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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."
I'm a freshman in college this year, and I'm still going to major in computer science... the idea being that in 3 years the economy will be out of the toilet.
And a second dot-com bubble would be nice, but it won't happen.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
This might actually result in a higher quality crop of students in the next few years.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
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."
I have discovered a truly marvelous
duh duh duh duh.
half of them didn't care about computers anyways and were just going to where the money was. now that the money is moving, so are they.
are people really this dumb?
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Most of the people getting out are the ones who were just going into it for the money. They thought that Computer Engineers/Programmers/etc were going making tons of money no matter what. That time is long gone.
Hopefully this in the long term will mean those who graduate in CS/CE/EE/etc. will be much stronger then some of my classmates have been (class of 2002 in Computer Engineering here).
Is this much of a surprise? All the newspapers talk about the continuing layoffs and/or low employment in the CS fields. Why would any smart college-bound student go into a field where there are already thousands of qualified people who are unemployed? I count myself lucky to have survived (thus far, knock on wood) with a decent job in the field.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
People must be starting to realize that to pursue it means to continually shift and change. I dropped out of the IT field because education was inadequate, and the constant curve was ridiculous to keep up not only in terms of material to know, but also in terms of hands-on experience needed. That, and there's no decent jobs to be found.
Was it challenging? Sometimes. But what's the point to a challenge? I'd rather pursue passions.
Neutiquam erro
The other problem is that most of what is taught in comp-sci these days is not so great. There is a tendency to focus on algorithms (get them out of a book) rather than how to contribute to building large projects that work.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I'm fortunate to be employed in IT, especially because I love what I do. However, I know a number of people who jumped on the IT bandwagon thinking it was easy work for great pay. As they find it becoming harder to find a job, and those that do find dwindling pay, these people are abandoning IT in favor of things they really enjoy doing. This is a good thing, because it means a less saturated job market, and those who remain stay because they at least partially enjoy what they do, which generally implies an increase in overall quality of work.
This is only the next step in the re-regulation of the tech. industry. The balances were wildly thrown back during the (in)famous bubble, and have been tettering precariously for the past several years. I have never been terribly worried about the off-shoring of jobs; people are wont to be afraid of what they are unaccustomed to. I always figured this migration of jobs overseas was merely a balancing effect (as seen all throughout nature) to reregulate things. "All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet," as HS Thompson said!
Of course, I'm still in school, biding my time until the (admittedly brightening) economy swings my way again.
I think that the people who are truly interested in computer-related fields won't change their major solely based on job outlook. This might mean that a lot of people with marginal interest in computers will consider other fields, which I think is a good thing for the industry.
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The numbers haven't really changed in many years. Just like the fact that the current unemployment rate isn't much different than the last Administration.
h tm l
The economy of the US churns more jobs PER MONTH than are out sourced. When we had the big tech boom we had more jobs than people! Guess where we got them filled? The current focus is simply politics as usual.
Want a good article with some straight views on the subject?
http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/briefs/tbp-019es.
As for the decline in students. Good, CS doesn't mean fast bucks, booth babes, and games. Its a JOB. JOBS in the CS field are just like many others, they are work. If you are out sourced and haven't scored a job within 6 months something is wrong. Move, change careers, or realize that there ISN'T a job beneath you. Lastly, most people I know who are out of work that bemoan outsourcing lost their jobs because of their own actions.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
University costs a lot of money, so much now that you really have little choice but to make your investment count.
Sad as it is, if I am objective about it, I would have to discourage young people I know from going into the discipline myself. Even if computer science has a future in this country at all, young people today can only look forward to the long, painful and endless contraction of the domestic market for these jobs.
Software engineering is especially vulnerable to offshoring - much more so than previously decimated domestic industries. There are no tarrifs and no transportation costs. This is freer trade than most had previously dreamed of.
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I don't know what to do... try to tough it out, go straight to graduate school or just leave the country.
Be good at ywhat ou do, learn personal finance and how to job hunt. That'll probably put you in the top quartile of job seekers. Oh, and learn to rely on yourself and your perceptions and not chase others' advice. (That is unless you're a moron.)
I'm glad to hear people are doing something else. There are way too many people in IT that don't know what they're doing.
Good. When I was a CS undergrad at UC Berkeley a few years ago during the boom, the department was inundated with people who were just out to make a buck. When it came time for computer science, most of them couldn't have cared less. Finding project partners was a real pain, since most people didn't have much genuine interest in the subject--they just wanted to get their degree and immediately move on to a $70K job.
Maybe departments like Berkeley's will get back to being populated mostly by people who have a real interest in the subject...
And people still have this freak perception that most college kids are puffed-up and dumb.
We just have to acknowledge that the majority of the IT industry was in it because it was, well, the "it" industry of the '90s, with huge salaries and cool toys.
Besides, it's the low-level support/code monkey jobs that freshmeat grads usually get hired for -- except these days those kids are hired in India, so people of my generation recognize that we'll never even get a toehold.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
There is a design flaw in our society that sees developers and workers as a lower caste than the management and all power executive group. Perhaps this is why US management loves to outsource to India, as there is already a well established caste system in place and less fear of engineers trying to break from their caste just because they have more sense than the rulers in management.
Boring? Computers, science, mathemathics and physics were among the most exciting classes I took in school. Studying business politics is what bores me to tears. Unfortunately, if a student were to ask me which path to take, I would probably have to concede that, if the student is ambitious, the most lucrative opportunities all lie in the political side of business.
Whether or not this is a blessing or a curse. The problem is that if there is job pickup(whether there will be one or not is up to debate) and companies cannot find enough people to hire, then the call of going offshore will be even greater, and if a company does it for one project, then next time they will be even more(or less depending on the success of the project) to continue to offshore. This is the so called "critical mass" that is required for innovation, which is why I actually don't buy the whole offshoring is great for this country bs we are being spoon-fed.
