Slashdot Mirror
Students Opting Away from high-tech Degrees?
Toddius Maximus writes "A report, issued by the American Electronics Association, found that high-tech degrees -- including engineering, math, physics and computer
science -- declined 5 percent between 1990 and 1996. Preliminary findings from 1997 and 1998 indicate the trend is continuing, the AEA said.
Read more here "
Everything I've read recently says that the enrollment for CS degrees is up.
Let's face it; a tech degree is not necessary for working in the computer business. PhD.s are sort of a joke in the programming business, though I'm sure an advanced sheepskin comes in handle in some electrical engineering endeavors. I know many companies that don't hire PhD.s because they can't program. Not all, but most of the master degrees holders are people who couldn't (or wouldn't) get a job right out of college.
College enrollment levels are nothing to worry about: students behave rationally. The immutable laws of supply and demand will solve any labor supply problems we have. If you pay 'em enough; young folks (and older folks for that matter) will figure out how to get the required training.
Making things? Actually creating the stuff the slick bastards in Sales sell? That's for losers, I suppose.
No. Commercial software is for people who place
a value on their abilities and want to make
a living doing what they enjoy. Sheesh, what is
it with the younger generation of programmers.
I can remember when it was cool to make money.
Perhaps it's because of the ridiculous expense of a degree? I had to bow out of college just because it was so expensive... and my first "real job" was quite technical! Maybe knowing what you're doing does make a difference.
Stop riding the high-tech bandwagon. I'm sick of people who are in this industry just for the money. Do it because you enjoy it and you would do it no matter what it paid. I'm also sick of all of the business-y people using catchy "Internet words" out of text. Shut the hell up and leave us alone. We're not sellouts like yourself.
I don't think MIS was accounted for in those statistics. I've noticed, at least around here, that MIS enrollment has increased dramatically over the past 2-3 years. I think potential CS students (I am CS, btw) are going to MIS because it is easier/less technical and all the big corporations will pay the big bucks for them because of managerial potential (the one I work for does).
Actually, big corporations who want foreign labor have convinced us all (& the gov't) that there is a shortage of U.S. techies!
I believe it, I mean wasn't it just like a year ago that Tool and Die makers were in super-high demand? Someone's still gotta actually MAKE stuff ;]
Programmers are a dime a dozen anymore. That's also why there is no such thing as system security. All the bandwagoners are in this game for the almighty dollar, not for the challenge or self gratification.
Did you go to some sort of a $30k/year private school, or were finances really a problem? I know some people who are able to completely pay for education at a very good public university by way of internships.
Did you go to some sort of a $30k/year private school, or were finances really a problem? I know some people who are able to completely pay for education at a very good public university by way of internships. That way if you actually want/need to work a little, it's there, but you're still able to focus on school.
>Yep, because I'd definitely want police, fire, EMS, teachers and civil servants that were only in it for the money. It is not such a simple issue
(the last time I check, there were more than a few police, doctors and high-end civil servants who ARE in it for the money)
Perhaps you need to experience the special joy of living in a country/society where the cops, doctors, judges, etc. aren't paid their worth...
Everything becomes for-sale, including your life and liberty... and the undesirable scum of the world migrate into positions where they can leverage the truly important things to basic human existance to their personal advantage.
...The citizens of the first world are blissfuly ignorant of the reality in which other 50% of the world lives.
Yeah, you're right. Those fucking PhD's are useless assholes. All too often, they UNDERSTAND what they're doing. We don't need those fancy intellectuals! Nah, just give me a bunch of self-taught code-crunchers hammering out goto's.
Knowledge is bad. Ban it.
Oh yeah -- my only degree is a BA in English Lit., and I work as a programmer (not a damn bad one, either). The difference between me and you is that I don't feel threatened by people with credentials, so I can evaluate them objectively.
I agree. I'm also sick of the technical people calling liberal arts classes "dick-licking" and the like.
That's not entirely true, though. First of all, I think a lot of wannabe execs are far too egoistic. Secondly, there are still prestigious researchers and technical team leaders in industry. Plus, what about professors-- you think your profs don't teach well? Figure out how to, and do it better.
That's not entirely true, though. First of all, I think a lot of wannabe execs are far too egoistic. Secondly, there are still prestigious researchers and technical team leaders in industry. Plus, what about professors-- you think your profs don't teach well? Figure out how to, and do it better. I think MIS blows and business people aren't mathematically rigorous enough, though.
>Unfortunately, the short term equation is easy - you don't need a hightech degree to make lots of money in a hightech field. Companies will hire anybody.
...which is why Engineers won't let you use their title. Let's face it, programmers aren't going to get any respect until they start taking responsibility for their coded constructions.
You know, a long time ago in the bad old times, just about anyone could build a bridge or building or vehicle. Things are very different now. It's still the wild west for programmers... to anticipate that it's going to be like that for all times is to be ignorant of history (which most CS majors are...). And all that "a program is a proof" shit carrear CS professors (who couldn't cut it pure mathmatics field) are filling heads with isn't helping matters.
If even 10% of what is predicted to happen during the date roll-over, I think we can expect to see society raise the bar a little higher for programmers. God knows it needs to happen... just look at Microsoft's products.
Right now, the industry is pestering Congress to relax the immigration restrictions for high tech fields (like programming, etc.). The industry businessvermin have fabricated M$-style 'studies' that show a lack of trained people in a particular field. This will allow them to convince Congress to let a bunch of foreign people with tech skills into the country - flooding the job market, and driving wages down - which is their ultimate goal: paying a PhD CS minimum wage with no benefits.
Welcome to Ronald Reagan's American Third World!
I say let 'em all go major in underwater basket weaving or psycology or art history, I don't care. For those of us already in the industry, that means higher pay and the and a higher "standard of living" in the workplace. It's easier to get a new job too. It also means that older workers can avoid "obsolecense" for longer, as experienced talent becomes harder to find.
In the mean time, society becomes so dependant on us that we become something akin to royalty. We get specialized GOV (Geek Occupancy Vehicle) commuting lanes, preferred seating in restaurants, and a cheering section at work (filled with art history majors) to applaud whenever we write an especially skillful line of code. Ah, utopia.....
I guess I'm fortunate, then. While the CS class I'm in does focus on a language(Ada, of all things), it at least teaches general language structure and standardization of commenting. We compile all our work on a central Solaris system, and need basic Unix skills just to turn in our homework. Unfortunately, this may be changing soon, as they just replaced all the SparcStations with Dells running NT. Doesn't make much sense when we're still logging in to the unix system to do our work :)
Okay, name me somebody at your company with a PhD who still codes worth a flip. Yes they exist and are good; I've just never seen one in any place I've worked.
Okay, name me somebody at your company with a PhD who still codes worth a flip.
Nobody at my company has a Ph.D. in anything. Actually, I don't think anybody at my company has any CS degree at all. Litature, math, Chinese (language), art history, and one other guy who I'm not sure about.
Yes they exist and are good; I've just never seen one in any place I've worked.
I don't know that I've ever even set eyes on a CS Ph.D. at all. I live in a college town so I must have walked past them on the street, but no so I knew it. If they're there, they're unmarked.
I guess I just got pissed of at the attitude in that post, and also what struck me as an implied assumption that a Ph.D. is just a bigger and better code-cruncher. AFAIK Ph.D.'s in industry are there for a deep and broad grokking of the field, not because they can code more for( ) loops in a given day. I know an EE Ph.D. who started working two and a half years ago; I think it's been a year and a half since he did any actual engineering as such. He's managing a project.
I'm bothered, fundamentally, by this mentality that some people have, like "don't go to school, they don't pay you to spell, you can write perl code without a degree, school don't teach ya nothin', ain't nothin' them there college boys knows what I doesn't know", etc. Sure, people who don't belong in college shouldn't go there, but the idea seems to be that anything that doesn't translate into dollars is worthy of contempt. I don't think more than 5% of slashdotters can even conceive of the idea that there might be other reasons to learn. It's horrible.
At California State University Sacramento, tuition+books for a year is about US $2500
Republicans locally have been trying to get more for education for the past 20 years
More what? More "creation science", more book-burning, more coerced prayer, and more mandatory drug testing.
Oh, goody.
Methinks if we spent it on education, we wouldn't need welfare so much.
In the U.S., schools are paid for out of property taxes, by the municipality. This ensures that the poorest areas have the worst schools, a situation which the Republicans are only too happy to perpetuate. If school funds were handled on a state level and distributed evenly to all districts, there might be some hope, but no -- that's "socialism".
Now of course I'll be subjected to a blast of irate libertarian rhetoric. Oh, well, I've heard it before, it won't kill me to hear it again.
Republicans locally have been trying to get more for education for the past 20 years
More what? More "creation science", more book-burning, more coerced prayer, and more mandatory drug testing.
Oh, goody.
Methinks if we spent it on education, we wouldn't need welfare so much.
In the U.S., schools are paid for out of property taxes, by the municipality. This ensures that the poorest areas have the worst schools, a situation which the Republicans are only too happy to perpetuate. If school funds were handled on a state level and distributed evenly to all districts, there might be some hope, but no -- that's "socialism".
Now of course I'll be subjected to a blast of irate libertarian rhetoric about how the children of the U.S. deserve to be punished endlessly for their parents' socio-economic "sins". Oh, well, I've heard it before, it won't kill me to hear it again.
Same thing is true at Harvard. Enrollment in CS has gone up from 101 students in 1993, to 173 in 1996 (years I have data for, and well over 200 by now.)
They've built a new building (funded by Gates and Ballmer, but called the Maxwell Dworking building (aka the MaxDork)) They're trying to double the size of the faculty now as well.
I (as an undergrad in CS) see a degree in CS as very important. The theoretical background is very helpful, if you are fully versed in the concepts on which all this technology is built, then learning programing language X on API Y is not difficult.
But there is a lot to be said for going to college to learn what interests you, and not what will get you a job. I'm in CS cause I like it, first and foremost, that it's a hot field with good employment oppurtunities is just a bonus.
Just my opinion...
-- Britt
And who are we going to sell computers to when all the manufacturing jobs have been exported, and our customers are working at McDonald's for minimum wage? (which isn't enough to live on, but thanks to the Democrats it's at least enough not to starve).
Without that, I don't know what I would be doing today.
Certainly not competing effectively, if you need a boom economy to survive.
I doubt though without a certain background you are going to be able to read and understand Knuth, to name the most famous one.
... thank heaven, since that is what makes this job so interesting.
... here's your new McDonalds programme".
Im earning a living with software too. Not all can be done during peoples sparetime and not all can be learned during peoples spare time either; or would you really go to a spare time dentist 8-/
Sure, to make a living means quite a higher technical level now than years ago and up to now I cannot see an end
Sure too, the golden times are over, although there are quite some interesting markets where software does not mean "click here, click there
I really doubt that to go for it is the wrong way for technically interested people, especially since just *not* doing what everybody else does is often the right thing.
unless I was allowed to use any language or platform I wanted to write any program.
I'm not sure I agree. The advantage of school over self-teaching is that at school they make you learn stuff that you don't think is worthwhile. If the professor knows what he's about, he knows more than you do just yet (on the other hand, some of them are morons, but that's another rant
All real serious learning is the self teaching the self, in my opinion, but the self has to know what to teach. IMHO that's where schools are hard to beat.
My hand is up...way up. The respondent saying that he was at Stanford to study what he liked was the approach that I took - English/Poli Sci. Undergrad life is about learning to learn, and developing critical thinking skills. You line up a bright English major next to a bright CS major, and I bet you find they both require a ton of training for any new job and they both can do a great job after that training
MattyB
I suspect the real reason that the kid in the article elected to major in a squishy subject is that he was afraid CS classes would be too hard.
Either that, or he met some CS majors who came on like cocky dumbasses and despised liberal arts. If so, he may have concluded that four years in the company of those trolls isn't worth it.
Of course, on the other hand, I was an english major who ended up hanging out with CS majors, and I did get some crap like that, but it was good-natured and infrequent. Who knows? The obnoxious attitude mentioned above seems to turn up more on slashdot than in reality. Hmmm . . .
Everybody should be exposed to a lot of everything, in my opinion. "Specialization is for insects", as the man said.
could not agree more. I went to college for 7 years. big waste of time and money (especially when you consider the money that you are not earning - and the experience that you are not getting).
besides enginneering is going the way of manufacturing - moving overseas.
Can't see beyond the world of programming?
:)
I mean, how many PhDs do you think get their degree to improve their programming skills.
I'm a EE PhD student and while I can program just fine, it's certainly not something I want to do for a living. To me it's a tool. In fact, one reason for getting a PhD is so I don't have to worry about programming some crap embedded system all day long. Though exploring some maths with something like Matlab can be rewarding. Besides, consider the other fields listed in the article: math, physics, engineering. You can't begin to believe that advanced degrees in those fields won't be beneficial to you and your employer.
I'm curious why so many people bash those with advanced degrees. What's the point. I don't go around bashing those without them--in fact I (as I believe others do) usually downplay it. But in my field there _are certainly_ things I've learned in grad school that I would not have learned as an undergrad or on the job, esp. in the way of applying research.
And that guy that said he didn't want a high tech career because he likes thinking about abstract ideas: what? Start running around thinking about chaos theory (just an example, I'm not an expert) or the like and talk to me about abstract ideas.
Then again, after rereading your post I realize you weren't bashing PhDs per se, so accept my apologies for my rant. Maybe its just something that's been building up
Do you have a problem with your ego or something? (telling us to do a problem in fancy-speak optimized for accountants' brains, showing they/you can do it faster?)
Where would Wallstreet be today without
Black-Scholes, stochastic processes, hell, even
theoretical physics? And that doesn't count the fact, that most of the theory is known not to be correct. There will allways be accountants, glitzy consultants and others, but the people, who drive (financial or any kind of "natural" for that matter) science these days better be good at real math.
And you bet, if you're good at CIS + math + econ, that's your executive position right there.
(hint 1: @ UIUC e.g., you can get a PhD in physics and MSc in finance parallel, guess why
hint 2: just take a look at the founders' page at www.numerix.com)
That of course doesn't imply being a total geek who knows how to hack shit and very little on the econ side will get that corporate BMW.
Roland
Sounds like you wasted some good opportunities. As a physics student, I'm getting some pretty useful experience working here and overseas. Although the education system is pretty shoddy, it it's unlikely that I'd have the same opportunities (work-wise) without it!
vis: the prefix "pure". why do people so much idealize mathematics?
mathematics is doing puzzles. look at your average mathmetician. if we
went back to idealizing particle physics this would be an improvement.
is that a real place, or did you just make that up? you are a very sick man (or possibly british).
I over generalized.
You know, there are other technical degrees one
can get besides CS.
If CS is up, but physics, math and engineering are
down than the number of technical degrees
will go down -- and this would be bad.
On the one hand people should know more about science
since it plays a large roll in our life these days.
On the other hand if they don't it means more jobs for us!
And work like hell, and make all the right moves on the corporate ladder, and do wonderful things for your company -- you'll rise to the top of your profession and work for someone who couldn't make partner at Arthur Anderson.
'Cause the money guys want their own people in control, regardless of what your company makes or sells. And you aren't "family".
Indeed, your boss will introduce you to vistors as "a techy".
And you'll get in big, big trouble for taking a dim view of that 100 million dollar project proposed by the visiting Partner in Charge to the Chairman out on the golf course.
Remember, the average tenure of a CIO is 18 months.
I don't know about other Canadian schools, but at the University of Calgary they still actually teach people UNIX in CS. And Electrical Engineering uses lots of LINUX and AIX. You have to do a lot of stuff with GCC.
Most of my buddies in US Schools are up to their necks in Micro$oft stuff. I.e. rules like "All completed projects must be Visual C++ projects".
Statistics can be manipulated in many ways.
On my 4th technical job (all have been network programming/administration-focused).. I'll admit as much as the first company giving me a 'break'. They were unorthodox .. none of the managers were degreed.. From there the next two jobs were from making good contacts. This most recent job was obtained through nothing more then a fat resume. My feelings are that some people might learn better in an orthodox environment but I learn best by tinkering at something, and then later matching what I have taught myself up with a simple reference manual. I cant even stand the thought of watching some professor go slow enough so that everyone else can get it I would go nuts. At any rate I know the $ is better then job about any BS graduate right out of school and with every job it jumps significantly higher.
vect0rx
I agree - and good design comes with experience. You can't get it out of a book. I know - I tried.
In fact, one reason for getting a PhD is so I don't have to worry about programming
Don't knock it - on average it pays far better than the average prof salary.
sorry a litte tired today, correction towards the bottom
"$ is better then job about any BS graduate right out of school"
should be:
"$ is better then just about any BSCS graduate right out of school"
I wonder what McGill did with all those NeXT machines it used to have in the labs.
They were also a pilot-program NT department according to Microsoft.
Evidently evaluating platforms isn't their strong suit.
Just kidding - I nearly went their for grad school years ago.
Correct.
If they'd offer more money, they'd get the
tech people they need. But why compete for
skilled labor when you can import it cheaper?
The college-age kids are aiming for the stock
market or law degrees because that's where the
money is.
Since the early 1980s, the absolute number of CS majors is down by nearly half. This type of decline is seen in all of the hard sciences. Our local university, Michigan Tech, used to have a huge electrical engineering department a few years ago. It has been decimated, not for lack of demand, but for lack of students.
The problem is that incoming students no longer can read. 20 years ago, students had a working vocabulary of more than 8,000 words, nowadays they're lucky to have as many as a 1,000. They just don't have the words to express the ideas embodied in science and engineering. They just can't hack it.
Politicians demand that children be able to read by the time they leave third grade. 30 years ago, Michigan didn't allow children out of kindergarten unless they could read. Learning to read was the whole point of kindergarten in times gone by.
Languages are learned easily when you're young. If you can't read by third grade, all you're going to be is a social worker or a welfare recipient.
I've just really started to appreciate the science part of Computer Science this year, well besides the algorithm stuff which is much Computer Science as Mathematics, and Philosophy (Logic).
:) Getting it right is important, but getting it good, and understanding why, and how, and where to make something faster is often helped by some real study in the field.
It's all (well, not all) about benchmarking and explaining your results. Anybody can program something and show that it works, but being able to explain to your prof why you have these EXACT numbers, and explaining every damn blip on the graph, that is science, that's research. It's also damn hard
Computer people who aren't scientists at heart are often the source of bad 'research' like this latest NT versus Linux thing from Mindcraft. My OS prof got a big kick out of that, she added it to her list of 'Lies, Damn Lies, and Benchmarks.'
ANYHOW. Back to benchmarking NachOS.
--Britt
CS, math, econ?
HEY that's me! to me, these are all the same: mathematics. period. i have one more(minor): Art and Design. But i didn't take economics because i wanna be an exec. i took it becaues i love it.
i thought math and CS are the same, but the students' attitudes are totally different. in my math and art classes, students love to learn, regardless of grades. in my CS and econ class, GPA is everything. (this situtation gets much worse in the school of engineering.)
Those who complain about the engineerer's "Ceiline" should look into themselves: what stopped you from starting your own bussiness? Is that the SAME THING that lead you to engineering school? (security?)
Most engineerers don't make it big because they don't have the guts to take the risk. that's that.
You are right. Tech types will probably not
be executives. Let the bean counters count
beans, let the marketeers ra-ra-rah the product,
let the project managers worry the details.
For us, the only way not to be left behind in
the personal finance department is to demand a
piece of the action. Anyone NEAR 40 should be
looking for either a management position or an
equity position. I opted for the latter so I can
still play with toys. So far so good.
-- cary
wooo the youth woozing out...
banking - boringist shit i ever took a class about
finance - well, the derivatives & "financial engineering" is somewhat interesting, but for the most part, you'll be staring at accounting statements filled to the brim with fudged numbers to make speculations about companies. and the math is, shall we say, elementary.
management - aka bs
psychology - practice in speculation
math - now there is something academic (how far do you actually go to get a minor, btw)
i do, however, admire your enthusiasm, and best of luck to ya.
yea, i got a paper in fin and a paper in EE.
boink
A comment on the idea of involving nearby University to help high school education.
