A Commencement Speech For 2013 CS Majors

blackbearnh writes "Most commencement speeches are long on platitudes and short on practical advice. O'Reilly blogger James Turner has tailored a speech aimed specifically at the current batch of graduating CS majors. Among the advice that the 35-year industry veteran offers are to find a small company for your first job, but not one that is going to burn you out. Also, keep learning new things, but don't fall into the trap of learning the flavor of the day technology. Quoting: 'Being passionate about software is critical to being successful, because the field is a constantly moving target. What will net you $130K today will be done by junior programmers in five years, and unless you're constantly adding new tools to your belt, you’re going to find yourself priced out of the market. ... You are rarely going to get an opportunity to have your current employer pay for you to learn things, so learn them on your own and be in a position to leverage the skills when a new project comes along. But if you have a passion for technology, you'll already be doing it, and enjoying it without needing me to tell you to."

Re:Reality

[ShanghaiBill]

You have several million other people with cs degrees out there right now. Most of the ones from last year still don't have jobs. Let alone in computers...

In the USA, the overall unemployment rate is around 8%. For computer programmers it is less than 4%. Stop whining.

wow, how inspiring

[decora]

i thought commencement was supposed to be about life, the universe, and everything (TM).

here i come to find out it's supposed to be career advice like you'd find on any thrid rate jobs website.

thanks!!!! im glad i will spend 40 years with my head down in a cubicle, never thinking, never questioning, never acting on anything other than my desire to have a shit hot career and a fuckton of money.

i mean, that's what "success" is, right?

i'm pretty sure Steve Jobs book was full of practical, sensible stuff like that.

Re:Goes along with my poll:

[burningcpu]

I'm working with a masters in a STEM field (Chemistry), and I make about 60% of the salary of the HR drone who happens to have a degree in History. The job market is so shitty for new grads in science that my company is starting chemists with undergraduate degrees at $13 an hour. This is not atypical for the industry, at least in my state. Trust me, I've been looking.

My friends that went into the trades already have houses and are making families. Those of us that went into science are living with roommates and scrounging by like we're 20 well into our 30's.

Don't get me wrong. There still are some good jobs out there. But similarly to what apparently (from my reading of slashdot) is going on in the software field, these positions require 15 years experience in a technique that is 12 years old.

That $13 an hour job I was talking about earlier? We received 63 resumes for the position. 63. The pay was listed. As was weekend work and mandatory overtime required.

Another interesting tidbit is that as health insurance continues to become a larger portion of the cost of the employee, the employers are experiencing a higher sunk cost per worker, shifting the sweet spot of overtime versus staffing up to higher OT values. My lab has cut two positions and moved to mandatory 45 hour base weeks, with mandatory additional overtime up to 55 hours.

The number of part time positions that are capped at 39 hours per week are also increasing.

Go into a trade. It isn't for dummies. Ignore your cultural bias.