Is the STEM push resulting in more failsons?

[Beard_Chan]

you're mixing two different situations here: failing stem students, and socially alienated nerds. there is some overlap between these phenomena, but they are not the same, and they have different causes.

about the college dropout types: from my experience, in more than 90% of cases, it's not an issue of them lacking brain power or smarts, but an issue of them lacking discipline and work ethic. these are often smart boys, who cruised through high school with zero effort on pure brain power alone. then, when that is no longer enough because college classes are actually challenging, they suddenly fail miserably. because throughout their entire life they never had to actually put effort into anything to succeed, and nobody taught them the importance of discipline and work ethic, it was always just "look at how much of a genius our boy is" and "work smart, not hard"
imo it's not so much a failure of the education system, more a failure of parenting.

about the socially alienated friendless basement dwellers: this is a huge and complex topic. some of it comes down to (lack of) parenting too, similar to the other situation, but there is more at play here. these dudes tend to be very introverted and shy, very self-conscious, and come off as clunky and awkward as a result. these types obviously do not mesh well at all with modern day pop culture / youth culture which is hyper-focussed on non-stop socialisation, extremely sexualized, and 100% geared towards extroverted people. being shy/awkward/introverted in this environment makes these guys outcasts and targets for bullying almost by default, and in the age of ubiquitous social media there is literally no way to avoid or escape this once it has started, so for many the only option is to basically retreat from society entirely, resulting in hardcore alienation, with all the problems that entails.

Completely agree here. Public school is auto-pilot almost, you don't have to put any effort in to get through. Good study habits aren't formed unless you are guided by good parents. You can learn it yourself too but that usually comes after you make mistakes. You are so naive I'd say under 22 in this world. People need better guidance on what to do with themselves after High School. College is not the only option, especially now with the movement to remove college degree from resume applications.

When you get into the workforce and a career, you realize titles don't mean shit. There are shit doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. I know many who got out of all their schooling and forgot most of it in a few years, or directly said they were on cruise control with gov contracts until they retire (science field). It does not take intelligence to get through most degrees in college, just raw memorization and basic problem solving.

I've known many amazing engineers who are self-taught, mainly in the computer science field. Leaders in the company who are leaps and bounds ahead of anyone with a 4 year or more degree. I'm not saying that is the case with everyone, just saying it matters more what you can do and your experience in the industry vs what college you went to.

I completely get that there are fields where you must have college (doctor, nurse, scientist, etc), but there are tons of other careers out there where you have everything you need online to learn what is needed to get in, then go from there and continue learning and doing in the industry.

 

[DumbDude42]

I completely get that there are fields where you must have college (doctor, nurse, scientist, etc), but there are tons of other careers out there where you have everything you need online to learn what is needed to get in, then go from there and continue learning and doing in the industry.

problem with that approach is that tons of companies literally won't even consider a candidate unless he has a degree. without a degree it is literally impossible to even get your foot in the door, your personal abilities or skills don't even matter in this case.

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

There are absolutely great software engineers who are self taught. Won’t deny that. But saying that over and over tells kids hey, all you need is a ‘learn to code’ book, you don’t need a formal education to be making 100k, and for most people that is not true. (I am including trade school and apprenticeships here in my definition of formal education). Really smart people will always be successful. If those self taught engineers were born in 1200 they would be brilliant theologians instead. The average 100 IQ person? No. Like sure they can get a code monkey or IT helpdesk job, but not the big bucks they’re imagining. Now, if the person is from a world where most people have a low paying retail job then IT helpdesk is a step up, but if they’re from a middle class or higher world then it isn’t.

Personally I found college easier than high school, and part of that is that I wasn’t overwhelmed. In high school I had to wake up really early and I had six classes every day with homework every day. In college you have more room to breathe.

Another issue is absolutely terrible writing and communication skills. Being a native English speaker is a huge advantage, yet I have met many native speakers who attended ostensibly good high schools who could not write well. It’s because of standardized testing, where short answer and timed essays are all you write. There needs to be way more writing in high schools, and not solely about books.

