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Ask Slashdot: How Should a Liberal Arts Major Get Into STEM?
An anonymous reader writes: I graduated with a degree in the liberal arts (English) in 2010 after having transferred from a Microbiology program (not for lack of ability, but for an enlightening class wherein we read Portrait of the Artist). Now, a couple years on, I'm 25, and though I very much appreciate my education for having taught me a great deal about abstraction, critical thinking, research, communication, and cheesily enough, humanity, I realize that I should have stuck with the STEM field. I've found that the jobs available to me are not exactly up my alley, and that I can better impact the world, and make myself happier, doing something STEM-related (preferably within the space industry — so not really something that's easy to just jump into). With a decent amount of student debt already amassed, how can I best break into the STEM world? I'm already taking online courses where I can, and enjoy doing entry-level programming, maths, etc.
Should I continue picking things up where and when I can? Would it be wiser for me to go deeper into debt and get a second undergrad degree? Or should I try to go into grad school after doing some of my own studying up? Would the military be a better choice? Would it behoove me to just start trying to find STEM jobs and learn on the go (I know many times experience speaks louder to employers than a college degree might)? Or perhaps I should find a non-STEM job with a company that would allow me to transfer into that company's STEM work? I'd be particularly interested in hearing from people who have been in my position and from employers who have experience with employees who were in my position, but any insight would be welcome.
Should I continue picking things up where and when I can? Would it be wiser for me to go deeper into debt and get a second undergrad degree? Or should I try to go into grad school after doing some of my own studying up? Would the military be a better choice? Would it behoove me to just start trying to find STEM jobs and learn on the go (I know many times experience speaks louder to employers than a college degree might)? Or perhaps I should find a non-STEM job with a company that would allow me to transfer into that company's STEM work? I'd be particularly interested in hearing from people who have been in my position and from employers who have experience with employees who were in my position, but any insight would be welcome.
I graduated with a degree in the liberal arts (English) in 2010 after having transferred from a Microbiology program (not for lack of ability ) ...
Wow. Just wow.
Well, *in my opinion* unless you go back for another degree (and even then), you will need at least something to show some level of skill.
Perhaps work on an Open Source project?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
At least the OP is learning from past mistakes. It could be worse, he/she could be doubling down on liberal arts and going to law school.
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Have an English degree, found it useless. went back got my BSEE, been employed as such ever since. short version, go back and get your degree.
I would highly recommend you take as much as possible at community colleges, paying as you go. The universities in my state (New Mexico) accept community college credits very, very well. Slightly before you've exhausted the community college course load, apply to, and get accepted into, a bachelor's program in some sort of engineering (not all science degrees are equally marketable.) After you're accepted, and have completed a year or two's worth of marketable engineering courses at the community college, you should be able to get an engineering internship and continue to pay cash for classes. These student, engineering, jobs (in my state) pay more than English degree professional jobs do. I've seen this approach work with computer science students.
My state has extremely inexpensive, or free, tuition for residents and access to a huge amount of engineering resources (two national labs + tons of military bases + the initial stages of a tech start up scene) as well as dirt cheap cost of living. I realize this approach might not work well in other states, but that's the approach I talk with people about. I'm working with a guy that studied music, but is getting into web development. His goal is to get accepted into a master's program, and spend an extra 2-3 semesters in it taking undergrad courses. If he can get funding (as a research assistant, or teaching assistant) that will be a great approach too.
If you want be an engineer then you need to go back and get a degree. However, working in STEM and being a STEM are two different things. You have an English degree - what about technical writing? Many of the writers I worked with were not engineers (thank god) and that would be a way to see if STEM really interests you. You can always do night school if it does.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The solution is simple. Study a STEM topic at a real university. If you live in the US you also need proper funding. In many EU countries you could just enroll. And starting studying with 25 is not too late at all. You could still finish MSc in 5 years.
The mean-spiritedness of some of the comments suggests to me that those who made them would benefit from a few liberal arts courses.
You might consider a Ph.D. program. If your grades are good and you have the basics, and you can tell the department a good story, you can get admitted and get funding in many STEM disciplines.
You'll have to spend a long time getting your Ph.D., but if it's what you want to do, it may be worth it. You should probably choose a program that grants a Master's along the way so that if you don't finish, you'll have something to show for your time.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
If you find a professor that you like and likes you, you can get a graduate degree without new debt, and folks won't care what your undergraduate degree is in once you have an appropriate graduate degree.
The choice of professor is critical for you for several reasons:
1. You need someone in the department to help get you accepted despite your out of area undergrad degree
2. You will be doing what your professor wants with most of your time- so choose wisely
3. You are going to need good advice on which classes are critical to actually take to fill in your knowledge gaps vs which ones you can pick up relevant material quickly on your own.
4. A good professor will have research or teaching funding to pay you while you're spending your time doing what they tell you to.
5. A good professor has connections that will help you find a job after your degree.
I graduated with an English degree, also picked up a few certificates in the arts and applied sciences in the process. Unless you're going into something specialized like microbiology, all most employers will be looking for is a Bachelor's degree and some work experience.
However, I differed from you in that I started applying for tech jobs well before my graduation date, and got in via technical writing, prior to even having completed my degree.
Once on the site, when the company realized my breadth of knowledge and critical thinking skills, they started letting me manage projects, until I got to the point where I really needed to go back for a P Eng. to go any further.
Meanwhile, I continued writing on the side, including ghost writing for various tech publications. When I went to look for a new job, I could show that I had a Bachelor's degree, plus a quick walk up the ranks at a tech company, plus a body of work published by known tech publications.
