I actually think that the reason why things are currently being 'DRM to hell' as you put it is that natural scarcity still exists somewhere. For example, a writer wants their work protected so you have to pay them for it. Then they can use the money you paid them to buy food, clothes, a home, ect. These things are truly scarse and have a cost to obtain.
Now what happens to those who create information for a living if all have free access? If you no longer have to pay them for their work, how do they afford to pay for the things that really are scarse? In addition to just the survival thing, there are other costs involved with creating knowledge including time, which itself is a scarse resource.
Thats why the direction is DRM and access control today: because those who create information and knowlege for a living need to be compensated to survive. Not to mention the fact that most of the U.S. economy is based on the knowlege and it is the core asset that most companies hold.
Now back to the Star Trek thing...
Notice how Star Trek not only had replicators, but they also had a renewable energy source to power the replicators. So in the Star Trek world, there was so much surplus thanks to these two technologies that all humans had enough to survive and had enough to fufill their wants too.
The conclusion: until the technology exists to eliminate all scarcity and make it so (couldnt resist) all human needs and desires can be fulfilled, there will always be some kind of imposed access restrictions to resources.
That sounds right to me. Library science is def a good combo with Info. Sci if search is your thing, or if you want it to be your thing. As a general statement, an IT/CS degree with a business major or concentration is a good choice if you want to be well balanced and get those soft skills but are not sure what domain you want to apply technology to.
I actually agree with you on your comments. Thats just the managerial preception that I hear/infer from my frequent interactions with management. Which is exactly why I added the "right or wrong" part of the statement.
I read your comments and I deeply troubled by their degrading nature of the IT industry and on both college majors that service it.
First, your comparison between comp sci and IT for purposes of industry analysis is invalid. At the highest level, the true distinction in the industry is between software/hardware development vs software/hardware support. Both of which can be done with an IT or CS degree.
Second, the defense industry is not the only industry where comp sci or IT people can make a good living. Financial Services is also an excellent industry for both software development and support jobs. I know as I work for one and make good money as a software architect/lead developer. Also, dont forget about: Bioinformatics, supply chain management systems, knowledge management, Internet search and social networking providers, wireless telecom, and many more industries that have great career options for tech people.
There are only catches to getting any above the jobs: 1)All tech people, especially on the development side, need to be well rounded individuals with knowledge of the domain in which they would like to develop or support software. The challenge that creates for CS and IT majors is that a single BS degree is not enough comming out of school. Rather, a second degree or concentration in a non-IT domain is needed to which the technical person can apply their skills.
2)Distributed N-tier design and development knowledge is required to even get in the door. This is why I feel that those who are older, who's experience is mostly with desktop application development or the mainframe are having a hard time finding jobs. The perception, right or wrong, is that technology has undergone such fundamental changes with the advent of the Internet that older workers cannot possibly adapt to such changes.
The bottom line is that all CS degree holders that have jobs are not unethical defense department death bringers as you suggest. Also, not all IT people are supporting MS Frontpage and answering questions about how to turn on the PC to lay business people.
Let me start off by saying that in my post I explicitly said that I was excluding legal from the analysis of "natural monopoly." The point of my post was to challenge the notion that just because a market has relatively few players or even one player it allways the result of fowl play, cheating, or other things.
Microft is not a good example becuase their monopoly comes about, as you say, by IP rights, which is a govenrment distortion. However, it is not impossible for such a situation to occur naturally for a given span of time.
So the whole point is that a natural monopoly is possible and it is the natural goal of every business. A competitive market without government distortion makes very hard to do and even harder to sustain as in the long run, since all factors are variable. This is why democracies work well with free markets, because they market government distortion variable as well.
As for patents, I agree with you that certian products and services lend themselves to shorter patent and copyright lifespans and the 19th model is no longer adequate. What is needed is a tiered patent and copyright system where the type of product or service, the profit potential, and the upfront cost incurred in its creation are all factors in the length of the patent or copyright being issued.
Good comments overall though. I enjoyed the discussion!
