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Computer Engineering Degree Most Valuable
Anonymous Squonk writes "CNN reports on the National Association of Colleges and Employers quarterly salary survey. Computer Engineering degree holders once again command the highest starting salaries at an average of $53,117, but Chemical Engineering is gaining rapidly, and Computer Science graduate's salaries are up 8.9% over the year before. Most of the other geek disciplines rank high on the list as well." While starting salaries for some degrees are up, the overall situation is not very good - indeed, your salary may be decreasing.
Wow, that starting salary must be appreciated by all 5 graduates who were able to find jobs.
Honestly, until something is seriously done by the government and companies (determing a percentage that can be offshored, completely redoing the tariffs in the so-called "free trade" agreements, etc.), it's difficult to make a case for going to a college or university. To train for what? Everyone behind a desk is vulnerable to being offshored.
Thankfully, Lou Dobb's program is putting the spotlight on this issue each evening! Tonight, he's going to focus on the companies who are the worst abusers of offshoring. Last night, he focused on the owner of a Tool and Die shop who is complaining that "free trade" has ruined his business and it's about to go under. His specific complaints were that tariffs on his stuff going to China is 29.9%. Stuff coming from China to the US has a tariff of 3%. In Mexico, they freely use and dump chemicals that he would go to jail for dumping. This is free trade? Our elected officials agreed to this? Holy cow! The playing field is not level or even close to being level.
Until the tariffs are equal and labor/enviromental issues are equal with our trade partners, America is going to continue to lose jobs, companies, and wealth. Our future is slowly being flushed down the porcelin convenience. Our own beloved industry - IT - has near double-digit unemployment. Good luck to new graduates trying to enter.
53k for a computer engineering degree and 32k for a psychology degree? if only it were true! I think they got those numbers wrong somehow, my sister who just got a mba in psychology earns twice my salary even though i've been working at IBM as a senior system administrator for 6 years.
seriously, 50k? where were you when i was looking for a job?
I'd rather know about the money I'll be making five to ten years into the job. If the company has starting salaries too high, chances are they aren't going to be around that long.
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You're probably right. We'll always need doctors in every town because people get sick and need to get better. But we won't always need software creators in town because the townspeople don't actually NEED them there -- the software engineering process can take place anywhere and still meet the requirements.
How does this compare to the outsourcing to india?
When I started college over 4 years ago, the average salary of a grad (from my school, for my degree) was over $60,000/year.
When I graduated last year, it dropped below $40,000, and it was extremely difficult to find a job. I have a friend with the same computer related degree with a 3.92/4.0 gpa who still hasn't found a job yet. And yes, I know that gpa doesn't always equate to ability/productivity, but this guy is really good.
I'm glad to see that things are back on the upswing for technology, even if this is just a start.
What is the difference between Computer Engineering and Computer Science? I had always thought they were different names for the same subject. Does Engineering deal mostly with the hardware aspect?
at a Fortune 500, and I'm responsible for our campus recruiting program.
The majority of candidates we are seeking are those with Comp Sci degrees. To any kid entering college now, take my advice - go to Washington University in Saint Louis.
We're hired from universities all over Canada and the United States, and I can tell you that the quality of hires from Washington University is far beyond that of any other school, including Waterloo, Carnegie Mellon, Caltech, etc.
Just one HR executives advice...
This comes as a bit of a revelation to me. I sat and compared these figures to to my school (Georgia Tech's) published figures on average offer granted to graduates in each field, and Tech comes out consistently about 4-5 thousand higher than these figures.
If you're an out of state student.. like me.. this gets eaten up by extra loans quickly, but if you're fortunate enough to be in-state this can probably be a real help.
The sad(der) part is that nursing and elementary teaching are in the bottom five of the list with both of them going down.
Nurses and Teachers are the people who should be paid better. Oh well.
Free XBox, PS2
Lots of money is great, but what about the people who have a love for computing?... To me as long as I am happy with my work, the people I work with and I dont have to worry about where my next meal comes from then thats all the beans. If youve noticed, a lot of people are getting into the field JUST for the money, I'd like to see maybe 5-10 years down the road all the high money chasers go and the people who actually WANT to do this type of work stick.
The title "Computer Engineering" can mean so many things, though.
I know it was all about the internal computers from microwaves, stereos, etc. where I went to school. CE people had a very good combination of IT, CS, and various microprocessor-related engineering skills.
What does it mean to you?
One thing to remember is that salaries are very region dependent, so a Computer Engineering degree may not command the highest starting salaries in your region.
Or is it just me ?
The happenings at Matrox are a good example of great college grads from all the good schools with *ZERO* experience
Sunny Dubey
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I find that most computer related degrees are "chasers." They mix well with other skills. They allow you to computerize something such as a medical thing, or an automotive thing, as you make a tool. Afterall, computers are only tools. What good is a tool without a purpose?
Well at least thats the way on the software side. I got my MSCE (oh yea, thats Masters of Science in Computer Engineering...) while working for an automotive Company. I have not changed fields and am probably not making nearly as much as I could. But I fear for job stability so I hang around.
Besides, we are adding more and more electronics to cars plus they are several automotive network technologies such as LIN, CAN, J1850, CCD, etc. Automotive field is not too bad a place for a CE.
Notwithstanding, our managers are also smoking The India Pipe(TM).
At my school (University of Utah), the primary difference between Computer Science and Computer Engineering was, you needed much better grades to get into Computer Science.
At the end of your freshman year, the top 70 students got to continue in CS, the rest have to switch to CE or EE or Art History or something. With about 200 students taking the freshman CS courses, you really had to bust ass to make the cut. Now I find out those slackers are making more than me? WTF!!!!
Geez to think of all the partying I could have done that year.
Yeah, but if the beginning salary is too low - are you willing to work there for five to ten years to make your way up to what you could/should have been making when you were hired?
I'm in this exact case. I keep hearing, "you'll be rewarded down the road" and "if we're around in five or ten years, you'll have a great position because you'll have been here from the beginning." I'd rather be making a "competitive" salary now instead of hoping to get enough raises over the years to equal what I could find elsewhere.
Me first. Company second. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
When i entered school I had this illusion that most entering tech students have of the fabled "average starting salary". Of course, now being a graduate, and watching very few of my peers get anywhere near that salary (and i was well above average in my dept), that school recruiting jargon is entirely debunked. The fact is some lucky bastards will nab a probably undeserved job for 100 grand, most will start out at 40 if they are lucky, and all in all, none of it will matter because it just might be that several of those who start out at 40 or less will go on to run a company rather than work for one, and make quite a bit more than the guy who has worked for 100 grand during all his 20s (and then promptly lost his job when his employers a) went bankrupt from paying a programmer so much, or b) offshored). And thats why you should not eat twinkies and speak russian.
Irrelevant? I think not.
"You're never going to get rich working to make someone else rich."
This was told to me while I was working as a software engineer commanding a decent salary. But I wasn't making the real money. That job belonged to my boss, who saw it fit to pay me a skim from his profit for a job I performed.
What was I to do? Whine? Talk about how "greedy" he was? Criticize him for his lack of technical skills (compared to mine)?
All of that is excrement. Instead, I chose to become an entrepreneur. I found partners, made deals, and now am in the process of opening my second restaurant as well as selling things over television and Internet. I think about business all the time, and work suddenly has become very, very fun. Life itself feels like a massively multiplayer game.
Oh, and here's another piece of advice that I learned that I wish someone had told me earlier: Anyone will loan you any some of money as long as they are convinced that it's in their best interest to do so.
Stop working for someone else. Find partners. Find investors. Find a way that you can make a business work. It's exhilirating and fascinating. And you won't go back once you are free.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
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Exactly.
The starting salary is proportional to a company's interest in sending this job offshore.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Local jobs are not going over seas. It's the big boys that are sending jobs away, not the local Mom & Pop companies. Concentrate on those and you'll do fine. Here's all you need: Be a native born English speaking American that has a college degree and several years experience in IT. That's it.
Show the local companies how you can provide fast, high-quality service and support 24/7 and they'll pay dearly to secure your services.
Some dude or chick sitting in a cube in Bombay can't help me when 1. Their English sucks 2. I just lost a HDD from mechanical failure. My frustration level will be sky-high from having to deal with these clowns so I'd be thrilled to see a local engineer who clearly understands what I'm saying and who can be a local presence to fix these everyday IT problems. I'd pay him more too because I actually see what I'm paying for.
The moral of this story: Don't work for IBM, HP, Dell or any other mega-IT company because your job will go to India or Pakistan or China. Develop local business contacts and you'll make a killing... I do. Hell, I took several classes in PR (Public Relations) just to sharpen up my business proposals. It's a no-brainer.
Please find me a job for a high school grad that starts out at $40,000.
To think if I only made $53k out of college, I'd be taking a 50% paycut.
Good thing I didn't waste my time and energy on a useless college education.
Here's a similar chart from the American Institute of Physics (Fall 2003). They give a range of typical salaries for each degree type, which is an important fact - ChemE students earned 50-55k, while students with a Physics BS pulled in a much larger range, from about 32-52k.
Interesting to note that secondary school teachers seem to have the least opportunity salary-wise (as far as that chart shows); not only is their salary low, but they're locked in to the narrowest range, from about 27-32k.