So what it boils down to is this: if you want to actually do STEM in the way you outlined, you're going to have to go back and get a Master's in something related, and possibly a PhD. If you're fine with general tech where you don't need a specialized skill-set, use your writing talent (assuming you've got it, and not just the ability to convert reams of books into essays and reports) to start in a STEM-related writing field -- doing contract work if you need to.
I graduated with a degree in the German Language. I finished my degree while on Active duty in the US Navy as an Electronics Technician. I am currently in my 15th year as a System Admin, working with RHEL. (go figure, right?) All this because I had lots of German classes in High School, spent some time in Germany, then decided I could go after what I really liked, and ended up working in Electronics/Computers (which I discovered I liked more than what I thought I liked.) thanks to a class required by the field I was going into (thanks, CS 150 at USU). I guess I got lucky by dropping out of college and joining the Navy who trained me at what I really wanted to do. And did it while paying me to learn. That might be the key, finding a way to support yourself while receiving the training you really want.
When I was interviewed for the now defunct Hughes Aircraft, one of the questions was, "do you have a problem with the fact that what we do here is basically kill people".
Nope, not one bit.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
STEM is a very broad thing - science, engineering, math - so what is your specific interest anyway?
Truthfully if you want a job in STEM, you NEED to go back and get a STEM degree. There are too many people already out there with degrees in the field that you have no hope unless you get some big favors by some very important people.
However, if you want to dabble in STEM type stuff, there is no reason you can't get involved as a hobbyist. Many self-taught people code outside of work on open source projects. There's the whole Maker movement with plenty of resources for the amateur. There's amateur astronomy, rocket clubs, cube sats, and so on. In fact, if you become a guru in any of these hobbies, it may open doors to a technical career.
Unfortunately STEM is quite broad. I'm an Electrical Engineer by degree who has worked in software development and testing his whole career. In that time I've seen people from various backgrounds get into dev work. Fresh out of college I worked with a systems integrator who specialized in AMX and Crestron development who had a liberal arts degree. I know a few MCSE's who were high school teachers who now work with Microsoft Sharepoint. None of these people went back to school for more formal (expensive) education. Most either fell into it or did this sort of thing on the side as a hobby, and the hobby took over. My suggestion is look at what you can already do and start pursuing that. If you repair computers for friends and family start looking for entry level tech work. If you write code and can produce some sample applications (or even better publish some useful apps for IOS or Android) then use that as a stepping stone to apply for code work. I do not recommend you head back to school or join the military for this purpose. There are better resources at hand. If you're looking to code codecademy.com is an excellent resource. If you're looking for more STEM education coursera and kahn academy are excellent resources to brush up with. I would recommend certs to prove your worth. Find jobs you are interested in and see if they require certain certifications. Get certifications that are affordable and in your wheelhouse, but don't go after a $2000 certification that only a few places want you to have. In most cases your skill should get you in the door, and a company should be willing to get you certified at their expense to sell your services.
Coffee: The lifeblood of intelligence in civilization.
Target a STEM career that will involve security clearance or other barriers to entry for offshoring. Of course, I know it is heresy in slashdot to say this where a good chunk of population thinks that "they are too precious to be offshored" just because they are still employed. But offshoring of extremely high-end jobs like Quants and high frequency trading should give you a pause to acknowledge that STEM is no longer a viable career for long-term growth.
I think you're better off just going to graduate school, but it's not going to be easy. However, you may need to take some classes at a local university or community college to shore up some fundamentals (advanced mathematics, basic sciences, etc.) depending on what you did and did not take as an undergrad. Another compromise that may be a little bit easier to make is to jump into fields such as systems engineering or industrial engineering. That path may have less resistance compared to fields with technical depth that build up more from undergraduate courses (mechanical, civil, electrical, computer science, etc.).
Carefully
Because being a lawyer is a bad idea *eye roll* you apparently don't know who writes the laws....
What I know now is that I would have been happier and/or richer being either:
(a) a banker, or
(b) a programmer.
Most of engineering is very, very dull indeed.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
All of the high-end coders I know, have the following traits:
1. They learned how to teach themselves ... but they seek out mentors.
2. They learned when it's time to find someone to teach them things
3. They play with the code, they build things, experiment, etc.
4. They aren't afraid to try a new tool, and be a noob
5. They understand that the quality of their work is important... and seek out the processes and skills it takes to increase quality
Over my 20 year history, the folks with these traits have always managed to build things that last, and work well, and were easy to maintain.
Very few of them went to school for "Computer Science" degrees, everything from Poly Sci to Construction.
I say:
1. find (or start) an interesting open source project
2. learn how to use git
3. start building tests
4. code.
5. play.
meh
I highly recommend starting with the Kerbel Space Program to see if you have the proper vision and the right stuff to deal with aerospace concepts.
Nobody uses a frickin' buzz word to describe their academic goals. STEM means nothing, it's a meaningless term. Do you mean engineering: something like Electrical Engineering or perhaps Chemical Engineering? Do you mean science: Physics, Biology, Chemistry? Or did you mean Computer Science?
When you say "STEM-related (preferably within the space industry" it clearly underscores that you are not seriously asking a question.
How the hell did this get past the editors.
When applying for actual jobs pick the entry level ones and push your passion.
That way you can get into actual space industry.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I had a roommate who went through 20 majors in five years, graduated with a business degree, became a stockbroker, got stressed out, became an alcoholic and lost his job, went to A.A. meetings, and became a tech writer.
