Slashdot Mirror
Computer Science as a Major and as a Career
An anonymous reader writes "IBM DeveloperWorks is running an interesting Q&A with Director of IBM's Academic Initiative, Gina Poole. In the article she talks specifically about taking computer science as a major and ultimately as a career. From the article: 'There are a couple of reasons [for the decline in science and engineering degrees]: one is a myth, believed by parents, students, and high school guidance counselors, that computer science and engineering jobs are all being outsourced to China and India. This is not true. The percentage of the total number of jobs in this space is quite small -- less than 5%. According to a government study, the voluntary attrition in the U.S. has outpaced the number of outsourced jobs to emerging nations. Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.'"
I will also chime in here and say that there is a significant need for computer scientists. Just to give you some idea of the demand, computer science post-docs can command six figure salaries compared to salaries in the range of 30-35k for bioscience post-docs.
But here is the deal.... We are not looking for people to help administer our systems. That is relatively easy to do, particularly with operating systems like OS X. You have to be bright and willing to work on *new* problems particularly those dealing with data management and visualization. Many comp-sci students want to go create games and there is a market for that, but where the technology for games really comes from is basic science research dealing with real-world problems. And in fact, some games and game engines are now being applied to real world problems.
There are a couple of exciting projects I am working on in these fields, namely I have just been asked to sit on the board of a media group that will deal with some of these issues and real world application of games and other digital media. Alexander Seropian (of Bungie fame) is also on this board and it should be interesting to see where this goes. Additionally, our research in a new area of bioscience called metabolomics looks ready to take off and we are working with a number of comp-sci graduate students, post-docs and faculty to create tools to deal with the types of data we use to pick out signatures of cells much like the CIA and NASA use to determine signatures of "things" they are interested in. Also data management and communication is another field that is very much in demand and we are working with groups to help us create databases that can be mined and used interactively to collaboratively annotate and discuss data with multiple users.
Lemme tell you folks, if you are interested in computer science, go for it. There is certainly a market for talented programmers and looking four to ten years in the future (which is about as far as I can), the demand will be there.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I get uncomfortable when I hear people trying to rationalize outsourcing, painting it as less insidious than it is. I'm especially confused when, from the slashdot article quotes like:
propose the ludicrous!If there are nine U.S. jobs created for every outsourced job, I would infer a couple of things:
Also, from the Article (emphasis mine):
and then this from the article (emphasis mine):
which seems to be less certain of a statement about the "created jobs". Either there's a view new jobs get created from outsourcing, or there's a reality that can be measured empirically. Which is it? And if it's the latter, where are the numbers?That said, I guess it's nice to hear the CS career path and job market is healthy and alive.
Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.
Yeah, nine new jobs in retail: the world's most depressing and soul-sucking career.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
"Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S."
Translation: the tools will be created in Asia, while service jobs to implement the tool at a customer site will be done by US IT "consultants."
Why do women shy away from this field? Reason number one is the view that it is for loners and geeks.
That's because, mostly, it is. Trying to pretend that it's not isn't going to help things. Some kinds of jobs attract some kinds of people and we just have to accept that.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
I graduated in 2003 with a Comp Sci degree, and I'm am one of the few of my friends that is in a career where things I learned in my classes are actually applied at my job. There is outsourcing I won't deny that, but as the article says it's not as bad as everyone assumes it to be. I was scared at first after graduating and going month after month without a job offer, mostly due to my entry level experience, but I did get several offers later on. If you apply yourself well in your Comp Sci classes, get good grades, and have a good understanding of the concepts then you shouldn't need to worry that much about landing a Comp Sci related job.
"0101100101? It's just jibberish. *looks in mirror, gasps* 1010011010@!? AHHHHHH!!"
Aren't the ones that require CS majors, they are the ones that arts majors who have "re-trained, were doing or the ones who did CS as a minor with "business" or media studies.
As someone who has tried over the past few years to hire top rate people I can safely say that CS majors from good universities are still very much in demand. What we don't need is volume, what we need is quality. Volume is what India and China give us, quality is what top rate CS gives us. And the more volume that comes on tap, the more quality people we need.
IT is a GROWING industry, its good to see someone talking intelligently about off-shoring.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I graduated with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics in Dec. 04. Out of 1200 companies I sent my resume via email, fax, and old fashioned snail mail I had 8 interviews. The article says jobs *are* here in the U.S., I call bullshit. I have many friends who graduated with a higher GPA in CS than I had and they're still looking for a job in their field or any IT field, one for 14 months now.
Just where are these jobs that supposedly exist?
Half the time I'm right, the other half you're wrong.
The real title of the article should be: Power Architecture directions: Two-year-old Academic Initiative enhances computer science curricula, seeks to reverse student decline and sell as much IBM stuff in the proccess. See the following questions from the article:
1) How is the curriculum linked to teaching or use of IBM technology?
2) How can IBM Business Partners participate in the Academic Initiative?
3) Do participating schools gain an incentive, financial or otherwise, to acquire IBM equipment, software, or other technology?
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
All 9 of those jobs will be filled by H-1bs, who can afford to work for $13,000/year less because they paid between a quarter and a tenth what it costs for an American to get a degree.
Until our immigration program is fixed and there are NO more guest workers, the flip side of outsourcing will be indentured servitude, and still no Americans will get jobs. The only way to fix this is to get rid of the H* programs altogether and only let people work in this country who intend to stay and become citizens.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I live in an EU member country. I have an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree in Computer Science and soon I'll obtain Java and Linux certifications.
The job market is very saturated where I live and the money is awful. Not to mention that IT guys get very low respect by manages in companies.
Since there is such a high demand for IT people in the USA,
how easy is it to obtain a green card and to migrate to US?
Do technical qualifications matter?
But that's not why enrollment is down.
I started college in 2000/2001. The end of the boom. It was VERY obvious that a large portion of the students didn't care about the subject. They weren't too interested in the material. They often didn't know much about how to even use computers above very basic things.
It's clear why there were there. They were in it for the money. At that time all you heard about was the exploding tech sector and 19 year old multi-millionares and getting $90k salaries right out of college. They saw gold and they ran for it. Many of them were very nice people, and some of them tried VERY hard and had a great commitment to the subject that they weren't personally that interested in (I wouldn't be able to do it), but many of them were just trying to slide by to get the money, or had no idea what they wanted to do so they went with the one that had the $$$ behind it.
Now that the bubble has burst (combined with the threat of outsourcing and such, real or imagined) it's not seen as an ultra-lucrative career so people aren't going into it like they used to.
Where ARE they going? From what little I've seen, the new hot things are degrees that get you to accounting (returning favorite), lawyering (classic money maker), or the new hot stuff: biotech. Those are where the gold-rushers are going.
So CS is back to people who want to do CS instead of those people along with gold-rushers, certification mill graduates, and other such people. Big loss.
It will be CS again one day. Google is starting to turn that tide with all the headway it's making.
But the reason CS enrollment is down is the bubble burst and the gold-rushers are gone.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Or is that another way of saying "cost"? If there are more people in India willing to do it, they'll do it for less money.Yes, and there's a view that space aliens are abducting our citizens and probing them in scientific experiments.
"Web services"? Why wouldn't those also be off-shored?
"Internet and Web architecture"? Why wouldn't those also be off-shored?
"network architecture"? This is one "of the exciting jobs marrying technology and business and really making an impact"? I've been doing this for the past 16 years. The only reason that this won't be off-shored is because I have to physically move the devices.
"business intelligence"? That has NOTHING to do with a CS degree.
"data mining"? Great. the 1990's are back again. That's a buzz-word from the 20th century. We're in the 21st now. And there is no reason that that could not also be off-shored.
That article is nothing more than a bunch of claims without support and meaningless recycled buzz-words thrown together.
Hehe, I seriously hope there are still jobs in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. Otherwise I've chosen the wrong Major :-)
I take life with a grain of salt...a slice of lemon and a dash of tequila
That's because, mostly, it is.
Yes and no. Most IT projects I've been on have been a team environment. Yes, you'll get your own piece to work on, but there's shit load of interaction with others: other programmers, architects, business analysts, etc... If that were made more appearent, then I'd think it would attract more women. The other thing that needs to change is the attitude that IT IS for guys only. I've seen many times when the female in the group wasn't treated as part of the team - even though she was. People would work with her, but (I don't know how to put it) she wasn't really a member. It's changed a bit, ironically, because of more Indians and other foreign workers. I see many more Indian women working in IT than I do American born women.
To do well in University, take something you're interested in. Just going after the money will lead to worse results and possibly even burnout/dropout.
A job when you graduate isn't unimportant, but life isn't just about going after the most cash.
Gone are the days when kids could write closed source software, sell it to Microsoft or Oracle or Cisco and cash out and get rich. Gone are the days when VCs would drop in millions to fund software development because today, they tell you to just open source your stuff so that all the "waiting millions" of open source developers can help you remove bugs and make it better. Open sourcing of software has driven down the costs and removed the value from software. No wonder kids aren't going into CS any more. There's more money to be made in Biotech where RMS and his ilk have no presence.
I know some really good young people in the field, both with CS degrees from Stanford. One is running a hedge fund. One is going to work for a derivatives firm in NYC. And they're both making tons of money. When IBM is willing to match what they're making, they can get people like that.
Most of the "get more women into the field" noise comes from employers wanting to cut costs by paying women less.
... fewer graduates means greater salaries for us! Pass it on.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
... and the proof is in open source projects like linux and FSF, which does not descriminate upon where you live.
Why in the hell is there such outcry in outsourcing?
Or are there really that many people who feel they need to keep others suppressed economonically?
Not only is the outsource cry wrong but computer science has yet to get Abstraction Physics right.
I bet you could overlay the reasons for the 300 year delay in converting from roman numeral mathmatics to the much easier and more powerful hindu-arabic decimal system with its zero (nothing has value) place holder, over onto this evolution of computer science.
The arrogant and unfair drive to hold onto some social position and high pay, when in fact easier and more powerful means we can open up new values to all of us. (Note: Computer technology could not have been developed with the roman numerial system of mathmatics!)
Maybe the real reason there is a decline in interest to pursue "Computer Science" is due to the underlying feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong the way its being done today. And I suspect such issues as software patentability, or not, battles is a very good indicator of this faultiness in computer science today.
You can make the tying of a shoe sound so complifabucated that even a multidoctorate can't understand it. But doing it, not so difficult.
Its just Abstraction Physics. http://wiki.ffii.org/IstTamaiEn
"Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S."
As someone else pointed out the last time this came up as a topic, if demand for new compsci people was really so high, wages would go up. Otherwise, it looks more like an attempt to get more suckers to accept less pay, no overtime, etc.
You have to pick a major and career. Do you pick the same major as the barrista who serves up your latte's and as the old guy working at Home Depot who got laid off because they didn't feel like providing any training and continuing to provide pension and medical benefits? Comp sci careers have no legs. You'd be better off picking a career with longer term prospects, like suicide bomber.
1. You don't get overtime... A lot of times people are expected to work 50-60 hours/week. 2. It's a tough field -- Much tougher than say business or nursing. Failing computer science students often get a business degree.. There is a good reason: The difficulty is a joke compared to computer science. 3. There are way easier fields(say nursing) that compensate more highly, are not subject to outsourcing, and give overtime. 4. There is a huge risk of outsourcing. 5%? Come on.. When is the last time you called a tech support line and got an american? Cisco, Dell, Gateway, Microsoft.. Anywhere you call you speak to someone from India. Any kind of "Government study" from the Bush administration isn't exactly reliable. 5. No one understands your job, this often comes with lack of appreciation for the contributions made to an organization. 6. No licensing -- Someone can study for 2 weeks, get a MCSE and take over a lot of peoples jobs. They won't be as good as someon with a degree but see #5. In short-- Don't enter this field.. There are more highly rewarded skills you can pursue for a lot less effort.
I'll admit I haven't done much research on the subject, but can someone provide some insight into what the "Computer Information Science" major involves other than software development/engineering? Like if I wanted to get a CIS degree in Computer Networking (NOT involving programming) are there options to get a bachelor/masters degree in this? Is this something available at most Universities?
The discussion so far in this thread has done nothing but reinforce my impression that the inclusion of "Science" in "Computer Science" is about as accurate and meaningful as its inclusion in "Social Science".
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Is the OP talking about post-docs? No! The article is talking about 4-year graduates entering careers. Sheesh!
Games? What percentage of CS graduates go into games? Is it 0.000001% or 0.000002%, I forget? Here you are talking about "games" as a career. What tripe!
You've got really big metabolls to SPAM SlashDot, looking for hungry post-doc slaves for you medical center.
And here's my experience at a medical research center: it was a cluster of fiefs, each with it's own little king (read, "M.D."). Each king was an a**hole with an ego larger than the last, busily billing or bilking the government, the state, the public and individuals' for money (it was a "children's" cancer center - what better way to get parents to hand over their wealth than to promise to save their dying child - no guarantees, of course). The same egotists thought they were software architects and would interfere and override the best of design processes with their own absurdities. Programmers were near the bottom of the status hierarchy, below even clerical personnel. I watched excellent programmers get fired for ridiculous personal reasons. I couldn't get out of there fast enough!
Why in the hell is there such outcry in outsourcing?
When it's YOUR job that gets outsourced, that's when it's a big deal.
As far as I'm concerned, the core problem is the USA's patent law. Patent monopolies destroy free markets in the monopolised thing, by definition. At best, all that can exist is a free market in the patents themselves. So, we have a situation where the free market in stuff computer scientists do well, the service of writing programs to make a computer achieve some stated end, is sacrificed in favour of a free market in stuff lawyers do well, quibbling over bits of paper granting monopolies on being the only people allowed to achieve some end (and don't give me crap about patents only covering one way of doing something, (a) sometimes there IS only one sane way, and (b) patent lawyers pride themselves on making patents as general as possible).
