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The Continuing American Decline in CS 727
abb_road writes "America's recent dismal showing in the ACM Programming finals may be more than just a bad year; a BusinessWeek article suggests that the loss is indicative of the US's continuing decline in producing computer scientists. Despite the Labor Dept's forecast of a 40% increase in 'computer/math scientist' jobs, planned CS enrollments have plummeted from 3.7% in 2000 to just 1.1% last year. Other countries, particularly China, India and Eastern Europe, are working hard to pick up the slack, with potentially serious long-term effects for the US economy. From the article: 'If our talent base weakens, our lead in technology, business, and economics will fade faster than any of us can imagine.'"
Good (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
This is your boss, I demand that you lower your rates or I'll hire less-expensive overseas developers.
Re:Good (Score:2, Funny)
I am an overseas developer you insensitive clod.
Re:Good -- or not (Score:3, Insightful)
It also seems that there are not very many Americans in my CS courses either, but there are many students from China and India. Does anyone have any comments on th
Re:Good -- or not (Score:3, Informative)
I also wonder whether you could take it as a deduction on your personal taxes. Have you spoken with an accountant? Pub 15B under Working Condition Benefits discusses deducting education expenses if they would be deductible by the employee as a business expense, and ment
Re:Good (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
If a CEO makes $147,000 per day, well that's market forces. If technical people start to break into 6 figures annually, well that's a threat to our global competitiveness which must be remedied.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I would solve this by making companies show that there are NO Americans at all who can do the job before getting an H1B. Also, I would love to see companies that are shipping jobs away boycotted.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you...this was my thinking exactly. After the past 4+ years or so of hype AND actual practice of off-shoring of IT jobs...young students are seeing and perceiving
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
xenophobic much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do we have to ensure jobs for anyone who is even the most minimally qualified? If a company wants to bring in smart foreign workers, since they are smarter than the folks at home, then more power to them. By propping up poor CS students, we are doing the same thing the RIAA does that we hate so much: getting gov
Shortages Correct Underpricing! (Score:3, Insightful)
When the government counteracts the corrective force of the shortage, the government inevitably suppresses wages and salaries or prevent
What is there to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:5, Insightful)
I graduated in 2000 when life was sweet for Computer Science majors. When the bubble burst, there was a false impression that computer related fields were doomed. I always found that amusing because our whole society is based on technology and will always need people to run it. Media reports and articles on websites like this didn't help either. They gave the impression that Computer Science wasgoing the way of the dinosaur when it truly was healthy.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:2)
On the other hand maybe it is due to the large amount of tech colleges poping up like ITT and the guaranteed technical training schools. Why get a CS or engineering degree when you can do half the work at a vo-tech :)
Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:2)
This does not require university CS degrees. It requires technical training through technical colleges. At least, that's what companies are willing to pay for, and it's about what management expects.
In hindsight, I do wish I went the community college route. It would have given me more flexibility to re-train, if needed, without the burden of being "overqualified" for some of the decent-pa
Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:2)
Not all programming is high-tech, but there are many industries where the level of required coding and design is quite sophisticated. Now I agree that many programming jobs are akin to factory work, but there is an enormous demand for talented designers/programmers in industries such as the medical field, military, Google, MS, Oracle, and the list goes on.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:5, Insightful)
While business "believes" that CS workers are foundry workers. Most CS workers are creating new things every project, they don't forge the same hunk of steel over and over. As much as business wants CS to be a production job, its really a creation job, and the business leaders don't get it.
All this reverence in this country for business degrees is going to really come back to bite us. Innovation and invention is on the decline in this country, and without the new things and the technological innovation, all those business people will be left with nothing to manage, because eventually with all the creation going on overseas, enventually overseas companies will take all the companies (and their management) with them.
Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:3, Funny)
We don't need "creation jobs" in this country. We'll be better off when we're
Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are a programmer chances are you are going to be blessed with long hours sitting in the same cube day after day, death marches everytime a delivery needs to happen, and chances are your management chain is going to forget you when they are handing out the party trips, options and bonuses, because they get theirs first and the less they give you the more there is for them. I think they will be of the opinion that you should just be glad that they let you keep your job for the next round.
This is just how the food chain works in capitalism. The nearer you are to the top the better off you are and this is trending worse with each passing year. The disparity in compensation for executive versus workers has exploded in this country and it will ultimate lead to some form of collapse or rebellion. The new trend where executives can threaten to, or actually will, offshore your job, gives them further leverage to drive down worker's compensation and increase their own. There will eventually be a tipping point where a few percent will be filthy rich, everyone else will be hovering around the poverty line and eventually that 90+% will realized they've been had and they outnumber the rich fat cats.
If you like programming and like sitting in front of a computer, you don't want to get rich at it, and you can find an employer that doesn't suck its probably an OK career choice for you. Most people realize that in fact its not a career path with a lot of future in it and that is why more and more college students are rejecting it as a career path.
The fact that China and India are turning out so many CS grads is in itself a reason to reject it as a career path since it means the globalized market is being flooded, they can work for a lot less than you can thanks to cost of living disparity, and that means wages and working conditions are probably going to get progressively worse, not better.
-- Ed
Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:3, Insightful)
What is that saying? It is something like "revolution is just three meals away".
The problem with "revolution" in the US if you have never left the US in your life you have probably never seen someone miss three meals because they couldn't afford it. You certainly have never seen s
Re:Blame it on the .com bust and hype (Score:4, Interesting)
True but they are, for example, going to great lengths to acquire long term contracts to secure critical mineral and fossil fuels reserves in the future because they have a MUCH longer view than America does. America's fatal flaw is incredible short sightedness. The U.S. also thinks market forces will solve all problems and they do in fact cause as many as the solve.
The Chinese also have a huge influx in U.S. dollars due to huge and exploding trade surpluses which gives them a lot of money to play with on the global stage. The U.S. by contrast is struggling to just borrow enough money just to keep its budget and trade deficit afloat. As that borrowing continues the interest needed to maintain it will slowly suck the economic life out of the U.S. It is almost never good to be a long term, habitual debtor.
Fascist governments suck in a lot of ways but they can be VERY good at propelling economic growth. One such government took Germany from destitution to global power in under a decade.
"They need to slash the minimum wage, make unions illegal except for a single 'state' union, slash environmental regulations, provide massive subsidies to corporations, and regularly confiscate land without any sort of due process and hand it over to corporations."
Uh the U.S. is slashing the minimum wage by never raising it even to adjust for inflation and worse by massive and governmentally condoned importation of easily exploited illegal aliens which are constantly driving down wages at the bottom end of the economy.
Environmental regulations are certainly damaging U.S. economic growth but the Bush administration has relaxed them and the Republicans will continue to relax them every time they can get away with it. There is a HUGE resurgence of the use of coal in this country, cleaner than it used to be, but still very damaging to the environment. This makes the U.S. a lot like China which is the biggest, dirtiest user of coal on the planet.
"provide massive subsidies to corporations" uh yea like the Medicare drug bill, massive farm subsidies, transportation bill to subsidize construction companies, energy bill to subsidize energy companies at a time they are posting record profits, Iraq reconstruction contracts that benefited a host of Republican friendly companies, massive defense and intelligence spending subsidizing defense contractors. The only big ticket subsidy missing is to redirect Social Security in to private accounts to buoy Wall Street.
"regularly confiscate land", the Supreme court just authorized this last year to seize private property for a drug companies new office complex. The ball just needs to get rolling to do it on a regular basis and the U.S. and China will be the same in this regard.
The U.S. and China really are a lot alike, both leaning heavily to Fascism, China is just a lot more brutal about it, but it is a difference in degree and not substance. China just has a huge advantage in that its cost of living is much lower and it has a huge surplus of workers so it can easily out compete the U.S. in a globalized world with cheap telecom and container shipping.
