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if I major in computer science what kind of job or work will I be doing
- Thread starter eshtog
- Start date
McDonalds, Wendys, The Gap, Radio Shack, or Best Buy if you're lucky.
The IT market is flooded and it's insanely competetive (plus the jobs are few and far between depending on where you live). Don't make the mistake I did and only focus on one field. Always have a backup career/major that you can fall back on in a slumping economy. Things may turn around by the time you graduate but please do youself a favor and don't focus all your energy in the IT field...you're destined to get burned
The IT market is flooded and it's insanely competetive (plus the jobs are few and far between depending on where you live). Don't make the mistake I did and only focus on one field. Always have a backup career/major that you can fall back on in a slumping economy. Things may turn around by the time you graduate but please do youself a favor and don't focus all your energy in the IT field...you're destined to get burned
Of course, it's just in order to keep my post short I used IT instead of computer science. What area of computer science were you really interested in? If it's programming I can tell you right now that you're going to have to be prepared to fight India for your job. I used to work for a large financial institution and I've come to find out that they're outsourcing 25% of their computer folk to india. Heck, even when I was there and entire department was cut loose and the jobs given to the folks in India.
Are you interested in going into programming, AI, networking, engineering, telecomm, AOL (j/k 😉), etc....
TommyVercetti
Diamond Member
Programmer, software tester, security analyst (junior level), system analyst, database admin, system administrator, and consultant (junior level).
Are you lumping in IT with programming and software development?
MS has hired 10,000+ people in the US in each of the past 2 years. Not to mention there were 5,000+ unfilled jobs in the video game industry last year, more projected this year. Although the latter is mainly because of 1. burn out and 2. not every programmer knows how to program for games, all though they can learn, a company isnt going to pay for them to learn.
There is always going to be room for people that are good software developers/programmers. Just getting a BS in CS means nothing, if you cant back up what you learned with either good programming/software development skills or actual experiance.
Yes there is a glut of hacks that have CS degrees, hacks will never be hired again. Im sad to say it you will have to have skills to back up your degree and in all likely hood experiance as well, just like anyother industry, get used to it.
AgaBoogaBoo
Lifer
Very true. You can major in one thing and end up in things completely different. Whatever you do major in, try and keep some other things to fall back on, and take up as many opportunities as you can.
I didn't really mean to lump everything into IT. I just got into the habit of typing IT when referring to Computer Science because I'm lazy 🙂 .....sorry for the confusion.
I know that there are TONS of programming jobs here but you have to admit that programmers are going to become the 21st century's Steel Workers. Software development can easily be outsourced offshore somewhere that the labor is cheaper. With ultra fast pipes flowing back and forth between continents it's easy as pie to develop the software in timbucktu and just upload it to the US home base.
ReiAyanami
Diamond Member
flippin' burgers, jah?!
Id say the exception would be video games. Although I seriously doubt most CS grads would even be able to get hired by a video game company, for anything other than QA. Nor would most want to work in the video game industry. Something about "low pay", long hours, and burn out..
Also IMHO in 7-8 years there wont be a huge glut of hacks actively seeking a job with their CS degree. Right now and the next 3-4 years there are way way to many CS grads in the US.
The thing Id suggest anyone going into CS to do. Intern early, intern often. Study like hell and have great programming skills, as well as work on projects with or without other. Projects that can show what you can do.
If you arent a good programmer, dont have any experiance, and can't show what you are capable of via past projects, you will have a tough time finding a job over the next 3-4 years.
And really this isnt new. Its like this for every other industry. The tech industry is just newer, and came off and extremely large boom time, that lead to a major bust add in foriegn factors, and yes its a very weak job market for people without the qualities I mentioned. Its also extremely bad for those that have huge amounts of experiance that are not willing to taking major pay cuts.
Things will settle out in time though, but americans have short attention spans and cant seem to grasp that concept, so they all think the sky is falling.
The thing Id suggest anyone going into CS to do. Intern early, intern often. Study like hell and have great programming skills, as well as work on projects with or without other. Projects that can show what you can do.
If you arent a good programmer, dont have any experiance, and can't show what you are capable of via past projects, you will have a tough time finding a job over the next 3-4 years.
And really this isnt new. Its like this for every other industry. The tech industry is just newer, and came off and extremely large boom time, that lead to a major bust add in foriegn factors, and yes its a very weak job market for people without the qualities I mentioned. Its also extremely bad for those that have huge amounts of experiance that are not willing to taking major pay cuts.
Things will settle out in time though, but americans have short attention spans and cant seem to grasp that concept, so they all think the sky is falling.
True, the PC game industry seems to pretty large over here. Doing QA work would suck (I've done it partially and it's friggin tedious) but in the end it's a paying job so that's all that counts. I don't know what area of computer science the original poster was interested in but I think low pay and long hours is quickly becoming the norm for alot of jobs out there. The one contract I was on I actually worked with people that were making $7.50/hour and that's truely sad. I'll admit that the work wasn't exactly rocket science but still you can make $7.50/hour at Wendy's so it's a shame what these guys were getting paid. Oh, and that job nearly did burn me out...I've never had such an intense work schedule in my entire life and I definately wasn't prepared for it.
You know, that's basically what I've been telling people too. I think the best thing that can come out of this IT slump is that it should serve to weed out the folks that just got into it for a quick buck. I know several people that don't give a rat's behind about computers and yet they chose the field 'cause of all the money. Hopefully within a few years all these money grubbing dolts will give up and leave us folks that actually have a passion for the field a whole slew of jobs.
The game industry, both console and PC is huge in the US. And yes QA people get paid squat, you dont need any degree for it, not like you really need a degree for other jobs in the industry if you know your stuff and can prove it. The pay varies from state to state, but most QA'ers make $24-32k a year, and they do work long hours, alot due to incompetence, alot due to slacking, and alot due to the sheer amount of work it takes to make cutting edge games.