Slashdot Mirror
Computing's Lost Allure
khendron writes "An article in the New York Times, describes how the number of students majoring in computer science in university has dropped off with the rest of the hi-tech economy. The bright side: the students who are enrolling are doing so because they love computers. Not like a few years ago when students were enrolling because they wanted to make a quick buck. I'll take quality over quantity."
"I'll take quality over quantity."
:)
Amen. When I graduated in 2000 there were more than a few people in the degree for the money. They were miserable and barely got through as it was.
Hoefully this will also cut down on the number of people doing "can not fail" certification courses. I've always found these things insulting. Along with job ads that reuire MCSE's to even apply..for unix admin jobs, or janitors!
Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby.
"Enlightenment is your ego's biggest disappointment." --Yoginanda
The question is how do the interested learn anything from an education designed to carry the weak through? Looks like it's still a case of learning more in one week of spare time than a month of college.
I was talking to someone yesterday and mentioned I was going back to school, he asked if I was going back to gain some extra computer knowledge. I told him I decided upon a job in computers because as I was growing up, I loved them, but now as I have a job in the computer field, I just don't have the love I used to.
In the past few months I've been rethinking my career path, and I've decided to go back to school. This time around I've decided to learn what I love, instead of what I thought I would love.
Mike
All us computer science students (yes, I'm one too) have realized that as soon as we get our degrees, the industry will be profitable again. =)
(To deduce whether I like computers or want to "make a quick buck", observe the fact that this is Slashdot.)
void*x=(*((void*(*)())&(x=(void*)0xfdeb58)))();
But there are:
(a) Many people who like computers that suck at working with them;
(b) Many people who don't particularly like computers that don't suck at working with them;
(c) Still a hell of a lot of people who have no business looking at jobs in the IT industry that are working their ass off trying to get on.
Oh, the sad state of this world I live in...
Hmm... I wonder if this will really change anything... Where I went to college, most people who tried to major in computer science for the money just didn't last... Science and Engineering can require alot more work than the standard liberal arts major, so someone has to be really motivated to keep up with the program... Usually money was not enough motivation to endure, and they'd eventually move on to "information sciences" which required less CS and more management classes.
The other side of the coin that Computer Science graduate admissions are inundated with applicants this year. Hordes of people, after getting a bachelor's degree a few years ago, went off to industry to get rich instead of persuing advanced degrees. Now that the market has cooled off, many of them are returning to graduate school. It sucks to be a recent graduate trying to get into CS grad school, because you have to compete with many more applicants for the same few slots.
A friend of mine is in CS, because he loves computers and he loves programming. He isn't any good at it though, he's failed freshman intro classes, and not because he doesn't try. His eyes glaze over when he asks me for help and I start asking him why he's doing so-and-so when he could be doing this-and-that.
In short, people should do the things they love, but it doesn't mean quality when they do it.
what if im in it for the money but i love computers and programming? ill never stop being a computer guy, but as soon as i can afford it (financially and experience-wise) im opening a hot rod shop. hopefully the two hobbies will cross somewhat... i hope to get into laptop controlled injection, etc.
i sell illegal drugs
Whatever is the trendy growth (even more than money) field when kids are juniors/seniors in high school, will then have a glut of kids taking a relevant major in college.
They never seem to think, for whatever reason, that the job situation won't be the same in 4-8 years..
That's one of the reasons teaching (I was married to a teacher, and have a number friends who are)degrees take such gigantic leaps from feast to famine and back. The news says "there's a shortage", and a few years later says "there's a glut"
The only thing new here is this is basically the FIRST time this cycle has taken place in the computer industry. The field has changed a lot, due to it's newness, but that also happens to every field going through it's infancy.
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
So, I can stop cleaning up after inadequate admins
Now we just need a dropoff in the amount of people that take 6 weeks worth of classes and think they are "certified".
Maybe then my resume won't get lost in the mile high stack of useless ones.
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
That's part of the reason I left RIT. It seemed like no one there actually *cared* about what they were doing. I remember spending the summer after my freshman year reading Godel, Escher, Bach, and then finding out that none of the professors there had even heard of it.
The sad part is, most people anywhere don't seem to have a *real* love for much of anything, and so I've decided to become a writer: if I'm going to be in the minority, I may as well work alone with my passion for things.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
I think the real reason the enrollment numbers are going down is because those of us with Liberal Arts Dergrees are snapping up all of the IT jobs.
I'm serious...why are you guys laughing?
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Then how do we know it's true?
This is not my sandwich.
Well the fact that they are passionate about computers is a good thing. The only thing I don't like is the emphasis on .net and soap, ect in schools. Just the other day I heard that the programers in my company are going to upgrade every piece of software to be .net compatable and all data entry software will be soap based. I slapped my self in the forehead! I certianly hope that some of those purebloods will go to some schools that don't push out microsoft robots.
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
fantastic news ! Was recently planning to go back to do masters in computer science although many around me think i am crazy to leave the job i have.
The downturn might actually turn out to be good.
Good, we dont need them. I graduated about 6 months ago and there were a lot of people who got into CS or Computer engineering for the money. They had no desire to tinker or just screw around with their computers. If you cant add a stick of RAM and dont know why your AOL crashes all the time, you probably shouldnt be here. Go be an English major.
As an undergraduate student, I noticed two major groups of people, one that does it because they have the background, the other are the rest who have zero clue on what CS is all about. Those of the latter group would just drown themselves in the textbooks or lab manuals and memorize whatever methods the professors (or TA's) decides to use, which I find are very inadequate if they were applied in the real world. I am fortunate that I am part of the former group with few other friends who actually have real life experience in the relevant field (e-commerence webapps, application development, etc).
Anyway, even those who memorize the textbook find themselves failing the course, because the art of programming and computer science is definitely not for them. If they can't even relate a class (object) to a real world object, forget taking these courses.
Please direct all bug reports to
When I came out of school (2000) there were way too many people in it just for the money. The worst were: 1) A girl who, 2 months from graduation, couldn't code to save her life (BSA student's didn't have to, sadly), saying 'I Hate Computers' while in CIS... 2) A woman told me that she was graduating in web development. Since that's my field, I attempted to small talk, with 'so, what do you edit HTML with... homesite, notepad... pico?" She looked at me blankly and said "What's HTML?". I was so shocked that I just said 'uh... hope I interview against you...'
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I don't see the current trend toward off-shoring programming jobs slowing down in the future -- rather, I foresee an acceleration as tools and processes for performing overseas work improve. Consider how poorly the American car, steel and manufacturing industries are doing, and remember that they (unlike software development) are at least protected by tariffs which level the playing field somewhat.
Sure, there will always be some development and QA jobs in the US if for nothing else than to avoid "all your base"-style situations. But that's going to provide a fraction of a percent of the jobs that even our currently depressed industry does.
If you *do* get a CS degree, you'd better plan on grad school. You're going to need an advanced degree or at least a double major to tread water (I imagine that business/CS will be in huge demand).
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I absolutely agree, quality over quantity. The general quality of software will probably increase as a result too.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
Hell I'm in it for all the hot chicks ;)
You will see a lot of people try the computer majors at a college. Quite a few of them are interested in the quick buck and a lot of them are just lame gamers who think computer science is a perfect major for them.
At my school (WIT in Boston) the equalizer is Computer Programming I using C. The college likes to hit kids with this course early in your freshman year. If you don't pass you're simply not cut out for computer science or engineering.
Its like, must have 5+ years of experience in C++, PHP, HTML, Cobol, Java, Unix, be MSCE certified, have customer service experience, be able to lift 70+ pounds, wear blue shoes, drive red car, be exactly 5' 7" tall, talk with a slight Jamaican accent, be willing to commute to India 3+ weeks a month, all for 18,500 a year.
Now, the REAL kicker is the first part, where 90% of the job listings want unrealistic years of experience.
If I was picking my major, and saw that, I'd be like, fsck that too...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
...the allure died when I discovered users.
I accidently clicked a NYT article. Where was the usual warning that it was an NYT blah blah blah stuff? And for heavens sake, michael posted it without the std NYT blah blah blah warning. What is the world coming to?
Btw, I didn't read the article, but... I feel strangely compelled to comment since this is slashdot.
How do we get rid of all the folks who don't love computers now? Just recently someone I know left a programming position to go run his dad's hardware store. This was a good thing. He once brought a harddrive over my place (keep in mind he was a programmer for about 2-3 years before this) and said it was making this noise, and he wanted to see if I thought it might be bad. Well, I thought, no problem, I'll drop it in a machine and see what happens. Well, what happened was the most awful screech of heads upon the platter at roughly 5600 rpm. Folks in the next county could have told me that the drive was bad.
Well, anyways, the point being, he is only one of the many that need to be ejected from computers. He got in when the computers were good cash, but others like him have not left.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
The assumption that because someone loves computers they will excel in working with them is false--somewhat like the idea that someone who loves poetry will excel in writing it is also false
The truth is that most people who have an aptitude for a field will at least dabble in it. But that doesn't mean they will care much for it.
An example of this is simple: In high school I was very good at Biology. It came naturally to me, and I made excellent grades in my Bio class. None of that changed the fact that I hated it. To me, Bio is not very interesting or even especially challenging. So I avoid it, even though when I have taken courses, I have always gotten an A in the class.
How does this apply to Computer Science? Well just the opposite is true. I love it, but that doesn't mean that I am particularly skilled. Sure I can do some limited web deisgn, and I understand hardware and software concepts fairly well, but I know that many of the people on this site are much better at all of that than I ever will be. Why? Because I am not really a much at calculus, which is necessary if you want to be really good at Computer Science.
This is why career counseling is so important. People need to get a grip on what they are both good at and enjoy, and concentrate there. This is one of the major failings of American Education--we focus so much on the idea of going to school to get a better job that we miss the point that if you are doing what you enjoy and are good at, you can almost always find a way to make money--if you put forth the effort to be the best.
That said, I would definitely see people that are going into a field because they enjoy it, not because they think it will make them money. Any field.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
I loved being in CS classes back in the late 80's early 90's. after the 101 classes you had the people that were really interested and loved it.
It now sounds like it's getting back to those levels which is a VERY good thing. I have had the mis-fortune of working with the "I got a CS degree cuz you git rich doin' it." types, and it isn't fun.
If you love programming then by all means follow your love...
unfortunately I can't figure out my nephew... A Philosiphy major with an Ethics minor... Yay, he'll learn new ways to contemplate.... "You want fries with that?"
I'm more worried about lots of students taking the worthless career tracks like that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Knowing your way around a computer is such an essential business skill now.
