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."
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
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
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
Where are you situated? In Northern Virginia for example, getting a techie job is not a problem at all! In fact, my brother-in-law, who is in the market for a senior J2EE position, got five written offers in less than 6 days, all of which exceeded $100K!
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.
I don't know how it works for comp sci, but I do know that another highly in-demand career makes it trivial to get a green card. Nurses are in such high demand here, that the sometimes years-long process to obtain a green card can be shortened to a few months.
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.
The H1B people by in large would be happy to stay and become citizens. I'd say get rid of H1B all together, or create a very large tax on it (say something like 40% directed to unemployment and training/retraining costs). But its pointless talking about policies that would be good for the American people until we get our democracy back.
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
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.
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
Yes, please do not take CS as a major...after all we don't want yet ANOTHER generation of innovators. take biz. courses so you can be a market drone and sell last generations crap cause you didn't want to spend the effort to INNOVATE. sounds like a smart thing for me to do... where's that number for my college... i need to get out of CS classes...
oh, wait, i LIKE learning more indepth about computers than any MORON that thinks he is king shit just because he can pass tha tests for his/her MCSE.
1. You don't get overtime... A lot of times people are expected to work 50-60 hours/week.
hmmmm last i checked, SALARIED employees didn't get overtime... the get X amount a year for working. Look at a management position, they mostly don't get paid overtime.
not to mention the tech support issue you brought up... WHO THE HELL WOULD GET A CS MAJOR AND EXPECT TO WORK TECH-SUPPORT??? a CS major is WAY over qualified for help-desk. you can get degrees in less than a year at tech schools for help desk positions. a CS grad. would be more for systems analyst or engineer at large companies.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
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...
IBM/Lenovo gets you to a call center in Atlanta. I've spoken to more people with thick southern accents there then any other tech-support I have called.
My Sysadmin Blog
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!
As a Canadian currently on an H1-B, I can attest to the lowered cost of education. But really, is it my fault that my country decided to invest in education and subsidise it, rather than charging me $10,000+ per year for tuition? (For the record, I paid about $3,000-$3,500 per year for tuition, depending on the year, at a university ranked in the middle by Maclean's national university surveys).
When I first came into the United States, I filled a position that the employer had open for over six months and no Americans wanted to fill it. Now I'm on my sixth year of my H1-B, and am currently in the process of a Green Card application. My H1-B extension (for the purposes of getting the Green Card) is being processed, which will let me stay here longer.
While I would like to get a Green Card and become a permanent resident, there is no way in hell that I will ever become a U.S. citizen. As a (completely legal!) foreigner, I am treated like crap by your government and (some of your) people, and I have no faith that things will get any better. The current rules in place basically tie me to my current employer until I either abandon my Green Card and leave, or through some miracle the government goes through the backlog (which will take eight years to do, and there's no signs of it getting any better).
If you want to get rid of indentured servitude, then you don't need to get rid of guest workers and H1 programs, you need to improve your internal processes so that we can move from employer to employer more easily and not have to be in paranoid fear of the men in black walking us to the border because we made a typo on a piece of paperwork.
-- Joe
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.
I've interviewed hundreds of people for IT positions in central California over the past few years. I have only found 2 or 3 qualified people. A good programmer, network engineer, or systems administrator is hard to find.
HERE IS THE KICKER:I dropped out of college at 18 and joined the workforce. 6 years later, I'm a CIO at a medical facility. I make more money than anyone I know, including the Doctors at my organization.
College for CS is a joke. CS Professors can't keep up technology. By the time they have a chance to learn a technology something is well on its way to replacing it. Out of the hundreds of people I've interviewed for positions as network engineers, software developers, project managers, pc technicians, and systems administrators none of the qualified people had college degrees. The majority of the people with IT degrees are NOT qualified to do the jobs.
If you are over the age of 14 and don't understand exactly how everything in a computer works, you'll never be a 'qualified' IT professional. You may be able to learn some skills that will get you a job in the $60,000 to $80,000 range, but you will never make it much past that.