It's been done and quite successfully in Russia. I went through the system and this is how it works: elite universities establish "magnet schools" to attract the best and brightest students. They do (or at least did in 1980) a very good job of finding kids with interest in science everywhere, going to the most remote places and making sure that students there knew about this opportunity.
It is sort of a prep school, with a notable exception of being almost free. To get there you had to be good in science and be interested in learning even more, while risking your GPA (I was straight A student in my old school - I had to start from C's in math and physics there).
So, I spent last two years of my high school living on campus of Novosibirsk University, getting advanced courses in physics, math, chemistry and biology (CS was not well represented). No comparison to the typical high school curriculum - they really piled it upon us, especially in math and physics. That was a very useful and rewarding experience - I had no shortage of challenges and my interest in physics started back then.
Is there a similar system here in U.S.?
Another comment - I couldn't find an adequate Russian equivalent for "nerd", "geek" etc. (little help from other Russians here?) Also, at least in my time and my school, there was no big division into "jocks" and "nerds", but again, high school sports were never big in Russia anyway. So, I guess I agree with the previous poster - culture does play a very significant role.
Peter Gaidarev,
Physics Ph.D., Cornell
P.S. Too lazy to create an account, hence Anonymous Coward post.
$3200CDN per year is pretty cheap for a CS degree at a Canadian university. I'm studying Computer Engineering at a Canadian university and tuition is $2800CDN for each four month term. Textbooks cost me about $500CDN each term. My tuition is rising considerably each year. When I first entered university my tuition was $1750CDN for a term.
I expect to graduate without any financial debts due to co-op work terms.
Good classes do give good experience.
Implement a compiler? Why don't I have a Ph.D. yet, then? I don't think one should be able to get a Ph.D. just for programming. And (I'm sure you realize this, but others don't), doing a Ph.D. on algorithms in finite groups (not sure what you mean by this-- it could entail a broad range of things) does not necessarily preclude one from having excellent programming abilities.
During high school, I was able to get an internship at Bell Labs. There are plenty of Ph.D.s there who are excellent programmers! One really interesting project someone worked on was a trace/debugger-like system for software engineering which explained program behavior. For example, he was able to use it to really understand how the obfuscated "12 days of Christmas" program works.
There's no doubt whatsoever that the continued softening of western culture has led to a decreased interest in the "hard" subjects - most of the students taking engineering in North American schools appear to be from Asia. Good for them - they are on track for rewarding careers and good salaries.
Its interesting to hear the whining from arts graduates. They continue to feel as if society owes them something for having completed four years of rather breezy study. Yes - I said breezy study. I took a number (15+) arts classes as a science major in a high-ranked college, and I can tell you that the intensity of study in the arts is nowhere near the average engineering program.
Of course I also hope the numbers in CS continue to drop - they simply raise my future salaries higher through simple ecmonomics.
But it still may be an economically worse position for some people (those who don't want to be stuck in programming). You always need to factor in how much it pays in your enjoyment of the work, and how that will fare over the long term. I'm sure there are some who will still agree with you, I happen not to be one of them.
They have some very good public schools.
Most states cannot claim as such.
Most people don't realize that Berkeley has garnered a staggering number of Nobels, etc. and is a public school.
Its easily the best public school in the world, with some Canadian schools coming close in temrs of quality of students (but nowhere near Berkeley in terms of research - no public school anywhere is).
Why would I take a class I don't have to take? Because I want to. Beacuse I like learning.
Fuggem. You've got the right idea. I took Latin my senior year in college just because I thought it would be cool -- and it was indeed cool, but it was hard! I got a D and damn near didn't graduate. Heh. Never regretted it. Years later, I don't remember anything else I took that year, just the Latin. I wish I'd studied it more but I'm glad of what I did do.
. . . plenty of Ph.D.s [at Bell Labs]
Murray Hill, by chance? If so, did you glimpse any of the Elder Gods?
are excellent programmers! One . . . worked on . . . a trace/debugger-like system for software engineering which explained program behavior. . . . he was able to use it to really understand how the obfuscated "12 days of Christmas" program works.
Whoa! That is too cool. That's why God put Ph.D.'s on this earth -- and if you think I'm joking, I'd like to respectfully request that you stop programming and go back to selling shoes . . . But hopefully there's nobody as clueless as that on Slashdot.
Who says, that after you get a PhD you should stay in academia???
/cosulting/ ...) will still be there if not stronger 2yrs down the road.
I for my part am in a physics PhD program and hope to graduate in ca 2.5 yrs. For me and my peers, the prospects of getting good (and lucrative) jobs have never been brighter. That is of course, if you broaden your view a little and don't insist on becoming a professor or researcher in the field you worked on in university. As a physics PhD (according to the above post: OH DEAR!) you know how to do your own (high-level) research, know math / programming(hopefully) + computers / what they call strong analytical thinking/reasoning, blabla... and of course physics (which will in most cases no use to you).
So I don't know, why you warn people to get into Grad-School. I think (esp. physics) is an extremely usefull education if you want to get a real world job sometime. That of course doesn't hold for your cliche-scientists who only knows and is only interested in physics and nothing else. But from my experience, that is a minority smaller than epsilon.
From my point of view, if you think about getting into physics grad-school and you're unsure about job-prospects in industry later on, do it. That'll only give you most valuable skills.
re being a prof.-workhorse: that is all up to you, who you choose as your advisor. Sure I know people and cases here too, but 1.) they're the minority and 2.) most students found out fast and switched to another.
I for my part had to decide to actually go out and make money with MSc or stay on for a PhD, since prospects are so good. I stayed, since I think, the fields which are interesting for me (high-tech/ finance
Amen.
around here the McDonalds all pay about 50% above minimum wage.
I hope you'll forgive me for not having the correct numbers on that.
It may still not be enough to live on, but thanks to the Republicans it isn't all taxed away.
Okay, here is where I get a bit peeved. The GOP has been working long hours for many years to shift the tax burden disproportionately onto the poor (I've got some GAO figures around here somewhere). Anybody earning within 50% of minimum wage shouldn't be paying hardly any damn taxes at all in my humble liberal democratic opinion. And I'm suffering from a nice healthy young-professional-with-no-dependents tax bite myself as I say that. I'd rather see it spent on subsidized day-care for poor working mothers ("workfare" without daycare is a sadistic prank) than on nuclear submarines (yes, and I do damn well know that Clinton is spending it on the latter), but that's another issue.
Given any arbitrary total amount A of taxes collected, the GOP tends slightly more to go easy on the rich and the Democrats tend slightly more to go easy on the poor.
But people are told their whole life that the reason to go to college is so that you can make a lot of money. So it's perfectly understandable that people think that way.
"Pure math" isn't implying that mathematicians are angels or ivory soap or anything like that. It is simply contrasting math for math's own sake with applied math.
Frankly tech
degrees are some of the few substantive degrees left that haven't been
hollowed out and carved down to the lowest common denominator.
I have met quite a few CS graduates who were pretty clueless about computers, even though it's their job. And those same people I'm thinking of couldn't write a line of code in any language.
The teachers I had didn't even deserve what they were being paid, let alone a three times raise. You must have had some substantially better teachers than me.
Face it, these as you say "squishy" subjects are feminine subjects, CS and math are masculine subjects. We're programmed by evolution to do these things and they aren't. Men are good at reasoning and fact-based subjects, and women can only do "feelings", and now that political correct dogma controls our whole society you shouldn't be surprised to find the men turning into women and studying pointless basketweaving crap like philosophy and english.
Science and math are about finding the truth, and they use logic and reason to do that. Feminine subjects are just the opposite, so they're against logic and reason and against the truth, it's just liberal gobbledygook.
Women are biologically different, they shouldn't be trying to be men. And men destroy themselves when they try to be women. Women don't really want college and a job, they're just brainwashed by the Feminazis to pretend they want that. I've never known a working woman (I'm a consulting systems analyst) who wouldn't give up her "career" (if you call it that, but for women it's really just a hobby) in a minute to spend all her time with her kids and have some financial security. That's what they need, but they've been exploited by the feminazis and made to ruin their lives, give up their happiness just for some stupid socialist dogma. Dammit, it really pisses me off! I've got as much compassion as the next guy, and to see these nice girls twisting themselves trying to be men, it just breaks my heart. When they hire me, they talk and talk and it sounds like they make a lot of sense, but I know they're just parroting stuff they've heard from men because I know their brains aren't made to understand it, so I just sit there feeling sorry for them and how they've gone astray. I can't listen to a woman pretending she's in charge, because it's just so wrong to see her doing that to herself, I can't stand it, I just can't pay attention.
i must backtrack and agree there are some branches of psychology that is more science.
;-)
let me also apologize to you for the patronizing tone - again, best of luck to your endeavor.
as for math, i liked the number theory the most. it's of no practical use whatsoever as far as i can tell, but it gives you something interesting to think about when you are acid-tripping.
boink
"...he's interested in examining more abstract ideas." what rock has this moron been hiding under? ./ers have given a number of excellent reasons why students aren't prepared for the high-tech industry.
previous
here's another one: most schools only teach you how to program! and most people assume that's all computer science is about!
most institutions seem to think that computer science is about learning to program. they don't seem to understand that, compared to theory, programming is inconsequential. if all you want to do is learn how to program, then you should look at a school like ITT Tech -- they focus on teaching you how to program well, and they're very cost-effective. but if you go to a college or university, you should be getting a theoretical computer science education, not just a overpriced, glorified programming education.
sometimes it seems that the open source community follows the first school of thinking. if oss is only reactionary, then it's only going to be an alternative, not a fundamentally different (and, if well-thought-out, better) way of approaching fundamental problems.
This is the same old bag of half-truths they were spouting last year to get the H1-B visa cap raised and that's the idea behind these planted stories this year. The stage is being set so they can point to these articles as they lobby senators like Spencer Abraham.
They are counting physics, EE and math majors in their stats. If only CSC students are counted, their claims are false. Enrollment spiked at almost every university in the US during 95-98.
We've heard it all before, dire predictions of engineering shortages which never materialized. This is nothing more than a thinly weiled attempt to depress wages further.
Actually I totally disagree.
The truth is a tech degree is perfectly suited to a executive management position becasue we have the skills that are necessary for those positions...ie Problem Solving.
80% of all engineering graduates end up in the management business side of things, not doing "hardcore" engineering.
In fact MBA's were orginally designed as a complement degree to undergrad engineering which is why that between 25-30% of the students in MBA programs are engineers.
I can name off the top of my head a couple raduates from engineering programs who were or are CEO's. The first is Maurice Strong. who's he? He was until a little while ago CEO of Canada Trust ( a large canadian trust/banking company ). He also held ( possibly still does hold ) the position of Secretary Genreal of the United Nations ENvironmental and Economic Development Agency and was at one point in time in the running for Secretary General of the UN. The other is Bill Etherington ( past CEO of IBM Canada, now I believe - though I could be wrong about this part - Vice president of IBM world and CEO of IBM Europe. ). Both by the way graduated from my school.
There are numerous others...guys who started RIM for example. other examples Corel and Newbride Networls, both CEO's used to be partners in a little company called MITEL.
so dont say NEVER...
chances are just as likely that if you get a business degree you dont get to be CEO either... there's only so many positions for Chiefs available and many more for indians.
Recently heard about the graduating class at Harvard Medical school (on NPR). Some big consulting company did their dog and pony show for career day recently and promised these grads $110K the first year, $250K the second and at least $400k the third. Out of something like 190(or maybe just 90) students only two of them signed up, the others thought that the money was not worth being isolated from doing real medicine with real patients. Things are changing.
I'm not a big fan of the MIS major. At my school, it is generally regarded as the "Dark Side" of CS. In other words, it is for the sellouts, those who can't handle the technical side, and just want the 'tech' degree so they can make the big bucks.
:)
Oh well. Oh, and there is definately a shortage of good teachers in college, mostly due to low wages... there are a few profs at my school that I respect and do really great work, but there are a lot who basically read off of slides that are provided with the book we're using, and hardly know what they are doing. I guess it is to be expected when you pay almost nothing.
Speaking of books, 2/3 of the books I have to use for classes suck hard. We need more ORA books in classes.
- dac
Well, actually, the CS and MIS degrees are a GREAT help in getting to management.
Anyone with a certifications (MCSE, etc.) or experience can find a job in a snap these days, that's given. But, 10, 15, 20 years down the line or so, when you want to look at positions like Head Programmer, Team Leader, Manager, and so on, your bosses will start to look for a Bachelor of Something or Bachelor of Anything in your credentials.
No one really cares what kind of BS or BA you have. All that your degree proves is that you can think -- not that you're engineered to serve one and only one purpose like programming, or administration, or basket-weaving for that matter.
But, if you don't have that piece of paper, you'll hit a career ceiling. And, the likelihood is, you won't be able to pass that ceiling until you go and get that degree.
Ken
I don't mean to argue.. but Red Hat doesn't sell free software. They sell support. Yes, they give a CD away with a bunch of free software for money, but technically they earn money by giving a service--support.
Free software can indeed be sold. There is nothing that regulates distribution cost in the GPL. But, as of today no company (for all I know) sells just free software. They all provide some sort of service whether documentation or support along with a distribution of their software.
And I remember JWZ's quote.. something like "free software is only free if your time is worthless" (I probably butchered it, but I think the gist is there). I don't really agree with it. Whos to say what value and meaning time has for anyone? Honestly, it sounds as if the quote is from a money-hungry programmer. Just hope I'm not too off base.
i don't know... i saw some bright people in CS. ALTHOUGH: i saw many who couldn't hack in EE drop out to CS, and i never saw CS major "drop out" to EE. ;-) the nasty, dirty, imperfect world EE deals with is more intimidating than the abstract, perfect, ideal world of CS.
also: if you just want to make a living, go to votech - definitely more cost-effective. you go to uni/college to get education, not just vocational education. sci/eng education teaches you how to learn, not a particular specialized skill. in the long run, it pays. besides, college (undergrad) days are something most people i know cherish, and it has nothing to do with monetary reason - best time to make lasting friendship as well.
yeah the midwest, absolutely. they are trying to get people to stay here in indiana. like Onex.
Very well said.
I'd like to go to college and get a degree. But, the simple fact is I don't learn well in schools (possibly high school outcast issues.. jonkatz last article). I started out in a community college because my high school grades were too low. I started taking a computer engineering course, but once I found out I needed to learn Excel (and actually take a class on it) I thought twice. That, and the fact that I knew the teachers were teaching false things.
I've learned so much more in my own time (starting with computers in general, then GW-BASIC *ick*, Pascal/Delphi, then finally C/C++). I've learned linked lists, and various other data structure methods. I created a true/false yes/no type tree--and later found out the name for it (binary tree). I have probably learned more in a few hours in "info" than all of high school. Like how Unix's programs were designed to do only one small, simple, efficient task so it could be used later in ways the author had never dreamed. I have even learned GTK well enough to recreate it's object oriented system.
But, now that I have no degree (and have doubts about even getting one), I do not have a clue what I'm to do. It is seriously sick how people believe a teacher makes/lets you learn and a book alone can not. It is also sick to see people live their lives around tests. IQ tests, SATs, etc. are all meaning less pieces of garbage. I'd rather save another tree.
I'd argue that big O is one of the most practically useful things you can learn from theoretical CS !
Han
"$ is better than just about any BSCS graduate right out of school"
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
Note: This is definitively not about American beer...
You obviously haven't studied much liberal arts. I am a Philosophy and Computer Science major, and I can say that rigorous philosophy takes more brainpower than most Computer Science. As to all this men and women are different crap, you're right, they are, so let the women do what they want and let the men do what they want and don't force them into anything. I think you'll probably find that more men will pursue technical subjects, but that a not insignificant number of women will also.
It's more to do with people wanting to do jobs like management, business etc - they are easier and have higher job ceilings (kind of). I can't understand why those grads get management jobs at all. The best kind of manager is one with years experience of doing that kind of job - the best manager for a group of coders is one who has done coding in that field for that company for a good few years. I once had to do part of a management course that was open to both comp sci and business departments - it was the easiest damn course i've ever had the displeasure of being on. It included reviewing how groups work best and of course 'they' had identified all the different people it takes to work in a group efficiently and then gave them all dumb names etc. It was so clear that stuff like this was going to come up in an exam so I just memorised the stupid names, what they did etc and regurgitated it when it came up in the exam. 5 years later I can't remember the stupid names (i'm not a manager) and it never gave me any problem solving abilities (or even any help when i've been working in teams of people).
The best education is a lot of experience.
I got my degree in Graphic Design. I'm now developing Content Management and E-Comerce Systems under Solaris and Linux. I code in JavaScript, Perl, Python and Java. I don't have a degree to prove that I can do that , I just have my work. Was my Art Degree a waste of time? No. All my stuff looks pretty too ;-) But my point is, you don't need a tech dgree to do technical work.
Please acquire a clue...have you ever actually tried to hire someone? The job market is so tight right now that even hiring mouth-breathing knuckle dragers is nearly impossible, let alone trying to find someone with actual technical skills.
I don't know about current widespread course availability, but I know that the CS courses at the college I went to really didn't offer a whole lot of the knowledge or experience that is in particular demand. As far as demand, at least in the Twin Cities, my perception is that the skills in highest demand are Visual Basic and Visual C++ programming (admittedly, I work for a Microsoft Solution Provider Partner which may color my perception). I did get a CS Bachelors degree at that college (not in the Twin Cities), but I think most of the skills I use at work were gained from internships and jobs I held during the same years I was in college.
This may be one way to explain why CS degrees aren't being used to fill the need.
You're wrong about who is paying the taxes. It is seriously skewed toward the rich paying an enormous percentage of the taxes collected.
Also, given any arbitrary amount of taxes collected, the Democrats will tend to spend it in ways that reduce your freedom and increase their control of everyday life to a much greater degree than the Republicans.
In my experience it still depends a lot on the type of work. I write device drivers for high speed networking devices, and I can't think of an engineer in our department (hardware or software) which doesn't have or isn't working on a masters' degree. Does this mean a degree is required? No it doesn't. I honestly believe if we could find a talented individual without a degree we would hire them although I doubt their starting salary would be as high. There are probably even people who have worked on Linux drivers who have the relavant skills and experience without the formal education.
What a degree shows a prospective employer is that you're trainable. You've managed to devote 4+ years to learning the basic skills you'll need for the job. Without the degree, it's going to be hard to get past the HR department and even get your resume to the right person.
In the past I've worked with a number of computer support and sys admins who had no no degree, or a degree in an unrelated field. On average they were very bright, talented individuals. They also had to work harder to prove themselves, and to get where they were. (Of course, they were also earning money, while I was spending it on school). It also seemed to be much harder for them to advance.
If you're very good at selling yourself, good at networking, and good at what you do, the lack of a degree probably won't hold you back. This especially true right now when unemployment is so low. If you aren't very good with people, a degree may be what you need to get you in the door, and to keep those raises comming. I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but those exceptions are often the best and the brightest. For those of us that are only moderately brilliant, I don't think a technical degree is such a bad investment.
Although the normal-age students view it uncool to be a tech nerd, lots of adults are return to school for tech upgrades. The word tech is in quotes because many of these course consist of lerning MS-Office components.
. . . freedom . .
. . . the "War on Drugs", censorship in general, and on and on.
Gimme a break.
Furthermore, the GOP has an historic hard-on for laws which increase the freedom of private thugs to abuse minorities. Now, that is indeed a species of freedom, but it's also a fundamental principle of law in this country that one's own freedoms end where they infringe on the freedoms of others.
You're wrong about who is paying the taxes. It is seriously skewed toward the rich paying an enormous percentage of the taxes collected.
"Only the little people pay taxes", as they say. Anyhow, I've seen the figures.
Taxes, like many other financial matters, are based on a bell-shaped curve. Because of this, you can lower tax rates across the board and have an increase in revenue.
Just the mere presence of a standard-distribution curve (which applies to a hell of a lot more than finanace, by the way) doesn't tell us anything at all about what will happen with taxes. In fact, the deficit ballooned during the '80's, and taxes didn't go down for most Americans. Of course, most of the deficit was due not to changes in tax law, but to fantastically opulent "defense" spending, much of which served no purpose at all.
