Why do so few people major in computer science?

Even religion is started as a branch of mathematics. Maths is nature. In order to pay people more, we split the maths department into many departments, have more tenured professors :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: Btw, psychology, economics and social science introduce maths into their analyses so they sound more legit and get higher pay!:sweat:

If CS stays as high paying fields for a long time, I believe we will see more and more women there.
It is relatively recent that EECS engineering is considered as high paying and popular job.

I don’t have much doubt about what women can achieve academically regardless of fields.
Whether certain fields look more interesting than other fields to women may affect to some degree, but I believe high paying jobs would affect people’s decision more than interest.

In S.Korea, the 2 highest paying jobs are medical doctors and attorneys.
30 years ago, those fields were completely occupied by men.
These days, if you look at bar exam result and most prestigious medical school admission results, women are majority. Especially, top 10 high score people are all women (yes, in Korea, they publish such information to major newspaper.)

Unfortunately, engineers are not considered as high paying/prestigious occupation in Korea.
Thus, we don’t see many female engineers there.
The reasoning behind is why bother to spend so much time and energy with relatively small return.

I guess time will tell.
Personally, I don’t think we need social support to see more women in CS field.
As long as CS field stays as hot field, we will see more women.

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We all know math is the foundation of all sciences and CS being a more abstract application of the subject. But let the nerds have their moments… if they wanted to claim math is the hardest then so be it. I’m not going to argue :smile:

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Could also be Asian women don’t need social support. But women of other ethnicities do need that.

They have their mothers living with them? :slight_smile:

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I don’t know. Would you rather have social support or not? If there is support for my specific gender/ethnic background to boost my advantage, I would go for it! I don’t care what others think :slight_smile:

I think parents in Asian countries have more say in what majors their kids choose. If the kids have good grades, it’s expected they go for the most lucrative majors. In Hong Kong they publish names of the high school kids who got perfect grades in their college entrance exam. This year I think 6 or so kids made it. When asked what majors they will choose, ALL of them choose medicine. 100%.

If you got straight A’s and say you want to bolt off to do art history, prepare to not ever hear from your parents again.

That why Asian parents are very irrational. They always treat their children as an extension of their life and are obsessed about their success. Come on, relax a little. If your kid happens to be a failure it’s not entirely your fault. And you can still have a happy and successful life yourself even though your kid is a failure.

Similar behavior in Singapore. In Singapore, SWEs and engineers earn less than doctors, lawyers and economists.

manch and Jane would definitely don’t agree with you, pretty sure Terri too.

It’s part of the cross-generation optimization. Asian parents often pay for their kids’ tuition and living expenses 100%. Many pay for their down payment for houses etc. You can only justify that kind of investment if you have some control over its return.

It’s one arrangement. The other arrangement is the American one. Kids are on their own, so they borrow 100K and work their butt off in part time jobs. Graduate in 7 years if they are determined.

Unfortunately, my brain is wired in such way that my happiness is tightly coupled with my kids’.

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Asians… :rofl:

Um… just because you invested heavily in your kid doesn’t mean you are going to get a big payback. Your kid might drop out of college. Or he might indeed turn out to be a success but refuse to take care of you in your old age. So, that’s why you should never hold your expectations too high.

Of course, I’m the ideal Asian son… my parents never paid me a penny for college (I had full scholarship) and I’ve been taking care of them for the past 15 years. So, it also goes to say that you might not need to take care of your children very well but still reap big rewards (if you’re lucky)… :slight_smile:

I don’t think parents are necessarily seeking a financial return on their investment (children). Rather, it’s more about making sure they have the means to live a good life after the parents pass on, hence why Asian parents frown when their kids major in art history vs. STEM. Money shouldn’t be the end goal for having kids, otherwise you will most likely end in disappointment.

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Right. I was thinking more along the line of money going down the drain. If I am footing the tuition bill and junior blows it all off on an art history degree? Not cool.

Um… I’m sure Lang Lang and Yo Yo Ma’s parents would strongly object…

A few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the bunch.

Are you referring to Lang Lang and Yo Yo Ma as being bad apples??? :roll_eyes:

One of my Asian friends spends almost $10K on high-end music lessons a year. She said ā€œYou know, Asian parents are always making their kids take music lessons and then get upset when they want to be a musician.ā€ :slight_smile:

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Exactly. There is no need to social engineer things.

The worst thing ever happened to the world are the bad social engineer such as Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Marx

Let people make decisions on their own.

There is no need to take affirmarion action for women in US. And there is no need to take affirmative action for men in S Korea

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