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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
lawyers
sulli
RTFJ.
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.
here there's a massive plumber shortage and even people with PhD's are retraining.
Is this the beginning of a blue-collar revolution? Do you think its time to crack open each others skulls and feast on the goo inside?
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.
yeah then they really wont be able to find a job
love is just extroverted narcissism
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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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.
Maybe all the tards will finally leave CompSci and stop wasting the time of everyone else who actually wants to be there. Im sick of students who cant even code coming up through the system because they dont really care and have cheated their way as far as they have come. They are overcrowding the program and ruining the name of universities who would otherwise have impressive graduates coming out of their programs.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
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.
... I know mine is! A lot of this stuff has nothing to do with what i consider computer science. (I have been programming for 10 years). 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)).
/rant
Even worse last semester in Comp Sci 309 "Software Engineering" in which a group project is 40% of your grade, and EVERYONE must write some of the code and some of the documents, I got stuck with a complete group of imbeciles that had no business being in that class and only passed the previous ones because they could implement a function given a function header and a description of what it does - not write a program. Needless to say I failed that class beause the other group members are completely incompetant - and then the professor refused to believe they were that bad. I just about printed out my entire CVS repository on sourceforge [which includes what code was written for that project, all by me], walked into his office and slammed the stack down on his desk.
PS: These group members were so incompetant that they couldn't even follow the SF.net site docso n how to setup CVS - I had to GO TO THEIR APPARTMENTS MYSELF and set it up.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
I have been a technology-oriented student for quite a long time (well, ever since 6th grade, really, and I'm a high-school senior now). While I have worked with electronics and robotics to some extent, I have the most experience in computer science and computer engineering, and have spent the majority of my time learning in these areas. However, as it has been college-applciation time, I have had to decide which field I am more inclined toward, I have chosen electrical engineering. While I may find CS and CE more enjoyable at the moment, I doubt that I could find a good job in that area now, due both to the glut in the market during the internet explosion and because of outsourcing. I may minor in CS, but I don't have high hopes of getting a good job because of it...
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
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.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Yes, applications to US Universities are down in EE and CS, but you'll find the biggest drop was in international student applications. Recent restrictions on international students have made the US a painful choice for higher education. I think this facet of the enrollment drop has been glossed over for the most part in the media. I was unaware until I spoke with some people in my EE departement's graduate admissions office. Granted, exporting jobs causes some of this, but let's take a look at all the causes.
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.
The mass of idiots churning out of CS programs everywhere has diluted the perceived value of our degree. They also monopolize the professors' valuable time (and therefore decrease the education value for the students who are passionate for the subject) with their moronic questioning.
I say good riddance to them.
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...
Do what you love and the money will follow. While I think this is just an appropriate example of market forces at work, job markets can be hard to judge (I have degrees in engineering, physics, and astronomy and the job market was supposes to be great when I started, turned out not to be so much later). There will be jobs for the excellent and hard working in pretty much any field they enter. If you're just chasing the jobs, please rethink your major, unless you want six figures and a company car with a BA in philosophy. Really though, be a life-long learner and a good human being and you'll probably get by OK.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
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.
FYI, management is often full of those who couldn't hack it as a techie. Furthermore when a company gets cut back, management is often first to go. Don't worry though, I might drop a quarter in your cup when I see you begging for money on street corner after this happens.
When I'm the last person on Earth who know how to debug a C program on AIX, ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE ME!!!!
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Undergraduates in U.S. universities are starting to abandon their studies in computer technology and engineering
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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.
Leave the geeks to their machines, let the rest of us rule them from management.
Philosophize about how HR found all that pr0n on your computer, and how your letter of resignation got emailed to the CEO. He who controls the data, controls the department.
BOFH LIVES!
"Lame" - Galaxar
I would have to echo the sentiment that this isn't as dire as it seems. I was in CS from 92-93, 95-96, and 98-00 (I have an alergic reaction to large amounts of unsecured debt) I noticed in the 98-00 timeframe that there were a lot of students in CS that plain old dind't belong there, and quite frankly would have (and for one I saw was) happier elsewhere.
Seeing the dot com bubble and microsofts valuation many incoming studens thought that it was spelled $oftware and Computer $cience, when they are really interested in Bu$ine$$. I mean if you want money go to business school, you don't have to graduate. Then there is the "plug and chug" crowd can now see there is more stability in the Engineering disciplines. There is no drop from the hard sciences because "anything that needs to put the word science in it's name isn't a science". As for the others... well it's only a 19% drop.