For those of you who are interviewing for an IT job, and the employer seems interested, ask for twice as much as they offer. They'll be will to pay it. Over the past 5 years I've hired several hundred IT professionals for different positions, not one of them aske for even close to what we would have paid them. Even unqualified IT people can get paid well compared to other industries. And, emailing or faxing a resume is never as good as buying lunch for the prospective employer or at least meeting them face to face. When you have hundreds of applications for a position, the one person that stands out is going to be the PERSON, not the resume. And REMEMBER, when it comes to salary, ask for more. I've subcontracted people out at $150 or more an hour, and paid them between $30 and $60 an hour. I would have been willing to go up to $125/hr for some of the positions!! I'm talking about kids right out of high school.
No, no, you're quite wrong. It doesn't cost a 1/4 or a 1/10th less to get a degree, it costs 1/30th to infinitely less. And that was Switzerland, mind you (*).
;-)
David Gay
*: You can always tell that something is overpriced if it's cheaper in Switzerland
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.
$20-25k? What is this position for? A hard drive formatting whipping boy? Hell, I know people who make more then that without a college education as medical assistants and that's in Augusta, GA which has a pretty darn low standard of living. If this is a software engineering position and you are located in a major metropolitan area, $45k for an entry level position might still be hard to fill.
Molog
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
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?".
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
People like you are part of the problem.
1: Why do people need to know the software if they'll have trainning? And if it is an entry level position, how do you think they'll know the software that is used by companies like yours? You only want a full trainned employee, with experience by the salary of an out of school one.
2: "but would you buy an '05 car with 2000 miles for full retail price..." WTF?!?!?! It is not about cars that we are talking here. Are people really all the same to you? Do you really think you can replace anybody just by looking at the "specs"?
Rethinking email
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.
They took our jobs! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The y+Took+Our+Jobs!&defid=640597
Anyway, am I the only person who worries that bitching about outsourcing is just setting ourselves up for a bigger fall in the future? It looks just like the cliche of bitching about machinery replacing manufacturing jobs, where the jobs stay a few years and then the whole factory shuts down and moves to Malaysia, leaving the old factory town 100% screwed instead of just a few workers. Or, worse, the whole industry gets screwed as foreign companies compete using both machinery and very cheap labor, as happened to the US auto industry.
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
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.
The days are still here. Rather than applications, it's web-sites/communities. The facebook.com was recently offered $750 milion. It was created by a couple of college kids about 2 years ago. I still think you can create a closed source app that gets bought by a large company. There is just a lot more competition.
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.
This is true to some extent, but It seems like you are just trolling.
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.
Nvidia, ATI, Xilinx, ARM and every other fabless foundry's entire business model is based on IP laws. These companies do not manufacture anything. I'm also sure many would not approve of Intel stealing AMD's IP and manufacturing it on their own process.
You don't know what you're talking about. The whole reason why the intel has ammounted to anything more than nothing was because the intel architecture could be immitated more or less freely inspite of the fact that it had an inferoir design. Unlike Motorolla, they didn't have zero based addressing, they had a segmented address space instead of an elloquent 32 bit one, they had variable length instructions that were hard to pipeline and optimize instead of fixed length ones that are easier to optimize, and they had a small amount ot registers compaired to many in the motorolla chips. By every technical standard Intel sucked, but because they were less proprietary they were more willing to negotiate with IBM than Motorolla was, and because they were less proprietary, AMD and others were able to make pin compatable chips which created competition that cuased the x86 market to explode like a nuclear bomb while the other PC models fizzled inspite of being light years ahead. Renember Amiga, Atri...?
The same thing happened between ethernet and token ring. The same thing happened between TCP vs Novell. In fact almost every major market move in technology over the last 100 years down to the typerwriter has favored the least proprietary technology, yet people still have their head up their ass when it comes to understanding patents and markets. WTF is it going to take for people to get it?!?!?
