Computing's Lost Allure 822
khendron writes "An article in the New York Times, describes how the number of students majoring in computer science in university has dropped off with the rest of the hi-tech economy. The bright side: the students who are enrolling are doing so because they love computers. Not like a few years ago when students were enrolling because they wanted to make a quick buck. I'll take quality over quantity."
Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen. When I graduated in 2000 there were more than a few people in the degree for the money. They were miserable and barely got through as it was.
Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
hopefully this will be for more than just uni's (Score:5, Insightful)
Never trust a computer proffesional that doesnt list computer as a hobby.
babbling (Score:5, Insightful)
In the past few months I've been rethinking my career path, and I've decided to go back to school. This time around I've decided to learn what I love, instead of what I thought I would love.
Mike
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
(a) Many people who like computers that suck at working with them;
(b) Many people who don't particularly like computers that don't suck at working with them;
(c) Still a hell of a lot of people who have no business looking at jobs in the IT industry that are working their ass off trying to get on.
Oh, the sad state of this world I live in...
Just because you like computers... (Score:5, Insightful)
A friend of mine is in CS, because he loves computers and he loves programming. He isn't any good at it though, he's failed freshman intro classes, and not because he doesn't try. His eyes glaze over when he asks me for help and I start asking him why he's doing so-and-so when he could be doing this-and-that.
In short, people should do the things they love, but it doesn't mean quality when they do it.
Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe then my resume won't get lost in the mile high stack of useless ones.
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
I saw the need to learn the fundamentals of C/C++ but I didn't think that boring projects were the way to accomplish that.
Nothing like being forced to learn a non-existant version of ASM that was created by BGSU for teaching purposes. It was SO out-dated and worthless that I couldn't take it anymore.
I have since graduated with an equally worthless degree in History. At least writing papers about things that happened 300+ years ago is useful
Re:Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope that employers start getting the hint as well. It was very disheartening to see people who took a 1-year program to learn computers getting senior developers and architect jobs.
At my office, I have told our headhunters that unless someone has a CS degree and several years experience, we do not want to see them. I may get flamed for being prejudiced against self-taught people, but I have seen far more self-taught people who think they are a lot better than they are than people who actually have an apptitude.
I wouldn't recommend CS today... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see the current trend toward off-shoring programming jobs slowing down in the future -- rather, I foresee an acceleration as tools and processes for performing overseas work improve. Consider how poorly the American car, steel and manufacturing industries are doing, and remember that they (unlike software development) are at least protected by tariffs which level the playing field somewhat.
Sure, there will always be some development and QA jobs in the US if for nothing else than to avoid "all your base"-style situations. But that's going to provide a fraction of a percent of the jobs that even our currently depressed industry does.
If you *do* get a CS degree, you'd better plan on grad school. You're going to need an advanced degree or at least a double major to tread water (I imagine that business/CS will be in huge demand).
"Students in computers" should be everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
Every kid in college, no matter his or her major, should know how to get around an Office suite, put into place a simple web site, and basic troubleshooting.
We're seeing the evolution of computer-technology-as-business-model into computer-technology-as-tool.
While it may be true that fewer kids are going into CS, what's also true is that the technology is penetrating deeper into the business school, journalism school, whererver where many things that were once the realm of CS or even MIS are now absorbed within a discipline that focuses on the application of that technology.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone should have known this (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what I did, before the internet boom, and I graduated in the middle of the internet boom... *not* taking advantage of it and just looking for a stable job. Which I still have, right now.... (Just got a raise, so I am not to complain).
Yes, I chose Computer Science because I love computers, I love programming and I discovered that I loved the math and theory behind all of it. (Because, boys 'n girls.... Computer Science doesn't end at being a good coder)
Apart from that I have to quote the article:
People aren't seeing the glory in computer science that they used to.
I think that is false: there never has *been* glory in Computer Science. Not even in the dot-com boom. No, *technology* was glorified, not the science.
