this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I find that a bit misleading. Me and my gf both work only 4 days a week (aka not full-time). I'd say it barely makes a difference in our field when we're tired on Fridays rotting at work or home.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Full time is often defined as 32 hours per week.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Oh I see... In the two countries I worked in it was 40, ok then.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Colloquially it is 40 hours per week but for other purposes its somewhere between 30 and 40. Lot of places the cut off for benefits is 36 hours.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Dumbass me saw "unemployment" and "underemployment", and went "huh? un-de-re-mployment? what's that?? that's a lot of prefixes". Turns out it's just under-employment

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

That’s kinda like how “underbed” was for me; like, how do you underb something? Or derb it in the first place, for that matter?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Un-redeployment. When you put boots on the ground, but it's not a war

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Under-redeployment. When you don't put enough boots on the ground and it's still not a war.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Why aerospace engineering? Is it because people want more mechanical engineering instead and not something so niche?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's the equivalent of "become a Hollywood superstar" for engineering specialties. Lots of grads chasing relatively few positions in the industry -- many will ultimately take positions working in related engineering fields like mechanical or automotive engineering, but at the end of the day the aerospace sector just doesn't develop enough new products to employ all the grads coming out of school with a degree.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Tied to govt contracts. I know lots of ppl that got laid off in 2008. I dk about now.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Geographic limitations. If your spouse has a good job outside of those areas, then there's no work for you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Boeing fired them all so there is an oversupply of them in the market

Joking, maybe...idk

But space engineering should be booming right now, I'm surprised to see that as well. My specific degree is in aviation fields and I'm surprised it's not on here. No one I know is using theirs.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't the engineering for space fall outside of aeronautics? There would be overlap if a craft is meant to enter and exit the atmosphere, but it seems like a trade that would require a large set of disciplines to do properly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

You're right, but aerospace engineering is a very broad term, afaik, with many disciplines. Many do overlap between aviation and space flight, but I don't really know if, hypothetically, a Boeing engineer could go work for spaceX, it would depend on the role I imagine.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

I find it neat that they include Commercial Art and Graphic Design as being separate from Fine Arts majors, and the same for Aerospace Engineering as separate from Liberal Arts or Physics majors.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Surprised to not see computer tech majors on here. I have a degree in IT and have to compete with people more experienced than me for jobs that pay a dollar or two an hour more than retail jobs. I'm going for a degree in computer engineering now but I'm starting to doubt if this is a good path.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Yeah IT specifically is pretty rough. Part of the challenge is that for pretty much every company it's considered a cost center that they want to do everything in their power to minimize, rather than an important part of their business (obviously some exceptions apply, e.g, the company provides IT services to other companies as a service offering).

Assuming you want to go into software/hardware development of some kind, computer engineering should be a solid bet, I wouldn't worry.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

IMO, it's a lack of diversity in the computer science field as a major.

Everyone I know who has gone to university for a computer related program has been taking development/programming.

Certainly programming is important in computer science, but there's substantially more disciplines in computer science than development. Any courses in computer science that are not development are few and far between. With the volume of CS programs being so small, can you really be surprised that it didn't make the list?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

As related as they are, though, CS and IT are still separate disciplines so idk, as much as some CS people are struggling to find work too, I feels like CS people specializing in development isn't super relevant to the struggles of an IT person looking for IT work since only a minority of IT grads go on to become developers.

Although one way that CS specializations can affect the IT world, anecdotally at least, is that I noticed at least where I am locally that fresh CS grads are preferred over fresh IT grads for IT roles, and often better paying ones. But more experience plus having the right certifications can give anyone an edge on either side.

To be clear, I don't disagree with what you said just wasn't sure how it relates to IT.

Where I'm from IT is usually a 2 year diploma at a vocational college, or at most an associate's degree and there wouldn't really be a path to further that academically by doing, like, a master's degree or whatever which limits the options of IT grads but also makes them less desirable I guess as the education isn't as rigorous.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

I have a degree in IT and have to compete with people more experienced than me for jobs that pay a dollar or two an hour more than retail jobs

In my experience the places paying barely more than retail wages are not hiring people with extensive resumes but mostly hiring people straight out of college. Places paying ~$20+ are where you're probably competing with more experienced folks

Make sure you're on LinkedIn, and also don't discount uploading your resume to Indeed and marking yourself as looking for work on both. For as long as I've been working in the industry I've had recruiters contacting me on both platforms with various opportunities for contracts and employment.

