You act as if CS and engineering is a great profession.
On the medical side, some numbers and research are in order.
Nursing is dominated by women; 90% women, though the trend is slowly decreasing. Nursing is a physically demanding job.
Pharmacy school grads are over 60% women and the trend is increasing.
I had a harder time finding dentistry numbers but 60% of all practitioners under 44 are women. The trend is increasing.
Medical school is 51% women and the trend is increasing.
These are highly paid professions with far more stability and prestige than software engineering. Even nursing is on par with the average software engineer, but with more stability.
With actual compensation for time worked, you’ll have to exceed L5 to get a meaningful jump ahead of registered nurses.
I'm not claiming it's number one, just that it's one of 'the professions', degree leads to a job, it pays relatively well. A lot of humanities students are studying just to study (which is fine) without a clear job that it leads to, and many inevitably end up in unrelated roles that don't require their degree and don't compensate for it.
I only special-cased EE & CS because that happens to be HN's skew, not because there's something more special about them than some other engineering or science.
On the medical side, some numbers and research are in order.
Nursing is dominated by women; 90% women, though the trend is slowly decreasing. Nursing is a physically demanding job.
Pharmacy school grads are over 60% women and the trend is increasing.
I had a harder time finding dentistry numbers but 60% of all practitioners under 44 are women. The trend is increasing.
Medical school is 51% women and the trend is increasing.
These are highly paid professions with far more stability and prestige than software engineering. Even nursing is on par with the average software engineer, but with more stability.
With actual compensation for time worked, you’ll have to exceed L5 to get a meaningful jump ahead of registered nurses.