In order to sustain innovation and progress in this country, we are going to need more than lawyers and managers. People tend to look at economic benifits strictly in terms of short-run GDP growth, and then they have a point, in the short term, offshoring may help GDP grow, but if it scares away our best and brightest(once again, not s\aying that those are the people going into the cs field but still) then the US will lose innovation, new stuff won't be invented here, and we will continue our slide into a 3rd world nation.
The earlier post about the Bell Labs demise is just another symptom of the "hollowing out" of the American economy. Now we don't even build our own stuff, but also we are moving away from designing it too. It's a slippery slope, and I feel that this is just the beggining of our long decline.
Undergraduates in U.S. universities are starting to abandon their studies in computer technology and engineering
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I ponder doing something else, but CS appeals to me the most. I've resigned myself to future uncertainty and I'm just learning for the pleasure of it. Always keeping in mind how what I learn can apply to other jobs/disciplines. Everyone else I know getting English Majors or Religious Studies degrees isn't exactly pursuing the almight dollar. I'm in good company. Poor, but good. :-)
-buzz
I think the reason for the exodus of computer science isn't as much to do with the money as it does the challenge of the work. Bright people like interesting work. Being a code monkey gets old real quick. And most of the computer science programs out there are focusing too much on being a code monkey (or at least that's what the students want out of those programs).
These bright people are realizing that computer science isn't the way to get into the interesting jobs. There were many really cool jobs out there during the dotcom boom. But people mistakenly thought that the cool jobs were had by the programmers. They didn't realize that the programmers were the factory workers of the current economy. The cool jobs were the people coming up with the new ideas, trying to make things work. Some of those people were programmers, but they didn't need to be and many weren't.
People are realizing that code monkey does not necessarily mean a cool job, and as such are trying to get into more interesting professions. Now, code monkeys are definately needed, but that's what offshoring is for. But there are many routes to take that can lead to cool dotcom-like fun jobs that aren't programming, and many programming jobs that aren't fun.
Having said that, I feel into the same trap. That's why now I'm currently in a CS PhD program, doing interesting work because I decided that being a code monkey would be boring in the long run.
Personally, I think it's great. I'm an undergraduate in CS right now, and it's amazing how many people I encounter that know and care only a little about the field. I witness rampant academic dishonesty daily, and a general ``who cares'' attitude among my peers, save for a select few.
I've met several people who rely on others excessively (through forums, or in person) to function as a computer scientist. It's troubling when you are asked to help someone with their software, only to discover horrible gaps in their basic CS skills. I've encountered the most awful design flaws in software, written by grad students! Imagine a large Java program, that could have been rather elegant (for Java) using proper OO design... except the program is written completely static! Or, for example, a large if-then-elseif block that looked like it came out of the BASIC days!
Even worse, before I was asked to help, this individual wasted lots of other people's time requesting very basic code that anyone could figure out after spending a bit looking through the Java API. Developer forums can be an excellent resource, but they can also be abused, to the detriment of many helpful individuals.
I honestly believe that the CS discipline is clogged with people who see only dollar signs, not hexadecimal.
On the flipside, less CS enrollment may mean researchers have less options when selecting grad students. Given the large amount of current CS grads, I think it will be some time before there is any shortage of skilled research talent.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And that's the problem.
If kids were getting out of CompSci and CompEng but taking up ChemEng and Bioinformatics, we'd rule the world.
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening.
Given that it's pretty hard to get out of the US public school system with an awareness of something as central to biology as the theory of evolution, the probability of the US turning out a good crop of bioengineers and doctors is rapidly dropping.
The reason high-tech jobs are being outsourced is because there are fewer high-tech skills being taught domestically. Universities at the undergraduate level have become what "high school" used to be -- a piece of paper that says you've got the minimum skills and education necessary to participate in the economy.
If we ever needed proof that Douglas Adams was right, we have it here. We're a society of lawyers, the marketing executives, the telephone sanitization technicians, and the rest of the Useless Third Of The Population that crashed here from the "B" Ark. Ayn Rand got it wrong -- in our world, unlike Atlas Shrugged, the men of the mind can't go on strike, because they're already extinct. We're a load of useless bloody looneys.
- America will be the leader in knowledge based work. Isn't it wonderful to lead the world? OK, so leading means sacrificing your job. That's just a minor technicality.
- The American dollars that left our country as we opened our economy have to eventually return. Heck, our trade deficit is only half a trillion dollars a year now! Apparently, what the economics prophets really meant to say is that we'd be giving away twice as much without their great advice. Half a trillion dollars in annual donations of our capital to the rest of the world is not as bad as a trillion. Right? The prophets of the economy sure are wise.
- As long as you have a college education, you'll profit from the global economy. Wow, are they right. You can major in anything and succeed today, if you define success as having at least one job before you are on long-term unemployement. At least with a college education you are educated enough to calculate how much your living expenses are than your unemployment check, and how quickly you'll be homeless.
But, hey, the good news is that you can watch all these prophecies unfold on your nice imported TV. It sure was cheap, wasn't it? So what if you can't pay your light bill. Just plug that TV secretly into any outlet you can find on the streets or on the outside of any garage you'll be trying to live in.
I've been wondering, and would love to hear what /.'ers have to say, what advice do we give to children to on how to financially secure their future? What college major do you recommend for our next generation?
Open Standards Portal
Companies do things for profit. they outsource for profit. it's totally dependant on cheap labor. We can kid ourselves all we want. bottom line is they want more profit.
Let's hope that the quality of education also rises. I am in my senior year at a CSU school, and sorry to say it, but I am _highly_ disappointed in the quality of professors at both of the CSU's I have studied at. Teachers who are not passionate about their field, and students in my systems programming course who have never used a terminal emulator before or even really know what linux is. It is sad when seniors in a BS CS program don't understand basic concepts. I had several students in my compiler course not understanding how to even implement a hash table. Another student had his source code headers included via "c:\dir\to\file" even though the source had to be compiled and run on sun workstations at school that are accessable remotely. My compiler teacher had his *nix environment so messed up that he couldn't even compile or run utilities that linked to libstdc. *sigh*
Here's to the future.
