
Want a Job? Go to College, and Don’t Major in Architecture - zwieback
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/want-a-job-go-to-college-and-dont-major-in-architecture/
======
tokenadult
An interesting statement I've seen in a couple of books about IQ testing as an
employment qualification is that at ALL levels of ability it is advantageous
to seek a college degree if that degree makes the difference between being
classified as an "engineer" rather than being classified as a "technician."
Some technicians plainly are very smart and very economically useful to the
organizations that employ them. Both technicians and engineers can be found at
a variety of levels of ability. But for the individual job-seeker, whatever
the level of ability, the expedient thing to do (in that category of
occupations) is seek the college degree and become an engineer. Apparently,
the job market treats even a lousy engineer who is barely able to do
engineering work better than a technician who is matched by ability proxy (IQ
score) before the degree was sought.

I offer no firm conclusion about why this is so. Perhaps engineering programs
in colleges impart skills that are valued by the job market enough to boost an
engineer's earnings over the long term. Or perhaps hiring and promotion
procedures in many companies favor the social signal given by possessing a
college degree. Or perhaps there is a lurking variable other than IQ that
distinguishes persons who seek engineering degrees from persons who do not
seek engineering degrees for technical occupations. It would take more data to
tease out the causation of this phenomenon reported in the literature on job-
candidate testing for employment, but meanwhile I would advise people near and
dear to me who have such career aspirations to seek an engineering degree if
at all possible, as that appears to offer positive economic returns for a
person with a typical lifespan and labor force participation.

I have no comment on the usefulness of degrees in other subjects, which may
vary quite a lot.

~~~
zwieback
I've worked as an engineer at HP for many years and have had the pleasure to
work with some extraordinarily smart and talented technicians. Many of them
got their degrees while employed and moved up to engineering positions here or
elsewhere. However, many technicians prefer not to become engineers, even if
they are fully aware of the fact that they are smarter and more productive
than some of the engineers (a not-uncommon situation).

I think one of the reasons is that in a technician role your role and
responsibilities are more clearly defined as a tech and project failure is
generally blamed on the engineers. Also, there's less clerical overhead and
more hands-on work when working as a tech.

~~~
chernevik
I got to talking with a power line crew as we waited for the utility to give
the go-ahead to fix downed lines in our neighborhood.

They felt the utility engineering personnel had very little comprehension of
how the field work was actually done, and complained they got direction that
made little or no sense. And they made a lot more than the engineers, though
they had to travel the country and work long hours to do so. These guys were
licensed and came through a certification program, but had little or no
college.

They allowed that the engineers had much better theoretical knowledge, but
were so divorced from the realities of the work as to be basically useless in
disaster recovery.

~~~
westicle
Power line crews are often very well paid to compensate for the fact that
there is a real risk of serious injury or death.

Engineers usually work under more controlled conditions, but I know electrical
engineers who consider the power line guys insane for the risks they take and
wouldn't trade with them.

------
brudgers
Even in good times architecture is a crappy major (in the U.S.) from an
economic standpoint - at least five years of university level education
followed by at least three years of on the job training (misnamed as
"internship" since there is no monitoring of employer behavior). There is also
a series of comprehensive exams required after graduation and before
licensure.

These days, the average newly licensed architect is more than ten years out of
college - i.e. in her mid-thirties. Since in the U.S. a person cannot practice
architecture without a license, a person without a license is not recognized
as a professional and cannot work for themselves in general (small projects
are exempt in most states, and state laws vary).

Matt Arnold's research on architectural licensure may be read here:
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/51132717/Concerning-Licensure>

The high rate of unemployment for current graduates is hardly unusual because
the industry is so cyclical. The S&L crisis of the late 1980's sent a large
portion of that generation of graduates from the industry creating what is
currently a succession gap in many firms due to a lack of mid-forties
ownership track candidates to buy out retiring baby boomers.

Incidentally, many of that generation went into the newly emerging field of
web-design.

------
moocow01
I'm typically a very skeptical person but I have to admit I'm becoming
somewhat bearish on the current cycle within our field. There are definitely
some home runs out there but I always ask myself who are using all of these
web services and apps. Honestly I feel like our field is becoming a lot more
hits based almost like the music industry - a small minority hit it out of the
park while the rest toil in obscurity. (I include myself in the toiling in
obscurity group.)

Now Ill be the first to admit there are a lot of things that could be done
better through the application of computing but sometimes I feel like
everybody is trying to jump into the same boats when we should maybe be taking
a broader view of the landscape. Sorry I know this a dreary comment but just
my 2 cents.

