I should have loved electrical engineering

If you want to learn how to solve problems with hammers, engineering is what you want to do. If you want to know how the hammer works, do mathematics or physics. If you want to get paid, do software.

This is why I did an EE degree, didn't get paid much, went into software and used that to pay for a mathematics degree.

This is outdated advice. If you want to get paid, get a hammer.

I disagree with this entirely as I rather like a desk job and hammers make my hands hurt after a bit :)

If you want to get paid in software don't do something utterly commoditised and popular or you're just a fungible meat flavoured work unit. Get really damn good at something with some longevity in a stable niche.

And once you're actually using that hammer for real work, you'll learn how to use it to solve all sorts of problems, better than any school could teach you.

Develop an AI model that can generate an image of a hammer riding a bycicle.

Get a website that just sells hammers. I'm sure it already exists.

Here's a screw, here's a bit of wood. What tool do you use...? ;)

*cough* COBOL ? :)

These days C is enough pain :)

Not just a niche but something requiring domain experience. If your resume says “will React for food”, you are competing with a million other people. If your resume also says you understand a particular industry, user community, etc. you stand out of the generic community.

Screws are incredibly difficult to hammer in. Use a big hammer.

I don't think engineering gets paid well compared to software. And by engineering I mean any physical forms of engineering that doesn't fall into "software engineering". The advice seems pretty accurate to me.

In that analogy it also works that in that the level of cognitive difficulty is most challenging @ physics theoretical work --> engineering --> software. Inversely proportional to pay check size. Though a physicist can probably figure out software whereas the other way is a tougher slog.

Emacs has a macro for that.

And then fleece some VC investors and disappear before they notice you're losing money!

Quick search. Yup, it exists. "The Hammer Source: 100's of Hammers"

Reminds me of Hank Hill "I sell hammers and hammer accessories."