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."

Comments

Preach it brother

[Anonymous Coward]

"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. :)

Re:Preach it brother

[Fembot]

They're also known as MSCE's :-)

Re:Preach it brother

[Irishman]

I have been waiting for this day to happen since the bubblr burst. When I started my CS degree, most of us were there because we loved computers. We spent all our free time (what little there was) teaching ourselves everything we could. By the end of my degree, most of the people entering the program could barely use a DOS prompt, let alone know what Unix was.

I hope that employers start getting the hint as well. It was very disheartening to see people who took a 1-year program to learn computers getting senior developers and architect jobs.

At my office, I have told our headhunters that unless someone has a CS degree and several years experience, we do not want to see them. I may get flamed for being prejudiced against self-taught people, but I have seen far more self-taught people who think they are a lot better than they are than people who actually have an apptitude.

Re:Preach it brother

[RealityMogul]

Uh duh, did you ever think that maybe the self-taught people actually know just as much as the CS grads because they love it enough to spend their time learning real-world practices instead of spending 4 years learning what some professor thinks is important? I've worked with CS grads before and I'd consider recommending them for writing documentation or being a liason between the real programmers and the customers, but the ones I've worked with suck at writing code.

Re:Preach it brother

[cayenne8]

I thought is was MSCRE: MicroSoft Certified Re-Boot Engineer......

:-)

OOps...gotta limber up that power button finger for the exam....

Re:Preach it brother

[nolife]

but I have seen far more self-taught people who think they are a lot better than they are than people who actually have an apptitude.

So you are saying that self taught that took the initiative to learn it on their own and have been in the real world sharpening those skills have less apptitude then someone that chose the school route?

I do not see the connection. I am not saying either is automatically better than the other but your comparision guidelines is in no way shape or form a measure of a persons apptitude. No wonder you get flamed by the headhunters.

Do you care where they got that degree or do you assume they are all equal? If that does not matter, how could self taught with XX years of experience mean so much on your decision?

Re:Preach it brother

[AKAImBatman]

The advantage of CS degree is filtering out the idiots.

Sadly enough, I've had the opposite experience. Most CS grads in the past few years have been complete idiots. The schools keep saying "We need to make it easier on them. Oh, we'll stop teaching this, this, and that. Super-basic Java? Sure! That's the only marketplace requirement!" What I want to know is, why the f*** is "marketplace requirements" determining the level of education? True CS grads should know how the computer works. They should be able to build an OS or a compiler or whatever else they need. When they actually reach the market is when they should be finding the best ways to put their understanding to use.

Case and point. My company hired a guy who had a masters in CS as well multiple degrees in other fields. He had a good reference from his previous employer, so we hired him. He *could not* write a single line of code. I spent a lot of time with him trying to fill in the holes too. In the end, it was apparent that he really made it by constantly leeching off of those smarter than him and hoping noone noticed. In all reality, he could do very little.

BTW, I am self-taught. I find it almost scary how much more I know about computer science than the computer scientists do. I'll mention a simple datastructure (hashtable, b-tree, anything!) and watch the eyes of degree holders gloss over. I'm sorry if I sound a little worked up over this, but I always expected those who make it through CS programs to know *more* than I do and be able to apply that knowledge at will. Unfortuntely, I'm constantly frustrated by the lack of quality being produced by schools today. There's only one true test of a programmer. Look at their code. If they have none to show you, run the other way.

Re:Preach it brother

[Irishman]

Someone earlier stated this fact that many CS programs do not actually teach you to program beyond a first year course on programming. I was taught I in my first year, but in order to finish my degree I had to learn LISP, Prolog, Smalltalk, C++, Perl, Awk, shell scripting, assembler and a host of other languages I can't even remember now. None of these were taught, they were all assumed. When you solved the problem and got something wrong or didn't do it as well as possible, the marker gave you pointers on how to use the language more appropriately.

What my degree did teach me was how to analyse a problem and not always go with the obvious solution. I have never met a self-taught person who has done an order analysis of an algorithm or searched for an optimal mechanism to implement beyond the obvious.

I am not saying that a self-taught person cannot be as capable or moreso that a university experienced person. What I am saying is that on balance, the number of very poor self-taught people far outweighs the number of very good self-taught people.

Re:Preach it brother

[Austerity Empowers]

I (MS in EE) learned hash tables, b-tree's and all the other standard data structures and algorithms in high school computer science. It's not that they don't teach this stuff in school as part of a CS (or hell, EE) requirement. The old axiom remains: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can lead a student to knowledge, but you can't make him think. If your intent is to go to school to get a degree ONLY because there's money in that career, 99.9% of the time your education will suffer. That's not to say that you can't get a 4.0 GPA. As my employer (a complete school/degree elitist place) is learning the hardware, GPA & ivy league don't mean anything. At the peak we had "the best and brightest" from MIT, Princeton, Stanford etc. working here and realized: a) Those schools teach the same material b) Students cheat just as much, or more c) The quality of student is universally shitty regardless of degree or institution. Yet when I'm faced with interviewing someone, I always am hard pressed to identify THE good guy in the crowd. They all have excellent creditials (HR sees to that), but most everyone seems blah. The one and only one guy I hired, shouldn't have even gotten an interview (gpa of 3.4, local school), but I hired him because he appeared to actually enjoy the subject. HE turned out to be truly excellent, not because he was the smartest, but because he loved what he did and wanted to do it best.

