

A 1961 reform doubled the number of Italian students with STEM degrees - frostmatthew
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/12/31/the-worst-possible-way-to-push-kids-into-studying-science-math-and-engineering/

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jordanb
It's well known around here by now that "STEM" should actually be "TE",
Science and Math are horrible career choices in America.

What's maybe less well known is that in 1990 the NSF, along with universities
and industry were warning of a critical shortfall projection in American
scientists and mathematicians. The shortfall never existed but reforms were
put in place to double the number of people recruited from abroad in these
fields, causing the unemployment rate to soar and salaries to plummet. 1991 is
when science and math quit being smart career choices for American graduates:

[http://users.nber.org/~peat/PapersFolder/Papers/SG/NSF.html](http://users.nber.org/~peat/PapersFolder/Papers/SG/NSF.html)

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graeme
I take interest in this subject because I'm someone who COULD have easily been
a programmer, had I known programming existed in high school.

I excelled at math and all the sciences. I identified with science for most of
my student life. Then around grade 11, I suddenly became interested in history
due to age of empires II and a great book on WWII that my dad bought me.

I majored in international relations, had a few years trying to figure out
what to do with a liberal arts degree, and ended up creating a bootstrapped
internet business. Learned enough programming to handle a few scripts to
simplify site building and understand how to manage a contract programmer.
(The site is not programming intensive)

I only got a computer in grade 10, and I didn't know what a terminal was or a
programming language. No one in my family was technical, and no teacher or
friend knew how to program or mentioned it to me. When I eventually studied it
for a while in 2012 I found it instantly fascinating, but by then working on
the business itself became more lucrative than learning to program.

Based on my background, I _suspect_ I'm the sort of person that could have
become the kind of programmer companies want to hire. And I know a bunch of
fellow students like me who had similar minds but didn't study CS. One's a
doctor now, one's a tutor with some local company, one's a musician, a few are
lawyers, some are in the sciences.

I graduated right after the crash of the dotcom bubble, so programming was
actively discouraged. Science was encouraged, but it was hard. Mostly, the
people who did it were the ones who really liked it.

And everyone on my list above could have been in science. They just didn't do
it because they found interest in something else. Or in the case of the
lawyers, they took science degrees but decided law was more
interesting/lucrative. (they went to an elite school)

But I went to a great public high school with a thorough science program. This
is perhaps not typical, especially in America (I'm Canadian). There may be
significant numbers of students who could enjoy STEM fields and excel, if they
only knew it earlier.

Which I suppose is like my situation re:programming. I preferred liberal arts
to science, but I think I would have preferred programming to history. I just
literally didn't know about it.

~~~
cafard
You not only could have been a programmer, you still can. There was about a
12-year hiatus between the Fortran IV class during my first semester of
college and my decision to teach myself assembler when I ended up in tech
support. That was quite a few years ago now.

~~~
frostmatthew
> You not only could have been a programmer, you still can.

Agreed. @graeme if this is a career path that still interests you don't let
the fact that you're no longer an 18 year old undergrad deter you. I was in my
early 30s when I decided to switch careers and become a developer.

~~~
graeme
Oops, I should have written more clearly. I know I could still learn
programming. And once I finish the planned work within my niche, that's my
next plan.

I've got about 1-2 years of known profitable work. Right now that actually
offers a far higher return than learning development. But eventually I'll
largely max out the potential of my business, or get bored.

At that point, I want to learn programming. Right now, it's not a constraint
in my business. I know enough to manage my site and to learn new bits as
needed. I've gone through K&R (for orientation to programming, not to learn C,
though I did the exercises) and Udacity's intro to python class.

It was here on Hacker News that I both found out about those resources, and
gained confidence that I'd be capable of learning given time and commitment.

The business will be a local maximum, but it's also largely passive once
built. My main focus at present has been freedom of time and place, and
building a reserve of surplus income, since business has inherent instability.

