New Grads Shun IT Jobs As "Boring" 752
whencanistop writes "Despite good job prospects, graduates think that a job in IT would be boring. Is this because of the fact that Bill Gates has made the whole industry look nerdy? Surely with so many (especially young) people being 'web first' with not just their buying habits, but now in terms of what they do in their spare time, we'd expect more of them to want to get a career in it?"
'boring'??? (Score:5, Interesting)
And good riddance! We don't need 'shiny object' people in this business.
What's IT? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd rather do software development, CS research, something along those lines. Heck, my dream job would be working on low cost communication infrastructure in the third world. While I'm sure that all technically falls under the realm of IT, to me that's always be something different. Maybe that's just me, but "IT" to me has always been the boring stuff.
Spair?? (Score:4, Interesting)
I loose my mind!
Seriously though. I don't know if I should be concerned or not. Part of being young is working with the mistaken belief they can become millionaires working for World Peace. (or whatever their heart's desire) Part of it also is they don't comprehend the complexity of the underlying delivery systems.
Now, if the Bank of Mom and Dad does not sustain their magical thinking, then they'll get in line pretty fast once they have to choose between washing their clothes or eating.
Re:Different perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs#1960s [wikipedia.org]
I did! (Score:5, Interesting)
I figured, push comes to shove, IT was something I could pick up without a 4 year degree, if I needed something to fall back on, but aerospace engineering you really needed that piece of paper (and then a masters, and probably a PhD if you want to do the cool stuff). Plus, as an engineer, a lot of times you get to write or maintain code if you are in the design world, so you can incorporate elements of IT into your job as needed.
I have never experienced an ounce of regret.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always found that it pays to like boring jobs ;-)
It's only rarely that we admins get to do heroics [blogspot.com].
Re:What's IT? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd rather do software development, CS research, something along those lines. Heck, my dream job would be working on low cost communication infrastructure in the third world. While I'm sure that all technically falls under the realm of IT, to me that's always be something different. Maybe that's just me, but "IT" to me has always been the boring stuff.
I got my bachelor's in computer science. I found programming boring as can be, so when I got out, I stayed on as a systems administrator building servers / networks, etc. It's a heck of a lot of fun because you never know what that next phone call will bring!
Maybe a pig will step on a laptop, or a printer is out of toner, you never know with the people I work for (ag research... yes there is a lot of IT in ag research).
Re:What's IT? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why any software developer/engineer/designer will never describe their role as IT. And I think that's fair enough really.
Mentally, I think business IT - point and click Windows administration, network maintenance, exchange account setup, etc, as tasks that someone can be trained to do. You see adverts for IT training, and that's the type of stuff they're talking about.
So yeah, there's a superiority complex if you actually studied CS, program for a living, know the insides and outsides of Unix and several languages, etc. Of course, you're still creating some internal business application for the most part ... Of course it helps if you actually get excited (mildly) by designing things properly, be they databases, program architectures, and so on.
Outside people find it hard to see the difference, it's computers, innit.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think that's true. I've always thought fortune 500 CEO would be really exciting and fulfilling, and yet you have to pay those guys a fortune to do the job. Maybe it sucks a lot more than I thought.
On the other side of things, it seems like 'janitor' or 'farm hand' would pretty much maximize boring/unfulfilling, and yet those guys get paid next to nothing.
IT folks (Score:2, Interesting)
You only have a problem with it because you're in the industry. You see, a bunch of us who really liked other things discovered that we needed to make a living, so we went into IT. You people here on /. love to make jokes about liberal arts majors saying "You want fries with that?" because that's all that they're qualified for. Well, I got news for you. A well paying career is going to attract folks who need something to pay the bills. Just ask Doctors and Lawyers. I would LOVE to be a full time artist but the field is so saturated that there are 3 qualified people for every job. No thank you! I knew a Doctor who is a classical pianist - a very good one. But he wanted a family and he knew that he couldn't have one on a musician's pay. What, you want him to go on welfare because he followed his passion?!?
So you "they only got into it for the money" people should shut up.
fine by me! (Score:5, Interesting)
Every now and then I get a twinge of "oh god, I'm really still working at the computer lab in college but with bigger machines and 10x the pay." Then I think about other jobs.
Lawyer.. HELL NO. Unless you end up doing fancy litigation it has to be one of the worst jobs in the universe.
Medical.. bleh. Boring? Is performing the same knee surgery over and over and over again not a bit rote? If you end up in primary care you at least get to help people 1-on-1. Help them take drugs to counter their lack of exercise, smoking, etc. Med school. ick. I think it's 40% of doctors say they wouldn't recommend the career to their children. That's one hell of an endorsement.