Also work with your college/university and your instructors to be referred for openings. Often employers will reach out to colleges with IT programs when there's openings in IT

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's either not considered a major or it's a part of the Liberal Arts degree path, like most math and science courses before specialization often are. Sometimes degrees for specific professions and technical training require a major, but they themselves are not majors in the USA.

A big part of this is lack of centralization. The federal government requires schools to have federally accredited coursework for tax purposes, and the accrediting process is done by several non-public entities, beyond that they can technically structure their courses, credits, and degree paths however they like.

For example, Physics and Aerospace Engineering require Liberal Arts majors like math and science as prerequisites, and the same is true for Commercial Art and Graphic Design's relationship to Fine Arts majors.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am having a hard time believing someone would group Computer Science & Computer Engineering with Liberal Art.

It's also possible these computer tech majors are not as badly unemployed as the other ones. I noticed that while the chart includes the underemployment rate, it doesn't sort by it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It sorts by unemployment on the left side of the line, it's just that the underemployment on the right is a much larger graph.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Yeah, well, what I'm trying to say is that the tech majors might have huge underemployment, but don't make the cut to this chart due to not that many who are completely unemployed.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I double majored in History of Art and Philosophy for my undergrad.

Surprisingly philosophy led on quite neatly to a career in software development. Especially analytic philosophy is all about breaking down complex problems into premises and a conclusion. Sometimes it's algorithmic in the sense that premise 4 might refer you back to premise 2.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's super interesting to me, any references for a software person who wants to find some overlap with philosophy? I know very little about the subject.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I suppose studying basic formal logic would be a good place to start because that is the place where there is the most overlap. In philosophy an argument can be 'valid' by conforming to certain conditions such as

P1: All men are mortal
P2: Socrates is a man
C: Socrates is mortal

This is an example of deductive reasoning where the form or structure of the argument guarantees the conclusion to be true. Process is called 'deductive' reasoning where a conclusion is drawn from the truth of the premises. The ancient Greeks called this a syllogism.

Computer programs are similar in the sense that they are using formal logic with tokens that represent variables to the compiler. Given these arguments exist; we can perform these operations and get a specific result.

As an aside the counterpart to deductive reasoning is inductive reasoning. That's where the premises may be true but the conclusion might not necessarily follow from them. People throw around the word 'fallacy' quite often online but essentially every fallacy is just an example of inductive reasoning where the premises do not guarantee the conclusion. Philosophers study different types of formal fallacies like 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' (because this happens, something else ought to happen) since there are different ways where combinations of premises can lead to an untrustworthy conclusion.

Intriguingly all science is speculative and uses inductive reasoning where we infer from what data we gain in experiments to a conclusion of what might be happening, however there is no logical guarantee that experiment results will be true. There's even a thesis called pessimistic meta induction which states that: Given all scientific theories we held in the past have been proven false (or refined to a slightly different conclusion), we can safely assume that every scientific theory we currently hold is 'false' in some sense.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

This is a good introduction to formal logic. It was required reading in my undergrad - https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Paul-Tomassi-Logic.pdf

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What is Liberal Arts? There are many majors that could be considered part of the liberal arts, but never seen an actual liberal arts major.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

You can major in Liberal Arts at some schools, but many call it General Studies. It's basically for when you can't decide on a major.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Most depressing colleague I ever had was a dude who'd done a masters by research discovering new planets with powerful instruments that detected tiny variations in the light levels in far off solar systems. You could discover new heavenly bodies based off the cadence and degree of occlusion that occurs for that solar system's star.

Basically this guy was no longer able to progress with astrophysics because the competition for positions/funding was so intense. He'd ended up as a software dev but all he talked about was new planets and he spent every lunch break looking at the raw data from these instruments which were published into the public domain that day.

He had a calling but the world had torn him away from it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

The fate of most academics. After a falling out with my phd advisor, i went a completely different route and managed to build a solid career.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah im terrified that'll be me oneday. Im also probably gonna get my PhD in either physics or astrophysics

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

He told me a story of being at an astrophysics conference where the students got instructed to "look to the left" then "look to the right" before being told that only 1 in 10 of them would be able to make a living in that niche.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Software isn't so bad! You at least get a lot of time to cultivate interests/passions in other subjects...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

"Where's yer fancy math now?!"

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