Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hintymad 1940 days ago
I'm fine with the norm. The norm is better than losing all hopes or a bleak future. The norm is a job that pays ordinary salary but gives me hope that I sharpen my skills and get rewarded accordingly (no guarantee, of course, but there's hope).

I'm grateful that STEM pays so well nowadays, but I don't mind if my pay goes back to norm in exchange for many people having a better future. I don't see the current K12 system will help, though.
2 comments
sudosysgen 1940 days ago
The norm is falling through time. Right now, the norm is fine, but in a few decades, the norm will be to barely be able to afford rent.

The way things are going, the norm is trending towards pretty bleak, yeah.

link
hintymad 1940 days ago
I guess STEM here really means the fields that pay decently and require hard skills. I hope we will always have such fields, be they STEM or not.
link
sudosysgen 1940 days ago
Of course. But they will pay decently so long as relatively few people go into them.
link
equality_1138 1940 days ago
Increase in STEM degrees does not have a causal effect on number of good jobs. Any hope that it does is about as speculative as "investing" in bitcoin or the next Gamestop pattern.
link
ChuckNorris89 1939 days ago
So much this.

I live in Austria now and the market is flooded with STEM grads due to very good schools and free education to the point where, in my college town, I can't throw a rock out the window without hitting someone doing a PhD in ML, but that doesn't translate to an abundance of jobs due to the lack of VC funding in this area.

This leads to massive academic title inflation where, unless you already have job experience, most companies can afford to throw your resume in the bin if you don't have a MSc and stil have enough candidates to fulfill their demand, so your only choice if to pursue at least a MSc if you want to be employed.

Friends in Denmark have told me the same, you can easily find an Architect but good luck finding a plumber.

link
equality_1138 1939 days ago
The truly sad part is it leads to broad financialization of Science. People up here making education into a personal problem (haves/havenots) are apparently "too smart" to see the social costs of heavy public investment in STEM education
link