People who are truly passionate about computers programming, algorithms, languages, etc. will still do Computer Science, and in my last school stint it was a minority (as far as being passionate) in the overloaded senior level classes. The down side is there seems to be a strong gender correlation to being passionate about CS. For of the femenine persuasion when they are passionate about something it tends to be in the liberal arts/musical/medical side of things. (and when I say medical it's more the RN/NP side than the MD side: passionate != stupid WRT insurance liability).
--Shemnon
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
It would be interesting to see how much of this 19% enrollment drop-off may be attributed to the increased difficulty and harassment involved in foreigners getting student visas to attend colleges in the United States? A great many of these foreign students seem to enroll in technology-related programs such as EE/CE/CS/etc.
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.
- 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
Not all engineering is suffering, but the computer and EE areas certainly are. Civil, chemical, biomedical, mechanical engineerings are strong and growing.
I've talked to a number of executives of engineering firms and they indicate that offshoring is not really a major trend. Yes, it is impacting some areas very heavily such as support, but for programmers and engineers, it's a rather minor situation, and the good engineering/programming jobs are likely to always remain local to the company.
The weak job situation for most programmers is not due to offshoring, but rather to simply a lack of jobs, and the fact that the peak of students entering computer majors was around 1999/2000, so they are graduating in highest numbers right now - there's simply more demand than supply. The Merc and other publications are hollaring 'offshore' at the top of their lungs, and unfortunately some people can only hear what they hear the loudest.
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.
I'm fortunate in that I'm a decent programmer and a pretty good artist... this has opened many doors for me. What do other /. readers think about more cross disciplinary students? I know there will always be a place for pure programmers, but I also hope to see more programmer-minded people in different fields. Will the declining enrollment in SE/EE possibly result in this trend?
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();
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
Oh please:
"Kazmierczak acknowledged that AeA members are all business owners, not employees, but says this had no effect on the report's findings. "Yes, we do represent the interests of businesses," said Kazmierczak. "However, we believe our report is a fair and balanced look at the entire scope and context of the offshore-outsourcing issue.
Riiight. So the fact that the report was written by a bunch of business owners who are probably outsourcing wouldn't make me suspicious just one bit.
Uh huh... yeah.. and I'm Bill Gates. Last I checked unemployment in the US, the country with the most skilled workers on this planet, still have pretty high unemployment (especially in tech).
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
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 is good news indeed. Now the industry will be filled with people who work because they love the work. It reminds of a post I read in an article on Slashdot a while back, one reader said something similiar to "you either love what you do or be forced to love what you do".
Btw, I graduated and went straight into web development. So most of what I learned in school is now rarely applied to my work. It was great course though. I learned a lot about CPUs, Hardware programming and the fact that finding a female student in Computer Engineering in my school was like winning the state lottery. We had rumors that a girl enrolled in the Comp. Eng. but we never saw proof of it.
I'm a senior in computer engineering and I'm not too worried. This isn't like the textile industry where robots are poised to take my place. There will always be a need for someone to write firmware code, assembly or other tasks because computers aren't going to go out of style anytime soon.
Yeah, the market may be bad today, a year from today or even 5 years from today, but don't jump ship too soon. Assuming you had a BS in CE, a good employer of a non-CE, but computing-type job should see your BS and realize you can do more things than you were taught. I already have an AS in Civil Engineering, that shows I know other forms of engineering and transfers over the core classes so I don't have to overlap my classes. My dad got his BS in EE, but worked with chemicals for 15 years till his company was bought out but the new company went under. He now fixes electronic sensor machines for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality doing what he is educated for with a generous salary.
I guess the moral of the story is get the computer degree you are trying to get and in the long run it'll be okay.
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
oh sweet irony...
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
If the job situation continues to deteriorate, the effects can be more than just getting rid of the dead wood. The field of Aerospace Engineering was nearly destroyed by the massive cutbacks in military and NASA spending during the 1970s. Everyone read stories in the newspaper about highly-skilled engineers driving cabs and losing their houses. The follow-on effects wiped out many academic programs. Most of the best students went to other fields where the job prospects were not so dismal. NASA now has a severe demographic problem with its workforce. Many of its best people have died or retired, or will do so in the near future.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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.
?
That's not an insult. It's true. If you want to learn a specific trade, then you go to a trade school, like ITT tech. I'm being very serious here.
