I've been hearing stories about people with masters in computer science unable to find a job, stuff about immigrants on visas landing most of the programming jobs - do you think a CS degree is actually worth it nowadays?
So computer science majors, what's gonna happen in the industry?
- Thread starter NuclearFusi0n
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No its not.
If your future depends on a 9to5 job after graduation, forget CS unless you are really brilliant.
However, if you are exceptionally good in your field or specialize in a NEW emerging techology/product, you get hired no matter how bad economy does.
Your school is a big deciding factor, too. If you are from top 10-15 universities or say Ivy League etc etc the alumni networking will get you someplace.. slow but it will.
Also nowadays immigrants on visas hardly take away your jobs.
Irony is our own companies are taking those same jobs overseas, in a process called "Outsourcing "
Year 2003 will be more job losses, heavy cuts in HR, massive down spending and outsourcing heavens in India, China, Ukraine,Russia and other third world nations.
If your future depends on a 9to5 job after graduation, forget CS unless you are really brilliant.
However, if you are exceptionally good in your field or specialize in a NEW emerging techology/product, you get hired no matter how bad economy does.
Your school is a big deciding factor, too. If you are from top 10-15 universities or say Ivy League etc etc the alumni networking will get you someplace.. slow but it will.
Also nowadays immigrants on visas hardly take away your jobs.
Irony is our own companies are taking those same jobs overseas, in a process called "Outsourcing "
Year 2003 will be more job losses, heavy cuts in HR, massive down spending and outsourcing heavens in India, China, Ukraine,Russia and other third world nations.
MinorityReport is correct. There is an accelerating trend in the I/T industry to outsource positions to countries such as India where college-educated workers might earn $200/month rather than $7000/month in the US. This outsourcing is happening in all areas of I/T from software development to SDC operations. One area that so far seems rather immune to this outsourcing trend is that of project managment. From speaking with coworkers and friends in the industry, it seems more and more US-based project managers are leading teams of developers located in countries like India and Israel.
A CS degree in itself isn't a "bad" idea but it no longer brings with it the guarantee of a fat bank account that it did back in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The best way to land a job in the industry is to take part in CO-OP-type programs where you work part-time during the school year or full time alternating semesters. This gives you real experience for your resume and helps get your foot in the door at a large company. IBM, for instance, has done this for years with good success.
A CS degree in itself isn't a "bad" idea but it no longer brings with it the guarantee of a fat bank account that it did back in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The best way to land a job in the industry is to take part in CO-OP-type programs where you work part-time during the school year or full time alternating semesters. This gives you real experience for your resume and helps get your foot in the door at a large company. IBM, for instance, has done this for years with good success.
I'd agree. I'm working on a CS degree now (@ CMU), and while I can find a job, it's damn hard to find something good. All of the large US companies want to outsource everything to India & China now, because for the time being, a programmer that costs $60K here is only $11K in India.
The wage advantage will remain in India for at least another 10-15 years, but honestly, being the gruntwork programmer these days is just modern day slave labor.
You will get far further in life if you don't let your degree type cast you and you go for positions with lots of upwards mobility. There is a lot of money to be made still if you have a CS backround -- you can become a product manager in the near term, rather than the one who takes orders from the product manager, you can go to finance and write programs for fixed income derivatives, etc. It's not a narrow field.. so don't narrow yourself.
I have one CS major friend who is one year from finishing, and decided to go take an internship in Hollywood this semester instead of doing yet another programming job
The wage advantage will remain in India for at least another 10-15 years, but honestly, being the gruntwork programmer these days is just modern day slave labor.
You will get far further in life if you don't let your degree type cast you and you go for positions with lots of upwards mobility. There is a lot of money to be made still if you have a CS backround -- you can become a product manager in the near term, rather than the one who takes orders from the product manager, you can go to finance and write programs for fixed income derivatives, etc. It's not a narrow field.. so don't narrow yourself.
I have one CS major friend who is one year from finishing, and decided to go take an internship in Hollywood this semester instead of doing yet another programming job
Hmm, the Computer Science and Systems Analysis majors from Miami U. in Oxford, OH, where I go, are often in demand and are heavily recruited. We still have a near 100% placement rate for our graduates. Of course, this is with regional firms, as far as Chicago, Cleveland, or Louisville (Oxford, OH is about an hour north of Cincinnate). Of course, most of our majors are Systems Analysis, and that's a bit more of a niche market... but there seem to be plenty of jobs overall, even with the slump. Lots of consulting positions, and our CS people are hired for many of the same jobs as our Systems people. Maybe it's a regional thing?
i know a guy who has an offer from google (he's graduating this year)...
so it's not impossible to get a job, and one with a good company at that.
so it's not impossible to get a job, and one with a good company at that.
When the economy improves, the job market will improve. Foreign labor is cheap, but it is just not capable of doing many things.