 

[Otterly]

be strict and harsh with your children and force them to develop discipline from a young age, that's the only way really.

I do t think you need to be harsh, at least not often. I think you have to be firm and fair and consistent and if a harsh lesson arises as a natural consequence then so be it. If I’ve told you not to climb that thing fifty times and you climb that thing and fall off, I’m going to tell you off as we go get that broken arm fixed. There’s no need for deliberately harsh stuff in the sense of sadism.

I have to be a biochemist, a geneticist, a programmer and a lab tech all in one to get a job (according to my lecturers).

Your lecturers are correct. If you’ll take a tip from someone in the field? Get as much into the stats/software/programming as you can. Even at the expense of the wet work side of it if you have to (get the basics still...)
There is a massive glut of bioscience students but very few who can do the mathematical/statistical/programming side as well as having the knowledge around it. Try and network a bit with industry as well if you can.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

Your lecturers are correct. If you’ll take a tip from someone in the field? Get as much into the stats/software/programming as you can. Even at the expense of the wet work side of it if you have to (get the basics still...)
There is a massive glut of bioscience students but very few who can do the mathematical/statistical/programming side as well as having the knowledge around it. Try and network a bit with industry as well if you can.

Grim, I fucking hate R. Oh well, needs must I suppose.

 

[Otterly]

Grim, I fucking hate R. Oh well, needs must I suppose.

Yup. A lot of clinical trial stuff uses SAS, and I think that’s in C, so don’t hang everything on one language. Bioscience alone is a competitive field. If you’ve got the programming and numeracy you’ll do just fine. Good luck

 

[Secret Asshole]

I'm in STEM. I'll give you an over view on the 'S' part that everyone loves, Science.

1) A bachelor's in a non-professional science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) is functionally useless and good for basically being a lab bitch for 30k a year. And when I say lab bitch, I mean just cleaning, ordering managerial shit or really long grunt work no one wants to do.

2) A Masters in a non-professional science is less useless. You might be lucky enough to be an underling and make a decent wage. But its a lot harder to find a job than you'd think.

3) Academia is a massive shit show of politics, begging for money and trying to manipulate one project into five papers for publish or perish. Just don't. Complete the bare minimum and leave. Though you do get the benefit of literally not giving a shit once you get tenure.

4) The PhD level is the most anxiety inducing higher education you can possibly take up. Suicide rates and drop out rates sometimes exceed 50% in STEM. No one in your family, unless PhDs themselves, will be able to understand anything you do. You will be completely and utterly alone unless you work in a close knit lab working on the same thing, which is rare. Don't expect to find a lot of friends, as all PhD students are specializing and will have no idea what the hell you are doing. They will only know your pain. You have to be functionally retarded, brain damaged or insane to do it. However, it IS the most rewarding from STEM since a PhD is basically freedom to do whatever anywhere in STEM and beyond. Also foreign countries, especially the third world, will line up to suck the dick of an American PhD. You might have to live in a third world shithole, but you'll be paid so well you'll literally live like a king and the government will, no fucking joke, send armed people to protect you just to protect their investment and not cause an international incident.

5) Its not all science. Be prepared for bureaucracy from hell. Universities are structured like they were written from a Kafka story. Be prepared to deal with shit you never expected to deal with. I am in a lab by myself, so I do inventory, run maintenance, call for cleaning, do ordering, do stock, clean the lab, etc. Basically I am a fully qualified lab manager even though it has nothing to do with what I'm supposed to do.

6) It is not for everyone. You should NEVER EVER do a Science career unless you're aiming for at least a high Masters. And socially awkward will NOT cut it. You will get berated, shit on, ripped apart. Everyone has break downs and most people I know have ran as fast as I could once they leave university and never look back.

7) On the plus side, drop out rates are low once you hit like three years in. Unless you blow your brains out.

