Do you prefer to perform overt, immediate evil, or slow, indirect evil? 🤔
@codinghorror Finance is a STEM major now?

@malwareminigun @codinghorror According to an organization I used to be in that likes to throw money at undergraduates, biology doesn't count as STEM. We had one pot of money for tech majors and one for non-tech majors. Biology was explicitly listed as non-tech.

Nobody seemed too upset about that, or at least not nearly as upset as the guy who refused to believe that construction management wasn't a tech major ("But it's in the College of Engineering!")

@DocBohn @codinghorror I don't understand this universe where Bio isn't STEM.
@DocBohn @malwareminigun @codinghorror not tech sure but not *science*??
@aryst0krat @malwareminigun @codinghorror Okay, that's fair. Its categorization was "non-tech" which technically addresses the "T" but not the "S" in STEM.

@malwareminigun

Yes. We changed the acronym to STEMF. After we add a few more letters we might actually get back to EDUCATION.

@codinghorror

@malwareminigun @codinghorror

Finance and Economics are at least STEM-ish if you actually study them...

...but generally what those majors "study" is "here's why capitalism is actually suuuuper good and how you can win it also don't think about other economic systems please!"

@malwareminigun @codinghorror

I believe the ‘ST*M’ acronym is evil. It is truly an abomination, an archdemon directly reporting to S*t*n himself.

BTW I majored in engineering in the 1980s, before the evil acronym existed.

@malwareminigun @codinghorror

BTW, as a past engineering major, I can attest that the diagram is nonsense. Digital signal processing is a branch of engineering. It is very similar to good old analog signal processing, but can be done entirely in software, if need be. And I am currently reading a PhD dissertation on computer graphics software. It comes from an engineering department at Cambridge University.

@chemoelectric The fields sometimes interact, but that doesn't mean they are indistinguishable. For a joke diagram, it contains a lot of wisdom. I studied compsci at Cambridge University, and you would, categorically, not confuse it with engineering. There was zero interaction between the Computer Lab and the Engineering department.
@theohonohan @chemoelectric Haha my major was Computer Science ENGINEERING
@chemoelectric @malwareminigun @codinghorror this is why STEM is bad and we need STEAM instead: so more people learn about humor
@codinghorror Physicist> "So, perturbation theory."
Mathematician> *Suffocates from lack of rigor and dies.*
@scottmichaud @codinghorror
I just like to ask mathematicians why the haven't provided a general solution to the three body problem. I mean, it's only three things, there's no way it's that difficult. How can you be a mathematician if you can't even get past three???
@Jumpmed @scottmichaud @codinghorror well, you just remove one of the bodies. the problem therefore reduces to a previously solved case, and we are done. man, physics is easy
@codinghorror This still kills me every time I see it. 🤣😭
@codinghorror The more I read it the more I laugh 😂
@codinghorror Because I'm a fan of the Oxford comma, I parsed that as three choices: overt evil, immediate evil, and slow, indirect evil. Then I'd wonder why there were only two options coming out of that box on the diagram.
@codinghorror bad news Jeff, environmental scientists usually end up hired by chemical engineers to figure out how plants can comply with regulations as little as allowed. 😭​
@apalu @codinghorror I’ve heard this happens.
@codinghorror “Against? Chemistry.” LOL.
@blakley @codinghorror I highly recommend the book "Ignition!" by John D. Clark to elaborate on that connection: https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
#safety #chemistry #explosion #rocket #boom
@codinghorror This fully describes both how I picked my major in college and how I picked my job afterwards
@codinghorror At first I was like, "wait, I don't like trolling fussy pedants", and then I realized, oh yeah, I definitely do
@mashbooq strike off a couple of those integrals because they'll go to zero anyway and WATCH THEM SQUIRM

@codinghorror
*sighs in Biologist*

It's true though.

@codinghorror you don't need hard maths for most computer science jobs these days.

@void_trans @codinghorror I'd argue for comp-sci related it's very much required, less so for comp-eng. When you dabble with anything that's somewhat research-y like quantum, crypto, language theory/design, security, … being good in maths is incredibly useful.

For coding and similar, less so of course.

@void_trans

I presume you still have to slog your way through combinatorics to get the degree.

Interestingly, the most useful class I took ended up being statistics and it wasn't on the curriculum.

@codinghorror

@codinghorror so I was iffy on the first question so I took both paths. Turns out my major in college was if I said yes and my current job is if I said no. Spookily accurate.
@codinghorror I got pushed into engineering almost immediately so I didn't get any of the more interesting choices. Coincidentally I am an engineer.
@codinghorror
I feel called out about Physics.

@codinghorror

Might be a good time to mention https://www.jocrf.org/ for real aptitude testing.

I don’t really get that safety bit. Seems more like: do you like chemistry? On what scale?

And there seems like there should be a question: how into computers are you? I like making them do stuff ➡️ computer science / I want to tear them apart or make a better one ➡️ engineering

Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation - Aptitude Testing and Research for College and Career Guidance

JOCRF is a nonprofit scientific research & educational organization with 2 primary commitments: to study human abilities and to provide people with a knowledge of their aptitudes that will help them derive more satisfaction from their lives by discovering their natural potential.

Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation
@codinghorror The lack of arrows in the diagram has stuck me into a loop between "Are you good with things? Like, physical objects?" Yes. "What are your feelings on safety?" Yes.
@codinghorror Gosh, you missed electrical engineering, which would fall under "likes math" and cares about safety. (We not only design power supply systems but also the controls for anything that has to move or be moved as they're made. Detroit assembly lines and steel mills don't run on magic fairy dust.)
@codinghorror I couldn't have taken a more direct path than I did to my first college major (biology). Hahahah! Too bad I wasn't good at college.
@codinghorror so that’s something between computer science and engineering for me. Wow, perfect match!
@codinghorror important field missing! Relevant question: do you like volcanoes and earthquakes?

@codinghorror Since when is economics considered a STEM discipline? 🤨

The path to biology is spot-on, though 😂

@codinghorror The fact that geology (e.g. my major) isn't in this graph is indicative of many things I find to be true.
@leblancfg well, you're working in geologic time 🕰️

@codinghorror well that explains it alright

CS major here

@codinghorror

so, economics. no math, no safety, no physical things, no curiosity

😎💰

@codinghorror Do you like flow charts?
Do you like THIS flow chart?
@codinghorror this one is but to a large degree true 🙁
@codinghorror This chart is 100 % correct.
@codinghorror Missing Psychology the "No, I don't like Math, No, I don't like Money, but people can be messed up in so many ways, let me 'help'!"