Lots of generalizations here for sure. Best line of generalization that I’ve read here is only liberal arts degree provide one the capability to think and function in a civilized society. I believe 30% of CEOs have/had engineering degrees, one good example is Google CEOs, all had engineering degrees for undergraduate. Do they not live and function in a civilized society?
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The presidents of USC (past and current) have engineering degrees. They seem to function pretty well.
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Just asked my son, his guesstimate is that he writes about 1000 LOC per month.
I hear mostly his rants about conflicts between package versions and how much pain is to upgrade something without breaking something else.
At the end of the day people generally gravitate to things they prefer/like to do. People get degrees and stay in that field for life, while others end up in totally different fields.
Some folks have the luxury of moving around and trying different things while others need to hit the ground running and make some money.
People are also comfortable with different levels of risk.
Everyone is a bit different and they will find their way to where they belong.
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My son spent a three month summer and wrote 300 lines of code, and got a return. So the 300 was found to be an acceptable number 
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How many lines of code generated is strongly influenced by what your doing. Even within a given company, the amount of time “coding” can vary greatly. If you’re maintaining code the number could be quite small, if your adding a new feature the number on lines could be greater. If you are in a green-field area the number could be quite large.
Our S is in a ML research group and while he writes a fair amount of code, a large portion of his time deals with proving out solutions with math, researching and training new models, and proposing and socializing new approaches to the product oriented teams.
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That’s more than generalization. That’s erroneous stereotyping.
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I think you’ll find a huge variation between different employees, companies, positions,… rather than an industry standard. Even the same employee at same company and same position may have huge variation at different times of the year. For example, if we are in the process of building something new, I might spent a lot of time coding and simulating/testing the new design. If we are updating something existing, then that update might only require changing a few lines of code. Many portions of the design cycle may emphasize integration, lab testing, analysis of results, running simulations, working with other engineers to support verification/configuration/updates… many things that aren’t measured well by number of lines of code committed.
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To expand more on my previous reply, although I do a lot of programming for fun, it is only sometimes related to the programming I do for work. Although I have been told that I am world-level expert in some of the things I do at work, there are so many things that I don’t know and I would really like to learn related to programming.
Going to opera is a passive hobby, you just enjoy what other people do. Of course, I enjoy listening to music, reading books, etc. but I don’t regard them as hobbies. I am the consumer, not the producer.
Fair enough.
First off I’m not against graduate degrees. My husband has an MBA (though paid for by his employer) and S19 will probably pursue at least a Master’s degree (a PhD is still to be determined). My only point is that there can be an opportunity cost associated with them even if students don’t have to pay out of pocket. Whether that is of value to a student because it allows access to a career that they wouldn’t otherwise be eligible for is a personal choice.
Figures I have seen for the employment landscape here in Canada is that graduates with a Master’s degree in most fields do see on average higher salaries than those with just an undergraduate degree, just as those with undergraduate degrees generally earn more than those with a college diploma or high school degree. There will always be outliers though (like skilled trades/successful entrepreneur). The outcome for PhD’s is less clear cut however. On average PhDs do not earn significantly more in the short term post-graduation than those with a Master’s degree (and sometimes actually make less). It takes a significant amount of time for the salary level of most PhD graduates to surpass that of those who stopped with a Master’s. When you add in the 4+ years it took to get to that level it’s not clear cut from a strictly financial consideration whether a PhD is worthwhile for most. It’s a truly disheartening situation. Employers outside of academia here don’t really seem to value PhDs, and Post-Docs get paid atrociously. That’s why so many of our brightest students seek employment in the US.
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The “credential creep” is extensive and not always about erecting barriers to entry. @gwnorth and I likely went to university in the same era and place.
It used to be physical therapy, occupational therapy was a 4 year direct entrance degree from high school. Regulated # of seats and high barrier against foreign-trained therapists. Fast forward 30 years, same-ish # of seats, it’s morphed into a graduate program.
All state schools in Ontario so it’s not a $ grab. I think as the cutoffs for the undergraduate program got higher, the powers that be decided that it wasn’t fair to get in based on 12th grade courses alone.
Level playing field and all that. So no kid is penalized by 1 year of high school but has to have sustained good marks through undergrad and LORs and so on.
I wonder whether things really got better?
@gwnorth, the % of grads from my very highly rated engineering program leaving Canada for US has inexorably headed upwards. Interestingly, quite a few kids of my classmates have headed back to the alma mater for the bargain basement tuition for citizens.
Yeap, STEM people are accused of lacking critical thinking skills, how can we survive when robots are running this world, lol.
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Let me offer a hypothesis – curious what other people think about this:
“The fields with the most credential creep are the least paying, at least per unit time in post secondary education”
Yes, agree degree isn’t tied to ability to think STEM or no STEM. Nor is one degree better, harder, etc. Depends on the student. Lots of good philosophers who are great in finance and engineers who are big thinkers. Small boxes aren’t relevant esp today as people acquire more skills throughout their careers and learning is ongoing.
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I understand your point @gwnorth. But getting a higher degree, such as graduate school isn’t necessarily because of trying to get a higher salary, but merely because such a degree would be necessary to obtain certain kinds or levels of jobs. I know one of my kids would not be doing what she is doing now and at the level of that job without a graduate degree, nor would I. It isn’t about making more money with the higher degree, but about access to certain jobs. As director in her “department” at her firm, my daughter also is part of the team that hires new people and pretty much all the new hires have a graduate degree. That is not true for all jobs or all fields, I realize.
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I don’t fully agree.
I am a speech pathologist. When I was an undergrad in the Stone Age, one could get a job with just a bachelors degree. As someone who holds a masters plus post masters work in the field, I’m not sure how all of the info needed to be a decent clinician was ever taught in undergrad school (where, at the time, everyone had other state mandated college courses requirements to meet as well).
It became recognized that a masters degree really offered the specialization needed for this field…and that is the entry level degree for this field.
I never felt underpaid.
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The one that hit me hardest was physical therapy. When a PT told me the had done a doctorate I was shocked it was the norm now. Another physical therapist my kid had, who was a highly trained specialist had only done a two year degree (which seemed to be enough for this field, IMHO). Both were paid equally so the younger set is going to have a hard time making money.
Don’t know if credential type things are tied to low salaries. Maybe. Seems to be more credentialing in the health fields and teaching then elsewhere. But I don’t know.
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The allied health professions of Speech Pathology, Occupational Therapy, and Physical Therapy all require advanced degrees now.
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Yes and that’s a little surprising to me. Seems like a grad degree is reasonable but a doctorate in PT seems REALLY excessive. I’m not in any of those fields so far beyond my expertise. Someone in those fields would certainly know. I just think it drives up the cost of education a lot and I don’t know how well paying these jobs are, hopefully they pay great to recoup the costs. I will say that I was paying $125/hour for PT and the PT guy was working for someone else, so I doubt it pays enough based on the level of education needed.