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I still suspect it's this reason from the post:

> You don’t need a CS degree to be a developer

With another catch. Basically, a lot of people don't intend to go into the tech industry right away. No, they end up in it because it's one of the faster growing industries with decent financial prospects.

So they learn something else, work in a different field for a bit (or a low paid retail job) then end up going into tech where the jobs and money are.

Not everyone is 'passionate' about the subject.




> You don’t need a CS degree to be a developer

And I think at least some of us observe this and think "I'll study a related tech field and then take a job that also uses CS - that will let me grow a wider skill set than if I just studied CS." Because it isn't too difficult to get exposed to CS basics while pursuing EE or math, etc, and a wider skill set can be a valuable thing to have - you generally have more freedom in the development of your career, more opportunities to shift around and prevent burnout/boredom, etc.

It would be interesting to build a matrix showing how degrees in each STEM field are tied to jobs in each STEM field. Because I suspect CS funnels much less into the other STEM fields than vice versa, providing a view where a CS degree is tied to a narrower line of work, and hence more at risk to future market changes.


> It would be interesting to build a matrix showing how degrees in each STEM field are tied to jobs in each STEM field. Because I suspect CS funnels much less into the other STEM fields than vice versa, providing a view where a CS degree is tied to a narrower line of work, and hence more at risk to future market changes.

To be fair, the job prospects in many other STEM fields aren't great. You most likely won't get a job with a BS in physics doing physics related work, considering how many physics PhDs there are that didn't remain in academia for one reason or another.




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