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New Grads Shun IT Jobs As "Boring"
whencanistop writes "Despite good job prospects, graduates think that a job in IT would be boring. Is this because of the fact that Bill Gates has made the whole industry look nerdy? Surely with so many (especially young) people being 'web first' with not just their buying habits, but now in terms of what they do in their spare time, we'd expect more of them to want to get a career in it?"
And good riddance! We don't need 'shiny object' people in this business.
love is just extroverted narcissism
You mean during the heyday of Bell Labs, when they were dumping money into R&D, and inventing things like a little language named C, a little operating system named Unix, the electret microphone, the CO2 LASER, and the first 32-bit microprocessor? Yeah, who would want to work there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs#1960s
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I'd rather do software development, CS research, something along those lines. Heck, my dream job would be working on low cost communication infrastructure in the third world. While I'm sure that all technically falls under the realm of IT, to me that's always be something different. Maybe that's just me, but "IT" to me has always been the boring stuff.
to each their own cup of tea...I got my bachelor's in computer science. I found programming boring as can be, so when I got out, I stayed on as a systems administrator building servers / networks, etc. It's a heck of a lot of fun because you never know what that next phone call will bring!
Maybe a pig will step on a laptop, or a printer is out of toner, you never know with the people I work for (ag research... yes there is a lot of IT in ag research).
Every now and then I get a twinge of "oh god, I'm really still working at the computer lab in college but with bigger machines and 10x the pay." Then I think about other jobs.
Lawyer.. HELL NO. Unless you end up doing fancy litigation it has to be one of the worst jobs in the universe.
Medical.. bleh. Boring? Is performing the same knee surgery over and over and over again not a bit rote? If you end up in primary care you at least get to help people 1-on-1. Help them take drugs to counter their lack of exercise, smoking, etc. Med school. ick. I think it's 40% of doctors say they wouldn't recommend the career to their children. That's one hell of an endorsement.
MBA? Interesting idea, would probably shortcut a lot of time in getting into the upper echelons but I can't stand posturing, game playing, and management speak so would probably not do well there. I'm an engineer.. in a self-taught sort of way. I look down my nose at MBAs.
Oh yes... wicked hours and professional attire for all of the above.
About the only thing I think would tempt me would be some form of design/electrical engineering. So I've picked up a couple books on the same and will start tinkering that direction. If need be, I'll go to grad school.
For the moment, however, I'm wearing shorts and flipflops, am decently paid, left alone, showed up at work at 10, and have a little web stack I can call my own. I have, admittedly, a bunch of mind-numbing, syntactically sensitive technical problems to work on but with each passing week I add a lump of knowledge and maybe a tool or two to solve future problems.
If everyone wants to stay away.. fine by me! I'll just be in demand all the more.
Y'know, I think I've written myself into a better mood.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
Engineering in all its facets (from civil engineering to mechanical engineering to chemical engineering) is sometimes considered "boring" too.
From what I understand this is because you need a lot of background knowledge, and unless you're extremely good you won't find much scope for technical innovation. You'll primarily be applying knowledge, not inventing it.
E.g. in the case of structural engineering using standard components, standard materials, and standard constructions. It's only when you work for a specialised engineering design company that you get to do state-of-the-art finite element calculations on brand-new structures. Other companies just use standard design rules to dimension standard components in standard structures, the trick being to satisfy all requirements in the cheapest possible way in the least possible time. Day in day out.
So you'll generally have to find expression for your creativity by getting things done on time and within budget instead pushing the envelope, and as soon as you're doing that you'll tend to shy away from wild innovation.
With software development there simply is a lot of (to me elegant and beautiful, to others dead and boring) scientific background knowledge you should have (algorithms, data-structures, compiler design, finite automata, complexity theory, concurrency theory, discrete mathematics, and numerical mathematics) supplemented by more applied knowledge like the principles of software engineering, in-depth knowledge of at least three programming languages (C, C++, Java), some experience with the object hierarchy underlying modern GUIs, and probably a lot I forgot.
And when you've done all that and appear for your first job, you may find you'll be on some project team and entrusted with responsibility for building component X of subsystem Y according to specifications someone will give you. You write your code, construct your test-cases, and verify correctness, document your functions, check in your code, and rush off to the next specification you'll implement because you've got to meet productivity standards or you're out.
This might seem a little pessimistic, and I'm sure that in many companies who use a seat-of-the-pants approach to software engineering things are more exciting. Like being given a huge poorly documented codebase to maintain. But generally speaking I don't think it is. There is (thankfully) an awful lot of this engineering-type work in software production, and only those who excel will, in time, become the lead programmers, designers, and system architects who actually dream up and shape end products.
Some people, and especially those who dream of designing a new supercool system to fly aircraft do indeed find the prospect of maintaining payslip applications on mainframes, automatic teller machine software, book-ordering software and inventory management systems, and crufty little custom data-entry packages boring. And perhaps they're right.
As I see it, most software engineering tends to be a bit unspectacular when done right, and excitement mostly enters the equation if you make serious mistakes. Of course there will be exceptions, like the Mars landers. But not everyone can be a programmer at NASA.
Lord yes, I used to love boring when I was in the Navy. When there is 300 feet of ocean between you and fresh air, and excitement means an anti-radiation suit or breathing apparatus or hoping to hell a seawater pump actual works at its rated capacity... you learn to appreciate boring like it was a fine wine.
He's worked himself up (or got born into) the top of the food chain and that's his privilege: he can fire you, you can't fire him.
He can demand ridiculous salaries, you can not. He can sink your company but still get the golden parachute, you can't.
And who can fire the CEO of a public company? Who decides what their salary is, and what kind of "golden parachute" they get?
The Board of Directors.
And what is the most common other career for a member of the Board?
CEO (or other executive position) for another public company.
I mean, the CEO of my company is on the Board of Directors for two other companies, and hell he's even the Chairman of the Board for his own company. And this is utterly common.
You think he, or any other Board member, is going to start a trend of reducing CEO's compensation? No, in fact the exact opposite! It's in their interest to drive up executive compensation, because then at their own company where they are CEO, they can ask to have their salaries raised "in accordance with industry norms" to sell it to the shareholders and employees. And of course the Board is going to say yes, thinking about their own CEO gigs.
It's a racket. It's a huge incestuous web of people colluding for their own mutual benefit. The alleged "risk" of the position that is supposed to justify the compensation doesn't exist, because they've done everything they can to eliminate the risk. Forget even the ludicrous "golden parachute". What about the most simple of "risks" -- that if you screw up your job too badly, you won't be able to get a job in the same field again? Once again, that rarely happens, about the only way to 'ruin' your career in upper management is basically to get indicted. Otherwise, it's never in the interest of the Board to hold their CEOs to too high of standards, because they don't want they themselves to ever have to worry about finding a job.
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