Switching from Comp. Sci. to EE?

kedalion asks: "For the past five years, I've had a good job doing perl programming for the same company but I'm starting to worry. With the current trend in the marketplace to send programming jobs overseas, I'm beginning to wonder if my job will be 'exported' in the near future. With the glut of good programmers out of work, hiring salaries will be depressed as well. About a year ago, I started going back to school to finish my computer science degree. Now, I'm starting to wonder if it would be better to abandon the CS path, and go into either computer or electrical engineering. As an older student, this choice is made even more difficult because I would need to drop to part-time to take an engineering track. Also, I'm concerned that I would only qualify for an entry-level position if I took an engineering job. Anyone have thoughts/suggestions?"

Comments

Finish your CS degree

[Apreche]

I'm a 4th year cs student. At my college, RIT, we have a co-op program. This requires me to work at 4 real world cs jobs prior to graduation. Because of this requirement I job hunt for CS jobs on a daily basis. Let me tell you what I have seen. If you don't have a CS degree you can't get a CS job worth crap. I can't tell you how many times I've seen job postings for which I meet and/or exceed the required knowledge, but don't meet the degree requirement.

What has happened is the .com boom ended, but companies still need programmers. But because there are so many out there, and because of cheap overseas labor, they are only going to hire the best. All the coders who lost their jobs at the end of the boom can't get rehired, because most of them didn't finish their degrees. I know too many people in that position, and now they can't afford to finish college.

If you are willing to relocate to anywhere in the country CS jobs are not hard to find. But having a degree is an absolute must. Companies are just throwing away every resume that doesn't have a degree written on it. So, if you like CS more, finish it up. If you really like EE a whole lot more than CS, switch it up. Do what you like. There are jobs for people who finish college.

Get a grip!!!

[Otter]

OK, please stop panicking, everyone.

Yes, there is outsourcing going on. Yes, there is a completely real, entirely serious issue here. But the panic that's set in over the last 6 months that every high-tech job in the US is about to be packed off to India is insane. It's completely counterproductive and has a nasty undertone of racism, to boot.

People need to grasp the fact that 1998 isn't coming back, and that you're not going to get paid a fortune to reboot servers or do Flash animations. That doesn't mean that no one will ever write code again east of Calcutta.

Re:Get a grip!!!

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

Why won't the majority of technical jobs be packed off to developing countries with similarly educated workforces that cost 1/6th of US wages? If you're a businessperson, making decisions about performance for stock holders, wouldn't you see that as a great way to boost efficiency?

That's what business people do. That's why we had record growth last quarter but no jobs.

While there has been some racist undertones are the part of the unintelligent who have heard of this issue, no one with half a clue would blame India for this. Indians are simply doing what we've suggested and hoped they would for years.

The problem is that over the next few years, anything technical, from research to implementation is up for grabs in the global marketplace. A worker in those fields in the US is 7x more expensive. If the work can be done offshore, it will be. The only jobs left in the US will belong to companies who require onsite teams and jobs that require interfacing with customers. And health care, cause there are a lot of baby boomers who will need their asses wiped, real soon now.

Due to our lax immigration policies and foriegn investment, we don't have the labor shortage that Japan is facing due to an aging population. This country needs to create 120,000 jobs a month to absorb new entrants to the labor market.

I don't think people are whining cause they can't get a history degree then start making US$65K a year writing HTML. People with 8+ years of experience are worried about finishing their careers in this profession. And even if the labor market for tech workers shrinks so much to make it desirable to switch careers, where would one go?

The Dept of Labor still thinks 8 of the top 10 growth jobs are in IT and tech. Recent trends show this isn't happening. Newsweek (or Time?) last Nov. had an article that talked about how everyone still seems to think the job growth is in IT and tech. None of these reports take into account the recent offshoring trends.

The problem is the fact that IBM is hiring Indian lawyers to do US legal work, Indian CPAs are being trained in the US tax code. GE opened a pure research facility in India. Every technical job that can be offshored will be.

So what is the average US citizen supposed to train themselves in? What industry is left? Business administration? Nursing? What will the country actually produce? Talk about trade deficit.... If everything we consume or every service we use is created overseas, what will Americans do?

The only other areas of job growth, in the reports I mentioned, other than IT and tech were food service and other blue collar, low wage positions. This is a serious problem for the middle class.

Even if we manage not to export all the white collar jobs in this country, there will be less oppurtunity for those who want to achieve the middle class dream. Also, every historian and political analyst will tell you that democracy and capitalism seem to work best with a strong middle class.

That's what I'm concerned about. I want to know what I can do that will earn me enough to raise kids, provide them with a good education, save for retirement and not have to worry that my family's security rests on a house of cards.

I'm not even worried about getting any potential offspring all the oppurtunities in the world. Just at least the same ones I had and that most middle class kids in this country have had.

I don't see a "market solution" to this problem. We aren't on the verge of any tech revolution. There's no amount of productivity gains I will be able to capitalize on, that my Indian counterpart won't, that will make me 7x more efficient. This isn't like losing manufacturing. We're losing jobs that took members of our population 4-6 years to train in. Retraining these people in comparable fields is going to be a drain on the national output.

I personally think we need to rethink letting capital flow so much more freely than labor and goods internationally. I also think we nee

Re:Get a grip!!!

[moncyb]

The Dept of Labor still thinks 8 of the top 10 growth jobs are in IT and tech. Recent trends show this isn't happening. Newsweek (or Time?) last Nov. had an article that talked about how everyone still seems to think the job growth is in IT and tech. None of these reports take into account the recent offshoring trends.

