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Is Programming a Lucrative Profession?
itwbennett writes "A pamphlet distributed by blogger Cameron Laird's local high school proclaimed that 'Computer Science BS graduates can expect an annual salary from $54,000-$74,000. Starting salaries for MS and PhD graduates can be to up to $100,000' and 'employment of computer scientists is expected to grow by 24 percent from 2010 to 2018.' The pamphlet lists The US Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics as a reference, so how wrong can it be? 'This is so wrong, I don't know where to start,' says Laird. 'There are a lot of ways to look at the figures, but only the most skewed ones come up with starting salaries approaching $60,000 annually, and I see plenty of programmers in the US working for less,' says Laird. At issue, though, isn't so much inaccurate salary information as what is happening to programming as a career: 'Professionalization of programmers nowadays strikes chords more like those familiar to auto mechanics or nurses than the knowledge workers we once thought we were,' writes Laird, 'we're expected to pay for our own tools, we're increasingly bound by legal entanglements, H1B accumulates degrading tales, and hyperspecialization dominates hiring decisions.'"
Not to make you feel bad but I started college at the same time, start at close to 50k on graduation and have made a 20% increase in salary every single year since then (not going to say my income but solve 50k * 1.2^6). Maybe you should reexamine the technologies you are studying.
I think doing something to get rid of the whole HTML thing would be a giant improvement; just display things straight into a window from application code like we currently do with C++ applications, instead of mucking around with a intermediate markup language.
Perhaps I can interest you in a little platform called Flash?
Breakfast served all day!