Computer Engineering degree holders once again command the highest starting salaries at an average of $53,117
Here in the Midwestern US, the starting salary for a retail pharmacist is more than $80,000. Surely it's even more in other parts of the country where the cost of living is so much higher.
I wonder why they aren't included in the survey.
It's easier to wear the spandex than to do the crunches. --David Lee Roth
What are you doing about it though? Are you writing your congressman? The whitehouse? The Press? Or are you doing nothing? We (American Programmers) who are working and aren't working need to become more involved in politics, and not just the EFF either.
Since I'm always posting about education, I can report that if you go into an education field (ie Technical Director) things are still going like gangbusters. In a town of less than 20,000 people, my former boss is making $90,000 a year doing little more than occupying a chair. He has little computer knowledge and depends on "consultants" for his duties. A good job if you can get it...but seriously, there is a great need for "good" computer people in education. Not ones that can toe the Microsoft line, but ones that can TRULY innovate and turn over the festering pile of compost that educational computing has become.
I can vouch for this personally...
I took this job about 6 months after I graduated. I was slinging subs at Subway at the time, so I was desperate. It's a well established insurance company, not a startup, but it's just as bad. I got the whole "This is what you start at (~$30K), and if you do well then you'll be promoted" story. Three years later, I'm still making less then most of my friends from college started at. About the only thing I can do is keep working for the experience and look for another job elsewhere. But it's not easy...the work I'm doing can't really be applied to any other industry, so I'm doing side projects for experience. Take it from someone with experience. Do what you have to in order to survive, but think carefully about your future before you take that job...
I am a Chemical Engineer that graduated in 1999. My graduating class averaged about what the national average was, and almost 5 years later I can complain about a few things, but I know that mostly it is not justified, especially considering how difficult the last few years have been for many professionals. I am working in a R&D Fab, and enjoy what I am doing. I am considering taking some CS on the side so I can contribute more to OSS.
and I say that it's one of the most difficult engineering curriculums out there. I've had to take a lot of math (multi-variable calculus and differential calculus), a good bunch of science (physics, chemistry; 2 semesters worth), and a nice broad range of engineering courses like Linear Systems and Microcontrollers and many more. If a job expects you to use all of this in the workplace, $53k is well-deserved.
I've seen countless people that started out next to me change majors to another engineering discipline, Computer Science, IT and even Education. I wouldn't be a senior in Computer Engineering if I didn't really enjoy the field, and I think that people that dropped out just didn't have the CE mojo.
Also, a little off-topic, I heard today that in 5 years, the baby boomers are going to start retiring, leaving those entering the workplace a lot of jobs. Also, for every 2 jobs opened up by the baby boomers, there will only be 1 person to fill it.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
sounds like the situation i was in...
I was a temp for 2.5 years, 2 of which i was doing the same job i am now (so i wasnt being moved around or such) and pretty much being my own boss (me and an intern were pretty much running the dept, he was there for ~2 yrs). when they finally hired us, it was pretty much an insult. sure, more than what we were making at the time, and we finally got benefits; but it was not a substantial pay raise. and no bonus or any thanks for staying around for so long during 'tough' times or anything.
in other words, dont get you're hopes up. then again, your field is probably completely different than mine, so i could be wrong.
my advice: keep looking for work elsewhere. take what you can get when you can get it. i feel like i wasted almost 3 years of my life being a temp, while doing the work of a full-timer.
The dollar figures on these "average starting salaries" need to be taken with a shakerful of salt. In many parts of the country, a Comp Sci degress and 15 years of experience still won't get you $48,656. I spent most of last year job hunting, so I have some idea of what people in various industries around here (W.Mich.) are paying. And it's not just that I'm unqualified for any of the good jobs; I'm also counting the jobs I didn't even get interviewed for. Only a few of the jobs I applied for even broke $40K.
What is the difference between "Computer Engineering" and "Computer Science" in the US, and any thoughts on why is accounts for a difference in starting salary? Paul
Paul Leader
>Me first. Company second.
Put this on top of every resume you send out.
How delusional is the alternative now?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
the shortage is that there are not enough jobs for all the certificate and nothing else holders. Are they really IT/DP/CS professionals?
The company I work for has hired a few people in the last year. First requirement on every position BS in something, usually BSCS (CSEE doesn't exist much around here, so they only cover it under "related fields").
So, the job market is recovering slowly, and we are in no danger of outsourcing even job 1 here.
I'm surprised to see Civil Engineering so low on the scale; not even in the top ten. I'm hoping that number climbs a bit over the next few years, and with the reconstruction thats going to need to be done in Iraq, it just might. I'll cross my fingers, anyways.
I'd be interested to find out where the salaries went from here, say ten years further down the road. In the places I've worked, it seems that Civil Engineers end up in a lot of the management positions, with the other disciplines working under them. I don't know if that's because Civ E's tend to get construction management type courses at the undergrad level (at least around here), combining some basic economics, with a lot of scheduling and other 'management' skills.
Wow, that's amazing, because I recently returned from a career fair here at Caltech, and nearly every job needed a heavy programming background. The problem (for you) is, that they want other skills too.
Your REAL problem is that an increasing number of students majoring in physics, chemistry, math, etc have learned to program pretty damned well. That gives us a huge advantage - we can take a job that uses either our science knowledge, programming skills, or more likely both. Companies get somebody with a wider range of skills.
As such, I think the best idea is a major in the physical sciences or better yet, EE, with a CS minor (or double major).
I guarantee you this - if you had an EE/CS double major, or even EE major/CS minor, you'd be beating companies away with a stick. Particularly here in California.
I make 60 k a year as an art director for an up and coming storage software company. For the work I do I should be paid 80k or more... up to 120k..depending on the time involved.
However I only work in the office 30 hours a week, despite the fact that I'm on salary... at least ten hours at home though... works for me.
I do more when the need arises... 50 or 60 hours a week if necessary.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Maybe it's just that good in the US, because holy crap that's a high average starting salary. Here in the UK the current average computing starting wage (based on my own experience and that of my friends) is something like 20k GBP (37k USD). I have a high-pass degree in Computer Science from a well respected university, but with the current computing job climate it would be seriously hard to get a job paying more than 25k GBP (46k USD) as a starting wage. (Hell, I'm not even on that much yet - far from it!)
It's extremely annoying, given that mechanics and plumbers (or even totally unskilled jobs like shunting boxes around a warehouse, which I did for a year or so a while back) can earn you almost as much as it's possible to earn with a degree these days.
The value of degrees has been reduced due to the UK government's insane scheme to get more and more people to go to university. We don't need more people to go to university - we need to make it harder to go to university so that only the people who really want to do it (and have the skills) can go, rather than lowering the difficulty of getting a degree so that the people who loaf it through university can also get degrees. It should be HARD to get a degree - I'm not saying it was easy, but I think it could have been harder. A degree should mean something, but these days I'm not sure it really does, because "everyone has one".
My youger brother decided not to go to university, and is an apprentice quantity surveyor in the building trade. He's a very intelligent guy, but it's just not worth him getting a degree. In five years time, I will be absolutely unsurprised to hear that he's earning considerably more than me (which he almost certainly will be).
Degrees aren't all they're cracked up to be, and the "extra" money you earn for having one barely covers the cost of going to university for four years in the first place.
I'm glad I have a degree, but it's not the big money earner it's cracked up to be - jobs are just too scarce at the moment. Personally, I blame the people who did computing degrees around the time of the dot com boom because they needed a degree and heard it was "where the money was". Now, there's a surplus of computer qualified people around, meaning that plenty of us who are actually really enjoy computers and are good at what we do can't get jobs because the gold-rush crowd are still hanging around.
Organic free-range music... yum!
...dont teach your students that they will get a 60,000.00 a year job...
You wounder why they out source to india and such...
Mabye just Mabye it's the fact that everyone whos jobs are being outsourced are looking for a starting salary of 60,000 and will not accept lower.
I have one job i make 25,000
I started at 20,000
And yes im in the Comp Sci industry
I recently transferred from a Computer Engineering program into Computer Science for a couple of reasons. Computer Engineering seems to be much more oriented around getting people ready for cubicle work on team projects, alot of emphasis goes into group work and labs. However the subject matter covered in my second year computer engineering courses was quite questionable in terms of how much computer education you get with the degree. I would say, at least at my school, the engineering programs are sold as highly structured, rigorous and competitive programs. The biggest problem I had with computer engineering was the subject coverage, we were in 90% of the electrical engineering courses, including electromagnetics. You work hard for the degree taking harder *base* knowledge courses but get less involved in specialized areas. Computer science, at least where I go to school (Queen's University, in ontario), seems to be a much more involving program that deals with alot of in-depth material that actually covers the wider spectrum of the computer world.
To sum it up, *in my opinion*, Computer Science covers the theory to application process and is closely tied to the real world of Computing, whereas Computer Engineering gives you a broad view of the possibilities while crunching through alot of busy work to "build character". When I added up the pros and cons of transferring I was almost in tears of joy to learn that playing with the linux kernel, tinkering with OpenGL were courses, and not distractions as such activities were in computer eng. Then again, I am a person who benifits exponentially from applying knowledge and not just memorizing and reading till the cows come home.
I find it interesting that in the face of Indian Outsourcing, a company called *International* Business Machines is my best prospect for a job, that I can think of. I'm going to graduate with a degree in Computer Science in July or August (not sure which one yet). I am cautiously optimistic, and am looking at Boston, MA (I live in Flagstaff, AZ).