By the way George Bush (or one of his handlers) coined the term "voodoo economics" to describe what you outline above. And he (or whoever) was right. It never worked.
The democrats don't understand this concept and are going to suck us dry until they finally figure it out.
This is pure ideological arglebargle. Right now, we have a healthy economy and a budget surplus, and the people of the United States seem to prefer paying off the huge debts that Reagan and Bush ran up rather than cutting taxes. This is because not all Americans are as irresponsible and shortsighted as the GOP.
Remember living in a patriotic country?
Yeah, when dissent from the opinions of the majority was treated as borderline-criminal behavior. I remember it well. No thanks.
Now, with post-Reaganist Taliban-inspired religious lynch mobs roaming Congress and spending my taxes to criminalize victimless private behavior and wage campaigns of harrassment and intimidation against their political enemies . . .
. . . this country has become an embarassment.
Indeed.
You obviously haven't studied much liberal arts.
No, of course not. I work for a living.
I am a Philosophy and Computer Science major
Which is to say, an intellectual hermaphrodite. You almost certainly have homosexual tendencies as well.
I can say that rigorous philosophy takes more brainpower than most Computer Science.
BZZZT! Wrong. The only worthwhile philosopher who ever lived was Ayn Rand. She was a women. Q.E.D. Thank you for proving my point. Next!
As to all this men and women are different crap, you're right, they are, so let the women do what they want and let the men do what they want
When they think that they "want" something that's bad for them and disastrous for society, then they need help to make the right decision. Would you hand out heroin to children? Liberal that you are, you probably would. Well, I wouldn't. Deciding what's best for oneself is an essentially rational process, and naturally women aren't very good at it. A simple sense of human decency requires us to offer assistance, for the sake of our dear women and for the sake of our whole culture. You, of course, don't care if we all descend back into the third-world slime and rot -- after all, it's all "relative", right??! (WRONG!) -- but there are a lot of responsible, thoughtful Americans out here who care very much. We won't let you destroy our great nation if we can help it.
fighting against my ingrained sense of relativism
Ingrained, no doubt, but the long-haired "men" and short-haired "women" of the radical left. A pack of hermaphrodites and zombies who can't even reproduce.
Keep fighting the brainwashing the inflicted on you, and eventually you can join those of us who live in the clear light of reasoned absolutes. You'll thank yourself. You can win this battle. My prayers are with you.
You're absolutely right.
I'm a developer with a liberal arts degree. I'll go along for months on end clobbering every problem I run into. I'm good at my job, I like my job, I write damn good code -- modular, generalized, etc. I'm more rigorous and disciplined than a lot of non-CS-major developers.
Then the day always comes when we have to optimize something big and ungainly, or do something else that requires computer science (not to be confused with "programming"). This is perhaps 1% of my job, no more. But you know what? My boss, the math/CS guy, has to do it because I can't. I feel like a f*cking idiot when that happens.
Software development is mostly experience, common sense, intuition, and laziness/impatience/hubris. But not all. That last 1% will kill you if you don't have some hard-core algorithm-head around the house.
Even that notwithstanding, the thing to look at is that like it or not, Win95 created a boom in the PC market, which WILL trickle down to higher enrollment, and thus, more grads in CS. I can see this right now, going into my last year as a CS major at the University of Saskatchewan, the classes I've taken are the largest CS classes in history.
The CS department here has finally decided to limit enrollment in upper years classes, although if you didn't get a 70% in the intro class, you probably would flunk out of the upper years courses anyways.
At least by an informal sampling technique (counting the pictures on the grad composite boards in the department) the largest CS graduating classes were in the mid 80's, and there was a pretty steady drop the whole way through. I expect that the classes for the next few years will show drastic growth.
300!
We'll just move about half of our high tech jobs offshore to Elbonia where we can pay people in rocks for the stuff they make. Then we'll import the rest of our developers from third world countries since they'll be more than happy to be making minimum wage in the good ol' USA. We'll cut our quality controls and support staff to a minimum because our razor thin profit margins don't allow for such frivolous expenses, and we'll generally reduce our expectations all around.
Of course in a decade we'll wonder why we all went out of business because no one was buying our stuff, but at least it will have a positive impact on THIS year's bottom line.
I think people are just starting to realize that you can make a lot more money doing a lot less work. Most engineers I know make in the 50-100k range depending on experience (50 after first job switch or 4 year degree, then the ammount you go up depends on your previous job). Raises don't even come into account unless you get a new job in the same company.
Now, a salesman selling these same products--minimum 80K, after a few years, depending on your quotas, you could be in the 120+ range. Sales and Marketting are also the first to be promoted in larger companies. (None of this applies to startups, the engineers "Lotto" or companies in their first 10 years as far as I know).
Another point--in my lates job-search session a bunch of the programming jobs were for Database/VB work. I am quite pro-Vb, but most of the VB work out there requires little more than a tenth grade dropout with a desire to hack.
Finally I don't know what the trend is now, but I never finished college because I could make a pretty good living consulting--many people were going that route.
Why try?
Summing these four fields together and looking at
the totals is somewhat misleading -
The Military/Aerospace industry has been doing
nothing but merging and slashing tech/engineering
positions for 8 years - Physics PhD's may well be
in oversupply, too - and Math has it's own problems - as in, even fairly bright people crack
their skulls on the really advanced stuff.
So you should at least look at these fields
separately - and take a close look at the job
market for people with these degrees. How many
physics PhDs are on their second PostDoc at
25K/yr or working in a non-tenure track
junior professorship?
I've been working in various computer-related capacities for a decade now, both in the academic and the corporate worlds. I'm pretty good at what I do.
I'm a consultant. I don't make tons of money, but I make enough to get by, and I enjoy not having to go to work. I could certainly make more money with a day job, but then I wouldn't be able to blow off the afternoon to go biking, like I just did.
My lack of a relevant degree hasn't hurt me, and here's my take on why:
CS comes in a couple different flavors, depending on whether the university's CS department came out of math or EE. If it's a mathy CS, then you're not going to learn much about actually programming computers, although you will learn a lot about complexity analysis and, if you're hardcore, proofs of program correctness. These can on rare occasions be useful in the real world, but it's not too common for the day-to-day programming most of us do.
If it's an EE sorta CS, then you're likely to learn a lot of ground-up theory: this is a transistor. Here is how you put them together to make gates. Here is how you implement arbitrary logic with these gates. Here is how you can define a machine code to make use of that logic. Here is an assembler for it. Now, here's how you make a compiler to target that machine. That sort of thing. This is more useful to employers, but students are still not going to graduate with relevant experience--I'll explain what I mean a little later. Usually this sort of program also has professors teaching their pet theories and languages; this is not to say that Scheme isn't really elegant, just that it's not likely to directly be useful (although good programming practice is largely language-independent).
There's also primarily vocational CS. These are places teaching VBA and Excel. Nice, if you want a job *right now*. Isn't going to help in three years, and if theory has been neglected, generalizing your skills is going to be difficult.
There are very few curricula that include software engineering, which is what we really do. And that's for a good reason: there's no way to take a class of sophomores and turn them into maintenance programmers; there's no good way to teach someone how to read and extend someone else's code. It's something that you learn mostly by practice.
In short, Don Knuth is still right: computer programming is not a science, but an art. More precisely, I think it's a craft. At the moment, an apprentice system is really the only way to learn it, and it's the way most people do. It seems to work for both programming and system administration.
In short: you learn by doing, not by going to class. What smart employers look for are workers who are able to learn stuff fast. At some level, computer languages are pretty much isomorphic, and adminning an NT box isn't worlds different from adminning a Unix box. What this means from an employer's point of view: possession of a relevant degree doesn't guarantee you're any good, and absence of the degree doesn't mean you're necessarily incompetent.
And that's all I was saying.
I find it pretty interesting that about 90% of the responses to this thread are referencing CS or MIS degrees. What about EE? EE-T? ChemEng? ME? And all the other 'E's that make up the core of engineering?
Many people seem scared to death of the technical fields. Why, I cannot say. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's fear of being labeled a "geek" (merely a form of modern racism, IMO), maybe it's just that they feel they ought to be able to buy the kind of comprehension and understanding a good engineer has without putting out the effort required to earn it (yes, I mean -earn.- Understanding is not a saleable commodity, thank God).
I do have a theory, though. I believe our own culture is to blame, and not in the way one might think.
The public schools -- heck, all schools I've attended -- tackle education in a rigid, linear fashion regardless of how slow or fast the students in a given class may be learning. One subject before another, period, regardless of how much one might be learning outside the classroom on their off-hours.
I think that whole thought model needs to be tweaked. For those students who show aptitudes and interests outside what a given classroom or school teaches, move them ahead and let them learn it! Don't have the facilities? Need a chem lab or electronics shop, but don't have the budget? Contract with a nearby university that does to allow use of their facilities!
I say this because I know darn well I don't learn in the 'conventional' way. I'm very much a hands-on type of person, and I've also found that I often 'learn backwards' better than I do if I were to start with the basics.
As an example: I started out in electronics by learning to solder and taking things apart (though I rarely got them back together). Only later on did I gain theory and design rules, and only now (after 20 years of hands-on experience in a multitude of electronic and mechanical sub-disciplines) am I starting to put it all together and go for my degree.
In short, I learned more going from the top down than I think I would have if I'd progressed in the conventional linear mode.
I would be shocked if I were the only person in the entire world who was like this. Had I been encouraged and supported in my efforts early on, rather than being teased, held back in grades, and beat up, God only knows where I'd be now. Heck, probably have my Ph.D...
Anyway... Change the focus, change the world. Recognize the fact that none of us would be sitting here jabbering about this if it were not for the very "geeks" and engineers that invented computers, and the electronics that make them run. Recognize that we wouldn't have the lifestyle we do today had it not been for the engineers and scientists who invented the materials and devices to make it possible.
Above all else, recognize that many people have a true gift for creativity, and the skill to learn the techniques to turn an idea into something that could easily benefit us all. Those that have this gift should be encouraged rather than spat on, no matter what their inclination towards sports or the senior prom.
As Bill Nye says: "Science Rules!" Perhaps a little extreme -- our science can only describe the world around us in human-based terms, and cannot define it in the least -- but a good starting point. The only way we're going to make it an attractive field to pursue is if we, as a race, stop knocking those members of it who show aptitude for such things (and this includes getting rid of the negative connotation that often comes with silly labels like "geek" and "nerd!")
Keep the peace(es).
"I came to the conclusion yesterday that commercial software is for people who hate their job so much you have to pay them to do it. Free
software is created by people who like to do
it."
What a pleasant generalization! Do you think that Free Software writers are communists also? Free (as in freedom) and commercial software are not perfect opposites. Red Hat is selling Free Software! They must HATE thier jobs!
Free Software can be sold. Yes, that's right, it's a little confusing huh? Famous jwz quote about freeness of Linux comes to mind -- highly stupid quote, jwz either doesn't know what is meant by Linux being free or he wanted to look cool (but made him look stupid, at least to me).
And, for those who just hate selling any kind of software, they can write a book about it, or ask for cash in return for support of the product. OH, but does that mean that they hate writing or are anti-social?? Last time I checked, a Snickers bar costs me 59 cents. Maybe I can get that money by standing on the street corner with my hand out (but will that mean that I hate standing?).
I'm kicking up a lot of dirt here, but your hypothesis is, well, stupid.
"If people in college decide they want to
study what they like, and not what will make
them employable, which community will see a more
severe impact?"
Well, those people will have to pick it up somewhere, eh? Otherwise we'll have a bunch of philosophers as garbage men.
Just to nit pick, I don't *think* Linus has a Ph.D. Please correct me if I'm wrong :)
I doubt though without a certain background you are going to be able to read and understand Knuth, to name the most famous one.
This is an interesting point. I bought TAOCP 1-3 and read them over senior year of high school. Now that I am finishing off my first year of college and have taken a class is discrete math for CS majors as well as lots of calculus and some programming language theory, I find that Knuth makes a lot more sense now, particularly the mathy parts. They are really great books, but they require a significant amount of background to really get what he's talking about. Every time I refer back to them I catch a little more detail and learn a little bit more. While it's possible that I could have done this on my own, if I didn't take classes on these subjects, it's unlikely that I would have really needed to study about permutations and such things...
The classes required of a CS major are similar at my school (University of Massachusetts at Amherst). First is intro to programming, then data structures. Those are in Java. Then architechture and assembly language, which is actually a fairly heavy dose of computer engineering with some assembly projects slapped on the side. The class uses a simulated assembly language called x16, although from what I hear it's modeled after the 68000, and there is an honors section done in x86 asm. Then there is programming language paradigms class where students get their first taste of functional programming in scheme, the honors section does ML and Prolog. There is also a class on discrete mathematics (proofs, set theory, FSAs, combinatorics, etc) which is the prereq for the algorithms course. Then there is software engineering in java, operating systems, and two out of four options (databases, AI, number theory, and compilers I belive). I may be missing some, but it seems to be a fairly comprehensive curriculum... Then again, UMass is supposed to be the top reseach department in the field of artificial intellegence, and all the professors I have met are really smart guys. I have no regrest so far at majoring in CS. Other universities might not be so good...
>The article quotes one student as saying that he
>doesn't want a technical degree because he wants
>to broaden his horizons, discover himself,
>become an educated person, and so forth.
>Well, that's fine, and those are admirable goals;
>but the simple reality is that a CS degree
>doesn't prevent you from achieving them.
I agree with this! As a matter of fact, barring a well planned personal study regimen, college is just about the best way to get a well rounded education.
In college, I was exposed to the Arts, Classical Music, Physical Education, History, English Composition (I never would have done it on my own as I hated it!), Accounting, MacroEconomics and World Literature. Just thinking about it makes me want to go enroll for the Fall Semester! Though, I'm making too much money to give up my full-time programming job to finish my Bachelor's Degree *WHICH* I'll bet is one of the underlying causes of the conditions outlined in the report. CS jobs *can* be had with little college education if the demand is high enough. Good for the workers; bad for the employers. (I'd have to say that the employers brought much of this on themselves. Hiring overseas workers is just going to exacerbate the problem.)
>College isn't tech school, and a different major
>won't make it one.
This one I don't agree with. You said college is what you make it right? Well then, you can treat it as a tech school with trendy technical curricula -OR- you can get the education that you deserve. The choice is yours!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Posted by Gingrich:
Unfortunately, I agree completely. In the "high-tech" jobs I've had it is generally the sales droids who get the big bikkies, trips to exotic (non-customer) locations and other goodies. In general, their attitude towards the technical people who make their lifestyle possible is that we are the dirt beneath their feet.
It is clear to me that as long as technical people are prepared to work as much for the love of the job as for the rewards there is unlikely to be much change. In fact, it occurs to me that there are two types of low paid jobs -- ones that nearly anyone with a brain cell or two can do and ones where people work for the love of the job or out of some sense of duty. Think about it.
Teachers, love or duty - you wouldn't put up with the conditions otherwise.
Fire, Police, military -- duty (OK there are some who get off on the power trip - nobody's perfect)
Technical - love of the job -- the hours are too long and the pay too low (in many cases) for it to be otherwise.
So why do it? Why not take the easy option and become a manager or a sales type. OK, I agree that it does take skill to be a good manager -- but how many good managers have you known? Until the value system rewards technical people better it is unreasonable to expect people to make the irrational decision to go into a technical field in preference to something else where the rewards vs demands are a better ratio.
Posted by spimp:
Think about this:
You can pay one really knowledge person (college educated) to do one big job, or you can pay 3 people with 2 year degrees or less to do the same work. The other three people will not receive health care, or future training to climb the corporate ladder. Many companies rant and rave about wanted proper help but don't want to shell out the cash to train people with BS degrees.
Posted by Terpfen:
Add this up to the hellhole that is the American education system. It's amazing that this is just now being reported, seeing as how I've read the exact same thing in a Michael Chrichton novel--Rising Sun--that was published in _1992_! I think we can put the media at the top of a very long list of things screwed up with this country.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
If you're no good at math then you shouldn't major in cs. You should major in software engineering or something else, or better yet not go to college at all. CS _is_ math, and I know lots of people who are good at math, and can still program quite well. I hate it when people perpetually whine about things being to hard. You just make it so everyone's incompetant. It's ok to be stupid; just don't drag people down to your level.
And as far as proving "all unicorns are pink," you are sadly mistaken about the utility of math. If you don't understand all the math behind an algorithm, then you're nothing but an overglorified typist.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
the bell curve theory is just that. and anyway, it has absolutely _nothing_ to do with the distribution of taxation. PR is the one to thank for the trickle down theory, and the fact that proportionally more wealth is currently controlled by the top few percent of this nation than ever before.
Posted by Volkadav:
:^)
Dude, the wrongness inherent in this post is just crazy! I hope you're just kidding or being sarcastic or laying some flame-bait out on the trout-line, because if not you are smoking the crack pipe for sure... My urge to say you're about as completely wrong as it is possible to be is fighting against my ingrained sense of relativism *urgh!**grrr!*(fighting noises coming from inside head)*snappy sound* damn it that's just wrong!
Posted by Volkadav:
I've had quite a bit (i.e. too damn much, haha) of stat experience in various courses here at good old U. Texas. Statistics is an infinitely malleable field because most folks don't understand how to interpret the results and dishonest practictioners take advantage of this. Two people who both know stat can discuss something, indeed are forced to discuss something (something = anything being considered in a statistical light), at a far more rigourous level.
That being said, a quote from Mark Twain seems appropriate: (paraphrasing slightly due to poor memory on my part) "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
:^)
Posted by Volkadav:
:^) ).)
As said by another fellow: Wow.
I wonder if they take transfer credit from UT?
;^)
(At least all my "take something besides what your taking in Nat. Sci." req would be done... I've enough chem credit to choke a goat (Better living through chemistry my sphincter, try taking pchem and enjoying yourself (if you do, please seek help)! hehehe
Posted by Volkadav:
;^) (To fellow tamsters: remember the food @ Bruce? Two words: chicken tetrazinni (sp?). tetra = 4 = the number of times that same chicken has been on the serving line in 'other incarnations')
This sounds almost dead-on identical to a program at the Univ. of North Texas in Denton (tiny little town a little north of the metastasizing cancer that is Dallas-FortWorth) called TAMS (Texas Academy of Math and Science). I went there, graduated in 96. I've heard of other programs that are _similar_ in other states, but so far those I've read about didn't involve taking actual college courses, but instead courses lying somewhere between 'advanced' HS courses and collegiate courses....
I think TAMS is unique out of the 'come to college two years early' programs in that not only does it emphasize math/science it also tries to give it's graduates a good grounding in the humanities (which although it may not translate into $ does make you a broader thinker and deeper person IMHO). Most other programs seem to be either all Science/Math or all Humanities with very little of the other....
Oh, and the state pretty much pays for everything at TAMS, hehe... Too bad the food mainly sucked at the cafeterias!
In the Uk we have been sustaining that kind off drop for years. In "difficult" subject areas like Electronic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering the drop has been nearer 12% p/a.... Pansy subjects like Computer Science aren't as badly hit but their numbers are still dropping. This is at a time when University attendance is at an all time high and is rising rapidly.
No wonder the UK is going down the pan. On the plus side I'm an endangered species! Perhaps the WWF will give me a game reserve!
>I came to the conclusion yesterday that commercial software is for people who hate their job so much you have to pay them to do it.
Like Linus and Alan Cox? Or all the guys who improved Apache as part of their jobs keeping web servers going?
Meanwhile, exactly what *are* you going to do to earn a living? Most of us picked our employment based on what we liked doing and thought we could make a living doing.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
I write commercial software because I love to program. Why would I want to spend all day doing something that I don't like? That doesn't make sense.
TedC
What's Ron got to do with students who are too damn lazy to study?
TedC
I think a BS CS program should have some info theory and of course "math" but the other stuff you list like computability theory sounds more appropriate for a MS or maybe BS honors program. But then I'm not a CS student so what do I know?
What constitutes a CS or IT degree can vary drastically from institution to institution. The first guy who talked about not have a C/C++ requirement and learning Excel +VBA sounded more like an IT program.