1) Microsoft is not a narual monopoly, it is aided by government patents and copyrights, a market distortion. I agree with other slashdot posters that in the 21st century, pattents and copyrights should be shortened to restore their purpose: to promote innovation by allowing time for return on ivestment in exchange for releasing into the public domain.
2)A natural monopoly is not a market failure. Rather, as you say, the market makes it so. My post is about the fact that every business strives to make itself into a natural monopoly by having better technology, quality of service, lower production costs, ect so it gets all of the market share. In otherwords, every company strives to eliminate the competition. Our challenge is to make sure that they do so with business tools i.e. not killing people, stealing things, and other such actions. This is government primary law enforecment responsibility
3) A natural monopoly is indeed hard to maintain because in the long run, everything is vairable including the barriers that make a natural monopoly. As technology improves, products and servies that were too costly to be delivered by more than one player effectively suddenly become oligopolies or commidities and the natural monoploy is gone.
4)in the absense of open standards, the product characteristic of interoperability lends the OS market to a few products and the potential for a wealth of service providers. Open standards are effectively a market disruption in the fact that they make interoperability a non issue. However, open standards only make business sense in one of two cases:
a) to stabalize an allready commodity (such as application servers) market where interoperability is desired by the customer
b)when a natural monopoly already exists for other reasons than interoperability. In this case, the open standard can actually contribute to a natural monopoly or oligopoly becuase it makes it eaiser for customers to conform to your standards, thus increasing and maintaining your market share.
The U.S. does has a history of installing some brutal dictators into power for our own interests. However two points here:
In Iraq this time, we chose to remove a dictator in favor of a popular decomratic government. I beleive that this was done on purpose under the belief that our previous policy of supporting anyone who was against our enemies (Bin Laden against the USSR in the Afgan confilct and the Iran example you mention) did indeed backfire too much.
Second point is regarding the previous policy of installing dictators that we had before the end of the cold war. Before World War I, our motivations for doing so were, like many others including Britian, aimed at imperial power.
However, such actions conducted after WWII were for one purpose only: defeat and/or stop the spread of the Soviet Union. A big part of that included securing oil resources, which lead to action in the Middle East. The believe at the time was that the evil conducted in these actions was outweighed in stopping the greater evil of the Soviet Union. And that the Arab hatred of the U.S. and the West was at the time an acceptable side effect of the USSR's defeat.
Still, the election of Hammas should remind us that the single biggest point of hatred of the West by the Arab world remains our support for Israel. After all, the creation of Israel was the flash point that really started everything. The important takeaway from this discussion in my view is that as long as the Israel/Palestine conflict goes on and we support Israel, the U.S. never will be safe from terrorists. So what to do then?
The answer is not to simply withdrawl ourselves from the Middle East as some isolationists have suggested. The real solution is to take responsibility for our previous actions before the end of the cold war and try to repair the damage. I see the following three steps as critical:
1)Finding some kind of peacefull two state solution to the above conflict is of course the most critical objective
2) finding an alternatie energy source to oil takes away all the real power and economy that the Middle East really has. As a result, it would force them into becomming economies that are not one dimensional and give the West leverage over them instead of the opposite. This also would give the West the opportunity to improve its image if we do some kind of Middle Eastern Marshal Plan after the end of oil as the primary energy source to help the economically dependent nations cope with the change.
3)I do think that we need to try and undo the dictators in the Middle Eastern region and elsewhere. It is true that the U.S. image has suffered today for the Iraq confilct. However, if they do succeed in establishing some kind of functioning democracy and can achieve a better life for themselves, it will be really good for us and our reputation 10 or 20 years from now.
Bottom line: the West cannot run away from the mess it created in the Middle East over the past half century. We must correct it through economic aid and the elimination of authortian governments that we at one time supported. It is only fair: we created the situation in the name of the defeat of the USSR and now we must pay the cost of that policy.
I disagree that a monopoly is a market failure. The ultimate goal of a business is to maximize market share, with the peak being 100% or full monopoly. In general, a business increases their market share by one of two methods: competing on price or through barriers to entry. Barriers to entry include quality of product and service, bunding, technology, economies of scope (cross selling) and economies of scale. Notice how that I am excluding law on purpose. Governments can distort the market and create artifical and unbreakable barriers to entry.