You wanna know why? (Score:2, Insightful)
I earn my paycheck doing network admin, in all that encompasses. I went to college for a year and half before I realized that the education I was getting wasn't going to prepare me for my chosen profession.
The schools get CS majors ready to be programmers ( bad ones at that ). That's it. There is a huge gap between what the schools teach and what businesses need from their computer personel.
I'm more valuab
Blah blah blah. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Because the field is undefined. What is a mathematician? What do they do after they graduate?
I earn my paycheck doing accounting, in all that encompasses. I went to college for a year and half before I realized that the education I was getting wasn't going to prepare me for my chosen profession.
The schools get math majors ready to be theorists ( bad ones at that ). That's it. There is a huge gap between what the schools teach and what businesses need from their accounting personel.
I'm more valuable now than I would have been had I stuck around and graduated."
Now, you can't teach problem solving, but it's hoped after 4 years in school you have some idea of how to be useful. Learning technical trivia is easy; anyone can do it. It doesn't take a genius to change an oil any more than it takes a genius to administrate a small network. However, understanding the deeper concepts (CSMA/CD!) and other principles is very useful if you are a computer scientist.
The difference between a degree and a certificate from a trade school is exactly what you mentioned; people go to a trade school to learn how to do 1 job. People go to University to learn how to solve a superset of problems, which they can apply to any job they want from a particular perspective. I can attack problems of compiler theory, networks, operating systems, programming language theory, etc, because I'm well grounded in the theory behind these concepts, and have experience (both in class and with jobs and projects I've worked on around school).
In 20 years, the tools you use will have changed dozens of times. In 20 years, Dijkstra's algorithm for finding the shortest path on a network will likely be just as useful for link-state routing models as it is now. So your final sentence, "I'm more valuable now than I would have been had I stuck around and graduated." is probably wrong, because you didn't understand why the education was useful. Maybe you weren't cut out for it, or maybe you just wanted money now. That's ok. Just don't preach it like it's the gospel truth on Slashdot.
Re:Blah blah blah. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Blah blah blah. (Score:3, Interesting)
My first starter project was to write an XML validator, so that we could compare profiles created and uploaded through FTP and those sent through web services. Unfortunately the schemas had become a bit different, so we needed a way to validate that the same data existed. I used graph theory to represent the XML documents, validate and transform elements, and create a diff log.
My next project was continuing the development o
Re:You wanna know why? (Score:2)
More H1B cap lobbying (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look in USA, everywhere but the Valley has an oversupply of IT people, my own employer just recruited a load of experienced staff in Portland, many excellent programmers too.
Re:More H1B cap lobbying (Score:2, Informative)
In fact, had we *increased* the number of h1b's, we may have limitted the number of jobs being shipped offshore to places like India. In 2000 there was a shortage of good programmers - and a limit on h1bs, so the m
Re:More H1B cap lobbying (Score:3, Insightful)
ACM finals aren't correlated with general CS edu. (Score:5, Interesting)
ACM contest is fun but that doesn't mean that the winners are the world's best CS people. Nope.
Re:ACM finals ... correlated with general CS edu. (Score:4, Informative)
I have also participated in the ACM programming contest (only got to regional competition, but it was fun). I had the unusual experience of having a programming-related job while I was still in college, and I can certainly confirm the parent's description of ACM programming contests being far from real-world earning-an-income coding. It's clear when you realize that an 8 to 5 desk job is much different than you remember from the contests in college, but it's really clear when you've already got a programming job and you go to an ACM programming contest.
The really successful coders are the ones that can learn new APIs and languages over a weekend. They're the ones who can communicate with non-technical people. They're the ones who can write a design for an application that will take a team of twelve developers a year to implement. The ACM programming contest compares to real-life CS work in the same way that a lumberjack competition [kentuckylumberjack.com] proves a person's suitability for work in the logging industry. In both cases, the two sets of skills (contest vs. real life) overlap very little.