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
There are so many things wrong with your post it is hard to know where to begin. First of all, you are looking at tech support calls to places like Dell, and the fact that they are handled in India as something that affects someone with a bachelor's in CS? You think they should be working that type of job? Second, you say, "failing computer science students often get a business degree.. There is a good reason: The difficulty is a joke compared to computer science." Almost all decent CS schools are primarily engineering schools, and as such they tend to have weak business and liberal arts programs.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
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
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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
Congratulations! Build those weapons' systems to kill the innocents (a k a "collateral damage") and feel no remorse about your guilt in the matter. Years ago I had an excellent job offer to do missile telemetry programming - Gee, I guess my combat experience got the better of me and I turned it down as quickly as possible....
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.
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."
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.
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
In my home state (Delaware) there is a decent University that is fairly inexpensive (many other states are like this too). It is also not too un-reasonable for in-state students to have their education entirly funded by scholorships. If you do well in undergraduate they will let you into the graduate program and pay you enough to live a (very) meager life. All of the text books are ut in a place in the library so you can use them for free (I only took 2 classes, so this may not be entirly true). I know many other states are like this too, so I don't really buy the education is too expensive in America argument.
Of course if you do not do well in highschool, or you want to go to a private college, or your state sucks, or you want to go to another state then it is very expensive.
P.S. I didn't go to callege, except for a few classes I never finished (spelling/grammer attest to that), and live a fairly decent life, there are plenty of non-outsourcable jobs that require no education, only good work ethic and they pay well enough that a couple can make a decent life doing them (retail management is a quick example).
P.P.S. My X key is acting up, I think I cought them all though.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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?
I didn't advertise the salary, just experience range. I could have been offering $40k for all they knew. Think of your C++ as analogous to the "extra" training I have to do anyway for someone who already knows how to run basic AutoCAD (I'll train them in the vertical apps, addons and custom progrmas we use that they'd never get in high school or college). Would you hire someone who had never programmed before? Would you hire someone who knew Fortran and Basic for a job doing embedded machine code? (sorry, age showing on that one)
Right now, most jobs in this field with benefits are paying under $25k for freshouts with HS or AA degrees. But everybody wants to make $100k. *shrug* Looks like I'll just return that email from the guy in New Delhi (I'm kidding!)
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.
You can make that as a medical assistant anywhere. Hell, they're thowing cash bonses at med techs around here, too. Nobody wants to do those lousy jobs. Bad hours, nasty assignments, have to deal with doctors all the time (there are few managers worse than engineers - doctors are in that class).
This job only requires a HS education. And I'm nowhere near a large city.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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!
I didn't say we don't need CS people.. I said it's not worth being one for the monetary compensation received. If you want money in proportion to the difficulty the do something else... Also several nursing fields taking less education can make $80k+/year and qualify for overtime. Salary does not equate to not qualifying for overtime.. The IRS code lists specific exemptions from overtime... Computer people don't get it and lots of others do.
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.
In regards to call centers- I was trying to think of visible signs that the 5% outsourcing figure might be a little low. As for more qualified positions the folks from Microsoft Developer(Visual Studio) support I've spoken to are in India(trying to figure out what Unknown Error xxx was) -- This isn't the real issue though: Outsourcing risk is higher for who: CS people, Accountants, Medical Profession? Do you honestly think it isn't a risk? In regards to B-Schools- I've seen a lot of failing engineering students go Business and do just fine. The point behind that is there are easier routes to take that result in higher financial returns. There are plenty of schools with reasonable CS & Business programs.. Take MIT's Sloan School of Business for instance... Look online for the relative ranking of their business program... The relative rank of their engineering is well known. --- But the main point of my post was this: For the trouble one goes through for a CS degree the financial compensation isn't worth it. If you really love it then have fun.. Money isn't everything.. You MIGHT do quite well financially... You can also do quite well financially in Vegas. I didn't say it isn't needed... Teachers are needed and I think they are underpaid too.
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."