Why would you pay insane amounts in college tuition to learn from uber-intelligent professors about specific technologies when you could do that at a trade school? You go to those universities to learn theory, that's what you're paying for. Because being taught that stuff and learning that stuff is NOT something you can get at a trade school.
Your analogy regarding physics and mech eng is a poor one.
They don't have a dept for software engineering because that's more of a job title than it is an areas of study or science (at least as of now). They do, however, offer classes on software engineering.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
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...
The current SAT's have 1.5 Verbal sections and .5 Math sections. I say this b/c about half of the math part is written and the 'process' counts more than the answer (in other words, you can get the right answer and still have the wrong answer, like the verbal section).
.5 Math sections.
Now, some stupid board wants to add a 'writing skills' section to the test (aka, another English section), making it 2.5 English sections to the
That 'writing skills' section is the reason I was not National Merit, as I am not very good at English/Verbal, but got an 800 on the Math section.
So now that we have so much English on the test, a Math person doesn't do as well on the test and thus doesn't get the scholarships or into the best schools. Before you could do ok on one section and well on another and not have to worry about which school you get into. There has been a systematic killing of Math skills by a dumb group of people on a board somewhere.
Of course, this could always be a side effect of placing too much faith in one stupid test.
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
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.
I am currently attending RIT for a Masters in Comp Sci. Last May I recieved a Bacholers in Software Engineering from RIT. For the past several years, RIT has been trying to deal with it's rettention problem ... right now, the "grand idea" is to reduce the acdemic program. This would involve reducing the maximum number of co-ops and reduce total number of required credit hours.
... and this article is proof of that. Why would I want to hire someone who has less expereince coming out of college ... when I could hire someone overseas for less who knows at least as much. Its a damn shame. Most classes I took were vauable - at least the ones within my major. Its pretty damn obvious that they wont cut math/science/lib arts ... so the only thing that will suffer is the core courses. what a shame.
... its just a bad Idea. If they want to solve the retition issue, they outta look at revoking the dry-campus policy.
This is a horrible idea
Pitty on ol al simone and the administration
/* Lobster Stick To Magnet!*/
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
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).
Show me where Cato has advocated using force or fraud to acquire workers.
But if you really want to see Cato's theories in action, you can visit anywhere in our planet's generous 3rd world
Third world countries are generally run by despots and/or kleptocrats.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
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
I think IT workers have to take anything that a trade association of 3000 companies says with a grain of salt. "We want more trained workers, trained at their, or someone else's, expense" is a constant, never changing mantra of these associations. There is ALWAYS a shortage of trained people in their eyes, there are ALWAYS a huge amount of high skilled jobs that are going unfilled (unfilled at the wages THEY want to offer). The ITAA was apoplectic in the late 1990s about the shortage of trained people there were for careers that would be around forever. And this is the line they continued to play for the past few years, saying people need to come in on H1-B visas with skills Americans don't have and so forth. Meanwhile, I know people here on H1-B visas who told me they never touched a computer before they stepped foot in the US.
So take all of this with a grain of salt. I would trust information from other IT people then some of the doo-doo that comes out of the AEA and ITAA. Check out Washtech.org or TechsUnite. If anything, they help IT workers communicate with one another about various things.
In the name of fairness, why don't you go take the LSAT, score in the 90th+ percentile (because that's what it takes to get into a tier one law school), then go look at Havard's curriculum for law school (where you will be doing A LOT of pro-bono work and A LOT of case review, and taking quite a few classes...) and then tell me that law school is a cake walk? ...just to shut people like you up. I took enough history courses with my engineering degree to get a minor if I so desired. Even ones that weren't required. I would have LOVED to have become a historian - unfortunately, the pay is miserable.
Not all EE's are illiterate, and this one in particular can legalese with with best of them. So don't paint us all with the same brush - and while I have no problem reading and interpreting Canadian law - I had to take a law course to qualify for the engineering association, FWIW, as well.
All engineers in this country are required to take many economics, arts, and english courses - humanities - so they are well rounded. Arts students IMHO do not have the burden of mathematics and science placed upon them that would make THEM as well rounded.
There are exceptions that prove BOTH rules. The other fact is lawyers do not produce new products in a society. They are a result of people being greedy and utterly miserable to one another. The state of the legal profession in Canada is not as bad as the USA - the concept of "nominal" damages still exists.