~~~
JamesPeterson
Your analogy between the startup and music industries draws true. Not
everything will be successful, but it's important that those involved can have
a reasonable chance to be rewarded. Both of the above sectors are centered
around firms designed to manage risk - VCs for startups, and labels for
artists. VCs are generally fulfilling their purpose much better than music
labels are.

------
ldayley
I've seen some culturally literate Architecture grads move to Shanghai from
the US after the completion of an Architecture program. This may change as the
economic growth slows there over the coming years, but there are so many
building projects being undertaken that it is far easier to have a bigger role
in bigger projects at a younger age there.

~~~
iy56
What does it mean to be "culturally literate" here exactly? Able to speak
Chinese?

~~~
ldayley
I mean people who have learned Chinese, spent time in China, or who have
connectons there.

------
jsiarto
I think the other huge benefit of college and something that is often not
talked about is the social and networking aspect of being at a top-tier
university.

The most meaningful things I got out of my 4 years as an undergrad and 2 as a
grad student were meeting people that could truly help me in my career.

While I was in college I met people that:

1\. Helped me land multiple book deals with O'Reilly 2\. Got me to conferences
I would not usually have been able to go to. 3\. Got me a great job doing
design/development for the University. 4\. Introduced me to the founders of
Slashdot--one of whom sat on my thesis committee. 5\. Allowed me to make
connections with faculty and staff that have led to business contracts and
even an adjunct faculty position at MSU.

I would be nowhere if it wasn't for my college degree--but you have to do more
than go to class--that's the easy part. Network and meet people, there will
never be higher concentration of fucking brilliant and well-connected
individuals as there are a major universities.

~~~
randomdata
> there will never be higher concentration of fucking brilliant and well-
> connected individuals as there are a major universities.

The concentration is far greater on the internet. You have virtually everyone
on the planet within arms reach. It is interesting how we've failed to really
utilize the medium.

You and I have now made a connection. I could be the most important connection
you ever make. You pobably don't care. (That goes both ways, of course)

~~~
jsiarto
This is true--and I have many meaningful relationships online as well
(networking is pretty much the key to success in any area--you have to know
people). My connections in college seem to be a bit more meaningful though--
there are the people that helped me grow and develop into the businessperson
and designer I am today.

Also, I do care about the connections I make here and elsewhere on the web--
I'll start:

I'm Jeff Siarto--I live and work in East Lansing, MI and run a small research
company with my wife and college friend. I'm also the author of Head First Web
Design and I enjoy building RC airplanes and amateur UAVs.

I'm also a leap-year baby.

------
yummyfajitas
This is interesting, but it doesn't prove college is "worth it". We know that
at least 40% of the wage premium of attending college (and possibly
considerably more) are due to ability bias - smarter people get paid more and
smarter people go to college.

[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/correcting_for.h...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/correcting_for.html)

(I do suspect there is some individual benefit to college, from some mix of
beneficial skill increases and socially harmful signalling. But the data in
this article doesn't begin to address this question.)

~~~
keypusher
Absolutely, correlation between college degree and employment does not show
any causation between the two. Not only is intelligence a factor in going to
school and getting a job, but so is parental income, responsibility,
upbringing, etc. If only more journalists had taken a statistics class while
they were at college we might not see these same fallacies repeated over and
over in the media.

~~~
robryan
Separating the college group to reflect marks could be a little more
interesting, compare under achieving but passing college students to those who
didn't attend. Of course there will still be bias but it gives a little better
picture on how much smarts plays into it and how much just having the piece of
paper plays into it.

------
rmason
When I was a freshman in college the degree they warned us against pursuing
turned out to be the hottest job market four years later.

My major where they predicted four jobs for every grad turned out to be four
grads for every job.

So by contrarian thinking architecture is probably the best degree you could
pursue.

~~~
moocow01
Ding-ding-ding! Correct answer. Now lets see where are we in the cycle...
technology boom ... oh yeah, real estate must be up next

~~~
kingnothing
Technology should always be "booming", right? Until the ubiquity of computers,
technology was the move from writing to typing, or from manual labor to
machines. Then computers came around and allowed for yet another level of
automation. Since software is currently the best industry for lowering
business costs, we should continue to see a strong market until something
supplants computing. None of that speaks about financial bubbles and busts
because software is a real industry that provides real value, unlike the
recent real estate financial bust which was based on speculation.

~~~
moocow01
What are your thoughts on the amount of speculation in the software/tech
market right now? Also real estate is very much a real industry that provides
real value (like a roof over one's head)

~~~
leoedin
Technology is always booming, but individual technologies aren't necessarily.
The startups that Hacker News promotes tend to be largely SaaS productivity
apps. I would be surprised if there isn't a bubble in that area. I recently
noted that a startup with the sole purpose of providing other startups with
"coming soon" pages has $800k of funding. How on earth can they expect to
become profitable after sinking 800k into a very niche service. There can't be
that many startups in need of a "Coming soon" page, can there?