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.
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.
But its pointless talking about policies that would be good for the American people until we get our democracy back.
That assumes you had one in the first place, which you didn't
"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.
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
!!!!!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.
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.
When I first came into the United States, I filled a position that the employer had open for over six months and no Americans wanted to fill it.
We've got a process in place for that under capitalism- Supply and Demand pricing. What your employer SHOULD have done was increase the salary they were willing to pay. But instead they went the indentured seritude route.
While I would like to get a Green Card and become a permanent resident, there is no way in hell that I will ever become a U.S. citizen. As a (completely legal!) foreigner, I am treated like crap by your government and (some of your) people, and I have no faith that things will get any better. The current rules in place basically tie me to my current employer until I either abandon my Green Card and leave, or through some miracle the government goes through the backlog (which will take eight years to do, and there's no signs of it getting any better).
The way I see it is this: We're ALL- legal citizens included- being treated like crap by the current system. The inefficiency (if they really wanted to, there is absolutely NO reason why a green card from a first world country like Canada couldn't be processes entirely electronically for the VAST majority of people, in less than 15 minutes) is a large part of it. Not allowing people to apply for that green card from other countries over the web is another- no need for that either in today's high-information first world. We seem to be stuck with an immigration system from the 17th century- but unlike you I do see it beginning to change, under pressure from citizens on both sides of the debate. Despite being personally against it (I don't think America needs any "resident aliens" when there are SO many wanting to immigrate here to become citizens, and while we still have citizens here undemployed) I see new legislation with expanded access to green cards being passed by August at the latest, as this is becoming a situation that will directly affect the November ballot box and 66% of the jobs in Congress.
If you want to get rid of indentured servitude, then you don't need to get rid of guest workers and H1 programs, you need to improve your internal processes so that we can move from employer to employer more easily and not have to be in paranoid fear of the men in black walking us to the border because we made a typo on a piece of paperwork.
Uh, perhaps you don't understand the concept of a guest worker program and the H* visas- they're all designed to do EXACTLY that, that's why the entire class needs to be abolished. I'm in fact surprised that as a Canadian you're here on an H-1b visa to begin with; I'd think a TN visa (which anybody with a Bachelor's degree can get in Canada, Mexico, and the US to move to any of the three under NAFTA) would be the program you'd want instead. It's slightly more risky from a financial standpoint (because you have to be an independant contractor and pay business taxes) but it's much less risky from a deportation upon firing standpoint (because you're an independant businessman instead, can work for anybody on a 1099 basis, and can't be deported at all under NAFTA even if you're suspected of a serious crime). The only thing I can think of is that your employer wants the power over your life, and you wouldn't be able to get the job without trading away that power.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
In my home state (Delaware) there is a decent University that is fairly inexpensive (many other states are like this too). It is also not too un-reasonable for in-state students to have their education entirly funded by scholorships. If you do well in undergraduate they will let you into the graduate program and pay you enough to live a (very) meager life. All of the text books are ut in a place in the library so you can use them for free (I only took 2 classes, so this may not be entirly true). I know many other states are like this too, so I don't really buy the education is too expensive in America argument.
A fairly inexpensive university in America would be the average state university, which charges around $40,000 for a 4 year engineering degree. India Institute of Technology chagres around $4000 for the same degree. Now I'll admit that we have a good deal of financial aid here- but they do as well, so that part is just about even. America is nothing special in that regard.
P.S. I didn't go to callege, except for a few classes I never finished (spelling/grammer attest to that), and live a fairly decent life, there are plenty of non-outsourcable jobs that require no education, only good work ethic and they pay well enough that a couple can make a decent life doing them (retail management is a quick example).
The average non-college couple will make more than a million dollars less than a couple with college degrees over the course of a 40 year career. Of course, those numbers were BO (Before Outsourcing)- these days I have my doubts.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
We've got a process in place for that under capitalism- Supply and Demand pricing. What your employer SHOULD have done was increase the salary they were willing to pay. But instead they went the indentured seritude route.