If a business can beat other business in price and quality and/or they can put up high enough market based barriers to entry (like in order to compete you need $500 billion worth of technology and equipment or through bundling), then a natural monopoly has been created. Therefore, a natural monopoly is not a marker failure, rather it is just one company beating everyone else in the market.
In addition, certian types of products and services lend themselves to few providers. The wired telecom services industry is a good example becasue of the high cost of building and maintaining the fixed asssets involved (wires, poles, ect). For example, even after the government breakup of Ma Bell, M&A in telecom is on the rise again. Why? Because the business environment lends itself to few providers.
Microsoft built and maintained its monopoly in OS through marketing and ease of use. However, a natural monopoly is hard to create and even harder to maintain. Evidence is found in Microsoft itself, as it is being attacked from all sides (net search by Google and Yahoo, OS by linux, browser by firefox, enterprise by a host of vendors, security exploits by hackers and criminals alike).
If Microsoft cannot restablish its barriers to entry, most seriously the security quality of its OS, its natural monopoly will fold on the desktop as it has elsewhere (for the same and other reasons).
Even so, the os market will never be a commodity market (100 plus OS PRODUCT vendors, Linux service vendors maybe since the product is free, but Linux is still a single product). I would be suprised if there are more than five operating systems products that are ever used. Like telecom, I feel like the business characteristics of the OS market lend itself to only a few product providers: the Open Source community, Microsoft, and perhaps one or two others. So at best, I think you will get an oligoploy in the OS market, just like oil, telecom, and others.
Good thoughts and it does depend on the school you go to. My program was very tilted twards operating systems, compilers, and hardware architecture (Univ of Pittsburgh). I got all the general classes you did and I did well in the program (3.7 overall, 3.5 CS).
The skills mentioned are typically achieved at the graduate level from most of the different IT and CS programs I have seen. So I do agree with you that perhpas managemet expects too much from an undergrad.
I still think, as someone else pointed out that schools like CMU have, that an undergrad software engineering major is needed. A SE program, as I envison it, would be a CS/IT/Business hybrid that give students the technical, analysis, and soft skills they need to be a good software engineer.
Overall, I think software engineering, like the other types of engineering, is about the application of known scientific principles to solve problems. This is somewhat different that what CS really is: a science that developed the theories that allow software engineers to solve problems.
It think it is great news that software engineering is the best job in the USA. But the trouble is undergrad college education does not teach you how to be a software engineer CS was my primary major in college. The only reason why I got my job right out of school is that I happen to interview with the same company as a sophomore and I found out what a lot of the industry is looking for. None of which I learned directly in CS, but I had to learn on my own. In my interviews and my job searches, the following skills are what the industry seems to want out of software engineers:
* business/soft skills
* software architecture
* software requirements analysis and documentation
* Object oriented analysis and design and UML
* software process/process improvement (CMM)
* n-tier systems design, development, testing - J2EE/.NET are dominant, but the LAMP stack is also used
* software project management/project management in general
* computer/internet/information security
* data mining/data warehousing/business intelligence
Currently, there is no undergrad program that I have seen that teaches the skills I mentioned. My CS program has one software engineering class and one web programming class, both of which were too crammed with too much stuff to really be useful. I remember that we had 1 week one each phase of the lifecycle for the SE course, and they tried to teach 10 different web languages in a single semester.
As a remedy to the situation, I delayed my graduation an extra semester to get a business undergrad in finance. I must say that it has helped on the job a lot and I recommend a business dual/double degree to any students still in college. I found that it was a good way to eat up my elective credits with something productive. I also must have spent $5000 on books and online classes. I think I own half of the books in the object technology, agile development, and SEI series from AW Professional. I also recently discovered the Safari bookshelf and recommend that to any IT person as well.
CS degree holders are thought to have problems getting jobs at non-IT companies (my company included) because we dont seem to get many skills that people need right out of the box. However, IT undergrad degree programs are also sometimes considered to be weak on the technical background. To quote my manager: "what I need from the undergraduate college system is a IT\CS\Business hybrid degree program."