Re:Preach it brother

[Lordrashmi]

Well put. You just got a friend (Not that you care, but I figured I might as well have one friend on slashdot...)

I am salf taught as well, and it scared me to find out one of the guys in another programming group has a Masters in CS. He is slow at coding and writes poor code.

It's amazing, the majority of guy in my group are self taught and our customers (internal to the company) love us. 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.

I do know that not every case is like this. There are good people with degrees and bad people without degrees.

Maybe I am just bitter...

Re:Preach it brother

[0x00000dcc]

Sadly enough, I've had the opposite experience. Most CS grads in the past few years have been complete idiots

Interesting post. I'm sure that it depends on the school sometimes, though. I have spoken with some from other colleges who tell me that they could turn in programming assignments that did not compile. That would never fly at my school. And while I sure did question some of the theory classes that I had to take, later on I realized their importance.

A couple of weeks ago a fellow graduate friend of mine told me of someone with whom he works (who's graduate from another college, not our program) had him look at some code he had written. One of the things he found was a for-loop in which the author had on a certain condition break out of. My friend responded to this, stating how this was not a very elegant way of writing code and was not true to the form of the fuction of a for-loop, since the idea is that before the iterations begin you state exactly how many times you will iterate. The guy's response was "Well, it still works."

Re:Preach it brother

[AKAImBatman]

The old axiom remains: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

I think you're missing the problem here. The problem is that they *graduated*. Many with honors!

The one and only one guy I hired, shouldn't have even gotten an interview (gpa of 3.4, local school), but I hired him because he appeared to actually enjoy the subject. HE turned out to be truly excellent, not because he was the smartest, but because he loved what he did and wanted to do it best.

Very true. You've pointed out another good quality of a programmer. The problem of course, is that these guys are as rare as gold. When my company was looking for developers, I told my manager (who filtered the resumes), "I don't care if they're junior. I'll train them." Unfortuntely, finding someone willing to learn was *tough*. Found one guy who was really good, but he ended up shooting himself in the foot because he had some sort of adversion to doing website work. You see, we had two teams. One who was supposedly responsible for front end, the other for the back-end. The back-end people would propogate hacks, while I lead my team - the front end - to work from actual designs. Eventually, the "back end" team became nothing more than an extra pool of resources for me to pull from. Sadly, I wasn't able to integrate our new recruit into my team as fully as I wanted to. He ended up having very little to do on the "back end" team except maintain hacks.

Re:Preach it brother

[kien]

I don't believe that you deserve to be flamed for stating your opinion and observations, Irishman, but I think you should widen your scope.

What my degree did teach me was how to analyse a problem and not always go with the obvious solution. I have never met a self-taught person who has done an order analysis of an algorithm or searched for an optimal mechanism to implement beyond the obvious.

My experience has been different, or perhaps my perspective differs from yours. I have found self-taught programmers to be very practical when it comes to solving a problem. I don't mean to disparage your degree but in a crunch, I prefer a programmer that can address the issue at hand over one that requires time to perform "an order analysis of an algorithm". When it comes to long-term-analysis or development, I'll give more weight to a CS degree. But when I need a fix _right now_, give me a hacker that knows the system and damn the torpedoes...full speed ahead! :)

I am not saying that a self-taught person cannot be as capable or moreso that a university experienced person. What I am saying is that on balance, the number of very poor self-taught people far outweighs the number of very good self-taught people.

I can understand and agree with you on that point. But I happen to work with a very intelligent person with a CS degree that could not install a network printer in Windows 2000, so I think the opposite might also be true.

I am self-taught and I tried college. I gave it up because I got tired of teaching the computer classes and I couldn't afford to quit my job to pursue my dream of studying at MIT.

I don't base the worth or ability of anyone upon a degree because I have learned that it's the person that matters more than their credentials.

--K.

Re:Preach it brother

[pkunzipper]

Not being able to admit when you're wrong is a personality trait and has nothing to do with one's skills as a programmer. Your problem with such people is apparent in all lines of work, including: law, engineering, teching, racecar driving, governing, electing, slashdotting.

Re:Preach it brother

[GlassHeart]

it's still my opinion and the opinion of some of my profs that you should remain true to the form of the function of the structure. If you say you're going to break out if something happens, use a while. If you say you're going to iterate i times, do so. If you're going to iterate i times but might break out, use the while.

This is not a bad general rule of thumb to follow, but it's important not to get anal about the small stuff like "for(;;)" versus "while(1)", or somebody else's indentation. These are co-workers or groupsmates you have to work with in the future, so the relationship you build is more important than any little inelegance in their code.

That's not to say you shouldn't speak up if their code cannot be understood. In fact, if you didn't acquire a reputation of being a nitpicker, your suggestion to rephrase the code where it counts will be that much more powerful.

One property I like to keep repeating is that there's no such thing* as an unreadable snippet of code. If a function is twenty lines long, even if poorly written, a person who speaks the language can figure things out slowly. The real problem with unmaintainable code is when the maintainer has no idea what the code is supposed to do, or where to make that simple change. IOW, it's the overall structure and high level purpose of the code base that's the problem, and never because somebody wrote "for(;;)".

Don't sweat the small stuff. Point it out once if you want (to share the general programming philosophy), but it's not really worth fighting for.