Re:ACM finals aren't correlated with general CS ed (Score:2)
When I was in high school, I ran track (poorly), played hockey (poorly) and dated (poorly). Then I got to college and was mightily impressed by all these kids who had been in the International Chemistry Olympiad or Physics Olympiad or whatnot.
Check back a few years later and I seem like a much better hockey player, now that I only play against other researchers. Meanwhile, the former Olympians have never done an
Re:ACM finals aren't correlated with general CS ed (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly true, but then again, that could also be said about almost all other such and similar competitions. Nevertheless, trying to discredit those people by simply stating that "we didn't go there to compete, but to have fun" is just silly, to say the least. If you go to a competition without the wish to win, you shouldn't be there, do something more fun, or someting more productive. At the end, they were who won th
Re:ACM finals aren't correlated with general CS ed (Score:3, Insightful)
That's like saying that because an American won an olympic medal in track and field that Americans are in better shape and run faster than the Chinese.
Re:ACM finals aren't correlated with general CS ed (Score:3, Insightful)
I also went to the ACM world finals. We didn't do that great, but we did alright, and we had fun. My university was one of the best in the US in CS, but there was never even a chance of our winning ACM overall, and we never thought there was.
The reason is exactly what you describe: the groups that are winning the contest right now are putting in immense effort, going over literally thousands of ACM-style problems. They
Re:Preperation is preperation (Score:3, Informative)
The problems are such that there are two skills involved in winning: 1) writing bug-free small programs and 2) understanding the wording of the problem. The first favors asian cultures which teach more by rote and are higher pressure and more exacting.
I don't think that the internationals are translated into the team's native language, but if so that would definitely be a huge b
job pressure (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:job pressure (Score:3, Informative)
Find a small to midsized company, show them how you can help them apply technology to solve problems. The technolgy, being 'buzz word compliant' is secondary, it just takes a little retraining. And college is all about retraining yourself, right?
Also,
blame academia (Score:2, Interesting)
graduate school admissions for computer science.
"oh you went to harvard and studied anthropology, sure, you're better than the kid who went to a small state school and studied computer science. okay we'll take you."
the current attitude of admissions for grad school is so bad that this is the actual truth. someone once tried to justify why harvard anthropology kid (straight out of undergrad) was better than midwest comp sci kid.
honestly, academia is behind this decline.
Honest (Score:2, Interesting)
End of story
Recruit Them (Score:5, Insightful)
*Of course, this is assuming that the U.S. has an actual shortage and the study isn't some ploy to get cheap code-monkey labor for Microsoft, Intel, et. al. I'll let my fellow slashdotters belabor that point.
Re:Recruit Them (Score:3)
While I agree with the overall attitude of your post, I am just reminding everyone that one of the primary reasons Einstein and the rest of those European scientists came to the U.S. was because they were trying to escape Nazi Germany.
Re:Recruit Them (Score:3, Informative)
Good idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it rather amazing that there isn't already more of this. When it comes to immigration, it almost seems as though many people with real skills are lumped in with unskilled labor sneaking across the border (thus proving the U.S. commitment to the idea that "all men are created equal", I suppose). While there are some immigration programs for people of "exceptional merit and ability" and similar categories, the number of people who get in this way are a tiny fraction of the people who could truly ben
Re:CS from the inside (Score:5, Insightful)
Time for software schools (Score:3, Informative)
To pick just one example, the Kalman Filter [wikipedia.org], which is used for everything from radar tracking to helicopter stabilization, relies on linear algebra. And physics gives an excellent background in learning to apply mathematical modeling techniques to real-world phenomena. One of the best (or at least most interesting) distributed version control systems out there, Darcs [abridgegame.org], was wr
Re:CS from the inside (Score:3, Informative)
Yep. I wouldn't have even considered transferring into the Engineering CS track.
