I was a dual major Electrical Engineering/Philosophy. The rigorous logic in some branches of philosophy was very helpful for programming principles. And the the philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of mind has overlaps with and supplements modern AI theory pretty well.
I’m out of the tech world now but if I were hiring entry level software developers, I’d consider a philosophy degree to be a plus, at least for people who have the threshold competency in actual programming.
Yeah, the CS head at the small college I went to was also the Philosophy head (he got his doctorate in philosophy). The same formal logic class was a requirement for the CS, philosophy, and law degrees.
Most of my programming career was spent working for small consulting firms that created custom software for (relatively) small clients. The most important skill by far was the ability to talk to customers (and listen to them as well) in order to understand what they needed the custom software to actually do. Not only is this skill not taught in the Computer Science curriculum, it’s not even conceived of as a thing. My bosses were constantly hiring freshly-minted CS grads and could not understand why I rejected having them placed on my team. I instead always looked for people that had experience not just with programming but with things outside of the programming world entirely.
That being said, I sure would not have wanted a freshly-minted philosophy grad either, for the same reason.
I was a dual major Electrical Engineering/Philosophy. The rigorous logic in some branches of philosophy was very helpful for programming principles. And the the philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of mind has overlaps with and supplements modern AI theory pretty well.
I’m out of the tech world now but if I were hiring entry level software developers, I’d consider a philosophy degree to be a plus, at least for people who have the threshold competency in actual programming.
Yeah, the CS head at the small college I went to was also the Philosophy head (he got his doctorate in philosophy). The same formal logic class was a requirement for the CS, philosophy, and law degrees.
Most of my programming career was spent working for small consulting firms that created custom software for (relatively) small clients. The most important skill by far was the ability to talk to customers (and listen to them as well) in order to understand what they needed the custom software to actually do. Not only is this skill not taught in the Computer Science curriculum, it’s not even conceived of as a thing. My bosses were constantly hiring freshly-minted CS grads and could not understand why I rejected having them placed on my team. I instead always looked for people that had experience not just with programming but with things outside of the programming world entirely.
That being said, I sure would not have wanted a freshly-minted philosophy grad either, for the same reason.