;-) There are always new ideas but I don't think humans will become obsolete in the next five years.
I don't think the IT program I'm going to be entering at RIT will be useless in five years. One of the concentrations is "Training and Human Performance" and is largely concerned with Human Factors. That's concerned with the important touchy-feely stuff CS people can't be bothered with while they're tweaking their algorithms for a few percentiles of performance
Of course there are different levels of knowledge. Your comment about their medium being data, not computers, is well taken. I think a CS student does need a good dose of that kind of thing but frankly some of what was described sounded pretty hard. If every CS student coming out is a highfalutin' Information Engineer, who's going to produce the grunt programmers?
My point is that I think undergraduate work should be broad (including lots outside your major) and only somewhat deep. I fear that getting too deep into the discipline won't leave room for other skills that are needed as a base for life-long learning.
tho ive decided to go back and get my BSCS...thinking about the future etc :)
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
The same is very true (or at least was) at Brandeis University... the CS department there ballooned to the point where there were 150 perspectives a year (alot for such a small university) of course the vast majority of them chage majors but the number of majors graduating each year has been rising steadily...
then again, given the new government funded AI lab (the volen center for complex systems) I think alot more serious perspecitve CS students are going to brandeis than before... perhaps this is off setting the drain for brandeis.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
I don't know about you, but all through high school I looked forward to University as a place where I could finally meet people that had similar interests to me and I could have meaningful discussions, follow intellectual pursuits, etc.
While I found I fit in much better at university, I was also very disappointed by the vast majority of students who still thought "inside the box".
I dropped out of uni after 2 years and I'm now doing very well in the private sector.
I'll probably go back some day, when I don't have anything better to do, and I am more financially stable. Paying off 2 years of student loans is killing me right now. Worth it? Barely.
"Without music life would be a mistake" - Nietzsche
It's disgusting the way policemen and firemen are described (often themselves doing the describing) as being hereoes for risking their life every day for you and me. Bah. Just like everyone else, they work for a paycheck. Without good pay, they'd switch jobs in a heartbeat. There's no heroism involved, and people don't deserve medals just for doing their jobs.
>Yep, because I'd definitely want police, fire, EMS, teachers and civil
>servants that were only in it for the money.
But real medical doctors do get six figure salaries. Does that mean you wonder if they are working to save your life or just for their paycheck. I really don't care, so long as they do their job.
I'm a well-employed tech, Art School (NIU) dropout.
That's all find and dandy, but at the end of the day, I still wish (desperately) that I had a CS degree.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I'm regularly shocked by what I hear here on slashdot about US university CS education. I took a BSc in CS at Durham University in England, which is certainly not considered one of the best CS departments, but we took nothing but theory. Even the OO course expected us to teach ourselves C++ - we were taught the underlying concepts. For our databases course, SQL was the last thing we learned - first we were taught how to implement a database, and the history of it, and how query optimisers work. We were taught how to write a compiler, how to write an OS, we read books that are now 30 years old, but still relevant today... I still pick up every now and then some of those books - "Fundamentals of Database Systems" and "Principals of Concurrent and Distributed Programming" - the issues remain relevant in languages like Java and now Perl.
,hacker Perl another Just)'
The times change but the underlying implementation is just 1's and 0's...
Wow... I just hope I don't end up educating my children in the US... especially given the price you pay for your University education.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
THAT is why programmers will eventually be regarded in the same way as architects, IT people will be seen as Construction Foremen and the 'grunt' laborers.
,hacker Perl another Just)'
Sheesh, I wish it were like that now. Sometimes I really hate being lumped in with all the other morons who stumbled through their CS degree, or who don't even have a degree, but call themselves "Software Engineers". What we really need is some nice discriminatory jargon, like I'd be an Architect and they'd be Construction Workers... That would make me happy... Unfortunately we seem to have gotten stuck with "Everyone's a Software Engineer..." - Yuck!
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
I would say that you're 90% right...
,hacker Perl another Just)'
It's been my experience that you can have someone who is a really great programmer (the "programmer mindset": Laziness, Impatience and Hubris), who doesn't know the theory behind some of the stuff. That's great for 90% of projects (even for most of the stuff I'm working on). Maybe even 99% of projects. The difficulty comes when you have a really hard problem to solve, one that these people haven't come across before, like the "dining philosophers" problem. That's when the people who have both the CS background and the programmer's mindset really come into their own. Note that I say "both" though...
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
well documented and picked up in a book, right?
Well documented? Yep. Does that mean that any CS masters or above student can grasp the concept of writing a simple server using the TCP protocol (well documented!) and select? Nope. Lots of things are documented. It doesn't mean that people can just pick them up. Most grad students that I know can't really code. But they can do theory. My beef with that is, theory is all well and good (I know my fair share), but if you don't have the skills to implement the theory, what good does the theory get? I want to do (and do) useful things.
A lot of the arguments so far here seem to present the fact that programmers are a dime a dozen, and anyone can just pick up a book and begin to code. That's pretty funny. Clicking a few wizard boxes doesn't make you a programmer. Nor does mucking around a little bit with a 20 line perl cgi script. A real programmer uses the right tool for the job, and knows how to use said tool effectively. That's NOT something you get out of a book, and hence not something that everyone can learn.
Do this and you run the risk of being an apprentice for the rest of your life. College helps to build skills beyond what the job requires. College is about learning how to learn, not how to master a skill.
College also gives you a great chance to learn what you want to do with the rest of your life. Four years ago I was set on being a finance/business major. It took me two years to decide that I loved computers and did not want to do anything else.
Finally, please do not forget that college is a hell of a lot of fun! When else can you take off for a rode trip at 11 PM in the middle of the week without telling anybody? When else is it acceptable to party until the sun comes up?
I'm too lazy to htmlize it, so you'll have to cut 'n paste...
l _evo2.html
http://www.tessier.com/Life/Theory/intro_ashpoo
An interesting bit on why we are dumbing down our society. This includes the aformentioned football team issue.
Locally for me, the Repubs have been telling our teachers to go screw themselves, that I601 was passed for a reason, and that they want to cut the budget even more. Meanwhile, the football team gets uniforms and paid transit to and from games, while our chess team has to pay for all their own equipment+transportation. Our football team places dead last every year, our Chess team has placed first in state several years in a row, and took 9th in the Nationals once.
InThane
i'm amazed that ppl still equate earning potential/power with qualifications. like a previous poster mentioned you dont really further yr study or attain a high level of knowledge (professional or otherwise) purely for monitary reasons (unless yr a lawyer, dig dig).
:)
the fact u have detailed knowledge in particular fields only equates to money where the laws of undersupply and overdemand apply
i bet somewhere their are ppl orders of magnitude smarter, more knowledeable and capable than every slashdotter at their current jobs, but in another country, state or field. it just so happens that at this particular point in time, in the first world high-tech knowledge is in demand, hence companies have to pay.who knows tomorrow, juggling balls and drinking beer at the same time may pay more
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
This is entirely too true. I'm 25, with one year of college credit. I'm making over $100K a year programming (hell, my current assignment is in Visual Basic! that's not even programming!) as a consultant. I'm working with people doing the SAME thing, as consultants from the SAME company, the SAME age as me that are making 44-50K $US. Why? the got this job straight out of school, and they didn't know how to negotiate. All three of us bill out at the same rate.
While it's true that one of them does no work at all, it's all the same to the consulting company. What they want are bodies that can pass an interview at a client site, either do decent work or fool the client, and be billed at $70-120/hr.. all the while being payed $20-$25/hr. I don't know about you, but if I were an employer that could get away with this, I'd want more grads at $40K making me $100K then people making $110K making me $30K. You?
My tuition fee is around $100, dental plan included. I get $2 dinners at school. I'm paid approximately $400 each month (for housing and food) for the first 55 months of my studies.
I will graduate on black, but I pay around 25% taxes from my summer jobs and probably around 40% to 50% when I graduate.
--
Pirkka Jokela
It's a different world..
When I read this report my primary response was:
"So?"
The software development industry is young, but not that young. Ever read the date on most of RFCs? They are in computer terms ancient, thus from "archeaological" data we can infer that computer programmers did in fact exist before 1985 and thus the computer industry, having lasted this long, will probably last just a bit longer. (Like, perhaps for the rest of our lives) No news there.
Will there be a glut after 2000? Probably for a while. Then the COBOL programmers will either retrain, or change jobs, or join middle management. Not much news there.
"I want to claw my way up through middle management" , "I want to be expendable" , "I want a brown nose." I love that commercial.
Less people in school:
This is because of low unemployement. Everyone knows that when you can't find work you strudy, and when you have work you don't. This is not newsworthy.
More Indian/Russian/Where-ever-ian programmers:
WORLD WIDE web. I think it's great to hire and train more foreign programmers. You get multiple perspectives, and they're not going to bring down the salaries of American counter parts. That is a myth! If anything they'll get their visa and demand real money or they'll go home to start business on their own soil. Again, not really newsworthy.
CS is too hard/boring:
My degree is in Applied Math. I took that because I knew it would be more meaningful in the long term than a CS degree might have been. The vast majority of people are not suited to or interested in the kind of mental training that is required to do computer science. THAT is why programmers will eventually be regarded in the same way as architects, IT people will be seen as Construction Foremen and the 'grunt' laborers. (But did you ever wonder how much training the guy operating that big hydralic arm has had? I bet it is more than the name 'grunt' implies)
I don't have a problem with this future, and to me it seems fairly likely.
Any comments?
I think we can congratulate 12 years of conservativism (1980-1992) for this little nugget. Yes that is overly simplistic, but it's a serious contributor:
My high school, suffering from shrinking budgets, eventually cut it's higher level classes (just after I left). The tax-cut fever finally swept even recession-proof Long Island (at least undil the cold war ended - oops) and frivolous programs like AP Math were gone!
But even in my class (1989) teachers were noting that less women were in tech courses, and male students weren't filling the gap.
It's a shame really since Dwight Eisenhower had advocated education to a large degree. Republicans didn't always stand for the lowest common denominator.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
But even in my class (1989) teachers were noting that less women were in tech courses, and male students weren't filling the gap.
;)
Thank goodness for that: it keeps my salary high and my job prospects promising!
(only half a
...but we have politicians, lawyers, doctors, etc., all people in places of power, or at least responsibility over other people, who are in it for the money...
> If "they" don't teach generalized skills at your
> school, you need to get a better school.
I think so too. However, _so far_ none of the CS programs that I've looked at in other schools look better enough to bother switching. This may just be a regional phenomena.
> In these parts, they teach classes on:
> Databases (including all sorts of theory, including some subsets of logic)
> Operating systems (which is to say, general principles underlying operating systems, not "How to configure NT")
> Computer languages (overview of different types of languages, including Prolog, Lisp, and others.)
> Assembly language
> Data structures
> Algorithms
> Circuit design
> And a whole lot more
> And, oh, they teach all of this using Unix systems
This is all refreshing to hear.
> and require that CS students take twice as many non-CS classes as CS ones.
Well, that much is a given, even if you're stuck in some crappy school like myself.
> And I don't think the U. of Wisconsin is particularly unusual in all these regards.
It'd be interesting to do a general survey of various colleges' curriculae and see exactly what is the most typical case. I suspect our individual perceptions are both pretty colored by regional variations.
Regardless, I think my comments about high school in particular are still applicable -- certainly, the majority of people from around the country I've talked to have indicated the same kind of deficiencies I've described. I haven't talked to as wide a variety of people about college in the same way -- at least not yet.
DNA just wants to be free...
Just judging by the majority (75% currently) of the replies, it would seem that my experience is atypical. Some of these replies (which are all quite good) should be scored up somewhere closer to the original post.
DNA just wants to be free...
This article jibes with my own personal experience.
This is a generalization, of course, but a lot of schools nowadays (including my own, it seems) seem to be intent on producing a bunch of trained monkeys who know the motions for a specific set of software -- basically Microsoft Excel + Microsoft Visual Basic + Microsoft Access. There are some places were C/C++ isn't even a requirement anymore, whereas Excel w/ VBA is!
Too bad very nearly everything us students are learning now is going to have to be re-learnt in some manner with the next revision of the software...
The problem is that they're not teaching generalized skills and abstract thinking as part of the curriculum. I think this one section of the article is very telling in this regard:
> He won't choose a high-tech subject, he said,
> because he's interested in examining more
> abstract ideas.
> "I'm here at college mainly to learn to explore,
> because I love thinking about ideas," he said.
I know a lot of students (many of them ex-CS majors or soon-to-be-ex-CS majors) who feel the same way. The really brilliant people are either learning this stuff on their own, or are going into other fields altogether.
Something is fundamentally wrong with the current state of CS education in the U.S. -- shouldn't CS _by definition_ be about abstract ideas?
The point is that you need to teach the kids the _theory_ either first or in parallel with the specific skills. Once they have the theory down, they can pick up individual skills pretty easily.
If, however, the students train for a bunch of individual skills without first understanding how they relate, it makes it very difficult to learn new things. Sometimes (I have experienced this personally), it can even interfere with a student's ability to learn the theory later.
One thing that would help is if students were exposed to several vendors' software, instead of just one. You can't generalize very well when you only have one example to reason from.
Another thing would be if they actually started teaching _logic_ and _reason_ in schools again, instead of rote memorization. I see a lot of interest in rhetoric (vis a vis the popularity of debate teams), but next to none in logic or critical thinking. That's not a healthy balance.
If you don't get that preparation before college, you're pretty screwed if your college is going to have any kind of worthwhile curriculum itself.
The last thing that would help tremendously would be to return to teaching CS in a primarily Unix environment (note I said _primarily_, most certainly not exclusively).
It's not that Unix is the "magic OS of knowledge", it's that it does a better job of exposing the structure of things to the user. Yet, it still has a healthy amount of abstraction. There aren't really any other widely-used environments that are especially good at both.
That is, Unix is designed primarily to abstract the underlying system so that it can be manipulated and restructured effectively. It allows the student to play with and think a lot more about abstract ideas.
If you design a system so that the user is presented with a complete set of tools that require some intelligence to manipulate and use together, it becomes very effective for teaching a student generalized skills which can later be applied in specific situations.
If, on the other hand, you design something so that "a trained monkey could operate it", you'll find that it's hard to use it to teach people to do any more than what a trained monkey could do.
The problem is that students aren't being educated anymore. They're being trained.
DNA just wants to be free...
Enrollment may be up, but graduation is down according to the article. If this is true, this poses an even more interesting question: Why are more students failing or switching majors?
In my experience, the demand for tech workers is so great that businesses are hiring a lot of underclassmen. The companies throw money at anyone who seems to have the slightest bit of talent.
I've never gotten around to removing my resume from my outdated web page at my old college. I still get hits from people wanting to hire me for this and that.
OK let's not kid ourselves. This is not a field that has ever valued advanced degrees - at least in the commercial arena. It may be true that a CS will get you in the door faster but only if you're about 20 years old and eager to work 90 hrs. a week. Try to leverage an advanced degree, MCS, MBA, PhD or otherwise? You're deluding yourself - your management sees you as a code crunching monkey, a cost center.
Thanks for the correction. I guess my biased view came from the fact that I live in the lawyer capital of the US. Of my ~20 lawyer friends that I can readily think of, only 2 work for a law firm. The rest work for advocacy groups, the government, or teach. Of course, these types of jobs don't pay as well as a good law firm.
Of yes, one lawyer friend defends the scum of our city. He once told me that getting paid by his clients can sometimes be problematic.
Do you remember the past debates in Physics Today and other scientific magazines? On one side were the Profs (and one notable Nobel Prize winner) who kept saying that there were jobs and that the field was okay. On the other side were the grad students and post-docs who kept saying no they weren't.
Finally, the old farts started to realize that, woops, sorry we were wrong. Then the discussion turned to academic birth control to reduce the number of PhD's. Birth control, my ass, you still gonna get f*cked.
As for your comment about being a cheap labor force: let's just say that when I was in grad school, our favorite song was Tom Petty's "Refugee."
Fortunately, I finished just before the big crunch. And I got lucky as I "only" had to serve in two post-doc positions before finding a real job. But of a lot of my friends aren't doing so good right now. I'm sorry for the tone of this posting, but this issue really ticks me off.
BTW, I thought it was a NAS report not NSF (but really who cares). The project shortage was based on population estimates (supply) and not on jobs (demand). What we are seeing in the AES study is the decline in the number of college age ppl. The next increase will occur when the kids of the kids of the baby boom generation enter college.
Many of you are viewing this strictly from a CS perspective. While there is great demand for CS professionals, the other high tech/physical science fields are not doing as well. Employment in physics related work has been absolutely devastated during this past decade. Some engineering fields (ME for instance) are not doing that great. The earth sciences has been absolutely stagnant for longer than a decade.
Part of this decline is simply due to the end of the Cold War. Defense spending on basic & applied research, and on engineering development has remained flat or gone down. Much of this decrease simply balances out the wild increases (i.e., deficit spending) during the Reagan presidency.
Students capable of entering high tech fields are not stupid. They abandon fields when they see a decline in available jobs. This produces a time lag between when the decline in jobs starts and when the decline in the number of graduates starts. Duh!
Back around 1990, the National Academy of Science published a report that there was to be a massive shortage of high tech graduates during the 90's. Congress swallowed this facade, hook, line, and sinker; this spawned H1-B. Unfortunately, the NAS results were simply based on population projections, they did not take into account the number of jobs that were to be available. Duh!
Like I said, ppl capable of entering high tech are not stupid. Some skip college and enter the work force writing code. Others migrate to other disciplines (bio, business, law) where the pickings are better.
From my experience I have seen people get hired where I work with fairly high GPA's in computer science, yet couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. Most of the stuff that I have learned related to my job, I either learned on my own through running my own server on the net, or through training classes work has sent me to. Besides sitting in my Comp Science classes learning why the sun rises doesn't seem to have much impact on running a computer system/network or coding.
"If you insist on using Windoze you're on your own."
In yesterday's China Post (Taiwan) Craig Barrett (Intel CEO and President), who's visiting Taiwan, announced that Intel is going to establish "two state of the art server and workstation design laboratories at National Taiwan University (NTU) and National Chiao Tung University (NCTU)". NTU and NCTU are Taiwan's Harvard and MIT.
Over here, you will *NOT* get a high tech job without a degree, the higher the better. You go to your average bookstore and all you see are computer design and programming books (and people standing around reading them!).
BTW, if you think they're doing it because the workers here are lower paid, think again. The pay is considerably higher than in the US.
Let's face it people....CS is just the '90s version of Shop Class. And geeks get about as much appreciation/respect. Maybe even less.
I have an ASCS and I can't find a decent job... with no experience and no BSCS it seems even the recruiters won't touch you.
I was taught algorithms and data structures, I know what Big O = logx means... but I had to learn a lot on my own. Linking, makefiles, etc. All the things you really need to know to start a large-scale project were not taught in the "tech" school I attended. We did learn a little UNIX but the system was so bad that we couldn't really learn much... and most the class consisted of learning what telnet and (OMFG) Archie and Gopher are! I didn't really learn squat about UNIX until I installed Debian Linux at home.
Maybe your experience will be different, I hope so... cause even with a 4.0 GPA the ASCS on my resume doesn't seem to be getting me very far.
From my own experience being an electrical engineering student getting ever closer to graduation, I must say that a CS degree may seem a little pointless. I used to work as a computer technician which required little or no school experience whatsoever. So I decided to go into the electronics end of EE. I must say that you can't just pick up this stuff on your own. I've taken several supplementary CS courses for my degree and I must say that the smartest people in these classes were the engineers taking them!!! I think all of the people who say college is worthless is or has gone to college for all the wrong reasons. You definitely need a great deal more education to be an engineer than a CS major. I'd rather be building the computers than trying to write software for them.
I have to agree with you on this one. I'm in High School right now, and everyone I know is taking the easy street. They have spare classes instead of taking something where they could learn, and they use their spares to go downtown and not to study. When people ask me why I take Physics, or Chem, or Spanish, or Japanese, I tell them it's because I want to. This boggles the mind for most people I know. Why would I take a class I don't have to take? Because I want to. Beacuse I like learning. I took chem because I'm interested in Chem, not because I'll need it in University or need the credits to graduate. Ugh, it really gets my goat sometimes. No one wants to work for anything anymore, not if they don't have to. Urgh.