I started my STEM career as a technical writing intern (I was an English major at the time). I shifted into full time programming before quitting school completely. It's a little harder to get a foot in the door on technical writing gigs these days, but marketing yourself as a tech writer/product support person to a small or midsize firm, and taking on intern level programming tasks might get you on the path to a software engineering degree. With a microbiology background (even without the degree), a small biopharma firm might take an interest in you. Be creative.
Hack Reactor, for example is a great program to get into development for people without a background. Our company hired a few people from hack reactor. They're pretty good and get you up to speed with what employers look for.
This concept still feels so alien to me.
Studies are meant to be free.
If you're paying, doesn't that mean they're basically handing you your degree in exchange for money?
I got a degree in mathematics, and didn't go the teaching route. after working for a while in the geophysics industry, I got bored and wanted more options- I realized the best way to open up a lot of options is to go the engineering route (every job posting I found interesting required a BS in ME)
so, go back to school. start at community college (get calculus, diff eq, physics, chemistry out of the way), and make a good impression on your professors there (evaluate the ones worth making an impression on). this isn't hard- you don't need kiss up to them, just volunteer to answer questions, sit up front, ask questions, etc. then go back to them and ask for letters of recommendation (masters programs usually require three)
then, (now this is key), get a 4.0 in your undergrad engineering classes (you'll need to take a few in order to 'catch up' to other grad students; but you won't have to waste time with classes outside of your specialty- I focused on thermofluids, and skipped advanced materials/vibrations stuff). Alternate between co-op semesters, and class/research semesters. Your degree will take a bit longer to complete, but you'll have a lot of fun, make important contacts, and have the chance to do really cool stuff (I joined formula SAE and EWB, and it was a blast)
After your first, or second semester, hit the job fairs. Try to get a coop/internship (maybe with an aerospace firm?). This will help finance your schooling- save your money, and use it for books/rent/food (not tuition, take out loans for that)
BUT this is assuming you want an MS in mechanical engineering. you say you want to go into STEM, and something space related. That's still incredibly vast- you could design fuel systems, airframes, engine components, heck (if you're good at it) you could make an entire career out of analyzing drag on nose cones!
So, don't say you want to go into space, quiet yet. Narrow down the field of STEM you want to work in- teaching math, researching biology, designing blu-ray players, investigating car crashes? I knew i wanted to go into ME, so I took the basic ME undergrad courses and fell in love with thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics- so I went the thermofluid route. I would've been happy designing pumps that move liquid chocolate around, but instead I get to work on the fuel system for the F-35
(also, read what color is your parachute)
your body to science
When hiring technical people, we look at education and experience. Depending on the age, one or the other takes greater importance.
At a (relatively) young age of 25, education is the most important. Your education does not qualify you for a STEM job, simple as that.
Now, a number of jobs can be had based on personal relationships. Let's say you have a special skill not reflected by the degree(s) you have, but someone you know is aware of it and in a position to influence someone in a hiring position, you could get a hearing and if you do have skill, you may get a chance at a job.
My understanding is that at the moment you do not have marketable STEM skills, so the only way is to get some.
You can try to do that while holding a job you are qualified for. It will take a while because it will be night school but at least you will get paid while doing it. You won't have too many free nights but not so much debt when you are done.
The alternative is to go student full time, pile up more debt but hopefully get done faster.
Which way to go depends on your personal (family?) situation and the kind and level of pain you are willing to endure.
I did exactly this. And if the prospect of writing documentation for decades doesn't tickle your fancy, don't forget that after 5-6 years and a PMI cert, a good career in project management is very possible (which is what I did).
There are a lot of people with huge law school debts working as paralegals or baristas. It's not a bad job, but there are way more lawyers than law jobs.
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You should check out the unemployment and college debt numbers for law school grads. Unless you're going to a top of the line law school and are an extremely competitive person, odds are very good you'll never recoup that investment. Many law school grads never find a job practicing law.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
With your current background, you could get a job in technical writing. Every firm that does engineering needs people like you who:
* Understand the subject matter
* Can write about it readably
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
^
I remember reading recently that law schools put out some 40,000 new lawyers per year, where there's only an economic demand of about 7,000 new ones per year.
Do some menstrual blood paintings (acquire some from a friend if you are male), publicly bitch about the patriarchy and racism and such and guilt a "decadent and depraved" company into hiring you for your progressive views.
Real answer: go back to fucking studying STEM and look for intern/junior positions, numbnuts.
Nobody is going to care what your undergraduate degree is in, because nobody is going to hire someone with a BS/A for anything interesting. Just get into a graduate program. You (most likely) won't have much trouble getting into something STEM related with an English degree. People do it all the time. Something to keep in mind is that you're going to appear much more well-rounded to a potential employer with a liberal arts undergrad degree. You've seen the kinds of comments you're getting from the STEM-or-die crowd, people simply do not like working with one-dimensional assholes. Go for it.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
There are a lot of people with huge law school debts working as paralegals or baristas. It's not a bad job, but there are way more lawyers than law jobs.
The smart people did not take out loans they could never afford to pay back. On the other hand as a bar-admitted attorney a law school graduate can open their own law practise and avoid the bullshit of "Big Law" altogether. Why would anyone want to work for "The Firm" when self-employment while not easy is likely to be more rewarding. The lowest of boring practise areas, real estate, is lucrative especially when combined with wills and estates for those attorneys in need job security. Although criminal law is probably the only area with ever-increasing demand for competent legal representation. For those for whom the practise of law is not suited to their personality, there is teaching legal courses at colleges and universities, say in a BA Law and Society type programmes. At least law does not chase fads unlike IT and CS.