 

[melty]

I'm a STEM failure and I felt guilty about it for a long time. At the time, the women in STEM thing was just getting pushed and I felt obligated to go into, because I'm smart and got good grades. I also believed it was the best thing any smart person could do and any non-STEM career was less important.
I didn't really like it. I'm lazy, and it's hard. Was I not smart enough? Maybe, but I've seen dumber people do fine by working really hard.
In the end, I ended up in business, which is what I wanted to do before getting suckered into STEM. And that's fine. It's what I'm good at. If I want to "help humanity" or whatever I can just as easily donate money.

STEM is way overglorified IMO. I had this idea that STEM advances humanity, which silicon valley seems to unironically believe, but most of them are just making garbage apps and products people don't really need so they can bring home a paycheck. Research and academia is a mess. I realized they're all mostly doing the same things I am: trying to sell stuff to people. Whether that's a product, an idea, or their own reputation. There are some that work on worthwhile things that actually help people, but most don't. There's no inherent nobility to being in STEM.

With how hyped up STEM is by everyone I can easily see young men feeling like failures if they can't hack it in STEM. That leads to failure to launch as you've wasted a lot of money, have no idea what to do, and are questioning your intelligence and if you're really able to have a worthwhile career at all. Much easier to shut off and play vidya.

I also suspect some of the push and glorification of STEM is to make those hires cheaper in the future.

 

[DumbDude42]

With how hyped up STEM is by everyone I can easily see young men feeling like failures if they can't hack it in STEM. That leads to failure to launch as you've wasted a lot of money, have no idea what to do, and are questioning your intelligence and if you're really able to have a worthwhile career at all. Much easier to shut off and play vidya.

the sad reality is that once you've failed out of college, any hope for an actual career is basically gone for good - and the economy increasingly looks like you either get into a top earning career and end up making six figures a year, or you'll be stuck slaving away at min wage positions for the rest of your life, with not much opportunity in between.

and well, in a job market where employers treat applicants without degrees like they're ex-cons on parole, your only future prospects will be stuff like mopping the floor at mcdonalds for $6 an hour for the rest of your life. compared to that, a life of vidya addiction and pornsickness doesn't look all that bad. cause let's be real, you're not gonna be finding a wife and starting a family on a fast food janitor salary either, so might as well go full shut-in NEET lol

 

[King Ghidorah]

be strict and harsh with your children and force them to develop discipline from a young age, that's the only way really.

It's a great ideal to have your kids gain discipline the thing is that often kids in disciplinarian households tend to just end up developing authority issues and resentment later on I know it's the common idea that they'll learn to appreciate it later on but that just isn't what always happens

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

the sad reality is that once you've failed out of college, any hope for an actual career is basically gone for good - and the economy increasingly looks like you either get into a top earning career and end up making six figures a year, or you'll be stuck slaving away at min wage positions for the rest of your life, with not much opportunity in between.

and well, in a job market where employers treat applicants without degrees like they're ex-cons on parole, your only future prospects will be stuff like mopping the floor at mcdonalds for $6 an hour for the rest of your life. compared to that, a life of vidya addiction and pornsickness doesn't look all that bad. cause let's be real, you're not gonna be finding a wife and starting a family on a fast food janitor salary either, so might as well go full shut-in NEET lol

Dude, we still have military and trades. Just think outside the corporate structure.

 

[Saint Alphonsus]

I'm in STEM. I'll give you an over view on the 'S' part that everyone loves, Science.

1) A bachelor's in a non-professional science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) is functionally useless and good for basically being a lab bitch for 30k a year. And when I say lab bitch, I mean just cleaning, ordering managerial shit or really long grunt work no one wants to do.

2) A Masters in a non-professional science is less useless. You might be lucky enough to be an underling and make a decent wage. But its a lot harder to find a job than you'd think.

3) Academia is a massive shit show of politics, begging for money and trying to manipulate one project into five papers for publish or perish. Just don't. Complete the bare minimum and leave. Though you do get the benefit of literally not giving a shit once you get tenure.

