[WalterBright]

STEM is something you gotta have some substantial internal motivation to do, such as doing it for a hobby. The kind of work I enjoy, you gotta really like it or it isn't going to work out for you.

For example, I was taking machines apart when I was 7 trying to figure out how they worked. I'd break open resistors to see what was inside - just baffling grey dust. Eventually I took bicycles apart, then engines, then whole cars. It was just foregone that I was going to engineering school.

[dangerlibrary]

I get very little joy from programming. I never program outside of work - I hike, climb, work on my house, raise my kids. But it pays the bills and I can do it, so I've put in the time to learn enough to be worth paying a salary.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a paleontologist. Then I wanted to be a smoke jumper. Now I'm a staff engineer.

Not everyone gets to do what they love. Some of us are just following the money.

[kelipso]

Maybe decades ago when college students based their choice of majors on feelings or whatever that might have been true. Nowadays college students are much more practical. An obvious example is the rise in CS majors in the last decade.

The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous.

[refurb]

As a STEM student who actually did a STEM job (basic science research) you have to love it to make a career out of it.

The pay isn’t fantastic and your career is basically doing the same thing (with more skill over time) for 30 years. With most of your work a failure.

Even people who liked it often bailed.

Programming is a bit different. You can make a lot of money, have varied jobs and just grin and bear it for the money.

[kelipso]

Have to agree the lower salary means you have to love it to spend years doing it. I moved to CS because of that mainly.

[WalterBright]

> The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous.

Pretty much all the ones I know that are good at it love it. Just like musicians and athletes.

Sure, there are those in it for the money. They're usually the tweeners.

> Nowadays college students are much more practical.

I'm not so sure about that. There's a large number of math avoiders in college, and when they graduate discover their degree is worth a minimum wage job.

[mtlguitarist]

Okay but the difference is that being a mediocre athlete or musician means that you're unemployed, whereas you can be a totally mediocre programmer and make well into the 6 figures. My friends who are professional musicians know far more about their craft than even the most motivated engineers I've worked with, and they make less money than the worst paid engineers I've met. I've casually played guitar for almost 20 years and been programming less than half that time ane I can't even think about going pro without a massive dedicated effort.

[saagarjha]

That's because those don't pay you money. I know plenty of excellent engineers who couldn't care less about computer science.

[WalterBright]

I'm an engineer, and I'm not much into the academic side of computer science. But I enjoy engineering very much.

[bitcharmer]

> The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous.

You clearly don't have much exposure to the stem bubble. Overwhelming majority are passionate geeks.

[kelipso]

Ha ha ha. I have a CS PhD and am friends with grad students in many other STEM fields. There are just as many who are "passionate", or whatever geeky losers who waste their life obsessing over minutiae want to be called, as there are people who are working on their degree for the sake of practicality. I would say the latter are in fact generally more successful.

[WalterBright]

> losers who waste their life obsessing over minutiae want to be called

Enjoying your work is not the same thing as obsessing over irrelevant minutia.

[jasonm23]

To go into a subject, with no foundation, no motivation and no interest. How is this a set up for success?

I mean, sure, people can go into any subject, but... if they're to succeed?

[semi-extrinsic]

As a society we have purposely shaped the way we do STEM so that it can be carried out by an army of employees trained to do relatively simple tasks. It is much better for a company to hire 15 people to do one thing, than to hire one brilliant person to do the same.

The extra cost is just passed on to the consumer, and you gain predictability and managerial prestige.

As an example, Amazon had twice as many people working just on Alexa as there are employees total at JPL. And JPL designs, engineers, builds and operates dozens of groundbreaking spacecraft, including several space telescopes, Mars rovers, and the Voyager programme. JPL needs people with substantial internal motivation, Amazon et al. do not.

[WalterBright]

> As a society we have purposely shaped the way we do STEM so that it can be carried out by an army of employees trained to do relatively simple tasks.

I see no purposeful force "shaping" this.

> It is much better for a company to hire 15 people to do one thing, than to hire one brilliant person to do the same.

They would hire the one brilliant person if they could. The trouble is finding them.

Also, brilliant is not the same thing as enjoying the work.