Anyways: do what you like. That's the only advice I can give. (Oh, and to my surprise I read in the article that there are more girls doing CS now! Damn, I wish I was younger and back at University *grin*)
Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today... (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that we had so many people jumping into the field because of the boom, and when the bubble naturally burst you are left with an over abundance of workers. I forsee the current situation ending up in an equilibrium where there are not an over abundance of jobs, but not a shortage either. IE just like any other field of work.
Me thinks (Score:2, Insightful)
Just as you don't want students opting for Medicine just because it pays well, (which it does no doubt), but rather because they are interested in human anatomy.
Same with any other field say architecture, engineering etc. Once the field has students , who are genuinely interested in the subject, there would be lot moro of innovative products and hopefully a lot less Service Packs :-)
Re:Preach it brother (Score:1, Insightful)
Complete inability to write in object oriented fashion, or even to avoid cut n paste coding.
The ones who know about pointers using them exclusively, even to index up, down, and around multi-level C structures, or pass by reference things that don't need to pass by reference.
I don't doubt people can be self-taught, heck, its a requirement in this career.
The advantage of CS degree is filtering out the idiots.
People who don't love CS... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just because you like computers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I myself am an excellent example. I've used computers forever, am extremely comfortable with them, yadda yadda yadda. But I hate programming -- how anyone sits staring at code 8+ hours a day is beyond me.
That said, being a programmer != all computer jobs. I have a history degree, but I work in the computing industry and make a fair amount of money doing so. How? Because I do what I do best: Make shit work. There has always been a huge need for people like me, and I suspect there always will be, and most CS grads don't have my skill set.
So it's all good.
The "hi-tech economy" is in the same shape as the (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting the way that was worded. It's as if to say, something different happened to hi-tech than happened to the rest of the economy when the reality is that ALL segments of the economy have fallen off. No segment is hiring right now. None.
The WSJ just had an article last week about MBAs not getting offers at all right now.
Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's (Score:5, Insightful)
This is bullshit. It's very sane to have hobbies that involve other things than your profession. It's called balance in your life. One can be a very good lawyer without spending hobby time reading books of law. One can be a very good salesmen without spending hobby time selling things. One can be a very good plumber without having plumbing has his hobby
Re:Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time... for a new major (Score:2, Insightful)
Just my two cents...
Re:babbling (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:babbling (Score:5, Insightful)
When I started college in 1991, they started quoting salary figures: EE's were on the top of the list, and being a so-called smart kid, EE is where I went. My dad told me then that he thought I was making a huge mistake, that I needed to be in Biology (marine biologist, fisheries, whatever). I found myself bored in EE, bored in CompSci, and basically floundered until a couple years ago when I studied hard and got a little AAS in Computer Programming.
Now I'm in the Computer Field and while it's interesting and on occasion, fun, it's really what I don't want to do. I'm turning 30 and am starting school, this time I'm finishing my bach in Ecological Anthropology (long story) but am going to head to grad school in Biology. The upside is with my tech aptitude, I'll be able to integrate my computer skills with modern research and data collection techniques rapidly, and if I'm really motivated, maybe even innovate some in those fields (some old Engineering may come back, too, in the form of creating remote monitoring solutions and what not).
Basically, I've learned that I love working with and observing animals and even though it pays shit, fuck it. I'd rather spend the rest of my life poor and happy than well-off and miserable.
Just because you like messing with computers doesn't mean you'll like doing it for a living.
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
(a) Many people who like computers that suck at working with them;
I would wager that the people that generally like computers take the time to learn how to use them properly and end up working well with them
(b) Many people who don't particularly like computers that don't suck at working with them;
There are people that learn to work with computers out of necessity, but they stop learning when they can do what they need to do; only people that enjoy working with computers will go the extra mile and learn more.
(c) Still a hell of a lot of people who have no business looking at jobs in the IT industry that are working their ass off trying to get one.
