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.
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
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And we'd have a lot fewer crappy websites out there [I'd guess] if more programmers had CS degrees. Not that we should regulate something like that...
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:5, Insightful)
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It does not give you the knowledge necessary to keep your code clean or your site loading fast. That's programming knowledge!
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:4, Funny)
Indeed, and seeing the average quality of commercial software at the moment it seems to me that the demand for Programmers is far higher then the demand for Computing Scientists...
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)
Re:CS Degree = no sunlight (Score:4, Interesting)
I did a bachelor of engineering in software engineering (finished last year), and I found that a significant portion of the degree was focused on the various processes of software development, including things such as project management (as well as a significant amount of mathematics, electrical engineering, programming and computer science subjects).
The Comp Sci students I know did a fair amount the software process work also, though somewhat less, and less project management, though this is probably a function of the fact that their degree is a year shorter, and has more electives (they could do some of the extra software process & management subjects the software eng students did as electives).
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.
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:You can't code your way out of all problems. (Score:5, Interesting)
And then there are the rest of us, who write well formated, well structured, well designed code every day, but never went to collage. We did what a LOT of people did in the 80's we picked up a copy of whatever language we could get our hands on and started teaching ourselves.
We read books, we looked at other peoples code, we experimented. We wrote our own Direct to Video Memory code to avoid the bios screen write functions.
But now we are in our late 40's and not hip and cool. We don't get hired because we don't have a piece of paper saying we know something, we just have massive amounts of code to back us up, but none of the under 30 hip cool crowd cares about that, its "You got your degree from where?" When I tell them SHK ( school of Hard Knocks ) as a joke and then tell them I am self taught, I get the "We want someone more qualified" What a bunch of horse shit.
Thats the biggest problem with our society, no one values experience, no one values wisdom gleaned from 25 years of doing the JOB.Most of us don't care for the latest and greatest Ruby on Rails or Roads or even a race track. We don't do cutting edge, we do what works, we do it most of the time under budget, ahead of schedule and in code that readable AND commented.
So we will keep writing code that supports what all you "Latest & Greatest" fan boys think is SO cool, when in fact its the exact same language we built so many years ago, with a cosmetic twist.
I guess the other thing that is SO fucking depressing is that most CS or even SE grads these days don't have a clue how to create anything unless its spoon fed to them in some object repository. I asked a recent CS graduate if he knew any assembler of ANY flavor. His response was, "Well we had about 2 hours of it and some theory", but other then that all he knew was Java and rudimentary C.
A pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me. And people wonder why companies outsource.
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I think that the biggest problem is that people are going out recruiting Computer Scientists to design their software, when actually what they want are Software Engineers.
Looking at my university's curricula, the engineering course seems structured so that engineers learn a lot of skills that the computer scientists don't seem to:
All the things that are vital for the sort of high-level roles that corporations seem to b
LOL (Score:2)
I guess that means you could put me down as a "no."
Although for some people it's the best choice.
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.
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.
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.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
G.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
Dang - and I picked quantum physics instead - oh well wrong/right again.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:LOL (Score:4, Funny)
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S
It's possible, just unlikely. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well actually you can, it's just rather unlikely that anyone would hire you, without the backing of some sort of accredited school saying that you know it. In terms of knowledge, you could know the exact same things, you'd just lack a piece of paper vouching for you.
There's nothing magic about going to school; colleges these days aren't repositories of secret information, released only once you've sworn an oath of allegiance to the guild lords; you can find out most of what's being taught in any college class by buying the book. (In graduate classes or more participatory classes, it could be harder; but I'm thinking about bachelors-degree physics and mathematics.) In large universities, many classes aren't even taught by professors anyway; just by TA's (slightly more advanced students) reading from someone else's notes or from the book.
The reason the un-degreed student isn't worth anything, is because most people don't have the attention span or discipline to actually learn that way. Therefore, if you said that you'd spent a few years months sitting in your room, studying particle physics, and done all the experiments with equipment you built yourself in your basement, and now knew as much as someone who'd learned it while studying for a degree, I'd probably not believe you. It's not that it's not possible, it's just not likely.
Degrees exist because they're a way of verifying that somebody probably knows something, without actually testing them. The more esoteric the subject, the more important the diploma becomes, because it's harder and harder to verify that someone actually knows their stuff.
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
Grammars are also used in compilers and parsers... so you probably haven't worked with compilers or parsers if you aren't using grammars.
Complexity notation is important when you are optimizing algorithms... when correlated with timing information it tells you where the code hotspots are.
Predicate calculus is a little more abstract but is useful to learn because it forces you to think in terms of preconditions, postconditions, guards, and invariants, all used when you write loops, iterators, and conditional logic.
Proofs are even more abstract, but are useful when you are tracing a bug because it gives you the ability to make assertions (This should be true or false) and then test them (Why isn't this true/false?). Without the ability to do proofs you wouldn't be able to debug or test code because all you can ever say is "I think this code should do this, but I don't know why"
Other fields? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if you love it.
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.
Re:Other fields? (Score:4, Funny)
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You quickly reach a
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If you studied philosophy you would know that the sentence "studying X is worth if you love it" is a tautology [wikipedia.org].
Re:Other fields? (Score:4, Funny)
I disagree. I love sausages. Studying sausages would entail learning how they are made. Studying how sausages are made is said to put you off them for life. Hence, not necessarily true.
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I certainly make more money than any philosphy/lit. graduates that I know.
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.
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.
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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.
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My programming teacher always warned for this; he uses *always* some sort of timebomb (after a certain period completely de-activating the software) for his clients, certainly when they're known to not pay. After he received his payment for the last bill he sends out a patch, with "minor fixes" while actually removing the timebomb.