Who's the one painting who with the big brush? Nowhere did I state my skills were superior. I stated that EE and ME are the most difficult UNDERGRADUATE degrees to take. If you do an informal survey on campus, you will find most students agree with me. Law is a GRADUATE calling.
Secondly, I stated that I believe math is NOT difficult, and that it is mearly taught incorrectly.
Perhaps you (the lawyer) are the one who should learn to read more critically. Or, are you compensating for something?
..don't panic
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.
The reality is that the job situation is fine.
Says the employed programmer.
If you are a good programmer, you likely have not had trouble finding work,
I know eight programming languages, three of them cold. I've been unemployed for over three years. I couldn't rent a job with a coupon.
you won't have a job when you graduate. You will have a job.
Until you get laid off. Then the mortgage falls through, and your wife goes into labor in the parking lot because there isn't any room in the ER, and you find you have to choose between food and electricity, or dignity and a paycheck, or rent and car payment.
Then you find out just how much your former employer doesn't give a shit, and how they precisely timed your layoff for maximum cruelty, plus maximum hype for the announcement (the following day, naturally) that they had reached record profits for the quarter and the new product (that you helped build) was projected to increase sales 500%.
And so you're back at Poverty-Mart, stocking shelves to pay off your five-figure student loans for your useless Magna Cum Laude degree. Until you get laid off again, of course.
I share the same hope as many of the other posters that the quality of graduates will improve. It would save me a lot of time and improve the quality of my day if I didn't have to look at a pseudo-programmer's resume.
Really? Degreed candidates are "pseudo-programmers" now? Well, I guess that proves my argument about the usefulness of a college degree.
See, here a degree used to qualify someone ON ITS FACE for their job. Now, it's "well, it's nice you have a degree, but I still don't believe you, so get out."
Yeah. The future's bright in them cubicles, ain't it?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
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 hear that in 2010 the US will face a shortage of 10 million-odd workers, though I haven't heard what industries those shortages will be in.
That's when they plan to replace the state of Idaho with a new Wal-Mart "Continent-Center" which will include a grocery store, bank, library, several hundred housing tracts, four parks, a University, power plant, hospital, two sports arenas and a drive-through interstate highway.
Most of northern Utah and portions of Wyoming will be sold to build a parking lot which will be visible from orbit.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
The skills any geek worth his/her salt should be studying, imho...
1) reloading cartridge ammunition
2) manual labor-intensive and technology-poor farming and manufacturing techniques (bootstrap baby, bootstrap...)
3) pioneer-style medical care
The real irony is that a nation of overweight cows sitting in front of the magic box can't even see it coming. When the feces hits the ventilation system, no degree will mean as much as simply being ready to deal with the new 'economy'...and like it or not you can't eat money, degrees, nice resumes, or fancy algorithms...its called hubberts peak, and I believe we just hit it...mod me as off topic, but think about it...
you think it's easy, but you're wrong...
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?
This started with a story about college kids abandoning CS and engineering because fresh grads aren't getting jobs. There's nothing new about this. Enrollments have always tracked the market demand. There's not much demand now; companies aren't hiring. Yeah yeah, study something you love. There are lots of interesting things to do but few that companies are willing to pay well for. It's not about skills. It's not about broken schools. Somehow, every offshoring discussion turns into thread upon thread about skills and brokens schools. It's about money $$$. There are vast pools of educated low paid people in countries with low cost of living. Technology business is shifting to those countries. It's NOT because they are smarter or more highly skilled. It's because they are an order of magnitude cheaper. As these high paid jobs leave the US and poor people enter the US in droves, the US standard of living is going down faster than the Chinese or Indian standard of living is rising. Watch energy prices. That's a good barometer for the weakening dollar. The decline in the value of the dollar is a world vote of no confidence in the US economy. So, native US citizens are still saddled with the same debt, mortgages and cost of living but having to settle for menial wage jobs. This plus the decline in the dollar and ultimately, government entitlements will mean most formerly middle class persons will burn through their savings becoming working poor. America will descend to the level of a second then a third world country. Things are liable to get real ugly. You can think of the engineering schools as sort of a canary in a coal mine.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
...most 'modern' school systems do not teach their students how to THINK. The emphasis is always placed on getting the 'correct answer', to the point of spoon feeding the students a rote method of solving a problem. To some degree, I've heard that this happens over in Asia as well, where the answer is the most important thing.