Sig* sig = theOneSig();
As a warning to readers, the Cato Institute is hardly a respected academic or politically neutral source for information. In general, I consider their positions on the issue convoluted enough that I guess they are actually intended to deceive.
Cato advocates what could be called classic Laissez Faire capitalism, and since they oppose the worker reforms that have made America rich over the last 50 years, they are naturally proponents of Free Trade, a political sleight-of-hand for eliminating those progressive reforms.
Free trade is about benefiting from illegal corporate practices (such as worker abuse) by simply allowing American companies to do it overseas, and letting the market do the rest.
If you're interested in some actual straight views on the subject, read more here.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
This flies directly in the face of comments by Carly Fiorina, Andy Grove, and other CEOs that
outsourcing will end up helping this country by exporting the "menial" jobs out to 3rd world countries. In the same breath, they say that the US needs to invest more in high tech in order to maintain their competitive edge.
Their comments are just bullshit, because as the US starts outsourcing their entry-level jobs to India, it leaves no jobs for graduating students. Why would a student pay $80k+ for a degree in which they need to compete against someone making $200/month?
By outsourcing our entry and medium level jobs to 3rd world countries, it is simply compounding our high-tech problem by creating zero incentive for new students to pursue careers in high tech. Because there is no new blood entering these professions, more jobs and more experience is being put into the hands of these 3rd world countries, and countries like the US and Britain end up losing. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and then these CEOs turn around and say, "Well, we said that the US needed to invest more, but they didn't. And because they didn't, we're going to move all of our development to India." It's the fact that they care more about their bottom line over the health of their company and their countries that will cause this problem.
This is a clear indication that the outsourcing strategy has already had a pronounced effect on the US, and is damaging to its competitiveness in high tech.
I'm a Computer Science Pre-Major at the University of Utah and I can say that the engineering program at the U is up to snuff. This is why it is one of the highest ranking engineering departments in the nation. However, spending time at the U I have often thought about how most schools out there probably aren't doing as good of a job as the U is. I did attent a State College for a year before going to the U and it was certainly less effective, by a factor of 100! There are certain aspects of computer science which are the basis of the entire discipline. These are very high-level math and science ideas (or should I say math and engineering?). This is precicely where shools are slacking. But hats off to the guys at the U. I knew after just one semester that I was working with individuals that knew what they were doing. People who are interested in the technology and the knowledge behind the science unlike so many egotistic morons out there who "know more than you" because they went to [place name of ivy league school here].
I look at that stat and think that it is good news. Why? Because that means that people that are really interested in IS and CS will be the ones majoring in it. It was yesterday, I think, that /. reported that only 1 out 7 IT professionals are really happy in their jobs, and the dicussion went to talk about people that had fallen into IT because of the money. Well, with these stats, it means that less people are are chosing IT because of the employment outlook and going someplace else. Maybe, for example, they liked computers, but really liked History. So instead of taking IS they chose history. Which is fine. It just means that those of us that are complete freaks when it comes to computers, where it be IS or CS will have the opportunity to recieve an education where our peers are interested in doing the job instead of the money. Further it also gives me more of an incentive to spend some time studying IS and looking into developing outside skill development. Those of us that actually spend time looking into getting some software or network to work will develop skills that the classroom can not teach. For example, I have spent time studying network security. My university does not really offer much in that way, but I have learned quite a bit about hacking, and defending against hacking. So in short, if you spend a little bit of time outside class and a potiential employer sees that you have a passion and have taken the time to learn what was not required it will be a great benefit. I mean who would you take if you were hiring -- the guy that spent time in the classes but really didn't care, or the freak that spent a year building a super cluster out of 386's, 486's, Pentium 1-4's? I can say that out of those that are in my University, only about 10% are excited about their subject in computers. One good buddy of mine is just doing it because he likes computers, but he doesn't know anything about them. It is truly commendable, but at the same time, having the passion to study and learn is the adantage that will help you to get a job in the IT field.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
When I was in grad school most of the stipends and scholarships were being given to foreign students. It bothered me then and now that my tax money and my tuition money was being used to educate people who aren't Americans. I will admit that many of them worked very hard at studying though and made top grades but I honestly don't think they were any smarter than American kids. They just didn't have anything else to do. Being in a foreign, money and sex oriented culture what else could they do with their time? They were like Fez from the 70's Show.
How much longer can grad school here stay 'excellent' if all the jobs go overseas? Not long I think. The high level tech jobs will follow and then the multi national corporations will make their donations to universities near their manufacturing and research facilities not way over here where education costs a fortune.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Perhaps you, dear reader, see it otherwise, and that's OK.
But either way, if a U.S. student asked you whether opportunities in computers will be growing in the future, you could hardly assure her yes, that's a safe bet.
You'd probably have to advise her that, sorry, in this field you'll increasingly be competing for jobs with people whose cost of living is a third of yours. That's not a good position to be in.
Absolutely. However, while this makes for good computer scientists, it also makes for underqualified software engineers. Knowing how to design a good algorithm doesn't guarantee that one knows how to design, document, and test a production system. A lot of undergraduates don't even do unit testing until they hit the job market. And you can forget about knowing the difference between waterfall vs. incremental development.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not dismissing algorithm development at all. I'm saying that one has to be both a strong computer scientist and a strong software engineer to compete in today's job market. And frankly, I just don't see a lot of that in our schools.
Finding God in a Dog
>A lot of this stuff has nothing to do with what i consider computer science.
Then you, sir, clearly haven't the foggiest clue what computer science is.
>(I have been programming for 10 years).
Programming is to Computer Science as scrubbing test tubes is to Molecular Biology. How many molecular biology majors pride themselves on how many years they've been cleaning the dishes after dinner?
