He got demoted to some horrible computer operator position because an audit of HR revealed his degree, and the auditors found that robotics wasn't computer sciencey enough.

The union grieved it and he was eventually made whole a few years later.

I've worked with software engineers senior to myself who had B.A.s or Ph.D.'s in math and no degrees with the letters C and S in them, including a few younger, fairly recent graduates.

I do have the magical letters "CS" in my degree, but I also have a second major in mathematics. While I must confess I hardly use a fraction of the math I studied on a daily basis and have forgotten most of it, it has served me well and there have been numerous times I would have been lost without it.

Pardon, but you seem a little bitter. I suspect you have no idea how good you have it, compared to say, most graduates with a degree in humanities from an expensive liberal arts college.

All that being said, if your intended career path is software engineering, I would tend to agree that studying software engineering is the best education to prepare for it.

They seem extremely bitter with little justification, to be honest.

> I suspect you have no idea how good you have it, compared to say, most graduates with a degree in humanities from an expensive liberal arts college.

Poli Sci degree from an expensive liberal arts college checking in. Ask me how many sub-$40k/yr programming jobs I've taken because they're all I could get with a Poli Sci degree.

It's a shame that we've somehow structured our systems so that we clearly do candidates a disservice, even though we keep saying that attracting talent is of the utmost priority.