In the victorian times, the technology booming was railways. There was always
a market for railways (until the car came along, but that wasn't really for
another seventy years), but the real issue was the number which they built.
There was passengers, but not enough to support the frantic investment that
people were making (it was, after all, the next big thing!). This is where I
see the VC backed SaaS startup investment market going. Frankly, there cannot
really be a market for _every_ SaaS app we see traipse through here with $10m
of backing. The real question is, how long until the failure rate becomes high
enough that people panic?

YCombinator has the right idea. Start with a small seed, build a good app and
perhaps only once you have something launched, start looking for more
investment. A website can generally lead to profitability either by being loss
making but really, really popular, or by having revenue from day one. What
worries me is the websites that have very little revenue from the beginning,
and yet are attracting multi million dollar investments. That _cannot_ last.

As an aside, we're thankful for those rail investments now - the UK not only
has a very large railway network, we also have a very large bicycle path
network built on ex-railway lines!

------
gobbs
I graduate with a B.Architecture in June but will likely be going into a mix
web design/tech entrepreneurship. While the economy is relatively lousy at the
moment I think the high unemployment rate is a mixture of both a decrease in
jobs and the stubbornness/pride of architectural graduates. Many other
professions you'd be glad to take most jobs in your field that offer a good
pay, but I know of many firms I'd turn down on principal even if I was offered
an attractive wage. Unfortunately the average pay for recent arch grads after
5 years tends to rest in the 35-45k/year range, so going into a different
field where I could make more in less time is hard to turn down.

~~~
sshumaker
The pay for architecture grads is awful given how much in debt you'll be after
going through architecture school. And it's even worse once you factor in the
ridiculous hours and realize that if you calculate your hourly pay, it
actually works out to less than minimum wage.

------
gk1
I find it ironic (and a bit annoying) that the logic used in the article's
title is the same logic that led to the high unemployment rate for architects:
If a profession is in high demand today, it will still be in high demand four
years from now. And conversely, if a profession is in low demand now, then it
will remain so for the next four years (hence the title of the article).

~~~
hkmurakami
I've recently had the same worry for the current explosion in need for web
front end engineers and designers.

In the next 5 years, perhaps we will see a great increase in the number of
such skilled individuals coming out of colleges across the country. But what's
going to happen to them if the current high times of the web industry suddenly
takes a turn for the worse? The situation may be similar to what "architecture
majors" are facing right now.

~~~
Jtsummers
This happened with programming/IT a few years ago. Many people entered into
college in 1998-2002 with the impression that they would practically have to
fight off the job offers. Of course, it didn't quite turn out that way.
However, the impression remained and students continued enrolling in CS
programs because there was money in programming. A consequence of this was an
excess of employees and a relative dearth of jobs (or again that was the
impression) so they flooded grad schools instead. Many schools saw record
enrollment levels in the 2005-2008 time frame.

This cycle is not new, nor will it cease to occur. People generally follow the
trends which means they are typically late to the party.

EDIT: To add another situation. The early 2000s were a great time for the
housing market so many builders began ramping up construction projects with
the anticipation of sales and no actual sales. The consequence of this is
decent housing developments with <150k$ homes that would easily have pushed
200k$ a few years earlier, assuming the builders didn't abandon the projects
altogether. Now no one wants to buy (or can't if they've become unemployed or
been hit with paycuts/furloughs) and these cheap homes remain on the market.

~~~
dabent
I was through the rough market in 2002, when it was rumored that all software
would be written in India by 2012. If I recall, enrollment in CS, engineering
math and the sciences dropped dramatically.

The thing is, I don't think enrollment has gone back up, in spite of it now
seeming "cool" to be involved in a software startup again. I've seen articles
on HN and elsewhere on how hard it is to get people involved in CS or other
math and science related majors recently.