>Why do I need to prove that the PowerSet of Set A
>intersection Set B is the same as the PowerSet of
>A intersection the PowerSet of B (P(A inter B) =
>P(A) inter P(B)).
Because... much of Computer Science *is* mathematics... and if you don't understand basic set theory, you haven't a prayer of surviving since all of modern mathematics is based on set theory.
You are of the, depressingly common, opinion that computer science is about writing programs. For the last and final time: this is wrong. Period.
Programming is a trade skill. Like plumbing. Its a skilled trade, to be sure, but its a TRADE... it is not a science.
Don't blame your computer science program because *you* are massively ignorant of the subject in which you have chosen to major. This is your own fault, not theirs. They are trying to teach you science, when all you want to learn is a trade.
Drop out, and go to one of the many fine trade schools out there that will teach you "C++ programming in 6 months". If all you want to learn is the craft of programming, you are simply going to be miserable in a computer *science* program.
Its rather analogous to taking a degree in Physics to learn how to operate a microwave oven.
Because of the overhead in doing so. I think it really only benefits larger companies, that have larger projects and pay a lot in terms of support and development.
Smaller companies, as I see it, are usually more service oriented and need projects to be closer for those reasons. Also, smaller companies are less stable and require constant redirection which is not possible if your code is on the other side of the planet.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
This may be a good thing for those of us who choose to stick with our CS or Engineering majors. This may leave more jobs available to those who really desire to be involved in those fields
I wouldn't bet on it. One major reason why offshoring is taking place is that it is (almost) as easy to talk to India as it is to Indiana. Unless fiber optics suddenly fails as a technology this trend won't change.
In the short term I'd expect to see the same phenomenon in offshoring countries as the dot.com boom created here - a huge pool of people in IT for the money. A couple of years of mediocre results and increasing quality of graduates here in the USA might persuade more people to bring projects back onshore.
Even though the chaff will eventually be winnowed out of the labor pools across the world the number of high calibre programmers left is still going to be significantly larger than those available today. In an expanding software industry this can only be a good thing but competing against foreign workers is here to stay.
You can't eat money. When the economy collapses from the horrdenous mismanagemnt it had endured, the people who are going to eat are the ones who work. The people whose only skill is telling other people to work will end up starving.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
That's alright. A company of all techies will still get stuff done. A company of all management will starve while trying to tell each other to do the work.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
When the drop in enrolments first started to appear, it was shored up by running industry training courses, like MS and CISCO. This is all well and good, but these are training courses, not University subjects: they don't teach students to think and question. I am not having a go at this type of training, but saying that running it at a university level is inappropriate.
I totally agree with the comments about the reduction being those who were only in it for the money. One of the units I teach contains, wait for it... actual science! This scares the crap out of some stuednts and they even ask "Why do we have to do this? When do we get to play with the toys?". They have no interest in learning how it works, they just want to be trained in how to do it. As an educator, it makes you fairly disheartened. Fortunately, there are still those students who are keen to learn and show an interest and ask questions, and with numbers reducing, these should be on the increase.
The one good thing about numbers dropping off is that, as people have commented here, the ones we get in now should be more interested in learning, and we can get rid of the trend towards running training, and get back to educating people to be thinkers.
"They looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined"
It's been my experience with higher education that they are just like corporate business. Instead of share prices being the overall objective, it's the enrollment number and retention rate. Since computer science and information systems were the big programs roughly 5 years ago, they were dumbed down to accomodate more enrollment and to keep the lesser skilled and less serious students enrolled. This is just a case of the higher of administration simply looking a bottom line numbers and not on the quality and integrity of education that is being offered.
Of course, this is simply a narrow view from my experience with a couple of universities, but I gather that this is the trend with all universities across the nation.
Well whats even funnier, is that our current administration lists burger flipper as a manufacturing job and clearly its obvious that software engineering and computer science is menial... yeah... menial. I hear Mcdonalds is hiring...
There is a definite de-emphasis on math and science in American schools. In the name of bleeding-heart liberalism, everyone now has to take multiple hours of world culture classes, which, for those of us in technical (read: the difficult ones) majors, those takes up a lot of time that could otherwise be spent on real work, like programming, math and science homework. I don't oppose the idea of requiring American history, government and the like at American schools, but classes like "world music" shouldn't be general education requirements.
"...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."
This is obvious bull, to me personally. I got my degree in 1984, when they *did* teach enough math and science, and my degree is in PHYSICS. But they don't even respond to my resume submissions.
The reason people are outsourceing is strictly because it is the latest fad. Someone could offer me (with 20 years of experience) $60,000 a year and I would jump at it. I'm absolutely certain (again from personal experience with working with employees at, for instance BFL in Bangalore) that at 60,000 I would be far more cost effective than the outsourced solution. I would actually be a lot more effective than that, but I mean assuming I was 10% as productive as I actually am.
It's not about education and it's not really about dollars. The real problem is that employers do not have any idea *how* to hire capable engineers, and they feel that outsourcing is a cheaper solution given the uncertainty. What companies in general should be doing is figuring out how to hire better. I would suggest strict trail periods of 3 months or something, where the prospect is assumed fired until proven otherwise. They real problem is they need to move people in and OUT faster to make room for the capable engineers.
Civil, chemical, biomedical, mechanical engineerings are strong and growing.
0 2- 09.xls
Do you have data to support this? The last numbers I could find were that undergraduate engineering peaked in 1983, declined sharply until 1990, and has been creeping downwards since.
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/append/c2/at
I use calculus, statistics and group theory at work. They were anything but a waste of time.
Even if you never use such things, mastery of undergraduate calculus shows that you can think, and shows that you understand the sometimes veering approach mathematics takes to solving problems. If I ever interview you, I want to see evidence of these qualities. I don't give a shit if you think it's useful or not. It is useful, though the reasons may not be immediately apparent to you.
