"Currently working as an applied AI researcher and about to go back to get my phd in AI as well" : You're probably in the top 2% of intelligence, that's a huge advantage over most everyone else. People who are closer to the average may need to take more conventional paths to succeed.

There is no shortage of liberal arts majors who went to coding bootcamps and are now working as software developers, even if only a minority of them are in something as cutting-edge as AI research.

It definitely happens, but we shouldn't make it look easier than it is. I agree it's one of the fields where you don't need a formal education / diploma so in that sense the barrier to entry is indeed low.

While flattering that's not true in my case. It's fair to point out that my story is not conventional but I disagree that we assume that its intelligence or some other individualistic features that primarily determine success.

I went to a vocational school high school in a underprivileged community where college was not reality for most students( < 30% of student went to college). I dropped out of CS in undergrad because I lacked basic math skills most students have. My career path was IT analyst -> project manager -> data scientist -> applied AI. It took about ten years of self study, work, and some luck to get to where I am today. And I am nowhere near done learning and growing (hence going back for a phd at 32).

For many their paths will be non-linear especially if they come from underprivileged backgrounds. I had a colleague who went back to do his undergrad at 29 after work 10 years as line chef and found success in his mid thirties.

It's problematic that we conflate price for value and that the purpose of college is career training. Ideally college would be free or heavily subsidized like it is in many other countries.

A strong liberal arts training is valuable in producing a more educated populace. For me, coming from a small community, my biggest fear was being stuck working at my terrible high school. The main value of college for me was imagination. Being able to imagine myself not confined by my circumstance was far more impactful in my life than many of the marketable skills that I picked along the way.

I agree many people can study law / arts or even nothing at all and just do a bootcamp (or even just study at home without a bootcamp) and become a software engineer / data analyst / etc. But the closer you are to the average, the harder it will probably get to successfully make those switches. Someone who is 30 and finished liberal arts has a big psychological hurdle that works against him when he'll try to switch occupations. Self doubt often creeps, sunk cost fallacy etc. Now the closer you are to average in iq / will power / whatever it is that determines success in engineering, the harder making this switch gets, especially when you're not in your 20s anymore. So to sum up my point is yes everything is possible in theory, but no - we are not created equal. We differ greatly by intelligence, background, emotional intelligence, our ability to change etc etc. The more closer you are to the average part of the curve the smarter you have to play the hand you were dealt.

> You're probably in the top 2% of intelligence

Would you say that intelligence is ...artificial?

What is that intelligence you’ve mentioned?

Maybe the most obvious one - IQ? Even if you don't think it measures intelligence, it's highly predictive of success in areas such as this.

> Very few people I know actually have careers directly related to their undergrad majors.I majored in Creative Writing and interdisciplinary (politics, philosophy, and economics) studies.

I strongly feel that path is only an affordable luxury if you come from a upper middle class background and up. Most people can't afford to experiment with higher education given its high monetary cost. You guys might not agree, but qzx_pierri has a point.

I'm conflicted in responding to this. What you described was not my experience. I come from an underprivileged background and was fortunate to escape my social location. Part of it was luck though which is not replicable.

But I agree that it is harder to take risks coming from a low-income background where the cost of bad choices is amplified. Risk taking is risky though. That's the tragedy, it's hard to escape your social location incrementally. But at the same time for each success story there are many that don't succeed whose stories we don't hear.

I usually tell students to double major (or minor) if they are privileged to go to college. We as a society have moved away from the idea of renaissance person who has experience in many disciplines towards hyper-specialization. It makes it hard to adapt when everything around you is bound to change.

> I usually tell students to double major (or minor) if they are privileged to go to college. We as a society have moved away from the idea of renaissance person who has experience in many disciplines towards hyper-specialization

We moved away from that because higher education has gotten exponentially more expensive. I'm sure there are some valid reasons for that (e.g. increasing graduate student TA pay?) as well as terrible ones (e.g. an increase in both administrative execs along with administrative exec pay), but that's what's directly hurting the motivation for experimentation. Only the well-to-do have that privilege now. For others, it's risk and not harmless experimentation.