Is Computer Science Still Worth It? 434
prostoalex writes "Is it a good idea to go into Computer Science? Yes, there are certainly pending labor shortages as Indian companies outsource to the United States, but speakers of Stanford Computer Forum generally agree that it's a good career choice. From the article: 'To ensure job security, students must learn business, communication and interpersonal skills, Vardi recommended. The personal touch will become as important as technological expertise, he said. "There are jobs galore," agreed Suzanne Bigas, assistant director of the Stanford Computer Forum.'"
CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
Work for talented programmers will never end. But work for programmers in general will not be as common in the coming years when everyone and their dog can make a website on My Space.
Other fields? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if you love it.
the fact (Score:1, Insightful)
You'll never be able to buy a house (Score:4, Insightful)
After 2001, I'll never trust the stock market or private industry ever again. Driving a truck is better than doing IT work for idiots.
Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
VoIP stuff seems to be a big thing, especially in developing countries(ever wanted to travel?), learn codecs, learn how to program codecs, learn how to hack Asterisk and SipX and some of ht eothers, play with Asterisk@Home.
Oh, this isn't an Ask Slashdot? Sure looks like one.
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
That is like confusing music theory with music composition, something I would hope you would be aware of.
Computer science deals with algorithms, complexity notation, predicate calculus, proofs, and grammars, most of which you will not pick up by just being a programmer.
need good people (Score:5, Insightful)
If, on the other hand, you want to learn CS to get a 'good job' after school, and end up going to a second-rate university where they teach you specific software instead of abstract ideas, you might not have such a good future after college.
I'm sure both types of students attend all universities CS departments, don't get me wrong. I think your attitude going into it is what matters most, if you love CS and work hard, I bet you'll be just fine. If possible, don't choose your major based on what's in fashion, do what you want.
CS != IT (Score:3, Insightful)
eg. The real-estate situation in the US is currently a bust - doesn't mean you should rethink becoming an architect, which is a seriously long-term proposition. However, you SHOULD rethink applying for a real-estate broker's license, since short-term is your concern.
Re:Other fields? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, if you love it.
And no, if you don't.
If somebody is even asking the question whether it is "still worth it", one assumes that they are not in it for love.
Are you sure about that? (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, these "interpersonal" skills don't exist in a vacuum.
For some reason those "several candidates" you thought were good had managed to survive at their previous jobs long enough to become senior DBA's.
Before you blame other people for the problems meeting your standards, re-examine your standards and see if you understand the situation.
Particularly if you're suggesting that a business degree is more important that a computer science degree. That indicates that you don't understand the technological side of the issue. Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean that they're wrong.
Do you want a senior DBA or do you want a business analyst? Or do you want both for the price of one?
Re:You'll never be able to buy a house (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried that between 2001 and 2003. What you need for that isn't good programming- it's good business sense and a fair amount of ESP. You need to be a good enough judge of character to know who will pay their bill and who won't when you present that final invoice. Far too many failed to pay that final invoice- and no business can survive a 50% decrease in revenue in a single month unless you were independantly wealthy going in.
Unfortuneately most programmers- me included- went into this because we *don't* have good interpersonal skills, otherwise we would have been playing sports in high school instead of messing with computers.
Re:IT = boom and bust (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
That's really true of most degrees, nevertheless, the structure of a formal academic environment helps many people to maintain the discipline to do it, often provides access to skilled instructors that make gaining understanding easier, generally increases the diversity of equipment and resources you have access to in the learning process, may, as a degree is something people often take note of, increase the material reward you get from it, and may make you eligible for additional financial assistance (which may or may not make up for the additional cost) and other benefits.
Whether those benefits are worthwhile for any particular person interested in getting an understanding of the field will, of course, vary from person to person.
Learn to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
Please excuse my rant... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm tired of {system-,network-,db-} administration, programming, and every other trade skill getting equated with Computer Science. CS is a branch of theoretical mathematics and has very little to do with anything you can sit in front of, type into, click on, or reboot. And I don't mean this as a (serious) troll. I just hate to see the term misused, much like engineers cringe when they hear the building maintenance staff referred to as 'engineers', as in "we'll have an engineer bring some buckets up to put under that leak in the roof."