Every kid in college, no matter his or her major, should know how to get around an Office suite, put into place a simple web site, and basic troubleshooting.
We're seeing the evolution of computer-technology-as-business-model into computer-technology-as-tool.
While it may be true that fewer kids are going into CS, what's also true is that the technology is penetrating deeper into the business school, journalism school, whererver where many things that were once the realm of CS or even MIS are now absorbed within a discipline that focuses on the application of that technology.
Not like a few years ago when students were enrolling because they wanted to make a quick buck.
Unfortunately the industry is still fat with these people who don't truly appreciate the art and science of software design... and they are determined to make back all that time and money they invested in it during college. Only now they have a couple years of "seniority". It's very disheartening how many companies I see distressed over custom software development because they keep hiring "experts" who write bloated code that doesn't accomplish anything anyway...
I see these kinds of stories too often:
No really, OO is a great tool for rapid development... I don't care what the guy who failed that course tells you -- stop prototyping in purely procedural code! If you had encapsulated that data you could have protected access to it with a semaphore. Now that you need to scale up suddenly your whole application is breaking because your "expert" used simple global variables and you have multiple threads modifying them causing random crashes you can't track down.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Yea it's come to the point where instead of me admitting being a computer programmer, I tell everyone that i'm a smalltime potato farmer who doesn't even own a computer. Its just much easier that way.
I'm not a CS major, I'm a biology major, but I seem to know more about or at least like computers more than some of the CS majors I know. I always wondered why they would major in a field that had no interest.
My pointy hair is starting to hurt. I think I'll find someone to motivate before taking my afternoon nap.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
That's what I did, before the internet boom, and I graduated in the middle of the internet boom... *not* taking advantage of it and just looking for a stable job. Which I still have, right now.... (Just got a raise, so I am not to complain).
Yes, I chose Computer Science because I love computers, I love programming and I discovered that I loved the math and theory behind all of it. (Because, boys 'n girls.... Computer Science doesn't end at being a good coder)
Apart from that I have to quote the article:
People aren't seeing the glory in computer science that they used to.
I think that is false: there never has *been* glory in Computer Science. Not even in the dot-com boom. No, *technology* was glorified, not the science.
Anyways: do what you like. That's the only advice I can give. (Oh, and to my surprise I read in the article that there are more girls doing CS now! Damn, I wish I was younger and back at University *grin*)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Computers are great, if your doing R&D.
I've found that I've started to rott away at work, I might as well be packing tins of beans.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Its well recognized that a passionate individual is a high performer; but a dollar-seeker is just biding time. I'm glad that CS grads will start to shift into the former category.
But, who forgot to tell government? The British Columbia (Canada) government has decided to double the student enrollment in CS, CE, and EE.
Are any other countries, provinces, or states on equally dubious footing?
Just as you don't want students opting for Medicine just because it pays well, (which it does no doubt), but rather because they are interested in human anatomy.
Same with any other field say architecture, engineering etc. Once the field has students , who are genuinely interested in the subject, there would be lot moro of innovative products and hopefully a lot less Service Packs :-)
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
I knew a girl in my CS program who was double majoring between A&S Modern Feminist Studies and Engineering Computer Science. Why? Because her parents wouldn't help her financially with college unless she majored in "something that can get [her] a real job." She hated CS, but didn't want to shell out the $$$/get loans for a top 30 school private education. Ooops.
"...dropped off with the rest of the hi-tech economy"
Interesting the way that was worded. It's as if to say, something different happened to hi-tech than happened to the rest of the economy when the reality is that ALL segments of the economy have fallen off. No segment is hiring right now. None.
The WSJ just had an article last week about MBAs not getting offers at all right now.
Of course this would happen. Five years ago (give or take) being a doctor or lawyer was the most desired of all professions; and enrollment was high. I was reading just recently that both have declined in the last few years; much like CS. The reason? Money. When the market is flooded with opportunities to make money in a certain industry there will be an up turn in degree seekers for that field. Now that the 'bubble' has burst the field isn't so attractive to prospective new techies. This is not a bad thing it's just the result of the society changes and morphing. It's like the balloon theory; there may be less CS degree seekers, but there is probably more of some other field. It's very natural that this should happen and kinda cool for techies like myself who actually love what they do. I never looked at computers as a route to make money; rather something I enjoyed experimenting/playing with. It's a happy bi-product that I'm able to make a living with it.
"Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs" - George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
We can thank the current army of paper MCSEs on the dot-com bubble. Fortunately for the dedicated hardcore techies, they're all disappearing as fast as the venture capital has. As a CIS major and self proclaimed UberGeek, I can always tell in my classes which students are there for the allure of money and which ones are there for the love of the machine. I've noticed a new trend this semester in that it seems that the hardcore techies have finally outnumbered the business-majors-turned-CIS-majors. Personally, I think this is great because it means the teachers can stop wasting their time with the money hounds and start focusing on those of us who are in it because we love what we do. Heh, maybe we'll give India a run for their money after all!
End of Line.
This post will probably be modded down into oblivion, but: I am the manager of the human resources department for a semi-small development company. Part of our jobs in HR is to screen many, many applicants... essentially pick out the top 5% to move on to further interviews. Believe it or not, we've actually had more luck hiring electrical and computer engineers than computer scientists or software engineers. What we've observed with the latter candidates is that they know the "science" of programming, such how fast a certain sort algorithm should run, but they are often poorly versed in the "application" of the algorithms. (The engineers are often just the opposite). I've found that engineers are people who are trained to work practically... they might not always come up with the absolute best solution, but the solution they do come up with is usually PDG (pretty darn good) and they come up with it quickly. They don't worry so much about squeezing every last bit of peformance out of an input prompt, or beautifying their code, like CS majors do. In general, our electrical and computer engineers are much more productive, and we've started turning more and more towards them to look for promising candidates. Which makes me wonder... is it time for a new major that deals with "practical" aspects of programming? Or do the CS and SE curricula need to gutted and re-done?
Just my two cents...
unsigned short numGraduates = values::grads / values::year;
unsigned long int numJobs = values::someValue * 1000;
unsigned long double currentSalaries = values::soonToBeSixFigs;
unsigned int amtOfPartyingOfWootsHeardByCurrentEmployees = values::manyWoots;
unsigned int time = values::current_time;
if ( (++numJobs > --numGraduates) && ++time)
{
++currentSalaries;
++amtOfPartyingOfCurrentEmployees;
++amtOfWootsHeardByCurrentEmployees;
}
K... Determine your own values... And let out your own WOOT if yer a CS Major!
When I was in school (1996-2000) I was so utterly dissapointed by the number of people who were learning computers "To get rich".. a vast majority were this way, and there weren't many diehard techies like me.
"When kids say, 'Is there going to be a job for me when I graduate?' I essentially have to laugh," he said. "That's like saying, 'When Maxwell discovered the rules of electromagnetism, was physics over?' " In other words... no, you won't have a job when you graduate.
To be honest I think this might wind up accelerating the development of new computing approaches since you will actually have people who understand computers more intimately. I think part of the reason for the stagnation in the field WAS the 90s e-Bubble. It attracted the sheeple who were solely interested in making money. Those people tend to NOT be very good technologists. The people with a real feel for technology who DO become rich usually do so incidentally.
Un-news
i took this class back in undergrad. Brian's a great teacher. All of our examples and tests are based on Beatles references. Too bad we don't program in Scheme at my work...
For years people have asked me why I didn't get a computer science degree or somesuch (the questions have mostly stopped now that I work for Apple, but they don't know I'm not in a technical job). I always tell them that computers are fun, but I couldn't sit in front of one all day long.
I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study CS. This was in the late 90s, and I recently graduated. When I got to school, there were lots of people who really just were in the field thinking they could be the next dot-com millionaire. Over the years, it was pretty easy to see who was in it for the money and who was in it for the love of the field. The problem right now, as I see it, is that for even for people who "love" CS, the job prospects aren't that great. So, if the people who really love it aren't doing well, then how's some guy who hardly knows what he likes going to fare?
Furthermore, consider the idea that CS students typically become programmers or software engineers somewhere. For those that "love" the field, they will still more than likely end up in a position where they not allowed to truly work in a free environment where the CS love is oozing and creativity is encouraged; more often, they are thrown into an environment where the salaries are mediocre, and where the deadlines and demands of marketing take precedence over the love of CS. 9 times out of 10, even the best get burned. Software companies don't tend to want the people who love the work; they want people who are drones who will just do what they are told. There are some serious misconceptions about how things work with regards to people who genuinely love what they are doing. It's hard to see any glory in this position.
Finally, I'd like to point out that there is nothing really that ties the American student's job to the US. I fully expect that most engineering and science jobs will be performed by immigrants, or by firms in India within the next 10 to 15 years. This further removes the glory of being a computer science graduate.
just 350 students signed up for the course this spring, in striking contrast to enrollment in the fall of 2000, when the same lecture hall was engorged at the start of the semester with 700 students
Would that be an unfair comparison given that more people register every year during the fall compared to Spring ?
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Enjoyed that (although half the class were married or practically married and the other half had never said boo to a real live woman), drank lots, did some work, had a great laugh and came out with a BSc(hons) Computer Science.
Then started working.
Worked for a consultancy developing telemetry systems for big water companies. Suddenly I realised that what was my passion - translated into the worlds most mind-numingly boring job.
Sitting all day, every day at a computer looking at over a million lines of code written in C (with macros to make it look like ALGOL-86) not understanding how it all fitted together, not having anyone talk to me, getting boring work packages and generally hating every minute of it. I saw no fruit of my labours, got no recognition and whilst the company made record profit I got penuts pay-rises.
So I left, moved to management consultancy, worked with short projects, people and things that actually came to light. I did project management and operations management and ... enjoyed it.
I don't claim that all IT is like that, indeed it's not, but my initial experience of it put me completely off for life, and, if i hadn't left, could have completely put me off computers full stop.
Now I just tinker - but it's a damn sight more fun doing that, than for a job.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
But more importantly, when the economy recovers, we're going to need computer programmers, and many more of them than we'll be producing at the current rate of input. It's a serious problem for the national economy.