So we have STARTING OUT patent people getting salaries of >USD100K , and computer scientists being told they should just simmer down and accept USD13K salaries like those of workers in developing countries. The indisputable fact is that while patent (and to a lesser extent copyright) monopolies over software exists, a free market in the service of writing software doesn't.
If I were training today, there's no way I'd train in computer science if intended to stay in the USA. It's just become too hostile to real innovation, with politicians clapping themselves on the back because they think more patents == more innovation, when the opposite is true.
You might argue that patents are valuable [in the strict sense of capable of being assigned a value and having large value], and that patent attorney salaries are commensurate with that value. This is trivially true but not actually a relevant argument: of _course_ a U.S. patent is valuable, it's a right to prevent 300 million people doing something for 20 years. But a legal right being valuable doesn't make it right it should exist. If slavery is legal, being a slave owner is likely to pay much better than being a field laborer who charges a fee. While slavery exists, the market value of the field laborer is depressed, and the slave owner is rich. You'd be a fool to choose to be a laborer rather than a slave owner if the choice was yours and you didn't care about ethical considerations.
Patents and copyrights depress the market for being paid for the thing that computer scientists are good at: writing new code.
After the dotcom bust, enrollment was largely cut back down to those who were genuinely interested in the industry, not just after a quick buck. For that, we should all be grateful.
I graduated with a Bachelor's in a double-major of Comp Sci, and Applied Math, 16 years ago, and have been working ever since.
The barrier to entry, today, is unquestionably higher than it was years ago. If you're coming out of college today, expect to rough it out for 5-7 years. Then it gets easier. Much, much easier. If you know what you're doing, and you're good at it, outsourcing is not going to bother you.
The key to success, in this racket, is to love programming. You should've known that this is what you want to do with your life -- computer programming -- even before you've gotten your high school diploma.
If you're looking at a career in IT as a means of earning a living -- forget it. It's not going to work for you. You need to be naturally drawn to programming. If you're naturally driven to this (I sat down in front of an Apple II at age 12, and that's all she wrote), then it's only a matter of time before you claw your way to the top of the heap, and from that point on, it's easy going. Do not be concerned even if things look very bleak, the first 5-6 years out of college. Learn as much as you can, when you go home, spend all your free time "scratching an itch", and a few years down the road you will have the experience and knowledge to run rings around everyone else.
I hear all the woes that people are saying, and just quietly smile, internally. I work in what's considered to be the toughest IT environments in the world: Wall Street. People get eaten alive, around here.
Yet, I moved into my first house at age 21, paid off its 30-year mortgage eight years later, sold it, bought a second house two years ago, and I expect to pay off THAT mortgage next year. I get into the office around 9, and leave around 5. I'm not a wage slave, I don't work myself to death. I work as an independent consultant programmer, so if the company wants me to work 12 hours a day, they will have to pay for it. It's funny how the expectations of IT people to work 12 hours a day disappears, when the company has to pay for it (I'm under strict orders not to work more than 40 hours a week, anything more requires advance authorization).
I remember hearing the headhunters' sob stories, as long as ten years ago, about all these Indian outsourcers taking a dozen H-1Bs, throwing them together into one, tingy, dingy house somewhere on Long Island, paying them $30/hr, and billing each one out for $40/hr; and undercutting everyone else.
Strangely enough, I've somehow managed to avoid getting undercut all this time. Yes, I see a lot of Indians around here. But, they're all low-level admins, who really don't do anything that requires any kind of sophistication. If you enter the market today, you WILL have a lot of competition to deal with, at first, for entry-level/low level spots. Once you get past that, though, the landscape changes dramatically.
I'm currently involved -- amongst other things -- with the management's hiring push. We're trying to hire as many high-level, experienced, developers as we can find. Wall Street has done very well in the last year, everyone is reporting record profits, everyone has hundred dollar bills coming out of their assholes, more cash than they know what to do with, so everyone's trying to hire as many good people as they can.
Based on interviewing a whole bunch of people over the course of the last 3 month, I can say: if you have your shit together, and you know what you're doing, you won't have any problems.
This restores my faith that one day when I graduate I will be needed.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
The percentage of the total number of jobs in this space is quite small -- less than 5%.
Today. This is because we are still learning how to properly train utilize offshore resources. Distributed software development is in its infancy. As methodolgies mature this percentage will grow. If I have a smart and passionate student to guide I would guide them clear of the software development career path. It pays good (but not great) today, but its future is uncertain.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
This field has the following black marks against it:
Sure, if this is your passion (or possibly you have some mental illness), you may want to follow this career path. It may even work out for you. Lots of people end up just fine.
But it sounds like the smarter ones are looking elsewhere.
Young folk !!
Do not believe those business types !!!
They LIE LIE LIE !!
I'm NOT amused by those leeches ( business types)
who claim that more CS grads are needed. I keep
that in mind when I interview, but I won't say anything...
neither will anyone I know.
The IBM person didn't mention that the industry is
a double whammy for no jobs: outsourcing as well
as IMMIGRATION !!
And 3rdly, lets not forget age discrimination.
There's a lot of those looking for work, but industry
has it's sites set for certain "Classes" of people.
More could be said, but 2/3 of the readers are looking
to reinforce the shortage notion, so I won't.
so, industry has no sympathy from me, and to protect my job,
I often and loudly tell anyone who will listen that the
Computer Industry is NOT A WAY to earn a living.
signed,
Anonymous, since Big Brother is reading my email,
and companies use detectives to track down personal info.
This is what I have been wanting to go to college for, but I've been scared that the job market is too saturated.
Hence the endless 'no problem here' stories and IBM staff with their talking points ready.
There's currently a lobbying effort to get the cap taken off the H1Bs to try and drive down the IT market cost in the USA even further.
Im goin to college starting this fall for a double major in CS and Math. I was thinking about eventually goin for a PhD but i don't know how soon, might be 5-10 years after i graduate for that. I was wondering if anyone has any good advice for me.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
People oppose outsourcing for the same reason they oppose "free-trade"; it's not free.
The only thing it is free of is government oversight. But the major reason why these jobs are being exported is because of the cheaper labor, which is a direct result of fewer civil/labor protections. In China you can work people for as long a you want(I suppose). Sure they have a job, but this job isn't helping anyone. Americans lose it. Chinese get it, and are oppressed.
I'm all for trade and outsourcing jobs, so long as the government levies tariffs porportional to the unfair advantages gained by companies in oppressive countries.
The things that I'm interested in (music, art, history, things like that) don't pay shit! And let's face it, money is a necessity. And in this day and age, with medical costs skyrocketing and every other job being off-shored, I can't blame anyone for "going for the money". Do what you love and the money will follow? HA! One of the reasons is that the things that one may love to do is usually loved by many. Mix in supply and demand and voila! Over supply of folks who want to do something - see market for writers, actors, musicians - yeah, yeah, there's the one in ten million chance that you'll hit it big like Tom Hanks or whoever, but the rest of them are waiting tables to pay for food. The whole money thing is the markets placing resources where they're needed. And when you get down to it, a job is a job. I loved programming as a hobby, but when it became a job, I learned to hate it.
I think the only job I'd love is Trust Fund Baby! Hiltons, please adopt me!
Well, do ya, Punk? Do ya?
Speak truth to power.
There are certain sectors where Computer Science majors are currently in very high demand, and there is little or no outsourcing of these jobs. Defense, and government work typically offers great benefits, and due to the nature of the work, there is little chance of it being outsourced. Defense spending is at an all-time high and companies in this sector (Lockheed, Northrop, General Dynamics, Raytheon, GE, Boeing, etc.) are currently reaping the benefits of this. So while there is some outsourcing in other sectors I would not let this deter you from choosing CS as a major. The demand for bright graduates who can engineer solutions to complex problems has been and will continue to be there...
Some folks are beginning to see that the current trend can only last so long. Sending the work overseas that requires less experienced developers and leaving the jobs requiring more experienced engineers here in the US seems like a great plan...short term. In 10 years and beyond the experienced engineers are going to move on to management, other careers, etc. Who fills those positions when there are few young computer science majors / engineers being groomed to take on those jobs.
My own manager at IBM explained to me that in this global marketplace, IBM simply cannot compete without sending jobs abroad. His plan was for every US position he needed 2 in India. That didn't equate to creating any jobs in the US, but rather shifting work to India.
I'm not buying what you're selling Gina...
I worked for IBM. We had more H1-B Visa workers in my office than US citizens.
Also, my wages since I got out of college (1996) has actually not grown to the same level that most other technical and engineering jobs have. Each time I changed companies, I took a pay CUT, not an increase because there's always someone looking to take a starting wage.
Oh, and while I'm ranting about IBM, they lost a lawsuit for their business practices (mandatory unpaid overtime), laying off/firing workers before they were vested, and constantly hiring temp workers on a rotating door policy to keep the wages low.
Yah kids, go for you CS degree. There's always a minimum wage...
-Mc
If you're over 60 years old, good luck finding an IT job, or keeping the one you have for long. I've seen at least 3 people over 60 at my current employer (Fortune 500 co.) get laid off for pretty much lame reasons, even though they cranked out the work well. The current environment is to hire younger guys, pay them less and let the older people go.
Only solution I guess would be to get your PhD and teach once you reach an elevated age group...
Then it tells us how many new jobs are being created in this field. This is an old trick. I have a cartoon that is a century old of Mr. Block (a recurring character who is basically a rube) travels out west because of newspaper ads about how many jobs are out there and how good they are - he travels thousands of miles and finds out that there are only a few jobs and hundreds of people like him lured in by the ads. Beyond this the job is not as good as promised by the ad - once the bosses have all these suckers competing for a few jobs, they can pay less, increase the hours and have better working conditions. So this sort of nonsense has been going on for a long time.
As other people pointed out, this article does not talk about H1-Bs. IBM is part of the ITAA which is trying to push the H1-B cap up. They spend tons of money in Washington DC and what tchnical professional organizations are spreading money around counetring that? The IEEE? The IEEE gets a great deal of its money from the same corporations funding this, menaing the IEEE is not a real professional organization like the AMA, ABA and so forth. You can read more about how the IEEE is controlled by these companies here.
Does any of this set off bullshit detectors? "Also, a lot of students don't understand the flexibility they can have. You can travel the globe; you have flexibility whether working from an office, from home, full-time, part-time." I am a UNIX sysadmin. I can work from home, part-time? Give me a break, I can do neither. I would love to have a "part-time" UNIX sysadmin job in the sense of only working 40 hours a week. And I can do this for 20 hours a week supposedly? And what's this nonsense about working from home? If I never had to go into the office, I never would. This is a lot of BS, I don't even know why this was posted. Of course, a few of these jobs exist, and we can get away with working from home once in a while, but 99% of jobs be it sysadmins, programmers, DBAs or network admins are at the office and full time, meaning over 40 hours a week.
Another thing is the article does mention "voluntary" attrition being a reason for the lack of people. But of course it never says why people are leaving. They are leaving because they are not getting paid enough to work the hours they do, and having to put up with the BS they have to.
As far as saying there are X many jobs out there, it is really meaningless. Let me create 10 million new jobs right here - I have 10 million openings for C/C++/Java gods, DBAs and sysadmins. The pay is a dollar a week and you have to do a lot of shit. There, I just created 10 million new jobs. If you believe in capitalism and neoclassical economics, and obviously these people do, then supply should always equal demand, if you have X many new jobs that are so great in terms of pay etc., then the market will automatically meet them. This is what is believed from Keynes to Milton Friedman, if you don't believe this you are probably carrying a copy of Marx's Das Kapital. So the idea that there can be a job shortfall is either 1) coming from someone who believes Marx is right and Keynes and Milton Friedman are wrong or 2) someone who is talking out of their ass and just wants people to pay tens of thousands out of their own pocket for an education, so that there will be one more person competing for an IT job, so that the company can then make people work more hours while paying them less money.
This fall I am entering as a Freshman (right out of high school) into Kent State University to pursue a Computer Science degree. This sounds like great news to me.
My friends and I who majored in CS have *far more* opportunities than our colleagues, at higher salaries. The bit of advice I have for you is that there's a lot to learn, and a general CS major won't prepare you adequately. You have to learn a lot on your own also to get into the field. You have to take a lot of classes, and also learn things on your own (PHP web development, database development, Ruby on Rails). And, it takes a couple of years to "get up to speed" enough to do innovative work.
But, if you have the ability to become a software developer, yours is the world and all that's in it.
I would advise anyone who is not brilliant at development to seek another path.
Consider it if you are really love coding, and are extremely good, and confident enough in your skills to job jump, or set up your own consulting buisness etc. Unless this is true. Run, don't walk to another faculty.
Here is the reality of working as a developer in a big corporations. Crushing deathmarch deadlines. Tons of off hours solo work, and continual outsourcing. So much process overhead that it will suck any of the joy out of design/coding that ever existed for you. A process that is now vain as there exists a multi-million LOC monstrosity that is always ready to collapse.
Your interactions will consist mainly of mind dulling staff meetings, early morning, barely intelligible conference calls to far off lands attempting to keep outsource staff up to speed (good luck with that) while the real work will be long solo hours staring at a machine (evenings and weekends if need be).
I have always considered myself pretty good, but not the best. The only ones who really get much out of this job are the best.
I could go on, but hey it is a beautiful sunny Saturday and I have to go into work.