~Sentry21~
This is why I _don't_ think that there will be a developer glut in 2005, like some of the media is predicting (due to the Y2K increase in developers).
Plus, many (not all, but many, many) of these folks doing design work out there without the fundimentals are generating junk that will need to be reworked about 2005.
Just my opinion,
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
I was a Math/CS major as an undergrad, but at a Liberal Arts college. I had exposure to sociology, philosophy, mythology, Latin, Greek, &c. One does not have to give up the finer things in life in order to have a technical education, nor vice versa.
Finding God in a Dog
Another story that calls for a little self examination. In high school I intentionally opted for a broader education in softer, non-geeky subjects, while still screwing around on an Apple ][ at home. In college I did philosophy, in grad school American Studies. I held onto enough of my geeky skills that I am doing okay now as a self-employed developer. I like this path.
I can think about a lot of things that I couldn't have if I had if I had been hardcore into CS. I can deal with my customers a lot better because I have taught undergraduates. I am never going to make fundamental contributions to the field, but what would the odds of that been anyway? More likely I would have been a C drone, too lazy figure out the sources of my discontent.
I have seen people "Get into Computer Science" with the idea they are going to learn about PC hardware, or "programming", or in general have no idea of what they are getting into, and much less why. I am not saying this is a general case, just that I have seen it, and I think it contributes to the non-graduating rate.
;-) All said, I'm glad I have that background. It does make a difference, and shapes how you think about, approach and solve problems.
I think at most universities you are going to get a healthy dose of the underlying theory, math, logic, linguistics that make up the 'science' part of it, where the 'computer' part of it is more of a medium in which to implement, explore computing concepts.
The program I went through, (U of TX), didn't 'teach you C/C++', 'teach you Lisp', or 'teach you Unix', etc., you were pretty much left on your own to learn stuff like that, unless you -chose- to specifically take an optional 1 hr course in C, C++, Lisp, whatever. Otherwise you learn how and why operating systems are designed the way they are, say using Unix as an example, and using C to implement experiments and so on. You learn how and why languages and compilers are designed the way they are. Good software design practices are drilled into your little newbie brain. (eg. the y2k 'bug' was completely preventable in most cases). You get into stuff like automata theory that can warp your head. You learn about formal verification of algorithms. You learn about static and dynamic efficiencies, sorting algorithms, data structures, numerical methods, and so on.
Basically, I think a lot of people didn't know what they were getting into, me included. But I'm glad I made it out! Just don't ask how long it took
Enrollment may be up, but graduation is down according to the article. If this is true, this poses an even more interesting question: Why are more students failing or switching majors?
Difficulty, pay, job quality (benefits), public image of techonology? I find my high technology job rewarding and enjoyable. Perhaps it is becuase of the quality of the graduates. But supposedly unemployment is very low.
Makes you wonder
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Yes. I agree with thanking Ronny. The high tech jobs that were created in the 1980s really helped boost the technology industry. Without that, I don't know what I would be doing today.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Are there any CS degrees that do more than just learn:
How about the University of Cambridge (UK):
Ok, perhaps this sounds like an advert. I do believe it's a good course, though (after all, I did it...) and the variety really does help people to understand how everything fits together.
This is an undergrad degree?
Yes, it's the undergraduate Computer Science course at Cambridge. It's generally taken by people who have just done A-levels and left school, i.e. most people are 18 when they start the course.
There is a reduced version of the course for people who have already done a first degree; the Diploma in Computer Science takes just one year. There's a similar one-year course for people already at Cambridge who have spent two years on another course (part of the Natural Sciences tripos, for example, or mathematics) and want to switch.
It was interesting to see in the article how the number of high-tech degrees has fallen since 1990. You can directly link that with the situation in schools that brought about the Colorado Shootings, and the treatment of geeks in society. In North American culture being athletically skilled is more important that being scientifically skilled. Most people especially middle and low class families (the men in them particularly), go to sports bars, games, sit at home watching ESPN with a "Bud" (I think "Bud" is popular b/c it's one syllable). Fathers are proudest when their sons make the football team. We see this behaviour reinforced through TV, Media, and within families and schools. It's cool the be the captain of the football team. And if you are you chances of getting the best looking girl(s) in school are the highest.(I sense a warped evolution, natural selection impact here). If you are a geek, nerd, whatever your intelligence is not paraded or reinforced. It's not cool and it's not a social focus. Further, geeks and nerds have been the center of ridicule in the media for a long time. Just look at the show Family Matters. The main character Steve Earkle is very smart but protrayed in a fasicious manner, always the brunt of jokes, always the problem, always the looser.
Hmm. I wonder why kids aren't flocking to the sciences.
However, this is not true of other cultures. Take a look at the Chinese (which I am) or East Indian cultures (both of which are not very cool in the US). Their cultures heavily emphasise academic achievement, especially in the sciences. Math, Physics, Computer Science, Medicine, are all fields that are held in high esteem in these societies and cultures. You have more status not less if you choose one of these fields, and less status not more if you are focused on sports. Actually focusing on sports is discouraged. They also encourage going all the way in school, not just high school or a bachelors.
Interesting on how this shows up in the numbers. 45% of all doctoral graduates are foreign. Hmm. Wonder why.
Cheers,
GeekBoy.
********************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
I couldn't find an adequate Russian equivalent for "nerd", "geek" etc. (little help from other Russians here?)
;)
"Botanik" ? At least that was the name of those strange looking creatures who sailed thru the first year of the Moscow State Physics with flying colors - they have learned all the material in school, when normal people very busy trying to get laid... They somehow dissolved out of the view by the third year...
Real geeks bench press twice their body weight
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
I thought all this spechialized math school were a complete waste of time. I chose to stay in English/Literature school myself - was enough to pass GRE?TOEFL crap 5 years later with zero problems, and I had a hell of a fun time in school, instead of drooling over some stupid math problems. It was easy to catch up in the university, and to pass all this "botaniks" from the math classes.
IMO early specialization is wrong. (For all you Americans - by "early" I mean when 14 years old guys take nothing but math/physics classes - graduate at 16 and go through university mandatory classes with very strict specialization. - 20 years old farts taking junky public policy and "save the fags" classes instead of physics and math for their profession is sure stupid)
Peace.
:)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
...are being made on this subject.
..but my understanding is that *most* people go to college and get their master's degree for a decent education...
...one that will prove to be advantageous in the work force..- --
...A view of the Universe functioning...
the preceding one being an example...
master degrees holders are people who couldn't (or wouldn't) get a job right out of college
maybe this is your warped view of why people go to get their master's degree in college..
even tho enrollment is down for CS fields, the many jobs that are available in CS are filling up == competition in the CS field == BS/MS degrees are useful for getting your foot in the door and/or getting the better job/pay...
-------------------------------------
I love to hear about people like you cousin! I hate it when someone goes into something like being a doctor only for money. Just think about all the doctors out there who would rather cut your arms off to save your life rather than fix the problem because your insurance sucks and you can't pay their fees.
It's always nice to meet someone who does their work because they love their work.
Yep, because I'd definitely want police, fire, EMS, teachers and civil servants that were only in it for the money. It is not such a simple issue.
I went to school in a county which (at least at the time) had some of the highest paid teachers. My education didn't seem any better.
I would argue that forced attendance in it's current form is more of a problem than teacher's salaries.
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
Everyone employed in a technical capacity without a technical degree please raise your hand. (/me raises hand.) Is it possible that these numbers are affected by the number of people that are able to get these jobs without degrees?
Edu. sig-line: Choose rhymes with lose. Chose rhymes with goes. Loose rhymes with goose.
Comparing? THEN use THAN.
I'm French and have worked for about 6 months in an US company doing research in computer science. In this laboratory and in the teams I knew in similar areas elsewhere in the US (Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University), there seems to be a minority of Americans. I saw all kinds of nationalities (French, Algerian, German, Israeli, Russian, Indian, British, Irish, Chinese...) but few Americans in the research staff (graduate students, guests and permanent staff).
I do not have explanations for this fact, except the fact that US companies are ready to pay a foreign student thousands of dollars a month (whereas European companies tend to underpay young workers just because they are young and looking for jobs), and thus are attracting people like me...
CS comes in a couple different flavors, depending on whether the university's CS department came out of math or EE.
oh, there's at least one more approach - for the lack of a better term, i'd call it programming not as math or electronics, but as communication.
starts off by asking the students - given that you want to express something, what's the best way of expressing it? for example, what's the best way of expressing a factorial? iteration? recursion? why? and what about a fibonacci? why is recursion bad for a fibonacci? so now you have two of those expressions - what's the best way of keeping them together? what if both of them have some common functionality? and so on and so forth.
this way advanced concepts are introduced right off the bat without worrying about quirks of low-level languages or mathematical correctness, and students will cover many data structures, abstraction issues, complexity, and in many cases will write a simple compiler or a symbolic reasoning system by the end of the second quarter of their freshman year.
this is certainly the way advocated in the wizard book (structure and interpretation of computer programs, by abelson & sussman), and methinks it works much better than the alternatives.
My other car is a cons.
one comment about what's been said about the futility of getting a ph.d.:
people who get ph.d. don't care about earning less money - matter of fact, when you count in all the raises, promotions, etc. they'd get during that time, they lose many hundred thousand. people get ph.d. for the knowledge, and to work on problems that have never been attempted before.
grad students don't want to be like gates or jobs or torvalds. they want to be ritchie and knuth and minsky. and there's a world of difference.
My other car is a cons.
The software market, as it is, can not sustain itself. Those dime-a-dozen certifications won't be worth the paper they're printed on, and that 'worthless' degree will be golden, after managers consider the value of robust design as contrasted with the hurried Y2K patchwork they pay millions for now. It may not be Y2K, but rather the new phone number system that will be required in the near future; but a major change is on the horizon.
I suspect that, shortly after Y2K, employers will realize that skilled/educated labor and self-taught labor are not the same. The demand for 'just anyone' will drop and software engineers and professional developers will be in higher demand than a self-taught hacker. Also, product knowledge will be replaced by concept knowledge - so all the Java hackers, MS-VC++ hackers, VB hackers and everyone who is dependent on a language, top heavy API or a version number, will be hurting.
I expect that a professional license will be as important for a job as it is for engineers, and maybe lawyers and doctors. Cheap less-skilled labor will always be available overseas, and in our industry that's as close as the next cubicle.
I believe that we will see software development houses structured and prestigious as architectural firms, where software systems will be designed, defined and documented in therms of interface, algorithm and data structure, and then the work will be farmed out to cheap labor - assembly line style. "Here's your data structures, algorithm and functionality document, Gunga Din - I want the program, in this new language, in three months. Oh, here's the BNF for the language. Have fun!"
Now, I don't know if this is good, bad or indifferent, but it will be a change. That highschool dropout making $60k/yr for web designs will awaken up to his eyeballs in a lifestyle he can't afford, and lots of skilled and brilliant - but un-pedigreed - developers will have to scramble to make ends meet. But, just like the clothing and electronics industries, the job of building the bulk of the product will get shipped to the Orient, Mexico and elsewhere, where people are still willing to work hard for relatively low pay.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I can't wait for the next semester when class sizes in my EE lectures will get down to the informal size, when it doesn't really feel like I'm going to school at all, but to a little club where my friends and I discuss the Universe. :)
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
I work for one of those big huge commercial shops and many of the people moving up are the super-ambitious types--got their CIS degrees and are completing MBAs in nightschool (courtesy of the company).
The real reason there is a shortage of technical people is that the preppie/jock crowd (the same one that's more responsible for those shootings than any computer game) are too lazy to suck it up and choose a difficult college major like CIS--so they opt for business instead. Or their parents steer them into law school.
The result is that we have a glut of professionals involved in "BS Generation" jobs like Law, Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, etc. while the real work (the work that in the end will define this as the Information Age) is starving for qualified workers and subsequently bloating our salaries.
People are scared of math and the stereotypes of computer geeks. But I'm loving the hell out of my career choice, and unlike lawyers or salespersons I don't have to lie to do my job.
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
That's a pretty sweeping statement. And no, I can't agree with it. I've worked at several companies around the bay area and some of the executives have had engineering (CS or otherwise) degrees and some haven't. Just because you have a engineering/tech degree doesn't seem to exclude you in anyway. It is your abilities and whether you can you be an executive that matters, not what label(s) you have on your sheepskin. MIS degrees, never having met one, I don't know about
At the companies I've worked at, most of the real work seems to get done by non-executives. Maybe it is different in your company. I do think that, in today's business environment, business people without technical knowledge who look on tech people as just assets seem destined to become failed business people.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
I could go on and on, but it seems to me that MenTaLguY has it right. We are turning out a bunch of C++,VBA,ACCESS,MS trained monkeys, not real programmers who understand computer architecture, programming, languages, and data structures.
This, of course, does not apply to all computer science schools. There still are a few schools that understand that CPU's, languages, and tools may change, but the underlying foundations won't. Unfortunately in many other schools, in order to created people trained with the "latest" tools, they are educating people who won't be able to produce when tools/os/languages change.
Because to me, a B.S. in M.I.S. doesn't mean diddly to me if you don't know the theoretical issues of concurrency and collision. A B.S. in Computer Science doesn't mean a bucket of spit if you don't understand recursion. And a B.S. in programming doesn't mean anything if you don't know what a regular expression is.
All too often today, it does.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
I'm a contractor working on my third ~year long assignment. Every place I've been, I've heard about projects that were being delayed because of Y2K. In 2001, there will be huge pent-up demand for developers, because so many man-months (mythical or otherwise) were sucked up by Y2K.
If you're fixing 20 yr old COBOL, chances are you aren't building Java Servlets.
Ka-Ching!
I came to the conclusion yesterday that commercial
software is for people who hate their job so
much you have to pay them to do it. Free
software is created by people who like to do
it. If people in college decide they want to
study what they like, and not what will make
them employable, which community will see a more
severe impact?
Yes, and they interviewed one (1) undergraduate.
A great article. I'm glad to have reputable news
sources like this on the web.
My only Computer training in school was in grade 7-8 on an Apple II/IIe. I quit high school at the end of grade 11, bummed around for awhile doing low-intellect jobs and travelling.
:)
I briefly (4 months) lived with an uncle who had an old tandy 1000 he wasn't using. He generously allowed me to use the computer; he would tell me where to find help and things to try, but wouldn't actually -do- anything to help (Q: What's this "fdisk" program? A: What does it do? The bastard, he was a SysAdmin!). I was primarily interested in games (Zork & Planetfall). I figured things out.
About 4 years after leaving school I got interested in computers again and started hanging around a GIS (computer mapping & databases) company. After 3 months of working for free (I was living at home again) they decided they'd better hire me.
In that 3 months I had free reign to play with (& destroy ) an outdated computer and learn the mapping software, and a great many other things (novell, BBSs, dos, win31, games, games, games). I worked their for 5 years, and always had the freedom to play with new software and pick my own roadmap.
Anyway, now I am a GIS Technician as well as a Novell & NT Systems Administrator, Computer Hard/Soft Technician, and a couple of smaller hats too. To get my current position I had to go through a full competition regime against graduates of various institutions and work experience.
I fully believe that if I had gone through the formal education route, I would not have as deep, or as varied, a skill set as I now possess.
I am not against schooling, and at some point I will go back to school. However it won't be to a get a job, it will be to learn things for the sake of learning, for which a universty or college is just the best place for it.
I am fully cognizant of the fact that I was extremely lucky. My boss did not take advantage of cheap sweat house labour. I always had the freedom to explore and take things apart and choose my own roadmap. I had a strong desire, almost cimpulsion, which continuously impelled me into new territory (games! I learned about ipx/spx, tcp/ip and BNC cabling from Doom). I possess a natural aptitude for computing work.
If you had asked me in high school what I was going to do with my life, computers weren't even on the map!
Anyway, my point is, maybe institutions are not the best place for learning about computers. They're too new. They're changing too quickly. Post Secondary schools are simply too bureaucratic to adapt. Maybe in a another decade or two when (if!) things slow down and stabilize. The best way to learn is to _do_ it, to hack.
-matt
I graduated High School in 1996 and the only thing we ever used computers for was typing class. Of course, many of us wanted to do more, but the school put more priority on home ec than the use of computers. They figured that all they have to do is buy lots of new computers and the problem is solved.
but what good is a tool without someone to show you how to use it?
Then at MTU they couldn't hire any good teachers in the CS department and a huge reason is who would accept a low paying University job where with the same credentials they could get a high paying job a major corp?
Also, to note, is the drop-out rate in the CS fields at major Universities. My old roomate at MTU was an awesome programmer and got excellent grades, but thought the profs and CS program stunk so bad he moved to EE.
-Z
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
And instead we're simply getting hired away before we graduate. We already had two articles on the subject here and here on slashdot. The CS department at my school was complaining about software houses stealing away all the kids after their second year in school, and myself left school to work. I came to the conclusion that I could learn faster by working and learning on my own than I could by taking courses. I think the American Electronics Assn.'s research only shows half of what's going on.
Last timne I checked the design was much more important than the actual code. You can teach a monkey to hack in code, but not many people can come up with a good design.
---
Aren't CS degrees for those dangerous weird kids who don't play sports, like the internet, and play those soul-destroying video games? Anybody who's read Katz the last couple of days might want to consider the connection between hazing the kids who are too smart to fit in, and students who don't want to go into more intellectual fields of study.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
My undergrad degree cost around $15K/year (RPI), not counting food and a place to live. My grad degree was at a state school (UW-Madison), and as a funded grad student, I had the pleasure of only paying in-state tuition, which was deducted from my fairly minimal stipend. I think I actually lost money each year in grad school.
On the bright side, I now get paid a god-awful amount of money due to what I learned in school. Plus, the six years' experience as a starving student taught me to be frugal. Not a bad trade-off, all in all.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
My alma mater (RPI), has done the smart thing, IMHO. It has created an IT department in parallel with its CS department. This separates the geeks who want to understand the theory (CS) from the people who don't care about the why and just want to get a job as a sys admin or low-level programmer.
Of course, that IT degree will be useless in 5 years, but if people want to be educated narrowly, you shouldn't deny them the opportunity to waste their money.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
This sounds really snobby, but I hope your 'And a whole lot more' covers even deeper stuff.
There's even more to CS, such as information theory and math, than assembly, data structures, algorithms, circuit design, etc. Those are all fairly concrete when compared to such concepts as:
Program correctness, being able to reason effectively about program's complexity, being able to prove that an algorithm or program is correct, that it terminates, and that it is efficient.
Information encoding, how much data and processing is required to convey information, and alongside with such issues as data compression, data encryption, data error recovery, and efficient data usage.
Computability theory, or can a problem be represented, can it be solved, can it be reasoned about, can it be abstracted into a class of problems, what order and complexity a problem or program is, etc.
This kind of information separates the technically skilled laborers from the creative engineers, in which information and data is the stuff you are working with, and the computers, the hardware, the OSes, and the network is all ancillary stuff. Not to say they aren't important, but that data theory and such is largely independent of the transport mechanisms and protocals that they exist on, and as such are important if we want to be able to switch to optical computing, analogue computing, asychronous computing, quantum computing, or even things such as neural networks and adaptive computing.
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
So it's a little of both, then, theory, abstraction, and utilization.
From the article, and many comments on this thread, it seems most think all a CS degree is coding, and while very useful, in of itself knowing languages and data structures and analysis of algorithms isn't enough, I think, especially since the computing and digital information age changes so fast and is 24/7.
Err a little on the side of caution, because I think learning code and stuff is easier to pick up than say information theory or predicate calculus, since you can practice coding and programming and debugging, but it's very difficult to 'figure out' how to generalize a problem, to figure out if it's NP complete or not, etc.
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
This is an undergrad degree?
Maybe I should go to Cambridge for my grad studies then =)
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You're absolutely right that the Caltech CS is uninspiring. It's the fastest growing major, and currently occupies the most undergrads, but there are only like 8 or 9 profs in any official CS related departments, mostly to do with distributed computing, parallel computation, 3d vision, advanced graphics, and an instructor who handles C/C++/Java, VHDL, microprocessor stuff, and operating stuff.