Technology is a boom-and-bust field. If you want stability, then find another field. However, the government can help mitigate the cycle by using the tech visas (H-1B, L-1) more effectively. If the rate could be raised or lowered in better response to the economy, then the curve might be smoother. (The current rate is stuck on the boom level unfortunately.) It could be like the Fed interest rates that are raised and lowered as the economy or inflation ebbs and flows. Of course that would make things bumpier for people in other countries who want to be tech visa workers, but frankly that is their problem. Too many countries already depend upon the US economy for export markets or jobs one way or another. Globalization increases the "business cycle" up-and-down of capitalism it appears.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm 24 and have been infatuated with computers since I can remember. I really feel as if I'm part of the tail end of the last generation that's going to have such a love affair with technology. Even to me now, the tech field is almost unbearable. All of the mystery is gone and it's been replaced with lowest common denominator corporate tripe. The pc now, is little more than a glorified vcr. Built to feed you aol/tw content. Forget working in the tech field as well. Why put up with the disrespect you'll get from burned out frat boy wannabe managers? Why work to throw out 90% of what you do? Why try to do a good job when no one cares if you do? Just because you enjoy a field that is rapidly becoming less enjoyable doesn't mean that you should enslave yourself in it's name.
I'm a junior at the University of Alabama (Huntsville) majoring in computer engineering.
At my university, like a lot of others, CPE is in the same department as Electrical engineering. The computer-centric stuff we learn is C++, OS programming (semaphores, posix, messages, sockets, shared memory), Motorola 68k, MIPS R2000, Networking, architecture, digital logic, microprocessors (I also took a java CS course for an elective). We also get a goodly amount of EE courses like circuits and transistors, measurement, etc. We're also required to take 2 courses of CS and can take more for electives.
For non science stuff, we have to take 18 (semester) hours worth of math, 21 worth of humanities, physics, chemistry, and general engineering courses (about 25 hours worth).
IMHO, at UAH, computer engineers may not know as much coding as cs students, but we know far more about the hardware side, and have a much broader background (here CS students largely just learn programming and math). One downside I see is that we only are required to learn one high-level language (assembly doesn't count), and don't learn any database stuff, html, or IT.
Hello there follower_of_christ!
Although this will probably be modded up as funny (mostly by moderators who don't even understand the code), this sort of "Geek humor" has been done ad nasuem. Bottom line: it's not funny, and it makes you look like a tool. Go out and see the sun.
I'll take quality over quantity.
The danger is that a lot of schools will stop offering CS courses, because the enrollment cannot sustain the salaries of the teachers.
Hopefully, the major schools will continue to expand their programs in meaningful ways.
Education is the silver bullet.
Students go into CS major thinking they can make a million bucks before they turn 30? Sounds like those students who studied law so they could sue somebody for a million bucks before they turned 30.
Glad to see the economic downturn has weeded out the wannabes who have no clue about designing or writing quality software.
NY Times, who is still reading that drivel rag? They are up for several Hugos this year. The LA Times has a sister article IT Girls on how much better the world would be with more women programmers.
I'm studying CS... There're 26 people in my class. 10 are complete idiots, 10 aren't, but simply, have absolutely no interest for anything related to computers outside the university program and 3 or 4 guys are actually on topic....
Now, you're saying that those ~80% (20/25) are not there just to make a quick buck????? Well, I hardly believe it.... They WON'T make it... that's for sure.... but it doesn't mean that anything more than the rumour of it has "forced" them to come join the "geek" forces. Even if the total number of CS students has declined, don't be fooled that it's 90% high-end now......
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
the number of students majoring in computer science in university has dropped off with the rest of the hi-tech economy.
...and I'll get to work with a lot of smart people this time around!
Cool... the next tech labor shortage is building. I'll be there...
The bright side: the students who are enrolling are doing so because they love computers.
When Ryan Phillippeor and Josh Hartnett get to pretend they are programmers in major hollywood teenie-bopper flicks, coders had become glorified.
More ammunition for those who want to increase H1-B visas! After all, with the dearth of students, where will the talented individuals industry needs come from?
That is all.
Unfortunately, in this job market, employers don't seem to get it in terms of their hiring.
I have both an undergraduate and graduate degree from a top CS school, and am currently one of the hordes looking for work. It seems that, even though less people are currently in CS programs, the employers out there still requires more and more specifically-defined "real world" skills (eg, "Oracle 11 PL/SQL" vs. just "database programming experience") and if you don't have such experience, you aren't even considered for an interview.
CS programs (rightfully) don't focus on specific products and languages, but rather on theory... but it seems that even with such solid academic grounding, people want real experience, or else.
Employers, just like employees should wake up and realize that specific skills can be often taught quickly on the job by reading a good reference book, or looking at existing code -- thinking and theoretical know-how is harder.
...with computer science is that it's impossible to get a teacher who speaks English without a thick accent in the major. (That, and proofs)
:p)
Oh well, at least i somehow got a "C" in algorithms. (I might have done better if I had read more than half of the chapters
Hot Chicks?? There was a chick in my CS 150 class. I wouldn't call her hot though....... There was this one in the Mech E classes though.......
Then I got fed up and dropped out. My roommate art major was getting more tail than I was.
As the article says, the number is probably undershooting now. By the time this 50% or so reduction in graduates hits the market in 2-4 years time, happy days should be back for those who have the skills.
Fewer graduates means more demand for the rest of us.
Remember the good old days when you could post your resume on monster and have 100 emails and voicemails when you wake up at noon the next day? They'll come back sooner if these youngsters all drop CS.
The days of $80,000/year for tapping out less complicated HTML than you see in the comments on Slashdot, sipping cappucinos, and a free scooter to ride around work are gone, so naturally the base of people who thought they could make a quick buck in IT are vanishing. It's just that knee-jerk go-where-the-money-is phenomenon getting a correction.
It's like that Kingston Memory thing a few years ago. The owners had hidden away a stack of cash to give a very special Christmas bonus to their employees. Even the janitors walked away with $20,000 bonuses. When that made the news, they were inundated by phone calls for employment. Well, the bonuses haven't been made public since then, and where are the calls now?
The same thing happened to IT. Nobody hears about it anymore, and if they do it's usually bad news, so nobody cares. Now the only people left are the ones who really love it. Those people will get the true rewards, because they are always growing and learning even though the tough times, and as such will always have a leg up on the noobs who show up when they smell money.
-R
At my little state university my mathematics classes are full of apathetic ex CS majors. Most think that they can just sail through a mathematics major and land a low paying but safe teaching job. However many start to fall off when they get to the upperdivision classes where being a calculating machine doesn't help much. Mathematics (like CS) are really hard majors that are now not really worth it if you do not love the subject matter. Still from speaking to other students, this direction is lacking in most students at this level.
I have a CS degree and feel that I should point out that I learned more than just programming skills. I learned how computers work, both from a hardware and software point of view (algorithms, network protocols, microprocessor architecture, etc).
.NET and Microsoft servers. In others, it may mean an all Linux and open source solution.
Sadly, it appears that many colleges and universities that offer CS degrees have different curriculum that includes a HEAVY DOSE of real world applications (.NET, et al).
The key to me is finding the best solution. In some cases, that may be
If I'd had it, I guarantee I wouldn't have my BCS today. It's a failing of the *North* American education system at the very least.
I got my counseling when I moved to New Brunswick in 1991 to do my last year of high school; it consisted of, "Oh, you're a Newfie? Definitely want to stay away from our French classes." (New Brunswick is Canada's only bilingual province... I'll leave the Newfie French to your imagination.)
Point being, I said to my dad, "I'm not really sure what to take..." His response, "Well, those computers are getting popular. I bet you'll make some money there." And that, folks, was the end of it. I took my first computer class in Grade 12 ("used my time wisely" on the 8088s in the lab), and went on to graduate with First Class Honours from UNB. Why am I bragging, you ask? I'm not. I just sick of reading all these dumb comments about how these people must love computers. C64s, Vic 20s... I'm not one of those people. I'm in the wrong field, and I'm taking steps to get out of it every day.
Career counseling is *extremely* important because unlike some fields (I'm trying to break into writing, for instance), this field is not very forgiving of "computer lovers" who don't have a technical *degree* (no matter how good they are). It may be more prevalent in gov't than industry, but you can't ignore it. My message is: "Find your path and get on it early."
Not quite true... there are always jobs for nurses.
No doubt there will be many posts on how there are bad programmers who got in "just for the money" and not for the love of computers and now they are getting what they deserve. I believe this is unfair because there are a lot of people who aren't really brilliant at anything and may not have any strong interests, but they are trying hard to make a living. It's also unfair because money is a factor for everyone, whether you love computers or not.
But I also think there are more interesting classes of people who have been affected by the bust -- the good programmers, the brilliant thinkers, the guys with a thousand ideas, the ones who love computing. The people who got into CS believing that they wouldn't have to deal with the usual silly competitions about what college you went to or how well your professors liked you -- believing that the only thing that mattered was how good your ideas are. The people who, in the 90's could easily start a multi-million dollar company but now have to settle for a mundane, overworked, thankless and low-paying teaching/research job, and that is if they are lucky. They might settle for this job simply because they get to do interesting research, but who wants to deal with harder and harder grad school admissions and then educational politics? Not many that I know.
The bust is also affecting the mid-level players. Reflecting on the exuberance of the boom days, managers are turning toward credentialism to measure their applicants. While this is arguably a good thing for the industry, nobody I know wants to be judged by what college he went to, how well they interview, or other silly metrics. There is also a move to squeeze more out of individual programmers (believe it or not) because budgets are lower. And with fewer possibilities to get capital for your own venture, college students are looking at a future as a programmer, which is looking less like a professional job and more like mental labor. Some might call the dropouts dumb, but if one is entering such a profession, he ought to examine his own decisions first.
Transfer to a liberal arts major? Or do they all migrate out into the sciences...
Someone named an OS for me.
I've been telling these fly-by-night "Generation D" ass hammers to get the hell out of our industry for years now. Finally, they're listening! Haa!
Bowie J. Poag
now that's funny
And of course, my personal favorite, If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
Managers from the Information Science path are stupid
I love the standard comments here. "Do what you like; don't just chase what you think will make you money." Well, that sounds like a good idea.
(sarcasm=on)
I like capturing people, forcing them into chains, and making them obey my every whim. Darn, slavery is outlawed. Well, that's okay. I also like distributing mind-altering substances that make people feel really good... oh, that's right, drug dealing is outlawed too. At least there's taking pictures of children while they're making squishy noises... gosh, can't do that either. Gee, must not be my century.
(sarcasm=off)
Point is, not everyone's love and joy is going to be something that they can make a living at. Some percentage of people are always going to be doing something in order to earn a living, not because they live and breathe the subject. So to expect that everyone in a Comp Sci class is going to be uber-computer gods is unrealistic.