MBA? Interesting idea, would probably shortcut a lot of time in getting into the upper echelons but I can't stand posturing, game playing, and management speak so would probably not do well there. I'm an engineer.. in a self-taught sort of way. I look down my nose at MBAs.
Oh yes... wicked hours and professional attire for all of the above.
About the only thing I think would tempt me would be some form of design/electrical engineering. So I've picked up a couple books on the same and will start tinkering that direction. If need be, I'll go to grad school.
For the moment, however, I'm wearing shorts and flipflops, am decently paid, left alone, showed up at work at 10, and have a little web stack I can call my own. I have, admittedly, a bunch of mind-numbing, syntactically sensitive technical problems to work on but with each passing week I add a lump of knowledge and maybe a tool or two to solve future problems.
If everyone wants to stay away.. fine by me! I'll just be in demand all the more.
Y'know, I think I've written myself into a better mood.
Most IT jobs are boring for a good CompSci/Eng (Score:3, Interesting)
While there are few jobs within IT where your college education really feels useful (i.e. architecture jobs), for most of them, a college grad is either grossly overqualified because he/she paid attention in all those theoretical classes which have no bearing on corporate IT and is a geek that could have done most of the jobs without college, or grossly underqualified, because he/she took a CompSci/Eng program just for the money, and failed to pick up the necessary practical skills outside of class during their education.
I would go so far to say that if you want to work corporate IT, a 2yr program should be sufficient. If you want to work in the technology industry itself, creating or supporting lower level stuff than end-user apps, then a college education comes in handy. For those jobs, a formal education is real useful, and employers in the computer industry expect you to pick up most of your skills via OJT, so previous practical knowledge is actually less useful than with IT employers.
For me, my first job out of college with a freshly minted CompE degree was top-level support for a company making network routing equipment. Never mind I had never actually seen a router before in my life... It wasn't a problem, since the work was so low-level that pretty much nobody was expected to come into the job having the required protocol analysis skills. Having a well-rounded CompE education came in real handy for picking up that stuff in a hurry.
Most of the development work in Corporate IT is churning out one DB App after another. Most of the other work is sysadmin, DB admin or user support work. I just don't see the relevance of the broad theoretical knowledge provided by a college education there.
I can't imagine doing my job for a tech company well without my CompE degree, and I can't imagine what I would do with my degree at most of the customers I deal with.
SirWired
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, I was one of those people, sort of. I went to college for computers because I was good at them, and I liked the "magic". After a decade spent working on computers, I half-wish I was done. I make decent money being a sysadmin, and I think I may be able to retire a little bit early, but as for my day-to-day existence, I no longer love computers, or even like them. Aside from my work laptop, I don't even have one at home. Don't want one. I'd rather read, or cook, or learn something non-computer-related. I guess I'm just burned out.
I still do my job, and I have a lot of interest in learning new things I can use at work, but it's not from any sense of personal fulfillment. It's more from a desire to build a stable system that won't wake me up at 3am. I haven't worked on a project for myself forever (unless you count my blog, and even that is blogger.com). I just don't have the fire anymore.
Re:If I had the power to do it all over again... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having pretty much lived and breathed both Network admin jobs, programming jobs and QA/Testing jobs for the last... 8 years, I'm inclined to agree with you.
Of late, I've started to become a little dis-illusioned with the whole industry... unfortunately, at this point in my career, I'm finding it difficult to see a path out. All I really know is computers, and although I have keen interests in other areas, I'm finding that other paths would require a large amount of re-education.
I was at a training course, and the instructor was going through the various generations of our times, and was mentioning the fact that GenX'ers (thats me) on *AVERAGE* have 7 different jobs(careers) throughout their lives, as opposed to the past generations which had like... 2-3 jobs. Also, GenX'ers are tending to look for more than just monetary compensation. There has to be something more to the job, something to keep them interested.
I'm finding it harder and harder to stay interested in my job...
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Interesting)
True with a caveat or two, you will still start at close to the "just out of college" salary, and it jobs have to exist here in this country. If Americans find it too boring, then companies will have to find somewhere else that really wants the jobs. It happened with customer support, it now looks like it will happen with IT, when telepresence robotics takes off it will probably happen with garbage collection, taxi driving, and long haul trucking.