...laura
Or to summarize this argument, the way to fight the decline of the middle class and offshoring is better education. This is a popular argument with the free trade ideologs.
I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. The core problem is that there is someone in India, China or Russia with the same eduction (you name it: computer science + molecular biology, computer science + statistics,...) who can work for a fraction of what someone in the US with the same education can.
In the case of India and China there are huge populations. It is not that expensive these days to turn out a computer scientists (although a molecular biologists is a bit more expensive). So it seems likely that there will always be an large supply of cheap well trained offshore labor.
The irony is that "knowledge workers" like computer scientists would be better off if we were factory workers. At least then capital investment could be applied to increase our productivity and reduce the offshore advantage with automation. However, in the case of software development, any new software tool that increases productivity is available world wide.
So lets see, after you make the eduction argument you need to move on to the argument about how all this is temporary and things will be just mo'betta once the next big thing comes along. You know, biotechnology, nanotechnology....
Although my job title is "computer scientist" my undergrad degree is in biology. So I've taken chemistry, physics, organic chem, biochem, molecular biology, cell biology, neurbiology and so on. But I don't see a whole lot more opportunity in the vaunted biotechnology revolution. All I see are drug companies spending vast amounts of money with few drugs in the pipeline. At the same time there is pressure on drug prices. Biotechnology does not exactly look like a dream industry either.
Have you ever noticed that the US is almost alone in its free trade ideology? Virtually every country in Asia has an industrial policy that is aimed at protecting and expanding the industries that they view as strategic (China's efforts in semiconductors have been in the news lately). You simply would not see the policymakers in these countries willingly hollow out their technology base for "free trade".
It is time that the US realized that the problem is not eduction or that The Next Big Thing has not arrived. The problem is that the US needs an industrial policy aimed.
A knowledge of algorithms is constantly useful because you are aware of solutions less informed people wouldn't even think of. For example, I've cast a couple of problems as "the stagecoach problem", a kind of shortest path problem for which a very fast and elegant solution exists. It's behaviour almost looks like artificial intelligence.
I've also made use of Voronoi diagrams (a solution to the nearest neighbour problem), which has numerous applications, one of which is fast 2-dimensional searching.
Knowledge of least-L1-norm algorithms has helped me develop robust software where the "obvious" solution would fail miserably.
I didn't use knowledge of algorithms to create new algorithms (as you say, most of that work has been done), but to find solutions for applications that wouldn't even occur to someone without such a background.
The reason high-tech jobs are being outsourced is because there are fewer high-tech skills being taught domestically. Universities at the undergraduate level have become what "high school" used to be -- a piece of paper that says you've got the minimum skills and education necessary to participate in the economy.
:) Even now there is lots of work. It makes me wonder where as a society we are headed, though - Many of the people I have worked with were not born here, and this is more and more the case as I move up my career and get to more difficult and advanced projects.
I have an EE degree. Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at any Canadian University anyway are much more difficult than any other undergraduate program on campus - to the point where it is foolish. I imagine the situation is similar in the US. Part of this is because you can't dumb down engineering - there are professional review boards that make sure that doesn't happen. Engineering has actually changed very little - same math people learned 50 or 100 years ago - but if all you want is a degree, you'd have to be insane to literally beat yourself stupid for 4 or 5 years.
Most of the people in the program I took got NAILED by the math. I had a rough time, but I did OK, mainly because I can teach myself things - Profs don't help much if there's 100 people in your class, they can't. Enrollment went from 180+ my first year to a graduating class of about 40, same as it's always been.
One interesting thing though is once I understood the math, it was like some light went on in my head, and it wasn't that hard anymore. I struggled with basic mathematics early on, and I really don't know why. Why is math drilled into people's heads as "hard"? I know learning STUPID USELESS DRILLS in grade school is something that the education profession should be UTTERLY ASHAMED of. Why do students not learn about set theory and relationships early on? We have these wonderful machines for drawing math - math is all about pretty pictures, really - teach students THAT instead.
On a practical measure, why should a student go through hell.. (sleeping on floors so you'd wake up for 8:30 classes, 2-4 labs per week, my last year I had 75+ pages of assignments due EVERY week plus labs!) - when you could just go do arts instead, then study law, and have a good time? There is no guarantee of a good job any more if you slug it though.
It's good for me in engineering now - I have had no problem finding work as an embedded systems / hardware guy, not many people can program with only an oscilloscope to debug.
What's going to happen in 50 years, when all these other countries realize maybe they don't need to pander to a nation of marketdroids and attorneys?
Interestingly enough - engineering is one of the most democratic and fair programs - when you do a page of calculus to solve a kinematics problem, it's either right or wrong. Unfortunately, if it's wrong, there isn't much to work on.
Oh well. I know I'm busy.
..don't panic
As a Ph.D. student in Computer Engineering, I can attest to the fact that schools today lack a requisite in math and sci. As an undergrad I took more math as I knew I was going to go for an M.S. in Physics. In physics, I took even more math to stay on top of the courses. Now in my Ph.D., it scares me to see EEs and CEs at the M.S. and Ph.D. level that do not know matrix algebra, differential equations or numerical analysis.
Listen up, if you are going to go into any engineering major or science major, take more math. It can only help you. (even if you do not use it, you will learn to look at problems in a different light).
This is quite possibly one of the most asinine posts that I have ever read on slashdot (And man have I read some asinine posts on slashdot..)
l y lines....come on thi slist can go on forever. I am not saying that other countries don't make great contirbutions to the world, but I am saying that in the last 100 years the majority of world changing technologies have come from americans and our supposedly feable math skills....it is plailn bullshit.