Evreyone behind a desk is vulnerable to being offshored.
Two guys standing around in an office
1: My job is safe! I'm a temp, and I only work part of the time
2: In that case, they'll replace you with a copy machine.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Finally some good news about my education (Computer Engineering). I graduate in a few months, and for the past four years it has been nothing but doom and gloom (No jobs, and now outsourcing).
Keynes arguing for protectionism furing the Great Depression
Adam Smith didnt like "free trade", either
... hi bingo
Why do we have this fascination and finality for what is only one number, and not by any means an accurate portrayal of the trend.
What is the mode?
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!
I'm glad someone else brought this up. "Yeah, I know wustl; they've got that badass ftp server!" Of course, I haven't used it since high school...
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
You were working at Subway for how much?
And you have spent how many years getting good experience?
And how much worse off would you be if you didn't take this job 3 years ago? (I am assuming that you have been looking for another job but you can't find one with 3 years experience)
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
At my school U of MD at College Park, computer engineering is usually considered the hardest major in the school, followed by EE, and then CS. The irony is that you'll ask a CS major if he could hack EE, and he'd almost certainly say "HELL NO!", and if you asked the EE whether he could do CS, he'd respond the same way.
Neither engineering nor CS have any sort of GPA requirements. If you can keep your head above water, they'll keep you. Naturally, GPAs are lower because the classes are harder.
The reason CE is considered so hard is that they hit you with the hardest CS courses (Operating Systems comes to mind) and you get more than a bit of EE (which, of course, is not trivial either). CS and EE afford you the luxury of only having to know EE or CS, not both (well, except for a bit of cross-training, not enough to impress anyone).
However, don't confuse this with "CEs can program better than CS majors at UMCP". They can't. Their knowledge of more esoteric languages like Lisp and Prolog ends up suffering in the process, and they're missing out on quite a bit of algorithm theory.
I'm a CS/Econ double major, and it's like accounting and economics. Yes, I've taken a massive amount of statistics and finance courses, but that doesn't mean I'd be the better accountant of a guy with a business degree in finance. Ditto for CE and CS - he's got harder courses, but it doesn't make him a better programmer, because I've got more of them where it counts.
In other words, the two majors aren't at all the same, and the idea of using CEs as the "better" cheap labor for coding isn't thought-out very well. (No, this isn't in response to the parent, but it's something I needed to say). I have no interest in being some kind of lowly code slave, which is why I got the Econ degree, too.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Anyhow, there's no one solution for each person in my mind. Whether you at your job or some other guy at another job would benefit from collective bargaining (e.g. joining a union) is a decision best made by the individual. Then there's the professional organizations like the Programmers Guild as well. But it's obvious to me that SOME type of professional organization is needed - I mean every other profession, except maybe McDonalds workers, have some type of professional organization, be it a union or more like the AMA/ADA/ABA. And our bosses sure as hell have Chamber of Commerce like guys in Washington DC making sure H1-Bs visa caps rise, or at least are not lowered and things like this. The ITAA is the main association that does this, Microsoft, Intel, IBM and so forth give them millions a year to mostly screw IT workers in Washington DC. Plus they have a PR department that gets news media articles written that said there was a massive shortage of IT workers in the late 1990's and H1-B visas needed to be raised. In fact that's a standard line they are paid to push like tobacco lobbyists who say smoking is not bad for you, these people are still saying there's a shortage or will be soon, they always say that, they're paid to say that.
Finally I should point out that there is a lot of corporate funding for organizations like the IEEE, USENIX (SAGE), ACM and so forth. In some respects it's kind of ridiculous, it would be like having HMO's pay for and to some extent control the AMA. But anyhow, if you're in these organizations it's good to talk to other people and educate and agitate about it, but there has been internal politic problems in the past, and while doing some of that is good, you should also keep in mind that there are avenues and organizations available to you outside of them, like the Programmers Guild and other organizations. And if you don't like any of them, and know others who are dissatisfied, you can always start your own organization, web site, whatever.
So 35% of them get in? And you're complaining that you have to bust ass? Wow.
The Engineering program at the U of Alberta has a common first year, with usually around 750 students. about 30% of the fail out of engineering altogether, and only the top 15 get into the coveted Engineering Physics program. Another 30 get into Chem E: Computer Process Control, from there, the rest of the programs fill up. Never more than 120 students per program. If you wanted something other than Civ E, Mec E, or EE, busting ass didn't even begin to describe it.
Perfect example of what you are talking about happens to performers. Opera singers pay out of the nose to study and make little money until they land a long term gig professionally and get well known.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
what does one do if one graduated during the recession? I had a 3.1 in compsci. But I don't have that "new grad smell" because I graduated in 2002.
How the heck does one get an interview these days? All the "entry level" stuff I see on monster has requirements that I can't touch, 3 years of experience, etc. I've been lucky to get an interview at all. Did the grads of 2002 & 2003 fall out the loop? I mean, do recruiters consider the state of the economy when asking you "why did you do non-technical work for the last ~year"? It doesnt seem so.
So am I a "throwaway" graduate? Is there something I can use my degree for other than wiping my rear or do I have to go get 3 certs and a masters to afford a car? (BTW, am I wrong to fear getting a masters before I can solidify some kind of career entry? I hear a lot of people complain that "over"education is not pretty at hiring time)
I guess if there was an easy answer we'd all be rich right?
I work with a Utah CS grad, and sometimes I wonder what they taught him there.
Either the weeder classes were way easy, or this guy miraculously made the cut. I thought the U had a good CS program until I started working with this guy.
Disclaimer: I am a BYU grad (ducks).
-- yawn. --
a companies best interest is to pay you the absolute bare minimum that it takes to keep you around, and not a dime more.
you need to negotiatie up front for the best compensation possible. all future raises will be based on that going forward.
... hi bingo
Me first. Company second. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
Putting yourself first isn't always about salary. Young engineers should be more concerned with the technology that they are learning and less about salary. Ultimately, engineering skills are a commodity. If you take the opportunity to develop unique and desirable skills, you will make more money over the long haul than someone with more common skills that chose projects on the basis of salary. You will also be more employable in difficult times. That's how you get rewarded down the road.
I can honestly say that I've always chosen the job that was more technically exciting or seemed like a big long term payoff because it was a risky challenge instead of short term financial gain. I've gotten screwed a few times when companies failed and the sure thing at a better salary would have netted more. But I look back without any regrets because I was always enjoying what I did.
Wow, we worked for the same company, and I don't even know you ?! *grin*
Seriously, me losing my job with those bozos (they didn't like it when I flatly stated I was not going to work unpaid hours outside version release periods) was the best thing that happened to me; I'm now working for a larger company that actually (imagine that!) pays for overtime.
Ich werde nie wieder denken
Being a recent CS graduate from a large State university, and currently working in data entry I wish all of you better luck than I have had. The competition, at least here is insane. I had 18 interviews last year and was passed up on them all. Worked at an italian restaraunt for a few months, now am doing data entry for about half what I spent on my college tuition. Though, I have a few friends that have become very successful with their degrees. The key to their advancement, they all worked networking jobs throughout college, I didn't. Thus the experience is lacking on my resume. I wish all those seeking CS or engineering degrees the best of luck, and get as much experience as you can. For those that do find jobs are doing very well for themselves.
I just got my first (cost-of-living, at that) raise in three years, and that's with an intervening 10% cut. Companies, those that survived this long into the dot.bomb, and managing to stay afloat by these draconian measures.
Times have changed: when I started in the industry (1992) it was not uncommon to see 15%, 25%, or even 30% raises on a regular basis. Not anymore.
I was making minimum wage at Subway. I've spent the last three years getting experience on an AS400 system that is currently being replaced. The new system is PeopleSoft, but I haven't gotten to do any development yet. If I hadn't taken this job three years ago, I would have taken the job I was offered three months after I started working here, which would have been more money plus VB and web work, but I didn't because I decided to stick it out here to see if things would get better. If I had taken that job, however, I would have been end-dated about 6 months ago because they've been cutting jobs. I would probably have a new job by now because I would have had good experience in web development, and I'd probably be making about $20K more a year then I do now. But we'll never know if that would have happened. It might not have happened that way, but I can't really see it being much worse. After doing this job, I'm seriously considering going back to school for a different career.
I graduated last summer with a BS in computer science. My resume can be found here. I've applied everywhere I can find and with no luck. I'm currently working for $10/hr temp doing IT. If anyone out there has a job, I'd love to try for it.
--James
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
For what it's worth, teachers work plenty through the month of June -- it's one of the busiest months of the school year. Also, teacher pay is based on a 10-month year. Most young teachers work some other job (and that's not "career," but "job": as in "shit") through the summer.
During the school year, teachers have far more work to do than can be accomplished during the school day. Their "preparation" time during the day is often taken up with inane parent conferences -- "inane" because the whole cause of this conference is many times (though not always) because these "parents" do nothing to discipline their kids, nor to encourage good work habits. As a result, most teachers spend many hours a day after school -- and weekends -- preparing lessons, correcting tests, and keeping up on bone-headed administrative paperwork
Try it and see!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I feel the same way about the buisness degree friends I had. They work less, aren't as smart, and now make more. Kinda makes you wonder, who really was smarter?
Note:Not cracking on all business people, just the ones I knew.