There is still money in IT. It is harder to get it now, but it is still there. Before the bubble burst, anyone could get a job in IT, now, you have to proove yourself. If I lost my job, I feel confident showing my skills to any technical person. I only fear the HR people that toss out my resume because it is not a carbon copy of the requirements.
unfair comparison ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Would that be an unfair comparison given that more people register every year during the fall compared to Spring ?
Lost Allure (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:babbling (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't seem to make the job market easier (Score:2, Insightful)
I have both an undergraduate and graduate degree from a top CS school, and am currently one of the hordes looking for work. It seems that, even though less people are currently in CS programs, the employers out there still requires more and more specifically-defined "real world" skills (eg, "Oracle 11 PL/SQL" vs. just "database programming experience") and if you don't have such experience, you aren't even considered for an interview.
CS programs (rightfully) don't focus on specific products and languages, but rather on theory... but it seems that even with such solid academic grounding, people want real experience, or else.
Employers, just like employees should wake up and realize that specific skills can be often taught quickly on the job by reading a good reference book, or looking at existing code -- thinking and theoretical know-how is harder.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: What do you call the guy who graduates med school bottom of the class?
A: Doctor.
For a while something similar held true in IT as well during the bubble--even the morons got good jobs, and we've got the code to prove it. Now I say: let them go into medicine. Or law. Or whatever. Just please let them not be our programming interns.
Re:The great IT labor shortage of 2006 (Score:5, Insightful)
Very few people have passion (Score:2, Insightful)
Good/bad programmers, love of computing (Score:2, Insightful)
But I also think there are more interesting classes of people who have been affected by the bust -- the good programmers, the brilliant thinkers, the guys with a thousand ideas, the ones who love computing. The people who got into CS believing that they wouldn't have to deal with the usual silly competitions about what college you went to or how well your professors liked you -- believing that the only thing that mattered was how good your ideas are. The people who, in the 90's could easily start a multi-million dollar company but now have to settle for a mundane, overworked, thankless and low-paying teaching/research job, and that is if they are lucky. They might settle for this job simply because they get to do interesting research, but who wants to deal with harder and harder grad school admissions and then educational politics? Not many that I know.
The bust is also affecting the mid-level players. Reflecting on the exuberance of the boom days, managers are turning toward credentialism to measure their applicants. While this is arguably a good thing for the industry, nobody I know wants to be judged by what college he went to, how well they interview, or other silly metrics. There is also a move to squeeze more out of individual programmers (believe it or not) because budgets are lower. And with fewer possibilities to get capital for your own venture, college students are looking at a future as a programmer, which is looking less like a professional job and more like mental labor. Some might call the dropouts dumb, but if one is entering such a profession, he ought to examine his own decisions first.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly enough, I've had the opposite experience. Most CS grads in the past few years have been complete idiots. The schools keep saying "We need to make it easier on them. Oh, we'll stop teaching this, this, and that. Super-basic Java? Sure! That's the only marketplace requirement!" What I want to know is, why the f*** is "marketplace requirements" determining the level of education? True CS grads should know how the computer works. They should be able to build an OS or a compiler or whatever else they need. When they actually reach the market is when they should be finding the best ways to put their understanding to use.
Case and point. My company hired a guy who had a masters in CS as well multiple degrees in other fields. He had a good reference from his previous employer, so we hired him. He *could not* write a single line of code. I spent a lot of time with him trying to fill in the holes too. In the end, it was apparent that he really made it by constantly leeching off of those smarter than him and hoping noone noticed. In all reality, he could do very little.
BTW, I am self-taught. I find it almost scary how much more I know about computer science than the computer scientists do. I'll mention a simple datastructure (hashtable, b-tree, anything!) and watch the eyes of degree holders gloss over. I'm sorry if I sound a little worked up over this, but I always expected those who make it through CS programs to know *more* than I do and be able to apply that knowledge at will. Unfortuntely, I'm constantly frustrated by the lack of quality being produced by schools today. There's only one true test of a programmer. Look at their code. If they have none to show you, run the other way.
