More Students Prefer Interdisciplinary to CS 448
prostoalex writes "With increased offshore outsourcing and continuing simplification of such tasks as writing a trivial application, Computer Science degrees are not as attractive for college students anymore, NYT finds. Students prefer interdisciplinary majors, where the programming skills are combined with solid scientific backgrounds in biotech, chemistry or business." From the article: "For students like Ms. Burge, expanding their expertise beyond computer programming is crucial to future job security as advances in the Internet and low-cost computers make it easier to shift some technology jobs to nations with well-educated engineers and lower wages, like India and China."
Immigration (Score:5, Interesting)
I have worked with some great H1B workers. I also have worked with some terribly unqualified H1B workers. Just like domestic workers some are good at programming and some just can't do it. I would say some of the H1B workers do more resume padding because they are desperate to stay and I would probably do it too. One H1B worker, when applying, listed the company he was applying for as one of the companies he previously worked. I guess he didn't check the name on the cut and past job he was doing because he never worked for the company.
I am not afraid to compete against foreign workers. I think it will be great for technology in general. I just want to compete on an even playing field. Let the programmers immigrate as Americans. You never hear Microsoft ask the government to allow immigration for foreign workers. They don't want to pay them more and worry about a worker leaving for another job.
Re:Immigration (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Immigration (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, it's worse than you think. He meant per year, not per month.
Depends on the country I guess (Score:3, Interesting)
Indians suck at design real bad (their philosophy seems to be to do just enough to get by) but can be pretty good at ex
Re:Depends on the country I guess (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course there are exceptions, and I have met a few Americans who understand that if your sample is large enough you'll find pretty much the same kind of people all over the world, but they're more like "exceptions that only reinforce the rule".
</sarcasm>
Thomas-
Social discrimination is not inherently bad (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, I'd say that given many common social/economic/technological factors, that there probably *are* a number of general statements that can be made that apply to a majority of each population.
For example, I, as probably most other folk, doubt that there is anything inherently genetically flawed in black people. I don't think that a black guy can't become a really good engineer, nor do I think that there's anything in the genes that's going to really stand in the way.
Yet if you sit down and read through your US census, you'll discover that, sure enough, blacks are well behind whites and Asians in getting advanced technical jobs.
So why is this? We assume, for the sake of discussion, that it's not genes. So it must be something from society. Perhaps the generally lower economic status of blacks stemming from their commonly slave status in the US a hundred and fifty years ago has something to do with it. Perhaps it's simply social phenomena that affect people along racial lines (I can identify with character X in the mass media because he appears like me.) Who knows? All I can say is that there certainly is a difference.
There is a *far* larger difference in the society that a Chinese student will grow up in versus an American student than there is between a black American student and a white American student. In addition, an H1B or immigration status itself acts as a filter. If you view working in America (or learning English and doing business with people overseas) as being an arduous but career-building step, there is a natural filter to bring in people with drive and ambition -- maybe that means more brown-nosers, maybe that means more enthusiastic people. It's certainly not unreasonable to do breakdowns based on country of origin (and hence society). It may not be feasible to do it based on such a small population size, but I don't think that the very practice can be condemned. In addition, most people on here seem to have had similar observations.
I haven't worked with Chinese H1B folks, but I have with H1B and outsourced Indians, and I agree that my general perception has been similar to what the other posters have said -- exceptional drive and a lack of complaining, but often sub-par technical ability, and a willingness to misrepresent facts. Doesn't mean that this is true of all Indians, but may well be true of a very ambitious group that rapidly started conducting business in a new country to build careers. [shrug] I've found the same snappiness mentioned by others here in the Russian immigrants that I've worked with, but also the same strong technical ability. The Indians tend to work closely in teams, the Russians lone wolf (as in, they are on a team, but they rarely seek advice or ask questions of others). Could be coincidence, I don't know. But it does line up with the other things said here.
As for the comment about Indians interacting differently among each other, I hardly think that this is a stretch. If you know your native tongue better than a foreign one, you may well interact more and act differently when talking with people with whom you can converse in the same tongue.
Re:Depends on the country I guess (Score:4, Informative)
Why do people think it's harder to fire Americans?
AFAIK (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Immigration (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I never said without college, although a number of CEOs somehow managed to trump college degrees with common sense. But it follows from my argument that such an extropolation should also be valid and I stand by it. There are lots of successful non-degree holders out there, although it's getting harder even for smart people to "break in".
