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More Students Prefer Interdisciplinary to CS
prostoalex writes "With increased offshore outsourcing and continuing simplification of such tasks as writing a trivial application, Computer Science degrees are not as attractive for college students anymore, NYT finds. Students prefer interdisciplinary majors, where the programming skills are combined with solid scientific backgrounds in biotech, chemistry or business." From the article: "For students like Ms. Burge, expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial to future job security as advances in the Internet and low-cost computers make it easier to shift some technology jobs to nations with well-educated engineers and lower wages, like India and China."
I think that foreign workers are better trained for computer programming jobs is incorrect. Corporations aren't pushing for more H1B workers because they are better qualified than domestic workers. Corporations want a guy who will take what they give them or else they get sent home. How much technical education is really applicable to a real world programming job? Probably less than ten percent of what is taught in higher education.
I have worked with some great H1B workers. I also have worked with some terribly unqualified H1B workers. Just like domestic workers some are good at programming and some just can't do it. I would say some of the H1B workers do more resume padding because they are desperate to stay and I would probably do it too. One H1B worker, when applying, listed the company he was applying for as one of the companies he previously worked. I guess he didn't check the name on the cut and past job he was doing because he never worked for the company.
I am not afraid to compete against foreign workers. I think it will be great for technology in general. I just want to compete on an even playing field. Let the programmers immigrate as Americans. You never hear Microsoft ask the government to allow immigration for foreign workers. They don't want to pay them more and worry about a worker leaving for another job.
We are not alone in this. The problem is not so much that they are indian or chinese (although that does bring a whole host of issues of racism/reverse racism etc), but it is impossible to manage them remotely without spending so much effort on it that you might as well bring them over on an H1-B.
Combine that with the fact that it is impossible for a US corporation to enforce intellectual property rights in China and to a lesser degree India, and its hardly susprising that US corporations are favouring English speaking developers once again.
I said that 3 years ago. Everyone here, and on other sites said I was a "nutcase", or "moron" or "idiot".
.NET likely won't be cutting edge anymore (we hope now). So those skills don't work to well... you need to retrain anyway.
I'm in my senior year going for a Business Management Information Systems (MIS) degree. IMHO way more useful. I contribute to open source projects like Mozilla Firefox for extra coding experience as well as a few personal projects.
End result:
I know a fair amount of the technical side of things. AND the business side of things.
Problem with a CS degree is it's a dead end job. The days of a geek making it into upper management are over. Sr. Programmer is as high as most will be able to get.
The technology evolves over time. In 20 years C++, Java, and
The business degree will still be good in 20 years.
Nothing stops me from being a geek on my own.
This way, I have the best of both worlds.
Maybe Edsger Dijkstra was right, and CS really is just a branch of mathematics, as he argues in his paper "The Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science." If that's the case, it's unsurprising that you don't necessarily learn how to use $version_control_system or $Windowing_API or whatever people expect in the working world as a CS undergrad.
I bailed because I knew I didn't want to pursue graduate studies (and, let's face it, I'm not a stellar mathematician.) I'm (like many others) now doing interdisciplinary study: CS + law/public policy. If nothing else, this country seems to need more lawyers, if not good developers.
Sigh.
Becoming a plumber or electrician has way more potential these days. Work for someone for a while, then go out on your own. You can easily make $60,000 and I know some electricians who pull in over $100,000.
Those jobs (especially an electrician) are great because they're interesting, challenging and offer lots of diversity. You are also free to go out on your own without nearly the risk a techy would take trying to establish a tech company (or any other company).
As a bonus, trades will never be outsourced because their location is of primary importance.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Basically, CNET's article boils down to CS majors wanting to branch out to other disciplines and also how CS research is no longer just about computing but about other problem domains.
Starting bioinformatics at Helsinki University in about a week or so (supposed to be cutting edge in the field). Say what you say but mark my words. I will find a cure for aids and cancer and the other stuff. It's the world that matters, not the money :D
I spent two weeks in Russia last month, where I met a number of university students. The number one major seemed to be some combination of Computer Science and engineering with extra training in English and German. I also met one lady who is working with a software startup doing localizations for English speaking countries. (She probably speaks better English than I do.)
At least now I've seen where the programming jobs are going.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
But there's really a lot of $50,000+ jobs for programmers and/or CS majors. It amazes me when people can't find a job when there are so many available. There are hundreds, thousands in some states, that go unfilled for extended time periods. I've yet to see this shortage of jobs, maybe I got lucky, but there are plenty out there, as even at current jobs I scan the market regularly for opportunities.
Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
I've worked with quite a few of H1-Bs. As a rule, Russians kick ass when you need to come up with a solution or solve a design problem but execution needs supervision sometimes, because once the problem is solved they tend to quickly lose interest. Russians rarely get very far beyond technical "individual contributor" positions, because they're clueless at politics and despise brown-nosing.
Indians suck at design real bad (their philosophy seems to be to do just enough to get by) but can be pretty good at execution and truly shine at brown-nosing, especially if their boss is also Indian. However, I know a couple of Indian developers who rock so hard, it's not funny (and coincidentally don't give a shit about what their boss thinks about them). But they're exceptions that only reinforce the rule.
The Chinese are a mixed bag. I only know one Chinese guy who I would say is good (and I have a very high bar for "good"), the others I've met over the course of my career had great difficulties picking up the language and thinking independently. It looks as though they need to be told what to do, down to the smallest details.
Americans are a mixed bag also, there are quite a few folks who are good, but if an American sucks, he/she sucks real hard, because Americans are ridiculously difficult to fire for non-performance.
IMHO: Real CS should treat programming as a tool. CS is about understanding computers, how they work, and how to solve real-world problems apply the strengths of computers (speed searching, fast repetive comparisons/calculations, massive storage) to solve problems and present the answers. Programming in-depth in a particular language and specific vocational skills like GUI design should be taught through project work and independent study projects. All of the CS students I know who did a decent thesis research project are making 6 figure salaries while those who slinked by on the minimum coursework and became programmers are not doing nearly as well.
"As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Too much emphasis is on math. If we actually targeted language majors, artists and writers you'd most likely get people who learn the language quicker because learning and using language has nothing to do with calculus.
The problem with computer science is the requirements for a computer science degree is based on how well you can solve math problems. Most problems in programming arent math problems, they are just bugs. If we want code with less bugs, and we want high quality code, chances are you wont find it from a math major simply because math and writing are polar opposites, so unless we plan to only recruit from MIT and Caltech where students can do both, we need to have programming in the writing department of school, and have the hardware and engineering in the math department.
This would allow you to educate the writers to code and the mathematicians to handle the problem solving aspect. If you try to train people to do both, you end up with someone mediocre at both.
Java, C, C++, part of writing complex code is learning to think in code, and this may require a basic level of math and logic, but definately not to the level of calculus. How many of you have actually used calculus in your programming?
You seem very angry. I'm guessing you got outsourced, right? Well tough. But you can't blame it on India. That's called ignorace my friend, and you seem to have a lot of it to go araound.
I call bullshit on this post.
Whats with the comparisons of IT to CS? I've always made this distinction in my mind:
CS people study the creation process, and how to theorize/cook up new technology.
IT people study what has already been theorized. They fix what is broken.
CS people make it, users break it, IT people fix it.
AFAIK, when you kick out an H1-B he/she has to leave the country in 10 days. It's a bit hard to sue the company within just 10 days. Americans have lots of time on their hands, and they can bring all sorts of trouble. So big companies usually choose to carefully document poor performance of US employees for a couple of years before firing them.
You missed the point.
He IS close to his customers. His DEVELOPERS will not be close. He's keeping his support organization here.
Oh, I don't doubt he's going to run into problems running an offshore operation from here. If he's smart, he won't rely on email for communication - he'll spend the money for some sort of direct IRC/whatever connection so he can micro-manage the guys over there. And have some sort of alter-ego guy he can work with over there that he can trust to see things his way and take action when he can't. That's the only way something like that can work.
This teacher is a smart guy. He's worked for all the major outfits here in the US (he's Iranian born himself), like Oracle, Wells Fargo, etc., and he's taught at City College for the last sixteen years at the same time, staying up until the wee hours of the morning to grade papers while still running his company. He once joked that the college doesn't pay him enough for one semester to pay for the jacket he was wearing that night.
He's the contract UNIX guru here at City College and he knows his stuff about just about everything - UNIX, networking, security, programming in a dozen languages, Oracle database administration, the lot.
Plus, he's not running that big an operation (although his company doesn't take on contracts less than $500k or so), so his problems will be smaller than, say, outsourcing a 100-person call center.
He might pull it off.
Others probably won't, but that won't stop them from trying.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!