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Me first. Company second. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
where me is the company (ie. the owner) it would be delusional to not source your skills offshore, if thats your attitude!
serenity now!
Isn't McDonald's a Fortune 500 company?
Do you want fries with that?
... weren't.
I rotated thru 4 positions now in 4 years. This next raise will be interesting because the group that 'laid me off' writes my Performance Assessment. The new group gets said performance assessment. I don't know which one decides how much 'more' I get, but if it's similiar to what I got last year then those numbers will go down (when adjusted for inflation).
Frankly, take the high starting salary- there's no guarantee you'll get more at a later date.
Umm what has Bush had to do with outsourcing?
- I can think of a few reasons.
1) Not minority (dis)advantaged.
2) Not gender (dis)advantaged.
3) Weak handshake.
4) Bad people skills.
5) No networking skills.
The first 2 may sound like flamebait, but I was a recruiter. I had several excellent candidates that I remembered, they had excellent GPAs and great people skills... but the gentleman I had to send the resume's to wasn't interested because they were not a minority.
Thats a fact of life now in business- you'll see companies being rewarded for hiring minorities, with the assumption that that automatically generates the best potential.
In this particular case, ours hired a minority with a 3.2 GPA over a 4.0 GPA.
Oddly enough, I've not been asked back to the recruiting team after I objected to this.
And for someone who claims to be making over 100,000 a year, I find it odd that you can't buy your software but instead resort to warez (first picture right hand side).
Tsk tsk tsk...
...that they don't count all of the *unemployed* people with said degrees. In fact, they may not even count the people that are employed at McDonald's just to try to make ends meet while looking for a "real job".
I took a job for slightly less than average, because I knew the company, and it was a fun job and all. Better yet, they were established and had been around for along time. Well 5 years and a new CEO latter the company decides the project that was critical to the future of the company is worthless and gets rid of our entire division. The company itself is still around and making money. The product...
Don't fall for the 10 years down the road line, they won't pay you more. Truth is you get two chances to get more wages, when you start, and when you threaten to leave. It is dangerious to use the second one, they may call your bluff, and even if they don't they are likely to look for your replacement because of it. So you start out a little more, with the promise that you will get rasies... Well guess what, the guy who didn't fall for that line and started at 10,000 more than you also gets rasies. And current salery isn't taken into account until you reach the top of your pay scale, at which time they consider promoting you. If you two do = work, you both get a 4% raise, but he is getting 4% of a larger number! Then when he hits the top of the current position scale (sooner than you, remember the position scale is also going up every year!) he gets promoted even though you both are doing essentially the same work.
At best, this statistic only tells us where the US economy was, not where it is. I don't put much stock in tallies like this because it's like answering 42 to life the universe and everything.
Let's take a longer perspective, shall we? The computer industry has been white hot for many years now. Those of you who were working in it were riding that wave for a long time. Good work!
It couldn't last forever. Those wonderful salaries were not reflected in other parts of the industry. For the experience and training most Computer Science graduates have, an appropriate salary ought to be much closer to what most other engineers earn. That's why so many jobs are evaporating. We'll get them back eventually, at salaries more in line with what the rest of the engineering world is earning.
That's the way business works. The demand was white hot for nearly a decade. Now it's only red hot. It was a good wave while it lasted. Business Revolutions like that come along maybe once or twice per century. Be thankful you had the chance to ride this one.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
That's hurting more than any existing tariffs. While China's taking advantage of free markets, they're not playing by the rules. I'm all for free trade and I hate protectionism, but China's currency policy needs to go.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Teachers (public schools in western new york) are only allowed to teach for at most 5 hours a day (something like that). They make decent money to start and great money once they have been teaching for a while.
Most of them do not even know anything beyond what they are teaching, plus they have pensions.
Teaching is the biggest scam in the world, everyone should be a teacher. The only downside is putting up with disrespectful students. I am sure that is what they are thinking about though when they are golfing in the summer.
Desire doesn't count for jack shit if you don't have the talent. A person who is only in the industry for the money may very well be a better programmer than one who started hacking C-64's in childhood.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Computer Engineering is basically a hybridization of Software Engineering and Electrical Engineering. At Boston U, there wasn't a Software Engineering curriculum when I went so the people who wanted to get into the software field took Computer Eng, bypassing Electromagnetics and Semiconductor Physics classes and picking up Microprocessor Assembly and Software Engineering/OO design classes.
Linux/BSD/etc are rapidly addressing this, but not fast enough.
Thinking outside my Head
what is computer engineering? how is it different from EE or CS?
Sounds like your an IT guy, well guess what, I'm not. I'm a programer. When I was working I could go for days without speaking to someone, and it wouldn't matter much as far as getting the job done. Mind not speaking to people is a bad idea politically, and I didn't, but I could have.
Sure I'm a native speaker of english. (I speak better than I write), but I'm still not good at IT tasks, and I don't want to be. I love to program. There are much less local jobs for programers. Mom&pop don't care who wrote their program, they can't afford to hire me to write it, not compared to the price of quickbooks. Sure I could write a Quickbooks clone that would exactly fit their needs, and wouldn't have extras they wouldn't use anyway. I might even give them a feature they wouldn't get in Quickbooks, but it still isn't worth my cost. Paying someone to set them up with Quickbooks is however worth it to them.
Well, I hate to say it here, 'cause I know I'll get flamed more for who originally said it rather than what was said...Rush Limbaugh once made the statement that the fairest and simplest trade agreement with any country is simply, "We'll charge you what you charge us." If China's adding 29.9% to the cost of our goods, we do it to theirs. It's fair, it's equitible and anyone who complains is just told, "Fine, lower your tariffs, ours go down automatically."
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
One possible reason for the high value of ChemE's right now might be scarcity. There were quite a few years where obviously computer fields were much more attractive to someone starting college than ChemE. If you were a bright kid, with a knack for such things, you'd be crazy not to be more interested in CompE than ChemE. This led to a drop (at least in the few schools I know about) in relative enrollments in ChemE.
Now a few years after the boom, ChemE's are gold because there are so few of them relatively speaking. I've been a practising ChemE for nearly 8 years and I can tell you we have a hell of a time finding quality people.
And yeah, it is pretty lucrative. I work in mainly the oil refining business and there is still a lot of money to be made.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
I graduated from GT as a CompE in Dec 2001 and got a job in Austin, TX starting at more than the $53k average. Every one of my friends got a job paying close to the average. There were a lot of higher paying jobs, but they were in cities with a much high cost of living. It doesn't surprise me that $53k is the average, but take it with a grain of salt because $60k in Northern California is more like $35-40k in other parts of the country.
-- Adam
My wife is a Pharmacist. Pharmacy graduates make $85k-$90k just out of college. We get calls almost daily from headhunters looking for people to fill jobs, and regular mail from Wal-Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Eckerd etc, looking for the same. My wife changed jobs a couple of months ago, they STILL havent filled the vacancy and they are offering $93k + $5k signon and dont require ANY experience. There were two openings at her new job, both of which have been open for nearly a year, the other has not been filled. And ya'll really think a Comp Eng degree is that nice?
I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. slashdotters seem to think that IT == programmer. which is WRONG! sure programming is part of IT but a very small part. Those computer science degrees could be used very well to obtain an entry level job in help desk ot junior sysadmin at a large company. getting a job as a programmer with no real world experience is like a convicted child molester applying at the FBI. get your ass in the door first, fine tune your skill for a couple years _THEN_ go look for a programming job. you need portfolio's and verifiable experience under your belt.
I personally have been in IT for around 8-9 years, well before the dotcom boom. and I've never been out of work for more than 4 months at a stretch especially now that I've moved over to networking and process automation. I have yet to see a qualified network technician stay out of work for very long. the market is there, stop trying to skate your way in @ $50,000 a year coding web pages. get your asses in the trench and do it like the rest of us did. work your way up. a couple years of hard work won't kill ya, and it always pays off in the end. there is an IT market out there and plenty of jobs but without experience you might as well compare it to an etheopian child looking at pictures of a royal feast, i.e. you ain't ever gonna get it.
Dude, get out. I've been in the same situation, and you know what? The company wasn't around 5 years later, much less 2 years later, so being there from the beginning meant jack.
As long as you continue to believe what they tell you, they'll continue to tell you one thing and do another. Believe what they do, not what they say. If they don't offer you a competitive salary now, find someone else who will. It's worth the effort of searching.
Like you said, put your interests first, above the company's. That's not to mean you shouldn't look out for the company's interests at all, but rather that you should only look out for them if they do the same for you. Putting yourself first ends up making you happier and, most importantly for the company, more productive as an employee. It's in their best interests to make you happy.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
>The reason CE is considered so hard is that they hit you with the hardest CS courses (Operating Systems comes to mind) and you get more than a bit of EE (which, of course, is not trivial either).
Huh? In my school OS was in the BSCS, not the CSEE degree.
You know I would have believed in Kyoto if only we weren't one of only a handfull of countries that would have been pegged to it. Sure I will sign the Kyoto treaty if I don't have to follow it ie the rest of the world. Also, don't give me the business about...oh well we have to help them grow so we need to cut them some slack. Nobody wants to go along with something when the only person it hurts is you. If everybody was sharing the environmental pain then I am all for it.
However, it can be a disadvantage as well.