No, what potential employees should have done was reduce their expectations. A kid straight out of college will not get $100,000 for a Junior Support/Software Engineering position (that's what some people asked for, for that position). Their loss turned out to be my gain, because even though my base salary was only $45,000, by the time you factored in bonuses, I was making over $60,000 per year (cash bonuses plus 401K matching, etc.). Additionally, when it came time for my raise the next year, I got it promptly, and it was a big one at that. Most importantly, I learned a lot of new things that helped me out in my career.
(Incidentally, I was contacted for the position, because that employer saw some of my work posted online. They thought that my skills would be a perfect fit for the job, and after interviewing me, they felt that I fit in with everybody else, most of whom were close to my age and background. Total fluke, but I'll take it.)
I agree that there should be automated systems in place to be able to apply for a Green Card, and finally the government is moving towards that (PERM allows for online filing now). But, this is still government, and it will take them years for the kinks to be worked out. The first batch of applicants were automatically rejected due to a bug in the online filing system. Although there isn't much action on my file right now, I feel much better that it's sitting in a box in a warehouse in Dallas than being screwed up by a computer right now.
I started out on a TN visa nearly seven years ago - but once the employer decides that they'd actually like to keep you, they're supposed to file for an H1, since you can't go from TN to Green Card (at least not easily, and it's not recommended by many immigration attorneys). So, they sponsored my H1, and when they went under, I was able to transfer to another company (increasing my paycheck in the process). Although in theory there isn't a limit on the number of TNs that you can get (I've heard of people staying here for 15 years on TN visas), the USCIS will tend to not grant them after a certain amount of time (because they want you to go through the H1 process). An employer who wants to keep the employee would be crazy to keep them on a TN knowing that they could be refused entry (say, coming back from a business trip) - and an employee would be crazy to accept that possibility.
Also, on a TN, you don't have to be a contractor - I was actually hired by my company as a regular full-time employee. In fact, I don't think you can actually be a 1099 on a TN (or H1 for that matter) - the requirement for a TN is that you have a valid employment offer that matches one of the TN categories. If you had to be a contractor, that would imply that you could just cross the border and then freelance yourself, which is what they're trying to prevent. And yes, you can be deported on a TN, probably even more easily than as an H1.
I'm not here to get rich, and I'm not here to uncut American labor - I get paid what the salary studies for my area show that I should get paid (and unfortunately no more, since the company I work for has imposed a salary cap for all employess - Americans included), which the government approves. I'm law-abiding, I pay my taxes, and I've shown intent to stay here for a while by getting my H1 and applying for my Green Card. If I actually get my Green Card (not likely), who knows, maybe if things change by then I'd be willing to get my citizenship by then (at that point, we're looking at 12 years from now). But for now, no way.
[troll mode="on"]
If there was an American who was capable of doing my current job, and who actually wanted to apply for it, I'm certain that they would have gotten the position, because it would have saved my company at least $10,
A fairly inexpensive university in America would be the average state university, which charges around $40,000 for a 4 year engineering degree. India Institute of Technology chagres around $4000 for the same degree. Now I'll admit that we have a good deal of financial aid here- but they do as well, so that part is just about even. America is nothing special in that regard.
Free is free, do your work in High School.
The average non-college couple will make more than a million dollars less than a couple with college degrees over the course of a 40 year career. Of course, those numbers were BO (Before Outsourcing)- these days I have my doubts.
Assunuming that is before taxes it is not a particularly life altering amount, probably less than 600 a month (for me, I would like it, but it wouldn't shatter my Earth). Also, perhaps college attracts people more likly to earn more in any job, regardless of education. A lot of people in my girlfriends class (Ph.D.) will not have time for a 40 year career (late 20's/early 30's with 4 more years to go).
Also is that $1,000,000 more in today's dollors or including inflation, because in 40 years $1,000,000 is the new $100,000.