That being the case, it has forced those interested in CS at Caltech to borrow courses from Math(statistics, information theory, representations of data and information digitally, etc), EE(encryption/encoding/compression, error recovery, sampling theory, more information theory), CNS(vision, artificial intelligence, artificial life), APh(optics, optical computing, semiconductor physics, semiconductor devices, fabrication/synthesis), as well as the core CS stuff(predicate calculus, program correctness/reasoning, distributed computation, parallel computation, computer graphics, and the normal C/C++/Java OOP/OOD lab classes).
Luckily, they plan to add an ECE major next year, though I don't know that they plan to add any more CS profs... stuff like operating systems, compilers, I guess, but not having these courses, I wouldn't know I think.
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
It would seem that the general view and description of what constitutes High Tech, and the CS majors that are taught in preparation for a High Tech career seem to be no more than highly skilled laborers or technicians. It seems to involve coding, debugging, and some degree of problem solving.
Computer Science(note the term, Science) is much more than being able to do Verilog, C++, OOP, Un*x, or TCP/IP. At least here, at Caltech(Woohoo! I graduate this year, finally), there is much more Science and much less Computer, since all that Computer crap can be essentially learned by picking up a book at Amazon or your local bookstore. Once you've figured out the underlying principles, the major abstractions, then one language is as useful to learn as another, a set of grammars and production rules that is used to describe a computer and how it works.
Are there any CS degrees that do more than just learn:
C/C++/Java
Object oriented programming/design
Data structures
Algorithms
Operating systems
Compilers
Caltech is actually deficient in not offering a real operating systems course, or compilers, or a bunch of other things, but instead offer much more abstract and science/math things that are of much more use to a computer scientist, rather than to just a programmer.
For example, the nature of computation and computability:
How to represent problems and systems in a computer? Is it computable? Can it be solved? What order and complexity is it? How much 'data' is sufficient, and necessary?
Can you reason about a program or algorithm's correctness? Can you prove that it terminates, or that it is correct, or that it occurs in finite time? Can you prove that it doesn't fail, or break? Or that if it does, that it only does so in specified ways?
Or information theory: Data encoding and representations, and how it can be applied to data encryption, error recovery, data compression, and transformation into other representations without loss or in an efficient manner.
Or other things, such as grammers and production rules, Turing machines and how to describe the entire set of computable problems with a language and a grammer, and how to reason about the language and what kind of issues there are with non-deterministic programs or algorithms, or with distributed parallel multi-process algorithms and dealing with data integrety, locks, exclusion, sharing, write protection, non-deadlocking algorithms, efficient, fair, or priority based schedulers?
A lot of this stuff may be mentioned in passing when dealing with OSes, threads, OOP/OOD, languages, compilers, and such, but I would imagine that for a Computer Scientist, in which the stuff that you work in is data and information, math and theory is much more vital than the languages you know, the hardware you can work in, the network protocols you can code in, etc. While these are important, they are also fairly well documented and picked up in a book, right?
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
For those people who have played around with computers for many years for example, find cs degrees boring. I studied for 3 years, changing courses constantly. I have finally left university to work and decide what i want to study.
Some computer science study is useful, most can be learned on the job. CS people really need skills in other areas. Personally, I have just found a degree in Cognitive Science that looks as though it will be my perfect study regime.
Cognitive science embraces a number of diverse allied disciplines, including psychology, computer science, neuroscience (biology & physiology), linguistics and philosophy.
I'd rather learn these disciplines together, thus enhancing my skills, than spend 3 years not earning money and having to learn at a slowest common denomintor rate.
I have worked at colleges supporting course development, and thus havbe had a lot of conbtact with students, as well as been one myself, still. Many people do not know what they want to study. At least here in Australia, where you need to start choosing your career path at age 15.
Just my 2c.
i wish i could be plucked away, my school njit is supposedly the "most wired" according to yahoo, but the computers in the lab still dont work... and the engineers get the workstations to use, the CS kids get windows for workgroups, sparce amount of NT machines and a half working terminals... but anyway.... they havent helped me find a job and all the students who got jobs because of their parents or friends of parents owning stores have experience of some sort so they get the employment... not to mention i dont own a good suit.
Of course public schools don't adequately prepare students. They don't even adequately pay teachers!
I think the country (US) has its pay scales backwards.. We need to pay CEOs $30,000 and pay police, fire, EMS, teachers and civil servants $100k or more a year.
The decline in tech related degrees doen't necessarily point to a future staffing problem.
Why -- besides the obvious reasons of personal desire to learn -- work your way through college in a difficult course of study, when you are just as likely to succeed in this industry with a BA in "basket weaving". Go to college and follow one of the less quantifiable courses of study. Enjoy abstract thinking and creativity. In your free time, hack around with C or *nix on University resources, get a part-time tech job somewhere. When you graduate with a Music Degree, you will find yourself close to the same level as your IFSM/MIS peers, maybe with better grades to show for it (and get into a grad school).
I'll probably die in debt... isn't that the American way?
-----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
Evan
rooooar
Gee, around here the McDonalds all pay about 50% above minimum wage. Supply and demand, and all that. (It may still not be enough to live on, but thanks to the Republicans it isn't all taxed away.)
-- Alastair
Hell, a lot of the Y2K programmers are old COBOL hackers (hmm, is COBOL hacker an oxymoron?) who came out of retirement or middle management to make a killing on some of the contract rates that sort of thing is going for, and will be leaving the workforce when the job's done.
Then there are all the projects on hold until after Y2K.
Nah, if the general population doesn't lynch all programmers because of a Y2K disaster, we'll be set for a while after that.
-- Alastair
I've worked for two commercial software companies. I'm also working on my Master's degree in computer science part-time. I enjoy my grad classes. The work is stimulating and fun.
I've seen code crappy code written by people without degrees and people with PhDs. Having a degree does not make one a better coder, but it does increase your exposure to software and algorithm fundamentals. Yes, there are other students in my grad program that write crappy code. But the developers I've met that don't have degrees often fail to understand the Big Picture. They read "Learn C++ in 21 Days" and could fake it through an interview, but they usually aren't the team's star player.
cpeterso
If everybody really wants to know why there aren't CS graduates, it's because our "wonderful" universities have really upped the requirements for CS majors, obviously there are a lot of people that enroll but everyone changes to BCS even if they would make wonderful software engineers. Theoretical math is for smart people. I'm not smart, i can just program. and i make code go extremely fast. My job as a software engineer is to take an algorithm of a smart person (math guy) and make it go into my program, i just need to know enough math to do that. I don't personally need all of the theoretical math like "all unicorns are pink" and prove it, university requirements are way out of hand, someone needs to step in and say "hey we can be terrible at math, because i AM a good programmer"
I must apologise for being obtuse. I did complete my Ph.D in computational physics. I did it part time and and it added time to my program. I started a consulting company to fund my living during the process, and ditched that and the "assistantships" in favor of a real salary and benefits.
I worked 9am-5pm. I came home, made dinner for my wife and I, and then wrote my thesis from 7pm till usually 1-2am. Repeated this daily for about two years. Submitted the thesis, defended, passed, voila.
Inside of that time, I have seen my remuneration increase rapidly. But I was not hired for my prowess at modeling, though I have been blessed enough to specify more favorable parameters for my job (due in large part to some stuff I did that made a large customer happy, see my website for details).
My point had been that all such reports about impending shortages need to be taken with a large helping of skepticism. Assume the other person has an agenda and you will be safer. Yeah, it sounds like paranoia, but I cannot tell you how many times I have run into people thinking that they can have a career as a scientist (as I originally had planned on) when there really is no shortfall, but rather a glut of highly educated people.
I wish you luck with your choices. As long as you understand and accept that there are no jobs in physics waiting for you, you are in good shape. I make the very points to potential grad students that you eluded to, but I also caution them to be realistic, and that physics as a job upon graduation is only slightly less probable than winning the state lottery. As long as they have reasonable advisors, a realistic department policy (my department made taking outside classes almost impossible) towards external classes, and lots of industry connections, there shouldn't be too much of a problem in absorbing graduates. Just don't expect to do science.
You write people who get ph.d. don't care about earning less money
I disagree. I care a great deal about earning less money, I want to earn more. I have a Ph.D. I did want to work as a scientist, but I did not want to be poor, and I have a family to feed.
If you look at companies like Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inktomi, etc you will see groups of scientists who thought that they could make some money. Bunches of Ph.D types who figured that they could make a buck or two. Of course, I didn't mention my favorite example company and some of its founders.
Dr. Andy Grove is a physicist by training. As were Dr. Gordon Moore, and most of the original alumni of Intel. I don't think Andy is gonna trade his billions in for a little more knowledge about semiconductors and quantum wells.
Grad students want many things. Not all of them the same. Ph.D types want many things, not all of them the same. Recognition from ones peers is always nice, but it is difficult to translate that into feeding a hungry family on nearly slave wages.
If you ever have to make that choice, you will understand. I had to, and many others did as well. So we tell a cautionary tale to the next generation of hopefuls.
There is nothing so magical, so powerful, so incredible as knowing that you are the first person to see something... to know something... to pull back the shroud of uncertainty a little bit. To know that you are the first person there...
...but as I said, the pay sucks, and when you are combing your pockets and your car for change in order to buy next weeks groceries...
Been there, done that.... never ever again.
hehe... I remember my a Nobel laureate of some note saying something about the sad state of affairs in physics, and catching hell for it.
I remember going to a talk by Lederman on some of this stuff in 92, and he gave the establishment non-answer.
I had to chose between the postdoc path and the feed the family path. I fed the family.
Part of the reason that I posted my tome was that I felt a responsibility to have the next round of cannon fodder look upon any such reports with open eyes. Why are there fewer students here? Is it a population cycle, or an out of phase supply and demand thing? Whether it was NAS or NSF (I think you are right actually...), that this was quoted verbatim to impressionable undergrads annoys me.
Be skeptical... hopefully the pragmatism of the next generation.
In the mid 80s, back in college, a document called the "House" report was put out by the NSF detailing the "imminent shortage of scientists and engineers." Of course, since the NSF (the National Science Foundation) put this report out, it had to be correct... right?
Well... no. It was basically a fabrication at best, and perpetuated what is generally called "The Myth" (capitalized as such) by members of the YSN (Young Scientists Network). The Myth was used to justify increased graduate student spending, e.g. more graduate students into Ph.D. programs. It was used to generate more research dollars, so that more work could be done.
In physics, we were pumping out 1400+ Ph.D's per year. Sounds like too few... right?
Well, it turns out that there were only about 150 tenure track jobs opening up each year, and about the same number of industrial jobs. This is what the House report failed to mention, that the reason the supply was dwindling was that demand for the Ph.D scientists was actually quite low. It was simple economics.
The problem at the time was that few of the undergraduate students at the time really knew where to find this information. Few knew that the report put out by the NSF was not worth the paper it was printed on. Few could verify the research in the report, as most didn't have ready access to the sources.
The end result was a glut of scientists and engineers in the market. Too many. Not enough jobs. There is a general belief these days that there were many apochraphal stories floating about how Ph.D.s were driving cabs and what not else. The entrenched establishment of research professors strongly disbelieved that there were problems getting jobs. They pointed to the back of Physics Today and shouted "look at all of those...". This reminded me of when Ronald Reagan called ketchup a vegatable. Most of those jobs in Physics Today were temporary employment. Very few were for tenure tracks. Few were for permanent positions.
You go to college for 14 years and it would be nice if there was some possibility that you could make more than $20k/year starting.
Today the situation is governed by simple economics. There are not that many people going for Ph.D's, not that many people going after post-docs, etc. Now, you need incentives to keep the students in the program, as there are real attractive alternatives to years of mind-expanding indenture.
Face it. In graduate school, as a hard science type, you are an indentured servant. Have no illusions about this. Your purpose in life is to further a professor's career and publication list. Your purpose is not to get a degree, that is an accident if it happens, and largely the professors want you to take your sweet old time about this. You see, you are cheap labor. You are not in a union (this is changing), you are not a professional, and they can pay you under $10k per year to do their work (60-80 hours/week).
You see, I believed the House report. I believed that there would be a shortage of scientists. I believed that the salaries would be high.
Welcome to reality.
I chose to finish my Ph.D part time. That was gruelling and added 2 years onto my time. However, I was paid reasonable wages by my employer. I worked 1/2 as hard at my employer, and got recognition, rewards, raises.
I learned in time. Many of my friends did not. The system chews you up and spits you out.
There is a lesson here, a nice juicy object lesson for anyone wanting to believe these reports of shortages. Assume that they are written by those with a vested interest in keeping a large supply of cheap talent available. Assume they are written by people who are unaware or wish you to be unaware of the real circumstances. And make sure you look at the department of labors job outlook guides.
Epilogue: Several physics departments that I am aware of have lost their supply of new graduate fodder. Moreover, as they have been declining enrollmentwise in the Ph.D. programs, the number of postdocs have decreased as well. Now there are vacancies. In short order, the other part of the law of supply and demand will kick in... they will be forced to raise wages to attract new blood.
And a final note: I note with more than a little bit of black humor that I have been asked to submit a writeup and bio as I appear to be one of the successful graduates of my Alma Mater. They are learning (and in large part due to a change in leadership, to one with a good clue) that they need to market themselves in order to attract new blood.
What with the Imperial Federal Government doing their best to use the tax system to select for idiots, and the state-run schools ignoring our best and brightest in order to kowtow to those same idiots (who, in turn, vote the politicians back into office), and now the Fourth Estate of Government (aka the press) doing everything it can to demonize us geeks, no, I'm not surprised they'd publish something like that, whether or not it's true. So what're we going to do about it?
If it IS true, we need to get into the schools and encourage kids... easier said than done, I know, but...
If not, we need to expose the news mediums for the liars that they are (they're known liars on a lot of other issues, so this one doesn't change the premise) and get some face time so we can tell folks where the real truth hangs out... right here.
One can hope your employers haven't been hiring Ph.D's to write code. (And that Ph.D's haven't been taking jobs as coders.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Okay, name me somebody at your company with a PhD who still codes worth a flip. Yes they exist and are good; I've just never seen one in any place I've worked.
Just one sample does not give an adequate basis for generalization. A lot of Ph.D.s have written alot of good code. Just for example, Linus, Knuth, Ricthie,Kerningham, etc., etc. The better universities require solid scholarship and research to get a Ph.D. and in alot of cases this requires things like implementing an compiler, software to do robotics work, vision research, etc. However if the Ph.D. was in something like algorithims in finite groups then I could see that person not being a good programmer.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Hmm... As a first-year potential CS major at Princeton, I'd have to disagree with those generalizations. Our first three required intro classes (which many non-CS folks, including almost all engineers, often take) are all Unix and C based (with a little bit of Java thrown in for fun). The intro class, taken by about 1/3 of the total student population, teaches almost exclusively theory and concepts: FSAs, trees, operating systems, boolean logic, abstract data types, etc. Our algorithms class actually allows you to do assignments in any language that you choose, as long as it can run on Solaris. To my knowledge, the only time you have to touch an Intel PC is for OpSys, and then you run your own bootloader and system fragments, definitely not Windows.
I had the exact same impression of computer science before I started here, and someone actually told me, "Whatever you learn will be outdated in 5 years." Now, though, I look back at the two main textbooks I've used over 2 semesters: Algorithms in C, and Kernighan and Ritchie's white book, and I realize that they're been around for about 10 and 20 years respectively. Hmm... Older than my German book, whaddaya know?
I'm going for a high-tech degree starting May 17. I had the choice of the easy route getting an associates of applied science w/ a ton of great info tech courses (programming/networking/basic theory) or going for the associates of science in compsci and transfering out after to get the BS.
;)
I'm going for the AS in CS, and God(!) there's alot of math/physics requirements, which is great. There's so many it seems almost like I'm going to be a math major rather than a compsci major. I think going this route will pay off in the end but if I got the associates applied science degree I could be working alot sooner. For that degree though there's only 1 or 2 _algebra_ classes required, no major stuff.
I think maybe that's the reason people are settling for the less high-tech degrees. The way things are now, going for a 2-year deal will get you alot of info tech skills without all of the academia. You'll be able to get a good paying job with a little hunting but won't really have alot of credentials.
Right now not having those credentials isn't hurting anybody but in the future it's going to, and I don't want to be left holding the bag with a non-transferable degree. I'm not all that great at math/physics, and I'm scared as hell at how hard going for this is going to be, but I'm going for it. I mean, how hard _can_ Calculus II be
"Unix is a proprietary operating system intended to compete against Microsoft Windows" --Patrick Reilly
Ever taken a basic macro economics class? Taxes, like many other financial matters, are based on a bell-shaped curve. Because of this, you can lower tax rates across the board and have an increase in revenue. This of course is dependent upon where you are on the curve, and it is my belief that we are far beyond the apex. The democrats don't understand this concept and are going to suck us dry until they finally figure it out.
And don't bash Ronald, he rocks. Remember living in a patriotic country? I do, and RR was to thank for that. Now, with Clinton in office and his stupid actions, this county has become an embarassment.
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
As an educator in the state of California, I have to say that Pete Wilson did more for education in California than any single politician has ever done for our state in its history. Ohh yeah, Pete Wilson is a Republican. Whoops.
Sure, our state scores suck. But we have more non-English speakers in our state than any other. So you can't base anything on those. How can you expect students to do well on tests written in a language they can't understand?
So, now we have voted a democrat in who doesn't give a rat's ass about immigration. This is going to get interesting...
Ohh well, that's my 2c
--SONET
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. --Benjamin Franklin
It's interesting that this was published. :
At the doctorate
level where 45 percent of high-tech degrees were granted to non-U.S.
citizens.
That is not a complete sentence; it is a fragment.
This is in an article about education, yet. It makes me glad I'm getting educated. My degree I mathematics, which is a subject that fascinates me.
Lowmag.net
Damn straight. Microeconomics teaches that reality is better than theory. Very interesting. For me, not eye-opening -- I already think in pragmatic terms. It does, however, wake people up.
Lowmag.net
"Figures lie and liars figure" - ???
Lowmag.net
It is hard to believe, especially since the 1999 Taulbee Survey shows how enrollement doubled between 1995 and 1997, staying put for 1998. Perhaps they are taking longer to graduate?
here at McGill, cs enrollment has apparently ballooned in the past couple years.
i barely have room to move my mouse in the linux labs. and i should add that there is too much CO2 being emitted in those rooms. i feel faint just thinking of it.
right on! that's exactly how i feel about it. i actually love learning all the theoretical stuff ... sorting algorithms ... ADT's ... all that is SO fun to learn.
... which is fine if you just want to make cash as quickly as possible. as a side note, a little cash wouldn't hurt either ... the past week i've only been eating jell-o pudding and toaster strudles, because that's all i have :) food is definately Good. *sigh*
many people do not understand the difference between a computer SCIENTIST and a programmer. looking beyond the pretention of being able to call oneself a "scientist", it is really a way of thinking. IMHO the most important thing i am learning is how to think like a scientist, and i must say it feels good. taking a 6 month programming (crash) career course at some college does *not* make you a scientist, just a programmer
as far as i'm concerned, everything before university sucked. but being a cs student is something i really enjoy.
hehee ... we still see some of those nexts lying inside closets and unknown corners of the McConnel building. they pretty much force the cs students to use linux boxes for everything, to the dismay of everyone but me. who needs some lame commercial IDE for programming when you have the power and glory of XEmacs ?!?!? (let the flames begin ...)
... however we never actually get to sit in front of those cute black boxes, we are just given the host names and told to rlogin in and compile.
....
a funny side note - the assembly course (273) is teaching the fundamentals of assembly programming in M68K
i actually used to be a big next nut, but i got over it when i bought an sgi... although i'm still convinced that a next turbo color is at least 10 years ahead of the latest PC =)
cheers
The article quotes one student as saying that he doesn't want a technical degree because he wants to broaden his horizons, discover himself, become an educated person, and so forth.