Re:'boring'??? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I got my first computer, I poked around the software, but was afraid to take it apart for a long time (I was good at taking things apart, not as good putting them together again). Eventually I took it apart and was disapointed with what I found. All I could see was chips, some big, some small, but it was impossible to see how they actually worked.
After I finished High School and decided that if worked at Burger King for any longer I would kill myself, I went into computer so that I could learn how a computer actually works. Now that I know how a computer works, by job is to figure out why it's not working.
People in the industy like Shiny Objects. We tend to gravitate toward complexity to feed that desire to know how everything works.
Re:Service jobs (Score:3, Interesting)
We've also gotten really good at manufacturing our goods in countries where labor costs a tenth as much.
Boring ... and engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
Engineering in all its facets (from civil engineering to mechanical engineering to chemical engineering) is sometimes considered "boring" too.
From what I understand this is because you need a lot of background knowledge, and unless you're extremely good you won't find much scope for technical innovation. You'll primarily be applying knowledge, not inventing it.
E.g. in the case of structural engineering using standard components, standard materials, and standard constructions. It's only when you work for a specialised engineering design company that you get to do state-of-the-art finite element calculations on brand-new structures. Other companies just use standard design rules to dimension standard components in standard structures, the trick being to satisfy all requirements in the cheapest possible way in the least possible time. Day in day out.
So you'll generally have to find expression for your creativity by getting things done on time and within budget instead pushing the envelope, and as soon as you're doing that you'll tend to shy away from wild innovation.
With software development there simply is a lot of (to me elegant and beautiful, to others dead and boring) scientific background knowledge you should have (algorithms, data-structures, compiler design, finite automata, complexity theory, concurrency theory, discrete mathematics, and numerical mathematics) supplemented by more applied knowledge like the principles of software engineering, in-depth knowledge of at least three programming languages (C, C++, Java), some experience with the object hierarchy underlying modern GUIs, and probably a lot I forgot.
And when you've done all that and appear for your first job, you may find you'll be on some project team and entrusted with responsibility for building component X of subsystem Y according to specifications someone will give you. You write your code, construct your test-cases, and verify correctness, document your functions, check in your code, and rush off to the next specification you'll implement because you've got to meet productivity standards or you're out.
This might seem a little pessimistic, and I'm sure that in many companies who use a seat-of-the-pants approach to software engineering things are more exciting. Like being given a huge poorly documented codebase to maintain. But generally speaking I don't think it is. There is (thankfully) an awful lot of this engineering-type work in software production, and only those who excel will, in time, become the lead programmers, designers, and system architects who actually dream up and shape end products.
Some people, and especially those who dream of designing a new supercool system to fly aircraft do indeed find the prospect of maintaining payslip applications on mainframes, automatic teller machine software, book-ordering software and inventory management systems, and crufty little custom data-entry packages boring. And perhaps they're right.
As I see it, most software engineering tends to be a bit unspectacular when done right, and excitement mostly enters the equation if you make serious mistakes. Of course there will be exceptions, like the Mars landers. But not everyone can be a programmer at NASA.
Re:Five Years Into the Job (Score:2, Interesting)
I think you have to really love technology and continued learning to do well in IT. When I go home, I have a desktop, laptop, and media center PC to configure, manage, tweak, etc. I read the same RSS feeds and news articles for my job as I do my personal life.
When your job and hobbies blur together, it's hard to hate what you do
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, some IT outsourcing is happening, but after a while I think it'll slack back off. I've talked to several people about IT--courtesy those assumptions that "computer scientist" = "IT specialist"--who say IT outsourcing is frustrating and ultimately inefficient for their companies. One woman in particular complained that their main corporate office was in NYC, but all of their tech support was at the time (sometime in 2003 or 04) based somewhere in India. Evidently, they weren't making the IT guys work a schedule compatible with any of the American offices, and also didn't check for a sufficient command of English, so it was next to impossible to get any useful help in a timely manner.
Face it, IT *is* boring (Score:1, Interesting)
It really doesn't take long to learn everything to learn about the job. Most of it gets to be routine.
And you are never actually doing anything real, you are supporting others who actually make the money in the organization. That's why IT is seen as a cost center and cut to save expense or sent overseas. So I gave up on IT.
young person (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's spice up IT (Score:5, Interesting)
You're confusing "IT" with the function that most (most especially those actually in IT) refer to insultingly as the "Help Desk". The guys working the Help Desk are generally there because they either a) are too stupid to do anything else, b) are totally devoid of experience and have to put in their 2 years or so of Help Desk work just to get something on the resumé, or c) happen to be in an oversaturated area where there simply are no other jobs available.