An example would be that when I got out of Tech (BCE) (civil not computer), I was told that if you wanted someone who could figure out how to do something and grow quickly get a TEch Grad, if you wanted someone to plug into a specific task immediately get a (Name Witheld as to not offend anybody) Grad. This can be bad news in the short term.
A good example was that when I entered Law School, I got preference over other schools/majors because they knew of the difficulty of our curriculum.
A year ago I found a software engineering job at a small defense contractor in the northeast. What enabled me to get the job was leg work. While most of my friends complained about the job market, I sent out resumes and tapped every resource I had. What stopped them from getting jobs was their perception of the market. I know too many people who gave up on the job search without sending out more than a few resumes. Some went to graduate school or settled on low paying temp jobs. Provided one is flexible about the location and does his homework ,the jobs are out there. I say work at a good small defense contractor. The work is stimulating, well funded, and cannot be outsourced.
Starting salaries only tell a small fraction of the story. I'll bet EEs and Chem Es are much, much higher 5 years down the road than the Comp Sci crowd.
You can thank the teachers unions who make sure that starting teachers get paid squat while teachers who've been there a while, regardless of performance, make well above the industry median for someone with their education and experience - at least that's true in the state of Washington. Your state may vary.
If starting teachers salaries went up, the teachers wouldn't have anything to back up those extra taxes they keep asking for.
Mmmm.. Donuts
>Me first. Company second. Put this on top of every resume you send out. How delusional is the alternative now?
Ok, you don't say it, but you do think it, and act accordingly. I've seen very few companies that don't think "Company first, screw employees if convienent". Getting into the few exceptions out there is very tough.
Read Yggdrasil's "The Domestic End Game" for an analysis of how you have been dispossessed -- but no one more so than the boomers
Seastead this.
You know, when I left high school, in 1990, I wanted to major in Computer Engineering, but UMCP didn't even have a program in it. I ended up spending two years in Electrical Engineering, and then transferring into Computer Science when I decided that I really wanted to be programming. The programming we did in EE classes really wasn't cutting it (Mmmm, Fortran and QuickBASIC, NO THANKS!). Today, I'm doing game development for the PlayStation 2, so I guess a Computer Engineering degree might've been more useful than my Computer Science degree in the end, but I'd like to think that I made up for some of my practical educational shortcomings by doing embedded systems programming at UMCP's Space Systems Lab, while I was in school.
I think the funniest moment in my academic career was when my undergrad advisor started railing on me about my grades, and asked "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?"
"Um, is that a trick question?"
Graduates generally have an easier time finding work because companies see them as putty to be molded and generally cheaper to acquire. Hell, newly graduated kids usually are less cynical, frequently aren't married or have kids, etc etc etc. ie they have more free time, more energy, and so on.
.NET or php/mysql or whatever, you better learn it on your own.
As a new grad, you better have co-op or intern experience or at least have a buttload of relevant knowledge XP. If your school didn't teach you
All that that aside, fresh facers are more likely to get hired because they've got less qualifications. They say for every $10K you expect to make, you'll have to look for 1 month. Someone who's a senior developer with very specific skills is gonna be unemployed for a while trying to find a job matching their exact skill set unless they drop back and punt for a more junior level job. That may still put you in an alienated position because you'll either have to pretend like you don't know shit or you'll have to get over the hurdle of convincing the senior guy that you're not gunning for their job... even if you really ARE!
m.
Think of it as a degree in Computer Science, with a minor in Digital EE, and with the majority of your humanities electives replaced with science or engineering electives. This is how it was, at least, where I took my degree.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Your post betrays a poor understanding of psychology, game theory and human nature. In a trade where your productivity is a direct function of the number of hours on the job, such as flipping burgers and slinging lattes, it's approximately true, expecially as you can at least hope to make some of it up in tips for having a good attitude. In a trade where productivity varies wildly, such as computer programming, and is a direct function of ability and motivation, it's vital to keep people motivated. Which is why good employers tend to pay 20% over the going rate, and issue share options. 20% is a small price to pay for 50% extra productivity.
Tony.
-- "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" -- Juvenal
Averages are just that, the average, not the minimum. Also, the min and max vary a whole lot when you take a national average. Why? Because cost of living varies a whole lot. There are plenty of places where 35k is fine. I live in one of them, Tucson Arizona. On 35k you could easily afford to own a 1500+ square foot house, a deceant car, and have enough left over for some goodies.
Now of course in the bay area, 35k is practally poverty, you'd be sharing an apartment, maybe even a room, with someone just to make ends meet. So, all things being equal, the same job will pay more there.
Basic economics dude.
I was wondering how much I could've gotten with my Biochemistry degree straight out of college (well, I had a second major in CS, so it probably wouldn't be a good indicator.) Anecdotally, I'd expect something around $30K (which is only slightly more than I get paid to go to graduate school). Does anyone have any hard data?
That said - if you care about earning a decent living you need an advanced degree of some kind. ESPECIALLY in the sciences.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The starting salary does not mean much because:
1. It does not indicate probability of getting a job (as pointed out by others)
2. The "offshore" problem
3. What you make your first year may not correspond to what you will earn in later years. Technology is famous for "pump-and-dump", meaning that companies will work you for long hours and then replace you with another youngling when you burn out or have a family and a real life. Plus, the *perception* is that older techies can't keep up with the constant change and tech fads that come along with computers. Techie salaries tend to peak in one's late 30's and then stay there or decline. And the gaps between jobs gets longer also as nobody wants to hire an old dog.
Something like Psychology may not start out high, but over time as you build up a reputation in the field and skill dealing with patients (not just textbooks), your salary goes up and generally continues to do so. It is a profession that respects age, unlike tech.
Table-ized A.I.
-Lucas
I am glad that my education is paying off. Although I got only twenty-six thousand dollars on start, I am happy to work for this kind of money because as long as I can beat all other IT wannabies, I have broad horizons in front of me.
Many of my friends made fun of me for going to college and obtaining a degree in Computer Science. They said that everybody could do without any significant education. Of course they did not need any math or advanced computer science courses! However, whenever we start talking about loop unrolling, compiler optimization, thread programming and state machines, they can't make any reasonable comments. I almost died from laughing when a friend of mine, a Software Engineer with four years of experience, asked me what threads were. People like these keep my hope up.
Here in new york the starting salary for comp sci is roughly 90k year. Starting salary for comp eng is about 110k but those usually vary and I have seen jobs listed up to 170k.
my source is my daily monster.com agent I have been getting for the last three years.
last year I was lucky to see one or two jobs per day I qualify for, right now I see 10-20 per day, so now is a good time to look for a job if you are here in NY or planning on coming this way.
Rents are higher here, but they are on par with with SF.. don't believe anyone when they give you that crap about higher rent / higher salary = making the same as somewhere else that both are lower.. if rent is higher, and so is your salary you still are making more money (expendable) and have better opportunities and services available. Do the math..
Anyway, if you want to make the real money, NY and SF are the top places for comp sci / comp eng.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
How many ads do you respond to that say "we expect you to work 80 hours for 20 hours worth of pay"?
Thought so.
Or the opposite. Mine was practically a major in EE (emphasis in digital circuits, VLSI, and HDLs) with a minor in CS. Really the major had enough flexibility that you could go either way.
That's part of what was so cool about it. We had way more choices than the other engineers. If I decided I didn't like hardware, while I'd still need the core digital circuits, etc., I could have taken, say, compilers, AI, etc. instead of VLSI and system design stuff.
That said, I emphasized in hardware and am now a software engineer. Go figure. But I do firmware, so it ain't so bad. And the hw background is a major help.
I'm a political science major, for the time being, and I can vouch for the fact that liberal arts majors are completely worthless. What am I going to do with this degree? Become a political scientist? No such thing exists.
Half the degrees in college these days are nothing but bullshit to get you out in 4 years and have some piece of paper to tell an employer about the fact that you're easily duped into giving up a lot for a little.
Respectfully, Your Friendly Neighborhood Corporate Executive
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
And with two powerhouses of soverign countries, how are you going to enforce that without risking world war three?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
VB and web stuff
vs.
AS400 and PeopleSoft.
Trust me, the later is a better long term career choice.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
As what you would refer to as an "offshore programmer", I am curious to know. Is some specific use of international labor considered abuse? I do not know if I work for an offshoring abuser or not.
I recommend that this HR goon start looking at WashU's less popular, yet more hard-boiled neighbor Fontbonne. CS graduates from there are hungrier and just as qualified.
--
Krugman's and your hero... William Jefferson Clinton.
Talk about revisionism... sheesh.
I noticed that my own major (liberal arts) is listed pretty down there. That reveals the problem with these kinds of surveys in general.
Long term, Liberal arts majors consistently outperform other majors in salary, though certainly not right after college.
Liberal artsy majors are inclined to seek more professional training later on or in graduate school. It's like saying that because people who skip college to be executive secretaries have more earning potential than a person who decided to study business at Harvard.
Engineering degrees are helpful for getting one job or one type of job. And if the market changes? Suddenly the engineer has to massively retrain himself or herself or go into management or persuade another techhead that skills from petroleum engineering are not too different from civil engineering.
The liberal artsy major obtains more general skills, but has more versatility and less of a problem changing careers. Also, a recent grad laid off from a high-paying tech job has higher (and maybe more unrealistic) expectations about what salary is the minimum necessary. Liberal arts majors, on the other hand, start on the low end, and go up.
