[b9a2cab5]

It's what happens when you have "advanced" degrees that are not actually useful in large numbers to society. We only need so many sociologists and critical race studies professors and political scientists. These jobs also happen to generally be supported off of societal productivity (i.e. taxes and charities) instead of growing the pie which means their supply is naturally limited.

Notice that even for STEM jobs which are strongly constrained by available capital, like structural engineering or petroleum engineering, the pay is substantially higher than the useless jobs and the competition is less. You don't have to go to an Ivy League to get paid $$$ in engineering.

[pyuser583]

They get jobs outside their field.

In 1950s and 60s the US seriously overestimated the number of physicists they would need.

Lots of physicists ended up working in business.

[lixtra]

> Lots of physicists ended up working in business.

But usually still in roles that benefited from their studies.

[acatnamedjoe]

And arguably lots of non-technical roles benefit from social science / humanities studies.

If you want to lead a team, or eventually a large organisation, there are worse things you could do than spend 3 years learning about people.

[b9a2cab5]

If you want to lead a technical team or technical organization you should be technical. Developing people skills doesn't take a degree in gender studies. It merely takes giving a shit about improving and talking to people.

Non-technical leadership leading a technical company is why Intel is in the dire straits it is today. When you put a marketing person in charge of Xeon and they parrot about diversity instead of executing on the business it's obvious where the problem is. Notice all the competition is led by technical leadership: AMD is led by a PhD in EE, Nvidia a Masters in EE. Intel's former leadership was technical until they were pushed out by non-technical bean counters.

[coldtea]

>And arguably lots of non-technical roles benefit from social science / humanities studies.

If by "benefit" you mean "are filled with busywork and the latest cultural biases and performative ceremonies", then yes :-)

[Apocryphon]

Studying complex financial instruments?

https://youtu.be/Elyfo1DIlzs

[username90]

Most of a physics degree is applied maths. If they use their math skills the degree wasn't a waste.

[native_samples]

Technically, parts of the degree were wasted (everything to do with actual physics) and the maths education was just a side effect that could have been given more efficiently with a maths degree (or even some other kind of education).

[pyuser583]

Possibly … I know quite a few of these (now retired) ex-physicists. Most got jobs that only expected a Bachelors, not an advanced degree at all.

But I’m sure there’s selection bias here.

[pacman2]

Ivy League to get paid $$$ in engineering.?

Really? I got nothing with my top notch STEM PhD. Got hungry, homeless an sick. But as mentioned by a friend. A STEM PhD must never be unemployed. There are always opportunities in the world. Be it in China or with Narcos in South America. There are opportunities. Never forget that! Nearly killed me that I forgot. There will always be one to pay you if you can deliver.

[pbak]

Walter, is that you ?

[indrax]

These forms of knowledge do grow the pie, they just haven't formed a monetization/product loop. The scarcity of jobs to fund their work (which we need vastly more of) is a market failure.

-An unemployed STEM

[coldtea]

>We only need so many sociologists and critical race studies professors and political scientists.

Yeah, and the number is 0.