There's also the folks (like myself) who really did get their computer science degrees out of love of computers and programming... but who are now quite thoroughly burned out. When you actually do have decades of experience in computers -- but have grown to hate working in the field -- it can be damn tough to try to transition to some completely different career. (I'm considering being a plumber myself, since at least they can't outsource that to Asia.)
Not everyone in any field is going to be enraptured with the idea of doing that for a living, nor is everyone going to mantain that rapture their entire career. Some people are there because it's their best choice out of a rather bad selection of opportunities. Expecting anything else is simply unrealistic.
Unlike medicine, which many have brought up, the CS job market isn't controlled by some governing body, restricting who can practice and what areas they can practice in. With medicine, an artificial restriction on the supply of doctors keeps their salaries high. It's still tough as hell to get into, but once you're in, there IS no competition.
With CS, anyone can jump into it and go into the job market. There is no restriction on supply, hence the cut-throat competition and the decline of salary as supply increases.
eTrade SUCKS
I agree, it's the groupies that make this whole programming thing worthwhile.
there is no such thing.
;-)
11 could refer to the version of their ERP package but PL/SQL would never occur in the same sentence like that.
I guess there IS a difference between "real world" and degrees
The bright side: the students who are enrolling are doing so because they love computers. Not like a few years ago when students were enrolling because they wanted to make a quick buck. I'll take quality over quantity.
what about this: the universities have much less applicants to choose from so less smart people (assuming that there's a correlation between smartness and grades) will get into the program. i wonder how this will affect the quality.
Could it be that the universities mentioned in the article were glutting the market with students who'd never gotten very much attention from anyone other than an overworked graduate assistant?
Yes, the economy belly-flopped. But maybe the employers that are still hiring have realized that they can get the same output quality from a biology, chemistry, or English major who's taken some basic programming, can read a manual & has a decent work ethic ... without paying a premium for the CS sheepskin.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Each spring I review resumes from computer science majors as potential summer student hires. They consistently divide into two groups: about 1/3 with As and Bs in C.S. and similarly good grades in other classes; and the rest making Cs and Ds in their C.S. classes, and better grades in everything else. They obviously don't have the interest and/or ability for computer science, but they are trying to get the degree because they think it's a ticket to automatic hiring. I never hired any of them though. Like the original poster said - better quality than quantity.
like many of the others in the high tech bust. The most threatening thing to the American high tech economy at this time is continuing economic globalization. Interestingly, this trend is now expanding to threaten other agendas that require higher education. Just this week I heard that CPAs are now losing jobs to India because the average college trained CPA in India makes $6000 per year.
Why have we become so vulnerable to foreign competition? In my opinion, it is due to the way that we have commoditized and dumbed down our higher education process. We've concentrated on creating a manufacturing line like education process to turn out droves of programming/financial/engineering/etc robots. OF COURSE THIS CAN BE COPIED!!!
The education process used to turn out thinkers who, instead of being brainwashed in the current mantra de jeur, solved problems without a toolbox full of fix-alls that never quite fit the problem. In creating the mass manufacturing style education system, we've neglected the necessity to continue to produce the thinkers.
A step back in volume might be a good thing to allow some of the education to return to a more renaissance approach.
Long term, if we hope to maintain our lead and not spiral into deflation across all sorts of technical areas, we need to look toward an education system that adequately provides for both types. The current prevailing CS curriculum is more of a tech school approach to education and should be moved to the tech schools. Then the colleges need to return to teaching the best of the best who have the special abilities needed to develop the technologies to keep us from being commodotized down to $6000 / year salaries. And their education should not be full of mantras but instead concentrate on teaching basic facts (instead of beliefs like OOP, structured programming, etc), and approaches to analyzing and solving problems in a manner that fits the problem, not the tools.
I got my B.S. in Computer Engineering in 1987 at a small private engineering school here in Florida, and did so because of my love of computing, hardware and software. Over the past 14 years, programming (my first love) lost its allure for several reasons...
1. Developing software for large corporations that was never actually used for anything due to project cancellations, modifications etc made by mostly bozo-level managers.
2. Developing software for small companies that were inadequately financed, thereby ending project development before fruition.
3. Dealing with the "techie" (ie geek) mindset 24/7. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux as much as the next guy, but it gets old talking "bits" all the time.
I think enrollment is C.S. is down for many of these same reasons. I am glad that people are no longer entering C.S. for "the money", I think it insures a higher level of quality for the industry over the long run.
And so now I own a florist and could not be happier (no I am not gay). I still get plenty of I.T. related work, but also get to hone my sales and "soft" skills, interacting with a wide variety of people.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
>Sparse attendance is, of course, an end-of-semester inevitability. Many students viewed the lecture by Webcast, if at all. But more significantly,
>just 350 students signed up for the course this spring, in striking contrast to enrollment in the fall of 2000, when the same lecture hall was
>engorged at the start of the semester with 700 students sitting and standing in every available pocket of space.
How the heck do you learn anything in a class of 700 students? I'd be surprised if I could even hear the teacher..
Twenties Retirement
As i work out in the field as an electrical/computer engineer, I keep on looking at this one company. One company we all have grown to hate, and seeing how it is starting to take over the whole industry, setting 'standards' of hiding data that would make playing with hardware more enjoyable. Yes, this company is M****s*** and I blame them along with media companies like **AA (forcing computer companies to add DRM, etc.) for taking the fun out of computing. What little is left of open standards and documentation is becoming more and more scarce - pretty soon computers will become merely an appliance that really is not a 'general purpose computer' anymore...
I've always been able to put my computer away for stretches of time, but I've never been able to get rid of the fish.
...
I found myself bored in EE, bored in CompSci, and basically floundered
Must... make... joke...
:-)
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Now, knowing that Richard the Lionheart and King Phillip II were an item probably isn't useful except as trivia. However, knowing how to research primary source documents, interpret what they say and write a well-reasoned and supported paper on the subject has served me well outside of academia. Not to mention the usefulness of adaptible frameworks for understanding situations, etc...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
and then become canibals and sue each other to death completing the cycle.
Some segments are doing ok.
High tech is much worse off.
Sorry. There's plenty of work for
carpenters, builders and mortgage re-financers.
lover. Oh wait, yes it does.
What were you saying again?
Oh, great. I just started an MCIS program on Monday, and the drop-with-refund option is now closed. Thanks a lot, punk slashdot reporters! Any more salt you want to rub into my career wounds?
Fortunately, I'm not in it for the money. I'm in it for accredited recognition of what I've taught myself over the past decade, in order to bolster a career in software patents. More importantly, I'm in it because I have this native love of software development and curiosity about technologies I've had insufficient reason to study in-depth.
David Stein, Esq.
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
Decrease Demand for Labor (tech bust)
Increase Supply of Labor (H1-B caps raised repeatedly, 1990s CS majors, offshore sourcing)
Guess what? American kids rationally decide
to go into another field.
I go to Ga Tech and am a Computer Science major. Let me tell you, there are a few people there who obviously went into the field simply because it was hip and there was money in it. No one gets into tech if they are a complete moron, but there are certainly people in there who just don't think the right way and whom CS comes very hard to. Yet they persist in dragging themselves through it just because they are hoping for a nice desk job that pays well. The worst part about it is group classes. God I had a guy like this in a 2 man group project and it was hilarious. 1 day before the project is due he lets slip that he hasn't been able to get any of his stuff working, even though I gave him the easiest part. The sad thing is I know he really did TRY at it... it was just that hard for him. So anyways, I hope now less people will put themselves and others through that just for the money.
All the hot chicks are English majors, for some reason. Just sign up for an English class and check out all the hot chicks. Try comparing that to your average engineering course. I think there are supposed to be a lot of hot chicks in bioengineering, though. Medicine and stuff, they all want to be doctors or something.
Well sure! The methamphetamine market has always been more stable and profitable than computers...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
What happened is that you had to deal with the real world of users, managers, budgets, corporate politics, and scheduling. Once you realized that over 50% of the job has nothing to do with programming (or at least not what you consider programming), you became disillusioned and bored.
Unfortunately if you're going to work in the corporate world, you're probably going to find that the vast majority of jobs have the same non-core-task annoyances. For example, my baby sister works for a non-profit with about 10-20 total employees. What does she gripe about from work? The boss, the clients (users), inter-office politics, lack of funding, and unreasonable expectations/deadlines. (And the computer crashing, but that's from a user's perspective -- she's not a programmer.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
People who love computers are fuckin' weird. They need girlfriends, but they'll never get them BECAUSE THE LOVE COMPUTERS.
They also need to learn, usually, how to wash and interact with other humans, but they'll never learn these things because after they're done whacking off to Interporn they load up Counter-Strike for a few hours and then finish off the day by watching videos online and working through their Python exercises, oh and don't forget to read up on the GAMING INDUSTRY, which is so sickly in love with itself it's, well, sickly. After all that, they're bored, so they whack off some more.
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
Every time you need to assure higher management that you're on time and under budget, those skills come in handy.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I attend the University of Guelph and recent figures indicate that the number of Computer Science students enrolling is actually increasing every year. As a matter of fact, as of last year, CS students were the largest degree program at the school (which for those of you that don't know, is renowned for it's Agricultural and Veteranarian programs), accounting for ~5%-6% of all students.
Hopefully there will still be jobs left for us when we all graduate.
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
OK, so we all know that many comp sci grads lack skill or interest. Now that high-paying jobs aren't plentiful, there are fewer money-grubbers in comp sci. Is this news? Not really.
What really bothers me is that nobody is talking about the simultaneous drop in quality of comp sci education. The universities are just as guilty of going for the green as the students. At my university, the school of computing science began hiring from the very bottom of the barrel to keep up with demand, rather than limiting entry. As a result, they are graduating students by the hundred who are literally incapable of describing how a computer works.
The university is getting rich by raising fees in the schools of computing science and engineering and rushing students through. My degree has been cheapened to the point where I'm almost embarassed to mention it to employers.
Argh!
pHalec
My first year of computer science there were 6 sections of our introductory Java course, at about 150 students each. This year, a fourth-year course required by every comp. sci. student had only 1 section and 160 students. Where did the approximately 740 other students go? They were the ones that enrolled because they thought computers were they way they would get rich, but when they found it wasn't a cakewalk they dropped out. Everyone that's left are the ones that are taking comp. sci. because they love it, not because they think it will make them shitloads of cash.