/End of Friendly Math Snob Rant
Re:Experience degree (Score:5, Insightful)
- You got a poor quality degree (either from an institution with no reputation, or a low 2.2 or lower classification).
- You haven't done anything interesting with your time at university (join / run any student societies, etc).
- You haven't taken the opportunity to get any work experience (most universities run summer placement programmes, if you can be bothered to sign up).
You get out of university what you put into it. If you're just there to get a piece of paper, you will just get a piece of paper and it won't be much use to you.Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Get a degree in CompSci if you find that kind of problem interesting, and you'll spend three years having fun. Once you have the degree, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
THANK YOU. I was about to post the same comment. But let me expand on this concept that people don't seem to understand (especially programmers).
We need more CS people in general. Why? Becuase the CS degree will give people a decent technical background and understanding of computer related technology. I would much rather have a project manager with a CS degree than a marketing degree or communications degree. But I have yet to see one. Programmers tend to think that the only thing you need is a good programming staff. While that will get you pretty far, there are many other pieces of the software puzzle besides programming. I have been doing software testing and QA for 13 years. I made the choice to go down this path instead of programming. However, many programmers think that I am somehow some kind of "failed" programmer. And no, ex-programmers don't make the best QA people, no matter what Google thinks.
I think that the more people we have in the software industry with CS degrees, the better. I guess I had better qualify this with the statement that I have no real idea what CS degrees these days are like, I got mine back in '93. There was only 1 software engineering class, the rest was math, hardware/circuits, or programming. I hope that these days they have added more to the curriculum that deals with the process of developing software.
(taking a few writing classes wouldn't kill you either)
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be fooled. Application is important, but try doing your physics homework without understanding the underlying theory and see how far you get. If you want to be respected in the industry, and if you want to find a lifetime in computer technology fulfilling, get a degree in computer science.
If your career aspiration is "high paid code monkey," then ignore this post.
Re:Other fields? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do go into computer science if:
If you want to make money, go into business. Sciences are best suited for people who love the science and aren't worried about the wage. If you aren't sure, take a few courses first year in different areas and see what inspires you.
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that I've been in the workforce 5 years, a lot of what I learned is very valuable. But for the first two years out, most of it was useless - I needed a background in actual application development at the low level in the trenches. I had the Computer Science, but no programming foundation to build it on - fine if you want to do testing or management, crap if you wanted to actually design and program.
Smart colleges should offer courses that cover bug tracking, source control, learning how to find the information you need in technical documentation, and especially how to read other people's code. Give a class a 50,000 line application with 20 or 30 known, non-trivial bugs in it and spend the semester showing them how to find the bugs. Give a class some applications which have very poor code reuse and show them how to break out common code into separate libraries which are easier to document, track, and debug. etc... etc... After getting my MS in Software Engineering, I was like a mechanic who could diagram the variable valve timing in a Ferrari but couldn't change a tire.
Do what you want (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone told me not to go into CS, that it was dead, when I graduated from High School in 1992. When I got my CS Degree in 1996, everyone was scrambling to get into this dot-com thing. Then, four years later, everyone was getting out again. Don't make career decisions based on fashions and trends like this.
If what you enjoy is actually just making money, and that's a perfectly fine thing to enjoy (if not really geeky), go into business. Minor in CS, and then become a project manager with an aspiration of management. Lots of room for business people, particularly ones who actually can understand the technology, and they get paid well too.
If you just want to be lazy, and do the minimal work to get the maximal money - forget about it. You'll be mediocre at whatever you do. If you're lucky, you can get a soul-crushing job, blend into the background, and collect a paycheck. Soul-crushing CS work pays better than average, but damn, you've made a serious mistake if you're going this route.
I'll reiterate the formula, even though it's obvious: Passion leads to Competence leads to Money. It's very hard to be competent at something you don't care about, and the odds of making money if you're not competent go way down. Some passions are harder to find regular work in than others, but if that's what you want, that's what you'll be best at, so go for it. There's almost nothing as awful as being bad at your job.
Re:interpersonal skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Time. Somebody who is good at interpersonal skills has to spend a *HUGE* amount of time developing and maintaining those skills- time spent at parties and at bars and in social situations. Without that time spent, any human being's interpersonal skills will degrade- to the point that we consider a prisoner kept in solitary for a mere three weeks to be insane.
