<p>UCSD dad:</p>
<p>My H belongs to the post-Sputnik generation. How many were drawn to physics not just by visions of helping beat the Soviets in science but being gainfully employed? By the time he got his Ph.D. there was a veritable glut. So if we go by the narrow definition of "employable" he chose a major in which he was unemployable and had to switch fields entirely in order to find employment. But could he have known it when he applied to college?
The supply and demand cycle of the market does not coincide with the length of a college education. When dot.coms went bust, the introductory course in computer science at Berkeley enrolled half the number of students as in previous year, making it hard for the comp sci faculty to argue in favor of expanding its ranks and offerings. A few years later, the high tech industry has recovered somewhat (though some of its work has been outsourced). The students who decided against comp sci may have missed the boat on the high tech recovery.</p>