Second, I have a masters in EE. It cost me 6 additional months (due to careful planning and some strong arming of school policies) and netted $20k/yr. What's wrong with that is that it shouldn't have happened. I only did it to work the system, I had no interest in being in school or what I was learning. I spent that extra semester re-interviewing, this time featuring MS on my resume. College is breadth first, with each degree indicating a higher degree of specialization. A PhD is only an indicator of deep specialization. Do companies really want that specialization, or the feeling of safety and security that comes from having someone with some more letters after his name? Stay tuned.
Third, the MBA. I know only one thing about an MBA: from the right school it's worth a whole lot of money, from the other schools, not a dime. I started a MBA, and dropped it when my first company started to tank. Why? The first crew to go were not the factory workers, nor the engineers, nor even the secretaries. The first to go where the MBAs in our finance, and program management groups. Is it necessary? I think not. In addition to the CEOs mentioned above, my former boss with his BS in EE somehow is a marketing director, with no formal training. In about 6 months he went from some small group in charge of an obscure portion of the world, to the second most popular market for my company (north america, sadly). Somehow common sense took him to where he needed to be, he's clearly not paper qualified for that job. He didn't even take economics as an elective! The hardest part was getting into that spot, without the paperwork. From there he seemed to move fast. Beyond what are often electives for engineers and useless liberal arts reqs, there is almost no similarity of degree programs between business majors and engineers.
Forth, there are probably jobs in which PhD/MS degrees in the appropriate specialization are essential. They need people actively involved in research in certain areas to come up with new, unheard of solutions. Such companies are willing to take product risks on unproven work. In the drug world, those companies are often big. In the engineering world, it's usually the opposite. I have only worked in megacorps, and never worked in one in which a novel, unproven, yet elegant approach was allowed. By design, such approaches are unproven and may meet with unexpected field issues and result in an expensive recall or factory problem. Then why do these guys even want MS/PhD types? Won't those guys be horribly bored? The answer is yes, but I put such creative energies to private usage. What large megacorps actually want is the warm-fuzzy of having an "elite" engineering team. The interesting issue here, is that the companies most able to outsource, are...you guessed it, large megacorps! They can buy foreign PhDs (who really just want work) by the boatload. The small researchy start-ups have a harder time outsourcing and tend to use local labor. These are the guys who NEED specialization and live or die on new ideas, yet they seem to catch their limit.
So in a giant circle, we're back to the issue at hand: is the motivation for such elitism the quality of employee, or the amount he is paid? I believe it's the latter. Does a given company know the credentials of every employee at Wipro, or the academic integrity of the overseas institutions which grant the individual laborers their degrees? Of course not. They're cheap, there are lots of them and they can satisfy the minimum job requirement. If it was specialization corporations wanted, overseas is probably the wrong place to look, as it's hard to figure out who is f
Re:Immigration (Score:3)
A small number. And these are generally special cases like Dave Thomas, the deceased former-CEO of Wendy's, who didn't graduate high school. The only thing special about him was that he founded the business and made it successful. Not too many people lose money selling popular hamburgers. The trick is figuring out how to make a cheap burger people like, which is more trial and error than rocket science.
Company Boards
In other words (Score:2, Insightful)
I can attest to this. I took 2+ years in college towards my CS major before I gave it up. I had been working the entire time in various tech jobs, and I was picking up on just how little college would prepare someone for the real world.
I did "audit" several higher level courses, and while they provided good information, it's sort of half a degree. With no real training in hardware, software programmers really don't know what they ar
Re:In other words (Score:2)
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this I subscribe to. Further, you can't cover all the languages in any depth that would be helpful. So you take a few languages that are widely used and have a good breadth of skills and you teach students the methods primarily, and how to learn a language secondary.
What I have a problem with is the single minded focus on mere software development concepts. With no head for how it interacts with the hardware, you get people creating buffer overflows without even realizing it. Teach a student how to learn and the basic concepts, then go over how a compiler works and how modern x86 machines process instructions.
They had compiler theory, but it wasn't a bachlor level course. I want that shit in the second year. Students need to know how their work affects the system.
Re:In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
It's *ending* with Java. I graduated with a degree in Computer Science. I learned Perl, C, C++, Java, and the tiniest bit of LISP (ugh!) while I was there.
However, it is entirely possible to graduate from my school with a degree in Computer Science knowing only one language. Java.
That's a problem, because there's way more to software engineering than just Java. And no, they didn't teach how the JVM actually worked. Just enough to get people to be able to compile their code.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I had the standard calc, matrix theory, stats, algorithms, etc.
However, I also covered assembly (mine was on Motorola instead of x86), C/C++, some Scheme, operating systems, internetworking (from a former minion of Comer), databases, language and syntax creation, and quite a few other things including group software development for clients (from gathering requirements through completion).