First step: Don't tell them you're a liberal arts major.
Go with "microbiology major who hasn't been in school for awhile".
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I graduated at the end of the Cold War ('93), so an engineering degree was worthless -- all the companies were laying off their engineers as quickly as possible. Combined with the fact that the engineering jobs I interned for or heard about were not very interesting (managing a chemical factory?), I got a liberal arts degree. I went into IT for about 10 years, but in the long run I just didn't care that much about the mechanics of computers. I eventually got a PhD in biostatistics after taking the prerequisite courses. Statistics has let me get into various different research projects without having to overspecialize. I work for a hospital system now and do different research studies every day.
Since you said you're interested in space most of the comments seems to be focused around getting into a classical engineering field but I'm going to go in a different direction. I joined the startup scene in San Francisco in 2009 and though it seems most of these companies discard resumes that don't have B.Sc or M.Sc with a major in CS, CE or EE I do know a number of people personally that have managed to become programmers without a related college degree (or even finishing high school in one instance). They don't start that way but they transfer in after doing good work at the company in another role. So the master plan is: move to startup city and join a startup in a job you're qualified for. Study CS on the side and become friends with engineers and engineering managers at the startup. Kick ass at your existing job and start talking about wanting to be a programmer. Eventually someone will take a chance on you because startups are desperate for programmers/engineers. Once you have industry experience in the role people will be able to look passed your lack of official training. Eventually, after a few startup jobs like this, after you improve into a Real Software Developer (rather than a shitty startup dev) you can leverage that into a position at a space agency. The main point here is exploiting the startup community's desperation for programmers to get you into the field without the matching degree. It's a long term plan but you have a lot of learning to do along the way so you need it.
That's exactly what I was thinking as I read this. Since when has /. been a place for people to ask questions about their career and educational choices? On top of that, this person sounds as though they want an easy answer when the real answer is obvious: GO BACK TO SCHOOL!.
You may have already realized this but engineers operate on facts/empirical evidence and it is absolutely critical to identify screw-ups (both individual cases and as a per-person trend) and call them out so we don't repeat the same mistakes. Far too often, I've worked with people who were more concerned with negative perception than with shipping product. Understand that we who are trying to produce care less about your feelings than your work product. Constructive criticism only works if the person being criticized can personally accept responsibility for failure. Without that bit of introspective honesty, we who can are not going to be predisposed to helping you find yourself.
I'm quite amused that the post mentions the Liberal Arts degree taught him "critical thinking", but only sometime after finishing a mostly worthless Liberal Arts degree comes to realize that he should have stuck to STEM.
But that said, degrees help you get in the door, but practical experience tends to be more important. As a software engineer, I've found that somewhere around half my co-workers usually have completely different degrees than the standard Computer Science. Many of them have English, Music, or other unrelated degrees, but found their way in through freelancing and otherwise compiling actual experience to supplement the fact that they didn't have the "correct" major. I applaud someone who has the chops to get themselves into a field they haven't been formally trained in, because that takes more effort and use of your own time than the kid who comes out of the college treadmill with the rubber stamp saying they are ready to go.
The fact that you wrote that message is an example of why we need Liberal Arts education.
No reason to lie.
I know that people who worked hard for their Engineering degrees will naturally be suspicious of anyone who seems to have done less work than them, but even so I was rather amazed at the amount of ignorance and hatred in the responses here. As a Literature major who now makes six figures programming, please do ignore them.
My advice would be to enroll at Hack Reactor or a similar coding boot camp. We've hired two programmers from them: one was a Biology PhD, the other just had a Chinese Literature undergraduate degree. In both cases we didn't really care what their degree was, we cared about their abilities. Based on what I've seen, the best of the graduates of Hack Reactor are WAY better hires than an average CS graduate (and they're a lot easier to hire; the Googles of the world snatch up the top CS graduates before smaller companies like ours even have a chance).
Of course, I personally didn't take the boot camp approach. I graduated, spent a year unemployed, then managed to get a position as a web designer for a small company. It was a terrible company: they wouldn't even pay for water for employees! But as annoying as their cheapness was, it was that very cheapness that got me hired. Because I was willing to work for $15/hour and could do the work (I'd taught myself web development) I was able to get that crucial first job. You may have to hold your nose in a similar way to get your first job, if you don't take the boot camp approach.
Once I got my foot in the door by working their a year I moved on to a junior programming job, worked my way up to being a team lead, and then moved on to my current company (a start-up). I'd imagine you could do something similar, but going through a boot camp will give you that "foot in the door", which is really the hardest part for someone in your position. After the boot camp gets you your first job, that job will get you all your future jobs.
So, ignore the negativity here. Silicon Valley really is, at least to a large extent, a meritocracy: what matters is being good at your craft, not where you came from.
I think to be fair to this person, we should seriously discuss the idea that it may be too late to get into a hard science field after an English major.
The reason might not be so much that he/she is unable to learn (although that is a possibility -- many people find that after years of being out of college and hard science, they no longer have the patience/drive to sit through those classes). It is also a matter of having done this switch, he/she will be behind by years, and possibly sending bad signals to employers.
Just think about it, if you have a candidate for a job who has switched fields late in life, regardless of the explanation, you may question their committment or attention span to be in the field. And on top of that, they will be years behind the person who has been doing it since day 1 of college. Side by side, the comparison to job candidates who stuck with it earlier will never be favorable. And the truth of that will manifest in frustrating job searches, failed attempts at getting top jobs, etc.