Also more to the point, very few people are "rich enough" to not want more, the man who wants to make get his raise to $30,000 a year is no less happy than the one who wants $130,000/yr.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I'm very much for real.
You're definitely not going to make more as an IT drone. IT 'drones' are lucky if they make 20/hr around here. Skilled developers and network engineers that have experience and can handle a good size workload can do very well right of high school. They definitely won't make more than an MD, unless they try really hard. Its hard to move up in the IT industry. You have to know people, you have to be intelligent (know what you are doing), and you most of all have to be confident.
I've been an OSS developer since the early 90's. That expereience was greatly benificial to me. I was able to, right out of high school, show I had 5 years of solid developer experience. The people that make it big in this industry are the people who start young. You can't wait until you're in your 20's to get started.
I have, most definitly, hired unqualified people to jobs that they shouldn't have been doing. We charged the going rate for the job being done, not the skill of the laborer. My interest in this article stems from the fact that College notorously produces unqualified IT labor. The jobs always get done, because we always have a qualified supervisor. (and we have good insurance)
Its near impossible to find skilled IT labor. The jobs that are being oursourced to other countries are the jobs that Colleges are cranking out gradutes to fill. If we expect to fill our own need in the technology world today there needs to be reform in the K through 12 grades. Students need to be tought the fundamentals of computer logic at an earlier age.
If you want to be a corporate IT drone, you should goto college. Learn what the professors can teach you. In high school I attempted to teach the programming class the basics of Java in 2 weeks, out of the 25 or so students only 1 caught on to the basics. A couple years ago I spent a semester teaching C++ at the local community college, its not the easiest thing to teach studentes that don't understand fundamental computer logic at that age. I'm not saying that I'm a great teacher, I know I'm not. I have absolutely no patience. My point, if you're going to College for IT, you should be working on advanced projects, defintely not fundamentals.
Colleges are starting to catch onto the fact that IT is not something that should be taught to people the age of college students. After the basic classes they are providing students with projects that allow them to hone their skills for the real world. If you're not ready by the time you're done with high school, this is a great opportunity.
Personally I wouldn't be where I am today if I took a job as an IT drone. The job I took when I dropped out of college was for a Project Manager. I'm definitely not condoning that students drop out of college to be a computer technician at Best Buy. If you have an opportunity that has room to grow, and will provide you with experience, I feel you should take it. 75% of the non-college graduates that I have placed in consulting positions have been hired for fulltime positions by the company that they were placed at. Some of the remaining 25% probably weren't cut out for the industry, they might actually benefit from some time in college. After a little more training they could probably fill some of the simple database programming and tech support roles (that my company outsourced to India and the Philippines).
The most important advice I can give to people is, don't underestimate yourselves and don't sell yourselves short. People who make money in this world are the people who own businesses, definitely not the people who take jobs at the bottom of a large coporation. I'm 24, own a profitable company and a not so profitable company, and spend most of my time sitting in a cushy chair in a nice office with Chief Information Officer on my door.
Another bit of advice: If you're in school, and want to be a developer, join the open source community. There are a lot of projects out there that need help and can provide you with valuable knowledge. Novell http://forge.novell.com/ is doing some great things with Mono http://mono-project.com/ and SuSE. Microsoft will enter this space soon, it will be a good place to be. Technology is due for another leap; with emerging technologies like AJAX and XMPP http://www.coversant.net/, renewed competition with Microsoft (Google), we (the IT industry) will need more skilled labor.
Don't forget the bless of ignorance! ;-)
Free is free, do your work in High School.
Far too late for me- and millions like me getting hit with this in mid-career. I graduated high school in 1989.
Also more to the point, very few people are "rich enough" to not want more, the man who wants to make get his raise to $30,000 a year is no less happy than the one who wants $130,000/yr.
This last, I think, is what Americans have lost touch with- though the guy making $30,000/year is a hell of a lot less likely to make it to 75 due to lack of access to health care.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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%.
If they start swearing at you in American English, then they're Americans.
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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