* Except for deliberately obfuscated code, of course, but we're talking about real world code here.

Re:Preach it brother

[Aapje]

I have to disagree a bit. CS is not a programmers course. A degree in CS doesn't mean that you are good at hacking code. Of course, you do have to know basic datastructures, basic algorithms, basic math, basic design, basic programming, etc. Some use this knowledge to become programmers, others become architects and there are those who become strategic consultants (they take everyone with a graduate degree, since they reprogram you anyway). I personally know a perfectly smart guy that just hasn't got the programmers touch. He'll never be one, but he's still a good CS graduate.

Personally, I consider a CS degree to be a nice base line. That person will have a basic understanding on a broad range of CS-related topics. Still, I was never taught design patterns or unit testing, things that I consider to be essential for a good programmer. If you choose to be a programmer, you will have to learn those things yourself (and plenty more). In that respect, every good programmer is (at least partially) self-taught. A fully self-taught man is usually very strong in some areas, but very weak in others. Sometimes it is good to be pushed to do things you normally wouldn't choose to pursue. I don't think that someone with a CS degree is automatically better than someone without or vice versa. A mix might be optimal (as each has their strenghts).

BTW, was that programmer with a Masters in CS ever taught to be a good programmer or did management leave him hanging because 'he should know already'? The lack of proper training might be the answer to your question why the people with degrees don't seem to perform that well. Another possibility is that he was hired as a programmer because of his degree, instead of his qualities as a programmer.

Disclaimer: I only have experience with one dutch university. I can't vouch for crappy US institutions ;)

Re:Preach it brother

[LoveMe2Times]

I too, have marked you as a friend. Anyway, in my opinion, there is no particular correlation between having a degree and being very good at what you do. Let me explain a little. There are some people who really love and care about whatever they pursue, and they will get good along whatever path they pursue. Programmers, artists, or car mechanics, doesn't matter. If they love it, they'll find a way--sometimes, that way is at a university, sometimes that way is in the basement, and sometimes it's teaching English in Siberia. Unfortunately, people with that kind of dedication are rare, and so you're left hiring somebody who pretty much just wants a job. Which is only fair, because you've probably only got a job to offer. No offense, but odds are that the work your company does is not very interesting.

Finally, I wanted to respond specifically to this post:

The schools shouldn't be going out of their way to graduate programmers who can't program.

I don't know of a single school that offers a Programming degree program. Some offer Software Engineering, but the vast majority only offer Computer Science. Many people fail to realize that Computer Science is basically a math program, and has very little to do with programming at all. A Computer Science program shouldn't teach programming beyond an intro course--you don't expect a math major to take much physics beyond basic mechanics and E&M. Academia is not yet prepared to admit that programming is a discipline unto itself. In my opinion, Computer Science really should be a graduate program for people who study Programming or Software Eng. in undergrad.

I don't know of anyplace in the world that you can go to and learn programming, except on your own with a book, a computer and a compiler (or interpreter, don't nitpick). Coworkers can be great--well, if you have somebody like me as a coworker. But you can't just go out and sign up for a coworker to look over your shoulder. My point being that when you need to hire somebody, you should actually think about what got taught in the program they graduated from. And, if you find somebody that's good at programming, that person *is* self-taught, even if he or she did the self-teaching while at a university while taking CS classes.

Re:Preach it brother

[AKAImBatman]

> Though admittedly, I'd been playing around with
> computers for nine years prior to starting my
> degree. ;-)

Catch-22 ahoy!!! :-) People who have a true love for computers are as rare as gold*. It used to be relatively easy to find them. You'd troll the schools looking for CS grads or you'd hire a leader in the field. Not so anymore. I'm afraid that our parent's philosiphy of "you must go to college" combined with the idea that (computers == money) has sent the signal to noise ratio off the scale. Not that employers ever seemed interested. Look at the hiring practices during the Dot Com Boom. They were hiring any idiot who slapped "computer" on their card and paying them the wage of a true computer scientist. Hopefully much of that will change now that the boom has gone bust. :-)

BTW, I just want to make one thing clear here. I have the highest respect for the institution of Computer Science as well as those who sweat blood and tears to join it out of love for said institution. It pains me to see it all destroyed by companies and universities that feel the need to hire/churn out individuals who can barely run a compiler. Growing up, I *wanted* a good education in CS, especially the more advanced topics like OS design, compiler design, advanced data structures, etc. When I realized the direction that schools were going, I made myself learn it and never turned back. Criticize me all you want for it, but I'm at least as capable as any CS grad, likely more so. But of course, it's practically a tradition when you're a home schooler. :-)

* Okay, fine. Gold isn't all *that* rare. Replace it with your favorite rare isotope and continue. Not that most isotopes are worth much to your average person.

Re:Preach it brother

[Anonymous Coward]

"salf-taught"
"majority of guy in my group"
"FOREVOR"

I guess there are some things self-teaching just can't get right.

Re:Preach it brother

[kma]

I've worked with CS grads before and I'd consider recommending them for writing documentation or being a liason between the real programmers and the customers, but the ones I've worked with suck at writing code.

Funny, that. I've met exactly one self-taught software person who could tell his ass from a hole in the ground. Most people beating their chests about how they don't need some galdurn longhair hippy telling them how to code have learned some subset of a couple of programming languages, and think they're masters of the universe. Since programming has always been easy for them, they assume that they are gifted programmers, never stopping to notice that they aren't attempting anything particularly difficult.