Something tells me that these people are just looking for the worst examples or are pulling things out of their nether regions and don't know what they're talking about.
Re:Computer science has nothing to do with calculu (Score:4, Insightful)
It's computer science, not a programming course. Software engineering is but a tiny part of computer science, so it's no surprise that the coverage is limited.
Re:Computer science has nothing to do with calculu (Score:3, Insightful)
Computer Science, the real thing, is very much based on math, but it's a *theoretical*, academic discipline, with little practical value (which is not to say that the results of CompSci R&D don't benefit practical software development). A real computer scientist isn't a good software developer any more than a physicist is a good EE.
However, lack of precise naming (not suprising, really, considerin the youth of the discipline) mea
Re:In other words (Score:2)
It's not BS. My course focussed on general programming language principles, and now I can move reasonably effortlessly between languages (and in most cases, paradigms) without too much bother. Compare this to a course teaching, say, Java and PHP, where you'd come out knowing how to program Java and PHP.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
You will NOT pick up the theory side without a lot of work. Basic data structures, perhaps, but combinatorics takes some work. Language design, compiler design, etc. are non-trivial.
Pascal is mostly a dead language now. The assembler we learned (PDP-11) is dead. Out of Perl, Python, Ruby and PHP at least one will be a dead language in 15 years. Don't waste your time in college on learning languages. Instead, learn how to learn new languages and new things.
Re:In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
Software Programmers don't fix Hardware. (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite frankly, I don't care to dick arround with broken gear. That's why we have an administration group that handles all that ugly stuff.
I can concentrate on the interesting parts: designing systems and writing code.
try Embedded Systems (Score:2)
Besides, I find that if you know something about hardware, you're a little more sensitive to how you write your software. Things like power con
Re:In other words (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe Edsger Dijkstra was right [wikipedia.org], and CS really is just a branch of mathematics, as he argues in his paper "The Cruelty of Really Teaching Computer Science." If that's the case, it's unsurprising that you don't necessarily learn how to use $version_control_system or $Windowing_API or whatever people expect in the working world as a CS undergrad.
I bailed because I knew I didn't want to pursue graduate studies (and, let's face it, I'm not a stellar mathematician.) I'm (like many others) now doing interdisciplinary study: CS + law/public policy. If nothing else, this country seems to need more lawyers, if not good developers.
Sigh.
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, computer SCIENCE should not deal with hardware beyond a couple digital logic courses. It sounds like you were looking for an MIS degree, not CS.
University science courses are not meant to "prepare someone for the real world". Do I know how to do real chemistry research after taking sophomore organic chemistry? Not really. But I understand the concepts, which is far more important. Likewise, a computer science curriculum should deal with computer science, not too much software engineering and certainly not IT grunt work.
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
Good CS programs don't crank out good little code monkeys, just like good undergrad chem programs don't produce lab techs.
In universities, you learn the concepts in class, and you learn how to apply it out of class, through internships, working with professors, tinkering with open-source projects on your own, etc. If you don't want to bother with the concepts, you can go to a trade school and learn all the trendy languages and "technologies", I'm sure.
Re:In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are taking CS because you think you will get a high-paying job right after c
Re:In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
I assume you're upset about something, but slamming 'the system' doesn't really get you anywhere.
The CS major taught at most colleges don't prepare you for jack nor shit.
Umm, I have a CS degree and did just fine. Learned a hell of alot about the theory and problem solving techniques. Wasn't the same stuff I learned in the real world,
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a bachelor's and a master's in CS and I can confidently say that my schools prepared me well. CS encompases more than simple programming. There is a lot of study in algorithm analysis, computer architecture, OSes and real software engineering (not as in popular culture where it is interchangable with "programming".)
There is also the issue of studying the hardware. I don't understand how any accredited program can hand out CS degrees without coursework in hardware. (in undergrad, my school taught the circuit analysis, interfacing, etc. out of the physics dept beccause we didn't have an engineering dept. - and every CS student was 2 credits short of a physics minor, math minor was automatic.)
If the program you were looking at was as you describe, I would speculate that they were probably not an accredited program.
Re:In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
I've noticed that only people without such knowledge think it's not useful. They're the same people who come up with such ugly, clunky, brittle solutions to problems that have been brilliantly solved for many decades.
They're the same people who do a full bubble sort to determine the median value of an array.