Here in the US, most K - 12 teachers are grossly underpaid (or incompetent), we have parents who don't want to be bothered with their kids, while TV and Nintendo are the baby-sitters.
As a child, I always wanted to go into art. Coming from an Asian background, my parents 'convinced' me (more like forced) me into studying engineering. I went into EE and struggled most of the way through. In my junior year, I was able to finally figure things out, and went on to graduating in the top 15% of my class. I am grateful for all those hours spent in the lab, working til 5AM most nights, taking 19 hours of courses my senior year in college (with three design courses), and otherwise living the geek life.
Engineering helped me learn two important things I apply to my life on a daily basis: 1) problem-solving techniques and 2) perseverance.
I'm now working in IT, completing my masters in computer animation, while freelancing as a cartoonist for EE Times (and much happier for it!)
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
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...
People should study engineering because they like to solve problems wtih technology, because they want to develop better ways of doing things, and because they are interested in why and how things work. They should not study engineering because someone suggests it is a sure path to high wages, responsibility, and prestige. We live during a time when technology and innovation in the US have been stifled by corporate bureaucracy, where economic growth means driving the competition into bankruptcy/merger rather than offering something new or revolutionary, and where financial resources are directed towards marketing, sales, advertising, and hyperbole rather than research, education, new ideas, improved ways of doing things or an expansion of knowledge.
Large american companies rarely ever attempt to provide anything new or different but instead concentrate on undermining their competition (if they even have any), obtaining goverment protection and favors for their market share, and generally securing a steady and growing revenue stream. There is unlikely to be much opportunity for creative, bright technical people in those sorts of enterprises. More importantly, there is a huge surplus of technically-trained people worldwide thanks to foreign educational programs that emphasize technical training over other areas. Meanwhile there is an equally large shortage of intelligent people with an education in something other than technology. There will always be a need for technically-educated people but there are a lot of people who have pursued technical educations who are lacking in any sort of aptitude whatsoever for technical work. A more even balance worldwide between technical and non-technical educations might be better for everyone in the long term.
Universities should require every one of their graduates to complete college-level coursework in math, physics, chemistry, and biology but they should not be graduating significant portions of their student body with coursework devoted almost entirely to those things. Declining engineering and computer science enrollments shows that college students are finally recognizing that their opportunities are more likely to lie elsewhere now.
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.
Nowadays, it's back to business degrees and Liberal Arts, somebody to manage the deconstruction of the national economy, and someone to write articles that it's all gonna be all right. At a time like this, it's too God damn bad that there's nobody with even a prayer of getting into the White House that has the vision to get this nation some wood again.
Does the private sector have the vision and the money? Not unless I see Bill Fucking Gates decide that life just won't be complete unless his kids stand on Mars.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Sure, outsourcing is not to save money. It's to gain access to better educated engineers. Yup. And, I have a bridge to sell you, too.
OK, I'm in hardware, not software, so my experience may not be 100% typical for Slashdot readers. And in my field, it isn't India, but rather China and Taiwan where all the jobs are going.
I work for a Fortune 100 corporation, whose celebrity CEO is a huge and very public advocate of offshore oursourcing. And, she's notorious for laying off people by the thousands.
The last project I did (before quitting my division in disgust and completely changing job functions) was a design that I was instructed to outsource to China. I needed a staff of about 12 engineers. I was given only four and told to make do, without schedule or scope slip, and to use a Chinese outsource vendor in lieu of a more complete engineering staff. The corporation told me which exactly vendor to use. I had essentially no degrees of freedom.
To cut a long story short, the program was a disaster. Almost every single task that the outsource vendor did, had to be re-done in house to get it done right. The outsource vendor was incompetent, dishonest, and outright unethical. Oh, and in case you're wondering: the outsource house was one of the big name-brand Chinese houses, not some fly by night operation.
My tiny team pulled out all the stops, made unbeleivable efforts, sacrificing their private lives, and somehow managed to pull it off, with minimal schedule and scope slippage. They succeeded not because of the help they were getting from the outsource vendor, but rather despite the "help" they were getting.
After the product was launched, it came time for management speechifying and self-congratulation, and what happened? Our mid-level managers declared the outsource model to be a huge success, thereby meeting their objectives and collecting their bonusses!
My team dispursed to the four winds in dusgust, some leaving the company, some transferring to other job functions, but none ever willing to go through another similar program again.