I was actually targetting myself at the L&S CS program. IIRC, there were like seven requirements for declaration: 65B, calculus physics, natural sciences Diff. Eq/Linear Algebra, Calculus, Discrete Math, and Circuits. They strongly wanted you to have 5 of them completed by the time you transferred. Circuits weren't offered at Foothill (but rather De Anza, which is not too far away). I had calculus and natural sciences squ
The sky is falling! (Score:4, Insightful)
It can't be both that the programming field is in danger because we're outsourcing all our programming work, leading to no jobs for programmers, AND be that we're in danger of not having enough new programmers.
Let's see. (Score:5, Interesting)
2. New home machines much less accessible to proto-hackers than machines like the C64? Check.
3. Popular culture that denigrates "geeks" and "nerds" and makes it a social crime to get A's? Check.
And people are confused about a decline in the number of student engineers?
Re:Let's see. (Score:3, Interesting)
4. Grade inflation, and a public-school system that rewards attendance (and effort) far, far more than actual knowledge and learning.
5. Touchy-feely political correctness which demands the elimination of all sense of competition of any kind.
6. Dumbing-down (and enlarging) classes, and brainless teachers who memorize their course, but hardly know anything else about the subject they teach.
Re:Let's see. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not study a related field instead? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Hmmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see if we can figure this out. American kids aren't going into CS -- why? Perhaps because:
Did I leave anything out?
Same stat as Apple Computer (Score:2, Interesting)
There are MORE college students today than 6 years ago
Apple Computer:
Marketshare is lower to flat
It's not competition (Score:2, Interesting)
On the decline of CS students... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a graduating computer science student (and long time professional), I was interviewed [broadsideonline.com] on this topic by George Mason University's student newspaper. I also wrote a little piece of my own on the declining number of CS students [swisspig.net]:
I have two perspectives on this -- one, as a veteran software engineer, and two as a computer science student.
I chose computer science because it seemed to make sense, given my job as a software engineer. However, many years of interviewing and hiring have shown me that a computer science degree is not necessarily going to be of any use to a software engineer. The position "software engineer" could mean any number of things. At my company, it requires a wide domain knowledge of different applications, almost none of which are addressed in GMU's computer science program. The computer science program teaches programming at the most rudimentary level, and is not even remotely adequate for a job that requires programming. However, a computer science degree does introduce important concepts that are necessary for understanding the underlying principles of working with computers (even if it isn't presented that way), and also teaches logic and problem solving, which are fundamental to any technical job.
As far as students not choosing computer science, I think there are a number of reasons. At GMU (and my previous university) I used to hear all the time, "oh, there's too much math required for a degree in computer science, I'm switching to a degree in information technology or business information systems, because there's not as much math." Also, when the Internet "bubble" burst, I think a stigma developed, where people don't think they'll be able to find a job in the computer industry when they graduate, or that they won't be able to get the kind of pay that they would like, or have job security.
I think it's a sweeping generalization to say that the US is lacking computer science students. What the US is lacking is individuals who are sincerely interested in developing their technical skills and solving interesting problems for their own sake, rather than people who are trying to find the easiest way into a high paying position that they care very little about -- having worked with both, I'd choose a British Literature major who does programming on her own, just for fun, over a Computer Science major who hates computers, but just wants a high paying job.
--brian
Re:On the decline of CS students... (Score:2)
And do you think those Chinese and Indian students are getting into Comp Sci "Just for fun"?
Mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
My girlfriend is just finishing her degree in Education, and it is horrible just how bad it has gotten. They have dozens of programs designed to helping out disadvantaged children and poor performing students, while the gifted students are left to their own devices. My boss is from Europe, and their schools (at least in Sweden in the 1980s) encourage their best and brightest. The gifted students are the ones that are going to make the biggest difference in the workplace, while the struggling students are simply going to fill up the jobs that dont take much skill.