As a result, I feel like the undergrad system is failing students. What do others think? Maybe to be a software engineer, one should just go on to a masters degree program in software engieering right after a CS or IT undergrad.
I posted this comment as a reply deep in the thread, but I wanted to open it up for more discussion.
I am a recent grad (less than 4 four months) and I got a job doing IT for a financial services company. They are a good company and they do all kinds of fun IT stuff: mainframe, n-tier\distributed (J2EE Websphere mainly) and some Microsoft desktop\n-tier (just got a.NET\Windows Server environment, use VB 6 alot still). However, they are demanding on their IT hires for the good jobs. The want business savy IT people and soft skills are critical. The pay is really good, though.
CS was my primary major in college. The only reason why I got my job right out of school is that I happen to interview with the same company as a sophomore and I found out what a lot of the industry is looking for (none of which I learned directly in CS, but I had to learn on my own). Here is a list for everyone's benefit. Note that this list applies outside my company very easily from what I have read:
* business/soft skills
* software engineering
* software architecture
* OOAD and UML
* software process/process improvement (CMM)
* n-tier systems design, development, testing - J2EE/.NET are dominant, but the LAMP stack is also used
* software project management/project management in general
* computer/internet/information security
* data mining/data warehousing/business intelligence
Overall, I found my CS degree to be a good base for learning the above IT stuff, but I delayed my graduation an extra semester to get a business undergrad in finance. I must say that it has helped on the job a lot and I recommend a business dual/double degree to any students still in college. I found that it was a good way to eat up my elective credits with something productive.
I also recommend internships heavliy. I had three total, two paid and one for credit. I was able to get two years experience before even getting out of school. I know none of this helps people who are mid-career, but I wanted to share it with college students.
So now my question to the community:
CS degree holders are thought to have problems getting jobs at non-IT companies (my company included) because we dont seem to get many skills that people need right out of the box. However, IT undergrad degree programs are also sometimes considered to be weak on the technical background. To quote my manager: "what I need from the undergraduate college system is a IT\CS\Business hybrid degree program."
So is the college system failing undergrad students or are companies demanding too much? I think both, but I want other thoughts. I feel that if there was an undergrad program that focused on the above topics on my list + a required internship + some business classes, all undergrads would be better prepared.
Try and apply at Mellon Financial. I am a recent grad from Pitt and I got a job doing IT at Mellon. They are a good company and they do all kinds of fun IT stuff: mainframe, n-tier\distributed (J2EE Websphere mainly) and some Microsoft desktop\n-tier (just got a.NET\Windows Server environment, use VB 6 alot still). However, they are demanding on their IT hires for the good jobs. The want business savy IT people and soft skills are critical. The pay is really good, though.
I'm curious what your degree was in CS or IT? A 4.0 in either is impressive, but CS degree holders(my degree also) are known to have problems getting jobs at non-IT companies (Mellon included) because we dont seem to get many skills that IT shops need right out of the box. However, IT undergrad degree programs are also known to be weak on the technical background. To quote my manager: "what I need from the undergraduate college system is a IT\CS\Business hybrid degree program."
The only reason why I got the Mellon job right out of school is that I happen to interview as a sophomore and I found out what a lot of the industry is looking for (none of which I learned directly in CS, but I had to learn on my own). Here is a list for everyone's benefit. Note that this list applies outside Mellon very easily from what I have read.
business/soft skills
software engineering
software architecture
OOAD and UML
software process/process improvement (CMM)
n-tier systems design, development, testing - J2EE/.NET are dominant, but the LAMP stack is also used (not at Mellon though)
software project management/project management in general
computer/internet/information security
data mining/data warehousing/business intelligence
Overall, I found my CS degree to be a good base for learning the above IT stuff, but I stayed back an extra semester to get a business undergrad in finance. I must say that it has helped on the job a lot and I recommend a business dual/double degree to any students still in college. I found that it was a good way to eat up my elective credits with something productive.
Good luck and let me know if you apply!