You may have to admit the unpleasant truth that going back to start over again is a losing proposition and you should make the best of what you have done so far, and continue down that path.
Perhaps a more productive way of making a partial switch is to get into the field of science writing, or journalism, or some other pursuit where your lack of years in science research and preparation is not such a handicap.
The poster suggest his time in the "liberal arts" taught him critical thinking, and yet states that the jobs available were "not up his alley" and now wants back into STEM.
What makes you think your decision making ability is any better now? Why STEM when you changed over to LA earlier?
Because you think you would get a job easier with a STEM oriented degree?
Would it be wiser for me to go deeper into debt and get a second undergrad degree?
When is it "wiser" to get into debt, much less get into debt deeper?
Go into the military?
For what reason finances?
There is something cognitively wrong with the person that wrote this, my suggestion is you talk to someone that is much older than you and understands the system, you seem to be making "unwise" choices and I would say you aren't capable of critical thinking currently.
Or you wouldn't be here asking what you're asking, talk to someone older and wiser in "real life".
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
My suggestion is that you combine your interests and your knowledge. Technical people tend to lack one important concept and that is being non-technical and approaching problems from outside their focus. I would suggest getting a technical degree 2-4 years in the field of your choice from either a technical college or a state 4 year school. Choose the degree with the idea of how you might apply your arts based experience and education as well as interests to that degree. For instance Mechanical Engineering might lead to writing or designing instructional materials. A hard science based degree may lend itself to being a grant writer. A Computer Science degree might lend itself to a technical writer (The person who explains to the masses how to use software). Careers can end up being how you sell yourself as well. You might not need another degree at all as long as you have technical hobbies and general knowledge as well as high interest in a subject.
When you interview for jobs do not be meek. If you feel like the job is above your abilities or if you feel intimidated by a few aspects of the position know that you will have an opportunity to learn. You will make mistakes and your employer expect a certain level of learning from any College grad. Promote yourself with the abilities that you do have. Soft skills like attention to detail, the ability to work as a team, being friendly and social, being a self started, being able to self teach/grow. You also likely have hard skill such as an impressive vocabulary, understanding various cultures, critical thinking, computer skills.
The number one frustration I have with college grads is that all to often they think and say "I can't". Usually the case is you CAN, you just haven't learned and applied yourself yet.
Good luck!
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Reminds me of the late 90's when I graduated. Got my first real job, pre-bubble, and the amount I was making wasn't really all that impressive, but a full time salary is a full time salary. My uncle exclaimed "You make THAT much? Man, how do I get into that industry?"
My reply was, and still is, "If you ask that question, you can't."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Agreed, "those that do not study history..."
But really, a Liberal Arts degree is useless. Liberal Arts classes can be quite useful.
But perhaps our AC friend should not not be in any higher education at all. It sounds like he can't (or couldn't) make the cut.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Go to work as an editor at Slashdot, to approve articles on feminism and breastfeeding. Yes, it’s already happened.
Have you considered being a tech writer? People with decent writing skills who have a sound knowledge in science and technology should be making a living. Also advanced programmers do need people who are able to make the development process understandable to management. That gives an opportunity to program but makes you more valuable in that you have verbal and people skills to stop management from making blunders.
I really enjoyed reading the book "text processing with python" And one thing that struck me was that the guy writing it has a pretty solid liberal arts background.
So I think if I were you I would find some subject that interests you and to which computing techniques might be applied, learn what you need to be able to address that and then write a blog, a paper or even a book that describes your approach. Then use that to support your application for a STEM job. I am sure you will get PLENTY of feedback if you publish something online that captures peoples imaginations, it would be a great learning experience and make for a good portfolio to show a potential employer.
As a suggestion, why not consider how a graph database could be applied to some topic in literature or public policy or visual arts.
Nullius in verba
Lobbyists.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Speaking of debts, after you find the STEM topic that interests you most (motivation should be key to choosing what to study), and identify the kind of program you want to apply for, get as much of the requirements done at inexpensive community college or other local institutions with transferrable credits. A few years ago my local community college offered classes at $70 a credit or less - books often cost more. To me that's almost free.
And vote to elect people who will fight for less profits made off student loans, and even for more subsidies for eduction.
It used to be that any degree would get your "foot in the door" with HR. Some of the best programmers I worked with over the years had degrees in English, Philosophy, and even a History major.
University teaches you how to learn new material, how to prioritize it, how to summarize, how to reach the meat in the middle of the chaff. It does not teach you how to program. While there are benefits to knowing computing theory, it's not theory that gets the job done -- experience does that.
I'm surprised you're having such a tough time finding work if you're actually good at programming. Perhaps it's the way you're presenting yourself in your resume, because, as I said, it doesn't really matter what your degree is in for getting your foot in the door.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
English major, here. I wanted to get into Radio really bad when I was in college and after what I felt was a non-competitive B- in organic chemistry (I was a chem major, first). I learned later that B- was actually pretty good, and I regret not sticking with that program... why, I'd be making space-age polymers by now!
I always liked dinking around on computers. Had a CP/M machine back in the day, liked writing little utility programs and stupid zork-like text games. Always enjoyed spending time on the machine -- figuring things out, you know? IBM PCs were pretty much de rigeur in college, got pretty comfortable with them and my university UNIX account. Got pretty skilled at word processing tools, document formatting, etc.