If we want to keep up in a technologically advanced world, we have to start caring about our gifted students, not just helping the below average ones pass school.
--
Re:Mediocrity (Score:2)
Huh? Come on down to my classes here. I'll make sure you get the grade you deserve.
Look, CS is a tough discpline requiring long hours of work, sacrifice and committment to
Re:Mediocrity (Score:3, Interesting)
Academic Majors (Score:4, Informative)
The Decline of the American Empire (Score:2)
FUD kills (Score:2)
No CS Degree needed (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not know how many people I've met in my 7 professional years that either a)said they did not have any degree at all or b)said they got a degree in some other program and many of them not even in a technical profession. I think this is the larger problem. Our industry is one of a few where they want highly talented individuals, but also want a break on price. Easies way to do this is let anyone in which drives cost down because it is not specialized. For those of us that are CS Majors think how much more we could demand if someone from outside of the degree program could not come in and take our job. Also think how much more weight might be given to us in project management as well. If someone knows that this person really knows what they are talking about because of his education and experience perhaps those ridiculous deadlines might be fewer and fewer.
Cause and effect (Score:2)
Even the article qualifies the security of tech jobs:
Programmers with leadership and business skills will do just fine.
Translation: You can be a programming man
Don't blame us. This what we've been told. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you're faced with poor, unstable job prospects and declining salaries due to offshore competition, what do you EXPECT us to do? The smart ones are realizing management (unfortunately) is the way to go. The rest will wither and die, unfortunately.
CS is NOT Programming.... (Score:2, Informative)
You don't go to school for 4 years if you want to go be a code monkey, just like you wouldn't get a Ph.D. in Chemistry if you were going to enter pharmacutical sales. A Computer Science degree allows for study in the area of new algorithms, new computing paradigms (grid, neural net, et al.), and other RESEARCH oriented goals.
Computer Engineering on the other hand allows people to gain the skills needed to participate in industry, leading teams of developers and (ho
Market saturation? (Score:2)
Perhaps, the current number of the practitioners of this particular Art reflects the demand?
The articles talks about the number of new CS-majors "in pipeline", but how many have exited the workforce in the same time?
A few observations (Score:5, Insightful)
Stalin said "Quantity has a quality all its own", which may have been valid in an industrial economy. What is not apparent is whether it is valid in a service economy. I strongly suspect, and some of the numbers I have heard about the best programmers being 10x more productive than the average programmer reinforces this, is that it is not valid to use an industrial paradigm in a service industry. But I think most managers, political leaders, economists and average Joes just don't get this. Too often projects fail beacuse to save money the work is given to the lowest common denominator in programmers and managers. Whether in-house, out-sourced or off-shored. And make no doubt about it, software is a service industry.
Finally I say, good riddance. This is as good a way to filter out the riff-raff as any. Let those who love the field be the ones who enter it and stay in. They are the ones more likely to develop the tools needed for the next generation of development, both in terms of process paradigms as well as actual software tools.
American Decline (Score:2)
The Best Job in America! (Score:3, Interesting)
Us Companies will not Pay for CS People... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its damn simple why go into CS when most CS jobs are getting outsourced/offshored for cheaper rates. This is causing a Glut of talent in the market and cuasing the rates that a company will pay for CS talent to go down. It sucks as a job course in life.
If US companies cut the crap and word gets out that they are willing to pay for talented CS people at decent rates and the workers don't have to be concerned with having the job cut out from underthem, then the enrolements will go up.
Job growth =! Entry-level job growth (Score:4, Interesting)
There are tons of listings for sysadmin and programming jobs in Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, etc., but you almost never see any entry level positions. It took me six months to find something, and that was a fluke.
Are there any places (other than Cali) where recent graduates are quickly hired? I'm certainly not aware of any.