Mike
P.S. you might also do well to try Alcoa, PNC, Highmark or PPG.
Slashdot Mirror
Starting with 2006 first...
I actually think that the reason why things are currently being 'DRM to hell' as you put it is that natural scarcity still exists somewhere. For example, a writer wants their work protected so you have to pay them for it. Then they can use the money you paid them to buy food, clothes, a home, ect. These things are truly scarse and have a cost to obtain.
Now what happens to those who create information for a living if all have free access? If you no longer have to pay them for their work, how do they afford to pay for the things that really are scarse? In addition to just the survival thing, there are other costs involved with creating knowledge including time, which itself is a scarse resource.
Thats why the direction is DRM and access control today: because those who create information and knowlege for a living need to be compensated to survive. Not to mention the fact that most of the U.S. economy is based on the knowlege and it is the core asset that most companies hold.
Now back to the Star Trek thing...
Notice how Star Trek not only had replicators, but they also had a renewable energy source to power the replicators. So in the Star Trek world, there was so much surplus thanks to these two technologies that all humans had enough to survive and had enough to fufill their wants too.
The conclusion: until the technology exists to eliminate all scarcity and make it so (couldnt resist) all human needs and desires can be fulfilled, there will always be some kind of imposed access restrictions to resources.
No worries; I did not take offense to your response ;)
That sounds right to me. Library science is def a good combo with Info. Sci if search is your thing, or if you want it to be your thing. As a general statement, an IT/CS degree with a business major or concentration is a good choice if you want to be well balanced and get those soft skills but are not sure what domain you want to apply technology to.
Good luck whatever you choose!
I actually agree with you on your comments. Thats just the managerial preception that I hear/infer from my frequent interactions with management. Which is exactly why I added the "right or wrong" part of the statement.
I read your comments and I deeply troubled by their degrading nature of the IT industry and on both college majors that service it.
First, your comparison between comp sci and IT for purposes of industry analysis is invalid. At the highest level, the true distinction in the industry is between software/hardware development vs software/hardware support. Both of which can be done with an IT or CS degree.
Second, the defense industry is not the only industry where comp sci or IT people can make a good living. Financial Services is also an excellent industry for both software development and support jobs. I know as I work for one and make good money as a software architect/lead developer. Also, dont forget about: Bioinformatics, supply chain management systems, knowledge management, Internet search and social networking providers, wireless telecom, and many more industries that have great career options for tech people.
There are only catches to getting any above the jobs:
1)All tech people, especially on the development side, need to be well rounded individuals with knowledge of the domain in which they would like to develop or support software. The challenge that creates for CS and IT majors is that a single BS degree is not enough comming out of school. Rather, a second degree or concentration in a non-IT domain is needed to which the technical person can apply their skills.
2)Distributed N-tier design and development knowledge is required to even get in the door. This is why I feel that those who are older, who's experience is mostly with desktop application development or the mainframe are having a hard time finding jobs. The perception, right or wrong, is that technology has undergone such fundamental changes with the advent of the Internet that older workers cannot possibly adapt to such changes.
The bottom line is that all CS degree holders that have jobs are not unethical defense department death bringers as you suggest. Also, not all IT people are supporting MS Frontpage and answering questions about how to turn on the PC to lay business people.
Let me start off by saying that in my post I explicitly said that I was excluding legal from the analysis of "natural monopoly." The point of my post was to challenge the notion that just because a market has relatively few players or even one player it allways the result of fowl play, cheating, or other things.
Microft is not a good example becuase their monopoly comes about, as you say, by IP rights, which is a govenrment distortion. However, it is not impossible for such a situation to occur naturally for a given span of time.
So the whole point is that a natural monopoly is possible and it is the natural goal of every business. A competitive market without government distortion makes very hard to do and even harder to sustain as in the long run, since all factors are variable. This is why democracies work well with free markets, because they market government distortion variable as well.
As for patents, I agree with you that certian products and services lend themselves to shorter patent and copyright lifespans and the 19th model is no longer adequate. What is needed is a tiered patent and copyright system where the type of product or service, the profit potential, and the upfront cost incurred in its creation are all factors in the length of the patent or copyright being issued.
