Why do we push people into STEM?

Think in terms of supply and demand in the labor force and its effect on costs to wonder why the system is trying to push people into coding.

Do tech firms want to push H1B Visas because they deeply care about the people of distant lands and genuinely can't find anybody in America to do the same job, or do they simply want access to more cheap and compliant labor to keep salaries low?

Is tech trying to push stuff like Women and Black Girls Can Code Too for the sake of being noble and kind to all, or are they just desperately trying to increase the size of the labor pool to reduce the leverage that their highly paid employees have?

I don't want to be elitist about this because I'd love to teach anybody who genuinely wanted to try and learn to code, but the reality is that you cannot teach everybody to think in abstract terms and actually learn to code and this effort is futile, harms real programmers, and just benefits big firms who want to try and pay less.

PS: And this push is sort of ironic because saying "Learn to Code" briefly became akin to a hate crime for a while. https://reason.com/2019/03/11/learn-to-code-twitter-harassme...

Well, you are in a bubble of sorts where an algorithm feeds you lots of STEM related information. So you get exposed to a lot of STEM conversations and it creates the illusion that everyone is pushing STEM.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Where I'm from doctors and lawyers as a career is what gets pushed. It's the meme of that place. Where you're from, or where you're from internet-wise has the "push people into STEM" meme. Here I mean meme as the cultural analogue of gene, not a funny joke/picture.

Now why does it get pushed? Because money can be made by both employers and employees. At different scales of course, employers want more supply so that costs can be driven down. Governments kind of sort of also push for STEM under the nebulous umbrella of preparedness for some conflict off in the distance. And people by now understand that lots of people that have gone into STEM have made a lot of money so they push it onto their kids. The biggest companies in the world by market cap are all tech. FAANGM.

Money. It's almost always the biggest reason. Not exclusively the only reason. And people will wax poetically about the other secondary/tertiary reasons. But really, come on, it's all about money in America.

It's an attempt to optimize outcomes. If you look at most 'success' metrics, people with STEM degrees tend to do well; lifetime income for example tends to be higher for someone with a STEM degree vs an Arts degree or no degree.

Clearly, the way to get higher income for everyone is to get everyone a STEM degree. /s

This is a slightly more broad version of what I had growing up, where if you didn't know what you wanted to be as an adult, people would push you towards being a doctor, a lawyer, or an astronaut/fighter pilot. The intentions are good, but ignore any acknowledement of aptitude or desire/enjoyment. IMHO, it does makes sense to expose young people to lots of potential career options, and try to let them know what the income potential is (although, when they're 10+ years out, things can change a lot); let them figure out what they're good at and what's enjoyable, so they can try to find something that is good for them economically and psychologically.

STEM careers and learning to code are different. I think everyone should know basic coding and how to make a computer do what they want. Stuff like OOP programing is over kill but some basic scripting I think is a life skill like using spreadsheets is now.

I was pushed into STEM. I'm 58.

My parents are both scientists. My brothers and I were exposed to science, and scientific thinking, from an early age, but also music, the arts, and so forth. I was interested in a lot of things, and ended up majoring in physics and math. Today I'm a physicist working for a tech company.

My parents seemed to have a pretty good careers and lifestyle. I was aware that there were potentially more lucrative occupations, but a person either has to be interested in something, or have superhuman discipline, to succeed in any field, and I didn't have the latter.

Part of the STEM push comes from people like me, who believe in good faith that developing good scientific and mathematical knowledge is a steady long term bet. The laws of physics will last you a career, and most pepole will always hate math enough to give you their math work. The science oriented company that I work for has just had a couple of its strongest years ever. I don't know that STEM propaganda has resulted in an actual bubble of people going into those fields.

There have always been some ominous signs on the horizon. The academic job market has always been overcrowded. The worst thing right now is the emergence of what I call the "sweatshop laboratory" business model, of running things like medical testing facilities 24/7 under plantation working conditions. (Okay, I exaggerate a bit).

Capital is upset with how much STEM workers have to be paid these days. It wants cut throat competition for your jobs, not programmers who need to be induced into turning up to work with a free sushi bar.

It's not just about training people for STEM either, anything that gets people into the profession has money thrown at it. Another example: https://www.gawker.com/mark-zuckerbergs-self-serving-immigra...