The really interesting study I'd like to see is median salary by college grads at the age of 30, 40 and 50. I think I read somewhere that the most common career for English majors at the age of 40+ is upper management/business executive work.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Grad school toward a Masters or Ph.D. degree has several benefits. First, assuming you pursue a degree in a field you enjoy, grad school is fun. You only take the classes you want and don't have to worry about too many "requisites". Second, you have the opportunity to do things you usually can't do. For example, I was able to teach a networking basics lab and discovered that teaching is my true calling. Finally, professors treat you different when you are pursuing higher education...you become almost a colleague rather than a student.
All these benefits add up to a higher salary (and maybe easier time getting a job). I would HIGHLY recommend considering this if you can't find a job or don't want to get a job in your B.S. field. Best of luck!
-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
MaxPower (2263)
"I got it from a hair dryer."
Muah ha ha ha Muah ha ha ha... UNM... Next thing you're going to tell me is UNM is a real contender in college basketball.
UNM is a sorry ass school. Try a real college like Purdue, MIT, Stanford, Michigan State, etc.
...quarterly salary survey. Computer Engineering degree holders once again command the highest starting salaries at an average of $53,117...
Hey, I've got a Computer Enginerring degree and my quarterly salary is nowhere near $53K. Oh, maybe they meant annual salaries.
How significant were your elementary ed teachers to you? How significant were your grades or quality of learning to what you do now?
I don't think that people's education is significant until about 9th grade or beyond, where they can do more abstract thinking, and those that are bright and motivated tend to do well.
Do you seriously believe that you now would have the same intellectual capacity/capability had you not had any elementary schooling whatsoever? I'm not just referring to 'school' in the traditional sense, in case you're thinking of home-schooling as an alternative. I mean if you were not taught by anyone to do anything until 13-15, you would be a much different individual.
To make this a little more applicable to the real world, let's say that you were taught some basic math, and how to read and write. To distinguish this from regular instruction (where there is the chance of interaction), let's say that you were taught by a robot/computer that only taught, and never answered questions. By your logic, this would be enough to make up for the entire experience of elementary school. But this cold mechanical non-interactive instruction is a far cry form being in a classroom and being able to interact with students and teachers.
I can't say this with much authority, but if you compare an average child who went to elementary school with an average child who didn't go to elementary school (let's say they are from families within the same income bracket, live in similar neighborhoods, etc) I'm pretty sure you'd find that the one who did go to elementary school will be more socially adept, as well as (probably) being a bit more intelligent.
Before you dig up your flamethrower, I'll say this: I'm sure there are those prodigious few who skip the elementary-middle-high school experience altogether and head to University to become Nobel-prize-winning geniouses at age 12. But Most people are not that.
I agree that elementary school probably didn't have a great palpable impact on the way I turned out intellectually. Most of that was high school and college, like you said. But that doesn't mean they didn't have a tremendous impact on my social development, which is a kind of education that is just as important as math and reading/writing.
(Just my [opinionated] 2.4 Yen)
--
Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten.
your salary may be decreasing
It is! Heavens! I just checked with my broker, and it is! What's happened?
I was in a similar situation. I was laid off from a large telecommunications firm whose stock went from around $80 when I started to about $1 when I left. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fault!) Anyway, I got another job at a small web development company, making less than I did at my aforementioned previous job, with the promises that there will definetely be raises down the road. Two and half years later, I'm making the same amount and all raises have been put on hold for who knows how long. It sucks when they tell you you're doing a great job, but they can't afford to give you a raise. But at least the company's still around and I'm still getting paid.
that aren't particularly vulnerable to being offshored. I'm in the submarine business, and due to obvious national security issues, my job will never be offshored. Not even given to foreign nationals in this country. As are a lot of other high-tech jobs in the defense industry. Don't forget that a lot of computer scientist/engineers move on from the defense industry to the private sector, as well as a HUGE number of public suppliers for the defense industry that must also remain local.
And yes, the computer type jobs may well not be worth it to get a degree for, other tech jobs are, such as the old-fashioned fundamental degrees. I'm a Mech E, and it's the type of thing I really couldn't learn on my own; unlike a lot of computer science. If you're going into computer science, college may very well not be worth the time/money vs. building skills or a private business on your own. As for other Engineering type degrees, this is usually not the case.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
First of all, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
Secondly, there is a world history full of data on assymetric trade relations, where country A has much higher tariffs on goods than their trading partner B. And it overwhelmingly show that the country with te lower tariffs does much better economically.
I know this is against commonly accepted "wisdom", but it's nonetheless undeniable if you examine the data. And the theoretical explanation of it has been know since the 1830s.
That's less than teachers, at the very bottom of the list. You'd think they could use their incredible skills of psychological manipulation to negotiate a better salary.
Engineering salaries have risen over the years but they haven't kept pace with inflation. This data covers 1971-2000. It's a safe bet engineering salaries have lost ground during the last 3 years.
http://ewh.ieee.org/cmte/pa/Status/salary/Salar
As other posters have noted, the few who get offers are getting higher offers than they might have a year ago but that's not saying much. I suspect this article was planted for political purposes.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Don't tell me this! I am so close to my Computer and Info Science degree... although luckily for me, I already have a job in the field...
Too bad you're anonymous. What a great point.
Evvvvvveryone in every generation thinks theirs is going to hell...
As a Computer Science degree holder working in IS, it's nice to know that I'm well below the average for the IS field. Uh, I guess. And I'm even more below the average for Computer Science degrees, of course. What's worse is that they redefined the job description during the interview phase to make it an hourly position...
What I think would be more useful would be to report the average salary for a particular area. Although I know that I am making less than the national average, the cost of living here is also less than say, California, where the starting salary of course needs to be higher. I think I am probably making around the average for this geographical area, but I sure would love to see some hard data on that.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
My father resigned from the local school board over this kind of thing. Teachers were getting salary cuts, the art 'classroom' was moved into a janitor's closet, anything to save money.....except when it came to the sports program. New equipment, like wireless headsets for the coaching staff, was generously budgeted.
Out of irritation, ,my father offered a motion to permanently suspend the sports programs and put all the money back into education, but the other board members and the local parents thought it was a joke.
Most parents apparently don't give a damn about the quality of education. As long as their boys (and, belatedly, girls) have the opportunity to excel at sports , they will turn out to be outstanding members of society. What can we expect when such people have equal voting power to those that intelligently care? School budgets are the most direct form of democracy that can be found in the US, and the public just Doesn't Give a Damn.
============
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
The starting salaries for computer programming jobs is going up because all of the real entry level positions have been outsourced offshore or replaced with L1 visa holders.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
As an alum, I can tell you that any Fontbonne reference is humorous.
Well alot of huge engineering places will offer you up these massive starting salaries to entice fresh outs. However its often basically a ruse and you have no opportunity for advancment and your job security is questionable. I graduated with all my friends 2 years ago with a comp-eng/ee degree. They all started making 55k right off the bat at the big defense companies, woohoo. I started out at 45k in a much different place. (I went through ALOT of soul searching trying to decide what would be the better option). Now im making 55k and guess what, so are they. I have my next raise in promotion in site already and they are realizing now that their job sucks. When youre in your interview, put the guys on the coals. What is the promotion potential? How long did it take you to get promoted mr interviewer? Don't settle for a one sentence answer like "you'll be rewarded down the road" because thats BS posturing. Get numbers. Get dates. Get specific accomplishments. The place that can give you those things is a good place to work, otherwise youre basically going to las vegas.
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No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
Then I hope you're out looking for a better position. Anybody who relies on "promises" like this is likely headed for disappointment. Without a contract, they're under no obligation to make it up to you, and it would be nuts to count on your loyalty being rewarded.
I get so sick of reading and hearing crap like this...about how the teachers are the real heros and should make a lot more money. Where I live they start at 40k and they get a week or two off at christmas, spring break, and 3 months off in the summer. I'd take a paycut to get those hours at that rate any day. Teaching is a job just like any other and just because you're dealing with kids doesn't entitle you to more money than a comparative position.
Teachers are not heros, teachers have a job like everyone else and shouldn't expect entitlements especially when they get a quarter of the year off and continue to get paid.
Maybe babysitters and child car workers should make 40k a year starting since they work with kids and also teach them on different levels too?
Bullshit
If you think you deserve more money quit complaining and begging for entitlements and switch careers or are you too lazy to do that?
I guess bitching is easier...
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
I should be dreaming, where's the +5 funny comments? even +4?
sign(c14n(envelop(this)), x509)
I'm thinking of joining the CWA, I'm a lowly Tier 1 tech, would there be any benefit if I joined the CWA?
I'll take the heroin... You can keep the machine gun. (probably not a good idea for me to have a machine gun when I'm on the shit, anyway).
/. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.
I look at it as this.
.... Congress wages are high in the IT field due to the lack of highly skilled laborers. We need an more H1B1 visas to fill these highly demanded jobs....etc.
Who runs these organizations who come up with these studies? Colleges who want more students so they have more money and employers who want cheap labor and more h1b1 visas for American jobs that can not be outsourced.