So, after I graduated and had no luck getting radio jobs as automation was taking over that business, so I figured that I'd get a job at a law firm and see if I liked it. I did. Kept me busy. I was a document clerk -- handled a ton of documents, cataloging them, making exhibits, getting stuff for attys at the library, but the computer time just seemed to fly by. So, I started going to grad school, in the business school, to get an MS-IS, but to take the most technical track I could get. So, I took a bunch of coding classes, design classes, analysis classes, and after my first year I got an internship with a telecom company as a tech writer, documenting Operation Surveillance equipment for big big big fiber telecom installations. They gave me a whole lab full of routers and fiber muxes and alarm blocks, 5ESS switches and channel banks, DataKit and terminal servers and CSU/DSU boxes, and I got to play with them and break them and build them back again and write about how to do that. It was great!
With that internship (still taking classes -- grad school took me 7 years to finish) I was able to get a job documenting software interfaces for pre-press software... describing functions and methods, return codes and exceptions, how things worked together, that kind of thing. Then I went back to telecom and documented inventories of telecom equipment before getting picked up by an enterprise services group as an engineer. I worked on build process scripting and tools on a bunch of different system 5 UNIXes. Budget crunch eliminated my contract position so I went to an established VOIP company and wrote installation software in Perl and bourne shell and worked on build process stuff in my first job titled as an engineer. Got laid off of there and worked for an old work friend's startup company, for free, for about 4-5 months until he could pay me a little bit (had to keep my skills fresh)... I did tier 1 support, systems administration, build (SCM) stuff like repo management and the like, some testing and DBA stuff. Stayed with them for a couple years as an engineer. Finally got my MS done. Moved on to a HUGE company as an SCM engineer and went to management about 8-9 years ago.
It's been a long road, but I have done pretty well. I think I'm a good people manager. I'm not afraid of technology and have a pretty good background as a generalist -- networking stuff, systems, coding, tools, etc. I'm not real expert at any of it, but I know enough to understand problems and get the right people working on them.
I think the key part is to just do it. You don't need to have an engineering degree to be an engineer. Most of what I use on a day-to-day basis I learned myself. Working for free, as dumb as it sounds, was great for me. Startups need people who are willing to do just about anything to keep a project moving, and you get to wear a lot of different hats. Ultimately, what took me to STEM was tech writing, but I only got to tech writing after I had learned new languages and had some more formal tech instruction.
Hope it helps.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
In my position I hire a lot of students for a lab work. I've come to realize that the best workers aren't necessarily the people with STEM majors; the best workers are generally people who are interested and feel a little over their head. I've had many terrible pre-meds, and always had good luck with my English majors. If you're willing to start low in the food web, get a job as a lab technician somewhere (universities are often a decent bet). If you can, prioritize places that look like they have work or instruments that you'd enjoy working on. You can amass a pretty good amount of technical skill from a decent lab job.
If you have higher ambitions for aerospace technologies... probably means going back to school. But that would have meant going back to school regardless of your undergrad degree.
What do you want to do in STEM?
IF you just want to be around doing work for a space agency, they hire liberal arts majors to.
I'm always a little leery of people who want to enter STEM, but with no specifics.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You apparently don't know how hard it is for a lawyer to find work.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In college I had no idea what one subject I wanted to dedicate my life to -- I was (and am) interested in a wide range of topics. I pseudo-randomly settled on Psychology for my BA and after my internship and numerous interviews, one of which involved my having to run after an interviewer who was pretending to be a lunatic down several office hallways while dressed in a full suit, I learned that psych work might not quite be for me. I got a job after college doing simple desktop-support IT work at a software engineering company, and worked my way up to being a go-to systems administrator there. While I was fixing the computers of industry insiders, I gained both connections and the insight of successful STEM folks. I also paid off my undergrad debts and enrolled in a grad program that offered a 'bridge' of classes for non-CS undergrads to enter the Computer Science MS program. By continuing to work full time, I didn't need to take out any additional loans for grad school. After three and a half years of working in IT and attending night classes I graduated with my MS in CS and am now a happy software engineer. I would suggest looking for work in IT or tech writing to pay off your current loans, then consider enrolling in grad school for a STEM Master's degree. If you make sufficient connections in the IT job and amass a fair body of work in your STEM area of interest, you may not need the degree. If you're into software engineering, browse GitHub for interesting projects and request commit access; that way you can include the modules you've written of potentially large and popular applications as part of your body of work. Good luck!
People without CS degrees tend to lack the vocabulary necessary to communicate efficiently with their peers about CS topics in situations where they are required to work on a team. Big "O" notation, names of algorithms, breadth of algorithmic knowledge, etc..
If you are not going to be working on a team (and it's the rare company who does not believe they will become larger in the future), then a portfolio of previous work is generally acceptable.
Because companies believe they will grow, you are most suited to being a consultant, or, alternately, working for a consulting firm.
I've frequently considered creating a "vocabulary test", along the lines of those multiple choice test games passed around on Facebook; the problem with doing that, however, is people would "learn to the test"; and while it would be a form of education for them, as a result they would successfully get their foot inside the door of place where they would ultimately not be successful. This would not be a service to either them, or the places which hire them. To be effective, it would have to end up growing to the point that it might as well be a certification exam. And still, people would learn to the test, instead of having any depth of knowledge necessary to communicate with those who do.