It pairs well with politicians' desires to sell a viable route into the middle class. It's easy to roll money into nonprofits for this type of thing and claim tax deductions, so it's win/win/win.

My extremely cynical view, because politicians think it sounds sensible but don't realise the fundamental research we'd actually benefit from more people doing has atrocious pay and conditions so just build a funnel for people to become bankers

Idk why there is a S in There at all. A lot of the science careers pay pathetic wages for the level of education required. “Business” is probably better bang for the Buck. Hard science majors have a really hard road ahead of them.

Yeah, tech companies still need product managers, project managers, designers, marketeers, sales people, recruiters, accountants, people ops, lawyers, and a bunch of other non-technical people. Of course, then there's a lot of non-tech companies that also need workers.

I didn't start learning how to code until I was 27. Ideally, our education system would prepare children to have multiple careers as adults. Focusing on specific skills early on may make it hard for them to transition to something later on in life when those skills become obsolete. That's the idea behind a liberal arts education--focus on critical thinking, communication, and learning a broad set of topics and they will be prepared for anything.

People get upset when they look at someone two years out of a liberal arts school who hasn't found a career due to lack of hard skills and has $30K in student loans. That college grad is going to be in the workforce for 45 years though...

Well, big platforms and advertisement companies have you pinned to show you that information.

Use a fresh browser like Brave and start "do not track" on any app/browser as much as you can and you'll see a different perspective of the internet.

If you were someone interested in farming and looked at plenty of farming stuff online, you'd be bound to be pushed into learning how to farm and make passes at hay bales.

It's not propaganda, it's supply & demand for a market that is novel and really hot right now with a low barrier to entry compared to a decade previous. There's much more dollars being spent on advertisements to get you in the process of learning (i.e. bootcamps, courses, certificates, etc) in tech than there is in something like farming where it's way low tech.

OK, so I agree with a lot of the stuff you are saying, but you are all neglecting the reality that many have been excluded from learning math, science and technology like coding because of the shitty schools they are forced to attend. Of course big companies want to have a surplus of coders just like every other skilled profession, because it increases their bottom line. You can't blame people for wanting to try and get ahead and coding is a really good way to make a living. Despite the arguments about teaching people how to think abstractly and nonsense like that, take a look at the P-TECH school that started in Brooklyn NY. Very successful workforce programs that I designed in the past were used as a model for P-TECH, which has been adopted internationally. STEM and STEAM schools is not propaganda in every instance. Many people are working to provide kids with a chance at making it through a recognized profession. What is wrong with that? STEM and STEAM in public schools do not require or tell everyone that they "NEED to learn how to code" etc. There is is a lot more to it when it comes to STEM, many programs, some of which are total garbage, and others which are making a difference in the lives of people. Get outside of your comfort zone and take a look.

Communication skills, writing skills, and reading comprehension are far more likely to result in greater income and independence. These skills are rare and take a long time to acquire while many stem skills can be crammed in short periods of time due to the organized structure that many sciences are based upon. Think about how long it takes to become a decent writer or communicator versus how much time it takes to become a web developer? A six week cram course and bam you have a CRUD-app-creating clone that corporations love to hire as a replaceable cog for their applications development team.

A good communicator with excellent reading comprehension can work in many fields including creating their own companies, generating new revenue for companies via sales skills, and/or learning new trades more effectively than someone who lacks those skills. Focusing strictly on STEM skills is a quick way to a dead end career for some people who become overly specialized in a technological space that changes constantly. Hence, the trend in tech to undervalue experienced workers, because their experience is not appreciated or valued by STEM managers and executives.

Part of the problem is the hollowing-out of the middle class diversity of job positions. It used to be that any old college degree would work to get into corporate America. These days, it is tough to get your foot in the door with a business degree, even worse with a humanities degree.

IT has eliminated many entry-level and management jobs. That also means that understanding of tech is more vital to operate in the corporate environment.

We, in my case what I’m aware of in USA culture, push science technology engineering & math (STEM) because that’s what a good little cog in the machine looks like these days (I’m an embittered licensed teacher), making money for others. Short-term gain at the cost of long-term cultural resilience if we don’t at least add art to make STEAM. I’d rather not play the lottery of the American Dream that sells the idea that anyone can make billions nevermind how many others suffer for it.