Hm, I graduated from a relatively unknown school with a 3.32 GPA and a CompSci degree, and I got a good steady stable job with Lockheed Martin. Now you might consider it luck, but I think its partially how well you present yourself in interviews, and what kindof skillset you have. Going to an Ivy league school might help you out ... But personally I think if you're good, most hiring managers will be able to tell that and make you an offer regardless of whether you went to an Ivy League school or a smaller less known school. (Granted there is a difference between going to an accredited college and one that does infomercials at 3am on USA).
This was in May of 2001 so it was slightly before the big economy downturn. But alot of companies were already on job hiring freezes or were firing people at the time..
Anyways, I think a Co-Op during school or some sortof job related experience is a really good idea. I had 6 years of part-time experience when I graduated from school ... And it definitely helped to prepare me when interviewers asked me questions. Working for your school's IT department whether it be Helpdesk, Desktop Support, or programming backend databases for the School's Directory would be extremely beneficial when you goto actually find a job.
Like any other major though, CS is what you make of it ... If you slack off and barely get by, concentrate on drinking more than studying and you go into interviews acting like you have no clue about Computers besides what you learned in class ... People are going to see that and hire somebody else. I know plenty of people who were working non-computer related jobs after graduating with a CS degree because they just couldn't cut it..
This was in May of 2001 so it was slightly before the big economy downturn. But alot of companies were already on job hiring freezes or were firing people at the time..
Anyways, I think a Co-Op during school or some sortof job related experience is a really good idea. I had 6 years of part-time experience when I graduated from school ... And it definitely helped to prepare me when interviewers asked me questions. Working for your school's IT department whether it be Helpdesk, Desktop Support, or programming backend databases for the School's Directory would be extremely beneficial when you goto actually find a job.
Like any other major though, CS is what you make of it ... If you slack off and barely get by, concentrate on drinking more than studying and you go into interviews acting like you have no clue about Computers besides what you learned in class ... People are going to see that and hire somebody else. I know plenty of people who were working non-computer related jobs after graduating with a CS degree because they just couldn't cut it..
Interesting thread, because I have been thinking about going to college or university for some computer related field. That's a few years away for me (still in 10th grade), but still I like to find out all I can beforehand.
if youre talented and not completely socially inept you can find a good job out there. if you are mediocre you will probably have a hard time finding a job that you like.
Well then I must be socially inept, someone who fell through the cracks, dumb, unintelligent, incapable of speaking or writing proper english. Its so depressing trying to find work in the NJ/NYC metro area with a degree in computer systems engineering.
Originally posted by: Storm
Well then I must be socially inept, someone who fell through the cracks, dumb, unintelligent, incapable of speaking or writing proper english. Its so depressing trying to find work in the NJ/NYC metro area with a degree in computer systems engineering.
maybe you will have to relocate, if youre fixated on one location then its gonna be a lot harder.
Originally posted by: jliechty
Interesting thread, because I have been thinking about going to college or university for some computer related field. That's a few years away for me (still in 10th grade), but still I like to find out all I can beforehand.
i'm in the same boat.
all this crap with the I.T industry, and the fact that i like physics, has made me lear toward aerospace
Originally posted by: Ameesh
Originally posted by: Storm
Well then I must be socially inept, someone who fell through the cracks, dumb, unintelligent, incapable of speaking or writing proper english. Its so depressing trying to find work in the NJ/NYC metro area with a degree in computer systems engineering.
maybe you will have to relocate, if youre fixated on one location then its gonna be a lot harder.
Thats true, I should add that when I was job hunting in Spring of 2001 there were literally NO job openings in the NYC/NJ area. Alot of people said they would hire me on the spot if they had an open position, but that they had no openings. I had to move to Northern Virginia to find my job.
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At the moment it's crap throughout all of North America unless you have a lot of experience or a very important skill set or you have connections. It will get better, but it will be some years before things settle down in terms of how hard it is to find a job programming at the moment. The vast influx of people over the last decade into the field when it was hot will need to slowly retool themselves towards other professions. That and wait for the industry to sort itself out and grow again at a reasonable pace.
And there is more to it than being talented and not socially inept. If a particular position gets 100 resumes you should count yourself lucky to even get an interview, since at that point the only thing discerning you from others is your resume. If you're one of the lucky ones who gets an interview then you have to prove that you're talented and do a damn good job at it since the competition is so fierce.
In this market unless something is holding you back you're a damned fool for not relocating to find a job. But of course chances are you won't get one from far away - afterall why would somebody 1000 miles away want to hire you over the phone when they have two dozen people they can meet face to face?
And there is more to it than being talented and not socially inept. If a particular position gets 100 resumes you should count yourself lucky to even get an interview, since at that point the only thing discerning you from others is your resume. If you're one of the lucky ones who gets an interview then you have to prove that you're talented and do a damn good job at it since the competition is so fierce.
In this market unless something is holding you back you're a damned fool for not relocating to find a job. But of course chances are you won't get one from far away - afterall why would somebody 1000 miles away want to hire you over the phone when they have two dozen people they can meet face to face?
Don't be so hard on yourself. If there isn't a job there isn't a job, regardless of you. It's a fact that the supply of people willing to work in IT is greater than the demand. There simply are not enough jobs.
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