It's a pity the OP quit after two years. The high-level theoretical stuff is where it re
Re:In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
I finished a CS degree back in 1991 while working as a kernel developer (this is pre-Linux. I worked at a minisupercomputer manufacturer with a professional development team and the guys who designed the processor and other hardware). As a result when I finished college (after many years) I had a firm grounding in CS theory, a pretty solid knowledge of hardware and techniques, a lot of knowledge about 4.2 BSD internals and a lot of good knowledge about how to turn out software in a team environment.
After 14 years, what can I still use from 1991?
CS Theory - still the same baby. I don't pull it out often but when you need it, you've gotta know it.
How to work in a team/ship software
Basic computer design/electronics
The other stuff is just technology. It comes and it goes. Every piece of hardware that I knew well from 1991 is obsolete. I can still solder but surface mount is damned hard to do by hand. 4.3 BSD internals? Not super useful.
When I was in school I had similar complaints to yours. I hung in and finished my degree because I didn't want to spend the rest of my career explaining why I didn't have a degree. Now, I'm really glad I did. The longer you stay in the industry the more you will appreciate the theory side of things. It's really a whole different thing from learning technology and it has much longer term value.
This is BS (Score:5, Interesting)
We are not alone in this. The problem is not so much that they are indian or chinese (although that does bring a whole host of issues of racism/reverse racism etc), but it is impossible to manage them remotely without spending so much effort on it that you might as well bring them over on an H1-B.
Combine that with the fact that it is impossible for a US corporation to enforce intellectual property rights in China and to a lesser degree India, and its hardly susprising that US corporations are favouring English speaking developers once again.
Re:This is BS (Score:2)
I just interviewed at a company that basically wanted me to completely rewrite their web app. The original code base was a complete mess, and impossible to maintain. My job would be to rewrite it in OO-style and make it modular. Who originally wrote it? It was outsourced to an Indian company.
Re:This is BS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is BS (Score:4, Interesting)
It's very difficult to guage just where outsourcing stands, you have companies like Gartner who shout "Outsource everthing! It's awesome, and oh we just HAPPEN to have an outsourcing consulting division, kind of convient huh?" on one end, and you have the talentless dot-bomb era programmers who are out of a job they weren't qualified for screaming that India's software development is worthless. The truth is most likely somewhere in between.
Outsourcing will never totally go away, but the key point to watch for is the signal to noise ratio. If there is a lot of crap coming out, it makes it much harder to find the gems.
I got step 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Tell the world there will be no computer related jobs in the future.
2. Wait for the nobodys to choose other careers.
3. More jobs for real computer geeks.
Play along folks.
Re:This is BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Devaluation of the Dollar (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:C.R.E.A.M. (Score:2)
Re:C.R.E.A.M. (Score:3, Insightful)
Going to school to learn something about something that interests you makes all the difference in the world.
Seconded: mod parent up (Score:2)
Fortunately, mine seem to have listened. Will wonders never cease?
Re:C.R.E.A.M. (Score:2)
I can't say that's true for my girlfriend[1]. Her masters is in Fine Arts ( poetry ).
/.er has a girlfriend here.
For many people, college is an investment. Yes, it's good to do something you're passionate about, but it's also good to pay the bills.
[1] Insert joke about how no true
Two commandments (Score:4, Insightful)
So far, seems to be working. It's great to have one of your children call up too excited to speak clearly about some utterly awesome thing s/he's just learned.
Computer Science degrees are not as attractive (Score:3, Funny)
College students have surprisingly decided they prefer drunken parties and naked women more...especially if the two are combined.
Well, I called it. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm in my senior year going for a Business Management Information Systems (MIS) degree. IMHO way more useful. I contribute to open source projects like Mozilla Firefox for extra coding experience as well as a few personal projects.
End result:
I know a fair amount of the technical side of things. AND the business side of things.
Problem with a CS degree is it's a dead end job. The days of a geek making
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't get it do you? If I wanted to be in management, I would GO into management, get an MIS degree or something. It has been said that entering management is the death of a programmer.
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:2)
After college, one finds out the degree ISN'T everything.
It's fine to pick a degree if you want to climb corporate ladders and stuff - but in my college many MIS majors still couldn't program their way out of a paper bag.
Conversely, years after my CS major, I'm now majoring in EE for fun. I think EE is better because it teaches hardware at the same time and many EE majors I met are
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:2)
A decent computer scientist can look at a new programming language, generally figure out which principles it works off of that he/she is most likely all ready familiar with, and be laying down code within hours. Obviously it could take years to truly master, but given the small amount of time needed to become familia
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, and? A real programmer is not "A C++ Programmer" or "A Java Programmer". A real programmer can attain a level of proficiency equal to that of his/her perfered language in *any* language in a matter of months, if not far less. "Retraining" is just part of being a programer.