Re:Then why is it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but the good thing of course is that most will not follow through after they take their first programming course. Even if thet get throught the cracks and are still not quite that captivated by the subject (or not that good at it either) of computer science, they will usually look to others for solutions for programming projects, which means, come time for actual experience to be applied, their employer will realize that their diploma isn't necessarily representative of their true ability.
I don't think that most even make it that far, given the higher level hardware and theory classes that are at the 300's and 400's in computer science catalogues. But I do know a few from my program [cofc.edu] who barely skipped by and are now doing $25K a year customer service, instead of $50K a year software engineering like myself and those friends of mine who worked their tails off.
Of course, stuff happens and sometimes those slack people end up with nice jobs, the world ain't fair,yadayadayada, but it's been my experience that hard work pays off exceptionally well. I never cheated on any assignment, did all of my programming projects myself (and of course had fun with them!), and studied hard.
Before I entered computer science I saw that many people who were entering alongside me and I said to myself "Oh great - the field will be saturated now ... no money will be made." I'm sure glad I was wrong ...
Re:Back in 1989-1991 it was as it is now (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm more worried about lots of students taking the worthless career tracks like that
Because you fullfill a role in the machine of society does not mean you are truly alive. Computer Science is interesting stuff, but in the grand scheme of existence computers are essentially irrelevent. The average human is probably LESS happy today than before the computer was invented.
For some, philosophy is pure contemplation as you mention. For others however, it is the ultimate weapon to enslave more members of society such as yourself. I can assure you those people who created our regimented system of compulsory education and the modern work week were avid students of philosophy.
You are exemplifying a stunningly ignorant view, and I highly suggest you revise it. This world is fucked up as it is, we don't need more people who think the purpose of their lives is to work in pointless jobs.
You must not forget that the ultimate purpose of our modern society (school + employee life) was to make the vast majority of citizens dependent on the system and thereby enslave them. 150 years ago, the only people who took orders from anyone were in the military, young people learning a trade, or slaves. 90% of citizens had an independent livelihood as farmers or tradesmen.
The attitude you portray is the result of a lifetime of training, you cannot imagine what life would be like if you didn't spend it becoming an employee. You are a successful product of the social engineering machine.
I am not trying to insult you here, just trying to open your eyes to the truth. Philosophy is necessary now more than ever, as nothing else focuses on the concept of value to human life. You say philosophy is worthless, but by whose standards? Your master, thats who. By his phiosophical standards, you studying philosophy is a threat to society. You may cause trouble, perhaps even start a revolution. He made a wise decision (according to his standards) to train you over two decades to accept your place, and he has succeeded.
Read up on it, you have not yet begun to live.
Enrollment (Score:3, Insightful)
>just 350 students signed up for the course this spring, in striking contrast to enrollment in the fall of 2000, when the same lecture hall was
>engorged at the start of the semester with 700 students sitting and standing in every available pocket of space.
How the heck do you learn anything in a class of 700 students? I'd be surprised if I could even hear the teacher..
Re:babbling (Score:3, Insightful)
My friend, you are a very very wise man. It's so easy to say that phrase over and over while you sit at your 9-to-5, yet so few people actually act upon it. I'm rapidly finding out that the work world is nothing like I expected.
I graduated as a Bio major w/a CS concentration (basically 2 courses short of a major) back in '01. I spent the last two years trying to get my foot in the door in the IT world, as I LOVE computers. The bio major was by default, since we didn't have a CS major at my school and we NEEDED to major in something. I worked some odd jobs that were kind of related to computers, but they weren't exactly what I expected.
Last week I started working for a big corporation, imaging laptops all day for upgrades and new builds. It's working with computers, so I should be happy...right? Wrong. It's only taken me one week to realize how redundant IT can be. How all my associates can't tell me what a NOP instruction does. How this job, and more importantly this FIELD, is very different from what I expected.
So now I'm looking into trying to get into grad school. Bioinformatics would be the perfect blend of my background, and it would definitely be more cutting-edge than what I'm doing now. This isn't a spontaneous decision, as I've realized that a MS would make getting a cool job easier. It just seems that this job was the push I needed, the straw that broke the camel's back, to motivate me.