I would like to point out some very interesting things which I learned about the supposed jobless rate in our country and how our government comes to the numbers which they have. For instance if you are over the age of 18 and live at home with mom and dad on a farm you are not counted as being unemployed. If your unemployment benefits have run out and you are no longer collecting unemployment, you are not counted as being unemployed. The homeless are not counted as being unemployed. The jobless rate in this country as reported by our government is spurious to the point of laughable. I agree with the article that CS degree is a good field, however the line about outsourcing actually creating jobs is a load of crap. There are three types of lies. Lies. Damn Lies. Statisticians.
You have to enter the field with your eyes open. High-tech companies are taking a page directly from manufacturing in this regard. They are using overseas labor whenever possible to reduce costs. This makes them more competitive and gives them the ability to produce goods at lower prices, but also has the effect of driving down wages in the US. Consider that cost of living in most target countries is lower, and that companies are not providing the same level of benefits overseas as required here to attract talent - the economics are difficult to ignore.
One argument is that manufacturing and high-tech are different because a computer scientist / engineer is constantly updating his/her skillset and engaging in new learning. Jobs that require this have historically commanded higher wages and a greater investment by the employee. Ten years ago high-tech companies were willing to invest in US employees by paying for additional higher education - something they're not doing as much anymore. You need to keep your skills sharp, but it is up to you to do this - often on your own time with your own money.
Expect there to be constant pressure on US tech workers for the foreseeable future. Companies will keep trying to send work overseas but will always encounter problems. For instance, it is much more difficult to convey the ideas of intellectual property and ownership to workers in a communist country like China. Supposedly employees there are very willing to take home sensitive technology and sales people are often found working for more than one company (imagine your sales team also works for your competitor). Patents can also be difficult to protect in this type of environment.
Interestingly, Forbes is reporting this month that big overseas partners such as Wipro and Infosys are beginning to outsource their contracts to countries such as Bulgaria and Mauritia, where wages are even lower.
but i read it as "blah blah blah, shortage, blah blah blah, more worker visas because of the shortage, blah blah blah, don't be surprised at more outsourcing because of the shortage, blah blah blah".
MORTAR COMBAT!
Computer Information Science is not Computer Science. Computer Science is mostly math applied to computer systems and algorithms. It's really facinating if you want to get into artificial intelligence or automation, into obscure realms of math theory, and into the design of low-level software and operating systems.
Computer Information Science is more the management major in computing. It is the "science" of information on computers. So you could very well get a CIS degree with an emphasis in networking or database administration. You could then go on to Master of Information Science (MIS), which is middle-management in IT or library systems. From there, I don't know what you would do, as I have never heard of a doctorate in this career path.
Generally this path deals with making the computers get along together, rather than designing any software. However, you may have to take a few programming courses so you can do scripting and troubleshooting.
You have to understand that women enjoy working in teams. Certain majors are more useful for teamwork than Computer Science, and while I wholly enjoy debugging code and writing the stuff, I can see why working long hours into the night by yourself would be seen as a turn-off.
Maybe with XP and pair-programming coming into vogue, this'll change, but in the meantime women need to be turned onto ALL science majors, CS included, versus congregating just in biology and medicine.
Smart students are avoiding CS for good reasons. Here is the situation facing potential CS students:
We do have too many CS majors. No, it's not that there are more graduates than jobs, quite to the contrary. The real problem is that many people major in CS who have no business majoring in CS--they lack the skills, personality, and aptitude. That's why the US has had to attract tens of thousands of foreign CS students over the last several decades.
The statistics that didn't make sense to me was when she said enrollment was down 32% for the last 4 years. This was surprising given the fact that wages for American computer science graduates have also gone down for the last 4 years as well. That means that even with less supply of CS grads, the demand has gone down further. If there really was huge demand for these graduates, then we would be seeing increasing wages as supply decreased.
The enormous trade deficit and decline in manufacturing points to a differing trend. Articles such as the one cited are often published by IBM, Microsoft, and the like. Note they themselves benefit from such articles, possible results being an increase of engineering talent in the marketplace. The law of supply-and-demand being what it is, said talent would also be cheaper.
First of all, we all know large companies like IBM and Microsoft are trying to deflate IT salaries (http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html). So it's hard to believe anything they say. But even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, the people who make these statements are completely out of touch with reality. My experience has been, if you aren't in Silicon Valley, it's still incredibly difficult to get a decent job, even five years after things fell apart. In my search, I've been told that a lot of companies in the RTP area were wiped out, and the work still hasn't come back. I'm seeing non entry-level jobs, requiring a B.S. in computer science that pay less than what my cousin was making doing data entry. Data entry! That's not a joke.
A lot of people are saying that it's only the low end jobs that are going. But I don't think that's true. Anything can be outsourced. It's easier to send an entire research department to India than to send a few low level IT people. There are upfront costs, but an indepent research lab doesn't have to worry about communicating over seas. I remember seeing an ad for a DSP engineer with an advanced degree, lots of experience, management ability, and ready to move to India.
It's not just outsourcing. The cap on h1b visas is about 65000 a year. I believe the majority of those tend to be software related. The cap has been as high as about 200000. How many total engineers and scientists graduate each year in this country? There are other "problems" as well. With modern hardware and software tools, one software developer can now do what it used to take an entire team of people to do. We've automated ourselves out of work!
Those exciting jobs she was talking about are few and far between. Unless you have a 3.9 GPA masters from Caltech or MIT, don't expect to get one of those jobs any time soon. And definitely not without ten years experience. Oh, and you have to be willing to move anywhere in the country and work long hours. If you're in the defense industry (for which the demand is very artificial) your odds might be a little better, but things are still awful on the commercial side. You could also go the phd route. If you're willing to work as poor postdoc until you're in your 30s and you have the discipline and the talent, you might get a good job earning real money by middle age. But if you don't succeed, you're worth almost nothing. A few years experience in IT is worth more than 10 (or 20 or 30) years research experience if you're in an IT type field.
If you're going to go into software, I think the best thing to do is start a small company . The work exists; it's just a matter of who's going to be doing it.
Thank you for pointing out what should be obvious to anyone with an IQ above a door knob.....do ya suppose the number of such a cohort is shrinking dramatically?? No wonder Bush (assuming no digital voting machine fraud - and THAT's a hugh assumption) was reelected.
What the oh-so-clever managers and execs at IBM fail to realize is that if everyone's busy selling, then developing the product becomes a lower-priority item and you end up with crap products. With a few notable exceptions (e.g., the Eclipse core), this is why IBM has such a bad reputation for producing poor-quality software.
And now they post this article that makes it sound like they actually want to hire real developers? Whatever. These comments said it best: "The real title should be:", and "And we believe an article from IBM?".
I don't understand what you're saying. To better elaborate my confusion:
/. and not writing some letters? I might be missing the point, but if you've got great new ideas, why are you hoarding them for yourself? That page you link is cryptic (maybe it's too early in the morning over here?). Don't applications like Visual Basic already do this?
First off, I can create a map from 0 and 1 to 'I' and 'V' or whichever roman numeral symbols you want, and I can express any number -- integer, irrational, even complex-i -- as encodings of those symbols. Saying it wasn't possible is just silly.
If you've got proof that software patents are illegal or stifling progress (the opposite of what they're intended, I hope..), then why are you posting it on
Computer Science as I know it today is a bunch of information transforms. If you can think of function maps of information, some of it is one-to-one (zip/rar compression, not JPEG compression). Sure, I agree, all the little tiny fast transistors flipping can be abstracted into a bigger more general idea. But how does that help me write a bouncy ball screensaver?
Besides, the meat and potatoes of Computer Science is what's actually happening under all that abstraction, those fancy "algorythims" as the wiki mentions.
Suppose I wanted to come up with a fancy new sorting algorithm, one perhaps even greater than bubble-sort (gasp!) Can you demonstrate how http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_sortheap-sort occurs in real life physics "most software is of such qualities (natural law, physical phenomenon, abstract ideas, algorythims, etc.)" -- such that I didn't actually invent this idea but only discovered what was already there?
Now, just to get one thing straight, software patents are silly, and I haven't found one reason to like them. My professors all hate them, and I really understood why when I read that story on Ebay being sued for their "buy it now" feature. Dear lord. Instead of all this abstraction nonsense, why not just say "If a patent is absurdly obvious to a moron, you can't own the idea!" just like the whole Monster trademark thing... I think I might move to a country without copyright laws.
Speaking as a software engineer who understands supply and demand, I would say on no acocunt should anyone embark on a career in software.
The cake is a pie
one is a myth, believed by parents, students, and high school guidance counselors, that computer science and engineering jobs are all being outsourced to China and India. This is not true.
Hogwash! Asian "technology centers" for the big companies, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle are growing while their US counterparts are stagant or shrinking. My brother works for HP, and his job is now to train cheaper asians how to do his and his coworker's jobs.
According to a government study, the voluntary attrition in the U.S. has outpaced the number of outsourced jobs to emerging nations.
"Voluntary attrition"? I would like to see the stats on this. Many have seen opportunities and wages shrink in IT such that they don't want to be in it. I know a former C++ programmer who went into accounting because the opportunities were better there. Yes, this is "voluntary", but because she did not want to "volunteer" to be screwed by 3rd-world wages and conditions.
Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.'"
Yes, but most of it is help-desk, management, and game programming. Game programming may be a fad, or at least cyclical. (More on this below)
I've seen big companies displace citizens with H-1B's with my own goddam eyes. Don't tell me globalism and "free trade" is not eating into opportunities and wages. I will believe my eyes over lobbyist "statistics".
If you as a student wishes to persue Comp. Sci., do it because you like the topic, and NOT because you think it a stable career. Just like stock investments, you expect a higher return for a higher risk. Computer Science careers don't offer that. They may have high points and low points as demand ebbs and flows. But usually when it ebbs, 3rd-world labor grabs another chunk.
If you have a logical mind and are good with details and want stability and money, become a lawyer.
The legislative branch of our government almost voted for doing away with degreed visa (H-1B) limits, flooding the country with IT workers from abroad. Do you want a career hooked directly to the Senate's "launch career nuke" button?
Table-ized A.I.
Here's the rub: there are still tens of thousands of people you describe that entered this industry during the dotcom era, when companies were hiring literally anyone with computer experience (and in some cases, none at all). These people now have seniority or have even entered management positions, and if you eneter the market today, you will be reporting to them or forced to work with them.
Personally, I wish there were more 80s-era geeks left in our industry. At least they actually loved technology. Unfortunately, they all seem to have left after making so much money in the late 90s. They should be today's managers, not the 90s-era kruft that we have today.
Hey buddy, it may be obvious to YOU, but it certainly wasn't obvious to the interviewer nor the subject of this article. It's probably not obvious to most people reading the article either.
One problem I have experienced with my CS degree, taken so many years ago, is that it is now utterly irrelevant. The technology and methods we were taught were old and musty then, now 25 years later, they are laughable. Had I done a Romano-greek Art degree, it would be of more benefit today. It's the problem of CS as a Degree. It should not be a degree, it should be a diploma from a technical school. It should have some structure to it that you need to go back to school every 10 years or so to brush up on all the new stuff that you wouldn't otherwise get to learn in all the hours of post-work hacking.
My degree talked of drum storage, punched cards and spend weeks on determining the best sorting algorithms. It did not prepare me for team work, or methodologies, or paperwork. It didn't even do a good job of teaching programming.
Today, I need a course that tells me about Enterprise solutions, and shows me how this software works. It needs to show me about the languages that are coming down the pike after OO tools. It needs to explain how to work in a distributed coding environment. It needs to detail both component re-use and component development. Not to mention what follows the Internet - and show me what it might look like.
There is much I can do on my own to learn new ideas, but it has nothing to do with the CS I took all those long years ago.
Software patents DO stiffle innovation, but writing letters? Please! (Well, I do write letters, but Congress folk don't respond [except with form letters] without large enough donations to warrant a personal interview to discuss your concerns.)
Proof? Read the news! Or talk to a lawyer...one that isn't being paid to convince you that patents are good. No software developer should EVER read a patent. If you can be shown to have read a applicable patent, your potential fines TRIPLE. And patents are written by lawyers with the explicit intention of NOT "making patent" (i.e., revealing) that which is being patented. To do so would limit what you could claim the patent covered. There won't even usually be a partial example. We can thank Intel for this ruling. They managed to get the argument through 1) that demonstrating a binary implementation was sufficient for a patent and 2) they didn't need to file a listing of the binary. Don't you just *love* Intel?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Ok Gina, let's talk the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition as it applies to building software. Dave Thomas of Pragmatic Programmer fame has a nice article here discussing why this model describes how people learn to build software. Now answer me this: when things like "application maintenance" and "base application development" become the 1st things to be outsourced, what are you supposed to do with those freshly minted C.S. majors? You know, the ones with no practical experience in a development cycle? How are they supposed to become Experts (as Dave Thomas asks) when all the tasks that give the novice and beginner ranks the foundation to be experts don't get done by the local team? Do you want them on YOUR team, taking the chance of messing up mission critical work that they have limited frame of reference for? You can't kill a career path for cost savings and expect to magicly maintain a profession you rely on.
I'm amazed that you don't see the plain truth in numbers, Gina: the jobs being outsourced as people with experience move around and adjust (fighting tooth and nail, thank-you very much) aren't so much being "stolen" these days as they are never being created. All those drops in enrolement see the same thing Dave Thomas' article is talking about: no career path, too much risk.
Now for the last question: the one that probably makes for the icing on the cake in terms of why US and EMEA students are keeping away from C.S.. How long before that maintainable Dryfus Model of Skill Aquisition in other counteries like India and China turns into a competative force against US and EMEA businesses? Is it 14 years? Long enough to get through university, rack up student loan debt, and pay it off? No?!?! Do you honestly think that those countries are going to be content for 14 years to take scraps of "application maintenance" and "base application development" without any domestic business and technical growth? Until the attitude of companies changes towards fostering the software building career path instead of taking the first 3 rungs off the latter: you and your Fortune 500 ilk have made your bed Gina, now lie in it.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
Real estate is crashing.