Difficult programming is like chess. Even the most extremely gifted can learn a lot by studying other practitioners, and even very experienced people can benefit from the perspective that theoretical knowlege can provide. The louder someone proclaims the pointlessness of an education, the more sure I become that they've never attempted anything truly difficult.

Re:Preach it brother

[miu]

Since programming has always been easy for them, they assume that they are gifted programmers, never stopping to notice that they aren't attempting anything particularly difficult.

I really wish more people understood this.

My employer has purchased several companies in the last couple years, and in every case I've run into at least one system put together by a self-taught guru. In every case they "solve" their problem with hard-coding, kludges, or brute-force. The crappier the system the more defensiveness and ego from the creator.

We all do crap work sometimes when working under extreme time constraints, but professionals will go back and spend the time to do it right when the crisis is past. The willingness to spend the time to do it right (as well as the recognition for the the need to do so) is more common amongst college grads.

hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[Hunts]

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.

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[Anonymous Coward]

Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby

Never trust a professional who can't spell professional!

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[Anonymous Coward]

Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby.

This is bullshit. It's very sane to have hobbies that involve other things than your profession. It's called balance in your life. One can be a very good lawyer without spending hobby time reading books of law. One can be a very good salesmen without spending hobby time selling things. One can be a very good plumber without having plumbing has his hobby ... one can be a very good computer professional without spending hobby times on his computer.

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[TrekCycling]

Totally. I did this for just under a decade. Work for 10+ hours, go home and learn some more. Read 1 giant computer book per month, reinstall constantly, tinker with OSes, try to learn every language I can. It almost drove me to early retirement. Balance is good. Having other hobbies is good. Pushing away from the computer is good. Being well rounded is good. Being a computer snob is just stupid.

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[olip]

Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby.

I strongly disagree.
From my own experience, my computing skills raise when I manage to let computers a little bit out of my life. For in this spare time :
- I can have life, and it makes me stronger to solve what computers are useful to (solving real-life problems)
- I can think about the difficult programming issues I could not solve sitting in front of the machine.

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[jawtheshark]

Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby.

I completely agree. But beware, I work as a consultant and we're supposed to write our own CV to be sent to customers. So, in the personal field I mentioned my own computer experimenst (meaning my two LAN's, servers, alternative OSes, etc...)
The guy from sales asked me at once to remove it because it's "amateur stuff" and not "professional work". *Ouch* I had a fierce discussion with him, but you won't find it in my CV anymore. Yes, I still work there, but the people reading CVs (the first filters, not the technical people) don't want no amateurish sounding things in a CV.
Sad, but true...

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[Rick.C]

Oh, I don't know. To each his own, I guess, but I know an ace auto mechanic who works on his street rod for fun. My wife is a librarian and she reads incessantly. An engineer friend truly enjoyed designing and building an awesome multi-level back deck on his house.

I work on mainframes all day and would list "PCs" as my favorite hobby. I soldered my first three Z80 motherboards together myself, starting in '79, and I guess I haven't burned out yet.

While not a true indicator of someone's competency, there is some face validity in the idea that someone who is passionate about something will tend to be more proficient at it.

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[swb]

The idea is to look for someone who is independantly motivated toward self-improvement. Unfortunately, you can also end up with a serious case of tunnel vision who doesn't know anything about anything else.

It's also can be a drag to manage the job-is-my-hobby set, as they want to have pedantic arguments over every last detail and over technology choices constantly. More than once I've had to explain to people that worked for me that a large group of people with broader knowledge than them (about politics, cost, other technologies, et al) had a made a decision on technology "X" and that "X" wasn't up for debate, but the best implementation of "X" was.

Some of these people are zealots for "Y", some of these people are zealots against "X", some of these people think that using a crossover cable between '386s in the basement makes them some kind of expert in computer systems generally.

While I value their opinions and their willingness to inform themselves, there are times where they need to stuff a sock in it and do the job, even if it means something against their judgement.

Well rounded people generally don't have this problem, but they can have the problem of not enough interest to obtain depth -- it's a two way street sometimes, but the well-rounded types tend to be able to focus on getting the job done rather than needless bickering.

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[gughunter]

One of my favorite questions for a job interview (being that I design and implement networking software) is "Describe your home network"

Under American law, interviewers aren't supposed to ask about candidates' spouses and children. Isn't this pretty much the same thing?

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[(trb001)]

Eh, I'm gonna go out on a limb and disagree with you, to a certain degree. Yes, you should have a balanced life, but like with anything it's difficult to pick up the finer points of a subject unless you spend some of your free time tinkering with it. In general, those who would list computers as a hobby (I would ask specifics...computer programming? graphics? building? hacking?) are going to be better informed, have a greater love and enjoy working more. I know some people at work who hate computers...were it not for doing their taxes and checking email they probably wouldn't have them at home. Not to say they aren't good developers, but they also haven't kept up with recent technologies (read: Java), nor were they able to repair hardware if needed or realize that a small perl script could accomplish what a huge honkin c program could.

Not to say they weren't good employees either, but I can see where the parent poster is coming from...given the choice between two equal candidates, I would be more inclined to take the one with a computer hobby, so long as it wasn't his only hobby.