Take advantage of the system
(1) Find the best college or community college that'll have you as an English teacher ...While still teaching, if you can; 1-2 years experience teaching at a college level puts you higher on the hire list
(2) Teach English for small $
(3) Take advantage of the perquisite that you get to take some amount of free classes because you are faculty
(4) Finish an associates in a STEM field. An associates is transferrable, even if credits are not (I suggest microbiology)
(5) Either transfer as a student, or, if it's a good college, finish your bachelors degree there
(6)
NB: "Good college" is relative; you will generally get out of any program what you put into it.
Well, at least you understand the motivation behind your anti-space delusions. But do you really need to share the details with the rest of us?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
An English major is NOT getting into a STEM Ph.D. program, no matter what.
Even if they were, job prospects are worse for STEM Ph.D. holders than for MS/BS holders—there are far fewer jobs that require Ph.D. level qualifications outside of the professoriate and academics, and for Ph.D. holders in particular, employers are absolutely loathe to hire overqualified people.
Inside the professoriate and academics, the job market is historically bad right now. It's not "get a Ph.D., then become a lab head or professor," it's "get a Ph.D., then do a postdoc, then do another postdoc, then do another postdoc, then do another postdoc, really do at least 6-7 postdocs, moving around the world every year the entire time, and at the end of all of that if you've managed to stay employed at poverty wages using highly competitive postdocs that you may not even get, while not flying apart at the emotional seams, you may finally be competitive enough to be amongst the minority of 40-year-old Ph.D. holders that gets a lab or a tenure-track position, at which point the fun REALLY begins as you are forced onto the grantwriting treadmill and feel little job security, since universities increasingly require junior faculty to 'pay their own way' with external grants or be budgeted out."
And that's INSIDE STEM, which this person is almost certainly likely to be uncompetitive for as a B.A. holder trying to get into graduate programs.
Much more likely is that with great grades and GRE scores they'll be admitted to a humanities or social sciences Ph.D. program, with many of the same problems but with CATASTROPHICALLY worse job prospects due to the accelerating collapse of humanities budgets and support on most campuses.
Ph.D. is absolutely not the way to go unless you are independently wealthy and are looking for a way to "contribute to the world" since you don't actually have to draw a salary.
For anyone with student loans, it's a disastrous decision right now, and I wouldn't recommend it.
I say this as someone with a Ph.D. who is on a faculty and routinely is approached by starry-eyed top students looking to "make the world a better place" and "do research." Given the competition out there right now, only the superstars should even attempt it, and then only if they're not strapped for cash. Hint: If you don't know whether or not you're a superstar, you're not.
I think in a decade I've strongly recommended that someone enter a Ph.D. program once, and greeted the suggestion favorably maybe three times total, out of thousands of students, many of them with the classic "4.0 GPA" and tons of "books smarts."
In short, I disagree strongly with the suggestion. Unless you absolutely know that you're competitive already on the academic market, DO NOT GO. Don't listen to the marketing from the schools; it's designed to drive (a) your enrollment and tuition, and/or (b) your cheap labor as a teaching assistant/research assistant forever once you're in the program. It's a win for the institution, not for you.
The easiest sanity checks: Do you know exactly what your dissertation will be about and what you'll need to do, in broad strokes to conduct your research, as well as what resources you'll need? Do you already have personal contact with faculty on a well-matched campus in a well-matched department that are championing you and that want to bring you in as one of their own students/assistants?
If you answers to either one of these questions is "no," then while you may be offered a position somewhere, you will be on the losing end of the deal and would be naive to take it.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Science, technology, engineering, and math. You are 25 years old, have a bachelors, and are beyond that. You can probably change fields if you have the aptitude, but you are way beyond "STEM". Those are basic education areas, not careers.
how hard is it
Maybe, if you have a technical mind, you can write for a living to help STEM people make sense to other humans.
I have no idea which jobs are not suited to you, but being able to write and communicate is valuable. Having a liberal arts degree, since many fail to notice, gives you the ability to cross disciplines easier than the single discipline degrees, since that is the definition. Both are useful.
At 25, you are just starting out. Find something you are passionate about, and go for that.
plan a
Go get a high GRE score write stellar essay and pick a program. Well rounded highschool students make great college students and well rounded college students make great scientists. Non stem BS degrees are typically less comfortable with fundamentals, which is more work and makes for a harder time around orals, but they get there. Remember half the american students with stem undergrads wont know fundamentals anyway, since that knowledge isn't part of the application process Another fourth are swapping fields so their fundamentals are less transferable. High caliber, well prepared students (hot on fundamentals) are rare. I am not one, but I did catch up from woefully deficient fundamentals.
plan b
Pick a prof you want to do research with, follow their advice and their advocacy will make it a cinch.
part2 to plan a and b, dont listen to any naysayers unless they supply advice to overcome the small surmountable problems you may encounter.
my typing and thinking are somewhat compromised atm so please overlook errors
To maximize employability you'd want a degree from a reputable 4-year brick-and-mortar university. On the other hand that's probably also the most costly and time-consuming option. Some ideas in no particular order:
1. Go back to the university where you earned your English degree. It hasn't been that long since you graduated, so you may be able to apply your existing credits to a C.S. or Math degree. That might allow you to get the second degree in as little as two years instead of four. If there are any required classes for the 2nd degree that can be taken elsewhere (e.g. a junior college) and transferred in then doing so can lower your total cost.
2. Go through one of those "Code Academy" places. This still costs money but takes way less time. It also offers less in terms of employability, but it's better than nothing.