I started programming at my current job -- your standard LAMP operation -- six months ago. I'd never touch PHP, or any query language before in my life. My boss has been using both for at least 2 years, and our other developer claims 5 years of experience. In 6 months, I've become the go-to guy for both of them -- I can (and consistantly do) rewrite the inefficient parts of their code to execute exponentially faster, and make it much easier to read.
Real programming is a fundemental understanding of how to write algorithms efficiently, code clearly, picking the right tools for the job, and knowing how to use them correctly. You never have to "retrain" any of that.
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:2)
Isn't it odd that it's the opposite of your definition? Maybe that's part of the change in students' attitudes...
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahh, so you're the smart-a$$ know-it-all that keeps deleting the fix I put in 5 years ago to solve problem X with client Y that only occurs in situation Z, and replacing it with that wonderfully elegant piece of code you just read about in Fowlers latest book...which will remain in place until Booch releases a book contradicting it at which time you'll probably rewrite it again, blowing away the fix that I put in again after taking a 4am call from client Y wondering why their lastest release crashed with a bug that was apparently fixed years ago
Good programmers rewrite bad code because they know they can write it better...great programmer realise that the person that originally wrote it was probably just as smart as they were and the reason for all those "ugly" pieces are the real world saying hello.
Re:Well, I called it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Thinking that a CS degree is a "dead end" is the wrong takeaway. The answer is that it depends on what you want to do. Talented architects and computer scientists will always be in demand, as there are lots of interesting problems to solve, and true CS talent is scarce (and, amusingly, will only get scarcer over the next few years as enrollment in CS programs stays low.) The theory will still be much the same in 20 years, even if we're not programming using today's technology.
In addition, the assertion that "the days of a geek making it into upper management are over" is patently false. Google, Microsoft, Apple and Oracle are obvious counterexamples, and I'm sure everyone else can come up with more. If you want to have have a leadership in a company that produces new technology, you had better be a geek. On the other hand, if you're no more than a typical rank-and-file coder, things do not look good.
However, most pure CS students definitely lack communications skills, business sense, and an understanding of social graces and human behavior -- and these things aren't played up enough in most CS curricula. Your great ideas aren't worth much if your coworkers can't stand to be around you or are laughing to themselves when you're talking or presenting.
The good news is geeks can often pick up the business side (CEOs of aforementioned companies being good examples), but I've never met a pure business major who could truly pick up the important CS stuff like algorithms and systems analysis (your brain just stops being able to pick that stuff up after a while.) The pure management majors here at MIT learn to write great memos and know how to dress up for interviews, but that's about it (compared to the science majors) -- they can talk the business side, but are clueless about the underlying technology. (To be fair, most CS majors around here can't form complete English sentences or withstand direct sunlight.)
I'm glad I started out towards the geek side and stayed in CS, because picking up the business side isn't that intellectually hard --it's just different. And you'd be surprised how much your CS intuition applies to the business side as well -- a lot of my pure business buddies just don't understand logic, systems, or basic concepts of probability, for example, and consequently make stupid business decisions. Joel Spolsky has a good take on both sides of the issue [joelonsoftware.com].
Anyway. A CS degree is still very valuable, but only (or especially so) when paired with the ability to communicate and lead others.
-fren
Trivial? (Score:2)
What's the most trivial application is a business is putting out on the market? I think there is no such thing as a trivial application when it's the interface from the customer to the company.
Take eBay's Turbo Lister software (please!). They replaced a stable and easy to use Mr. Lister software that was working nicely, and then to add more features they created a whole new product and shipped it before it had even half of the serious bugs ou
Interdis is better (Score:2)
Why?
Because you can always learn technical skills. Pick up a book and read. Anyone who is any good should be able to pick up a new language in a few weeks.
Domain knowledge, though, takes a ridiculous amount of work to gain. And once you have it, you can apply those programming skills to problems inside your domain and make mo
this is bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
CS isn't computer programming. CS is computer science.
Re:this is bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
"CS isn't computer programming. CS is computer science."
You just stated the problem.
Re:this is bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
What problem? If you want to learn "computer programming", you're free to go to a trade school.
Re:this is bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
What problem? There is a huge difference between computer programming and computer science . Computer science is the study of computation, and computer scientists learn deeply about algorithms, computability, AI, data structures, compilers, operating systems, graphics, and much more. A BS or MS in CS isn't supposed to train you to be a systems administrator or a Java programmer, and that's the main problem. People enter CS majors thinking that CS is about "Java or Unix programming" and about learning how to fix computers, yet get disappointed when they realize that CS only tangentially discusses those topics. If you want to spend your time programming and fixing computers, get a MIS degree. If you want to know the science of computation, get a CS degree.