Have you gone interview lately? ever notice that majority of the interviewer are Indians, Chinese or Russian?
Notice how the wording of this is meant to distort and twist perceptions. Hardly anyone thinks that all science and engineering jobs are being outsourced to China and India. By saying it that way, however, they are hoping to recruit people to argue with those who do believe (and rightly so) that many jobs are being outsourced there.
Also notice how they leave out "insourcing" of workers on H-1B non-resident visas. The latter is actually more of an issue for a few reasons. Among them is that many jobs simply cannot be moved to a remote location. Another reason is that this makes for an effective slave labor force right here because such a worker cannot easily move to a new job, and if they complain about the working conditions and hours, and get fired, they can't just go get another job, they usually have to return to their home country.
All of this, including the industry push to flood the market with even more CS, engineering, and science graduates, is all part of the scheme to drive pay levels down, cut benefits, and limit career paths to just 10 or so years. If you think business has any other motive besides the acquisition of profits, then you absolutely do not understand how business functions.
And I'm not so sure about this 5% figure. I've heard a number of figures from a number of sources, ranging from 3% to 25%. I'm more inclined to believe it is somewhere around 8% to 10% based on empirical observations of numbers of people out of work. More likely they conveniently include lots of lesser-tech jobs when they work up those figures, while sending the higher-tech jobs overseas.
The government studies lots of things and tends to get things wrong a lot. The only voluntary attrition that exists here is due to declining working conditions, such as bad working environments, fewer benefits, and lower pay. And of course, PHBs.
For every high-tech job outsourced, some number of low-tech jobs probably are created. I doubt it is nine; probably closer to three. These would be low-tech jobs like sales, marketing, and secretarial. If any of those jobs created in US really are high-tech, they will be trying to hire H-1B's in them.
The government also has incomplete figures on people out of work. When someone who had a high-tech job loses it, and applies for unemployment benefits, then they get counted. But when the benefits run out, they aren't counted anymore. And if they had a substantial savings, they might not apply for unemployment benefits, or might not even qualify in some cases ... and won't be counted. Those that do find work doing something else like delivering pizza will then no longer be counted as unemployed (the government has no classification of underemployed).
While it is true that there are untapped resources of smart people who can do high-tech work all over the world, and it is a good thing to get them working for you, it is clear that US businesses are using this combined with other practices more for driving down pay and benefits while still having a base of smart people.
All that said, I do need to point out that US business, as well as European businesses and probably even Japanese businesses, are at a competitive disadvantage in the emerging world market due to the higher living costs at home. Costs have to be cut to survive. And even if we stopped all foreign companies from selling in
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Then why am I working my ass off making next to nothing? If demand is going up, then why aren't salaries going up? Supply and demand, right?
Guess that's not quite right for programmers. We do all the work, the business guys make all the money.
People entering college are starting to realize this, and this is why enrollment in tech programs is down. Why work your ass off when the PHB is going to make all the money?
Smart people are going to law school and joining America's fastest growing industry: Litigation. If you're smart enough to be a good programmer, you're smart enough to be a lawyer. Why shortchange yourself by picking the lesser paid profession?
That really is the crux of matter. Corporate leadership will say _anything_ that will make them money.
The Anikthera Astrolabe-Computer was developed with pre-arabic maths.
As were several antique automata.
Not to mention practically every Observatory back into the dawn of humanity - usually using sunlight or specific stars' light throught slits or holes or between columns....
People are impressed with Egyptians and Mayans. But precise astronomical calculations - and complex maths - have been going on back to before the bronze age. We're usually the ones too dumb (or arrogant) to recognize the systems used. Those too in-your-face to ignore (Mayans) are usually considered 'strange', 'exceptional', or 'alien-inspired'.
Water-clocks, candle-clocks, abaquii (or whatever the plural of 'abacus', is), scales of varieties too numerous to remember, earthquake magnitude-and-direction computers, air-powered circuits, encoders, all have been found dating way back into pre-history.
Paradigms change. Tools adapt to ideas. Then vice-versa. Then the other way around. Und so wieder.
Computing does not mean digital binary.
Technology does not mean electricity.
Intelligence does not mean historical-era.
Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.
Yeah, but those jobs are being created at WalMart and Burger King
There statement is bull that a small percentage is being outsourced, from some research I did a while ago I found the IBM, i think, more than tripled the amount of jobs it oursourced from 2000 to 2004, It came to somthing like 20M+ in lost profits each year for the American Economy, if the money dosn't stay in then were gonna lose it givin we import almost everything we use. Even so I will still study cs, its good work for the most part in the non coporate sector, especially for web scripting/design.
Maybe this dumb cunt should go google her subject material first. It doesn't seem to jive with reality, *or* my personal experience.
n t=y
s ource20.html
e %20Class.html
/ jobs_3-11.html
"The exodus of jobs from our shores and the race to the bottom for workers around the world is an obvious result of NAFTA "
http://www.kucinich.us/issues/outsourcing.php?pri
"AT&T Wireless outsourcing jobs overseas
Consultants from two Indian companies sent to Bothell"
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/149035_out
"Bush economic report praises 'outsourcing' jobs"
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04041/271362.stm
"Global Outsourcing and the Disappearing Middle Class"
http://www.newwork.com/Pages/Opinion/Raynor/Middl
"JOBS MOVING OVERSEAS"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june04
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I go to a major university in the midwest that has a very good engineering program, but the CS department is in the College of Science. I recently found the statistics on my school's career center website for average salaries of graduates in either 2004 or 2005 (I forget which year exactly). To my surprise, CS bachelor graduates had the highest average salary amongst all other majors, and it's not even the school's major strength!
I can also personally attribute to this fact. I'm a junior in CS w/a low GPA. I recently got an internship offer w/a major corporation for this coming summer. I have 3 friends who have GPAs > 3.6 in chemical, electrical, and biomedical engineering. The chemE couldn't find anything for this summer. The biomed and EE got internship offers, but I'm going to be getting paid more than them.
It still doesn't make sense to me how I'm getting paid more than 3 engineers w/amazing GPAs, while I'm sitting here w/my crappy grades, especially at a school where engineering is the focus.
My point? If you're in CS and absolutely love it, but are having 2nd thoughts b/c you feel the market is weak, don't change majors, b/c whatever fears you have about the market are just simply untrue.
Similarly, you should 'fire' them (by quitting) the moment they suggest you work overtime without getting paid.
Unless your current employer is the only employer with an office in the area who would hire you.
The defense industry is the place have fun with new technologies, lots of money floating around, will never be outsourced (by law) and salaries are in the 6 figures for proven, motivated developers with experience. The problem that I see is that the older a developer becomes, the less he wants to do in the development arena, or at least the less he want to be held accountable for. Developers tend to gravitate toward management and in most cases the personality types required for developing do not transfer well to management. If you love development, I would go into your career with the goal of being the best progammer you can, with some longevity in that position. The biggest mistake I see developers make is seeing management as the only upward mobility, and thus losing the benefit of pursuing their future based on their strengths. If you think management is your strength, pursue IT management.
Here is another reason why people steer away from computer science - with a couple of years experience, finding a job is easy. But for the new graduate, finding a job can be very difficult. When freshmen hear stories about Seniors finding hundreds of jobs advertised as "Entry Level - must have 2+ years paid software development experience" it turns them off. And when there is no shortage of job listings like that, no shortage of companies claiming they cannot find anybody "qualified" and demanding more foreigners, and at the same time a significant number of new grads are being turned down, attracting new students to the field will be difficult. Things are starting to change, but people will not be attracted into the field until things are desperate enough that everybody graduing with a CS degree has a job in a month or two.
How do any of those links contradict what is being said?
The first is a political diatraibe from a politician, the second doesn't really contradict anything - no one is disputing that outsourcing exists, ditto for the third, the 4th is just a misinformed opinion not based on the facts, and the 5th is just a human interest story talking about the outsourced jobs, not the new jobs being created at a faster rate.
I just got a good job at a company as a co-op as a college student. I'm a CS major. Most of my friends have no trouble finding jobs. If you can't find a job, then move. I live in a good tech area. If you want to do programming, then move to where the jobs are and stop pasting these BS links that ignore reality.
I spent a month looking to replace an employee, and got a whopping 2 resume's from a month of online ads and paper ads. And this was for an entry level position. All I needed was somebody fresh out that knew the software I use (the most popular in my industry, by the way) - I would train them in the in-house particulars. I got two resumes - one from a guy with no experience in the software at all, and one from a guy wanting $50k. For a $20-$25k position.
You've just proved, irrefutably, that it's not a $20-$25k position.
Look, it's not that hard to earn $40K hanging sheetrock
Entry-level janitors earn $25K/yr. To ask someone to work on crucial business logic for a salary like that is, quite frankly, to humiliate them.I own a small software company. Most of our staff are IT professionals, with CS backgrounds.
... uh .. send them home. Only an idiot or a
.. enough ranting for one day.
We have offices, and therefore do hiring, in several labor markets around North America.
I have to say - there is an *acute* shortage of talent in the market. It's not that nobody
applies for our job postings (I read 10-20 resumes daily), but that very few of the applicants
have the skills or experience to do the jobs we need done.
As you might expect, in a time of supply shortage, prices go up. In the IT skills market,
we have seen a cost increase (read: workers get higher salaries) of 20%/year or more, over
each of the past 2 years.
Surely these are not signs of doom and gloom for prospective CS students? The work is interesting,
it is plentiful, the pay is (sometimes outrageously) good, and job security is very easily
acquired through acquisition of valuable skills.
Outsourcing, where it happens, is probably motivated more by US shortages than cost savings.
You have to figure that weird working hours, miscommunication leading to mixed-up implementations,
travel, etc. will more than outweight any labor cost savings by sending work off-shore. What is
appealing about India, China, etc. is the fact that if you want to hire 100 or 200 or more talented
individuals in a short time period, you might just be able to. In the US, that would basically
be impossible.
I would even venture to guess that the growth in outsourcing is directly related to the decline
of guest worker programs. The reasoning is pretty simple: industry needs X amount of talent.
X = A local + B imported (guest). If B declines, and you still need to do X, you have to get
it done somewhere else, such as country of origin.
If we're serious about the "knowledge economy" and all those buzz words, surely it would appear
to be an idiotic policy to invite talented individuals to our country, train them, get value
out of them, make them really useful and then
demagogue would do that. Hmm. Idiots in government. Couldn't be.
I'm not sure whether I should laugh or cry whenever I see Lou Dobbs on TV. For those of you who
haven't seen it - he's the well-spoken moron with a TV show about exporting jobs out of America.
Yup. We have a labour shortage, and he wants to send these guys home and close the borders.
Not enough local grown talent, and indeed not enough local bodies to do the work that the economy
needs, but damn it, send all those (presumably visible minority types) home.
Oh well
If you happen to be a current or prospective CS student considering a career in IT in America - go for it.
Don't listen to the idiots who whine about outsourcing and guest worker programs and such. We really are
building a "knowledge economy" and there really is a shortage of people just like you.
Perhaps it's just my own ignorance as a physical engineer, but aren't computer scientists supposed to be scientists? As in, figuring the best way to compute stuff? As in, a computer scientist doesn't equal a programmer? I thought that was what a software engineer does.
Here's my idea: Take the 'engineering' part of 'software engineering' seriously. Make it separate from computer science, just like math and physics are separate from mechanical and electrical engineering. Want to be a programmer? Take the engineering program, learn practical skills and methodology, and end up with a license to practice in the field with the requirement that you keep your skills up to date. Want to be a researcher, or work in the theoretical area? Take computer science, and learn less UML, more discrete math, and more interesting electives like AI and such. Just a thought.
Can anyone comment on Computer Science versus Computer Engineering as careers? There's a good deal of overlap, of course, but I'm interested in getting a feel for the viability of each as a career path.
The key these days is that there are plenty of people who can do computer science, but far fewer who can do computer science and something else. This means that computer science is extremely comptetitive, but if you also are good at biology, or chemistry, or economics, etc., that you can use your computer science skills and apply them to your other field. There are far fewer biologists who can code, so if you can do both then you can get the best of both worlds.
Computers are tools, and a tool needs an application. If you can apply it directly yourself, then you can do just fine. If you only know how to code, then you will find yourself with lots of other people in your shoes, and that's where it gets tough to get a job
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
If you love coding and troubleshooting computers all day, then maybe comsci is for you. All I can say is research!!!!!
START HERE: http://www.bls.gov/oco/
That will give you REAL statistical census info that will tell you career outlook FACTS, not bias propaganda spewed from some think tank. Comsci is on the rise, but not as much as other fields, biotech, business admin etc. How long will it apply?
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos110.htm
MANAGER$ MAKE MORE MONEY!!!! If you love to code, code, if you think you can manage the geeks rather than coding, for heaven sakes, let someone else read those java books, and go read some finance/managerial/economic books!! The person who wrote this article is a VP, and is most likely heavily into communications/public relations (pseudoscience) and they are a propagandist, not an economist, take data from economists. I could continue... the fact that I can pay someone $2000 salary in India to piece together code should scare anyone. Business never outsources the core: VPs Directors leaders in Finance CFO CIO CTO COO CSO... they do however outsource anything that is manufacturing related. Think maintance/continuance (the structures are there to build on), versus constructing something someone will do or already has done, unless your a genius like Torvaldis or Bill Joy, etc then you have nothing to worry about.