--trb

Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's

[mfrank]

I'm single and I live alone. I only have one computer. I have four brothers and sisters. Three of them don't make much money, so when I upgrade I give my old computer to one of them (or my parents).

I don't need more than one computer.

Quality

[leeroybrown]

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.

Re:Quality

[garcia]

that was a major reason that I left the CS program at BGSU. I felt that it was behind the times and boring. Other people I knew who were going to schools like MIT and Bucknell were learning Java and Scheme (MIT obviously) and were doing interesting coding projects I was stuck writing "grading programs for 10 students in Ms. Smith's 8th Grade Math Class".

I saw the need to learn the fundamentals of C/C++ but I didn't think that boring projects were the way to accomplish that.

Nothing like being forced to learn a non-existant version of ASM that was created by BGSU for teaching purposes. It was SO out-dated and worthless that I couldn't take it anymore.

I have since graduated with an equally worthless degree in History. At least writing papers about things that happened 300+ years ago is useful ;)

Re:Quality

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I have since graduated with an equally worthless degree in History. At least writing papers about things that happened 300+ years ago is useful ;)

Sure it is. The point is to get people to stop making the same mistakes. You know the old saying: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat the 11th grade".

babbling

[sweeney37]

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

Re:babbling

[macrom]

This is really good. If more of you out there would do soul searching and find that you really don't want to be here, and if more students would jump to the business school because "there's no longer any money in CS", then those of us left who a)love it and would rather die than not be around computers and b)know what the fuck we are doing will end up with better job security and better pay. All of these "rethinkers" and money hungry college students are doing those of us who are hardcore a huge-ass favor. Thank you non-techie wannabes!

Re:babbling

[Rinikusu]

The same here. I've been keeping/breeding fish since I was 10, got my first computer when I was 12. 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.

When I started college in 1991, they started quoting salary figures: EE's were on the top of the list, and being a so-called smart kid, EE is where I went. My dad told me then that he thought I was making a huge mistake, that I needed to be in Biology (marine biologist, fisheries, whatever). I found myself bored in EE, bored in CompSci, and basically floundered until a couple years ago when I studied hard and got a little AAS in Computer Programming.

Now I'm in the Computer Field and while it's interesting and on occasion, fun, it's really what I don't want to do. I'm turning 30 and am starting school, this time I'm finishing my bach in Ecological Anthropology (long story) but am going to head to grad school in Biology. The upside is with my tech aptitude, I'll be able to integrate my computer skills with modern research and data collection techniques rapidly, and if I'm really motivated, maybe even innovate some in those fields (some old Engineering may come back, too, in the form of creating remote monitoring solutions and what not).

Basically, I've learned that I love working with and observing animals and even though it pays shit, fuck it. I'd rather spend the rest of my life poor and happy than well-off and miserable.

Just because you like messing with computers doesn't mean you'll like doing it for a living.

Re:babbling

[DanteKy]

First, I didn't get in to CS "because of money." I got in to it because I liked video games and wanted to work on them. Shit happens and your loves change. Especially after working tech support for 5 fucking years. It really makes you dislike ppl...I'll save that for another post. The point is life throws your curves and you have to sometimes rethink shit. I still love video games, but I don't really want to work on them. I just want to play them. Currently, I am writing web apps for the tech support department where I work. So as far as a "wannabe", you should look elsewhere.

Re:babbling

[EZmagz]

Basically, I've learned that I love working with and observing animals and even though it pays shit, fuck it. I'd rather spend the rest of my life poor and happy than well-off and miserable.

My friend, you are a very very wise man. It's so easy to say that phrase over and over while you sit at your 9-to-5, yet so few people actually act upon it. I'm rapidly finding out that the work world is nothing like I expected.

I graduated as a Bio major w/a CS concentration (basically 2 courses short of a major) back in '01. I spent the last two years trying to get my foot in the door in the IT world, as I LOVE computers. The bio major was by default, since we didn't have a CS major at my school and we NEEDED to major in something. I worked some odd jobs that were kind of related to computers, but they weren't exactly what I expected.

Last week I started working for a big corporation, imaging laptops all day for upgrades and new builds. It's working with computers, so I should be happy...right? Wrong. It's only taken me one week to realize how redundant IT can be. How all my associates can't tell me what a NOP instruction does. How this job, and more importantly this FIELD, is very different from what I expected.

So now I'm looking into trying to get into grad school. Bioinformatics would be the perfect blend of my background, and it would definitely be more cutting-edge than what I'm doing now. This isn't a spontaneous decision, as I've realized that a MS would make getting a cool job easier. It just seems that this job was the push I needed, the straw that broke the camel's back, to motivate me.

My long rambling point is, there's always other options. If you don't like what you're doing, fuck it...you only live once. Leave on Friday and don't ocme back on Monday. You owe it to yourself.

Obviously...

[xYoni69x]

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.)

Interesting...

[__aagmrb7289]

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...

Re:Interesting...

[stretch0611]

But there are:

(a) Many people who like computers that suck at working with them;

I would wager that the people that generally like computers take the time to learn how to use them properly and end up working well with them

(b) Many people who don't particularly like computers that don't suck at working with them;

There are people that learn to work with computers out of necessity, but they stop learning when they can do what they need to do; only people that enjoy working with computers will go the extra mile and learn more.