3. Teach yourself some of the basics of C.S. Data structures, algorithmic complexity, discrete math, etc. Possibly through some online courses. Then self-teach yourself Objective-C+iOS or Java+Android and create some sort of app. Put it in the store. Interview for junior level app developer positions. If you have an app in the store and can talk intelligently about how it's designed (and why you chose to design it in that particular way instead of various other alternatives) then many employers will overlook your lack of formal C.S. education. Even if your first software dev. job is shitty, the point is to get your foot in the door. Once you have a dev. job on your resume it becomes that much easier to get other (better) dev jobs, because employers will no longer see you as someone with no experience in the field.
4. If you can stomach it, the military actually isn't a bad deal. Last I checked they were offering an abbreviated 2-year full-time commitment (with a longer period of national guard duty). At the end you get a sort of "half" version of the G.I. bill. More importantly (at least, it would be if you were younger), being honorably discharged from the service severs the link between you and your parents when it comes to applying for financial aid. Their income and savings is no longer taken into account when calculating your "need".
From what I've researched, taking undergraduate research classes and doing internships will dramatically increase your starting salary.
I'm not sure this is true. What internships do is allow you to make decent money while going to school. I know several former interns that made a good enough impression on their employer that they continued to work part time during school, if the work location was close enough to school. That's the biggest benefit: avoiding more debt.
Congratulations, your degree is worthless and since you are not independently wealthy the reality of sunk in.
While you absolutely need technical skills, your written language skills will be valuable in any field that writes reports, papers, or manuals. Therefore, logical path is to become technical writer or double-down on academia and focus on publishing papers.
Riffing on the OP's desire to "impact the world," you might consider getting involved in STEM in a promotional/advocacy role. FIRST robotics offers a great opportunity to get involved with promoting the STEM career path. I imagine the pay isn't great, but you might find paid positions in your state's FIRST (or similar) program, or even at the national level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), one of the world's preeminent schools of art and design, is also the leader of the STEAM educational movement. STEAM is an acronym created by adding an A for Art into STEM, the term representing the US government's current emphasis on education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
But remember that I see a lot of B.Sc. grads with Computing Science degrees and zero experience in IT.
Get into an intern position in IT, and get a GPA of 3.8 or more.
Masters degrees cost a lot more.
Doctorates cost even more.
At least you can write and RTFM.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I am an English Major and a Senior Software Developer.
The best thing I ever did for my career was get a degree in English instead of Computer Science. Some Computer Science course can be learned in their entirety from reading online for a few hours. College is below average at best when it comes to teaching about writing quality code.
If you are an English major, then you understand language syntax and importance. All programming is, is language syntax. I took a couple programming course at a Junior College. I have infinite opportunities to use my English degree.
Now, after learning on my own, I earned (well, I still have a thesis to offically finish) a Masters of Computer Science from Utah State University (The online classes are designed so you remotely participate in the real class they teach on-campus). If your undergrad is not computer science, then there is really only one prereq class you must pass. And USU is pretty cheap, $10-$12 for my in-state Masters of Science in Computer Sciences.
Find a place that will hire you as a coder, and then
I agree with everything you said. But while it may be true that your starting salary does not increase by too much, from my experience with my friends and I who have graduated with and without internships, your increased competence on the job when you have internship experience means you are more likely to be more quickly promoted. The benefits in salary are not necessarily immediate.
Interesting to know. I'm on the beginning end of such a career, it was a hard adaptation at first because of some of the reasons you and the parent poster mentioned, but thankfully I work for an aerospace company that is small, new (relatively speaking), and not yet crippled by risk aversion. I'm even in product assurance of all places, but we get interesting problems flowed down from time to time, and we get to do some pretty fun testing. I have noticed, though, that some of my favorite days are the ones I get to spend writing scripts to automate different analysis tasks, which has made me wonder whether I'd enjoy a position in software development.
On the other hand, programmers as a whole don't seem terribly pleased with their careers either, at least judging by the slashdot crowd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I think you posted this on the wrong site, as /. is full of "engineers" who think they know everything.
Indeed, the computing industry is full of engineers who think they know everything, which would be fine if not for the fact that computers need to interface with human beings, and are usually piss-poor at doing so. One of the main reasons behind this that not enough "engineers" have read Portrait of the Artist, or War and Peace, or indeed anything other than a scattering of pages from "Professional JQuery".
Stay away from education for the time being. Use your English skills to get a "content production" (i.e. writing) job at a web firm of some sort - this will put you in situations where programming / logical thinking are going on all around you, and some of your latent scientific abilities will start to emerge. You will soon find that most of the "engineers" around you know as little or less about what they're doing as you do. But at least you will be conscientious about it, at which point, start looking for a Masters you can do based on your Arts undergrad and industrial experience.
An earlier suggestion to find an open source project to work on is also a good one. The best software is Open Source, but the best Open Source software (i.e. about 0.001% of it) has good documentation. Ergo there are a lot of projects out there that could be great but are crying out for some well written documentation. (One that springs to mind that I've dealt with recently is Lucene - last time I looked the documentation was good for V3, but lagging behind after it's last major upgrade from V3 to V4).
Don't let the assholes who say "stay away from engineering if you studied english" put you off. They, and their allergy to the realities of human existence, are one of the main reasons why so many IT projects fail (see The Lean Startup for details).
I think the problem is similar in both cases; the actual technical part, that people on /. are likely to enjoy, becomes a smaller part of the job the longer and/or more successful you are at it. If you work for a commercial enterprise then you are a businessman, and the people who enjoy that environment and get on are not generally the techies. If you want to stay in pure technical work then think about academia.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"