Re:Job growth =! Entry-level job growth (Score:3, Insightful)
We're both solid programmers and/or computer scientists, but I don't think anyone talking in this forum is complaining about a lack of jobs for crappy graduates - although, perhaps, that *is* what this is really about.
Bad Profs (Score:3, Informative)
I was a computer science major for 3 years, but was always taking classes outside teh department "for fun". Half of my profs were non-native speakers which made difficult subjects even more difficult. For example, a friend of mine went an entire semester of assembly trying to figure out what the hell a regis was. The professor was simply referring to registers, but never bothered pronouncing the whole word.
In computer architecture, the book came with a cd full of power point review slides. Because the prof couldn't converse in English, she just read the slides offered by the CD. OK, great. But when you don't get what the book is talking about, the review slides/therefore class notes are in the direct language of the book, and the professor can't converse in English-- you are screwed.
My point isn't that CS profs have accents. My point is, Universities aren't hiring based on teaching skills and the students pay for it. I don't need fluent speakers, but I do need someone who can explain difficult concepts in understandable terms.
NEEEEEERRRRRRDDDDSSS! (Score:5, Informative)
Those days are over (for now) and those students have gone back to pre-law or MBA courses. Also, the fact of the matter is that in a CS cirriculum (like engineering), you're going to work twice as long as your English/History/MBA friends who are always out partying and never seem to study. You'll be taking the "hard" math courses while they're learning how to draw graphs incorrectly in Economics. They'll have plenty of time for shmoozing with girls while you work on two projects until late in the night. When you graduate, they may very well make more money than you (or they'll end up broke and living with their parents, depending on how good their network is by the time they get out of college).
On the other hand, you'll be creating something that will be useful to people. Those guys will often only manufacture bullshit for the rest of their life.
Offshored? (Score:3, Interesting)
The latter notion reminds me of the book Bait and Switch: (The Futile Pursuit of the American Dream) [amazon.com] by Barbara Ehrenreich. In it, she fluffs up her resume and goes searching for work that pays a minimum of $50,000 with benefits. She attends workshops, seminars, coaching clinics, and other things to improve her likelihood of finding work. Months later, she fails to reach this goal and in turns calls the American Dream a pointless pursuit. I realized this is not true, but that she was just too damn picky. Nobody can realistically expect a job paying $50,000 annually without qualified skills and plenty of experience.
Is this a reality of American developers? Perhaps indicative of why fewer students graduate with CS because they are not as qualified as they could be if they graduated in other disciplines?
We deserve it (Score:3, Insightful)
If we can't be bothered to do difficult things then we deserve to lose the rewards that difficult things reap. Now watch as the "Move to France then!" rebuttals start pouring in - underscoring the whole point of my post.
Numbers from 2000 (Score:4, Insightful)
What I'd like to see are multi-year numbers that give us a better idea of the trend, both pre- and post-bubble. 2000 was an anomaly. 2000 was unsustainable. 2000 was when things went kablooey. We don't want to go there again in a hurry, so quit talking about it.
The paradox of Soft-Eng supply/demand (Score:4, Insightful)
Having been through the job search process a few times (and having read the recent academic articles on the subject), it seems the problem is this. Employers in North America are no longer willing to help develop software professionals. In other professions, we see employers taking an active interest in professional development from the entry level up.
Lawyers article for a year, and have a well understood progression from articling student to partner. Throughout the process, the contributions made are appropriate for their level of progression and an appreciated, relevant part of the practice's business. As a result, the legal field has a downstream supply of experienced lawyers, and even students and fresh grads can find work.
By contrast, the tech industry seems to expect experienced developers to appear out of thin air. Industry participation in internship programs is down. Postings for entry-level and early-mid level positions are practically non-existent. Yet demand for 10+ yrs experienced developers is high. Well, guess what? Experienced developers don't just pop into existence. The industry recognizes that much of the innovative work (that they need experienced developers for) isn't amenable to offshoring. They need to recognize that by offshoring the entry-level grunt work, they are starving their future demand for experienced developers (and ultimately rendering future innovation far more difficult).
