@StanShunpike hi stan yeah sounds interesting. did your dad include lawrence lessig? a very interesting thinker on "law" in the cyber age.

are you considering a CS degree in addition to another one, or your major?

a CS degree in general seems highly marketable to me (that is a big reason why enrollments are climbing so much, even "skyrocketing") and then (after that) there are just the details of your edu, that seems more like "specializations" to me and can reflect personal tastes.

however, as the article points out, software engineering may be more marketable than CS in general...

as for marketability do not forget "soft skills". my edu incl stuff like speech class, giving presentations, writing papers, research, etc, those are quite significant skills which not all students are strong in or all curriculums necessarily contain.

@vzn I fortunately have excellent soft skills, though I need some experience in economics research. I spent a lot of time developing them in high school. Yeah, I am considering a second major. That's why I am trying to get more info. But I have heard UChicago's curriculum is very theoretically oriented so I am trying to make sure I am choosing the right kinds of courses

another idea, another soft skill: teamwork... etc...

@StanShunpike so you are majoring in econ? math or CS could mesh well

soft skills (as with all of them) take time to develop, take your time, arent you a freshman right now?

statistics meshes very well with econ...

some econ is becoming more "algorithmic" eg with simulations...

there is a relatively new field known as "computational finance," a neat/ emerging/ signficant/ promising hybrid...

think an important part of edu is figuring out what you like and pursuing it "to some degree" vs what makes $$$... many students lose sight of that...

some of my favorite college classes were only marginally relevant to my jobs eg:

philosophy of AI! freshman course! neurobiology! advanced CS theory! EE class in microprocessors, circuit/ chip design, robotics, etc...

@vzn tbh, i dont think soft skills are things u should ever stop working on. I just meant I display a decent level of competency.

@vzn yeah, Im thinking CS / Econ double major. College seems like a great chance to learn a bunch and I think I need to beef up my CS.

I am starting sophomore year.

I was thinking research might be a way to learn more about what intersection I want to do. I'm pretty confident econ and CS will give me the skills I want to pursue whatever I end up doing.

Philosophy of AI?!? that sounds awesome. What kinds of things did you discuss? Is this like Herbert Simon and Marvin Minsky stuff?

@StanShunpike amazon.com/Philosophy-Artificial-Intelligence-Oxford-Readings/…

yes that compilation has essays by simon/ minsky etc.

in many ways CS is "more marketable" than econ so think youre making a great choice.

imho se chat is a great place to cultivate soft skills eg communication & youre way ahead of the game on that wink :)

@vzn the econ chat has not really grown. I had a clever idea. If we could make it so that users could opt in to being always ping-able, this would make it such that I can ping people who like chat more often and make it easier to get new chat rooms off the ground

@vzn cool book! I will see if my uni library has it. And im glad you think my strategy makes sense. :)

Yes my father has heard of Lessig, no he didnt mention him. But who knows! He's still adding material and I likes feedback from his audience like that. Maybe for the future :P

@vzn what about CS research? For many areas (eg bio, physics, social science) research is ideal for developing skills. But is that true for CS as well?

hi stan se chat has never been very much busy and the lack of rep influence by the mgt ties into that. its not taken very seriously. however its not the only area of se that seemingly gets neglected. eg the blogs are not very much cultivated by se etc.

have been reading about a massive reddit moderator mutiny lately in mainstream news, and it reminds me a lot of se. the mods here are much more in tune with se mgt but its a similar/ parallel situation in some ways. (mass volunteer/ uncompensated labor keeping the sites functioning well, but sometimes with low clout/ sway in important management decisions etc.)

share your goal of increasing use of chat, probably the only way to do it is to try to post ("seed") compelling/ engaging content, draw in experts in whatever ways possible, etc.

have seen chat grow gradually/ notably in my time on here. a bigger challenge to me is ppl who are quite expert & engage with chat for a time & then * poof * disappear. :(

fyi the meta sections are typically not very engaged either & sometimes (if anything) just amount to a place for mods to dictate policy...

CS research has grown by leaps and bounds last few years. think it is even on the road to eclipsing some math research in some ways. think it is quite vibrant/ diverse & full of future promise/ potential. it still seems to be "early days" for CS as a field, full of substantial/ even monumental open questions etc.

to me, research is one of the top ways to increase critical (aka scientific) thinking skills. theres not exactly a "big payoff" wrt jobs but it has indirect economic value.