My long rambling point is, there's always other options. If you don't like what you're doing, fuck it...you only live once. Leave on Friday and don't ocme back on Monday. You owe it to yourself.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting... (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course i don't expect the "I just hacked an XBOX! i'm a GENIUS! my contributions to humanity are LIMITLESS!!" crowd here on slashdot to understand why.
Anways, let's just say this: As much as you engineers hate "in it for the money" types i can assure you that serious liberal arts students hate the "duh, i took this major its sposed tuh be easy!" types just as much.
Reality bites (Score:5, Insightful)
What happened is that you had to deal with the real world of users, managers, budgets, corporate politics, and scheduling. Once you realized that over 50% of the job has nothing to do with programming (or at least not what you consider programming), you became disillusioned and bored.
Unfortunately if you're going to work in the corporate world, you're probably going to find that the vast majority of jobs have the same non-core-task annoyances. For example, my baby sister works for a non-profit with about 10-20 total employees. What does she gripe about from work? The boss, the clients (users), inter-office politics, lack of funding, and unreasonable expectations/deadlines. (And the computer crashing, but that's from a user's perspective -- she's not a programmer.)
Love of computers? (Score:1, Insightful)
They also need to learn, usually, how to wash and interact with other humans, but they'll never learn these things because after they're done whacking off to Interporn they load up Counter-Strike for a few hours and then finish off the day by watching videos online and working through their Python exercises, oh and don't forget to read up on the GAMING INDUSTRY, which is so sickly in love with itself it's, well, sickly. After all that, they're bored, so they whack off some more.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you're missing the problem here. The problem is that they *graduated*. Many with honors!
The one and only one guy I hired, shouldn't have even gotten an interview (gpa of 3.4, local school), but I hired him because he appeared to actually enjoy the subject. HE turned out to be truly excellent, not because he was the smartest, but because he loved what he did and wanted to do it best.
Very true. You've pointed out another good quality of a programmer. The problem of course, is that these guys are as rare as gold. When my company was looking for developers, I told my manager (who filtered the resumes), "I don't care if they're junior. I'll train them." Unfortuntely, finding someone willing to learn was *tough*. Found one guy who was really good, but he ended up shooting himself in the foot because he had some sort of adversion to doing website work. You see, we had two teams. One who was supposedly responsible for front end, the other for the back-end. The back-end people would propogate hacks, while I lead my team - the front end - to work from actual designs. Eventually, the "back end" team became nothing more than an extra pool of resources for me to pull from. Sadly, I wasn't able to integrate our new recruit into my team as fully as I wanted to. He ended up having very little to do on the "back end" team except maintain hacks.
Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see the current trend toward off-shoring programming jobs slowing down in the future -- rather, I foresee an acceleration as tools and processes for performing overseas work improve.
Several things: 1. It's not just programming jobs, it's customer service, financial and other back-office work being off-shored too. 2. A funny thing about economics, things never turn out the way you forsee. For instance people tend to think that there are a finite number of tech-related jobs in this world, and if we send them to India, then we won't have them here. But Technology has a funny way of creating new jobs. Cheap, overseas labor may make lower-margin tech products and services possible, while higher-margin work will be done in the US and other. So in other words, the number of tech jobs will likely increase as the available labor pool increases. If you work in a tech-related field, when was the last time you heard people complain that there are too many people in your company and not enough work to do? It's almost always the opposite. Even before all the layoffs Remember, India may have lots of people, but they all can't be doing technical, out-sourced work for other countries. Many of their technical people will be needed to service their own infrastructure as it grows. Also, the more jobs you send there, the higher the salaries and other perks you'll need to pay them, so their competative edge slowly diminishes. My company is already having a retention problem in India, and has trouble finding truly qualified people over there.
Consider how poorly the American car, steel and manufacturing industries are doing, and remember that they (unlike software development) are at least protected by tariffs which level the playing field somewhat.