4) The PhD level is the most anxiety inducing higher education you can possibly take up. Suicide rates and drop out rates sometimes exceed 50% in STEM. No one in your family, unless PhDs themselves, will be able to understand anything you do. You will be completely and utterly alone unless you work in a close knit lab working on the same thing, which is rare. Don't expect to find a lot of friends, as all PhD students are specializing and will have no idea what the hell you are doing. They will only know your pain. You have to be functionally retarded, brain damaged or insane to do it. However, it IS the most rewarding from STEM since a PhD is basically freedom to do whatever anywhere in STEM and beyond. Also foreign countries, especially the third world, will line up to suck the dick of an American PhD. You might have to live in a third world shithole, but you'll be paid so well you'll literally live like a king and the government will, no fucking joke, send armed people to protect you just to protect their investment and not cause an international incident.

5) Its not all science. Be prepared for bureaucracy from hell. Universities are structured like they were written from a Kafka story. Be prepared to deal with shit you never expected to deal with. I am in a lab by myself, so I do inventory, run maintenance, call for cleaning, do ordering, do stock, clean the lab, etc. Basically I am a fully qualified lab manager even though it has nothing to do with what I'm supposed to do.

6) It is not for everyone. You should NEVER EVER do a Science career unless you're aiming for at least a high Masters. And socially awkward will NOT cut it. You will get berated, shit on, ripped apart. Everyone has break downs and most people I know have ran as fast as I could once they leave university and never look back.

7) On the plus side, drop out rates are low once you hit like three years in. Unless you blow your brains out.

This entire tirade is why I said "fuck getting a Ph.D."

The Ph.D. system is completely and utterly broken. If you churn out more Ph.D's than there are tenure track positions to hire them, congratulations--you've created an asset bubble. Medics used to preen and say that their field is impervious to these stresses, but guess what--there's now a rising population of MD's who can't get internships, let alone residencies. Have fun explaining why you've never done any practical work with your six-figure piece of paper.

There's a good reason why so many grad students are Indians and Chinese. The former because they are largely docile, spineless cucks who see the poverty stipend as still greater than what they can earn in their homeland and the latter because they're spies for the CCP.

I stupidly, stupidly enrolled in an online Master's program simply because I wanted my parents to shut up about me getting an advanced degree, but what I really should have done is grown some balls and found a non-wetlab job much sooner than I did. Not that I have any desire to participate in the corporate world any longer; now that the entire world has lost it's mind over a fucking coof with a 99% survival rate and needlessly commit seppuku over dindu rage, I'd much rather go out to the desert and live like the ascetic monks of old.

 

[millais]

There is a massive glut of bioscience students but very few who can do the mathematical/statistical/programming side as well as having the knowledge around it. Try and network a bit with industry as well if you can.

As time goes by, there are going to be far fewer openings for researchers and techs who are solely qualified in wetlab work. Everything is all about bioinformatics now, and people are saying that very soon wetlab work will just be an afterthought used to confirm or refute whatever novel findings the computer simulations spit out. Way cheaper and more labor efficient to run a lab that way. Except for pharmaceutical/medical-related clinical trials, which for government regulatory reasons cannot be bypassed, it sounds like the days of the big wetlabs are numbered.

So there's not much future for anyone in biological sciences without getting some serious CS under one's belt.

 

[Secret Asshole]

As time goes by, there are going to be far fewer openings for researchers and techs who are solely qualified in wetlab work. Everything is all about bioinformatics now, and people are saying that very soon wetlab work will just be an afterthought used to confirm or refute whatever novel findings the computer simulations spit out. Way cheaper and more labor efficient to run a lab that way. Except for pharmaceutical/medical-related clinical trials, which for government regulatory reasons cannot be bypassed, it sounds like the days of the big wetlabs are numbered.

So there's not much future for anyone in biological sciences without getting some serious CS under one's belt.

This is like 5-15 years off though and its been what a lot of people have been saying. I'm down in the trenches and even I'm drifting away from wetlab. What IS going to happen faster is animal work is going to start to disappear as we're finding major faults with animal models and animals are extremely expensive. What's going to happen before this is 'organs on a chip'.