Likewise on the DBA side- time. It takes a HUGE amount of time to gain and maintain computer skills- starting as a teenager working on the computer in your parent's basement instead of going on dates, clear up to the guy who reads every word of the SQL user groups to keep up on the latest changes to the language in the five major dialects.
A SENIOR DBA is going to need to be the later, not the former. There are only 168 hours in the week.
Hmmmm, , , , -biased, perhaps? (Score:2, Insightful)
All this from a "business alliance"? Wow, I'd have never expected that....
~
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, but the ones who aren't have two main choices for a career: academia and academia.
Not all Programmers are Computing Scientists.
OK, but the ones who have that background will run circles around the ones who don't.
Crappy needs to be defined (Score:5, Insightful)
So if by crappy you mean design, I don't think a degree in computer science will help. If you mean crappy as in functionality, a degree in computer science might help.
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:2, Insightful)
Bigots on Slashdot (Score:1, Insightful)
What does that have to do with anything?
Re:Experience degree (Score:3, Insightful)
You do seem to be in a catch-22, I am guessing the parent was right by saying your qualification was below average. You can't get a graduate job, which expects a good degree but no experience, but you can't get a normal job which expects experience, but not necessarily a hot qualification.
Your only option is to start bagging experience pro bono. Try asking for work experience, for free, at companies. Expand your own horizons and skills while you are doing it; I learnt Ruby for kicks a couple of weeks ago, and it's something I can put on the application form.
Having graduated from Bristol Uni this year, none of my friends have had any difficulty getting jobs (if they wanted them). The jobs are out there, you just have to look harder and/or make more concessions I think.
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Experience degree (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Proof of Education (Score:4, Insightful)
Often true, but not always. If you know your stuff and you prove it in other ways, the offers can come flooding in. Smart companies often employ people based on their open source contributions, for example, and pay as well as, if not better, than generic companies sifting through resumes. From the small set of people I know, the smartest are always hired because they're known in their community and the quality of their work is obvious, not because they sent off a resume. Basically, smart people don't need resumes, they have their reputation.
The answer is no! (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest problems in the CS industry have come from people trying to get into it for the money. If you really love programming, then do it. If you don't, then go somewhere else. It's always been a feast-to-famine line of work, and people who jump into it during feast times just bring it crashing back down more quickly (and more harshly). In short, you're setting yourself up to fail if you're getting into it for the money, and you're dragging the rest of us down with you.
Most people who are in it for the money don't excel at it anyway. If your heart isn't in it, you won't be staying up late almost every night learning new things just because you love doing it. Even if you're exceptionally quick, that puts you at a bit of a disadvantage. Just click on my web site if you want to see the kinds of things we like to do with our spare time. ;-)
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:4, Insightful)
To me that sounds like the kind of territory that technical colleges/polytechnics should be covering. University is where you go to learn the science behind the discipline - if you want to cover the practical applications then I suggest you are looking in the wrong place.
The day universities shift their focus to creating ready-made programmer automatons for the business market is the day your C.S. degree becomes worth less than the paper it's printed on.
Computer science *should* be about karnaugh maps and logic optimisation; about algorithms and data structures; about mathematical proofs and combinatorial logic; about compiler theory & design; about all of the things that give a person a grounding in the basic fundamentals of the discipline.
Suggesting that it should be reduced to a basic preparatory course for "life in the business world" involving little more than bug fixes & refactoring is missing the point entirely. Those are things that you pick up later - things that anyone with the proper grounding should be able to learn with little or no trouble at all.
At the end of the day, computer science/programming in general is one of those subjects that no one person is ever going to be able to understand in it's entirety. Just when you think you're at the top of your game, someone releases a new library/language/compiler/interop technology/whatever that shifts the boundaries again. Having a good grounding in the underlying theory gives one an immeasurable boost in ability to keep up with these changes.
I would argue that a graduate with a computer science degree that has a basis in unchanging mathematics & the fundamentals of computer science is going to be much more valuable to an employer in 10 years than someone who has a more practically focussed 'diploma' who has been taught little more than how to find & fix bugs in a language that could potentially be obsolete.
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll leave making crappy websites to the SE's...