Good comments overall though. I enjoyed the discussion!
A couple of points in response.
1) Microsoft is not a narual monopoly, it is aided by government patents and copyrights, a market distortion. I agree with other slashdot posters that in the 21st century, pattents and copyrights should be shortened to restore their purpose: to promote innovation by allowing time for return on ivestment in exchange for releasing into the public domain.
2)A natural monopoly is not a market failure. Rather, as you say, the market makes it so. My post is about the fact that every business strives to make itself into a natural monopoly by having better technology, quality of service, lower production costs, ect so it gets all of the market share. In otherwords, every company strives to eliminate the competition. Our challenge is to make sure that they do so with business tools i.e. not killing people, stealing things, and other such actions. This is government primary law enforecment responsibility
3) A natural monopoly is indeed hard to maintain because in the long run, everything is vairable including the barriers that make a natural monopoly. As technology improves, products and servies that were too costly to be delivered by more than one player effectively suddenly become oligopolies or commidities and the natural monoploy is gone.
4)in the absense of open standards, the product characteristic of interoperability lends the OS market to a few products and the potential for a wealth of service providers. Open standards are effectively a market disruption in the fact that they make interoperability a non issue. However, open standards only make business sense in one of two cases:
a) to stabalize an allready commodity (such as application servers) market where interoperability is desired by the customer
b)when a natural monopoly already exists for other reasons than interoperability. In this case, the open standard can actually contribute to a natural monopoly or oligopoly becuase it makes it eaiser for customers to conform to your standards, thus increasing and maintaining your market share.
The U.S. does has a history of installing some brutal dictators into power for our own interests. However two points here:
In Iraq this time, we chose to remove a dictator in favor of a popular decomratic government. I beleive that this was done on purpose under the belief that our previous policy of supporting anyone who was against our enemies (Bin Laden against the USSR in the Afgan confilct and the Iran example you mention) did indeed backfire too much.
Second point is regarding the previous policy of installing dictators that we had before the end of the cold war. Before World War I, our motivations for doing so were, like many others including Britian, aimed at imperial power.
However, such actions conducted after WWII were for one purpose only: defeat and/or stop the spread of the Soviet Union. A big part of that included securing oil resources, which lead to action in the Middle East. The believe at the time was that the evil conducted in these actions was outweighed in stopping the greater evil of the Soviet Union. And that the Arab hatred of the U.S. and the West was at the time an acceptable side effect of the USSR's defeat.
Still, the election of Hammas should remind us that the single biggest point of hatred of the West by the Arab world remains our support for Israel. After all, the creation of Israel was the flash point that really started everything. The important takeaway from this discussion in my view is that as long as the Israel/Palestine conflict goes on and we support Israel, the U.S. never will be safe from terrorists. So what to do then?
The answer is not to simply withdrawl ourselves from the Middle East as some isolationists have suggested. The real solution is to take responsibility for our previous actions before the end of the cold war and try to repair the damage. I see the following three steps as critical:
1)Finding some kind of peacefull two state solution to the above conflict is of course the most critical objective
2) finding an alternatie energy source to oil takes away all the real power and economy that the Middle East really has. As a result, it would force them into becomming economies that are not one dimensional and give the West leverage over them instead of the opposite. This also would give the West the opportunity to improve its image if we do some kind of Middle Eastern Marshal Plan after the end of oil as the primary energy source to help the economically dependent nations cope with the change.
3)I do think that we need to try and undo the dictators in the Middle Eastern region and elsewhere. It is true that the U.S. image has suffered today for the Iraq confilct. However, if they do succeed in establishing some kind of functioning democracy and can achieve a better life for themselves, it will be really good for us and our reputation 10 or 20 years from now.
Bottom line: the West cannot run away from the mess it created in the Middle East over the past half century. We must correct it through economic aid and the elimination of authortian governments that we at one time supported. It is only fair: we created the situation in the name of the defeat of the USSR and now we must pay the cost of that policy.