So, while this comment is admittedly based on a sample size of one, it's a pretty representative one -- big, famous silicon valley corporation using a well known, large name-brand outsource vendor to replace two-thirds of an R&D team.
And in this instance, there is absolutely NO WAY it was done to gain access to better-educated engineers. The quality of the outsource engineers was pathetic. It was done to save money, plain and simple. I happen to beleive this case is typical of what's going on throughout the high tech industry. I know of many other examples that are just as clear cut, although once again I stress that I'm talking about Hardware/China, rather than Software/India.
One more observation. The company DID save money, so in that sense, it WAS successful (for some narrow definition of the word). But only because of the behavior it elicited from the engineers on my team. I'd call it a triumph for short-term cost-saving without regard for long-term consequences. We bust our butts to help the company out of their bad management decision. Could this model produce such a "success" a second time? No way! You can only abuse people this way once. Businesses are trying to make this sort of practice S.O.P., but it won't work. Sooner or later, they'll have abused and burned out all of their best people, and then youy REALLY will have to depend on the Chinese outsource house. Then, we'll see how successful the model really is.
apparently in the past 5 years, the number of math majors at berkeley has gone from 200-odd to over 400.
doesn't seem to fit into the whole "us students abandoning math/science" idea.
After dropping out from college in 1990, I wound up with a computer job, then a better computer job, then an even better computer job, then, in 2000, a computer job with a startup that was so market-responsive that they realized that keeping programmers on staff was diverting money from their marketing budget, so they laid most of us off in mid-2001. By late 2001, nobody was hiring. In early 2002 I fled to Denver, took a job selling motorcycles, and got married. My spouse has convinced me that I should quit work and go to school full time; after all, you can't get hired anymore without a CS degree.
Now it looks like the job's not going to be there anymore, degree or no. And you know what? I don't want the job anymore. I can't see myself being sixty years old and still trying to wrangle code into submission in the face of a customer's false requirements and artificial deadline. Oh, I wouldn't mind settling down as a system or database admin, but if I never wrote another line of C++, I'd be happy.
So I want a job I can still do when I'm old, one where an analytical mind, good writing and oral presentation skills, and halfway-decent social skills are in demand. And since I'm sick and tired of typing IANAL on Slashdot, once I graduate, I'm taking my BS in CS and applying to law school. I'm already an anal-retentive twit; why not get paid for it?
Working with computers has taught me how to design and manipulate complex systems of rules. What is the law but a complex set of rules to be navigated? What is a contract but a specification document?
When you're in court, the scariest thing you can see at the opposition table is a calm old lawyer who looks like he's been sleeping well lately. I'm not twenty years old anymore, too stupid to value a good night's sleep. I'd rather be seventy and looking forward to half a day at the office than fifty and wondering how the hell I can get out of a career that burned me out two decades ago.
I hope for your sake you didn't bother reading this. I respect programming, I really do. I can remember a day when I got a big woody at the chance to code something. Not anymore. Tastes change; passions change. And sometimes the way you find meaning in your work, well, that's got to change, too.
This is not my sandwich.
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.
I went to a top 50 college and majored in 'Mathematical Computer Science' getting a Math minor along the way... I'm still at the job I interned at during college -- and it's not because I like it. There are people I graduated with (2 years ago) that are still unemployed and many more that settled for webby, sysadminy scripting jobs. Not to say anything bad about those jobs however they don't exactly take advantage of a mathematical background.
You can bitch all you want about these damn kids nowdays not getting their math and admittedly, there are CS programs that completely underexpose their students to math (to say nothing of non-applied math diciplines) but correlation != causation. The jobs aren't there for the appropriately trained.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Some economists point fingers at the payroll tax that companies have to pay on their employee's salary. Because income tax has gone down over the past several years, payroll tax has come up, and is now equivalent to income tax. This of course makes it harder on corporations to hire people cause they gotta pay the huge tax on the CEO's paycheck, which could probably pay 3 or 4 salaries of typical worker drones.
help a poor college grad get a free Mac Mini
A company I worked at about six or seven years ago was vigorously lobbying the local universities' Computer Science departments to modify their curricula to teach practical skills, such as C++, Java, systems engineering, software configuration management concepts, concepts of transactions, databases, etc. Our point was that their graduates would be better served, get more bang for their tuition buck, and would have better chances at employment right after graduation if the curricula were more practical. The universities steadfastly refused, insisting instead to continue teaching CS students essentially nothing more than problem-solving with useless and/or home-grown languages.
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
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.