A computer programmer is to a computer scientist as a mechanic is to a mechanical engineer. Computer programmers and mechanics do know quite a bit about Java/Unix/Win32 programming and about various different auto parts, respectively, and we cannot live without these people. A computer scientist and a mechanical engineer might not know the latest programming language/methodology and might not know everything about every car, respectively, but a computer scietists knows the theory behind those programming languages and tools, and a mechanical engineer knows how to engineer a vehicle.
Re:this is bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually the difference is even greater. Programmer:Comp Sci is equivalent to Mechanic:Physicist.
Mechanical engineering equivalent in the programming world is software/computer engineer.
A computer scientist or physicist can spend their entire career being productive without solving or dealing with a real world problem. CS doesn't even necessarily involve computers (think encryption algorithms)
Dijkstra said it best... (Score:3, Insightful)
Computer Engineering (Score:2)
I personally got a lot more out of the programming courses in CompE than my CS courses.
I'm not trolling, and might have just been my school, but the Eng. students were... better than the CS students I ran into. A lot of long-hair computer freaks in CS, and the profs w
Re:Computer Engineering (Score:5, Insightful)
I was surprised by this, and so I asked him if he thought all those years of CS education were essentially useless. "Oh, no," he said. "They're worth their weight in gold. They'd spent years working through extremely abstruse problems, and they'd learned how to absorb massive amounts of information quickly. Basically, they knew how to learn anything. Those guys would know nothing about building actual, production-level software for delivery to a customer. But they'd learn that quickly, because the foundation was strong."
Now that I am a professor (of English, not CS), I find myself taking a similar view of university education. It's not the content, per se (though certainly, the content is important), but the habit of mind one acquires by being confronted with difficult problems and issues over and over. If you want to learn VB or SQL, buy a book. If you want to think differently--more deeply and with fewer jerks of the knee--about the world, about engineering, about literature, about art, go to a university and let it change you.
Of course, I am one of those who did pursue an interdisciplinary degree of sorts (I use computers to study literature, and I teach software design in an English department). But that is another story . . .
CS != Programming (Score:5, Insightful)
When will people understand that Computer Science is not related to programming as the article says. In fact, I know a couple of great CompSci graduates who couldn't write a complex program even if their lives depended on it.
"It's so not programming," Ms. Burge said. "If I had to sit down and code all day, I never would have continued. This is not traditional computer science."
She's talking about code-monkeys, or Software Engineering at most. Computer science is related to research, finding new and more efficient ways of doing different tasks (new algorithms, data structures), and understanding the underlying concepts behind a computer program (programming paradigms, logic) and tools that can be applied (verification, simulation).
Re:CS != Programming (Score:3, Informative)
Re:CS != Programming (Score:2)
No wonder these no name certification schools in India are attractive? They actually learn how to program.. shock.. and many are MBA students who have a solid business background. Geeks do not understand business buzzwords that those who pay them to write the code.
Re:CS != Programming (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that I disagree, but out of curiosity, what would you say computer scientists have added to the world in the past decade and change in the above fields? My late 1970s algorithm books are very similar to my mid 1990s algorithm books. Our databases are predominantly based
All that in-house custom software (Score:2)
B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis (Score:2)
I can't write device drivers, but it's not a bad career route.
I think more people should just take pure maths with an applied bent.
Re:B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis (Score:2)
Re:B.S. Math + Numerical Analysis (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but most projects I work on involve a database. A bit more complicated than my first app, but that's why they call it "career path."
CS Programming w/ professions (Score:2)
I am in an MS program now, but not to become an engineer,
Re:CS Programming w/ professions (Score:4, Informative)
I'm one of the few. I've done proof of correctness systems, image analysis algorithms, operating system design, game physics algorithms, robotic control algorithms, and network congestion algorithms. I've been lucky enough to be able to do this without having to work in academia. I do have an MSCS from Stanford, which is a great credential, although the education wasn't really that good.
But in most areas of computing, the basic algorithms already exist. (Some of them keep being reinvented; watching the XML fans reinvent LISP is amusing.) Not that many employers really need algorithm development people. I have no idea where you'd go as a computer scientist today. All the old labs (DEC, HP, IBM, PARC) are dead or shadows of their former selves. It's almost down to Microsoft, Google, or academia.