(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 one.

There is still money in IT. It is harder to get it now, but it is still there. Before the bubble burst, anyone could get a job in IT, now, you have to proove yourself. If I lost my job, I feel confident showing my skills to any technical person. I only fear the HR people that toss out my resume because it is not a carbon copy of the requirements.

Re:Interesting...

[Davethewaveslave]

I only fear the HR people that toss out my resume because it is not a carbon copy of the requirements.

You've hit on a very good point, here. I was laid off from my tech job in mid-2001, right as the bubble was bursting. My attitude was that I had too much experience and knowledge to go jobless for long, and I expected to be back in the workforce within weeks. Over a year later I had been through four interviews, and only one was a second. I wasn't selected for that job, either. After submitting hundreds of resumes, I was finally offered a job by a company who FOUND MY RESUME ONLINE and thought I would be a good fit. It would have been more funny to me at the time if I hadn't been on the verge of bankruptcy.

Now my contract is almost up again. I've been applying and interviewing for almost two months. Fortunately, I've already been through more interviews in that time than I did the entire year I was unemployed. The bad news is that I still have not been selected for a job.

Very few companies tell you why you were not selected, especially ones where you don't even make the cut for interviews. One said that they found other candidates with more experience in the banking industry. Others wanted MCSE certification.

What is frustrating me right now are those front-line HR folks. I've applied for jobs that are geographically convenient for the employer and me, that I am *perfectly* qualified for, and that have a company culture that fits with my personality. I have to wonder why I am not being called for interviews. I have a 2-year degree, am an MCP, and have over six years of professional experience with some highly-respected companies. I have great customer service and communication skills that *many* IT folks lack, but in most cases even this combination is not enough to get me in the door.

The idea that a degree or certification qualifies someone for a job is laughable. I provide better support than most MCSEs that I know. I know more about computers and how they work than some of the instructors that I have had in my classes. I am one of the best desktop and network troubleshooters that I have been in contact with. (And I'm humble, too ;) Most importantly, I believe, is that I can learn anything that anyone needs me to know, and I can do it in half the time as other candidates, but how do you quantify that on a resume? How do you convince an HR drone that you just need to get your hands on the technology and everything will come together?

The earlier comment that you should only hire someone with a CS degree is crap, IMO. I was lucky enough to gain almost all of my knowledge by preforming functions, rather than reading books. I buy technical books to try and further my knowledge, but I find that until I toss the book away and simply dig in, I'll never learn as much as I am capable of. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate into a screaming resume.

I'm hoping that the economy and the technology industry will pick up again soon, at least to the point where my skills are harder to come by. Until then I have to hope that the HR folks are really taking the time to see me for what I have to offer.

DWS

Interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Of Course CS Ph.D.s are just the opposite

[sig]

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.

Re:Of Course CS Ph.D.s are just the opposite

[daveho]

I'm glad I started grad school in '98, when you basically just had to know how to (1) speak English and (2) breathe. If I had to apply now, I doubt I'd get in!

Just because you like computers...

[Kirby-meister]

...doesn't mean you're gonna be a good programmer.

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.

Re:Just because you like computers...

[TrekCycling]

Shhh.... You'll disrupt the weekly "I'm a REAL hax0r" circle-jerk taking place currently. They (geeks who think they're better than other geeks) have to go through these rantings regularly. Kind of like vulcans have to go through Pon Farr. I'm a still-employed programmer with an English degree who loves computers, but doesn't spend as much time on them as I used to. I guess I don't "deserve" to be in the industry any longer by virtue of that pedigree.

Re:Just because you like computers...

[Skyshadow]

I completely agree that love of computers != being a good programmer.

I myself am an excellent example. I've used computers forever, am extremely comfortable with them, yadda yadda yadda. But I hate programming -- how anyone sits staring at code 8+ hours a day is beyond me.

That said, being a programmer != all computer jobs. I have a history degree, but I work in the computing industry and make a fair amount of money doing so. How? Because I do what I do best: Make shit work. There has always been a huge need for people like me, and I suspect there always will be, and most CS grads don't have my skill set.

So it's all good.

Re:Just because you like computers...

[thopkins]

and Those who can't teach, teach P.E. (Phys Ed)

told to me by my 8th grade math teacher

Nothing to see here, move along

[Red Warrior]

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.

About time...

[er587]

So, I can stop cleaning up after inadequate admins

Thank God

[Jaguar777]

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.

Computer Science?

[Torinaga-Sama]

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?

Hmm...

[GreyOrange]

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.

If you don't love it, you'll be bad at it

[el-spectre]

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...'

I wouldn't recommend CS today...

[Skyshadow]

If my younger sister were still in CS, I'd be encouraging her to change majors. There was a time when a CS degree meant a good job and high earning potential. I'm pretty sure this time is over -- the US software development industy is being nailed into its coffin as we speak.

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).

Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today...

[that_guy]

I don't think the situation is that bad. What we've done is weeded out a lot of the people who didn't have the skills to compete. I know some out of work programmers, but the ones that are actually good at what they do always seem to manage to find a job quickly.

The problem is that we had so many people jumping into the field because of the boom, and when the bubble naturally burst you are left with an over abundance of workers. I forsee the current situation ending up in an equilibrium where there are not an over abundance of jobs, but not a shortage either. IE just like any other field of work.

Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today...