Employers:
Really its a scam to increase H1B1 visa's and outsource more American jobs to cut down on labor costs so CEO's can make bigger bonus's from the shareholders.
http://saveie6.com/
I minored in CS, and the difference between the major and the minor at my school was a bunch of BS classes that 1) should be common sense and 2) are not particularly challenging or programming-oriented. Bottom line is, it's too easy for other people with other majors and other skills to offer to pick up CS skills. So if you're a CS major who can code well, and I'm a Chemistry major who can code well, there are more jobs I'll get over you. I can show code I've written to prove I can program, but there's little way for a CS guy to prove he knows chemistry unless he's at least minored.
Engineering degrees are somewhat different because they focus on an *applied* science, whereas CS and the others you listed are more theoretical
Not necessarily, there are many applied areas of the "pure" sciences, my research group for instance. And I imagine not too many employers are interested in theoretical CS people. CS is inherently an applied field, in the sense that it's been wholly invented by humans. Having a theoretical take on CS makes you a mathemetician without the degree - a one-way trip to academia or unemployment.
In short, I would highly recommend a CS minor, but not the major. You pick up all the skills employers want with the minor. And I would wholeheartedly recommend an engineering/applied science major to go with it, it'll work wonders. That and a whole lot of linear algebra.
At UCSD where i will be graduating with a my CE this june the ce program requires the same core classes as both the ee and cs majors. the program is managed jointly between the ece and cse departments, i happen to be enrolled in the ece department. I had to take intro ee courses, analog design, signals and systems, probability for ee's, digital circuits, a ee design course, and dsp on the ee side.
On the CS side i had to take all the same intro programming classes, a couple data structure classes, a algorithm class, theory of computing, digital design (cs version), computer architecture (we had to design and simulate a 8 bit processor), compiler design, and OS design.
I get to choose my electives between the two discpline, i have been mainly taking cs courses (networks, database, ai algorithms) as electives since the prereqs seem to work out better (which is the only problem i have with the program) but i am taking a few ee electives. The cs people take the same cs classes as me plus a couple like programing paradigms etc but have a lot more open slots for electives. The ee's take the same courses as my ee classes but have a few i dont have to take such as elctro magnetism, semiconductor physics etc. and then they have a depth sequence which guides there electives, one of those depths is computer design which comes out to be the same a a ce degree. the ee's seem to have more lower division courses related to engineering than ce's
as far as preperation for the job market i think that employers will see that i have a broader understanding of computer systems but my degree is not that much diffrent from a ee or cs (how many ee's end up writing code anyways?), the main thing employers want is experince which i have thanks to an internship and some work in web design and a couple years in IT (not what i want my job to be) while going to college. On my resume at the top i have my college and degree listed with a gpa (3.4) and then a relevant course work section followed by skills and then work experince taking up the bottom half of the page backing everything up i listed in my skills. I think i should move relevant course work to the bottom and work exp up as employers seem to like the experince better. I hoping to get a job where i was an intern, they liked me a lot and told me to be sure to consider them while looking for full time job.
earlier some one posted that many of these fresh grads while they might have great degrees and high gpa's dont have an ounce of exp in the real world and face to face they are a complete disaster. I agree compeltely. I think many employers have a bunch of well qualified resumes to choose from and the if the interviewer (not the hr drone) is going to have to work with you day after day they are going to hire someone that they can get along with and enjoy their company. If you come off with too much BS or uber geekiness (we all saw the ce from berkely on american idol, given us a bad name) they may toss your resume aside and take the next person they interview who is just as qualified but has a bit more charm. so do those on camera interview practice stuff most uni's offer.
and one more thing on this rant of mine nobody will read anyways - stop complainig about india there are jobs here in the states too many are using it a scapegoat for not having a job when there are many other factors. Yes those of you without a degree or a degree from some cheesy school or a mcse cert or something may be out but you can always go back to school get your bs or masters and be the one doing the project management writing specs to send to india and getting a better pay because you dont need a bunch of code monkeys to wrtie yet another peice of commoditiy software.
ok so as not to be labled a troll after that down with sco long live linus, bill gates sucks donkey balls and... ok thats all i got
That'll probably find some takers. I don't have a business background, so I don't know that much, but I've seen a number of jobs that want some finance background and coding skills.
From what I've seen, for the more analyst-oriented jobs on Wall Street, they don't care if you know business as long as you're a math whiz - they assume they can teach you the business you need in 3 weeks (not kidding).
I bet a combo of CS/Finance/Math would have employers drooling, and I'd recommend Finance for the major.
you better believe my hours will follow suite. In fact, I will gladly take a pay cut. Just don't expect to see my ass in the office, or expect me to be available at all for 6 months out of the year.
TallGreen CMS hosting
The other interesting thing is that at Iowa State the computer science building, the chemE building, the electricalE building, and the computerE building are all adjacent.
This study is also misleading. Actuarial Science is still the best four year degree in terms of pay. They just work part-time for the first few years taking exams, thus their starting pay is lower.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
12 year olds can write computer programs -- that's irrellivant. You just totally hit my pet peeve. Everyone thinks:
Computer Science == Computer Programming
Computer Programming == Easy
==>
Computer Science == Easy
Computer programming is to Computer Science what soldering is to Electrical Engineering. Ok, that's an exaggeration but you get the point.
A true Computer Science degree is really a specialized math degree, with some real-world computer stuff thrown in just to make you lose sleep.
At NO point in my program (nor any other programs I looked at) did one take a class called "Programming in C" or "Programming in Java". Those courses exist...for NON MAJORS. Teaching a CS major programming is like teaching an English major English.
... without the double E!
Speak truth to power.
That obligation is to stay in business, and the only way to do that is to hire competitive workers, no?
Just because you sat inside a classroom for four years then work in engineering doesn't mean shit that you're actually worth more than a guy working in computer science out of high school. The point is that you are no better than someone doing computer science (notice I said doing) in real life. Sure we can all learn "computer science" in one of 3,000 colleges, and we can learn a programming language from DeVry, and work in IT, but that doesn't mean we are *doing* Computer Science.
Those people actually using the stuff learned in computer science as part of their job definitely do compare to engineers. But then again, even engineers don't do complex stuff all the time, usually it's repetitive from their previous projects. So, what is so bad about not going to college and being a wiz kid in CS? If there was a license in CS and you could pass it without college, so what? But there isn't a license, and most of the time, you don't use CS, just programming. In that case, you can buy a Programming programming book. OMG I've seen some of them... Or a Computer Science programming book, that would be better. But learning CS (as in advanced computer science stuff), few do that just like few can get through engineering by taking thermo and other subjects by themselves--its just easier to go to college.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
I was able to teach myself programming languages when I was 14. Actually, a lot of CS freshman already know some programming languages. So my question to him is...
What the hell do you think CS majors do for four years? When you use my logic, you see that there is a whole lot of space for learning. Outside of that "knowing the programming language" stuff that you and pre-CS people know already, like IF FOR WHILE FUNCTIONS CLASSES and RECURSION, there is clearly four years for students to learn stuff beyond that they already know, so what it could be? What could CS majors be learning? How to say Hello World? Doing more of same? No. No. Just like if I take Thermodynamics and Physics 3 and all of a sudden I understand the intricancies of your major. Nope.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
The obligation is to balance American concerns with business priorities.
Anything can look easy at first. When I first started doing physics, everything seemed easy. But when I got to college and picked my major as a Physics Engineer, and started taking some of the courses, I understood how wrong I was. Since you have not actually went through any real CS courses yet, you have absolutely no right to judge. I have taken college CS courses where you are given an entire semester to do one project. Just knowing syntax means nothing.
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
Of course, it depends a lot on who you talk to and what the nature of their business is. Heads up: I'm from the States (BA from Berkeley in CS and German), but have studied (MS in CS from the U of the Saarland) and now work in an academic research job in Germany. My impressions are based mostly on Canadians and non-Candians (mostly Germans), who I've worked or studied with and who have also worked and/or studied in Canada.
On the academic side of things (i.e. research), Toronto, in general (not for every subfield, but over all) is probably the best CS program in Canada. There was an article in an ACM publication many years ago (1989 I think, so it's kinda old) that ranked Toronto 8th and Waterloo 15th in North America (US + Canada) for graduate computer science programs. Like all rankings, this list is to be taken with a grain of salt, but it shows that these are both probably top 25 programs. Toronto also has the advantage (well, I would consider it one) of being in the middle of a major world metropolis. There's lots of other cool stuff to do there in between studying (or is it the other way around?).
Waterloo on the other hand is much more focused on their undergraduate program and is in general a much more practical and industry-focused department. A lot of important companies heavily recruit there and are involved in their co-op program (which I hear is very integral to the undergrad degree programs). Another interesting factoid about Waterloo is that their team always does very well in the ACM Programming Contest each year. Of course Waterloo is not in Toronto, but rather kinda in the middle of nowhere, although, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I went to school in Berkeley (an urban place with fairly easy access with public transportation to San Francisco) and really never went anywhere (mostly hung out with friends at home).
This is not to say that all Waterloo grads go into industry or that all Toronto grads go into academia. I've met several very bright grad students in my studies, who did undergrad at either Waterloo or Toronto. The ones from Waterloo seemed more nerdy to me (ya, I know, this is slashdot), while the ones from other places in Canada (Toronto, McGill, UBC) seemed more well-adjusted, but that's really neither here nor there. My *impression* (not sure if this is true) is that Waterloo's program is more selective (lots of talented people applying for far fewer spots), while Toronto's program has a broader variation of student quality (let more people in who are qualified and see who floats to the top). Both are large schools with lots of faculty (over 60 members at both) and students (250 grads/1200 undergrads at Toronto).