As a math and science teacher I support education broader than STEM in part because the more connections we have to life on Earth the more connections we can make, and that increases our resilience and adaptability as things change.

because if more kids can be tricked into STEM careers, more engineers will graduate, and the cost of hiring goes down, and they are easier to replace. and when these engineers earn less they cannot quit. and by getting them into bootcamps and spreading the idea that degrees are useless, they do not need to pay for a degree and they can train you for their tool set, which no one else is using, preventing you from quitting.

coding interviews act as a mechanism that demotivates people to quit or switch companies. it also helps with driving cost of hiring down. engineers tend to engage in pissing contests of who is smarter, especially at FANG companies. this furthers their goals.

Because corps are trying to lower the salaries for software engineers. One may think it's all about lowering the barriers so anyone can be an engineer but it's all about increasing the labor pool and lowering the salaries. Clocks ticking.

STEM is a logical next step up from the trades (in terms of career development without starting your own company).

So its probably not so much propaganda. It's more like if you already know a trade and are interested in knowing more or working at a higher-order than what you already do, there's likely a STEM field for you for exactly that pursuit.

i.e.

- Construction worker? Mason? Civil engineer

- Electrician? Electircal engineer

- Mechanic? Mechanical engineering

- CNC Machine operator? Software engineering (if you're interested by the machine itself) or Industrial engineering (if you're interested by the workflow)

STEM make up the tools we use to understand the world. From the little things ("how can we make this engine a bit more efficient?"), through the big things ("how can we supply the world with more energy without causing global warming?") to the gigantic ("how does the universe work"?).

As a bonus, the STEM way of thinking is very useful for an honest societal debate.

Because it's a high likelihood of making a good living, much better than the alternatives.

> why does everyone NEED to learn how to code

They teach calculus and SQL to undergraduate business students in universities. I'm not sure what the confusion is, programming is a useful skill in many diverse fields.

Because there's more than enough people selling dust and not enough people moving this world technologically forward.

Because I want to live longer, and having people spend so much public money on arts education isn't going to help. Simple as that.

$$

The bigger the supply, the less you have to pay.

class mobility.

Google Doodle is obsessed with depicting woman in lab coats such as https://www.google.com/doodles/michiyo-tsujimuras-133rd-birt....

I criticized the Tokyo Olympics Doodle as being ridden with cliches of Otaku/Nerd culture tropes of videos games and anime. I worked at Google and all too familiar with the financial incentives and tainted behavior around the promotion process to declare projects "launch" and "land" despite public reception and user benefit. At the time, most Japanese people were opposed to the continuation of the Olympics. This is a society that avoids confrontation and dissonant. The olympics were not cause for celebration. It was something politicians wanted to proceed with, and people had to accept. Who was the intended audience for this Doodle? Westerners? It seemed like it was someone associated with the Google Doodle team who shilled and self-promoted the Doodle here on HN. I made this criticism and was downvoted without a substantive response. Point being, this is an example of Doodle being culturally oblivious.

A few weeks later, Google Doodle followed up with another Japanese related doodle. Like HA!, we'll show that uncultured guy how much we know about Japan. The Doodle featured Michiyo Tsujimura. Of course she is depicted in a lab coat. She was a scientist who discovered the health benefits of green tea. If you search her on YouTube, the results have less than a thousand views and all generated after the release the Doodle, seemingly by bots or other low quality content produce. I think she an obscure figure, and I'm curious if Japanese people care.