As far as I can tell, the reason behind all these bullsh!t articles is to make sure there will never again be a shortage of IT slave labor.
Forget the article, look at the real world.
A BSCS is as difficult to get as an engineering degree, but as useless as Liberal Arts degree. Look at the job boards, degrees are rarely listed as requirements for software development jobs, and when they are they say "BSCS or equivelent."
If I have a degree in Chemical Engineering, I am *way* ahead of any non-degreed person who wants to work as a Chemical Engineer. The same can not be said for a degree in Comp Sci.
The newspapers and job boards are filled with ads for nurses. The ads often offer $15K sign on bonuses. All they ask is that you be an licensed nurse. How many honest ads are there, offering $15K sign on bonuses for software developers - right out of collede? The real evidence of supply v demand is staring you in the face. Most developer jobs require five years experience in a long list of technologies - and ever job has a different technologies list.
Please don't mis-understand. I am not suggesting that nurses are not worth it, nor am I suggesting that you become a nurse. My point is that real world data should out-weight these bogus self-serving articles.
Mod parent down - the author is a foul mouthed misogynist who doesn't know the difference between anecdote and real measurements.
... because there sure as heck aren't any tech jobs around here. Having a degree with certifications and vast knowledge of programming languages might get you a job at McDonald's here. And that isn't much of an exaggeration, unfortunately.
Do you remember when it turned out serving in McDonalds had been listed as manufacturing jobs?
I've read many of the comments and feel that part of what's going on is a munging of issues.
;) to fill our positions, so they remain open for months or years.
I consider Software Development and IT distinct entities. Comments about one do not necessarily hold true for the other.
Furthermore, a "CS Degree" has no real implications for professional life.
The worst combination I see are people that expect that completing a CS degree program will give them an IT job (such as UNIX admin) that will have a good salary and good job stability.
Computer Science is mostly irrelevant for Admin style IT careers. You know, the ones that revolve around babysitting hardware thats currently too stupid to babysit itself (sorry UNIX guys - I used to be in your shoes and I got out. The writing is on the wall. Self-managing systems are coming).
Computer Science, _the science_, is about learning how to use computers to solve problems. Programming is a side effect of this because for the last 40 years that's been how we tell computers to do what we want. Knuth is a computer scientist. What Knuth does is computer science. Writing ASP pages for a 9-5 job is generally not computer science.
Another poster remarked that what he learned in CS was not relevant today - I am not sure what he thought CS was supposed to teach him, but I must disagree.
Algorithmic complexity is a timeless subject. Numerical analysis is a timeless subject. These may not be relevant for your job, but job training is not the point of computer science. Algorithmic complexity is as important today as it was 40 years ago. Accuracy of numerical computing is as important today as it was 40 years ago - especially with software controlling more and more of the physical world.
A related discipline to computer science is "software engineering". That's an unfortuneate name since there's little engineered about software, and software engineers don't take PE exams or anything of the sort. But even so, someone finally figured out that creating software is not the same thing as computer science. People that are interested in the development of software for commercial entities would be best served with a software-engineering style curriculum. I'm not necessarily convinced that software engineering belongs at the university, but I suppose most still have an "English" department, so we shouldn't be too choosy.
Someone opined that they need a course to teach them about todays enterprise applications (whatever that means). That's professional training. That's not necessarily the university system, and it's definitely not Computer Science.
I've been employed with the same software development company since 2000. I have personally interviewed tens of candidates for multiple positions, most of them not qualified for the "entry-level" positions we were hiring for. We paid no attention to what school or what degree they had - they either impressed us or they didn't. Most didn't.
Someone suggested that Microsoft is only hiring overseas now, and its US jobs are flat or in decline. Not true. I happen to work for Microsoft, and the positions I just described were for that company, for the US.
We have over 1000 open positions in the US alone in the software development field..spanning coding, testing, and product design. We are hiring in India, in Seattle, in China, in Japan, in Germany, and even in North Dakota, where I now work. We're looking for the right people, because heaven knows our software could always be better. We're finding that there aren't enough qualified software development people (at least that are willing to work for us
We are, by and large, not hiring UNIX administrators. Infact, we don't hire that many NT administrators. We have more deployed NT systems than probably any other single managed entity, but our job growth is not in the IT sector (we have some, but my impression is that it's nothing like the software development side).
People n
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
"Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.'"
if 9 jobs are created for every 1 that is outsourced then where are the jobs???
oh wait.. those got outsouced too.
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
I really wish that people who've spent their careers loafing in the rarefied atmosphere of Academia or sitting on cushy chairs in board rooms, would actually go out and TRY TO GET A JOB as a Programmer some time.
You have no clue what it's like in the real job market.
What you fail to understand is that Research projects such as yours are EXTREMELY rare and employ only a TINY handful of people.
And once this new field you're developing gets out of the Research stage into actual production, guess where the companies that license your patents will go to get their Application Programming done? That's right, the cheap-labor countries.
This is the reason students are abandoning CS degrees in droves, because someone with "only" a MSCS can't find a damn job!
So a corporation that depends on computer science graduates for its business wants to keep their labor costs down in the future by suckering young people into a career that will probably be over by the time they are 50.
The shortage of technical talent in the US has been proclaimed by industry continuously since the 1950's but it has never been true.
Given the absurd compensation given CEOs in the US, perhaps IBM should encourage more business school graduates to try to flood the market with cheap management labor.
Being a "loner" does not necessarily mean that you can't work effectively as part of a team. It merely means that you are inwardly focused.
For that matter, there are a lot of outgoing, sociable people who can be disruptive in a team environment.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Seriously. If I had modpoints today, both of Jerf's posts in this thread would be modded down. Why? He restates the poster's point as if he's correcting the poster. Give Jerf's modpoints to the posts he's supposedly bashing.
And Jerf, you should actually read the posts you replied to and then apologize to the authors or I will personally mod you down when I get the points.
If we're in a thread of anecdote voting then I vote with the gp. Things are great as a software engineer. I work flexible hours, enjoy my job, get paid mucho bucks and like the people I work with. I'm not afraid for my job, but if something happened I have no doubts about getting another one. I'm confident in my skills and have a nest egg put by.
You sound sort of like my brother. He's intelligent and a great guy, but he makes the same mistake that many people make. He's mildly unhappy with his job, but he doesn't want to venture out and get another one.
You mention doctor, lawyer, and accountant as examples of great careers. Sorry, but those jobs suck and one reason for a high salary can be that a job sucks.
I'm sure people would get paid large bundles of cash for sewage swallowing if there was a big need for it. No thank you.
Cow Cube
Un, no. CS graduate salaries went up in 2005, and are expected to do so again in 2006.
http://www.jobweb.com/SalaryInfo/05_summer.htm
Note also that degrees in fields where there really is an oversupply i.e. English, History, etc. are paying 40% less than CS degrees.
I'm lucky in that I got hired on during the tech boom and have worked at IBM ever since. Here's a summary of my observations. I have been at IBM a little over five years.
:-)
1. There -is- a career track for non-management types that goes to the top of the company. From Senior Engineer, you have Senior Technical Staff Member, Distinguished Engineer, and finally IBM Fellow. The rough part is that the VAST majority of technical staff will NEVER make it passed Senior Engineer, even if they spend their entire careers are IBM. Why? Because IBM is chock full of super smart people, and unless you have: a PhD, a huge portfolio of really innovative patents, a successful track record on dozens of high profile projects, and finally, are recognized as an industry leader both inside and outside of IBM - You are NOT going to be a IBM Fellow.
Corollary to 1. Many many MANY people in IBM realize the above. A lot of them are your manager. Unless you are obviously IBM Fellow material, they will openly encourage you to consider joining them in management. Take their advice for what it is - ADVICE. Or do what I do and blow them off for at least a decade of two. There's quite a lot of interesting work to be done, and they need many more mid-level engineers than they do IBM Fellows.
2. Bureacracy. IBM has almost 100,000 engineers. If you can't live in an environment with lots of silly rules and requiremnts, you will probably not be happy. I came from the military, so I don't mind the BS.
3. Outsourcing. My group may have hundreds of engineers working in India, I'm not sure of the exact number. But it's funny, they didn't lay anybody off saying "You have been replaced". They came to us saying, "Errmm, we hired a bunch of people in India, can you find them work helping out?" I have never worked in ANY development situation where we couldn't use more (talented) people, so we had quite a few things for them to do. It's very possible that IBM India will displace some of us eventually, but I don't see it happening unless the economy takes a huge downturn.
4. Research. IBM leads with technology. I can't think of any other tech company that still does basic research. All the products I've worked on at IBM have come out of IBM Research. Intel doesn't do basic research, they "partner" with Universities and Government. Microsoft has "research" but I think they're just more for show.
All in all, I've been happy working at IBM. It hasn't all been beer and skittles, but I've also worked at other tech companies and I'm happiest where I am.
Hm, I would like to give a shot to a PhD programme, but unfortunately in my part of the world (the former Czechoslovakia) there is a serious lack of interesting PhD thesis themes that could allow me to participate in solving world's bleeding edge problems related to some meaningful practical problem (such as biomedicine research, etc). I can only take part in solving huge theoretical problems, and frankly said, I am not interested in hunting down the creatures invented by some clever theoreticians as side effects of their theories (although I enjoy theories). I achieved M.S. & summa cum laude at my first university, then moved to two best universities in former Czechoslovakia, attending their M.S. CS programme again (Comenius & Charles universities) and tried to gather as much theoretical knowledge as I was able to be capable of solving huge practical problems, hoping I would find interesting research topic that would allow me to utilize my talent, but I couldn't find any topic that would motivate me, as our universities do only a little cooperation with the industry, that in turn only awakens from the limbo caused by socialism and the research is almost non-existing.
:-(
Therefore I took the job offer to one of the few R&D positions available in this part of the world from american companies (yes, there is also R&D outsourcing), earning about $30k/year (that is triple of the nation's average), but I clearly see that my capabilities are above to what is expected from me (but I enjoy the job, but miss the tight challenge). Therefore I present cryptology lectures to my colleagues to help them to raise their level and to not to allow my brain to become rusty and further deteriorate.
But as I am turning 29 in the next two weeks, I feel this would be my last chance to try PhD programme and still can't find any suitable and motivating theme
Is this also problem in the USA, or you just have overload of interesting research topics and miss those that would like to participate in the research?
Squared9
You cited Dennies Kucinich? Hahahaha
I know literary allusions aren't the stock and trade of CS people. Perhaps they should be.
PEA PICKERS WANTED IN CALIFORNIA. GOOD WAGES ALL SEASON. 800 PICKERS WANTED.
Summary here.
Broaden your horizons. Read things beyond the ACM journals and Slashdot. You'll learn something.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
I call BS.
I'm a 21 year old male, you couldn't tell me apart from your average person on the street (nothing horribly wrong with me), easy going and a little-on-the-shy-side personality who started programming on the Commodore 64 at age 6. My dad had an at-home software company, so this was bound to happen. Peeks and pokes were "magic" at the time, but I understood everything else I was doing. Fast forward 15 years, I've got 10 years of C++ and at least 5 of Java. Instead of rock collecting or whatever the hell else kids did in their childhood, I was coming up with things like recursion before I knew about them. I've even gone to college to try to get a degree because "you must have at least a B.S. degree to work at X" and I must say the coursework has been laughable to some of the personal projects I've put together.
I've managed to scrounge up two full years of formal-tie work experience, and my performance (what a shocker) has indicated I'm worth a lot more than the minimum wage (and less) I've accepted just to get said positions.
I've posted resumes on services like Monster, attended several college career fairs, and despite my exemplary grades and enthusiasm, jobs and internships invariably go to seniors. That was the first thing they ask, and when I hand them my resume they mark that I'm "only a freshman," "only a sophomore," and even "only a junior." To date I've gotten zero interview opportunities, and I've been actively looking for three years.
What more experience do you people want from me? This industry only took off 15 years ago, if you expect four-six years of formal education and five years of job experience, why don't you STOP LYING and just admit you'll only hire people older than 27 who happened to become hobbyist computer programmers as soon as the technology was out there?
-Mike
Undergrad Student of Truman State University
for a resume e-mail freazer at gmail dot com
Linked article states that CS jobs went up 2.3% for the period Jan 2004-Dec 2004. Keep in mind that the inflation rate for the same period was 2.75% (http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate /InflationCalculator.asp), resulting in a net decrease in effective wages.
Simple application of the notions of supply and demand suggest that the demand for CS jobs is slightly outpaced by the supply, as of 2004. No amount of spin from the various megacorps can deny this.
True "shortages" should result in humoungous real gains in compensation, similar to what we saw in the late 1990's. Now, it *may* be the case that the corps forsee future shortages based upon the traditional growth of the industry versus the current reduction in people entering the field; that much could be true. But as of right now, it appears as if supply is slightly outpacing demand.
Bills are due whether you have a job or not.
Could we get an executive summary here?
Hard to believe when this comes from somebody working at IBM. The only company that has been hiring extensively in the last few years is Microsoft.
Georg
The best reason to get a good education is the more Socratic one: to become a better person. A complete, well-rounded curriculum might seem wasteful to the "just enough to get a job" crowd, but it results in a person who is generally more competent for life ahead. And as for Computer Science, learn more of the How and Why, and less of the What. That person might be less attuned for a given employer. But that person will have a much wider world of employment ahead in general, and will be more recession-proof in the end.
Here is my route to becoming a Phd level scientist at a major corporation. Does this sound better or worse than a typical BS in comp sci/eng route?
Four years of college at state university: obviously, just peanut income, graduated with $17k in debt (the rest was covered by scholarship).