I hate to break it to you but us american engineers are just as competent as our foreign counter parts. And to be totally honest I think that the American culture is much better at producing creative engineers as opposed to number crunchers. How many people do you think actually take a derivative by hand or an integral by hand any more...sure if it is something quick during a discussion we do it, but if it is serious math we use a software package to make sure we are right...so do your foreign guy's. This whole belief that americans are somehow stupid because of standard exam scores and such is plain ludicrous. Many kids just don't care until they get older...maybe school is not there thing..maybe we the have a need for math they will go learn it....the world does not revolve around a society of people that can do high level math....if that was the case then some other country (China) would be the world leader..and not America. Funny how our country seems to produce quite a bit of the truely inovative things in the world...electricity any one....hey what about T.V...internet...computers...automobiles...assemb
what?
which, when expressed fully, is
There are plenty of people with all sorts of skills in the U.S. but companies aren't willing to pay for them.
Wow, imagine that-- students making rational decisions. So of course policy makers should be worried.
Let's see, you can:
a) Work your ass off for 4-5 years in, what is usually, a very difficult academic program. Then you can, if you are super lucky, find an engineering job where your employers will work you to death. You will live under the cloud of being reminded that your salary is 5X higher than those equally talented people from 3rd world countries, any one of which could be brought in on a moments notice to occupy your chair (h1b, L1), should you stumble. Of course, since there is an near infinite supply of technical labor available to US companies, you will have zero salary mobility. Well, ok I'm exagerating, you won't have *zero* salary mobility-- you'll have some *nagative* salary mobility, which is what is currently happening to most of the engineers I know.
As you get older, if you are stupid enought to not switch careers, your peers will not get older with you. You will constantly be surrounded by 25-30 year old 3rd world engineers, as management continuously rotates in "fresh blood". Better not even think about having a family and working sane hours. All of your peers will be virtual slaves (h1b and L1 visa holders) who are forced to work up to 80 hours/week without any extra compensation for the overtime. That's because non-resident "guest" workers wouldn't dare complain about any request made of them from management-- if they did, they would be on the first boat back to Katmandu!
Then if you manage to survive to your mid-thirties as a practicing engineer, it's time to start thinking about a new career. Except for a handful of superstars, there is no such thing as a 40+ year old software engineer in the United States. You are regarded as a fossil by age 40. Just when your friends in other fields such as academia, law, medicine, business, are reaching their peak earnings and career potential, your career will be winding down. If you are lucky, you can maybe make the jump to management. However, you'll be at a competitive disadvantage against those who started earlier on the business track. In fact, those who skip the engineering altogether and go straight to business school are much more likely to get jobs managing engineers than engineers rising through the ranks. That's because US companies don't not require engineering degrees for the vast majority of their engineering management positions.
b) You can go to medical/dental/law/business/plumbing school. You will not have to perpetually compete with 25 year olds from China. That's because all of these "professions" are protected by guild systems. How many doctors hop off a boat from Bangalore to immedidately start practicing medicine in the US? Precisely 0.0. That's because it's illegal to practice medicine, law, or plumbing in the US without the appropriate guild credentials and licensing. That's because these professions are protected by powerful political lobbies that would never allow their golden egg laying geese to be killed.
In these professions you will have a *career*. There will be a recognizable career trajectory that can actually last past the age of 40! You can spend time with your family, have people work for you, have time to date.
Tough choice.
Subject: Wired: feedback: re: Outsourcing report blames schools
From: "A. Lizard"
The problem isn't a lack of trained and educated people as recent reports from the IEEE showing increased unemployment demonstrate.
The problem is a lack of trained and educated people willing to work for minimum wage.
Your repeating industry propaganda uncritically serves nobody except your advertisers. We expect better from Wired News.
When I tried to send this to Wired News via their contact form, the above is part of 1 of the 12 bounce messages I sent. Perhaps Wired News needs some trained and educated people to run their own computer systems. Before people start asking questions about the competence of Wired News to address technological issues. Of course, one doesn't have to have competent reporters willing to do research if their news source is recycled corporate press releases.
The article itself is just pro-outsourcing spin control. The essential industry complaint is that nobody in the USA is stupid enough to put 4 years into getting a degree that will entitle its owner to a minimum wage gig. If US companies actually want kids to study high tech, they will provide a reasonable assurance that middle-class jobs will be available for kids who study technology when they graduate from college. That's all they have to do. Instead, they are pushing college kids out of technology fields by doing the opposite. The kind of bullshit reassurances they're getting from people like Bill Gates, whose encouraging words can be translated to "Go to school and get your degree, we'll cherry-pick the best 5% of you and the rest of you have wasted tens of thousands of dollars and hours in vain pursuit of a degree which will entitle you to flip burgers" are not going to be bought by anyone smart enough to get a tech degree to begin with.
However, the best attack on outsourcing is that it is indeed a high-risk strategy. All we generally hear about from the mass media and business magazines are the "good news" stories about how wonderful it is and how it's a competitive necessity. Here are some stories about outsourcing gone bad. Some of the companies discussed in the collection of articles this links to. . . are no longer with us and there's no question that their decision to outsource was responsible. It is apparent that outsourcing is being pushed without due diligence and often without regard for long-term consequences even to the companies whose investors are supposed to profit from this.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If they say it isn't about the money...then it is.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
is that you can't just take computer science and come out knowing how to program. Maybe some universities are better than others. If you're not programming on your own time and putting out real demonstrations you're wasting your time with comp sci. I've been very unimpressed with the program at my Uni so I'm cutting out the middle man and switching to getting a secondary education teaching degree in math instead. A degree is a degree when looking for a programming job. It's experience that means anything. And I'd rather teach programming.
I don't need a piece of paper to tell me I know how to program. Certainly not a $16,000 piece of paper. I could buy a car, and the books and teach myself (like I've been doing for 16 years) for that kind of money and do just as well or better.
The students who excel in programming in reality don't need the university. There are those who teach themselves and those who need to be taught. Those who need to be taught will fail in programming because you never stop learning. You can't be a follower and be successful in that field. And if you're the kind of person who can teach yourself, you don't very well need to spend thousands of dollars for someone to teach you.
