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Getting the Most Out of a CS Curriculum?
Henry asks: "In September I start on a CS-type degree course. I am probably a fairly typical newbie programmer, in that most of my knowledge centers around scripting and high to very high level programming. There's much to choose from: languages, concepts, mathematics, and so on. From previous stories, I know that many readers have strong opinions on the failings and weaknesses of university courses and students. Apart from all of the coding that I will do, what can I do in the coming months to maximize what I get out of this? "
Why bother with CS? After you get your degree you will be treated like a peon, given little if any respect for any accomplishments you do. Of course, your wages will be barely above minimum wage because even with the degree, you will be competing for your bread and butter against people in other countries who will be happy to work for pennies on the dollar.
Take some exam test preps, go take and score high on the LSAT, and get into law school. If you can do CS, you can pass the bar.
Now that you have a bar membership, unless you commit a felony, its impossible for you to be unemployed, as opposed to being in CS where your job can vanish in minutes should some offshoring company get a better deal with your boss.
Plus, its finances. A company would have to pay $35,000 on up yearly for a CS major. They can get the same amount of productivity and coding done by paying $5000 to an offshoring company and not have to worry about HR problems or disgruntled employees. On the other hand, a company cannot offshore legal issues, so the $100k a year that a basic law school grad earns fresh after passing the bar is a bargain for any company.
So, it boils down to two choices:
CS, where even after you graduate, you have to learn some language or other item completely different every 3-5 years, so you don't end up like a COBOL programmer. Even keeping up (and paying for the training), your job will always be in danger from I9 workers and people who can do a far cheaper and better job in other countries. In any case, count yourself lucky to be working 60-80 hours a week.
Law, where you do a quick search of a court case, write up some documents, and read over what the company you are working does for policies. You spent 2 hours in the morning looking at a couple sales documents, go for a three martini lunch, come back, look over and sign off on a security policy that the monkeys in IT will have to implement, then go home. Total real working hours a week -- 20-30. Because you have the "attorney at law" title, companies need you to protect them from major corporation crushing lawsuits, and all you really have to do on the job is review papers to make sure due diligence is done.
CS is a waste of time as a major. Any work you make on your own will end up getting sued away from you by random patent claims, and if you work for someone else, you will always have to be begging, sniveling, and sucking up so the boss can give you a pay cut rather than just boot you and pay Offshoring, Inc. 1/5 of what it costs for your salary to get the job done faster and with far fewer bugs.
Are you even out of college yet?