Actually, I'd recommend getting a strong background in numerical analysis and statistics. It's useful to know number-crunching cold. Engineering, financial, database, search, and game work all need number-crunching. It's more useful than, say, combinatorics.
If you're really into theory, you might want to take a new look at proof of correctness. I headed a team to build a proof of correctness system in 1980-82, and it worked, but it was just too slow on a 1 MIPS VAX. 45-minute proof runs for 500 lines of code. Today, that would take one second. It's time to work in that area again. There's some good proof of correctness work going on the hardware area, but not much for software.
(Incidentally, if you think proof of correctness is impossible for undecidability reasons, you're wrong.)
Mediocrity knows no boundaries, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
However I think Nicholas Carr's "Why IT doesn't matter" is more relevant in why someone should not choose to pursue a CS degree.
In a nutshell, IT has become a commodity input, much like eletricity. Yes, it is more expensive... but not as expensive as it once was. CS degrees are largely about programning and let me tell you, most of the places that have interesting programming problems can only employ a fraction of the CS students that graduate.
Companies whose business doesn't fall within technology employ about 90% of the IT people in the US. Frankly, a CS degree is overkill. In some ways, this type of job is more akin to positions of "skilled craftsman" of yesteryear. Yeah, I can use a set of tools to build you a piece of furniture, but don't bother we with figuring out what metals/alloys will go into making the tools themselves, that make the furniture.
As is the constant history of mankind, we build off each other. Nothing is constant.
-M
PS:
"If I have been able to see further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
-Sir Isacc Newton
Re:Mediocrity knows no boundaries, but... (Score:2)
The market is just overeacting from the
The pendelumn is now swaying back where businesses that do not have their IT aligned with their bussiness processes are not being competitve.
Many IT systems installed in 1999 for the year 2000 bug are aging and need some maintaince.
They are hiring again and what some guy's book that focuses on short term view of business where things happen in quarters is irrelevant.
Well, Lawdy! (Score:2)
Sheesh. Here I am with a background in engineering physics, a degree in CS, and I'm having a blast designing you-don't-want-to-think-about-how-fast analog transistor circuits 35 years after high school.
Nice of them to notice.
Re:Well, Lawdy! (Score:2)
I'm biased of course, being an experimental physicist by training, but I've also witnessed my physicist colleagues have no trouble shifting careers like I have.
What will happen if (Score:2)
http://www.forbes.com/home/newswire/2003/06/26/rtr 1011719.html [forbes.com]
Will the US THEN finally wake up and realize that we have done far more damage to our economy and our standing as a superpower by "free trade" than by hitting offshoring with crippling fines and sinking that ship of death?
And yes, outlawing offshoring precipitously would force companies to hire and train domestically. It WOULD increase our base of educat
My personal suggested change for CS undergrad (Score:2)
One degree would be theoretical with a lot of math, hardcore analysis of algorithms etc. as well as getting the student to choose a specialization: AI, algorithms, supercomputing etc. There would be a lot of "re-inventing the wheel" type assignments because it would help the student discover how a lot of the algorithms really work.
The other degree would be an applied degree, this would focus soley on applied CS. They stil
Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad (Score:2, Informative)
To an extent, they do this at the college that I graduated from. When I chose CS as a major, I was required to pick an area of special interest (ASI) that correlated to another department at the school. In this ASI, we're required to take a
Re:My personal suggested change for CS undergrad (Score:2)
Yeah well that's great and all, and I'm not saying it wouldn't help the industry. But until you can get companies to hire these sorts of people and get past the "ship it and forget it" and "first to market" bullshit that dominates, having this degree available is like pissing in the wind.
Nothing New (Score:2)
I'd encourage high school grads to go into a trade (Score:4, Interesting)
Those jobs (especially an electrician) are great because they're interesting, challenging and offer lots of diversity. You are also free to go out on your own without nearly the risk a techy would take trying to establish a tech company (or any other company).
As a bonus, trades will never be outsourced because their location is of primary importance.
Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'd encourage high school grads to go into a tr (Score:3, Insightful)
Well Duh ... (Score:2)
Hammers are used to build things, if you build a house people might want to buy it. Build a hunk of nails and wood, not too many are going to buy it. Unless you convince people it is an object d'art.
Knowing about loops and control structures is good, but if you can't create and upgradeable project, comment your code and work according to ICD and requireme
Precisely (Score:2)
Amazing! (Score:2)
Covered over on CNET as well (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, CNET's article boils down to CS majors wanting to branch out to other disciplines and also how CS research is no longer just about computing but about other problem domains.