And in the case of my physics classes I'm paying them quite a bit of money so I can teach myself. Literally. One day a week I'm expected to show up in class and the teacher isn't there. It's just a TA who doesn't say anything. You're just supposed to sit there and work a stupid little workbook of the likes I havn't seen since elementary school. Which is really annoying. And needless to say, I've not been attending. I don't play stupid little games.
The problem isn't that there isn't enough math and physics being offered. It's that it's not being taught.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Fascinating. I know a number of unemployed technical people who not only have the basic skills and education, but also have 15-30 years experience. Who can not only do the technical work, but can run a meeting or communicate with the marketing folk. Currently under-employed or unemployed. Why? They can't give a company 60 hours a week in the lab or on the road because they're trying to raise kids and make a marriage work. They can't afford to move from this area of relatively low-cost housing to either coast because it means starting over on a mortgage that they won't have time to pay off. They're at an age where they HAVE to save 15-20% of their salary if they're going to be able to retire when they're not able to continue with the physical effort of full-time work (and if you don't believe a coding job in SV can be physically demanding, try that commute, or finding your way from the airport to the hotel in a strange city, after dark and with 50-year-old reflexes and eyesight), and they can see that time coming.
Sorry, I'm feeling disgruntled this evening.
In a report by the AeA, they contend that American schools don't teach enough math and science anymore.
In my opinion, schools have been placing too much emphasis on liberal social issues. For example, children are being taught gay issues on school time that could instead be spent teaching them how to succeed in life. (I won't say whether or not I am gay. It's none of your business.) I simply think that this subject is completely off topic in the academic environment.
Schools need to get their act together. English class (or whatever language is spoken in your part of the world) should be about spelling, grammar, punctuation, proper use of a dictionary, etc. Currently, English class is an excuse to read and write about liberal social issues.
The way math is taught should be overhauled, because too many students are turned off from it and grow up barely able to balance a checkbook. In fact, basic accounting, a subject that could be considered math, should probably be taught, because children are increasingly growing up very irresponsible financially, and getting into a lot of debt before they get their first "real" job.
Sciences should also be a focus. Physics, chemistry, biology, space sciences, geology, and many other sciences should be taught. Keep kids in school for an additional hour if you need to. It'll keep them off of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex, and other problems.
An area that is currently lacking in public schools is business classes. You don't have to teach anything complicated. Just basic people skills, how to believe in yourself, how to get results. This will go extremely far in most children's futures.
And MOST IMPORTANTLY, schools should offer art classes, auto shop, printing shop, wood shop, metal shop, sewing, acting, music, computer programming, sports, drama, computer animation, and any other "elective" that someone could dream of. (This is not an exhaustive list, only the first items that came to my mind.) And the BEST equipment and instructions, and plenty of time, should be provided for students. These are the subjects that let kids' imaginations grow. These are the subjects that get students interested in school and keep them interested in the boring academic crap. All you need to tell a kid who is an animation fanatic is that "all those other classes are what make you really good at animation." Even if they have to cut funding to the aforementioned boring stuff, and have 80 students in each English class, the auto shop should be better than Jesse James' wildest dreams. And *everyone*, not just property owners, should pay equally for educational taxes. The burden on property owners will be less, thereby causing rental prices to drop, while the revenue for schools will climb.
Billions upon billions of dollars are allocated for the currently useless schools, and the administrators probably jack most of it. This money should be used for constructive purposes. If you disagree, then wait until Mexico gets its act together and people start sneaking the other way across the border.
The liberals amongst you are probably horrified at this point.
But where are THEIR hard numbers? Pot, kettle, black. It's like they're saying, oh, they haven't even proven there's a problem -- but here's what's causing it.
2. Please also keep in mind that they are talking about the outsourcing of ALL tech jobs, including engineering, and not just computer science. Within computer science, jobs ARE being outsourced to save money. It's undeniable.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Next time you have to wait for your bullet train because some high schooler couldn't take the pressure of his or her exams, think about what all that extra schooling can do.
I agree, most Americans could use more schooling, but not the way it's practiced throughout Asia, with tests as early as middle school that can essentially determine the rest of your life.
Also, much of the extra schooling is geared towards test prep, IE here's the fact, now memorize it for the test. Next. For geography this is great, but can stifle innovation. I think it was an article in the Economist a few years back that talked about how Asian schools produce higher marks on science and math tests, but the vast majority of Nobel Prizes for Math and Science go to (North) Americans and Europeans, where there may be less in class time, but independent thinking is encouraged in the classroom.
Oh, Japanese McDonalds do rock the socks off of American McDonalds, same can be said for Chinese McDonalds.
Computer Science has more to do with mathematics than MIS. MIS students can't program worth a damn. 4 year degrees are supposed to take 4 years to complete....
And people wonder why we're losing jobs to Indians. Look, I have a CS degree. I'm also a recruiter. I know both sides.
The sad fact of the matter is that CS grads are not qualified for most positions and won't get more than a glance by most recruiters. Voila, in the real world, money is the bottom line, and I'm not going to make money off of a pimple faced geek who thinks that configuring Enlightenment to run transparent windows on a Linux box is the epitome of coolness.
You want to get a job when you graduate? Prepare earlier. Get an internship. Do some real research. If you're looking to get a certification, save your money. Certs mean NOTHING without experience (although Oracle and Cisco certs can get your foot in the door). Learn how to write resumes and prepare for interviews. If you do all that, you might have a chance at landing a job.
Even still, you'll be bringing a knife to a gunfight. I know PhDs who have gotten grants from NASA to develop algorithms who can't find work right now. Sooner or later, geeks will learn that the only reason they're employed is to facilitate business. Instead of getting that MS in CS, get an MBA. Pay to get trained by some of the corporations that produce the software that most companies use. SAP. Peoplesoft. Oracle. Webmethods. Lawson. JDEdwards. Manugistics. You've already spent thousands on a piece of paper that says you labored through a bunch of classes. Spend a few grand more and position yourself to make A LOT of money so that you can spend time doing what you like.