As part of my art history minor during university, I took a 5 credit class on Chado, Japanese tea ceremony. My professor was a caucasian guy who went to Japan and got a Masters Degree in tea ceremony. I guess it's a thing. This is very impressive for any non-Japanese person because a high-level of language proficiency is needed, but moreover Chado is a practice of the elite. Japan ranks 2nd lowest on the 35+ countries that took the TOEFL, people don't speak English here. Back to tea. Japan is historically a classist and hierarchical society. Only the nobility engaged in tea ceremony. Despite its rustic and subtle appearance, the Japanese tea rooms and straw tea huts are incredibly expensive. Per square footage, they would cost the same as a luxury apartment in NYC if not more. Imperfectly looking Japanese chawan tea bowls with the "Wabi Sabi" aesthetic can easily fetch $10,000. Same with other tea instruments. There is the Raku style of bowls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raku_ware, which technically can only be considered a true Raku bowl if it is made by a particular lineage of the Raku family in Kyoto. A sub class of Wabi Sabi is Kintsugi which is mending broken tea pottery sometimes with gold. For the purposes of simply drinking a beverage, this is all impractical. Tea ceremony is a symbol of the elite, in the same way Minimalism in the West is a privilege of the affluent. Warlords settled diplomatic matters in tea rooms. Museums and such in Japan put these cultural elements on display for the public, but historically a farmer would never see the inside of a tea room. Japan still retains elitist traits of its history, and tea is no different. The tea organizations and society are still relatively closed to the public, so for them to accept a foreigner into their ranks is mind blowing to me. The tea research estate in Kyoto literally has guys in suits and sunglasses as bodyguards.

I also spent a year backpacking Kyoto 996 where I went to every pilgrimage and historical site related to tea. All of this to say, I know about green tea and its culture. I don't think Japanese people give a damn about the health benefits of green tea. If they did, it's probably after the fact rationalization.

Japanese people drink green tea because its culture. If Japanese people cared about the health benefits of beverages, there wouldn't be such high consumption of alcohol and sake. Japan never really went into lockdown during the pandemic, but kept daily cases in the low hundreds, despite low vaccinations. By March 2021, Japan had less than 1% vaccination rate. There was a very clever policy: establishments aren't allowed to serve alcohol 8PM. With the surge in omicron, this policy has been re-instated for like the 5th time. This policy is enough to deter people from traveling and dining out by a visible magnitude.

Again, who are these Doodles for? Who cares about the health benefits of green tea?

Whole Foods and tea exporters probably care most about the health benefits of green tea. Zen buddhism, green tea and other such homeopathic remedies are the new wave conceptions Westerners have of the East. As an American, I used to this think Buddhism is this individualistic practice of self-discovery. One of the most popular schools of buddhism in Japan believes in heaven and is closer to monotheistic faiths like Christianity than to the Zen buddhism that Westerners think of. Then again, Japanese monks can get married and drink alcohol, so it's another uniquely Japanese thing.

Despite its attempts to be cosmopolitan, Google Doodle succumbs to Western Perceptions and Biases. There is the ideological views embedded in the obsession with woman in lab coats such as Michiyo Tsujimura. I have a dozen friends who majored in Feminist studies, ironically at "Woman's College" commonplace in Asia. They've explained that urging woman to careers in male-dominated fields is entry level feminism. Even though woman are overrepresented in creative fields, if they like it then they should be empowered to do so. If they want to be a house-maker, they should be empowered to do so. Woman should be empowered to do whatever they want. Does it seem right then to portray scientists/STEM as somehow more noble? If we wanted a female Japanese figure for a Doodle, why not someone like Rei Kawakubo? She's arguably the most cultural influential Japanese fashion design. And Japanese people care about their fashion. Her businesses are huge commercial successes, too, her label Commes Des Garcons raked in $280 million in sales in 2017.

Here are other examples of Google Doodle. They feature Westerners summiting Mt Everest, while the sherpas who buried the figure out of an avalanche, nurtured them back to health for the next 2 days, carried them to the top, was left invisible from the Doodle. When they featured Wanda Rutkiewicz, it was for her successful summit of Everest, rather than her accomplishment at K2. Everest is commercialized, you can't pay sherpas to risk K2. Even when Doodle highlights people, they miss the opportunities.

Seeing the biases and shallow wokeness of the Google Doodle team, I would resign immediately if I had to work with them ( I already quit Google ). I had dinner with the Google Arts & Culture team once. They were so likable and actually cultured. Strangely, the ones I met were temp contractors. These people deserve full time jobs. I just found that Google Arts and Culture already featured Rei Kawakubo: https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/rei-kawakubo. This is unsurprising, and reiterates my point that Google Arts & Culture is actually cultured. We can empower woman and enrich/educate the world about different cultures, without the narrow ideological views of the Doodle team. I would buy some Google stock if Google replaces the Doodle team with the Google Arts & Culture, but then again maybe the Doodle team is doing exactly what Google needs it to

Software is a quick win. Everyone loves the quick win.