Well, that's fine, and those are admirable goals; but the simple reality is that a CS degree doesn't prevent you from achieving them. Most colleges are, in fact, quite adamant about making sure that technical/science people are well-rounded in the humanities; if anything, it's easier to be a one-dimensional humanities major who knows no science than it is to be a one-dimensional tech major who knows no humanities. But even if your particular school doesn't require tech majors to take a boatload of humanities classes, you still can if you want to -- and I speak here as someone who's double-majoring in both CS and history.
College isn't tech school, and a different major won't make it one. I suspect the real reason that the kid in the article elected to major in a squishy subject is that he was afraid CS classes would be too hard.
- Databases (including all sorts of theory, including some subsets of logic)
- Operating systems (which is to say, general principles underlying operating systems, not "How to configure NT")
- Computer languages (overview of different types of languages, including Prolog, Lisp, and others.)
- Assembly language
- Data structures
- Algorithms
- Circuit design
- And a whole lot more
And, oh, they teach all of this using Unix systems and require that CS students take twice as many non-CS classes as CS ones. And I don't think the U. of Wisconsin is particularly unusual in all these regards.If there are CS majors out there who are getting one-dimensional educations, they're doing it in spite of the system, not because of it.
I have interviewed people with CS degrees who didn't know what pipelining was, couldn't tell me the maximum number of "reads/compares" to find an element using binary search in a sorted 1000 element array, and couldn't explain how function calls and the stack pointer were related.
Theory... It's all rather useless knowledge. I have seen CS graduates that were on top of their class, excellent grades, could define and explain all of the above concepts, but couldn't program if their lives depended on it.
On the other hand, I am an Electrical Engr graduate, with little (if any) formal education in CS. I'd have a hard time defining the concepts you described above (not to say that I don't know them, just not familiar with the terminology), however I am a highly paid consultant, and I consider myself to be a lot more skilled than any of the CS majors that come through this place (a large Fortune 500-type company).
The truth of the matter is: being a good programmer is not about being able to pull memorized concept/theories out off your ass (which it seems is what you're requiring of your interviewees), it's about thinking like a programmer. That's right, being a programmer is a thought process. No amount of theory or language writing skills will replace just having the proper mindset for programming.
I looked around were I worked, and noticed that most of the programmers (some are truly gifted people) are NOT CS majors... Mostly Engineers (Elect, but some Mechanical)... A physics major... even a college dropout. I asked my boss why that was, and he basically told me that when he interviews he is not really a whole that interested in what languages you know (it's impotant, but not that much), but mostly if he thinks he can shape you into someone useful. Being able to work in a team is important also. He seems to think that Elec Engineer are the most apt to do this.
Since then, I have been able to confirm some of his theories. I have trained coops/interns in various OSes and languages (Unixes mostly, C and Perl for languages), and I find it A LOT easier to train a Elec. Engr with little former education in CS, than most of the CS majors. And guess what, I doubt that any of them could define "pipelining" or tell me the relationship btw the stack pointer and function calls.
my $.02 on this....
As an ex-CS major, I agree with a lot of this. I am still very much interested in CS, but not in taking any more classes on it in college. The classes teach a very specific way of solving problems, and allow for little or no flexibility or creative thinking. I knew I needed to change my major when I was penelized for writing my own library instead of using a frefab one which didn't work as well.
When I complained about this, I was told that because CS isn't taught in a lot of high schools, students are too dumb to think of their own ways of writing a given program. I think the problem is the assumption that a CS major has no ability to think creatively.
Anyway, I don't know about generalization as described. I wouldn't want to go back to CS any more if they starting teaching more languages or more platforms, unless I was allowed to use any language or platform I wanted to write any program. Otherwise, the same cookie cutter programs aren't going to be any more interesting in a different language.
I got into CS by taking an intro C class. I declared my CS major the next semester and loved it...for a while. Unfortunately, I found out what has been mentioned here already: it's hard to hire effective, informed teachers at the salaries a school offers.
:-)
At the University of Missouri, we are subjected to some of the worst instructing I have ever seen. I've had 3 good classes (2 C, 1 UNIX) and the rest have been mediocre, at best. My only good instructor was a grad student TA, who has since moved on to better things. As far as I'm concerned this CS department is a mess. They've gone so far as to eliminate non-PhD teachers (regardless of quality) to achieve some damn accredidation!
If it wasn't my last semester, I, too, would consider leaving school to go "pro."
"Oh, what a life a mess can be." --Jay Farrar, Son Volt (form. Uncle Tupelo)
jee wiz grampa, it's ok to make money programming?
I personally believe its ok to write software for money, as I'm sure are many (who are fairly young themselves). I also am a stong believer in the OSS movement, each has its own place in this world. But don't start pointing fingers and grouping those by their age group because you read a few "Free software or Die" remarks here and there on
Assumption is the true killer-
I've no formal education other than High School and I'm managing a small (3 person) developement group in Ottawa.
One of my developpers is finishing CS in a week, I hired him because he had some _real_ experience.
Education isn't the biggest factor, there are tons of educated joes out there, experience is hard to come by however.
A.
--
Adam Sherman
Freelance Geek
>Degrees such as CS, MIS, and engineering, will
.. aerospace maybe? His brother (name escapes me)went to Cal Tech and got an engineering degree, and their third brother went some where else in California. All three became engineers for Hughes Aerospace in Los Angeles. I can't off the top of my head think of any of the accomplishments of my Uncle's brothers, but my uncle pete was cheifly responsible for the radar on the weapons systems of the Stealth Bomber (please anti-war people leave me alone i'm just leading up to a bigger point). The three brothers worked, and worked HARD, for years and years as engineers. Management realized that they were VERY very smart, and very good people, uh people, and the got promoted. One of the brothers, who recently died, was President of Hughes. Pete and his remaining brother are vice presidents.
>never lead to an executive postion.
Hmm let me check my empirical-fact-o-meter. BZZT Judges say you're wrong.
My Uncle Peter and his brothers (croation immigrants if I may add) all went to college to become engineers.
Pete (my uncle) went to Stanford and got a degree in some kind of engineering
Moral of the story? The talented, the visionaries, the creative, the intelligent, the leaders are the ones who become executives. Unfortunately, the fact is that most programmers today (PLEASE do not flame me for this because the truth sometimes hurts, and yes I am a programmer) are not (as) creative, (as) visionary, or even (imagine this) as intelligent as the true intelligentsia (sp). There are thousands of programmers in this country who simply slave away doing what they're told, writing programs for commercial SW houses. There are of course talented creative programmers out there, and plenty of them. Perhaps many of them will be officers in their company one day just as my uncle pete was. But for the most part, the army of programmers in this country won't be executives in this lifetime.
So I guess I was kind of arguing for- and against-you by the end. I just wished to point out that your statement is not true in all cases.
Respectfully,
James
>psychology - practice in speculation ;). There are actualy quite a few disciplines of psychology, and I planned to focus on biopsychology which is quite concrete and ahhh .. howt o put it "chemical". anyway I guess i get that desire from my dad, an M.D. :)
.. like .. the math major for people who are going to teach high school (and admittedly college for some). We don't have an Analytical Math degree (or whatever) like some schools where you just take hard core math (which i would love mmmmmm :)
admittedly there are some flaky psychologists and some pretty stupid ones at that
>math - now there is something academic (how far
>do you actually go to get a minor, btw)
Cal I, II, III, and IV, plus two more 300 level math classes. I will probably take more than that. One reason I am not getting a math MAJOR here is because the math major here involves SEVERAL "education" courses in the school of education
James
>I think we can congratulate 12 years of conservativism (1980-1992) for this little nugget. Yes that is overly simplistic, but it's a serious contributor.
:) :).
And I think you're wrong
Seriously though, just because one thing follows another does not imply causation. We certainly did have a Republican President between 1980 and 1992, but as you will remeber we had a DEMOCRAT RULED HOUSE. Which according to my own argument means nothing. And I agree (with myself?
And say you're correct about your high school having shrinking budgets (as you most probably are!):
>My high school, suffering from shrinking
>budgets, eventually cut it's higher level
>classes (just after I left). The tax-cut fever
>finally swept even recession-proof Long Island
>(at least undil the cold war ended - oops) and
>frivolous programs like AP Math were gone!
Well I'm sure they stopped buying your football team their steak dinners and cut back the amount of equipment they bought for them and made them provide their own transportation to games, right?
See where I'm headed?
And if I may, I would like to point out a final fallacy in your argument: Even though your school DID face budget cuts, it was not the conservative president who decided the budget. Tax cuts may or may not have been responsible in small or large part, but it sounds to me like you have some jerk ass moron school district administrators deciding that AP Math is not important.
Or was it ole Ronnie Regan that decided that?
touche'
James
My take on this situation:
:) and Administrative Management. I am also pursuing a minor in Math and psychology (or psychopharmacology haven't decided yet).
:)
There are thousands of geeks out there like me. 19 years old, freshman in college. Already know more than most CS degree graduates do at graduation. What's the point in taking four years of stuff you already know?
Instead, I am getting a double major in Banking & Finance (finance is an amazing subject believe it or not, and it has lots of yummy math in volved
With the resume' i created for myself in High School in the computer field, I don't need a CS degree. With a Banking and Finance degree I can get a job in a financial institution. With a management degree I can perhaps run the IT department with HALF A CLUE UNLIKE MOST FREAKING MORON IT MANAGERS OUT THERE IN LARGE CORPORATIONS (oops sorry spontaneous rant against moron IT managers with no real computer experience). With a minor in math there will be no doubt as to my possesion of an analytical mind, and with a minor in psychology I will make myself, purely for my own personal satisfaction, a very well rounded person.
I imagine I am not the only computer geek in a situation like this; that is, one where I already KNOW computer science and want to learn something new (and before you blast me about me not knowing all the theoretical stuff you learn in college, I've read every college text book I could get my hands on that the university in my hometown used in the CS department so I *do* know the not-quite-as-practical-as-wed-wish things like big o and obscure sort techniques).
I look forward to being able to pursue a career in both business and technology, and hopefully with my skill set and creativity I will be able to combine the two beautifully
Respectfully
James
Hey, I'm all for it. I've got my degree(s), got them almost 10 years ago in fact. I worked hard for them, and I think I learned something. If a certification shows up tomorrow, I'd take it. That is, provided my company will pay for it. Those things often cost big bucks! Proving a point is one thing, but I don't have money to burn (I guess I should go do some contracting :))
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
The shame of it is, this implies that making money is all that it's about. If that's your sole motivation, well then I wish you well. I'd rather i didn't have to compete with you for a job, but that's just par for the course.
Think about it for a second - you quit school, and get a job in a field where anybody can get a job. What exactly does that prove? Does that tell me anything about the quality of your work? Nope. The bar is set incredibly low right now, so of course most people aren't going to exert any extra effort going over it. I spend a good part of my week turning down recruiters who don't even know (or care) what I can do - they see buzzwords and they smell blood. The sad part is it doesn't even matter to them. They're not searching on buzzwords so that they can interview me later, they're searching on buzzwords because that's all they need.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
College degrees are a crock of shit. Have you ever been to an ad infested college event? How many credit card ads did you have to pull out of your newly purchased over-priced text books? Have you ever counted how much money tuition costs you and multiplied that by the number of students in your class and then by the number of classes you took? Have you ever counted how many teachers that you've had that actually taught instead of just going over the course material? To me it just seemed like a commerical venture aimed at making people feel better about themselves because they had degrees. To me, a degree is just a status symbol.
I dropped out. As with every other purchase I make, I analyzed the product and how much money it costs. The conclusion; The education I was getting wasn't worth the money.
You go to school to learn, correct? If you learn better from books than you do from clueless teachers, wouldn't you be a fool to go to school? I didn't care that I wasn't getting a degree. I knew that nobody else would care either, at least nobody else that had a smidgen of intelligence. A degree is piece of paper, not a measure of your education or intelligence. It's more of a measure of how well you are at institutionalized learning and taking tests.
Don't get me wrong. Some universities can teach you a lot more than you could teach yourself by opening you to different view points, new thought processes, etc. But it's not really the university that helps you learn more than you could on your own; it's peer review, and you can get that anywhere.
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
Even worse is the idea of a "general liberal arts education." History, philosophy, languages, et c. are all better learned from an informal private study of books and conversation with other interested people. You get two little bonuses in university: having your professor's ideas crammed down your throat, and being required to do endless amounts of worthless busy work to demonstrate that you swallowed it.
My (technical subject, in class) university experience consisted of incomprehensible lectures, poorly chosen reading materials, and tests that had no relation to one's ability to do real-world work (prime example, calculus: solving many trivial problems in a restricted period of time, rather than eventually solving non-trivial problems).
Worst of all is the cookie-cutter approach to education. This subject will take you X months to learn, then you will either pass it and regardless of how much of it you forget the credit will not be taken away, or you will fail it and no matter how close you were to passing you have to take the whole thing over again. How ridiculous!
I've never met an engineer who could pass a second-year calculus exam if it was dropped in front of him one random afternoon.
Universities are an archaic institution from the days when illiteracy was the norm, books were hideously expensive, and travel was something you did a few times in your life, if you were lucky. Knowledge was rare and people had to gathered around the educated few (professors) if they wanted to learn. Things have changed. Information can be easily and cheaply transported. Travel is inexpensive and common. The factors that made universities necessary are gone.
Enrollment may be up, but graduation is down according to the article. If this is true, this poses an even more interesting question:
Why are more students failing or switching majors?
Just a thought about your question.
My nephew is going into a CS program in the Fall.
They are going to beat him about the head
and ears with math.
Maybe some kids go in thinking its about
learning Word and Paint. Maybe some
old style command line stuff.
Just a thought.
1. As many have already mentioned, you don't need a college degree if you already have the skills, and for missing skills, O'Reilly has excellent books. Especially, you don't need a MS or a PhD to get a better job. However, many foreign students want a US graduate degree because they want to become permanent residents.
2. High schools are preparing students badly for technical careers. From the response to Katz's articles, it appears the schools are also treating potential computer students badly.
2a. Most beginning college students cannot think well enough and/or do not want to work hard enough to become CS students. With a poor background, it takes tremendous effort and not many students can hack it.
3. From other comments, it appear that a lot of schools are substitute Microsoft certifiers, instead of teaching general principles. Who wants a dumbed-down education like that?
I'd just like to point out something that one of my (CS) professor's mentioned. "Computer Science != Computer Tech." CS is the study of programming and engineering, where effecient algorithms and all of the science and math behind them makes a difference.
A student interested in computers does not necessarily make the best CS candidate. For instance, an MIS (or IT) degree is much less interested in the abstract math and science behind computers, and more interested in the actual applications of the technology.
The article was a bit vague on exactly which field was declining, but it doesn't surprise me, considering tech jobs are quickly becoming something that cheap foreign labor can do. If you really want to ensure your career future, don't be content knowing how to code, go on to get an MS and learn more about the design process instead of throwing yourself into the herd while you are still wet behind the ears just after getting your BS.
Of course all of that should be taken w/ a grain of salt, since I am not even completely sure what I would do with a CS degree. But it does at least show that you had the willingness to complete your schooling instead of being tempted away by jobs that may prevent you from learning what you really need to know.
It's hard to justify tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education only to find out when you graduate that there are no jobs in your major. Sure, there are lots of jobs right now for some types of programmers. But what if you're over 35? What if you're looking for work in some other technical specialty like aerospace engineering, chemistry, physics, biotech, materials science, etc? Lots of people with technical/scientific degrees are having trouble finding jobs. Companies are very picky about your major and experience. Sounds like fewer of the brightest students are willing to take the crapshoot and I don't blame them.
So why are many of the graduate students from other countries? That's easy. Most U.S. born students balk at grad student poverty wages, but for many people around the world, the wages aren't that bad and you have a shot at getting a green card, too.
Actually my college (DeVry institute if technology) teaches CIS (which is a CS degree) & we only take lower level math. We have endless hours of COBOL (7 courses in 9 semesters), but only 6 math classes (including accounting).
They do have this crazy idea where they want people to stay for 3 semesters & then they don't care about them though, so until 3rd semester it's not that hard. It's from there on out that things get hard, but not because of math.
Just for example initial CIS enrollment is ~800. By end of 3rd semester it is ~300. By 9th semester (which is where I am) it is ~40.
It's really no wonder people here switch from CIS to BIS (Business Information Systems, a business degree), instead of continuing CIS.
What classes are required varies & I've mentioned what my college requires as far as courses go elsewhere under this topic. But what I wanted to say was at least half the people starting here (which is not a 'normal' college, but an institute of technology) need to learn such simple things as: how to use word (they run win95 as client for certain reasons), how to open programs, how to create shortcuts, how to surf the web, how to use paint, etc, etc... the majority (70+%) are really computer dumb (why they choose to go to a tech school is beyond me). In fact I once had to tell a student how to turn the computer on.
I hope that gives you a good idea of what CS majors come here expecting.
Thats true, but even more so here for people yet to graduate. I've seen more than one co-op job (part time 30 hr/week in your major jobs) that lists 20k a year for the same thing they pay a graduate 60k for. But they don't want to pay 60k for a graduate, so they take 2 co-op people for 40k to do more work than that one would have (60 hrs as opposed to 40).
Even if you get out & find a job that pays 60k a year thats it for you around here. Highest starting salary recorded by my college for the last 5 years (including current salaries for those that have been out for 5 years) is 72k a year. At least within this state thats the best they have seen, now out of state they have one making 160k a year in california.
I'm thinking california might make a much better place to go right about now...
My college teaches COBOL specifically because of the y2k issue. 6 classes of it in 9 semesters to. Of course almost all of us hate it (& would rather be learning C/C++/Java/etc), but it's required so we do it anyways...
All those realitively young programmers are going to have a problem if all COBOL programmers are thought of as being old.
In my case I'm learning other languages on my own (though I think to many as I had a programming test the other day that I bombed because I accidentally coded a loop from another language), so I won't fall in the same hole as my peers.
Women have been leaving CS at a faster rate than men. According to the ACM, the percentage of CS bachelor's degrees going to women dropped from 37.1% in 1984 to 28.4% in 1995. For more information, see The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline by Tracy Camp.
A cursory review of the latest NSF data suggests that the percentage of bachelor's degrees in engineering going to women has been holding relatively steady. (According to the NSF, CS is a mathematical science, not an engineering field.)
I teach computer science at Mills College, the first women's college to offer a computer science major. I've also written far too much on this subject.
I wonder if the dearth of CS graduates may have something to do with the anti-geek mentality that pervades many high schools.
If the public views kids into math and computers as little more than future Unabomers and school mascare planners then we really shouldn't be surprised if some of the best and brightest are choosing more... respectable careers.
Erasmus, noted psychopath.
I wonder if you americans can give me some approximate estimates on comp sci tuitions in the states?
:). Between coop work terms and livin at home I'll be graduating in black financialy.
In Canada I pay about $3200CDN (~$2200US) a year at my local provincial institution. Ofcourse we're taxed a hell of a lot more
Yeah, I got my B.A. in drama (emphasis on electrics) but all my employment since college has been computer related. The people I've worked with who did get their degrees in computer science were all really sharp, but a lot of the work doesn't really require all the skills they picked up in school. It's not all that common that you have to write a compiler or create a new programming language, after all.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
...I didn't want to go to an 8:00 a.m. math final. Ultimately, I got a lot of exposure to the artistic side of the campus and continued to mess around with computers in my spare time. Acting classes gave me good interview skills, and when it came time to integrate into the workforce I found myself better prepared to talk to nontechnical people (e.g. The Boss) about what they wanted my code actually to do. I don't think that a decline in CS grads is anything to worry about.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
We're interviewing a lot of people for programming positions. I see loads of resumes, and when I look at the "Objective" section or talk to the candidates, I've lost track of how many of them say they're interested in software design. You want to design? Then go back to school, get your Ph.D. and design intricate problems and useless programming languages for the undergrads. In the world of commercial software, design is important but you don't get paid unless you ship something. I'm as lazy as the next guy, and therefore interested in coding once rather than over and over, but when your development cycle is measured in single-digits of weeks you've got to come up with a design and then implement it. I have worked with Ph.D.s before, and they're brilliant. They know loads of stuff that I haven't studied. They come up with truly elegant solutions to sticky problems...9 months after you shipped.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
Hey
I am Irish, educated to Honors Degree Level in Compuational Linguistics in Ireland, with a years
placement in Paris. I have high technical appitude
etc and love innovative software. I graduate in
about a month and I can't get a flipping Job.