[jasonditz]

at the same time don't forget that even though the car industry was pronounced dead in the early 80's it still employs directly or indirectly, millions every year, many of the companies are profitable, and in fact many Japanese auto makers are off-shoring jobs TO the US to make them.

If it wasn't impossible to get in the union without a relative or a bribe that's where I'd be right now.

Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today...

[QuackQuack]

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.

Several things: 1. It's not just programming jobs, it's customer service, financial and other back-office work being off-shored too. 2. A funny thing about economics, things never turn out the way you forsee. For instance people tend to think that there are a finite number of tech-related jobs in this world, and if we send them to India, then we won't have them here. But Technology has a funny way of creating new jobs. Cheap, overseas labor may make lower-margin tech products and services possible, while higher-margin work will be done in the US and other. So in other words, the number of tech jobs will likely increase as the available labor pool increases. If you work in a tech-related field, when was the last time you heard people complain that there are too many people in your company and not enough work to do? It's almost always the opposite. Even before all the layoffs Remember, India may have lots of people, but they all can't be doing technical, out-sourced work for other countries. Many of their technical people will be needed to service their own infrastructure as it grows. Also, the more jobs you send there, the higher the salaries and other perks you'll need to pay them, so their competative edge slowly diminishes. My company is already having a retention problem in India, and has trouble finding truly qualified people over there.

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.

Many Japanese-brand cars are actually assembled in the US today. In the 70's and 80's we never could've fathomed that. (See my point about things not turning out the way you expect). But there is a big difference between Steel/Auto and other manufacturing jobs and software. The former is considered unskilled work, because you can train almost anybody to sit on an assembly line and attach a certain part to a car as it comes by. Software development is still highly-skilled, and it's not easy to find people with the right skills even in the highly populated countries like India and China.

Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today...

[that_guy]

I suppose only time will tell. From everything I've heard though it is a pretty major hassle to incorporate a programming division 1/2way across the world unless you are a very large player. There will always be startups and mid sized companies that either can't afford to or don't want to do that.

Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today...

[QuackQuack]

and there isn't a boss in the world who will choose to pay $80k a year when he could get the same value for $20k a year.

I disagree, not every boss is an amoral creep who only looks at the bottom line and would gladly fire his workforce (and often cases friends and neighbors) in favor of overseas labor.

Consider this, Silicon Valley, pre-crash, was probably the most expensive place in the world to hire tech workers. Why would companies ever locate there when they could go to say, Austin or Raleigh , NC and pay people less? By your logic, they wouldn't locate to Silicon Valley, yet they did. Also, New York City is a very expensive place to hire people. You can get people doing the same thing almost anywhere in the country, yet all those high-rises continue to be filled with workers.

The money? The love of computers?

[binaryDigit]

Hell I'm in it for all the hot chicks ;)

Ever Looked At the Current Job Requirements??

[LordYUK]

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...

Re:Ever Looked At the Current Job Requirements??

[Shalome]

I saw a job listing recently that had as a requirement "5+ years in administering Windows 2000." This was an entry-level position.

So apparently, not only do you have to be willing to work for peanuts and take entry-level jobs when you have experience... you have to be a time traveller too!

Re:Ever Looked At the Current Job Requirements??

[Salgak1]

Like the requirement for 10 years' experience in Java or Windows 2000 ???

I actually talked to one of the HR droids at a "10 years of Windows 2000" job, asking them how anyone can have 10 years experience with a 3 1/2 year old OS. . .

Her reply: Our requirements are vetted by mamagement, and are thus realistic.

So I modded the resume to show "12 years experience with Windows 2000 and related systems". . .and was called for an interview 45 minutes later.

Needless to say, I wasn't interested. . .and recently saw they filed for bankruptcy. . . All because I'd gotten a copy of Windows 1.0 as a door-prize

For me...

[st0rmshad0w]

...the allure died when I discovered users.

Quality?

[DarkSarin]

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.

Re:Quality?

[greg_barton]

Because I am not really a much at calculus, which is necessary if you want to be really good at Computer Science.

Woah, there! I'm not sure what computer science you're talking about here. Calculus? Try logic, algebra, discrete mathematics, and number theory. Trust me, you don't need to know a lick of calc to excel in CS.

"Students in computers" should be everyone

[HMV]

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.

As a greying old duffer, I wonder...

[Embedded Geek]

It would figure. Just when I'm considering quitting doing real work and going into management, this happens. It'll be bad enough trying to build an empire with a serf shortage, but competency makes it even tougher to rule with an iron fist!

My pointy hair is starting to hurt. I think I'll find someone to motivate before taking my afternoon nap.

Everyone should have known this

[jawtheshark]

If you chose an education, you should not choose what is trendy, but what you *like* or what you are *interested* in.

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*)

Me thinks

[frodo from middle ea]

Me thinks. Its good for the future of technology.
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 :-)

People who don't love CS...

[ssyladin]

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.

The "hi-tech economy" is in the same shape as the

[ChaoticChaos]

"...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.

This was to be expected

[saintjab]

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.

It's time... for a new major

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Finally!

[Trolling4Dollars]

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.

Observations.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

unfair comparison ?

[ramzak2k]

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 ?

my experience

[Mr_Silver]

I grew up with computers, spectrum zx81, speccy +3, Amiga 500+ and then PC. Knew BASIC (woo!), played games, enjoyed them. So went and did a degree.

