority. Of course it all strongly depends on the company. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/151 "2018-01-14T13:15:08Z")
My personal observation. Taken as a whole, people with STEM degrees tend to be smarter than people with other backgrounds. More importantly, they actually know how to do and make and fix things. As a civil engineering grad, I can read and understand a history book. A history major can’t design a suspension bridge. Of course, the value is in whether you need someone to provide you with a deep historical context for the potential socioeconomic impact of a new infrastructure project on the region…or if you just want someone to build a damn bridge. A lot of Corporate America is like that (and that’s where jobs tend to be). Companies are run by layers or networks of “management”, who often don’t have STEM backgrounds, even in technology-driven companies. Furthermore, because management, sales and marketing types tend to be more “relationship” or “deal” driven, they tend to be a bit disparaging of STEM types who tend to go into engineering, finance and accounting and often have to (and should) give relationships and deals less of a priority to making stuff actually work. So they tend to not want to put engineers into those “people” roles and the engineers don’t want to do them anyway, because most of those people are full of shit. It’s called the “Dilbert Principal” (also see “Putt’s Law”, “negative selection” or a “competence inversion”). You need your smartest, best people doing the actual work. The idiots you can have do the easy stuff like buy donuts and bagels for the team and yell at people for missing deadlines. Unfortunately, the idiots often get paid a lot more and have more job security than the engineers who they often outsource. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/152 "2018-01-15T02:39:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > vide you with a deep historical context for the potential socioeconomic impact of a new infrastructure project on the region…or if you just want someone to build a damn bridge. > > A lot of Corporate America is like that (and that’s where jobs tend to be). Companies are run by layers or networks of “management”, who often don’t have STEM backgrounds, even in technology-driven companies. Furthermore, because management, sales and marketing types tend to be more “relationship” or “deal” driven, they tend to be a bit disparaging of STEM types who tend to go into engineering, finance and accounting and often have to (and should) give relationships and deals less of a priority to making stuff actually work. So they tend to not want to put engineers into those “people” roles and the engineers don’t want to do them anyway, because most of those people are full of shit. True, but remember that many if not most tech companies have been founded by STEM graduates - Oracle, Intel, Apple, Google, Microsoft, off the top of my head. When they retire and the sales people and marketers take over, then you have the problems you describe. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/153 "2018-01-15T04:03:29Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s called the “Dilbert Principal” (also see “Putt’s Law”, “negative selection” or a “competence inversion”). You need your smartest, best people doing the actual work. The idiots you can have do the easy stuff like buy donuts and bagels for the team and yell at people for missing deadlines. > > Unfortunately, the idiots often get paid a lot more and have more job security than the engineers who they often outsource. I like what you said about “The Dilbert principle”. I remember his book where he talks about how they put into management everyone with great hair, then they find people who actually know something. I mean yeah, notice how they put all the good looking people out front and to be the face of the company rather than those who actually do the work. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/154 "2018-01-15T04:05:40Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > True, but remember that many if not most tech companies have been founded by STEM graduates - Oracle, Intel, Apple, Google, Microsoft, off the top of my head. When they retire and the sales people and marketers take over, then you have the problems you describe. Only half these people were STEM graduates. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/155 "2018-01-15T08:33:52Z")
> [@Mr.Nylock](#): > > Only half these people were STEM graduates. I suppose Jobs wasn’t. But he did do a lot of phone hacking, so maybe he counts as self-taught. (Though Woz was the real expert, of course.) Gates didn’t graduate (as Scott McNealy enjoyed saying) but he was close. Ellison was. The founders of Intel certainly were. The founders of Google were. Scott McNealy was not a STEM guy, but Bill Joy was. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/156 "2018-01-15T08:39:59Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I mean yeah, notice how they put all the good looking people out front and to be the face of the company rather than those who actually do the work. Don’t underestimate the job of being the face of a company. Some engineers are good at it, some aren’t. We were doing demos at a big trade show, and we brought an excellent engineer to do one of them. A potential customer suggested something. When that happens, you say “interesting idea, we’ll think about it” no matter how stupid the idea is. He said “if you do that, you’d be brain dead.” He did no more shows. Remember, most people out there don’t give a crap about your design or how hard the code was to write. My fellow engineers often forget that. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Nylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mr.Nylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Nylock)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/157 "2018-01-15T13:11:46Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I suppose Jobs wasn’t. But he did do a lot of phone hacking, so maybe he counts as self-taught. (Though Woz was the real expert, of course.) Gates didn’t graduate (as Scott McNealy enjoyed saying) but he was close. Ellison was. The founders of Intel certainly were. The founders of Google were. > > Scott McNealy was not a STEM guy, but Bill Joy was. But the whole point of the thread is about the value of a STEM _education_ - not about having aptitude or passion for STEM per se. It should be part of the discussion, but it is a little tangential to the question posed. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/158 "2018-01-15T14:41:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I suppose Jobs wasn’t. But he did do a lot of phone hacking, so maybe he counts as self-taught. (Though Woz was the real expert, of course.) Gates didn’t graduate (as Scott McNealy enjoyed saying) but he was close. Ellison was. The founders of Intel certainly were. The founders of Google were. > > Scott McNealy was not a STEM guy, but Bill Joy was. That is why the most successful tech companies have both STEM and non-STEM at the helm (Apple with Jobs and Woz, Sun with Bill and Scott, Microsoft with Bill and Steve - and I realize that Steve has a math degree, but he is business not STEM). Further, those firms that reduce the denigration of engineering AND sales tend to be much more successful based on my experience. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2018, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/159 "2018-01-16T02:14:46Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I like what you said about “The Dilbert principle”. I remember his book where he talks about how they put into management everyone with great hair, then they find people who actually know something. > > I mean yeah, notice how they put all the good looking people out front and to be the face of the company rather than those who actually do the work. You know, it sounds stupid, but I didn’t get promoted from a technical role into management until I started letting my hair grow out in my early 30s. It was actually kind of comical. At first, it was just I missed a couple haircuts because we were working a lot. But then other directors and partners started making comments. So I was all like “fuck these guys. I got passed over last year for promotion, I’m growing my hair out”. So for a year it was “Hey McDreamy” and “what’s up Gaius Baltar!” and “Cut your damn hair, you look like a Snuffleupagus!” I even had one partner point to my ID badge from my first week of work and be like “what the fuck happened to THAT guy?!” I did get a promotion along with a nice pay bump and bonus that year. I also did a lot of work too. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2018, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291/160 "2018-01-16T11:22:09Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > You know, it sounds stupid, but I didn’t get promoted from a technical role into management until I started letting my hair grow out in my early 30s. > > It was actually kind of comical. At first, it was just I missed a couple haircuts because we were working a lot. But then other directors and partners started making comments. So I was all like “fuck these guys. I got passed over last year for promotion, I’m growing my hair out”. So for a year it was “Hey McDreamy” and “what’s up Gaius Baltar!” and “Cut your damn hair, you look like a Snuffleupagus!” I even had one partner point to my ID badge from my first week of work and be like “what the fuck happened to THAT guy?!” > > I did get a promotion along with a nice pay bump and bonus that year. I also did a lot of work too. Now the big question - Do you wear a tie now? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-we-being-lied-to-about-the-value-of-stem-degrees/805291.md?page=9)