Its has gotten to the silly stage. No one loves me )C:
Regards Redemption
Er,
Midwest US, er that would involve me packing everything up and moving 5000 miles down the street. I friend of mine got a Job with a firm in
Chicago, but I don't want to leave Europe just yet.
Then again I suppose a couple of years in the states could be fun
Regards Redemption
"...the computer industry is desperate for well-trained graduates..."
umm, no. the computer industry is desperate to find people that they can underpay (recent graduates) to do the same job as other people that might want a realistic amount of money for the job.
let's face it, most B.S. degrees will dance a jig when offered 40k straight out of school. what they dont know is that they are being seriously low-balled.
a recruiter (who was quite impressed with my skill set) once brought negotiation prices down by $30k per year when he found out that half of my experience was done while going to school. now, we all know that this company is still going to charge the client the same amount for my services, but its just another way to increase their cut of MY paycheck.
and people wonder why attendance might be down. heh! spend those four years as an apprentice and make twice the money of any grads!!!
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
I've been seeing a serious lack of technical degrees here at my univeristy (Texas A&M), one that was founded on technical degrees. Now we have so many people in liberal arts and business, from either going straight into it or failing out of engineering, that the college of business is jacking up the requirements for admission for LOWER-LEVEL CLASSES to absurd levels. We have so few engineers in my major that all my classes are half full and a good number of students lack the minimum requirements. I definitely see a lack of technical degree seekers. For me personally, I love it. I'm getting a highly specialized degree that can pretty much only come from college (how many self-taught, accredited, mechanical engineers do YOU know?), and there's a better chance of me getting paid $50K a year to do something I love (solving problems and creating things).
On the flipside, I can see this as being bad in the long run. We'll have fewer and fewer techies that make this world run, and those that do make it out will be worse and worse. Seriously, high schools need to start pushing technical electives on students. Lord knows we have enough PHB with business degrees that don't know the first thing about computers or a servo.
Jack
Demona's Law - "User data expands to exceed available bandwidth." ("User data" being pr0n, mp3's, vob's,
A lot of times, they are heroes going above and beyond the call of duty (I.E. off duty) to do something extrordanairy [sic]. A lot of ex-military go into policing just because they like to see "action".
Not all medical doctors have six figure salaries. Not all are working *just* for a paycheck. My cousin went to eight years of school, and god knows how many years of interning to get a $40k paycheck at a public hospital. He likes what he does and considers pay a bonus.
RB
I am currently co-oping to learn more. I also get college credit (1hr) for each semester I work. Not bad considering I am a full time employee getting paid as such. I am learning tons of stuff here that I couldn't have learned at college. But, on the other hand, I won't learn a lot of stuff here that is taught at the college. I consider the co-op program the best of both worlds. You learn a little at college, go out to "the real world" and come back to college knowing exactly what you need to help you out when you return to "the real world". If your school has such a program, I highly suggest it.
RB
My high school, suffering from shrinking budgets, eventually cut it's higher level classes (just after I left). The tax-cut fever finally swept even recession-proof Long Island (at least undil the cold war ended - oops) and frivolous programs like AP Math were gone!
And let me guess, the Football team was still there? I think your school district might not have it's priorities straight.
It's a shame really since Dwight Eisenhower had advocated education to a large degree. Republicans didn't always stand for the lowest common denominator.
What does the "Lowest Common Denominator" mean? Are you talking about people like Al Gore who claim to have created the Internet? Yeah, a few boneheads in both political parties try to think they know about technology but they just make fools of themselves. Republicans locally have been trying to get more for education for the past 20 years but the democrats in the statehouse spend the money for welfare. Methinks if we spent it on education, we wouldn't need welfare so much.
RB
The report, issued by the American Electronics Association, found that high-tech degrees -- including engineering, math, physics and computer science -- declined 5 percent between 1990 and 1996
/., but I can't find it)
A recent Mindcraft survey, commissioned by MS, concluded that NT runs faster than Linux. A survery commissioned by Oracle concluded that Oracle runs faster on Linux than NT. (There was a posting a week or so back on
Now, the AEA, which represents companies that want to convince politicians to loosen imigration restrictions to keep their costs low. I think it's obvious that this is simply another study that was purchased to serve somebody's interests.
My opinions are my own, and not those my anybody else, including my employer
No Shit!!
I did exactly the same thing. Surprisingly, my latin class had some major babes that year as well. Fluked the pure mathematics exam instead to get the letters after my name.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Something which all of you /.ers have missed...
:-( Guessing by how skillfully the ASA chose thier data set leads me to believe that they knew the conclusion they wanted before they looked at the data...
"There are three types of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics... " --Mark Twain
Assuming the ASA's report is correct, it is a non-issue. Anyone who was in school during 1990-1996 could tell you that the drop in enrollment was systemic and had nothing to do with high-tech careers.
Check the data yourselves... Enrollment in these classes (especially the class of '96) was at a historical low. The reason? Not as many people. In 1974, the number of people born was less than any time before World War 2. No wonder there wasn't as many students in the high tech fields, there weren't as many STUDENTS.
What does this mean? It means that it's a mere population blip, and that's all. Will there be a shortage? Probably not.
--Girmann
Nietzsche is dead. --God
I just finished at Pitt which is a state school here in Pennsylvania and while I'm not sure about the yearly cost(I just went part-time) the per credit rate is about $200US. So figuring that Full time is about 32 credits per year I guess full time tuition was about $6400. That's just for the classes, room and board and especially books are extra. Books are the real rip-off at US colleges, text books cost around $75 dollars each and you can only buy them from the school itself. And if you want to sell them back at the end of the semester they'll give you about 10 buck for each!
This is just at a state school, I'm sure that Private schools are way more, like $100,000 for a four year degree. You pretty much have to have rich parents or be in debt until you're forty to go to a private college.
These reports showing declines in tech grads among Americans are bullshit. There was a similar article in High Tech Careers Mag, which also had a report like this. But the mag refuted the statistics. Dont be fooled, industry just wants to be able to bring in more foreign workers who will work for less than the average American. It's all a ploy to save bucks by American corporations.
a university education is what you make of it,
much like anything else. That CS degree is
good enough to get you a first job. After
the first job, you're going to have to rely
on your skills as most employers will focus
on where you've worked rather than where you've
went to school.
A pure CS education is suppose to teach you
the fundamental ideas that allows you to adapt
and learn quickly. I've found that the self-taught programmer often lack certain fundamentals that causes problems in a team
environment. When there's a deadline involved,
there's often no time to teach someone how a
hash table works. Of course if someone decided
to forget everything they learned in college
getting that CS degree, then they're no better
off.
The "Internet" and "Web" trend has also bred
the "hack" mentality into todays projects where
everyone is trying to throw something together
as soon as possible and neglect "Software Engineering". It also teaches the new graduates
to jump on the bandwagons for the newest buzzwords (Java, MCSE, etc).
Why does everyone here thinks that a CS degree
automatically dooms you to be a code monkey? There are OTHER jobs in the technical field
besides spewing out code. I keep the programmers
working by providing the stable environment for
them to work. There are also Application Engineers that are basically technical sales
positions. It's really sad to see that even in this technical discussion environment, many still holds this type of myopic view. (appreciate your system and network admins, your work life will tend to improve dramatically that way).
-- I have enough stupid gadgets to know that I can do without -- http://www.modestneeds.org
the old days of I/T department managed by drones
with management degrees are numbered. This was
possible in the old days where when something
broke, you call somebody to fix what's broke
under a service contract. Nowadays, the systems
are getting too complex and with all the PCs,
you'd better be ready roll up your sleeves and
do some real work. Sys and network admin salaries
are rising at an unbelievable rate these days and
that won't change for quite a while.
anyways, if you think all those silly arcane sort
routines/data structure/shortest path algorithms
don't matter, think again. That's the difference
between someone who's going to be stuck as a
grunt code monkey and one that'll name their price
in the job market.
-- I have enough stupid gadgets to know that I can do without -- http://www.modestneeds.org
It isn't that a degree is useless or unneeded. It's just economics. Of course a degree will give you better exposure to the theoretical side, and of course you get a degree at the expense of some years of experience.
The real issue presently is that degrees are a cost of entry, a ticket to ride. And under current market conditions, supply is so thin, you don't necessarily need that ticket. Many programmers are getting good jobs without the degree, so why pay the high cost of entry? Why mortgage your future with student loans?
Personally, I have an advanced degree, but that's me. Frankly tech degrees are some of the few substantive degrees left that haven't been hollowed out and carved down to the lowest common denominator. But even in good degrees, in college one of the central things you learn is how to teach yourself. If you've figured that out, (and I suspect everyone here has)then it is simply a matter of what knowledge you have. The degree is some evidence of your knowledge level, nothing more.
Anyway, these statistics should surprise noone. If they hire basketball players out of college a few years early, why not programmers? And if you teach yourself better than the monkey with the professor job, don't mortgage your future to buy him a Beamer if you don't have to.
However, if the market ever turns around, that "sheepskin" is sure a nice thing to have.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes "Who Keeps the Keepers Themselves" ~ Juvenal
The FUD is trying to make government believe there's a shortage of IT skilled Labor. What employers REALLY want is cheapper coders, more movited and skilled.
Welcome to Ronald Reagan's American Third World!
I received my bachelors in computer science from Berkeley last year, and am currently pursuing a graduate degree in computer science at MIT.
My impression at both schools is that computer science is *huge* and growing. I know that at Berkeley, acceptance is done by a purely quantative process first where all students are rated by grades and the top fraction admitted, with the rest considered manually (i.e., essay reading, experience, extracurricular experiences...)... Well, of the top 1200 students on the quantative scale university-wide last year, a full 600 applied for acceptance into the computer science and electrical engineering program. That's pretty scary.
Here at MIT, although I haven't had a lot of experience with the undergraduate program, hearsay and some stat checking seems to confirm that a very, very significant fraction of students here are studying computer science.
I don't understand it at all. I honestly don't; I just have a hard time believing that the number of undergraduate computer science degrees awarded is decreasing. To be fair, the text of the article mentions "technical" degrees, and as someone mentioned, this might apply to a number of other engineering degrees instead of computer science.
OK, first a little background. I graduated from college two years ago with a chemistry degree. Had a great time, learned a lot, but didn't end up going into the chemistry world. While I was working my way through school, my primary job was being a support monkey on the campus help desk. Since we had 30,000 users and a ton of equipment to play with, I learned even more here than I did in my classes. So, when graduation time came around, I decided to go into the computer industry instead. For one, I was better with computers than chemistry, and the money was also much better (entry-level lab techs make about $25K per year).
:)
Now I'm in the computer field, and I see exactly what's happening. I work for a large systems integrator; started out in support and worked into a network admin position. My company doesn't hire the sharpest crayons in the box for entry-level jobs. Most of the people who I work with who did go to college got psych degrees or something similarly non-technical. The company pushes these people through "MCSE-school" and ships them out to the real world. One of the support people I used to know said "I don't really know what I'm doing, but I heard computers are the way to go." Most of these people are definite PHB material, but at least they're getting *some* exposure to technical stuff before becoming our managers.
So, the high-tech people are out there, they just don't have CS degrees. Or a clue in some cases.
Thay's what I do! I work for a PhD. He does the hard core algorithms and math. I write the apps, cool demos, and general non-math stuff. It works out great. I'm a freshman CS major. This isn't at school either, AT&T Research.
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
I'm at Berkeley. I KNOW that we could double the number of CS major if we allowed them into the program. The CS program is trying damned hard to stay small. According to my professor (Brian Harvey) "We [CS dept] are here to make CS professors, not programmers." This sucks for those who can't major in their area of interest.
All this from what is probably the richest (budget) dept on campus. Hmmm...
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Yeah. The money thing. I could make 60k and I'm just a [college] freshman. Not bad for 19. I guess I'll get my CS degree anyway. I guess.
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
When I was shopping for schools I took a look at Caltech and wasn't impressed. Actually I was suprised. I visited the campus during open-house my junior year (HS). Unfortunately the visit didn't result in any useful information about CS at Caltech! During open house the CS table was vacant. I found a couple of CS undergrads but had no luck digging up any professors. I was so amazed at the complete absence of CS that I came back in my senior year for another look. Same story. A couple of my classmates shared similar stories. The seeming unimportance of CS (esp. compared to other engineering) at Caltech kept me from applying. OTOH, Berkeley is working out fine.
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Man I live in the midwest, I will be getting my 2 year degree in a month and I've had three job offers so far. I guess worst case scenario move to the midwest; nope I'd rather be unemployed Blue
Not sure about CS, but in CE (computer engineering) at McGill it's mostly UNIX, though this is changing, unfortunately.
When I started at McGill, everbody in EE and CE was using the UNIX (SPARC) computer lab, and almost nobody used the PC labs. Now, the NT lab is almost always full, and the UNIX lab is almost always empty. The new guys don't even get UNIX accounts, and don't know how to navigate UNIX (making the OS course quite the culture shock, I would imagine).
When I took OS at McGill, the prof. was a huge MS hater. As you can expect, it was all UNIX. In fact, for the last assignment we had to modify the Linux scheduler and observe task-switching performance (there was much logistical fun in giving a class of 80 students root privileges so they could recompile and install a kernel...)
However, that prof has since left. In last semester's class, the assignments were all written by the T.A. I think most of them were in UNIX, except the last one, which (I believed) used NT fibers (the assignment had to do with designing a scheduler for a multiprocessor system, I think). The reason he used NT is that, for what he wanted to do with the students, it was easier to learn from the Microsoft documentation than from the Linux documentation.
Aside from the slow trend away from UNIX, I think there's a lesson there. There's a lot of things you can blame MS for, but I think their documentation system is MUCH easier to read than good ol' UNIX man pages.
--
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
One minor nit, the pickings aren't any better in law. In fact they're worse. I know, because I left law (as a lawyer) for greener pastures as a programmer. Jobs at law firms are extremely scarce. So, for every one lawyer who makes a decent living at a law firm, there are 10 (if not more) lawyers struggling to pay the rent.
Personally, I think that also explains the recent surge in spurious litigation. When a lawyer is trying just to pay the rent, he/she will take on the more marginal cases in hopes of gettingn lucky.
My advice to those of you thinking of going into law... don't.
Peace!
CS,MIS,engineering & EXECUTIVE positions
Why tech degrees are a bad idea...(for me at least)
Degrees such as CS, MIS, and engineering, will never lead to an executive postion. I mean that if you try to start a company, most likely you will fail. Sure there are certain execptions, but they got smart and hired executives to do the real work. But the reaility after 40, is if you have a tech degree, you will be uncompetitive. To business people, people with tech degrees, are just assets or in vulgar 'workers'. People with tech degrees should get use to the term workers. Now with lax high tech imgration laws, it is cheaper to hire foreign nationals.
MIS is a good degree...
In our business school(of which i am a student), there are too many people in MIS. There has been a 15% drop across all other business degrees in the last 5 years. MIS went up 50% (all statitics are posted in our business school). In Houston, the last 3 years we are now facing a shortage of accountants. The pay of acountants and other business degrees has been rising 5% each year. Plus other business degrees usually dont have a salary ceiling MIS has one as does tech degrees. Now its not unsual for graduates to have hiring bonuses of $2000 and up for regular business degrees.
Math rigor, I beg to disagree,
What is the use of defining real numbers set in a work environment or Turing theory for in any case. Unless you have actually gone through a business degree, you dont know what your talking about.
Sure the math is simpler than 4th integral of something. But our math is more useful not filled with useless theory i.e. predicate logic. If you dont believe...any finance or accounting person can solve this problem in 3min:
jan 1, Knife company has $5000 worth of steel, $2000 of wood in work in progress enough to make 1000 units in division b. Knife company has 3 divisions, and the overhead is $10000 for total month of jan.
division a has $60000 of sales
division b has $120000 of sales
division c has $321000 of sales
what is the current valuation (jan 1) of the transfer out of finish goods if work in progress if the transfer out was 50% steel and 30% wood(jan 15). Assume you are valuating for budgets.
Okay Ive seem to come across some people who don't know what an executive does. An executive tries to predict the future with leveraging the assets of a company. Its not about direction or what is right, its about money pure and simple. People like Dell and Gates have people executives to do the real work. So if your a programmer, you will never be an executive if your just trying to work your way up, youll just get paid more. No executive in thier right mind will let a programmer be in charge of a company's finances. But knowing the finances you will be able to make a executive descision. If you dont believe me, look at the history of cisco systems. The founders were pushed out of the company cause they had too much control. But then you say I will never go corprate just keep it private...Good luck, sucess will soon go away. To have enough capital, you need running capital, and venture capital requires incorparation. Not to pop your ballon but thats life, if you wanna be big...
if didnt recall, managers need info from accountants of how to manage people. The wages and CS ppl profitablity are determined by cost profit analysis.
printing costs...my friend...
printing manuals...failing classes
otherwise it would cost as much as any other
regular degree...
use cost controls!!!!1
CS majors should take (mico)enconmics...
because half the people here don't have a good backing in econmics to carry a halfway reasonable conversation, People in CS study CS, not economics (well at least in Univ Texas). All this is about supply and demand.
well in cs you really dont need any communication skills, its not like a programmer is going to talk to a client
drive ppl out of other degrees...
it will be cheaper for business to hire cs ppl...thats the goal...flood CS and MIS...please!!!
Your right, I should have used 'most' instead of 'all.' I was just looking at this from a control of companay in finances and not of manangement....
One thing quirky about a management degree...are you a manager when you graduate...
funny how some things go...and not make much sense
> I've seen code crappy code written by people without degrees and people with PhDs.
:)
There is one difference between the two, people without degrees usually don't realize they are writing crappy code. The people with PhDs know they are writing crappy code but they just don't give a damn
Somehow I don't quite see how having fewer humorless, bean-counting accountants is such a bad thing!
Major in Software Engineering?!? Which schools offer that as a separate degree from Computer Science? Where I went to school(Texas A&M) we had the choice between CS, Computer Engineering(hybrid of EE and CS), and MIS(business). We essentially had the choice of a very tough degree with tons of math, or a real cream-puff degree. I chose the tougher route, and I'm still not quite sure where learning 3 dimensional vector calculus does me any good. Discrete and combinatorial is another story though.
I'd just like to point out here that medical degrees are among the most expensive degrees out there. Also, the cost of malpractice insurance is truely breathtaking (e. g. 10 years ago, it cost an OB/Gyn $250K for malpractice insurance, more if she delivered babies) and managed care is limiting the amount that doctors can charge. Point is: Being a doctor isn't necessarily is lucrative as most people think.
I definatly agree here. I've recently moved away from my last job (VB/PowerBuilder programming) and am finding that many companies don't seem to care whether or not you have a degree. In fact, the only person who even asked me about it was just curious because he wanted to know if it would conflict with my work.
:p
Personally, I think it's great that many businesses are moving away from the management "Magic Piece of Paper" mentality. I just came from a company stuck in that mindset. I was doing the SAME work as my coworkers, but did not recieve ANY benifits (vacation, dental, ect) and didn't get paid HALF of what they where! All that they would tell me was "get that degree, THEN we'll take care of you." >:^p
As you can imagine, I was greatly pleased with this new, no paper needed attitude adopted by so many companies. They understand that EXPIERENCE and actual know-how is what is important.. not some certificate saying you wasted a LOT of money.. and not to mention time. Yes.... all those Art and History classes HAVE helped me do my job better!! (note the sarcasm.)
Ooops... to long-winded as usual..
WobblyHeadedBob
"Now you see that Evil will always triumph, because Good is Dumb," Dark Helmet; Spaceballs
I started programming in middle school. Loved it. I took some CS classes in college. It sucked. The teachers were pencildicked mediocretins. If I'd been introduced to programming in college I'd hate it. Got my degree in art. Now I write software for big $. School is just another corporate/goverment scam designed to suck your blood and kill your spirit. But if you're living on gov. cheese art school rocks.