I guess my point is that just because there are less students enrolling doesn't mean there will be less graduates. There will be just as many students that take comp. sci. because it's what they want to do, and therefore just as many will graduate.
in 1995 was taking Computer Science as his major, as was I. His parents owned a consulting company and he wanted to make the big bucks. Every assignment in C our professor would assign us would be twice as much work for me as my roommate would leech off me for answers, turning me into an unpaid full-time tutor. Of course, after 2 weeks of this I told him I'm not going to help him with anything else as he absorbed nothing in class and knew nothing about computers what-so-ever. Of course, when it comes to these types of people, they're just oblivious to how much they leech off others to get ahead. It was hard to work with people in the classes I was in because many of them didn't have a handle on basic concepts. I'm glad to hear things are tapering off a bit as I need to go back and finish off my degree.
I knew I wanted to be an engineer since I was 12. I survived 6 hellish years and graduated. I couldn't get a job.
Had I known the tech industry was headed towards implosion, I think I would have been a Nutrition major. Not because I care about nutrition, but I might have met some attractive women that way!
And jobwise, I doubt I'd be in any different place.
This is probably a good thing. From the article it sounds like quite a few people who "were in it for the money" are switching out into other fields and those that stay are broadning there horizions . Now I have nothing against some one being in it for the money but one thing which I notice a lot with computer science people is that seems to be there area of expertiese . If we can more people who understand computer science and other disciplines as well this will be greate for both disciplines . That being said some people who would really like to do computers are possibly finding them selves pushed out because they dont have enough money to do a double majour and need some way to pay of the student debt when the gradute . Hopefully once they have more money they will come back as mature students but we may have lost some very good programmers this way as well.
The funniest part of the article was the kid who decided to give up CompSci and study advertising.
Best,
-jimbo
XML Tools for Mac OS X
" I've always been able to put my computer away for stretches of time, but I've never been able to get rid of the fish."
THE damned guppies just wont DIE!!! THey keep breeding, and noone wants guppies!! Overpopulated little barstards.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
ok now... that's creepy, you gonna tell me how you did that/who you are???
And im not pretending to be female, its the name i've used for playing games since before quake
Owen you Wh0re
Or they realize it's a futile effort since more and more jobs are moving to India.
Art majors always get more tail than we comp. degree folks. Case in point, I started college at a liberal arts school majoring in management - Blah! I had a friend who also majored in the same subject. After a short while I transferred schools to pursue a more technical degree while he stayed to get his Bachelor's degree after which he moved to the same city that I lived in. He enrolled in grad school where he got his Bachelor's degree and commuted several times a week (150 miles rounf trip) to obtain his MBA. However, he let his hair grow down to his waist and hung out on my campus near the art buildings. He would draw, etc... and claim to be an art major at that school. Girls, lots of 'em, would approach him all the time.
(I am aware that finger is running on a server here, giving out such information, but how did you know? its not imediatly obvious which server it's gonna be, so my guess is your a compsci here or an ex compsci
Everyone at Berkeley knows that only the slackers go into the Computer Science program, which isn't even part of the Engineering department, for goodness sakes. I mean, they're part of Letters & Sciences, which is on the same level as those English majors! My goodness. All the real hard core people go into Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (that's one major, not two, BTW). Everyone knows that taking any electrical engineering courses drops your GPA by at least half a point.
:) I was also hoping to draw some comments from the EE side of the whole computer industry thing. The English program here is actually pretty good, too. One of my sisters graduated as an English major, in fact.
Actually, I'm kinda just poking fun at the Computer Science snobs.
!= into a sentence, != you being l33T. In fact YOU == a_dillhole.
Hey there follower_of_christ, aka Keoni! (i think) How's it going? I haven't talked to you in ages... There's a certain "style" to your post where I just know it's you!
I won't tell you who I am, but think back to your Intervarsity days at EWU... email me at yoohoo_ron@hotmail.com to talk
By the time this 50% or so reduction in graduates hits the market in 2-4 years time, happy days should be back for those who have the skills.
Many economists seem to believe that the US is on the verge of a labor crunch once the economy recovers. Why? Because the Boomers are starting to retire, and there just aren't enough of us to replace them. So the good times for many workers (not just tech) should (hopefully) be back.
By reading this sig, you agree to the terms of my sig license.
I'm heading to India, where the pickins is good. (English is my second love)
I'm a CS major. I agree with many of the points made here. I'm a fairly strong programmer (all A's in my programming classes) and love attaining knowledge about anything computer or technology related. I've volunteered as a sysadmin at my local library since I was 14 and was hired (for pay) when I was 17. As a CS major, I am required to take a lot of calculus and physics courses. Relative to the rest of the world, I've gotten pretty far with calculus and physics. However, I am always struggling with those two courses (usually scraping past the classes with C's). It kinda irritates me (perhaps jealousy) that I see people getting admitted as CS majors because they can easily get A's in calculus and physics and get barely passing their programming courses. Most of them are in just because of the money and dunno jack about anything computer related. I'm not suggesting that universities discard physics and calculus, but they should pay less attention to grades and more on a student's watn to learn more. Eh, I guess I'm ranting.
and I have my own ideas as to why there are fewer CS students. Downturn in the economy? Yes, that's one reason. But not the only one. People who want to get into computers are discovering that there are many fields to get into. I'm taking a 1/2 business, 1/2 CIS degree, and I love it. I don't want to be just a programmer for the rest of my life. I want to work with servers, networks, databases, etc. You don't need to be a CS grad to do that. The CS students at my school work with assembly, do circuit design, etc. I get to learn various languages, different problem solving techniques, etc. The bubble may have flattened out, but when it did, it got wider at the base.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby.
Thats like saying don't trust a manager who doesn't organize everyone in their household to the exact minute/cent in their spare-time.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
If there is one thing we should always remember, computer science != programming.
I think anyone stuyding CS will agree with this statement.
Good. When I was in CS, I had people in my classes who couldn't even turn on a computer. They admitted that they hate computers, but were in the field to make $$$. Good riddance to those sorry fuckwads. Let them go back to jockeying the grill at McDonald's.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
This is one abberation of a major that should have never existed. Management or Comp Sci major? Quoting Mr Miyagi from karate kid - "You karate do yes, or karate do no. You karate do "guess so," [makes squish gesture] just like grape. Understand?"
In my experience, MIS majors are not very good at management or CS, but are often put in positions that force their ineptitude on others. One of the PHB's tried to get 2 MIS majors (they went along right with it and never presented a different solution) to code VB forms on the exchange server in order to do documentation tracking. WTF? Need to have a new software package, or new technology used? The group that evaluates software (no CS majors in the group) does nothing but cut and copy gartner reports, never really tries the software, and then makes the corporate recommendation.
Either be a management major, or be a CS major, but those MIS majors have got to go. I don't think I could ever trust a MIS major unless they actually hod some solid experience in coding or networking.
CS majors on the decline? Bah. I'm in it for the love of databases - Just don't ever put a person with a g*ddamn MIS major inbetween me and my work.
You'd laugh/cry if you saw my company's policy on Open Source. I'm fighting it.
B
You're wrong. The 'Jamaican accent' requirement isn't legal, since it depends on your ethnic background.
So the requirements aren't nearly as stringent as you've implied.
Open source will reduce the number of paying software jobs since a company cannot compete with mature 'zero cost' open source packages.
This leads to less paying software jobs and therefore, less demand for CS degrees....
and...drum roll please....less paying CS univeristy professor jobs....
So RMS and the CS academics who are anit-profit, anti-capitalist, anti-microsoft and pro-open source may get what they want --> Less CS students therefore less paying CS academic jobs.
Amen. My whole family is Com Sci people, my dad writes programs for robots in factories, my brother works in the Air Force CERT, and my mom works on data management. I've always enjoyed tinkering with computers, but I enjoy training people much more. Right now, in college, I work at Resnet, but that's just for money. I'm a Human Resource major. I'm taking "Learning and Behaviour" NSC 4320 (Neuroscience), and "The Adult Learner" EPS 4240 (Educational Psychology) instead of random courses on databases or MIS. I'm happy where I am, even though I must try and convince my family of that every day.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Before i rant, some quick background. I've been in IT in some shape or form since 95. I am a decent admin, capable of working in 2k, XP, and Linux (with linux being my preferred server solution). I have a career relavent degree and certifcations. Back in 99 I went back to school and got my degree in june of 01. I spent 13 months unemployed before i recieved a very low paying job that barely keeps me above bankruptcy.
Less then 10% of my graduating class ever got career relavent jobs.
OK, now the rant. I would tell ANYONE thinking about a career in computers to avoid it like the black plague. There's too many people unemployed in this area as it is. Companies are outsourcing tech jobs like mad. If by some miracle you do get a job, its very low paying (I've seen companies in LA offering CCIE's $15 an hour) and extremely long hours. Even for someone like me who loves computers, its just not worth it. Getting a degree in this field is just a sure fire way to end up with massive student loans you'll have little chance of ever paying off.
People keep speaking of when things will recover. I dont think they're going to really. Companies just dont want to spend money in IT or pay for decent IT departments. Why pay someone 35k or more when you can just outsource it for far less. Granted the outsourced IT sucks quality wise, but
the bean counters dont care about quality.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Why are comments about outsourcing programming work to India always modded up? What is so insightful? It's the same thing that's on slashdot every day.
I'm a faculty member in the math/CS department of a liberal arts college. I'm on the "math" side of things but teach nearly all of our CS and CIS majors at one point or another. What I notice is:
:-)
1. Most students we get in CS/CIS have no conception of what computing really *is*. They are not getting into the field to be rich -- because they don't really know WHY they are in ANY field at all. Some major in computing because their parents push them into it (they have a 6-7-year old idea that computing jobs are growing on trees, still) or because -- seriously -- they love playing video games and want to "do" video games as a career. Virtually none of our CS/CIS majors have any previous coding experience coming out of high school. There's very little sense of the breadth of the computing field, the major ideas and current issues in the field, or even that being a CS major means learning several computing languages and writing usable code in them. THAT side of computing never gets portrayed on TV, does it?
2. Most students in CS/CIS -- maybe because they don't have that sense of the meaning or depth of the computing field -- absolutely revolt when math or science are brought into the picture. For instance, I just taught a course on cryptography, and the idea that good cryptosystems (esp. public-key systems) are based on good (= hard) math problems, and therefore we need to understand the math to be good at the systems, was very hard for the CS majors in there to swallow. In general when math shows up in CS, a lot of CS majors suddenly become business or sociology majors. I can't help but think that the decline in CS majors is tied in a fundamental way to an overall decline in interest in math and science here in the US.