Many Japanese-brand cars are actually assembled in the US today. In the 70's and 80's we never could've fathomed that. (See my point about things not turning out the way you expect). But there is a big difference between Steel/Auto and other manufacturing jobs and software. The former is considered unskilled work, because you can train almost anybody to sit on an assembly line and attach a certain part to a car as it comes by. Software development is still highly-skilled, and it's not easy to find people with the right skills even in the highly populated countries like India and China.
Re:This trend is a plus (Score:3, Insightful)
Adding to the industry's employment woes is news that big investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are reportedly considering farming more of their jobs overseas to countries like India, where employment costs are significantly cheaper.
According to a recent study by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, U.S. mutual funds, banks, brokerages and insurers plan to move 500,000 jobs overseas, or about 8 percent of their workforces, overseas over the next five years, saving some $30 billion annually in operating costs.
The job relocations will begin to involve increasingly sophisticated positions, including financial analysis, research, accounting and human resources, A.T. Kearney finds. Until now, offshore job transfers have focused on back-office functions such as data entry.
CompSci is futile. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I wouldn't recommend CS today... (Score:2, Insightful)
and there isn't a boss in the world who will choose to pay $80k a year when he could get the same value for $20k a year.
I disagree, not every boss is an amoral creep who only looks at the bottom line and would gladly fire his workforce (and often cases friends and neighbors) in favor of overseas labor.
Consider this, Silicon Valley, pre-crash, was probably the most expensive place in the world to hire tech workers. Why would companies ever locate there when they could go to say, Austin or Raleigh , NC and pay people less? By your logic, they wouldn't locate to Silicon Valley, yet they did. Also, New York City is a very expensive place to hire people. You can get people doing the same thing almost anywhere in the country, yet all those high-rises continue to be filled with workers.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
You've hit on a very good point, here. I was laid off from my tech job in mid-2001, right as the bubble was bursting. My attitude was that I had too much experience and knowledge to go jobless for long, and I expected to be back in the workforce within weeks. Over a year later I had been through four interviews, and only one was a second. I wasn't selected for that job, either. After submitting hundreds of resumes, I was finally offered a job by a company who FOUND MY RESUME ONLINE and thought I would be a good fit. It would have been more funny to me at the time if I hadn't been on the verge of bankruptcy.
Now my contract is almost up again. I've been applying and interviewing for almost two months. Fortunately, I've already been through more interviews in that time than I did the entire year I was unemployed. The bad news is that I still have not been selected for a job.
Very few companies tell you why you were not selected, especially ones where you don't even make the cut for interviews. One said that they found other candidates with more experience in the banking industry. Others wanted MCSE certification.
What is frustrating me right now are those front-line HR folks. I've applied for jobs that are geographically convenient for the employer and me, that I am *perfectly* qualified for, and that have a company culture that fits with my personality. I have to wonder why I am not being called for interviews. I have a 2-year degree, am an MCP, and have over six years of professional experience with some highly-respected companies. I have great customer service and communication skills that *many* IT folks lack, but in most cases even this combination is not enough to get me in the door.
The idea that a degree or certification qualifies someone for a job is laughable. I provide better support than most MCSEs that I know. I know more about computers and how they work than some of the instructors that I have had in my classes. I am one of the best desktop and network troubleshooters that I have been in contact with. (And I'm humble, too ;) Most importantly, I believe, is that I can learn anything that anyone needs me to know, and I can do it in half the time as other candidates, but how do you quantify that on a resume? How do you convince an HR drone that you just need to get your hands on the technology and everything will come together?
The earlier comment that you should only hire someone with a CS degree is crap, IMO. I was lucky enough to gain almost all of my knowledge by preforming functions, rather than reading books. I buy technical books to try and further my knowledge, but I find that until I toss the book away and simply dig in, I'll never learn as much as I am capable of. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate into a screaming resume.
I'm hoping that the economy and the technology industry will pick up again soon, at least to the point where my skills are harder to come by. Until then I have to hope that the HR folks are really taking the time to see me for what I have to offer.
