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U.S. Students Shun Computer Science, Engineering
n9fzx writes "The San Jose Mercury News reports on a study by the Computing Research Association which finds that 'Undergraduates in U.S. universities are starting to abandon their studies in computer technology and engineering amid widespread worries about the accelerating pace of offshoring by high-technology employers.' Enrollment in those fields has dropped by 19% in the past year alone." Update: 03/24 23:40 GMT by CN : jlechem wrote in with a related story: "Wired News has a story about how American companies are outsourcing not because of cheap labor but because of the American school system not being up to snuff. In a report by the AeA, they contend that American schools don't teach enough math and science anymore."
With a liberal arts degree, after you discover that the only thing to read is the script your training partner hands you and that the only language you'll ever use involves varying the accent on "Y'want frizewiddat" from English to Ebonics as appropriate for your store's demographics, you'll derive existentialism from first principles.
So skip the philosophy, because it's redundant.
Joe was an engineer. He worked hard, studied hard and took pride in his work. He was also faithful to his wife, raised two children to be solid members of the community and attended church every Sunday.
Finally after a full life Joe died in his sleep one night.
On awakening he found himself facing St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Peter looks in his book, and finds that Joe is not in the Authorized list. He looks at Joe and says, sorry!, pulls the trapdoor lever and Joe starts falling. Joe yells "Wait there must be some Missstaaakeeee".
A few hundred years later God is auditing the Big Book and finds that Joe should have been listed as Authorized. We, he goes on a rampage, thunder and lighting, assorted Vengeful God stuff. After calming down God picks up the cellphone and rings up the Devil.
God: Hey Dev, remember Joe, that Engineer I sent you a few hundred years ago?
Devil: Yeah, I sure do. I want to thank you for sending him down here. He's got the A/C fixed, and we now get broadband and digital cable. He's now working on beer-on-tap. Whatta guy!
God: (Pissed Off) Hey! You have got to send him up here. He should have never been sent down to you. He belongs up here.
Devil: Yeah Right. Finders Keepers. No way am I letting him go!
God: (Really Pissed Off) I'LL SUE!!!
Devil: (ROTFL) HA HA Where are you getting a lawyer HA HA.
- -
So that's where we are heading. A country of lawyers where the A/C and cable doesn't work. Not a pleasent prognosis.
There must be sarcasm somewhere in a post with the title "follow the money" that exhorts readers to major in philosophy.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
Excellent. Maybe these departments will start to be populated by students who actually have a passion for computer science (in its actual definition), not those who simply want to graduate with a working knowledge of VB and C++ and make their way into the world of "software engineering."
Ah yes. The exciting world of Software Engineering.. Why become a doctor and save lifes, why be a stockbroker and make millions, why even think about being an international man of mystery who has to fight of women with a stick, when you can get a CS degree and spend the next 40 years of your life programming banksoftware in a cubicle?
Oh, and next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day... so, you know, if you want to you can go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Sure, as you all can call me young, you can cite my inexperience, but you can't cite my intelegence, nor can you cite my ambishions nor my abilities.
You forgot "totally incapable of spelling".
Hooray!
Computing needs more people who refer to those who have difficulty with software as tards.
After all, it's these elite few who give us the breathtaking inscruitable syntax seen in Perl, Lisp and Haskell. I salute you!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
" I just had a guy in the class with me (on .xml in Java."
//we need both cases to catch any combination thereof
/*
another team) ask me how to check that the
last four letters of a string are
That's easy, please allow me to enlighten y'all as to the most optimal way to achieve this. Lie back and learn, youngsters. Just compile and execute the following tiny code snippet, and success is yours. This code takes nice advantage of some of java's more powerful features, like exception handling and code flow. Can't believe such a small amount of code gets the job done? Disbelieve not!! (Note: due to the heavily optimized nature of the code and its use of industry standard best-practice coding patterns, it may only be possible for advanced java veterans to understand fully; please do not attempt mods to the code if you are not fully versed.)
bool endsInXML( String inString )
{
Char[] theCapitalXMLChars = { 'X', 'M', 'L' };
Char[] theLowerCaseChars = new Char[ theCapitalXMLChars.length ] + ( 'a' - 'A' );
for( int i = 0; i theCapitalXMLChars.length; ++i )
{
theLowerCaseChars[ i ] = theCapitalXMLChars[ i ];
}
try
{
verifyTrailingChar( '.', 3, inString );
for( int i = 0; i theCapitalXMLChars.length; ++i )
{
try
{
verifyTrailingChar( theCapitalXMLChars[ i ], theCapitalXMLChars.length - 1 - i, inString );
}
catch( UnexpectedCharException e )
{
verifyTrailingChar( theLowerCaseChars[ i ], theCapitalXMLChars.length - 1 - i, inString );
}
}
}
catch( UnexpectedCharException e )
{
return false;
}
return true;
}
class UnexpectedCharException extends Exception
{
public UnexpectedCharException() {}
}
* Here's the real heart of this code. This tight little routine
* is the workhorse that does all the down and dirty stuff. I first
* hacked together a prototype of this kind of concept during my
* PhD comp sci years... but rather than patenting it, I released
* it to the world as prior art (power to the people!!!)
*/
void verifyTrailingChar( Char inChar, int inTailOffset, String inString )
{
int theIndex = inString.length();
Char theCharToCheck;
while( true )
{
Char[] theStringChars = inString.getChars();
if( inTailOffset == 0 )
{
theCharToCheck = theStringChar[ inTailOffset ];
break;
}
--inTailOffset;
}
if( theCharToCheck != inChar )
throw new UnexpectedCharException();
}
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.