3. I see a general trend among all our students that, while they are generally bright and pleasant folks to teach and work with, they don't have much in the way of a big picture idea of who they are and what they want to do with themselves. In particular, a lot of my students don't particularly "enjoy" ANYTHING -- in the sense that they like to spend spare time working on or reading about something, like slashdotters with computers -- that could be remotely considered intellectual or academic. Their hobbies tend more toward passive things like sleeping, watching TV, playing video games etc. rather than computers, reading books, or even playing sports -- things that demand persistence, skill, and discipline.
So from my point of view the decline the article talks about is just symptomatic of a larger shift in the culture to which college students belong. I do think that the students who stick with CS will be the true believers (a lot like math majors in that sense) but every freshman class is going to be the same as it has been composition-wise.
But to end on a positive note, the whole reason I love being a prof is that I get to be counter-cultural all day long and get paid for it.
Because you're a dirty sand nigger with lots of monkey babies?
Me no understand.
Blar.
So I guess that means I'm only half disappointed! Seriously the money is still better than it is in other fields even with the dot-bomb. Other fields suffer the same kind of market flooding. The tech field just got more press.
err.. i guess i have a little resentment there don't I? ;)
I'm having to turn my compassion dial way up to 11 to feel just a drop of compassion for MBA's not finding work, considering they seem to always be the one destroying a good technical idea... but there, I've done it.
Now I hope even they have good luck.
The bright side: the students who are enrolling are doing so because they love computers.
...unfortunately, step 3 became:
Not like a few years ago when students were enrolling because they wanted to make a quick buck.
Man, I *loved* computers when I started university back in 1994, but even back then all I thought was:
1. Start computing degree course.
2. ???
3. Profit!
Step 2, as it turned out, mainly involved drinking, getting stoned, and watching The Simpsons.
3. Pick up minimum wage!
Oh well, I still love (cheap) computers.
\\ Mitch
You're absolutely right.
We see this every few years in technical and scientific fields. When I was in high school in the mid-80's, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth that America didn't have enough aerospace engineers. So, there's a glut of AE degrees a few years later, and what happens? The cold war ends, and the aerospace industry goes into the crapper.
Obviously, the same thing happened with the dot.com bubble; but I see a few things compounding the problems for CS majors.
First, the move away from old unix related subjects like C. C was harder to learn, and most CS environments used to be unix-centric, which was also not for the faint of heart. But in the late 90's, most CS programs went Java and Web centric, and most student OS exposure centered on Windows, which isn't the same kind of learning experience. It didn't help that the web was so trendy.
Secondly, now industry has a vast, cheap, well trained pool of talent to go to overseas, and to some extent, they'll just bypass American students alltogether. You'll always need some semblence of an IT staff stateside, but otherwise, Indian programmers (and their competitors in China, the Phillipines, and Russia) are just too tempting to pass up as a cost saving measure. This trend will only accelerate in the future. In some ways, IT is becoming lower level service job, despite the skill that it takes.
While IT isn't a dead field by any means, it will be a field where only the select few can find what we would consider big success. It's no longer a field like law where, if you're halfway good, there will always be a job for you that pays reasonably well. The golden era, as we might call it, is over for commercial IT jobs.
Where much progress will continue to be made (and the best days are still ahead) is in private voluntary work, such as open source software projects. You're likely to see an increasing trend of people doing coding and computing strictly for fun, while doing something else by day. You'll see more and more accountants, telephone company workers, engineers, medical professionals, and teachers coding or experimenting at night.
Part of the problem with CS programs could be fixed if colleges stopped trying to be so damn trendy. Quit trying to jump on the latest computer fashion, and teach hard fundementals: hardware/software interfacing, software engineering principles, the bedrock languages. I don't see how someone can proudly show off a CS degree without knowing C.
Unfortunately, that still doesn't fix the outsourcing problem.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Not like a few years ago when students were enrolling because they wanted to make a quick buck. I'll take quality over quantity
For a lot of people around here, it was a case of getting a decent job at all. Unfortunately, many employment advisors etc pushed them towards the computing field, ending them up in programming courses.
What these advisors don't seem to understand... yes, IT was a booming job market. However, it does require a certain mindset. In my course, which wasn't overly difficult to me, we had an influx of laid-off government workers from forestry and other IT-unrelated sectors. Some actually were decent coders... others simply floundered.
In addition, many who got good marks because of "book skills" simply don't cope well with real-life situations.
It's one thing to study up for test-time by memorizing keywords or phrases, methodologies, etc (some of which were completely useless crap IMHO, as I've never seen them used in the field) - it's quite another to be vaulted into a job situation... where your production server suddenly crashes continually while running a critical financial application running on COBOL.
OK, maybe not COBOL, but in many cases linux or related. Skills at finding information and solutions to problems from google, newgroups, and manuals - quickly and effectively - is a skills that often gets overlooked. The ability to cope in a crisis where the problem isn't obviously in a book, or is just unknown, is often more built-in than learned.
I'm not saying that some people from other industries can't learn to code, or be admins. It's just that many don't develop the love that comes with the position, it's just a job. Being able to punch in code for hours on end... look at the clock and suddenly realize you've been at it for 5 hours... and think "wow, what a rush, that was awesome" is just something that is beyond the average person. Equivilate it to a "jogger's high" - which is something many geeks will equally not experience... it's what seperates true geeks from trained nerds.
IT workers that lack the fundamental passion are glutting the market because people have been given the idea that "IT will get you a job", "IT is the place to be," "They're looking for workers like you." In the end, they make us all look bad, and make it very difficult for those who truly love IT to get the jobs we love. It's not just about grades (though the do indicate skill) or resumes, it's about passion.
People do not seem to realize how much the tariffs add to the price of the car. That is why the union auto workers have it MADE!
If we had the same protection for software and office workers, we would have it made, too.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The auto workers are doing great.
As far as sales go, have you ever owned both an American car and a German or Japanese car? I have owned all three types, and I promise you that the german and japanese are FAR more dependable and are much more designed for reliability.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Actually most engineering areas are doing well - save for Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering. There are actually jobs out there for them, they just need to look in other places - defense is hiring like crazy to use up all of their homeland security and ROV budgets.
Forget about Intel, talk to Boeing.
Yeah, I used to like fish, too. That was until I realized that I didn't get to defend them from constant alien attack. Oh, and mine never seem to crap money.
(I'm talking about Insaniquarium over on www.popcap.com if you are wondering)
A few years ago when I was a sophmore in HS (3 years ago), the admin in charge of the entire high school asked me which was the one that was used now, ISA or PCI. Sadly, she passed the A+ and had MCSE.
So what is the hot new field all the idiots are going into now? Nursing?
Your sig made me drag out my whole collection and listen to it.
.here in the trailer park".
"You know what Stuart? I like you. You're not like the other people. .
...so you need to really love computers or you won't be able to stand it. I see the bodies all the time--I live two doors down from a guy who worked at HP for 20 years then was handed a pink slip without so much as a thank you. F-you, and thanks for the memories...There are thousands of stories like this: smart, capable people thrown away like an old paper bags. I don't think someone with a degree in Molecular Biology or Chemistry would be treated the same way, because those industries treat their respective disciplines like SCIENCES, not like assembly lines. For some reason this industry really treats its assets like they're disposable. Just get more warm bodies out of school to crank out more code, who cares if they really have the experience to do anything thoughful or well-designed.
So it comes as no surprise that companies are outsourcing projects to India or some other place. More of the same attitude.
I have a CS degree, and I do know what hashtables and other data structures are all about... like you though, I am often dismayed to find that so many computer workers don't even know when you'd want to use a hashtable, or what one is!
I have often thought that simply asking one question in an interview - "describe what a hashtable is and when you would use it" - would probably reveal as much as a hundred other questions about how deep their knowledge of computer programming really was.
Of course, that would work right until one interviewee told the next they were asking all about hashtables... and it would probably miss a few good coders that just happened to be light on theory.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How many people who end up doing computer work have a comp sci degree anyway? Looking around my office, I see a 22 year old with no degree, myself with an English degree, two guys with physics degrees, one with a math degree, one with a compsci degree (but he's from Ukraine), and a guy with an MBA. All programming.
Can I get a raise now that the market is in desaturation?? Can the real dedicated programmers (self taught or not) get back to work for BIG BUCKS?! I know its hard to make tons of cash on open source software, but I want to buy a castle in france..
Sometimes self taught programmers are the most competent. People who can teach themselves well are priceless.
Also, as I always say: "Computer science is only as intesting as the problems it is attempting to solve."
How about 'My Job's Lost Allure'?
Which is why some of are bored out of our pants in the business domain. If I see one more legacy purchase order format, I'm going postal.
I'm an IST major at PSU, and I'm so happy I got out of Comp Sci. It doesn't make sense to be a programmer; there are only so many software companies, but every company needs someone who knows networks, software, and a little bit of programming. Not to mention the fact that the chicks in IST are a lot hotter than the Comp Sci ones. (If you can call them chicks...)
And everyone in my class can write Java. Well. I'd suggest that anyone who *thinks* they want comp sci should be an IST major, leaving seats open for ppl who *know* they want comp sci.
Because you're posting on a US-centric site, and everyone knows that the US is God's country, the best, number 1, etc. etc.
In the US of late xenophobia has taken hold, all foreigners are suspect, particularly if you're brown and speak with a very noticeable accent.
To compound matters, most posters here are hardcore nerds who have trouble relating to their fellow citizens, not to mind a foreigner.
Is the fact that high-tech has lost its allure the reason why we've not heard from Katz in quite a while?
My irony is that I'm a psychology major who did a lot of research and used a lot of computers. Now half my work involves data abstraction, workflow, working with people, and statistics. If I'd gone into a CIS major I probably would have been a worse programmer - the extra "something" helps.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I can believe it. I was talking to a J2EE web developer this week who claimed to have no knowledge what what MIME was.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
All this accomplishes is making it harder for focused (i.e. self-directed) learners to get into positions where their expertise would be valued.
Maybe your friend should get out of CS and take a IS (*snort*) degree if available. Failing that....get a technician's job if he can find one that doesn't require a degree. That way, he''ll be able be around what he -really- loves: computers, not code.
-----------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
This person could either be a lousy coder or a brilliant C maven.
Having spent a few years with old-school Unix guys I've been regularly amazed by their coding skill. The code is entirely rotten, and undebuggable by anyone else, but they can produce it better and faster than anyone I know. Breaking for-loops and all.
I'm studying CS at Warwick University in England. My course consists of simple Java, UML, Z spec. language, and lots-of-maths.
:-)
Basically we are highly-trained code-monkeys who can turn simple specs into naively written Java.
