Let's face it, no one studies philosophy thinking they're going to get rich off of it. The one thing I can admire most about those studying philosophy is that they do so out of genuine interest and passion for the subject, for the breadth of ideas that philosophy exposes to them. It may simply be my own personal experience at the University of Toronto, but students who study computer science are the exact opposite.

Computers were, especially during the 80s and 90s, a great way to get rich. They were also very intimidating at that time too though, so only those who were really brave and certain they wanted to involve themselves completely in the subject would dare to study them. The problem I find that exists today, is that now almost any student who gets accepted into a University to study computer science feels a sense of entitlement to the degree which they hope to get issued after 4 years. Worst of all, they then think they're entitled to get rich because of it. This has seriously had a negative impact on the quality of education. Rather than students getting exposed to an entire world of ideas, expressiveness and inspiration that computer science ought to have been about, students seem to only care about learning strictly what is required to pass their assignments or tests or inch closer to the day when someone hands them the piece of paper with the University's stamp on it.

Computer science, underneath all of the technical jargon and funny looking symbols, is an art. It's a way of taking ideas you have that exist in this fuzzy realm known as your brain, and giving them some physical meaning. Just as a painter takes an image in their head or an emotion in their heart and can export it onto a canvass, so too does a computer scientist. Now being an artist isn't exactly known to turn someone into a millionaire... but lets suppose that it did. Now imagine how absurd it would be if all of a sudden a huge influx of students decided to take up learning how to paint, not because they're really passionate deep down about painting and love it, but simply because painting is where all the money's at.

Just imagine how severely art education would suffer as a result of that. With the culture of entitlement that students have, commonly complaining or nitpicking over marks and numbers and fairness, eventually professors would have to give in and lower their standard of what they grade as being good art.

That is the problem with computer science today. It has gone from being such a great subject matter in its own right, to being a means for which people feel they can make money. Those who are truly passionate about computer science are getting drowned out by those who aren't and as far as virtually all my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto goes... this drowning out has led to some very serious degradation in the standard and quality of computer science education.