Several years ago, when I was going for my degree in Electronics (graduated with an Associates, had the option of going for a BS in EE, but didn't bother), the Department of Labor was saying similar things for the electronics field. The Electronics Dept. at the school proudly displayed the articles. When I started looking for a job with my major, they just didn't seem to be there. The thing is, they weren't exactly wrong, just the jobs don't end up helping people who graduated with any sort of electronics or EE degree.

Many of the jobs (for the newer graduates) having to do with electronics are either low-skilled, need skills which have nothing to do with EE, or are just low paid. The only job I got with my major was a solder jockey (electronics assmbly). It paid less than the McDonald's a few blocks away. I bet they also count the jobs of people who distribute electronic products. (Worked in the shipping dept of a computer cable distributer too.) I worked in a printing company for a while, and they had a department which made little electrical dongles by printing conductive material onto sheets of plastic--you needed skill in printing, not electronics.

There are also jobs (yes, US jobs) working in semiconductor (aka computer chips) manufacturing plants. (At least as of a few years ago, but I haven't kept track) Those jobs are somewhat better paid, but mostly because workers are dealing with hazardous materials, and not because of any EE degree they may have. In fact, most of those jobs don't really need any sort of electronics degree at all.

Yes, outsourcing has taken some of those jobs, but that is not the only factor. (I haven't even gone into things like how patent parasites are ruining the system, among other things.)

Though, those with EE degrees and twenty or thirty years experience seem to be fine. They are still needed. The problem is they fill the market. (To the person who wrote the ask slashdot) If you go into EE now, then you'll have to wait until those guys retire until you'll even have a chance at a job. Do you really want to wait around a couple decades for a job? By then things may have changed so much, your degree will be useless. Everything my go optics or genetic sequencing or whatever. Think of someone who trained before the days of the transistor--most of the stuff was vacuum tubes and mechanical switches. Some of it would translate over, but you'd probably be overlooked as having outdated skills anyway.

I think the same thing is happening with the CS field. Those with several years of experience and really know what they are doing won't have too much trouble in the long term (I could be wrong). Everyone else won't be able to find a high paying job in "IT". To be able to make it in a technology industry, you have to get in on the leading edge of the wave.

Most of those IT jobs the dept of labor keeps talking about will most likely end up being unskilled install/retry/reboot admin drones, clueless tech support drones, and other jobs which have nothing to do with a CS degree.

If I were going for a college degree these days, and it just had to be in some tech area, I'd be looking for something on the leading edge. Say maybe nanotechnology or genetic engineering. Though such a thing would still be a gamble.

If you're looking for a profession to make a decent living, the old standbys are the best bet. Doctor, lawyer, management, etc.

I'd suggest the ask slashdot summitter look into getting a combined management degree (my school called it "Technology Management") or somesuch, then the CS classes won't be wasted. At the very least, you should be able to make somewhat decent money commanding the hordes of tech-support drones...

Re:Don't Even Think About It!

[stevew]

I'm a practicing EE - have been for 25 years.

I work for a consulting company that has half their staff in India, i.e. we actively outsource EE work there. Becoming an EE isn't going to protect you from this trend. Doing ANYTHING in high-tech is probably open to being sent over-seas at some level.

The only reason I still have a position (I live in Sillycon Valley) is because I DO have 25 years of experience. I do architecture work, project lead work, etc. I have LOTS of friends who are out of work, and have been for a year or better.

I can safely say that I would recommend someone going for a degree OTHER than EE or CS for the time being. What EVER you do - the fact that you've got some practical experience is going to help you...but the life-long career in EE or CS is really a harder choice than it was when I got into it.

Good Luck!

Well, sort of...

[GCP]

I agree that people often overreact to a change, and this is no exception.

But for you to set up the strawman that "*every* high-tech job in the US is about to be packed off to India" and knock it down with the assurance that it won't actually be every single one isn't much of an argument.

Yes, of course, there are still going to be programmers in the US. There are still steel workers and, for that matter, farmers and coal miners, but I wouldn't want to be one of them.

People are right to view this as a genuine structural change that has implications for career-related decisions such as a college major. They can do so without being guilty of "panicking".

I think the question is quite sensible, and "get a grip" and "stop panicking" aren't very useful answers.

And I think your "nasty undertone of racism" remark is bunk. You can always find an example of name-calling when people get frustrated and label an entire argument "racism, racism!", but that's mostly a red herring used to shut people up. If the jobs were going to Moscow instead of Bangalore, people would be just as upset and making the same arguments ("we're better than they are", "their quality isn't good", "they can't communicate", "our bosses are greedy and short-sighted", etc.) The issues would be the same.

And many of the most upset are Asian Americans (both East Asian and South Asian) who are having their previously elite status seriously eroded by large numbers of those they thought they left behind in the Old Country.

I don't see anyone doing anything wrong here. It's just the natural balancing of supply and demand at work, but it's a whopper of a change that people need to factor into their personal plans.

That won't save you...

[stienman]

The skills you need to obtain and keep a job in the USA are not the technical skills you learn in a CS or EE or CE or whatever program. The skills you need are

1) The ability to network
2) The ability to detect and understand business trends within your company and within your industry
3) The ability to put forth convincing proposals for your solution, whether that solution is buying particular hardware, settling on a platform, or selling yourself
4) The skill of shopping yourself around constantly, even if you are satisfied with your current position
5) etc.

The key here is not that companies are shipping your jobs to other countries, it is that they are making a product for the lowest cost possible, which is what they must do to sell it to consumers or other businesses. If you can present yourself as a low cost/return ratio, then you will always have a job if you are constantly and consistantly involved in looking for one.

Don't buy into all this nonsense about your ideal work being shipped out. Understand that it will be, and then become the person that the company must hire in order to manage that outsorcing. You can spin this is many ways, but there's always a job for a good worker, or at least a good communicator.

-Adam