It's not just CS!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
MSwE? (Score:3, Interesting)
I work full time as a software engineer (eg, I design and write software). I graduated with a degree in CS and Economics a year and a half ago from a well-ranked state school, but my GPA wasn't very good. Getting married, getting a job, and growing up a bit has changed me a lot, though, and I want to increase my education.
I'm thinking of trying to get a Masters of Software Engineering (MSwE) from UMUC [umuc.edu]. I don't have the time or financial situation to go back to regular UMD [umd.edu] for a MS in CS full-time, much as I would like to, and I've heard anecdotes that the department doesn't like to waste time on part-time students. And, frankly, I don't really care for another two years of algorithms - that's not what I'm interested in as a professional (although, obviously, I try to keep on top of new developments).
Is this worth my time? I don't want to spend 3 years on this, and then find out that employers see it as a joke degree, and actually have it _devalue_ me. But I would like to go back and get some graduate education, even if the school is less than stellar.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
-Erwos
Engineering really sucks right now (Score:3, Informative)
Of the two best young computer scientists I know, one is running a hedge fund and the other is working for a derivatives firm in New York. The young Stanford students I talk to are going into finance, law or bio.
is CS really 'science'? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2)
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't really train abroad for a job as a doctor or a lawyer in the US. So a Computer Scientist it is for many people.
Yeah, I'd like to be paid more too, but why does an American deserve a better pay than an Indian or a Filippino?
FGovernment does not directly cont
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2)
And more companies would avoid that increased cost through outsourcing.
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2, Funny)
I make $25k per year, and I have 34 years experience in the field including five of it teaching at GA Tech and also cowrite two textbooks used by several top level CS programs. I make more money per hour cutting grass on weekends. In 1989 I made over $200k that year, but all of the good jobs have just disappeared. We recently hired four new college graduates that start in a few weeks, and they're making between $18k and $22k per year. When a local plumber can make $40k year around here their fir
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2)
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:5, Interesting)
You can surely make alot more than $25k if you really looked. For gods sake just find some kind of niche software, program it yourself in your spare time, and start selling it online. That is what I did, and I do not think that I am a rare genius. I didnt even have much freetime, but you can make $25k working part time at a factory while you are doing it.
Only people with no motivation or no skill make $25k a year for any extended period of time. You claim you have the skill, so it must be a lacking in motivation.
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Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:4, Insightful)
Add to that the fact that a CS degree does NOT imply a career in development, and development isn't what it used to be, and you have a bunch of people thinking hard about something completely different.
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2)
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:2)
I don't know about that, the impression I get from a lot of people I know who majored in computer science is that they were doing it because they were interested in the field. In fact, I think it's more likely the overseas computer science students are overall more in it for the money, as in a lot of places it's the only way for a reasonably intellig
Re:Its Simple - Pay CS Majors More (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yes. The opportunity for great pay, IS there. IF you have Security Clearance, Clarence."
Yep...one of the last vestiges of good pay jobs is the DoD contracting circuit. But, pretty much no one has a clearance to start with....you get a job with a contractor house, and they will get you a temp clearance while they real one is being investigated and put together for you. Once you have that, you are good to go. The companies re-up your clearance
Re:Understandable (Score:2)
Re:Yet on the same subject (Score:3)
Maybe the reason people are not going into CS is because most companies in the US are farming off the stuff a comp sci major whos starting out in the field would do to these 2 dollar workers because its cheaper.
This is a common popular belief, but where are the numbers to back it up? As the article mentions, the Dept of Labor forecasts that growth in CS will be 40% between here and 2012 -- and those are domestic number, not worldwide. If you read the "Best Jobs" article [cnn.com] in Money Magazine from last