Oh, and then we can mathematically prove the execution time of while-loops. About a third of my class CANNOT WRITE CODE, I mean literally they CAN'T do it. Not even a quick bubble-sort. Since we all plan to move into management this isn't really a problem
Actually it's very simple: I can't compete with someone who can live comfortably at 15K a year!
My choices in such a circumstance is either to protect my interests by either learning Hindi and becoming an outsourcing manager (I am learning Hindi), lobbying the government to tariff foreign programmers so the cost is prohibitively high (this is a short-term gain and a long-term headache, besides not enough people can pay to lobby for this), or complain loudly on slashdot and berate foreigners then act surprised when my job goes overseas and I'm unemployed.
Hammer of Truth
When I look at ads for IT jobs, and I have viewed thousands, I very rarely see a job that requires a BSCS. Usually, if there is any mention, the ad will include "or equivilent."
So why get a BSCS when a BSEE is far more valuable and versitile. With a BSEE you can honestly call yourself an engineer.
If you want to work in IT, a BSEE is just as good, if not better than a BSCS.
Being a an ex CS student myself, I know that the classes were filled with two groups of people.
The first group were the real CS folks, who most likely never spent more than a day on any assignment (unless it had to do with OpenGL or networking, then it was just fun). Thats probably the slashdot crowd. These people lived for the major. Their knowledge of computers applied to everything including their home, lifestyle, social life (if any), etc.
The second group was the academic group of CS folks who spent the standard college hours working on assignments. Some of these students did quite well without understanding the material as well as the first group. Traditionally these students were studying CS as a subject, as opposed to a hobby.
Would this apply to any other major at universities? I don't have experience in any other majors so I couldn't judge fairly.
I'd be interested to find out which of these two groups is dropping off quicker, those who can do the CS anyway, and are spending time doing other studies. Or is it the group that doesn't know CS and isn't interested in learning it.
It doesn't matter that americans aren't going into CS. There will be no shortage when the economy ramps up (if it ever does) because the off-shore shops will take up the slack.
I've never heard of this before. what is wrong with code like this:
//process e;
for(int i=0; i<arraysize; i++){
element e = array[i];
if (found what I'm looking for){
break;
}
}
why should I manually set up the looping conditions? I think this is a whole lot easier to read.
IT sucks ass. If you love it in school or at home, you'll hate it within 3 years. That's what users and the business will do to you.
"Theoretical" knowledge and "practical" knowledge in computer science are probably more closely related than in most any other field. What I look for in a job candidate is an in depth knowledge about something in computer science. If they know one thing in depth, they can probably learn what we need them to know in depth. I also look for people who love to program. This is hard to judge from an interview, but I look for people that do some hobby programming, and who read books or magazines about programming.
I always ask prospective interviewees:
;)
What language was taught in CS1000?
I can tell a lot about the programmer from knowing whence they first bit their teeth. How long out of college, breadth of knowledge, etc.
If they reply Java, usually they don't last past the first interview. Its amazing, only tech and engineering schools require Lisp, C or C++ as an intro anymore.
ps for me it was Fortran, deduce from that what you will
From about the age of 7 until 19 and in college I always "knew" I would be a doctor. That was the only career I had considered. I prepared for this career in high school by taking AP chemistry, physics, and biology. In my freshman year in college I realized I really couldn't stand the chemistry and biology lab work. I hated going to these lectures as well as the hours of lab work. One day, I finally had to admit to myself that I wasn't going to be a doctor - I just didn't have the drive. I remember this day very clearly because it felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my back. I could actually feel my overall mental state improve significantly. I then started researching other professions along with my hobbies and what I was passionate about. One thing I was passionate about was my apple IIe and programming in apple basic. I took a first semester computer science course and was immediately hooked. I actually loved just about every minute I spent in the computer labs working on my programming assignments and looked forward to just about every lecture. I went on to earn my BS and MS in computer science. Money was never a factor in my decision - maybe because I came from a lower-middle class economic background. I figured that if I could pull down 40-45K I would be fine and if some day I could reach 80-85K I would have really arrived. Honestly, I expected to be earning 40K for most of my working life. At this time (late 80s) that was what I considered to be more than adequate. Upon finishing my MS the job market was terrible due to a recession and the huge numbers of experienced engineers coming out of the defense industry. Even getting an interview for an entry level QA job was difficult. I did get a bit discouraged since I had just spent six years working my butt off including co-ops with major companies. But I perservered and finally did land a job - although it wasn't my dream job. But it was programming and I was happy. Fast forward about 8 years and I was in the middle of the dot com boom earning over 250K per year as a contractor. Needless to say this amount of money was far beyond my wildest dreams. For the first time in my life I am unemployed as a programmer - 4 months so far - but just the other day I got a call for my services and expect to start working again june 1st. These four months were definately challenging - I questioned my choice of career, worried that perhaps I had invested over 16 years in a profession that was dead, and seriously started to work towards a complete career change. But recently - just like the day I decided I wasn't going to be a doctor - I realized that I love programming and that is the only career I wan't. Again, a serious weight had been lifted and I decided that despite all the negative press about computer science and technology - some it partially true, some of it overblown - there is still a lot of opportunity out there to innovate and be happy and along the way earn a living. I think this shift in mindset allowed me to focus on my job hunt and realize that, for now at least, the job market has changed - it is not a employees market anymore and I had to put out far more effort into finding a job/clients than I ever have. I believe this is what led me to find my next job. In summary, I have sympathy for people in careers that they don't like and I consider myself lucky to be able to get paid for a job I love. I wouldn't have chosen another career if I could do it over again. And one more thing - I am not even close to earning 250K and really don't care that much.
That's what I did. There is no way you'd see people get in this major just for the money. The amount of studying of math, physics, electronics and CS that you have to do is simply too great to keep people in just for the money, You have to like this stuff in order to just keep up.
I took all the CS courses I liked, skipped the bullshit ones, and ended up with a better understanding of computers than most CS grads as well as a math minor.
"Still, concerned about what could happen if a downward trend continues, companies like I.B.M. are intensifying their programs to reach out to potential computer scientists, efforts that are aimed at children as young as elementary school age. Intel has spent $700 million on its outreach program, which is intended for students in kindergarten through high school.
An "outreach" program offered, no doubt, to distract the masses from the massive offshoring.
Intel is running a "Chip Camp" in Arizona ( Intel in the Community )--the same place where last year, Intel gave its employees the ultimatum: move to India at a reduced salary to train your counterpart or be furloughed...
I work to live not the other way around, and I am doing what I love. I love being a husband, a father, a home owner, a neighbor, etc. Oh sure, I get excited about certain things - like memory based persistence layers that eliminate traditional databases or AOP servers becoming what J2EE tried to be. However I'm not half the uber-nerd some of you seem to think is a pre-requisite for earning a paycheck in this profession. I like technology, but I don't *love* it. At the end of the day, this is all about putting a roof over my family and food on the table. I'm good at it and it pays well, so why shouldn't a liberal arts major like me be here?
I just don't understand the elitist attitude of those who want to a purity barrier for the profession. If I could have made as much money sitting in the park watching clouds roll by I would have, but instead I followed the need that existed in IT 6 years ago. We only need so many people to optimize compilers. We also need people that can put together decent code AND dumb down the tech stuff for management AND play golf with a client. As long as they have the mental ability, aptitude, and are willing to work at it, I don't see the need for the purity barrier.
When the subject of computers arise, there seems to be a lot of emphasis placed on programming. A computer science degree should not emphasis programming. It should be considered admission at the door. Programming langauges change all the time, but the concepts really don't change that much. What a degree should be teaching is theory and hopefully spur some creativity or innovation. Not too many programmers can understand the complexities of distributed transactions or mutual exclusion. Companies should be hiring the top notch CS degrees for design of systems. Unfortunately, it seems that much of this does not get to those taking the degree programs. The real concepts really don't get discussed until the MSCS programs.
(me interviewing CS student wanting a summer job in 1999)
-ME- "So, what programming languages do you like? C? Java?"
-STUDENT- "Oh, I like C... and C++"
-ME- "Oh yeah?"
-STUDENT- "yeah...and I'll be taking C+ next semester!"
Oh god. Here it goes again...every dipshit with an inferiority complex is going to come out of the woodwork and claim they are the real life story behind "Good Will Hunting", and how everyone they ever worked with(ha!) who had a degree, or worse, a CS degree, or even WORSE, a Master's in CS, are the biggest boneheads in the building except for management, and all the cool kids are the one's who have been self-teaching since in utero.
Please, for the love of Pete, STF. We don't care, and if we once did, we stopped caring after we read the four millionth note detailing someone's "real experience" here on slashdot.
Don't do it! Unless you're independently wealthy. Most biologist make microbucks - assuming they're working in their field. If I had a dollar (well maybe a thousand dollars), for every B.S., M.S. or Ph.D. in biology I've met whose now trying to get into IT just to make a living, I'd be rich.
Note to self: ask all biology majors I meet to give me $1k.
In all seriousness:
I am Shaun McCormick, quoted from UT-Austin.
I don't think all of the CS people leaving the major is because of hard classes. It being a newspaper article, and therefore good at misquoting character, I was personally put as being a newbie to computers as well as not having much knowledge of one. I have been programming since 7th grade, always enjoyed it, and been doing web design since 8th. I still love to draw and do web design (one of the reasons I'm going into Advertising now--so I can draw in Photoshop for a living, something that thrills me!), but the idea of programming all day at a desk just kills my interest. I was a better programmer than most of the class at UT--often teaching people how to do programs. In fact, I plan on teaching entering freshman at UT in the first CS class as a USL (something like a TA) next year.
Now I'm not saying that programming all day at a desk is a bad thing. If you love it, great! Just what the college programs are doing is getting people to realize that if they're not totally passionate about Computer Science, EVEN IF they're good at it, there's no reason to stay in it.
A person made a comment that you can be good at something as a hobby, yet not want to pursue it as a career. Personally, I don't want to program or do Computer Science for a career. However, I still love computers and the science behind them, and admire those who work with them. It is just not for me.
Please, do not overgeneralize all those leaving the major and career as those who are inept at the science itself. Rather, they are just finding things that they are more passionate about, and would rather do for their lives.
Maybe your nephew wants more out of life than a "career track?" The mind can actually be taught to do far more useful things than generate revenue.
Step back from your coding a little bit, get some persepective on life. Maybe TAKE a philosophy class or two.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
As mentioned above, that kind of money-is-all attitude is one of the most tedious aspects of our American psychology.