DWS
Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to say they weren't good employees either, but I can see where the parent poster is coming from...given the choice between two equal candidates, I would be more inclined to take the one with a computer hobby, so long as it wasn't his only hobby.
--trb
Re:Preach it brother (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hopefully this will be for more than just uni's (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't need more than one computer.
IT and CS, fields to avoid completely (Score:3, Insightful)
Less then 10% of my graduating class ever got career relavent jobs.
OK, now the rant. I would tell ANYONE thinking about a career in computers to avoid it like the black plague. There's too many people unemployed in this area as it is. Companies are outsourcing tech jobs like mad. If by some miracle you do get a job, its very low paying (I've seen companies in LA offering CCIE's $15 an hour) and extremely long hours. Even for someone like me who loves computers, its just not worth it. Getting a degree in this field is just a sure fire way to end up with massive student loans you'll have little chance of ever paying off.
People keep speaking of when things will recover. I dont think they're going to really. Companies just dont want to spend money in IT or pay for decent IT departments. Why pay someone 35k or more when you can just outsource it for far less. Granted the outsourced IT sucks quality wise, but
the bean counters dont care about quality.
Making a quick buck (Score:4, Insightful)
For a lot of people around here, it was a case of getting a decent job at all. Unfortunately, many employment advisors etc pushed them towards the computing field, ending them up in programming courses.
What these advisors don't seem to understand... yes, IT was a booming job market. However, it does require a certain mindset. In my course, which wasn't overly difficult to me, we had an influx of laid-off government workers from forestry and other IT-unrelated sectors. Some actually were decent coders... others simply floundered.
In addition, many who got good marks because of "book skills" simply don't cope well with real-life situations.
It's one thing to study up for test-time by memorizing keywords or phrases, methodologies, etc (some of which were completely useless crap IMHO, as I've never seen them used in the field) - it's quite another to be vaulted into a job situation... where your production server suddenly crashes continually while running a critical financial application running on COBOL.
OK, maybe not COBOL, but in many cases linux or related. Skills at finding information and solutions to problems from google, newgroups, and manuals - quickly and effectively - is a skills that often gets overlooked. The ability to cope in a crisis where the problem isn't obviously in a book, or is just unknown, is often more built-in than learned.
I'm not saying that some people from other industries can't learn to code, or be admins. It's just that many don't develop the love that comes with the position, it's just a job. Being able to punch in code for hours on end... look at the clock and suddenly realize you've been at it for 5 hours... and think "wow, what a rush, that was awesome" is just something that is beyond the average person. Equivilate it to a "jogger's high" - which is something many geeks will equally not experience... it's what seperates true geeks from trained nerds.
IT workers that lack the fundamental passion are glutting the market because people have been given the idea that "IT will get you a job", "IT is the place to be," "They're looking for workers like you." In the end, they make us all look bad, and make it very difficult for those who truly love IT to get the jobs we love. It's not just about grades (though the do indicate skill) or resumes, it's about passion.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not a bad general rule of thumb to follow, but it's important not to get anal about the small stuff like "for(;;)" versus "while(1)", or somebody else's indentation. These are co-workers or groupsmates you have to work with in the future, so the relationship you build is more important than any little inelegance in their code.
That's not to say you shouldn't speak up if their code cannot be understood. In fact, if you didn't acquire a reputation of being a nitpicker, your suggestion to rephrase the code where it counts will be that much more powerful.
One property I like to keep repeating is that there's no such thing* as an unreadable snippet of code. If a function is twenty lines long, even if poorly written, a person who speaks the language can figure things out slowly. The real problem with unmaintainable code is when the maintainer has no idea what the code is supposed to do, or where to make that simple change. IOW, it's the overall structure and high level purpose of the code base that's the problem, and never because somebody wrote "for(;;)".
Don't sweat the small stuff. Point it out once if you want (to share the general programming philosophy), but it's not really worth fighting for.
* Except for deliberately obfuscated code, of course, but we're talking about real world code here.