Once again, US schools trail behind... (Score:2)
And as you're learning obscure 30 year old languages and optimized algorithms for problems nobody cares about, people in the real world are learning how businesses work. No wonder your $100,000 education won't be worth squat.
It's good that students have finally realized this. Good luck getting their professors to go along.
Meanwhile, in other countries (Score:3, Interesting)
At least now I've seen where the programming jobs are going.
Programming doesn't pay enough (Score:3, Insightful)
When you enter the industry you'll find all your managers are in their 20's and all the programmers are in their 50's. Recent graduates either get into management as fast as possible or quit.
Programmers in the business for 30 years still live in dumpy apartments and have virtually no goals in life because they're so damn poor. No government program is going to change the situation. People can't be made to work 30 years to live in a dumpy apartment when other jobs provide so much more.
The culture in US is based on selling. People in the front office, interacting with the customers, making the deals are always going to be valued more than the people in the back room.
You can elect as many democrats as you want and tax yourself as much as you want. Your country will still value front office workers more than programmers.
Well, Well, This Is Timely (Score:5, Funny)
One of my teachers at City College, who runs a consulting firm, told us Monday night he is moving his development side to India. He's keeping the support operation here, but the programming jobs are going to India.
He says his building landlord wants another rent increase, and his programmers want more money or they'll go work for Google.
Fine - he can get a building in India for 30% of what he's paying here - a bigger building - and he can get equally qualified programmers for $1200-1500/month there vrs $4k, $5K, $6K, $7K per month here. It's a no-brainer for him.
Meanwhile, a number of the more advanced IT classes at City College have been cancelled this semester - not enough students showed up to fill the minimum fifteen seats to justify the class. Even tonight's class, on Active Directory, barely got enough seats to meet the minimum.
Meanwhile, as I pass Hastings College of the Law on my way to City College, they seem to be full of students.
Face it, technology leadership will pass to Asia and Europe over the next decade or more, if it hasn't already. Like the US in "Snow Crash", we're only good at movies, music and delivering pizza in thirty minutes or less.
And music-wise, we're not that good either, since the Corrs new album won't be released in the US until at least next spring. Atlantic Records has gone into the toilet, apparently, with Jason Flom ushered out, who discovered the Corrs among many others.
If the Corrs can't be hits in the US with three hot babes and five hot guys because they're Irish and occasionally play an Irish trad instrumental between the pop rock (which they play on their own instruments and write the songs themselves) (especially given the number of Irish in this country), somebody explain this bimbo Shakira to me. She's from God knows where in South America, shakes a mean ass, and otherwise is indistinguishable from every other rock bimbo out there.
Meanwhile, as far as I can tell from the daily press, there are only three "musicians" in the entire United States: Britney, Christina, and Jessica. Maybe Mariah, makes it four. And I use the term "musician" or "singer" loosely.
Oh, and the octagenarian Stones - whose leader, Mick Jagger, once said the Corrs blew them off their own stage when they opened for the Stones.
Meanwhile, the only jobs left for techies is cleaning spyware off fucked up PCs for clueless Windows users.
Re:Well, Well, This Is Timely (Score:3, Interesting)
You missed the point.
He IS close to his customers. His DEVELOPERS will not be close. He's keeping his support organization here.
Oh, I don't doubt he's going to run into problems running an offshore operation from here. If he's smart, he won't rely on email for communication - he'll spend the money for some sort of direct IRC/whatever connection so he can micro-manage the guys over there. And have some sort of alter-ego guy he can work with over there that he can trust to see things his way and take action
Re:1 limited observation makes makes it a fact-rig (Score:3, Insightful)
Where did I say one observation points establishes the fact?
I used my account as an explanation of WHY it's happening. THAT it's happening is a known fact. Read the trade press.
I also said nothing about the US not still producing more code (and in fact, most technology) than anywhere else.
Today is not tommorrow.
I said the FUTURE is not the US's, if present trends continue - and there is no evidence I see that it won't.
As for Europe, I have read that more scientific literature is now produced there than in t
Re:Not Necessarily the Best Strategy (Score:2)
Re:it's the world that matters (Score:3, Insightful)
Switch to nanotech.
Nanotech will absorb the biosciences within twenty or thirty years. Nanotech will absorb everything (well, of course, there will still be disciplines, but ALL the research will use nano technigues.)
That or learn AI and how to do bioinformatics using AI, which will be enabled by nanotech, but will still need people able to come up with the concepts.
Programming is a dead end profession - has been for twenty years. You have the authority - and pay - of a hotel desk clerk and the responsibili