One year of technician-level work: $35,000 in fairly cheap area
Five and a half years of graduate school: Lived on a stipend that grew from $16500 to $21000. Location had an average to above average cost of living.
One year of post-doc: Made about $35000, living in one of the most expensive cities on earth.
As of June: Scientist at major corporation. Salary (with bonus) around $80,000 in a very cheap place to live. Typical salary increases will push me to $100,000 in less than ten years (todays dollars) and then relatively flat after that unless I hit it big on the management track.
I would say this is normal for my field. How does it compare to yours? In particular, how unattractive is the fact that a scientist must spend their late 20's living on a wage they could earn at McDonald's?
The main reason wages won't go up is that the workforce demand in the U.S. is finite, whereas for every C.S. graduate in the U.S. there are 10 in other countries willing to work for 10% of the salary. The supply of low wage outsourced workers is essentially unlimited. It'll continue to be that way until the cost of living in the U.S. drops to what it is in India and China.
IBM has no reason not to encourage college age kids to go into C.S. degrees. It'll drive down wages for the small fraction of jobs that can't be outsourced. IBM will more than make up for the fact that more U.S. workers can't afford to buy their products because 1% of the Indian and Chinese populations will be able to afford them.
Support SETI@home
If any degree field should make use of this infastructure, it should be the field that evoloves it. How many smart people in dead end jobs with financial overhead would love to spend a few hours a night pegging away at a CS degree and what percentage of the population is under 23 and living in a University town.
"Never say Never."
* What makes them think that accounting will not get outsourced ? Actually. That can be outsourced very easily. Infact its already being done. Also, what makes them think that most of accounting can't be automated by software ?
or the new hot stuff: biotech
* I say, bring it on. nanotech, bioinfo, nanobiotech. whatever... Software/computation is basis of every *tech/info. Some experience in computer science is going to be essential. Much like physics and math.
Being educated does not make you a better person (that is what socialist unversities want you to believe), it is how you use your education that counts. Your education does not make you who you are despite popular belief, it just aids you in becoming who you already knew you wanted to be. You want to code do it, if your good, and you understand how to schmooz and write a good resume, you'll get well fed.
I've known highly educated people that could not carry on a conversation without exuding unversity packed bias, in a way they were mislead by there own intellegence. Don't become obsessed with how smart you are, be careful what you master for one day it may master you. The balance comes from experience, go do an internship, or get a job while your going to school if you really want to be prepared (or for heaven sakes use outside resources). You really also want to think about your resume if your not planning on getting a masters or phd
I interviewed for a contract position with "The 401K Company" in Austin a couple of years back. They needed a guy to lay out Swing screens. Headhunters continued to call me about the position after my interview had been scheduled. When I informed them that I already had an interview they begged me to tell them how I managed to get it. The 401K Co. was turning away people with masters degrees from good schools and 4-5 years of Swing experience (which was a lot at the time). They didn't even want to phone screen any of these guys.
My interview came and I found out what they were after. They were not interested in my $120,000 Carnegie Mellon education or my years of expereince developing Swing stuff at IBM. They wanted to know how I would deal with such-and-such theoretical interpersonal problem that I might encounter. I felt like I was interviewing for a political position or an acting job.
IBM was no better. IBM doesn't know how to deal with geeks who love to code. My managers treated my passion for coding as an intersting novelty, something that was unique but not particularly valuable. All of the successful people at my lab were Joe Average types (nongeeks) who chose CS as a career. It might as well have been accounting or law; they didn't care. My team lead once said "I can't believe you actually use computers outside of work. When I leave on Friday, I don't want to see another one of these damn things until Monday morning."
So don't listen to these guys who profess that only those who are passionate about coding should go into CS. My experience is the exact opposite. If you are a geek (with below average social/political skills) who loves to code DO NOT GO INTO CS. The current US software industry will only bring you heartbreak! If you are an intelligent Joe Average Type who lives to socialize and play political games you will do well.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You look at all the consultants and the books they are writing and then the people actually drinking that koolaid, the reality is that if you're a remotely decent coder and you don't mind not doing engineering you can get a decent wage in a "code it and forget it" style and hopefully move on before the problems rise. You don't need CS for that, you don't need a masters in SE for that.
To be completely honest, if you're approaching it that way, you might actually enjoy it a lot more than if you really care about solving real problems and delivering robust, reliable and high quality solutions that might be deployed for 30-50 years. Just bang out some quick web UIs on some open source database stuff and by the time there are "problems" they'll probably "need" to build a new web page anyways. There is a remarkable amount of that going on and I almost think that the rest of us are suckers for letting it happen or not doing it ourselves. Look at the Ruby on Rails thing, there are two companies generating hype, writing books, teaching classes, etc.. around it. No substantial real world users of it, they have books on how it's "enterprise ready" and how to "get real" with it and people are eating it up. It's great stuff but there is much more sizzle than steak and the whole idea is to be on to something else before those problems become real.
"But here is the deal.... We are not looking for people to help administer our systems. That is relatively easy to do, particularly with operating systems like OS X. You have to be bright and willing to work on *new* problems particularly those dealing with data management and visualization. Many comp-sci students want to go create games and there is a market for that, but where the technology for games really comes from is basic science research dealing with real-world problems. And in fact, some games and game engines are now being applied to real world problems."
Here's a question I'm certain no one will see. I've been researching various game engines for the purpose of serious games and I have a small collection. The question is, what engine(s) are the best for the purposes of "serious games", and what about the new ones coming out this year? Second how is the "middleware" market for tools that sit on top of these engines, and cater to serious games? And last how do games fit into the alternative visualization field?
"There are a couple of exciting projects I am working on in these fields, namely I have just been asked to sit on the board of a media group that will deal with some of these issues and real world application of games and other digital media. Alexander Seropian (of Bungie fame) is also on this board and it should be interesting to see where this goes. Additionally, our research in a new area of bioscience called metabolomics looks ready to take off and we are working with a number of comp-sci graduate students, post-docs and faculty to create tools to deal with the types of data we use to pick out signatures of cells much like the CIA and NASA use to determine signatures of "things" they are interested in. Also data management and communication is another field that is very much in demand and we are working with groups to help us create databases that can be mined and used interactively to collaboratively annotate and discuss data with multiple users."
Data Mining Solutions: Methods and Tools for Solving Real-World Problems covers some of that. A side-avenue is alternative means of displaying that data. BTW you don't need to be a computer scientist to get into the "application of" some of these tools.
And yes, I've no doubt it IS obvious to both the faux interviewer and the subject. These guys are paid chiefly to spread the BS.
for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.
Yeah, that about matches my experience: for each outsourced person you need 1 person dole out the tasks and 8 people to clean up the code that they deliver.
I'm confident there are plenty of great developers in India, but my company doesn't employ any of them.
This a minority view point but I think one of the reasons for for declining enrollment in computer science and engineering in general is that these fields pay too little. Yes, there are million statistics that say average salaries are high for CS grads. However, if you compare the top 10% of computer scientists (in terms of skill and effectiveness) vs the top 10% of investment managers and then look at the their pay, you'll see radical difference. A really taltented and well paid computer scienceist might make a 180K a year. A talented investment manager is going to be paid in the millions. Really talnented doctors aren't as well comp'ed as investment managers but make much more than computer scienctists. Same for lawyers.
Sure, you can gamble on stock options but its a gamble. This is not field where talent alone gives so any certainty of retiring rich. Most of really smart CS people I know are leaving the field and getting MBAs.
Parent is dead-on. IBM trots her out to:
1) Throw some buzzwords around that she doesn't understand the distinctions of
2) Play the "we're short of women around here" angle/ploy (an angle a local IT skills certifier has been playing on TV recently)
3) To cheerlead for more suckers to enter CS so that IBM and other companies are assured a steady stream of cheap labor (until you get too expensive, after around say 5 years of experience).
This wasn't the first and won't be the last "rah rah" article by the American tech industry that means nothing.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Okay, for all you folks in big markets who are claiming that $25k is what you make at burger king, let me clairify:
1) The guy wanting $50k had 20+ years of experience, and that's not uncommon for salaries for such a person in this area
2) This job does not require a college education, but an AA degree would be helpful.
3) Training someone in the software (AutoCAD, fwiw) is a fairly extensive task - not something for on-the-job training. Training someone to draft to our company standards, and to learn the ins and outs of our niche in the Architectural world is not an overwhelming task, if they know the software - maybe a month to get up to speed.
4) You folks are the same ones who bitch when I tell them that to design the simplest building from scratch will cost in the neighborhood of $3/sf. Hell, somehow, you think that the time that goes into it is done for free. You grab a book at Lowes and think that to spend $1000 on a set of house plans seems expensive, but even assuming that your custom 5000SF starter castle will take 10-12 sheets to just give you floor plans, some accurate elevations (pictures), and all the windows and doors and foundation details you'll need to build it will take about 120 hours of drafting and the same of an architect & engineer (combined). Four people for a week and a half (2 CADs, and ARch, and an Engr). Simple job, right? So, tell me, this $25/hr drafter - he'll get benefits right? And vacation? And sick leave? And he'll need software, and a modern machine, and office space, and all the other G&A overhead. So, if I keep him busy 40 hours a week I can bill him at $50/hr and make *maybe* 5-7% theoretical profit. Of course, to guarantee I can keep him busy, I'll need a comfortable backlog...which is somwhere in the 4-6 months range. Trust me, you won't want to wait until next November to get your plans - I've seen your type in my office, and you figure if you can order it online out of a plan book and get it shipped in three days, I ought to be able to get you a set of plans in a week or two (heck, I don't have to ship it, right?).
So, counting time for the arhchitects and engineers (which, I'm sure you'll agree should make more than a H.S. grad drafter - say $40-60/hr?), you're looking at a cost of
$15,000 for the most basic of sets. And that won't include any construction services or fancy stuff. And anybody making 5-7% profit is probably going to go under. The industry shoots for about 20% and he good firms will top 10% when alls said and done.
Now, a fresh out is going to get about half as much done as someone with experience, and will take a good 50-70% more arch/engr time in the process. You do the math (you took math in college, right?)
So, remind me again, how much is this drafter worth? Experienced freelancers charge $35 to $45 and hour (I don't have to pay taxes, benefits, or leave on those guys) and they don't bill when the work slows down. Remind me how much should I pay a young drafter? If you come up with more than $14/hr, I hope you never go into business for yourself, or if you do you'd better hope for another round of VCs with too much money and a big bubble - and you'd better get out early. 'Cause with attitudes like you folks have, you'll be back to mailing out 1500 resumes when you run out of money, and it won't take long.
Actually, I take that back. I hope you DO go into business for yourself, and I hope you decided to come after my market. Because, quite frankly, I'd love to have somebody to compete against who is twice as expensive as I am. That would be a very nice luxury. And when you go out of business, I can hire you at half what you thought you should be making, and you'll be happy to have a job and health insurance. And then you'll work 60 hours a week so that I can get that new boat. You know, the one I'll spend the weekends on while you're in the office finishing up that project which is just one in a 4 month backlog that keeps you employed.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Simple application of the notions of supply and demand suggest that the demand for CS jobs is slightly outpaced by the supply, as of 2004. No amount of spin from the various megacorps can deny this.
I generally agree with this - the aftereffects of the bubble are still with us to a certain extent, and some sectors that were heavy CS employers (telecomm for example) are not growing. However the supply/demand situation is in better balance than it has been in the past 6-8 years. Computer related employment is at higher levels than at the peak of the bubble, and enrollment levels have probably overcompensated.
Longer term it will be interesting to see what happens - for example 44% of CS PhDs are over age 50.
Not any good paying jobs, anyway.
There has not been any substantiation of these "outsourcing IT leads to financial services jobs" claims.
Outsourcing tech jobs leads to lots of low paying customer service jobs, and outsourcing manufacturing has led to an explosion of Wal Mart jobs.
That article, particularly the claim that offshoring leads to more jobs, is a myth based on day dreaming fantasies. The only jobs that they create are lots of low paying service jobs.
Everyone knows this - that's why so few people are touching Computer Science anymore. The American people are not stupid, they also know these claims are BS and they're taking the proper corrective action.
CS will never recover as a popular field of study in America, no matter how many of these dishonest, unsubstantiated, real world-detached head-in-the-sand "reports" come out.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
"But the reason CS enrollment is down is the bubble burst and the gold-rushers are gone."
What I want to know Mr +5: Insightful is just how much longer you and your buddies are going to be using that excuse the longer the downturn lasts?
2% "computer science" (mostly academic positions, high end R&D corps.)
8% "architects" (this is the prime "computer science" position at Joe Company)
90% "developers" (with varying levels of experience from entry-->senior)
Now keep in mind, my numbers are reflecting the whole computing space, including every small 2 man operation out there.
In larger corporations, there's usually one architect that drives the "vision" for the project, along with a bunch of varying levels of developers. In smaller companies, the architect can also be the developer. But I'm not including these guys in that 8% number. I'm talking about pure architects there (people that don't type code for a living).
Most companies want you to get busy cranking out code that they can put into production quickly. That lends itself to "assembly line" thinking, therefore the temptation to use offshore outsourcing is greatly increased.
So, take a look at those numbers above. Let's assume that people in the 1st two groups can't be outsourced. That leaves (potentially) 90% of an entire industry workforce that could potentially be outsourced. 90%!. Ok, maybe not today or tommorrow, but in 5-10 years, India/China/[insert low cost country] will perfect their software "manufacturing" processes to the point where this will become possible. Even if only HALF of those positions are eventually replaced, it still paints a very GRIM picture.
I have 8 technical people in my group and I've sponsored 2 H-1 visas (1 from China and the other from India). In both of these cases, the job was offered to the most qualified candidate.