Bottom line though, they're both good schools for Computer Science and I don't think either is going to limit future work or study opportunities. If I were a Canadian (the scope of both is definitely beyond the provincial level) high school student, I would look at both. They offer different experiences and environments though, which are usually a matter of personal preference.
It kindof goes both ways. At the Univeristy of Utah you basicly take all the classes required for pre-EE and pre-CS majors, then get to choose if you want more hardware or more software experience. It actually is great for a double major, since adding a CS or EE degree to an CE degree only requires about an extra semester or two of classes.
I have seen people that spend 6 years but leave with all three degrees (CS,EE,CE)
Man, it must make life easy to measure your abilities in course credits quantities.
You say "exhilerating", I say "stressful". Well, stress kills, and some of us don't have the kind of personality that can survive an entrepreneurial career.
Having been physically ill with stress, I know it's not something I want to repeat.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I wonder why they aren't included in the survey.
Alas, one must go to school for 6 years to become a pharmacist (PharmD). Thus, it is not a fair comparison.
Also, RPh salaries are fairly similar the country over despite vast differences in regional supply. Sign-on bonuses are vastly different though, one of my classmates got a 35k sign-on (3 year) in San Fran, good luck finding one of those here in Minneapolis.
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
That is one of the fundemental problems with the basic CS degree. It teaches programming theory but lacks training in real world situations.
I took three years of CS classes before changing to a CE degree because each year I had to learn a new language. It started with Scheme, as a very basic language for "sandbox" programming, then moved to JAVA, and ended up programming in C. I probably would have been better off investing the money in a good JAVA/C++ book and spending the time practicing programming. With a CE degree I can learn something that would be very difficult to teach myself and it will still look great if applying for a sofware programming job.
While changing languages helps to expand your exposure to different programming environments, it is not going to help you get a job: You may know how to program in theory, but you lack the hands-on knowledge that can only be obtained by working with a specific language for an extended period of time. Companies do not want someone who a-little about a-lot, they want someone who knows a-lot about a-little.
In my opinion a CS degree basicly shows that you have a fundemental understanding of how to program, but unless you have work experience or personal projects that prove you can acutally program it is just another cop-out degree. And with the current job market for computer programming, I am not at all surprised to find CS majors working in customer service or call center jobs.
It actually is great for a double major, since adding a CS or EE degree to an CE degree only requires about an extra semester or two of classes.
Hmm, I guess...I can't imagine why you'd want to do that though. At my school, we were actively discouraged from doing that, just cuz it's already assumed that you'll be "cross-platform". They did, however, encourage us to go for a double major with business or math or something. Something different enough from degree #1 to make an employer care.
Frankly I think the extra two years would be far better spent working or getting a masters...
I graduated at the end of 1990 with a BS in Computer Engineering. By my estimation, that is equivalent to 2001 in the current economic cycle. It took me nearly 7 years to get a job in my field. It was 1995 before companies would talk to me at all. I ran into exactly the same problem you are seeing: too inexperienced to be hired through normal channels, too "stale" to he hired as a fresh grad.
I finally hit pay dirt in 1997. I broke through partly because the economy had picked up more because I put great effort into building relevant skills and experiences. I bought design tools. I took classes covering all the most current tools and techniques. I build circuit boards. I learned on my own time and my own dime what most people learn from their first employer.
You may have to do the same. In my opinion, you can't have too much education, as long as it is relevant to the needs of the job market. Go to grad school if that option is available to you. Lead an open source project. Do work that will make you moderately proud and famous. Pay close attention to the relevancy of what you are doing.
Good luck. You are going to need that too.
As for a lot of the rest, many companies really don't care. Again, being a theoretical computer scientist will not get you a job in most cases. Most people who program for at least part of their jobs aren't doing coding for consumer use, believe it or not. Hence, it would be a good thing to know how one can use programming, as a tool, to solve problems relevant to some other field.
Being a one-trick pony isn't a good idea. That said, if you make yourself among the best damned coders around, you won't hurt for work either.
Was this salary average only for those who got work relavant to their degree? I'm guuna graduate with a CompE degree, but work as a GIS Specalist making $65K/yr. Not related much at all. And why would I take a pay cut to go work in the computer enginerring field?
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Yeah, that kinda sounds like a chicken and egg question right. Well, the market works like this.
Rich fucks invest to make even more money.
The more money they make, the poorer their workers get.
When they've extracted all the wealth of the nation, they STOP investing. Why???? Simple, there are no more gains to be had.
The way we crawled our way out of depression was taxing the rich and employing the poor. The WWII really helped because we absoluetly HAD to extract wealth from rich folk to pay for the production of war goods.
The taxes on the filthy rich in post WWII America were absoluetly oppressive. When Kennedy "Cut taxes on the rich", he dropped the top rate from 90% to 70%. The Repukelikans didn't mention that did they?????
Sof if you want to avoid depression, you must maintain a VERY LARGE middle class. You must TAX the ever living fuck out of the rich. The resulting balance in wealth distribution keeps the system from devolving into feudalism where labor costs nothing so PEOPLE are disposable.
The Reagan and Bush tax cuts are pushing this country back into depression economics. WTO and NAFTA is causing wealth and jobs to hemorrage from this nation.
Guess what, foreigners from those "brown" nations hate free trade even more than we do. The REALLY big winner in the US is agribusiness. No, not the mom and pop shops. GIANT factory farms that are government subsidized. It makes it IMPOSSIBLE for a farmer to earn a decent living overseas. As a result, there is no practical methodology to independently earn a living. So they must go to factories and be treated like a dog.
NAFTA and WTO is effectively a way for international corporations to erode the power of nation states and impose an international form of feudalism. Hail Lord Halliburton, Lord Enron, the Duke of British Petroleum. These will be your Masters.
Your "voting power" will mean NOTHING if you must stand in bread lines for food. When the vital means of production are transferred to Communist China, the US will no longer be an independent nation. And modern China, that's an uber-capitalists DREAM COME TRUE. Limitless labor and life is cheap.
I am 100% AGAINST free trade. Unilateral trade deals with nations until we've sorted out a FAIR way to trade that respects differences in wages, human rights and enviromental protection.
NAFTA AND WTO MUST GO!!!!!
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Yes, I agree it's a big problem.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
As an alternative to salary surveys that catagorize technical groups using a large brush, try www.engineersalary.com... which breaks tech salaries down specifically by title, experience and location. I just used it successfully for a review, and my employer agreed with the results. It is very specific to sofware, computer and electrical engineering, and it's free.
The US didn't sign the Kyoto protocol because it could have been *devastating* to the economy. If you actually read any of it, the larger (US, Canada, EU, etc) nations were responsible for much more than the smaller nations, and the more wealthy nations would have to pay for what amounts to "clean up services" and "factory augmentation" for countries that couldn't afford it themselves when the years certain pollution restriction limits come due. Bottom Line: Mexico and the like need simply do nothing until the last year of a new requirement, then show some evidence that they can't afford to pay, then we'd be forced to retrofit their factories and clean up their lakes and streams. Screw that. God Bless George Bush for not signing this piece of crap (I don't like GWB and rarely say such things, perhaps one decent advisor snuck through). I want to help the environment, but I don't feel compelled to pay $1,000 a year in additional taxes in 2009 because they've got some factories puking sludge that need to be cleaned up.
In global agreements of any kind, America generally gets screwed, we should enter into very few of them.
Unfortunately, the original geek discipline, farming, is not doing so hot. Don't forget about the guys that feed us! If you've ever known a good farmer, you've known a serious geek.
HA! I laugh and scoff at you! SCOFF SCOFF! I have no computer degree, but just got a raise and will put me back over the 100k bar to 106k this year. No degree, but years of experience.
It's good to be the King!
I have played both sides of this equation.
I reentered the computer world in 1995 as support. I had opportunities to double my salary by jumping to a management position at other support centers. Instead, I found a job that was halfway between support and administration with a different but high-income technology for the same pay I was receiving. I learned the technology and related software, gained much experience, and the next year I joined a consulting company. (I wanted to be loyal, but corporate policy was that raises had to be very small, and my manager strongly suggested I look outside the company for my own good.)
The double-my-support-salary point was very close to the limit for what a call center manager could make. I passed that point in 1998, and have been making about twice that starting in 1999. I could make much more if I was willing to work more than 1000 hours each year.
Now I play the other side of it. I know the technology, and pick up related technologies as needed. My resume is already too long. I am one of the top people in my niche, and am often the only choice for the projects I do.
I have set my rate very high for my niche. This weeds out companies that want me to hold a chair down. If a project is offered to me, I know that the company is serious about getting it done. I have only refused one project where they were willing to pay my rate.
--- Appendix
The only project I turned down was a state agency that had already decided to use a mess of many technologies. Most of the technologies were being used for their weakest ability, completely ignoring what the technology was designed to do. I was to manage around 20 people who were the low-cost answer for each position. They even tried to haggle a 2% decrease in my pay. I would have made much money, but I did not feel the project could possibly succeed with the human and technical resources they were using. I do not want to ever miss a deadline, nevermind manage a failed project, so I turned them down. If I was allowed any input into the technology and how the system was designed, I could have done my usual "finished with extra features and well under the budget" work. I cannot understand why they would want to hire someone like me without getting input for the design.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.