You don't NEED a computer science degree anyway. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Insightful? The great IT labor shortage of 2006 (Score:2, Insightful)
In the US of late xenophobia has taken hold, all foreigners are suspect, particularly if you're brown and speak with a very noticeable accent.
To compound matters, most posters here are hardcore nerds who have trouble relating to their fellow citizens, not to mind a foreigner.
What I tell people going into a computing major (Score:5, Insightful)
My irony is that I'm a psychology major who did a lot of research and used a lot of computers. Now half my work involves data abstraction, workflow, working with people, and statistics. If I'd gone into a CIS major I probably would have been a worse programmer - the extra "something" helps.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I consider a CS degree to be a nice base line. That person will have a basic understanding on a broad range of CS-related topics. Still, I was never taught design patterns or unit testing, things that I consider to be essential for a good programmer. If you choose to be a programmer, you will have to learn those things yourself (and plenty more). In that respect, every good programmer is (at least partially) self-taught. A fully self-taught man is usually very strong in some areas, but very weak in others. Sometimes it is good to be pushed to do things you normally wouldn't choose to pursue. I don't think that someone with a CS degree is automatically better than someone without or vice versa. A mix might be optimal (as each has their strenghts).
BTW, was that programmer with a Masters in CS ever taught to be a good programmer or did management leave him hanging because 'he should know already'? The lack of proper training might be the answer to your question why the people with degrees don't seem to perform that well. Another possibility is that he was hired as a programmer because of his degree, instead of his qualities as a programmer.
Disclaimer: I only have experience with one dutch university. I can't vouch for crappy US institutions
Re:Preach it brother (Score:3, Insightful)
Puhleeeeeze. (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, for the love of Pete, STF. We don't care, and if we once did, we stopped caring after we read the four millionth note detailing someone's "real experience" here on slashdot.
Re: Article (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think all of the CS people leaving the major is because of hard classes. It being a newspaper article, and therefore good at misquoting character, I was personally put as being a newbie to computers as well as not having much knowledge of one. I have been programming since 7th grade, always enjoyed it, and been doing web design since 8th. I still love to draw and do web design (one of the reasons I'm going into Advertising now--so I can draw in Photoshop for a living, something that thrills me!), but the idea of programming all day at a desk just kills my interest. I was a better programmer than most of the class at UT--often teaching people how to do programs. In fact, I plan on teaching entering freshman at UT in the first CS class as a USL (something like a TA) next year.
Now I'm not saying that programming all day at a desk is a bad thing. If you love it, great! Just what the college programs are doing is getting people to realize that if they're not totally passionate about Computer Science, EVEN IF they're good at it, there's no reason to stay in it.
A person made a comment that you can be good at something as a hobby, yet not want to pursue it as a career. Personally, I don't want to program or do Computer Science for a career. However, I still love computers and the science behind them, and admire those who work with them. It is just not for me.
Please, do not overgeneralize all those leaving the major and career as those who are inept at the science itself. Rather, they are just finding things that they are more passionate about, and would rather do for their lives.
Re:Preach it brother (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, that. I've met exactly one self-taught software person who could tell his ass from a hole in the ground. Most people beating their chests about how they don't need some galdurn longhair hippy telling them how to code have learned some subset of a couple of programming languages, and think they're masters of the universe. Since programming has always been easy for them, they assume that they are gifted programmers, never stopping to notice that they aren't attempting anything particularly difficult.
Difficult programming is like chess. Even the most extremely gifted can learn a lot by studying other practitioners, and even very experienced people can benefit from the perspective that theoretical knowlege can provide. The louder someone proclaims the pointlessness of an education, the more sure I become that they've never attempted anything truly difficult.
Re:Artificial restriction of supply (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really a fair comparison...presumedly, those governing bodies are *primarily* there to maintain some standards of competence - keeping the Dr. Nick Rivieras ("Hi everybody!") out of medicine.
A better contrasting example would be to the trade unions in this country that pump up janitor's salaries to $60k-$120k a year [nydailynews.com].