Very few people get to write software from scratch nowadays. You'll be much happier in the long run if you get a job that pays well and is well respected than one that you think you'll like but gets you treated like a spare.
Your life is what you make of it, but the world is what it is. Successful people make it work to their advantage.
As for me, I'm working a day job making a nice living (and if you resent recruiters, you have no idea how risky the job is), and do some remote consulting from home on the weekends. Going back to school with a fat wallet in the fall to get an MBA/JD. I'll be much happier working 45 hours a week at 300 bucks an hour as a financial planner/estate planner while coding on the side than working 45 hours a week for someone else to maintain their code.
I'm constantly (negatively) amazed by the recent trend of the implementation of "non-discriminating" policies by a lot of universities by lowering entrance requirements, making courses easier, etc.
Not having an entrance bias based on height, colour, sex, etc. is reasonable. However, universities should discriminate on intelligence.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ELITISM???
People who back away from mathematics should have NOTHING to do with Computer Science. The current system is giving them too much false hope, and as a result their career, and our reputation, is hurt.
Less people is a good thing, because it probably means higher quality. I'll say, on top of this, all universities should restore a "gifted" class of sorts, where the best people will receive special, accelerated educations.
You know, it's gotta have as bright a future as IT these days...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Or, the people capable of doing IT realize that they can make more money in a factory doing work that only requires a high school degree; so they go work there instead and the guy that was there gets pushed out because he was slightly less competent.
What?
I'm reminded of similar situations throughout history, when empires got lazy and decided to 'outsource' the 'dirty work' to others and simply make money off them..
It's a common thing that they do before they fall..
What is happening here is that given a green light to, by Washington, the corporate interests are becoming too greedy. They don't want to allocate too much of 'their' profits to the *people who actually create the wealth*. Instead, they want to play the middleman. The problem with this scenario is that the skills leave the US. Eventually, the loss becomes irreplaceable, because the loss of low and middle tier jobs leads to the loss of upper tier jobs as well. But they wont admit that because they are just in it for the short term profit.. Its a symptom of the way corporations are structured.
History teaches us that in situations like this, it's only a matter of time before the producers and consumers of tech products and services look to eliminate the middlemen.. - basically, US.
Can the US remain a first tier nation, if it only has second tier technology? - NO
Anyway, thats my cut on this...
I've been working in software organizations for over 20 years at companies like HP and Sun. Math and Science are not as important as good logic and tenacity! Most of the outsourced work to other countries is not complicated work... sustaining and testing is more about attitude than hard core math and science. That is what's mostly being outsourced.
We have been told the last 20 years that a college degree made us indispensible. As blue collar jobs went to mexico and taiwan, white collar jobs were supposed to be untouchable. Not so. This is the nature of the beast (capitalism). As long as someone else will do the same job cheaper, that job will move. Right now, high level managers are sitting smug, thinking their jobs cannot be outsourced... wait and see. You want job security? Find a job with face-to-face interaction. That cannot be done from India.
Why bring another wave of newbies into the mix? The jobs they'll be doing to gain experience are exactly the jobs that are getting offshored: help desk, programming, web development, etc.
I was lucky and have been lucky throughout my 20 years in IT. I started at a small office while in HS, worked my way through college, was confused as to what degree to pursue (I didn't know you could get paid for playing... er, working, with computers.), and started climbing the technical ladder 10 years ago.
Now I'm a network administrator, learning more every day, earning a comfortable (but unfortunately not opulent) salary, and finally, after all this time I'll get my MCSE in July. Maybe next year I'll finish those 6 hours to have my BS in CS and eventually become a manager.
Bring in a fresh wave of techies? No way. That's more, less expensive competition for the guys with skills and experience. I seriously doubt the retirement/departure rate of IT professionals can match the incoming numbers. In case you haven't noticed, the trend has been to do more with less, work smarter not harder, and for systems to be manageable by fewer people. I see no reason why this trend will change anytime soon.
Sure we need fresh recruits in some areas, but I feel they'll have to be specialized in the latest technology. If you're coming out of college without .NET coding skills, a great deal of Linux experience, or extensive IP experience, you're just another coder or toolie waiting to be outsourced.
I think these students are right to be pessimistic, and eventually things will reach a balance.
YMMV.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Any serious algorithm development effort needs:
Frankly, if you're using C to prove your algorithms, I'm either very scared, or you have some people using some incredible automatic theorem-provers. Still, I hope you're not rolling your own crypto. Attitudes like that have led to some incredibly silly security flaws.
Lea
better chances at employment right after graduation
Great. Well then, your company is the *reason* that US education sucks. College is not on-the-job training. While companies like yours might be better served by a huge supply of graduates trained specifically on whatever tools you use at the moment, those students would not.
As soon as those tools are no longer in use, your company would fire those who use them in favor of a new crop of freshly-trained students. I for one am glad that there are Universities left with enough honesty *not* to sell out to your short-sighted demands. Companies like yours have ruined the US. Congratulations.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Was this post moderated to +5 Insightful by homophobics anonymous, or what? Everyone is entitled to their viewpoints, but this post is simply flamebait making ridiculous, unsubstantiated assertions.
"For example, children are being taught gay issues on school time"
Give me a break.
I'd say that it's the school system itself, as it does not even provide any room for skilled students to advance without having to waste 110 hours on material that they already know. College is somewhat better as it provides students with the ability to perform a Prior Learning Assessment (usually not recommended as courses contain information that isn't taught outside of college.)
From my experience, not every parent is lazy. The majority of them tend to want their child to perform well (but sometimes overdrive them.) The few bad apples that demand that their students get scholarship class "A+"s instead of a mere "A" are the major problem.