To me, the core of "real" IT work is moreso in the background. Administration of servers, planning of backups, designing of corporate networks, securing said networks, and development of in-house programs. Those things DO take skill (trust me I worked in construction for side money every summer from my junior year in high school till I graduated college - my current IT job takes a lot more skill), but nobody realizes that they're back in their offices making everything work. That is, unless it breaks. Ironically though, the best IT people of that sort are the kind that nobody ever thinks about, because their systems keep humming along unnoticed. The only experience the users then have is with the help desk staff when something breaks on their local machine ;).
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Interesting)
Amen to that. I fancy myself a half decent photographer. People ask "Why don't you do that instead of software engineering?"
Because I enjoy it, and want to keep enjoying it. Once you make a living on a creative process you enjoy, it's not a hobby anymore, it's just work.
Re:As opposed to... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lord yes, I used to love boring when I was in the Navy. When there is 300 feet of ocean between you and fresh air, and excitement means an anti-radiation suit or breathing apparatus or hoping to hell a seawater pump actual works at its rated capacity... you learn to appreciate boring like it was a fine wine.
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:3, Interesting)
At my company, the CEO is also the chairman of the board. Additionally, in publically traded companies (mine is not), tell me how many people serving on the board are not CEOs at some other company. I'll give you a hint, it's not that many (less than half or fewer). When you have CEOs and only CEOs voting on what to make the average CEO salary, you will have it inflated. It is no different than if the labor unions got to set employee pay with no restrictions from management at all. It would be set to the maximum it could be and not bankrupt the company. CEOs set it as high as they can and not get sued by shareholders or have the government take action. Pay levels are not set based on performance. If so, they would be more like the European pay differentials, and that's not the case.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, that's the response, because that's reality. I'm not saying it to crush their hopes and dreams, I'm saying it because that's life and they need to ready for it. I have a cousin who's about two years our of school, and has left at least three jobs already because "they were making her do work she didn't want to do." She's an interior designer, and she was always upset that these companies that she's worked for wouldn't let her sit with paper and colored pencils and sketch restaurants and hotel lobbies all day. Instead they have the gall to make her do boring things like draft in CAD and calculate square footages and stuff like that.
Never mind that 90% of the work that needs to be done to get a restaurant designed is "stuff like that". You have to do it on every project, and it sucks every time, but it has to get done and someone has to do it. It's not a particular quirk of any industry, pretty much every job is like that. Especially when you're just starting out.
The working world is not like college, and to convince yourself or someone else otherwise is not helping them, it's just setting them up for inevitable disappointment, and time wasted while they get over their denial and figure it out. My cousin seems to have accepted that reality, and is hopefully willing to put in the time and work necessary to work her way up the food chain until she can set her own job description. But she's a couple years behind on that track than she would've been if someone had been honest with her and not pretended like life was going to be all sunshine and rainbows.
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:5, Interesting)
He's worked himself up (or got born into) the top of the food chain and that's his privilege: he can fire you, you can't fire him.
He can demand ridiculous salaries, you can not. He can sink your company but still get the golden parachute, you can't.
And who can fire the CEO of a public company? Who decides what their salary is, and what kind of "golden parachute" they get?
The Board of Directors.
And what is the most common other career for a member of the Board?
CEO (or other executive position) for another public company.
I mean, the CEO of my company is on the Board of Directors for two other companies, and hell he's even the Chairman of the Board for his own company. And this is utterly common.
You think he, or any other Board member, is going to start a trend of reducing CEO's compensation? No, in fact the exact opposite! It's in their interest to drive up executive compensation, because then at their own company where they are CEO, they can ask to have their salaries raised "in accordance with industry norms" to sell it to the shareholders and employees. And of course the Board is going to say yes, thinking about their own CEO gigs.
It's a racket. It's a huge incestuous web of people colluding for their own mutual benefit. The alleged "risk" of the position that is supposed to justify the compensation doesn't exist, because they've done everything they can to eliminate the risk. Forget even the ludicrous "golden parachute". What about the most simple of "risks" -- that if you screw up your job too badly, you won't be able to get a job in the same field again? Once again, that rarely happens, about the only way to 'ruin' your career in upper management is basically to get indicted. Otherwise, it's never in the interest of the Board to hold their CEOs to too high of standards, because they don't want they themselves to ever have to worry about finding a job.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, one of my friends runs a company in Germany that relies entirely on outsourced coding, and he's making a mint. He's also a master at preparing project specs and timelines, requires little sleep, and is closer to the coders time zone.