So, I guess my observation, as an employer, would support these findings, and I would encourage anyone that has the interest and the skills to take the CS/software developer school/career track to go at it full speed. As one of my CS professors used to say, "there will always be good jobs for good peopel". I think that is true.
This is definitely a employee's market right now. Things are completely different now than they were 3 years ago.
They won't even hire older people with even more experience than you have. Your experience is what is holding you back. Experience == higher pay expectations and less ass kissing. They want someone that has learned only the specific things they need and absolutely nothing else (because someone who knows a lot more would go to a better paying job if one is found). They really don't want people that can learn because that means they'll end up with people that can do more things and that gets back to the higher pay expectation. What they really want are disposable drones (and that seems to be what they get with outsourcing and H-1Bs).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Then post your high paying job openings right here and now and let's just see if your money is where your mouth is. The fact is, talented and experienced people actually are plentiful. You just have to look around better. And you may even be misreading the resumes for all I know (I've met a few managers who couldn't do that ... which is needed since techie/geek type people can't write good ones). The local grown talent is here. You're just not making the effort. And the big corporations that also don't make the effort can easily fall back on the body shop sales people that come in carrying a few CDs full of resumes from the workers they are selling. So it's certainly a lot easier to sign an outsourcing contract than to take the proper steps to find someone as specific as you want.
Keep in mind that the more specific you want to be about finding the person to fill the job, the more work you have to do.
How many online job web sites do your jobs get posted in? Do you post in at least 10 of them? Or are you expecting the candidates to spend 100 hours a week hunting through all the repeats of the really stupid underpaying jobs on dozens of these sites. Now it isn't your fault that the online job hunting methods are so fragmented (because of way too many job sites, and too much clutter and noise on the big ones). Unfortunately, it's what you're stuck with just as much as those of us hunting for work are.
And by all means absolutely do not dismiss any candidate because they are currently unemployed. If you think unemployed people can't do the job, then all you are doing is making worse the very problem you seem to claim does not exist.
BTW, please include salaries in those job opening listings you post here. Let's see if your pay level really does indicate your belief in this shortage.
And why are you hiding behind "Anonymous Coward"? Afraid someone will be able to track you to your company and find that you aren't really hiring at all?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Slashdoters often complain about the "gold diggers" who went into CS only for the money, but then when we hear about people majoring in art history or Medieval literature, say how they better learn the phrase, "Do you want fries with that?" when they enter the job market.
So which is it? Should they be derided for studying what they love, or attacked as mercenaries who consider financial viability when deciding on a major?
>>with a couple of years experience, finding a job is easy
Actually, that's not quite true. Most jobs require you have to experience in about six different areas, and only those six areas.
So if you have experience in Java, C/C++, Clearcase - that won't help you with an employer looking for Oracle and Visual-BASIC. In fact, it might not help for a employer looking for DB2, Java, and Eclisp - because that employer will figure that you *really* want to program in C/C++.
>>Why is it that most reputable CS schools do not offer a CS degree online.
I have degrees in business and math - with a concentration in computer science.
IMO: some things can taught online a lot better than others. Most business is no big problem to teach online.
In comp sci, somebody has to actually look at your code, and explain to you how you could have done stuff better. It's more of a hands-on sort of thing. Would you want a doctor who learned medican online?
Well, let me start off by saying that I was previously an IT in the Navy. I advanced pretty fast and was ahead on my qualifications schedule. I got out thinking "well, I'm not the best, but I'm far from the worst". I was leading IT's for more of my time in than what I spent as an entry level tech. I read all over the internet and on the job listings sites that there were more than enough jobs that I was qualified for. So I got out. I'm almost at my one year mark of civilian-hood. What do I have to report? I've spent more time with freelance construction than on a computer. All the positions that I was qualified for denied me because I didn't have a degree. I had 4 years of 80+ hr work weeks in some of the most stressful conditions, were calling in a Cisco tech was never an option if our router failed. If we didn't know how to fix it, we had to figure it out on our own with a quickness. So I started looking at other positions. First I went up one level. Not even an interview. So I went down a level, and down, until I'm at the point of applying for entry-level positions. All of these people are telling me I'm "over-qualified". Now maybe it's just the St. Louis market, because each city is different, however several buddies who've gotten out and gone home report the same thing to me. The one greatest example I have is one position I was being considered for. First off, I was asking for 35,000 a year for a LV2 systems technician for a consulting and outsourcing firm. They wanted me at less than 25,000, ideally 18,000. They expected 9-5 with 24/7 on-call and no reimbursment for travel expenses like gas to drive my vehicle to and from their office and the client locations. Med/Dent? Nearly non-existant. I came out of the Navy as a Sr. Security Specialist and not only can I not find anything on my level, but I can't get higher or lower positions either. Lesson to be learned? Unless you have 10 years, papers do matter. I'm in school now going for my comp sci and MIS, and can't even find part-time computer employment. This market sucks, and while I'm not an expert, I'm pretty sure outsourcing doesn't help people that honestly WANT to become IT professionals. I'm still going to fight the good fight and go into the field that I WANT, but it's not easy, and I highly doubt that it will ever become as easy as other fields to crack into. I can say that it's not a good selling point for a career field if out of my group of comp sci majors only 3 of them spent less than one year unemployed after getting a BS trying to find an entry level posiion to start in. If you can't start, how can you move up?
I just checked computerjobs.com and found there are currently 1991 jobs in Texas. I remember when that number was as high as 23,000 before the economy nose dived. Whether it is, or is not, back in other areas, it most definitely is nowhere near back in IT hiring.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think you may have gotten the wrong end of the stick there. I know some universities and colleges offer online or distance-learning courses, but from my experience (working in higher education and dealing with webct/moodle/blackboard etc.) is that it's rarely just a 'Here's the course work.. I'll see you when you're ready to graduate' kinda thing.
Many of the lecturers who were teaching the same course to people both online and in-class would spend a large amount of time (comparatively) checking on the online students, answering questions and marking work (would you trust a fully automated system to mark a 15 page essay? hah no).
IMHO, if the online-courses you've seen have very little tutor-student interaction, you can safely classify them as 'Mickey Mouse' degrees, with are worth their weight in Mickey Mouse dollars.
Science: Big-O analysis, graph theory, computability evaluation
Not Science: Distributed systems design, system architecture
Tell that to this guy getting his PhD in it; his distributed project FeedTree has been previously featured on Slashdot.
Something doesn't stop being science just because you say so. Have you forgotten Google's roots?
University would need to hire more profs, who would be required to grade projects. The university would be way ahead as they could get loner programmers from these large corps who need more local programmers and no building/janitors/equipment etc is required to teach a large class. The classes could be given in the evening.
"Never say Never."
Seriously, I mean this. The industry does this every once in a while. When the price of computer scientists starts to rise they scream "labor shortage" in an effort to convince gullible kids to major in CS and flood the market. This drives down the cost of labor until everyone realizes the market is flooded and majors in something else. Repeat from step one.
God... what incredible bullshit this article is.
1) You will incur a large pile of debt getting the degree.
2) The degree is very hard compared to many other degrees.
3) The compensation starts in the 40's and goes up to the 80's- but then it mostly stops cold. MOST make under 70- Very few make six figures.
4) You -WILL- suffer severe age discrimination and be put out to pasture between 45 and 55 years old.
5) You -WON'T- be hired unless you are a genius- if you are a solid "B" student, your job will be outsourced, or have ridiculous requirements for sub-par pay.
6) Every three to four years your skill set becomes obsolete and so you must both -retrain- and -get some kind of project in new technology- or you are screwed.
We are seeing a lot of these propaganda articles lately while at my company we have over 200 indians working in for INFOSYS and we are down to under 100 american workers. Our productivity has gone to crap over the last four years-- incredible increases in productivity. We are -forbidden- to work on unapproved projects to the point that the choice is sit at your desk taking classes or basically just do nothing until you get approval (Not all outsourcing here- Sarbanes Oxley is a large part of the bureaucratic increase).
Listen- I've posted this at least a half dozen times over the last two months.
If you -love- computers.
If you -are- a genius (top 5%) and a hard worker.
If you intern (for god's sake don't graduate without experience).
You can do well in the field.
If you -like- computers.
If you -are- smart (top 85-95%).
If you fail to intern.
You are screwed- there are people who love computers and are smart and who are willing to work for $5k to $10k who will have your job.
So- STOP NOW- change majors before you work up a huge debt that by the way, you CANNOT declare bankruptcy from.
Most computer people I -knew- are struggling on subpar pay (under $60k with over 7 years experience) or they have changed careers. I'm still doing okay- but every day it gets worse. No raises have been given period for the last three years-- we are all at the top of the pay band and they are not changing it yet.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Customers and PHBs routinely, and again either intentionally or through stupidity, under-scope projects and expect you to put forth the 120% effort (yah, I can do math, but they can't) routinely to put out the prouduct with high quality and any features that pop into their heads as the project goes along.
I'm abour ready to miss my third summer in a row of vacation because the boss is seeing an opportunity to make megabucks to try to squeeze a system sized for 900 simultaneous users to 2700 users (which isn't so bad, but here comes the clincher) as the first customer! I've been pushing for having a friendly be the first customer so that we can make the inevitable missteps with someone who is a mite more tolerant of issues, but no, that's not thinking positively enough.
So what's going to happen? Well, I've already made my pitch for going with a low-load friendly, but that's not going to fly. It appears that this new deal with the 2700 users is coming through, I'll be asked to pulll a miracle out of my ass with the same number of sustainers and support people (me and one other guy), with the same amount of testing (very little since the boss doesn't want to pay for the testers or the testing software) and the same amount of false hope that it'll work the first time, for which the company's track record is 0% over the past 5 years... but this time it will be different! Oh, did I forget to mention that the outside company developing the initial version hasn't finished it yet, it's four months overdue so far, they're balking at completing the functionality because they didn't scope it right, and there's no end in sight?
Anyway, just stay away from software. Go into something like Civil Engineering that everybody needs, and that is a little more deterministic with time estimates.
OTOH, I can't think of something else I'd rather do for a living. But not being able to do it correctly is what galls me.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
I graduated right along with many of my classmates, and post-docs seem to run 0-2 for industry and 2-3 for tenure track. Bio-science has gotten much worse. Post-docs of 5 years or more just to get in the door anywhere is starting to become the norm.
This is largely due to, in my opinion, the way NSF and NIH have been trying to spend all of the new cash they have received in the last twenty years. Their primary mechanism of funding research is to fund universities, which in turn means creating more graduate students and eventually post-docs. We now have a glut (or an even bigger one). This should not be a surprise. The problem is worse in bio-science precisely because NIH has grown faster than NSF. Both agencies need to find ways to fund permanent jobs with real salaries/benefits, and slow the pipeline into PhD-hood. In the meantime, we have a huge lack of math and science K12 teachers, because many people who would consider such a career are lured away by all the grad school subsidies. Combined with the ludicrious K12 pay scales, which treat kindergarten teachers and physics teachers the same, and you have a huge mess.
If you want feedback on your resume, post it.
i agree with the sentiment that 'if you're good, you'll find work and get paid for it'.
the thing about cs is that its definitely a field that you have to enjoy, and have some aptitude for, in order to succeed. coding and problem solving should be fun. it just has to click with you. if its not coming, then you're probably better off not forcing it.
as for the job market, it seems pretty good right now for talented people. i'm 27 and working in the financial sector right now, but started out more interested in pure tech stuff. but if you want $$, you have to go finance. there are actually interesting projects here, too. the trick is to find a company that suits your work style-- big and corporate, small and personal, and everything in between.
salary wise, i should be breaking 200k salary this coming year (base + bonus). out of school, i was part of a dot-bomb for about 6 months and then worked two other jobs before arriving where i am now-- i made about 90k at both of those.
experience is key. work while you're in school if you can! get that experience, get an internship, do something that allows you to write and read some code. don't expect school to give you enough to get by. but at the same time, be solid in your cs fundamentals so you know how to interview. you'd be amazed at how many 3.8+ gpa cs students i've interviewed that can't answer basic questions about oo and data structures. they're right out of school- this should be fresh in their minds. i cut more slack on these topics to people who've been working for a few years..
anyway, bottom line is if you're good then have no worries- there will be work and there will be pretty good money.
otherwise, find something else that you can excel at and enjoy. you can't really fake being a good programmer.
friendly sysops
You could have gotten away with lying about your job, but you got greedy.
Holy crap. Please, anyone with mod points, please send this one into the stratosphere. This one literally knocked me off my chair, no sarcasm, and is one of the funniest Slashdot comments I've seen for some time.
"Why the flying fuck did you allow the Man to kill your working pleasure?"
Why?, For money of course. I used to have a fun job doing microntroller development any way I wanted. I was the only programmer in the R&D hardware department(actually I did part programming and part breadboarding new designs). Thing was it was a small company (~50 employees) and I was making a pittance. For various reasons there was no future there or in the small town.
I doubled my salary, by moving and going to work for big corp (50000+ employees) . Big corp was pretty cool in the beginning. Lots of perks. Still a cool working environment etc...
Then we hit the wall. We laid off and outsourced more than half the staff and turned work into crap.During the dark times there was no jobs, most laid off went into real estate, auto mechanics, bus drivers etc... I "survived" 3 years of downsizing, But now I am 40+. Not many folks are that interested in old 40+ developers. It is a very rough job market for the 40+ crowd. Big corp still hires locally occaisionally and they ONLY hire kids right out of school. This is the common mode at most companies. Age-ism is alive and well. I feel a bit trapped, that is why I don't just find another job. Also you start to think about things like pensions if you can just hang on...