I disagree that a monopoly is a market failure. The ultimate goal of a business is to maximize market share, with the peak being 100% or full monopoly. In general, a business increases their market share by one of two methods: competing on price or through barriers to entry. Barriers to entry include quality of product and service, bunding, technology, economies of scope (cross selling) and economies of scale. Notice how that I am excluding law on purpose. Governments can distort the market and create artifical and unbreakable barriers to entry.
If a business can beat other business in price and quality and/or they can put up high enough market based barriers to entry (like in order to compete you need $500 billion worth of technology and equipment or through bundling), then a natural monopoly has been created. Therefore, a natural monopoly is not a marker failure, rather it is just one company beating everyone else in the market.
In addition, certian types of products and services lend themselves to few providers. The wired telecom services industry is a good example becasue of the high cost of building and maintaining the fixed asssets involved (wires, poles, ect). For example, even after the government breakup of Ma Bell, M&A in telecom is on the rise again. Why? Because the business environment lends itself to few providers.
Microsoft built and maintained its monopoly in OS through marketing and ease of use. However, a natural monopoly is hard to create and even harder to maintain. Evidence is found in Microsoft itself, as it is being attacked from all sides (net search by Google and Yahoo, OS by linux, browser by firefox, enterprise by a host of vendors, security exploits by hackers and criminals alike).
If Microsoft cannot restablish its barriers to entry, most seriously the security quality of its OS, its natural monopoly will fold on the desktop as it has elsewhere (for the same and other reasons).
Even so, the os market will never be a commodity market (100 plus OS PRODUCT vendors, Linux service vendors maybe since the product is free, but Linux is still a single product). I would be suprised if there are more than five operating systems products that are ever used. Like telecom, I feel like the business characteristics of the OS market lend itself to only a few product providers: the Open Source community, Microsoft, and perhaps one or two others. So at best, I think you will get an oligoploy in the OS market, just like oil, telecom, and others.
Hey Nate,
Good thoughts and it does depend on the school you go to. My program was very tilted twards operating systems, compilers, and hardware architecture (Univ of Pittsburgh). I got all the general classes you did and I did well in the program (3.7 overall, 3.5 CS).
The skills mentioned are typically achieved at the graduate level from most of the different IT and CS programs I have seen. So I do agree with you that perhpas managemet expects too much from an undergrad.
I still think, as someone else pointed out that schools like CMU have, that an undergrad software engineering major is needed. A SE program, as I envison it, would be a CS/IT/Business hybrid that give students the technical, analysis, and soft skills they need to be a good software engineer.
Overall, I think software engineering, like the other types of engineering, is about the application of known scientific principles to solve problems. This is somewhat different that what CS really is: a science that developed the theories that allow software engineers to solve problems.
It think it is great news that software engineering is the best job in the USA. But the trouble is undergrad college education does not teach you how to be a software engineer CS was my primary major in college. The only reason why I got my job right out of school is that I happen to interview with the same company as a sophomore and I found out what a lot of the industry is looking for. None of which I learned directly in CS, but I had to learn on my own. In my interviews and my job searches, the following skills are what the industry seems to want out of software engineers:
* business/soft skills
* software architecture
* software requirements analysis and documentation
* Object oriented analysis and design and UML
* software process/process improvement (CMM)
* n-tier systems design, development, testing - J2EE/.NET are dominant, but the LAMP stack is also used
* software project management/project management in general
* computer/internet/information security
* data mining/data warehousing/business intelligence
Currently, there is no undergrad program that I have seen that teaches the skills I mentioned. My CS program has one software engineering class and one web programming class, both of which were too crammed with too much stuff to really be useful. I remember that we had 1 week one each phase of the lifecycle for the SE course, and they tried to teach 10 different web languages in a single semester.
As a remedy to the situation, I delayed my graduation an extra semester to get a business undergrad in finance. I must say that it has helped on the job a lot and I recommend a business dual/double degree to any students still in college. I found that it was a good way to eat up my elective credits with something productive. I also must have spent $5000 on books and online classes. I think I own half of the books in the object technology, agile development, and SEI series from AW Professional. I also recently discovered the Safari bookshelf and recommend that to any IT person as well.