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.

Lost Allure

[tobes]

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.

Kinda like those pre-law majors last decade.

[Ardias]

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.

It doesn't seem to make the job market easier

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The great IT labor shortage of 2006

[smack_attack]

I hope you speak Hindi.

Very few people have passion

[AYEq]

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.

Good/bad programmers, love of computing

[tpengster]

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.

Re:Back in 1989-1991 it was as it is now

[benzapp]

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

Because you fullfill a role in the machine of society does not mean you are truly alive. Computer Science is interesting stuff, but in the grand scheme of existence computers are essentially irrelevent. The average human is probably LESS happy today than before the computer was invented.

For some, philosophy is pure contemplation as you mention. For others however, it is the ultimate weapon to enslave more members of society such as yourself. I can assure you those people who created our regimented system of compulsory education and the modern work week were avid students of philosophy.

You are exemplifying a stunningly ignorant view, and I highly suggest you revise it. This world is fucked up as it is, we don't need more people who think the purpose of their lives is to work in pointless jobs.

You must not forget that the ultimate purpose of our modern society (school + employee life) was to make the vast majority of citizens dependent on the system and thereby enslave them. 150 years ago, the only people who took orders from anyone were in the military, young people learning a trade, or slaves. 90% of citizens had an independent livelihood as farmers or tradesmen.

The attitude you portray is the result of a lifetime of training, you cannot imagine what life would be like if you didn't spend it becoming an employee. You are a successful product of the social engineering machine.

I am not trying to insult you here, just trying to open your eyes to the truth. Philosophy is necessary now more than ever, as nothing else focuses on the concept of value to human life. You say philosophy is worthless, but by whose standards? Your master, thats who. By his phiosophical standards, you studying philosophy is a threat to society. You may cause trouble, perhaps even start a revolution. He made a wise decision (according to his standards) to train you over two decades to accept your place, and he has succeeded.

Read up on it, you have not yet begun to live.

This trend is a plus

[RhettLivingston]

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.

Re:This trend is a plus

[RhettLivingston]

Pertinent info from http://www.msnbc.com/news/916323.asp

Adding to the industry's employment woes is news that big investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are reportedly considering farming more of their jobs overseas to countries like India, where employment costs are significantly cheaper.

According to a recent study by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, U.S. mutual funds, banks, brokerages and insurers plan to move 500,000 jobs overseas, or about 8 percent of their workforces, overseas over the next five years, saving some $30 billion annually in operating costs.

The job relocations will begin to involve increasingly sophisticated positions, including financial analysis, research, accounting and human resources, A.T. Kearney finds. Until now, offshore job transfers have focused on back-office functions such as data entry.

Enrollment

[wmspringer]

>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..

Reality bites

[msobkow]

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.)

CompSci is futile.

[JoeCotellese]

Or they realize it's a futile effort since more and more jobs are moving to India.

Re:The great IT labor shortage of 2006

[infinite9]

I hope you speak Hindi.

Have faith. There's an element of truth to what he said. The achilles heel of the indians isn't poor people skills, poor communication skills, poor hygiene, or 3rd world code, (to quote a few common complaints) it's their culture. In general, they're all climbing the ladder. I've noticed that a lot work as programmers for only five years or so before becomming managers. So there aren't many indians with 10 or 15 years of experience. To quote morpheus, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be. This will be amplified by the lack of people coming out of college. It will be more expensive (because of low wages) to get to the 10 year mark. After that, you're employable again. You'll do the design and fix whatever 3rd world code comes back. That's your niche now. Exploit it. Avoid indian dominated technologies like oracle and java. Learn new technologies before they make it to the schools in india. I think things will return somewhat for the more experienced people. The new grads are still fucked.

Almost my turn to graduate...

[tx_kanuck]

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.

Please...

[ath0mic]

If there is one thing we should always remember, computer science != programming.
I think anyone stuyding CS will agree with this statement.

IT and CS, fields to avoid completely

[Indy1]

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.

A view from academia...

[Kid Brother of St. A]

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. :-)

Eh?

[bobm17ch]

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.

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.

...unfortunately, step 3 became:

3. Pick up minimum wage!

Oh well, I still love (cheap) computers.

Making a quick buck

[phorm]

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.

You don't NEED a computer science degree anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Insightful? The great IT labor shortage of 2006

[easter1916]

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.

What I tell people going into a computing major

[Badgerman]

1. Make sure you enjoy it. Really enjoy it. It's a lifestyle.
   
2. Make sure you know what you're doing. If you're going into a CIS major without much experience, you may be in for a nasty surprise.
   
3. Get a second major or a minor in something else that is useful, relevant, and can be combined with the computing.
   
4. Stay on top of the news, the trends, and move with the times.
   
5. Get ANY job experience, any relevant experience ASAP and always maintain that resume.
   

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.

My Anecdotal Story...

[corecaptain]

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.

Puhleeeeeze.

[DohDamit]

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.

Re:Artificial restriction of supply

[cyranoVR]

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.

Not really a fair comparison...presumedly, those governing bodies are *primarily* there to maintain some standards of competence - keeping the Dr. Nick Rivieras ("Hi everybody!") out of medicine.

A better contrasting example would be to the trade unions in this country that pump up janitor's salaries to $60k-$120k a year.