I expect programs will start integrating CS into them. Its really not possible for CS to go to biology as that's a lot of knowledge and theory to consume, its a lot easier for biology to go to CS as a supplemental.

 

[DumbDude42]

The Ph.D. system is completely and utterly broken. If you churn out more Ph.D's than there are tenure track positions to hire them, congratulations--you've created an asset bubble.

to be fair, a phd isn't only good for becoming a professor later on. having a phd can also (depending on field and specialisation of course) make you very attractive for positions in r+d departments in the private sector

its not like if you have a phd and dont get a tenure track position then your life is ruined. you're still a highly qualified expert in your field, so if that field is a big and profitable one you will have no problems finding gainful employment.

 

[Saint Alphonsus]

to be fair, a phd isn't only good for becoming a professor later on. having a phd can also (depending on field and specialisation of course) make you very attractive for positions in r+d departments in the private sector

its not like if you have a phd and dont get a tenure track position then your life is ruined. you're still a highly qualified expert in your field, so if that field is a big and profitable one you will have no problems finding gainful employment.

This is a cope I've been hearing for over a decade. As I said in the previous post, we're entering an era where also M.D. grads are finding themselves locked out of the practice of medicine. If you have a degree that is traditionally geared towards a certain profession and you have to fight hundreds of your peers to get into that profession: surprise, you're in an asset bubble.

Coping isn't bad, but at the same time, you can't deny that the bill of goods you were sold was a counterfeit.

As a bit of an aside, The rise in "pH.D. only" positions in Big Pharma and Big Tech is largely because the gatekeepers are exploiting the credential glut.

 

[DumbDude42]

This is a cope I've been hearing for over a decade. As I said in the previous post, we're entering an era where also M.D. grads are finding themselves locked out of the practice of medicine. If you have a degree that is traditionally geared towards a certain profession and you have to fight hundreds of your peers to get into that profession: surprise, you're in an asset bubble.

Coping isn't bad, but at the same time, you can't deny that the bill of goods you were sold was a counterfeit.

As a bit of an aside, The rise in "pH.D. only" positions in Big Pharma and Big Tech is largely because the gatekeepers are exploiting the credential glut.

maybe it is indeed different in the medical field, i don't know. i'm in tech, and while i don't have a phd myself, i have close friends who do, and i also work with people who do. i can't say for sure whether the time spent on that phd is more or less well invested than it would be in getting job experience after the masters, but i can say for certain that none of the phd guys i know have serious problems finding appropriate and lucrative employment.

but again, it might be very different in other science fields. in tech there is a gigantic private sector full of insanely wealthy companies, the same probably does not exist for more pure science fields like biology or physics, so the employment situation is probably different there.

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

I had high school teachers with PhDs. One of them taught math and computer science and also taught at the local state university at nights. He made more teaching high school. Now I will acknowledge I come from a city with highly compensated teachers, but I’m also tired of adjuncts endlessly complaining about how poorly they’re paid when they could go do something else.

Also, pharmacy schools and law schools have a massive oversupply problem.

 

[Saint Alphonsus]

Now I will acknowledge I come from a city with highly compensated teachers, but I’m also tired of adjuncts endlessly complaining about how poorly they’re paid when they could go do something else.

Their egos have been shredded with a riding mower. I like it to the prodigal son going his own way and realizing the horror of eating pig slop when his father's servants have a better standard of living.

 

[Crunchy Leaf]

Their egos have been shredded with a riding mower. I like it to the prodigal son going his own way and realizing the horror of eating pig slop when his father's servants have a better standard of living.

I have a friend who recently got a classics degree from an Ivy League institution, and will be starting a masters of teaching in classics program in the fall. I bet she could’ve gotten into a classics PhD program. But then you’re playing tenure track/adjunct roulette, as opposed to a much more certain union paycheck, and, she’ll also have a much much higher likelihood of being able to stay near our hometown as opposed to having to take any tenure track position anywhere. (I live somewhere with a lot of high schools offering Latin so this isn’t a dumb career path).

A lot of adjuncts are people who’ve been told they’re special their whole life and won’t accept they’re not.