CS degree holders are thought to have problems getting jobs at non-IT companies (my company included) because we dont seem to get many skills that people need right out of the box. However, IT undergrad degree programs are also sometimes considered to be weak on the technical background. To quote my manager: "what I need from the undergraduate college system is a IT\CS\Business hybrid degree program."
As a result, I feel like the undergrad system is failing students. What do others think? Maybe to be a software engineer, one should just go on to a masters degree program in software engieering right after a CS or IT undergrad.
I posted this comment as a reply deep in the thread, but I wanted to open it up for more discussion.
.NET\Windows Server environment, use VB 6 alot still). However, they are demanding on their IT hires for the good jobs. The want business savy IT people and soft skills are critical. The pay is really good, though.
I am a recent grad (less than 4 four months) and I got a job doing IT for a financial services company. They are a good company and they do all kinds of fun IT stuff: mainframe, n-tier\distributed (J2EE Websphere mainly) and some Microsoft desktop\n-tier (just got a
CS was my primary major in college. The only reason why I got my job right out of school is that I happen to interview with the same company as a sophomore and I found out what a lot of the industry is looking for (none of which I learned directly in CS, but I had to learn on my own). Here is a list for everyone's benefit. Note that this list applies outside my company very easily from what I have read:
* business/soft skills
* software engineering
* software architecture
* OOAD and UML
* software process/process improvement (CMM)
* n-tier systems design, development, testing - J2EE/.NET are dominant, but the LAMP stack is also used
* software project management/project management in general
* computer/internet/information security
* data mining/data warehousing/business intelligence
Overall, I found my CS degree to be a good base for learning the above IT stuff, but I delayed my graduation an extra semester to get a business undergrad in finance. I must say that it has helped on the job a lot and I recommend a business dual/double degree to any students still in college. I found that it was a good way to eat up my elective credits with something productive.
I also recommend internships heavliy. I had three total, two paid and one for credit. I was able to get two years experience before even getting out of school. I know none of this helps people who are mid-career, but I wanted to share it with college students.
So now my question to the community:
CS degree holders are thought to have problems getting jobs at non-IT companies (my company included) because we dont seem to get many skills that people need right out of the box. However, IT undergrad degree programs are also sometimes considered to be weak on the technical background. To quote my manager: "what I need from the undergraduate college system is a IT\CS\Business hybrid degree program."
So is the college system failing undergrad students or are companies demanding too much? I think both, but I want other thoughts. I feel that if there was an undergrad program that focused on the above topics on my list + a required internship + some business classes, all undergrads would be better prepared.
Let me know what you think,
Mike
Try and apply at Mellon Financial. I am a recent grad from Pitt and I got a job doing IT at Mellon. They are a good company and they do all kinds of fun IT stuff: mainframe, n-tier\distributed (J2EE Websphere mainly) and some Microsoft desktop\n-tier (just got a .NET\Windows Server environment, use VB 6 alot still). However, they are demanding on their IT hires for the good jobs. The want business savy IT people and soft skills are critical. The pay is really good, though.
I'm curious what your degree was in CS or IT? A 4.0 in either is impressive, but CS degree holders(my degree also) are known to have problems getting jobs at non-IT companies (Mellon included) because we dont seem to get many skills that IT shops need right out of the box. However, IT undergrad degree programs are also known to be weak on the technical background. To quote my manager: "what I need from the undergraduate college system is a IT\CS\Business hybrid degree program."
The only reason why I got the Mellon job right out of school is that I happen to interview as a sophomore and I found out what a lot of the industry is looking for (none of which I learned directly in CS, but I had to learn on my own). Here is a list for everyone's benefit. Note that this list applies outside Mellon very easily from what I have read.
Overall, I found my CS degree to be a good base for learning the above IT stuff, but I stayed back an extra semester to get a business undergrad in finance. I must say that it has helped on the job a lot and I recommend a business dual/double degree to any students still in college. I found that it was a good way to eat up my elective credits with something productive.
Good luck and let me know if you apply!
Mike
P.S. you might also do well to try Alcoa, PNC, Highmark or PPG.