Great for you if you can keep the small projects work up for a long period of time, but the reality is most of us won't. Most developers probably end up doing the thankless job of maintaining huge monster legacy code bases somewhere (excluding the web/visual basic developers). There is no joy in this. Change two lines of code, do 4 hours of process. Even a small scale project in big corp wouldn't be too bad, but they are few and far between. Plus they are the still targets in the layoffs that are still happening.
BTW, I too have a great manager, who is into sailing, and have been out sailing with him. But a great manager isn't enough when you face big corp. There is little he can do.
And to those who said I wouldn't be going in if I didn't love it. You are nuts. It is a terrible thing to live in fear. It is fear not love that has me going in to run weekend test cases for code I didn't write. I do it because I don't want get laid off next.
Stay far, far away from big corp software development. Take less money to work on smaller projects if you must, because in the long run it will be better. Big corp will trap you and suck out your soul.
Sure, if you've got and MBA and an undergrad degree in CS it's a good combination. But that's just it. CS is mostly good in combination, not by itself. The career doesn't last long enough. It is also confused with "Software Engineering" enough that it has the same problems -- neither 4 year degree will provide the basis for a career that will raise a family and provide a retirement.
I'm talking about the USA here.
Computers and software is a very dynamic field. That makes it sound interesting until you realize it also means unstable and unreliable. Okay, you might be bored to death doing the same thing for 40 years but "Dynamic Careers" can be hell, too.
I18N == Intergalacticization
I graduated with a MS in CS (with a thesis project) in 2001 and now make a very good 6 figure salary. A lot of engineers who had degrees for years or who graduated with me now work for me and make just under 6 figure salaries or have barely broken that mark. At 38, I direct the work of a large team of mid grade and senior engineers and programmers, almost all of whom are older than me. Why was I promoted ahead and why don't they make as much money? They sit programming in their cubicle or working on a research problem I give them, but they don't try and come up with creative new ideas or display people skills that make us money. Having an advanced degree doesn't make you creative or ambitious or able to direct the work of a team of engineers and scientists toward a common goal. People who do that make the six and seven figure salaries!
"As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The silly part is using todays more powerful system as an excuse that you can use it to map to an older more limited system, and that somehow it disqualifies the fact that the system of today did not exist then.
. php/Main_Page
Proof that Software patents are not valid patents? Absolutely! But such absolute proof did not stop the catholic church from promoting Galileo as a heritic. It was the losing of followers that in 1992 the Pope exonerated Galileo, and further stated that there are long running ideas about the religion that may change the understanding of. The point: Proof is not all that is needed and then there cheating in a manner that leaves no proof.
The page I linked to is very clear and straight forward, simple. What is left open is perhaps a little more datail of the action constants that you cannot avoid. There are NINE things we do in any and all things we do.
Basic things of the VIC (Virtual Interaction Configuration)
AI (Alternate Interface) You start or begin things and stop or end things.
PK (Place Keeper) You need to know where you are in doing something, keep track of things, especially if you need to set something aside to do other things before you can go back to something and continue.
OI (Obtain Input) You get things to pass to other things (variables).
IP (InPut from) You select where your getting something from and what to get when you get things.
OP (OutPut to) You select where your sending something to and what to send when you send things.
SF (do StufF) You do things a step at a time, even when your doing more than one thing at a time, each you do a step at a time. And the things you do can be or include doing the nine things.
IQ (Index Queue) You look up what things mean, and use the meanings to (SF) "do StufF". Often the meaning is from a Selected Abstraction Set.
ID (IDentify things) Sometimes you gotta know what something is before you know what to do. So you test things to see what they are. Once you know what something is, you can (SF) "do StufF".
KE (Knowledge Enable) When looking up or testing something (IQ and ID), you may only want a certain part of it. This "KE" helps you narrow down what you want to look up (IQ) or test (ID). When you look up a word in a dictionary, you limit your search to the section starting with the first letter of the Word.
These NINE things can easily be made available in the form of computer functionality, easy for us to use.
And With This we can Automate The things We Do thru computers. We can organize and automate our use of abstraction sets through The Abstraction Tool (Computers).
And on to your next comment:
"Writting letters" and "hording it to myself"? Try doing a google search on "Timothy Rue" and "Patents"
I'm even a wikipedia entry...
If the above is not enough, try: http://threeseas.net/vic/html/ and there is plenty more
Yes computer science is a bunch of information transforms, but its the underlying "mechanics" that provide simpler and more powerful control over automation, including the automation of software creation.
You can break down the heap sort yourself into terms of of where you use what of the nine action constants. But know that these constants are as a carrier wave, not the specific signal they are passing.
If you and your professors really are against software patent, then the only way to to undo them is to help map the prior art of Free Software, Open Source Software, etc.. For just like the catholic church and Galileo, its about popularity in use.
Try joining in on http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/priorart-discuss/
and check out the associated http://developer.osdl.org/dev/priorart/wiki/index
But you are anon coward so you'll have to hunt this thread down to see any response, which you probably will not do, and that makes you a troll.
Why am I on slashdot? Considering the USPTO sometimes makes use if it......go figure...
Any job where they allow you to think, much less encourage you to do so is few and far between. I cannot find such work after much effort, and I have directed many dozens of people interested in such work over the years to find a real job in another career. I will do other non-computer work before I sign up for the computing sweat-shops that won't even allow me to make house payments or significantly improve their infrastructure -- that and I will work on my own computing innovations on the side that are risky but far less so than the migrant-worker treatment most people get from the industry these days.
Anyone who can't find lots of qualified workers in this market is completely incompetent. But mostly, they are looking for developers who will slave away according to their misconceptions instead of being able to improve and take ownership in the project and at their preferred wage scales, so they go after immigrants who don't know any better.
Whoa... AC's can get mod points? Where do I sign up?
Take a look at the following article by a very reputable organization
e restTeitelbaum2003.pdf
Do we need more scientists?
MICHAEL S. TEITELBAUM
http://www.sloan.org/programs/documents/PublicInt
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropic nonprofit institution, was established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr., then President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation.
I just got my BS and graduated and can't even find a job without 1-3 years of experience. It is ridiculous. I have a very impressive resumé from the education side, but no one will touch you without experience. A PhD will compensate for some of it, but they still demand technologies not taught. I don't regret doing CS, I love this stuff to death. But its hella hard to get an entry level job in this field (although there are mountains of experienced jobs, what gives?). -James
What?! No jokes today?
Jesus, reminders me of high school - Talk about collage and you instantly get comma faces all around you...
!!!!!MOD PARENT UP!!!!!
Today the "big thing" for the Java community is J2EE -- if you already know it, that is. It doesn't matter if you've learned Java, C, C++, Pascal, etc. ad nauseaum on the job, it doesn't matter if you went to college on a full academic scholarship, or that you have 15 years experience doing great work as a software developer for previous employers ("brilliant" even, as I've been told). It doesn't matter that you have a master's in a hard science in addition to a formal CS education, or that you've proven yourself intelligent and able to learn. It doesn't even matter that all those moons ago you had an SAT north of 1,300, or that you have years of Java experience. If you don't ALREADY know J2EE everyone assumes that you either can't learn it or aren't worth the expense of giving you the chance to learn it. "Don't already know it? Sorry, we thought you already had experience in J2EE." Click, the line goes dead, you never hear from them again, even though you KNOW you could do the job if only given half a chance.
Employers like this are a BIG part of the problem. The technologies change every five years. It's unrealistic, insane, and downright inhuman to never give the current workforce the chance to change with them.
Sorry but I'm not buying it for one second. I've been looking for a development position for over a year, and had to take an administrative position over a software project just to get something that pays (what I have pays great but I otherwise absolutely hate it). This "demand" that we keep hearing about is for people who ALREADY have experience in skill XYZ. No matter how intelligent someone is, no matter their education, no matter how many times that individual has proven how easily and well he can learn new technologies, skills, and tools, no matter that person's experience in technologies that existed in the market before the new skill XYZ existed, if he doesn't ALREADY have experience in XYZ, he doesn't get the change to ever learn it. "You don't have experience in it? Well, then we're not going to take the chance of allowing you a chance to pick it up. You might be stupid and cost us a fortune waiting for you to pick it up or maybe you aren't but we have a crisis situation and we need someone we can drop right in to the meat grinder (or maybe we just want to maximize our profits). Sorry, charlie, maybe next time we have something matching your current skill set." Click. Smart, agile candidate never hears from them again. There are PLENTY of people who can meet your needs -- the problem is that many employers either don't or won't understand the simple fact that technologies change every five years, and the current workforce needs to be allowed to change with them. You might be noticing a lot of anger on these boards. The people here have every right to be angry.
True, but hanging sheet rock doesn't put you in a office with benefits. (around here, rockers get $7-10/hr with no benefits)
Where in the world is "here"?
Around my "here", you couldn't get anyone to mow your lawn for $10/hr. And that includes the illegals, who have just about overwhelmed the place [our local instantiation of "Little Tijuana" is just down the road from me].
CS might not be a good career choice. It appears that CS, EE, R&D, etc. are becoming commodity jobs in the US. http://www.washtech.org/news/industry/display.php? ID_Content=5043
March 21, 2006
WashTech News
Congress Considers Massive H-1b Visa Expansion, Gates Tells Congress It's Microsoft's Top Priority
By Marcus Courtney
Seattle-Congress is contemplating legislation that would allow up to 600,000 skilled professional guest workers to enter the U.S. in a single year. This would be the biggest one time expansion of the controversial H-1b visa program ito date. ...
shut up unless you want your salary to drop!
_______
DIY Linux virus removal:
1) [root@localhost ~]# rm -rf /
>But here is the deal.... We are not looking for people to help administer our systems. That is relatively easy to do,
>particularly with operating systems like OS X. You have to be bright and willing to work on *new* problems particularly
>those dealing with data management and visualization. Many comp-sci students want to go create games and there is a
>market for that, but where the technology for games really comes from is basic science research dealing with real-world problems.
>And in fact, some games and game engines are now being applied to real world problems.
And here is why there are less and less folks going into Computer Science. Basically, you are going to have to be willing to invest similarly in your education to be, say, a medical doctor or a lawyer. But on top of that, you will need to be among the very best and talented in the field. And you'd better be able to keep up with the lightning-fast pace of the evolution of the technology, because miss one step and you will find yourself watching your job becoming "relatively easy to do" and leave for overseas.
It feels to me like you have to be a real-life Wesley Crusher to have some level of certainty of success in computer science. How many people think they can live up to that? Not many. And so they go into law or business to manage and wage intellectual property war for the few Wesley Crushers that bubble to the top.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
A new tidbit regarding outsourcing I saw today (4/10) in the news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060409/wl_asia_afp/a fplifestyleindiatechnologyemployment
Those U.S.-based undergraduates considering majoring in computer science should think long and hard about their choice and do the math: outsourcing currently at 700,000, with projected 40% growth *for the next 5 years* (I am assuming they meant 40% per-year growth), with revenues currently sitting at $5.1B. Granted, the numbers are from a lobbying group (NASSCOM), but probably have some grouding in reality...
Know what this means, U.S. kids? It means that many mighty U.S. companies *aren't even considering you* for new college grad jobs in computer science; their HR guys are camped out in a stadium in India interiewing a steady stream of cheaper foreign labor, making an offer on-the-spot to a bright young kid from IIT or another Indian institution. Maybe it's a job at the company's site in India, maybe there's some type of offshore work visa involved, but the bottom line -- good for Indian guy, bad for you. All you need to do is look at the numbers to see where the growth is, and it's not stateside.
Also, the article states
"...the nation's outsourcing industry would face a shortage of 262,000 professionals by 2012 and that already many university graduates lack the necessary skills to fill available jobs."
Hmmm....I'm not quite sure what this means -- *no* recent grads, foreign or domestic, are qualified for these jobs? In any case, use of the phrase "outsourcing industry" tells me that these jobs are earmarked for offshore consumption. In my opinion, this is not good news for a U.S. resident college graduate with a BS (or perhaps even MS) in CompSci who is seeking employment.
'...for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.'
Is that because it takes nine programmers to fix the mistakes/problems that the one outsourced programmer caused?
Don't forget the bless of ignorance! ;-)
That's your problem, you're using last year's data. Here's this year's:
n g_salaries/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starti
This data has CS starting salaries down by 2%.
Just scanned your blog and your profile on technorati and you do not seem to be a computer scientist. You don't even seems to be very interested in the subject. Where do you get your facts if not from your own experience? I *am* a computer scientist. I graduated from the UofU where you are in the medical school. And I have not seen anything like what you describe.
That is do say, I am calling bullshit on you and your entire post.
Stonewolf
you'd be amazed at how many 3.8+ gpa cs students i've interviewed that can't answer basic questions about oo and data structures.
I've been curious about this. Are data structures really that relevant anymore as a skill in the workplace? The last time I created a data structure was in the 1990s when I was programming in C. Since then, programming in C++ and C# (.Net) I've implemented some design patterns and just used container classes. The container classes encapsulate the data structures for me.
I learned data structures in school but nowadays I don't see that knowledge as very relevant, except perhaps as background knowledge for judging the effectiveness of using one container class over another.
OOP skills? Still relevant.
It's been rare that I've had a job interview where they ask me about my CS knowledge. I always appreciate it when they do. I can remember the very first job interview where I landed a job at a small software company 12 years ago. They asked me to convert an integer to a string in C without using any library functions to do the conversion (like itoa() or printf("%d")). I did it, even exceeding their expectations. They told me that they had interviewed several candidates. None of them could do it. That surprised me. I was taught how to do that my first year in college. After I did it, it was like the rest of the interview was just a formality. It almost didn't matter what I said. They wanted to hire me. The last time I got a job where they asked me such questions was several years ago.
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