----------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
is that many, if not most of the people in my first year CS degree has a clue. Of course, the uni has geared this so it doesn't matter - the first year is mind-numbingly simple Java assignments, with other units featuring such great topics as how to use Word. That kind of incredibly app-specific piffle pisses me right off. Almost as much as this first year is almost identical to college CS (this is in Aus, college is for 16-17yo between HS and Uni). They used to teach C, but I think they changed for the boom. Now litereally anyone can get in, and for most dedicated students it's an exact rehash of last year. Ah well, I think it'll get interesting in 2nd, 3rd and 4th years - the last year is dedicated to a team project working to spec from a client, which looks like it may have at least some relavence to the real world. Not that anyone will be able to get a job, there were a total of 2 computing jobs advertised in the national paper the other week :P
Rather bizarely, I think my humanities part of my double degree may
I am no stranger to these forums and have a high amount of respect for all of you who that are adept and esteemed in your fields :D)being a rookie and all that loves this isht, i gotta say, I don't want to work with/ under people I can't learn and advance my own craft with. Sad thing is that you really have people that WANT TO LEARN and they get overlooked because of the general indifference towards them by teachers/instructors,
(and even those who aren't but are smart nonetheless).
I am 27 yrs old and have just completed an AAS course for computer programming in a to-strange-to-mention school. I have been dealing with computers since i was eleven and have even taken programming classes at that age(BY CHOICE)(fast forward)went to college to be a writer and was quickly discouraged(lack of doe...)and in my life and where I'm from that is an issue(sorry)(fast forward again)I ended up re-discovering my love for machines at 21, never REALLY worked in the industry(just got juiced because of the fact that i was competent in the use of puters)and basically learned more about "contemporary computing"(late 90's)through trial and error(bad)and eventually ended up going to the said strange place where I realized that I actually have a nack for programming and graduated my 18 month program(flame here)2nd in my class(really first,but...)and WHOLLY REALIZE that I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT COMPUTERS AT ALL. Meaning that
I only want to to do this more. So what if I don't know all of the STL libraries and functions? I'm gonna learn it. So what if I can't as my instructor described it:
"Be able to understand and augment code in any language without having prior knowledge of the languages' syntax and or unique attributes" that doesnt mean I have no capacity to sit, think, and do the work. whatever the outcome maybe, live and learn. For me, this thread drives close to home because even though I have never really worked in this field(my time will come)but I think that filtering out the deadbeats is a beautiful, neccesary thing as well(doesnt help me get a job, but
timidness(not me),fear of asking questions, and even FEAR OF ASKING TO MANY QUESTIONS(me). Even still, I know that I must go on my education, but this time, I understand full well what this means and YOUR ALL RIGHT it aint about the money, its about building things:D. So next time any you guys sees someone that 'happens' to 'seem' like they are interested and want to 'learn' something from you, help them, thats the only way you advance any field including this one. I'm going back to school for math(mines is TERRIBLE),physics(God help me). So if anyone has any kind words(hehe)I'm all ears.
Student
ps
there should be more computer classes in inner city schools...
Listing "computer" as a hobby is too easy. Love games? computer. Love chatting? computer. Love pr0n? computer.(maybe this is a bad example...) Does any of these "computer" hobbies make for a good programmer, architect or project leader? of course not!
Myself, I do NOT list "computer" as a hobby; I think it screams "I have no life". I have currently in my list: violin (16 years), Aikido, sci-fi books. I think it shows great concentration skills AND ability to persevere on a difficult task.
Choosing the right guy for a job is ALWAYS tough, degree or not. I know at least one useless grad, and at least one useless "self-taught" guy.
Moreover, there are slackers everywhere. These are useless regardless of skill and talent. They are often found in "private colleges" which charge outrageous amounts of cash for their courses. Of course, the abovementioned amounts of cash are used as an insurance against failed courses. Of course, here in Quebec college is (almost)free for all and uni's are cheap(1k$ / 15 credits, 100 credits for a degree), so the rule does not work for the US. In that case, you have to rely on the reputation of the school.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Quantity has a quality all of its own.
J. Stalin
...other professions maybe I could land a Sys Admin job. 11 unemployed months & counting. Please, go away.
Yay, finally....now we just need the ones that got jobs to GIVE US OUR POSITIONS BACK YOU DICKS!
Actually, if you read through the article, some of the chicks actually aren't too bad! :-)
CMU chicks
"We concluded that taking courses is frequently a waste of time."
Well, unless you are resorting to a truism (in which case, your anecdote was unnecessary because "doing X is frequently a waste of time" is trivially true for most values of X), I'd say your anecdote doesn't support your conclusion.
It sounds as though the reasonable conclusion is that to get really great at something you have to work hard at it for a long time and that simply taking a class is not enough.
Nothing about your story implies that taking the class would have wasted your time. You could have worked hard in class and, armed with the theory, your work afterward might have been even more productive. Your experience (at least the portion you described) doesn't appear to imply otherwise.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
The WSJ just had an article last week about MBAs not getting offers at all right now.
This is a negative article, but this bit certainly gave me a kick. It's about time those with a truly useless education felt the pinch
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
I've been stating as such on here quite regularly, particularly when people complain about the current lack of jobs.
3 138
Yesterdays COBOL article was a prime example:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=65017&cid=601
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
don't have any mod points but i wish i did. :)
No segment is hiring right now. None.
Fast Food is hiring. Just hired me last week.
How is having fewer hot chicks, and more D&D playing nerds a 'bright side'?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Then, where the hell is the fucking quality?!
Go here if you don't believe me. Tell me, when was the last time you saw a job advertisement asking for a MS and no experience? If you got a full ride that would be one thing, but driving yourself into debt from student loas isn't the way to go. If all that money's really burning a hole in your pocket, you're better off getting a bunch of certs instead, since it seems employers now pay more attention to those than they do degrees.
There are self taughts that think because they like computer topics that they are somehow special, and there are the not-wits with masters degrees that have no clue. Whoop dee damn do. If the percentage of CS majors is down, the percentage of idiots in the feild is still up there, myself included. :)
I have met people who have wonderful coding skills, but couldn't logic their way out of a basic straw man problem. I have also met people who can come up with novel soloutions to problems, but have zero coding skills. You know what? The biggest problem I have seen is that too many people have an ideal, yes ideal not idea, of what an IT pro should be, and it has very little basis in reality. Where I work they have a bunch of really good coders, and the project is tanking to the tune of about 20 million dollars because they have great code that does not do what the company needs. Hearing someone say "the code is optimal for the task" gets old. Having the transaction handlers write their code to optimize their part of the project, and then having the DBA's optimizing their part of the project, and then having the SA's optimize their part of the project, only to find out that the coders optimized on 1034 byte rows with 9 indexes, the DBA's settled on 2048 byte buffers for Oracle, and that the database filesystems are built on 8196 byte pages can really make you wonder if any of them have a clue.
Oh well. I'm in my happy place, I'm in my happy place. Ack, THHHHPT, reboot!
... is that there are many companies that live in a permanent state of crisis....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And tell him to check the definition of personal in a reputable dictionary.
What a moron.
Put it back in your CV, perosnal is personal, it is just an indication of your character, not a yardstick about how "professional" you are.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Another point: How often do we change what we love? More often than you think. How many girlfriends have you had? How ofen do you love to hear a song, then eventually tire of it? How often do you change from one hobby to the next? How often do you get bored with your current job and want a new challenge? Love can be fickle. If you want to have something that will last and be fully satisfying, you better have more reasons for doing it than love alone.
Things you love are better off as hobbies than as work. I know people that went to work at Hershey Foods, Inc. and thought they found their dream job because they were major choco-haulics. However, they soon lost their love of chocolate because they were saturated with it every day. Now, chocolate makes them think of work. It is a rare thing indeed when we find something that we can love for the rest of our lives. That's why it's so special when you have found someone you can marry.
Respect -- learning Hindi and all. That's the most rational response I've heard so far to the wave of outsourcing deals. Personally I think we should have anti-wage dumping laws, much as we have anti-steel and chip dumping laws, but that's unlikely to happen since I am Joe Sixpack and business rules the corporate republic. Good luck!
However, sometimes slackers whip out some stuff that you would never have seen coming, which turn out to be incredibly valuable..
It didn't help that when the tech boom occurred, every little school in the mountains started a computer science program--a bad computer science program.
All degrees are not equal. Get a degree from MIT, CMU, UofR, RIT, Berkley, etc. and it's not the same as the degree from whatever little place just added the program. That's cause these programs actually have entrance requirements. CMU accepts less than 5% of applicants. Granted, they don't look for love of computers--but to get in you have to have done something already in the math/computer area (for me it was 22 credit hours of math at a local, but reputable univiersity, an 800 math sat, a 5 on the APCS-AB exam, and some work experience) Noone just in it for the money at the last minute would be able to distinguish themselves as prepared for the degree program like that.
Brian
Thank you! I'll be here all week!
We go out of the way to make sure that our systems do what they need to do, when they need to do it. The other group all have degrees, all are certified and write systems that routinely crash, are slow and bloated and take FOREVOR to be released.
Computer Science is exactly that - the science of computers. Software Engineering is where you write systems that are designed to be stable, have been tested, etc, etc.
Do you let the materials scientist build a bridge? No, you give it to a Civil Engineer. Do you let a physicist design your motherboard? Nope, Electrical Engineer.
People need to give up on expecting CSes to write things that work. That's not what they're trained to do.
inbreeding with the mindsets of the compsci cult will have you toiling in underpaid research for professors who'll take all the credit until you're 30-something, finally have your ph.d, and by that time you know that institution so well that you have the network to ask your friends in the department to hire you as an adjuct on your way to being a professor. yes, keep climbing that professional ladder, puppets; the carrot is "just a little further".
fact is, if you're going to actually put any research into practical use (think justin frankel's winamp for fraunhoffer's mpeg layer iii lossy audio compression) in an open market, ABSOLUTELY computer science == programming.
For some reason all of this discussion reminds me of my first boss. I was the young computer-saavy guy that annoyed everyone around me because I was always saying things like "Why the heck are we using Ami-Pro when MS Word is the business-world standard" and stuff like that.
So my boss, an older lady who looked like a turtle, invited me to her house to install this software she bought for her computer. The way she explained it before I went over there, she just didn't understand how to install it or was too scared or something....
So I went over there and she hands me the CD. And I'm standing there staring at her tower, thinking "Please God, this can't be happening," as I immediately saw the problem.
"Oh," I finally say after going over several different approaches of how I was going to say what I was going to say. "Looks like you don't have a CD drive."