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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."
Don't believe the hype. Don't believe the carefully planned celebrations or the partisan pundits, or the protests that derided it all as the next coming of Sodom and Gomorrah. Last week was nothing more than quiet fart in the political world; an election that was decided almost two years ago. You would think the election of the first female President of the United States would be a grander statement; the progressive values of our nation confirmed for the whole world to see. For me, it was muted by the fact that it is Hillary Clinton who was voted in. It is creepy to think that since I was eight years-old, the President of the United States has been named either Clinton or Bush.
An upside can be seen in the fact that it is unlikely we will ever have another president named Bush again. The scandal that has dominated his last term was so disgusting, grotesque, and just plain bizarre that it must have made the electorate nostalgic for Clinton's sexual appetites. Though like Clinton's troubles, Bush's were not sufficient to have him removed from office, they have completely destroyed the Republican party as we know it. As well as the Presidency, the Democrats now are firmly in control of the House, and are only two members short of a majority in the Senate as well. Champagne bottles were being cracked in the offices of a party many had written off for the past decade.
The dominance Republicans held through most of this decade has evaporated in the space of only two years, and many in the party think that this may be the best thing that could have happened. $100 per barrel oil has finally caught up to the economy and all indicators point to us being in the start of a long downward spiral. It is pointless to keep our token force of 50,000 soldiers in Iraq any longer, especially since the Green Zone is being hit with at least two suicide car bombers daily. Any notion that this fight can be won is only espoused by crackiest of crackpots on right wing podcasts. Clinton will likely withdraw them in her first one-hundred days, leaving it to the Democrats to officially lose the Iraq War. It will also be up to Democrats to honor our commitments to Japan and South Korea and deploy a carrier group to thwart the planned PRC invasion of Taiwan. This will not be a popular move. The US public is in no mood for saber rattling abroad and the Dow loses one-hundred points every time we fart in the direction of China.
Yes, not being the party in power right now might be a good thing, and to that end, Dubya's sudden and glorious flame-out may have been the best thing to happen to Republican Party. American politics is rife with stories of a sudden rise to power, followed by an ungracious fall. McCarthy and Nixon are forever etched onto our national memory. Yet, they all pale when compared against the story of the disastrous collapse of George W. Bush.
Within a year of taking office, he had risen from being a mere politician to being a cultural icon, adored or despised depending on your side of the aisle. Despite a drab economy, constant pandering to the cultural conservatives, and a rising chorus of questions about the Iraq War, Bush was indomitable and uncompromising in his first term. If someone hit the United States, they were sure that Dubya would swing, even if he swung at the wrong guy.
Like all Republicans though, his strengths lay primarily in foreign affairs. When he began pressing his domestic policy at the start of his second term the cracks began to show. His social security reform was blocked even though his party held both houses. Even people who voted for him began to get nervous that he'd given too much red meat out to the religious right, especially when the PRC officially sanctioned unlimited stem cell research and billions in venture capital went once more abroad. It finally dawned on people that the war in Iraq might not have been a such good thing to get into in the first place.
Still, by the end of '05 things were looking up for Bush. He got his Supreme Court justice confirmed withou
On average, they suck out loud. That's the impression I get from non-US graduate students at LSU. Six years ago, they were lucky to have seen as much as a toggle switch programming rig. That's not a bad exercise, but it's horribly dated, specific and impractical. What the vast majority of students myself and a friend had excelled in was creating the impression that they knew what they were doing, even if they lacked all clue.
Corporations want a guy who will take what they give them or else they get sent home.
Bingo, it works for school too and they learn fast or go home. That's why you will find good in the bad. If they have survived a US higher education, they are usually up to the task.
I am not afraid to compete against foreign workers. ... I just want to compete on an even playing field.
That's a management problem, you can't win unless you are lucky enough to work for a clueful company.
You never hear Microsoft ask the government to allow immigration for foreign workers.
You don't know how to listen. M$ is one of many that continue to shriek about "a lack of qualified applicants" as they jettison engineers and build up places like Hyperbad. Google around for "permatemps" to see how they treat their own. The place is run by a man who has admitted he would otherwise have been in insurance, and has a published growth strategy of buying "loss leaders" to establish themselves in "mature" new technology. You might also look into their advocacy of the DMCA, which is an attack on education itself by making it against the law for you to tell people what you know about someone else is using to make a buck.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.