I guess that's a good thing for me, the middle-aged programmer, as it means
less competition for my job, but I'm not sure it's good for any country (I'm
in the US) in the long term.

~~~
dangrossman
Yes, CS enrollment dropped and kept dropping until 2007. Since then it's been
growing, but very slowly; 2010 CS degree program enrollment was only 14%
higher than it was in 2007. Grad program enrollment was up something like 2%
over 2009.

------
puranjay
Interesting to note that computer/math degree holders don't fare far better
than recent humanities and liberal arts graduates. Journalism majors perform
even better.

For all the jokes about us English majors, we don't seem to be doing that
badly

~~~
Jtsummers
I wonder if this could be related to the job expectations of the different
groups. CS majors (my experience, anecdotal) tend to have a few set ideas on
the sorts of jobs they'll take or that are out there. Employers also seem to
make assumptions about what roles they'll hire them into or that they can
perform effectively. However, I've seen liberal arts majors in a much wider
array of jobs: management, sales, HR, various sorts of assistants, PR, all in
one enterprise setting.

------
cmurphycode
Can anyone find a source for the unemployment rate of high school graduates?
22.9% is astoundingly high, if true.

I couldn't find a source (beyond tons of articles echoing the study), and
found several contrarian sources, including
[http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/01/unemployment-data-
most-...](http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/01/unemployment-data-most-bleak-
for-high-school-and-college-drop-outs/)

~~~
tsantero
> Can anyone find a source for the unemployment rate of high school graduates?
> 22.9% is astoundingly high, if true.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is always a great place to look.

Employment status of the civilian population 25 years and over by educational
attainment: <http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm>

According to this (last updated Dec 02, 2011) the not-seasonally adjusted
aggregate unemployment for anyone who holds a HS diploma (regardless of higher
level education) is 20%.

Edit: I didn't mean to cause any confusion by aggregating the "non-hs-dropout"
stats, so let me make it clearer:

Level of Education : Unemployment Rate High School Dropout: 12.7% High School
Diploma: 8.4% Some College/AA Deg: 7.4% Bachelors or Higher: 4.2%

~~~
cmurphycode
I must be reading it wrong, because I see 8.4% unadjusted for high school
graduates in Nov 2011. How are you calculating aggregate regardless of higher
level education? I don't understand how you can just add the high school, some
college, and bachelors to get 20%.

~~~
tsantero
> I don't understand how you can just add the high school, some college, and
> bachelors to get 20%.

That is exactly what I did. In my original response, I wrote _aggregate
unemployment for anyone who holds a HS diploma (regardless of higher level
education) is 20%._ I wasn't trying to be misleading, I just thought it was
interesting to see that the aggregate for all non-high school dropouts.

Anyway, after looking at the article again, the author claims the unemployment
stats come from 2009-2010 US Census and a study done at the Georgetown Center
on Education and Workforce, broken down by age group. The BLS scope is
obviously much larger and current.

~~~
dangrossman
Why would you add together averages?

The aggregate unemployment rate for those groups together is 7.4%, not 20%.

------
aik
The primary problem with the argument of "is college worth it", or one
component of it that I find more interesting, completely misses the potential
opportunity cost of college. Someone who goes to high school and immediately
joins the workforce with a high-school level job will often not continue to
put forth school-level mental effort in that job or at home. Is that a school
problem or a workplace problem? A more fair (or rather helpful and telling)
comparison would be if the student undertook an effort that can rival the
purpose of the university.

------
digitallimit0
I would really like to see specifically Computer Science majors versus the
rest of these majors, mostly because Math is not nearly as employable in
comparison and is probably dragging down the numbers.

I'd like to see this because of how disparate my experience was when applying
for jobs as compared to anyone in any other field, I being a recent CS
graduate.

Basically, I can apply for 4 jobs and get 3 interviews and 2 offers. I can
turn around from unemployed to gainfully working in an easy month. It's crazy,
and I feel like there should be some numbers somewhere that show that.

------
marknutter
Are these employment rates based on actually being employed in their field of
study, or are we including arts majors who work full-time as baristas as
"employed" people?

~~~
davux
Wouldn't that be a really hard line to draw? The barista example is solid, but
isn't the spectrum so broad that it'd be impossible to really say what is and
is not their field of study [for many people/cases]?

I'd sure like to see such numbers, though.

------
studentrob
Wow, a study conducted by a college finds that going to college leads to a
more successful life? Shocking.

------
md1515
This totally ignores the fact that people who go to college are more likely to
be ambitious and career oriented / smarter. It totally skews all of these
results..