I'm not i
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Short Answer (Score:2)
Do something applied.
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Like any science, it can be applied or theoretical.
G.
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It's worth it (Score:2)
No, it's not (Score:2)
oh wait.. damnit
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.
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Straight computer science? Well, you'll probably be just a code monkey.
I'm not sure where you guys all went to school, but it sure wasn't where I'm at.
All the comp sci guys that I went to school with (including meself eh) ended up being roughly equal parts code monkey and mathematician. Not as good at coding as a software engineer (though some were better...) and not as good at math as a pure math geek (though, again, some were better...)
Is my university that different, or are people just going by casu
Definitely worth it (with caveats) (Score:2)
IT = boom and bust (Score:4, Interesting)
The business cycle drives investment in IT so it should be regarded as a cyclical industry just the way any capital intensive business is. As growth in IT technologies peter out (Moore's law hockey-stick growth) inevitably flat-lines as technologies hit their limits growth will fall to the same growth as the economy as a whole. Like the railroads, utilities etc.
If you are 50 or so and are looking to make a career change IT is not a bad choice - it will probably be a sound field for at least the next 10-20 years.
But for somebody who is just entering college I think that other fields, particularly anything associated with health care are better opportunities. They will surely offer careers with better sustainability than IT.
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Sure it will, but we still have at least another 50 years to go before it has fully matured. Look around you at all the things that aren't yet computerized or are shoddily computerized. This should tell you how much farther we have to go. Things that ought to be fully computerized but aren't:
Every light switch in your home.
The microwave oven (you should enter the desired temperature as in lukewarm, w
Experience degree (Score:3, Informative)
What was that about degrees being worth the extra tuition fees because of higher wages Mr Blair? So many people are getting degrees now that they've stopped being the ticket to a good, high paying job that they used to be.
Not that I'm bitter and twisted or anything...
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I think that CS, like anything, is always worth it (in more ways than one) if you are genuinely interested.
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: (Score:2)
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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 hori
Man What? (Score:3)
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.
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Actually understanding what you do it and why you do it is generally rather useful.
BTW, computer science is more accurately described as a fork of mathematics rather than the natural sciences.
Of course IT is a great industry (Score:5, Informative)
* Work on your social skills. It's not accurate along the board, but many people think that every IT specialist lives in his mothers' basement. Be sociable and this prejudice might turn out to be an advantage.
* Keep on learning. It's fun but it's also an investment in yourself. In few sectors knowledge is as volatile as in IT. Make sure you keep on top.
* Find an employer that fits your personality. Don't expect flexibility from a megacorporation and don't think small businesses will be able to buy you education.
* But most of all: Make sure you're doing something you like (most of the time). A great salary is of little use if you hate the work. If you enjoy your work, you'll be able to go the extra mile which will pay for itself in the long run.
Right. (Score:2)
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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.
What I am doing (Score:5, Interesting)
It used to frustrate me that I didn't know how to program C decently but I rectified that starting in 2002. I was going to start by reading The Art of Computer Programming and realized how much MATH there was, and how it would be in assembly, so I did a "shortcut" and read K&R and Code Complete and did things that way. Of course, there are no real shortcuts, and the right way to do it is learning the math and the assembly language and going like that.
This is just something I want to do. I want to stand around all those code gods and be like them (in the sense of coding and skill, not necessarily everything else). There's the old cypherpunk slogan "Cypherpunks code" and one way of learning to code is to just write code, but I want to have a track where I'm doing it the right way while I'm on the second track of actually writing stuff now.
I also find biology interesting and may take a minor (or double major) in that. I don't think I'll worry about job security much with a bachelors in Computer Science and Biology. Or even a Masters. Or Phd. I think one step at a time though.
One thing though is I want to do this. I would do this even if there was no material reward. I think that is something to think about. It would be nice if I could make more money, or get a job doing less braindead stuff, but if all that happened would be that I would know enough to contribute to the Linux kernel, or some free software projects which I like, that would be enough for me. After doing mindless BS wage slave stuff all day, it's nice to go home and do my own work where I can actually do what I want, even if I make no money at it. If I could make a living doing that stuff, so much the better, but I would go crazy if all I did was cog-in-the-machine mindless nonsense all day.
CS heyday is over (Score:4, Funny)
I'd recommend forgetting about a CS degree, computers are on their way out.
For a degree thats always in incredibly high demand.
English.
My path (Score:3, Interesting)
By this point, I thought I would be a professor. The thing is, to support myself I did computer work throughout. I finished my masters to find myself full-time employed in IT. Until I could figure it all out, I kept doing IT work and got promoted twice. I'm now a senior engineer specializing in IT security and regulatory compliance. I wear many hats in the area including policy writing.
I'm near 40 now and still waiting to find out what I'll be when I grow up....
Never had a single computer class in my life or received a certificate.
I enjoy Linux, coding & walks in the park in the evening....
Learn to sell (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you passionate about computers? (Score:2)
"Jobs galore" is irrelevant (Score:2)
Just because there are "jobs galore", doesn't mean they're jobs worth taking.
Based on the stream of migrant farm workers flowing into the US from points south, there are "jobs galore" in agriculture as well.
The issue isn't raw numbers, its ROI. Given the $10,000's now required for a 4 year degree, the course of study one undertakes now must be considered wrt whether it will lead to a reasonable return. At prevailing salaries, its not certain that CS is t
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
$130K a year says yes (Score:2)
Slightly different view (Score:2)
Now, a year later, I quit University and decided to pursue my own work. I had been PHP freelancing for several years, earning enough money to put food on my plate. Two years ago, however, I was struck with a brilliant idea for a program that I would spe
No (Score:2)
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On the canuck side of things (Score:2)
You can use this website to find the trends for an occupation you wish to find info about...
http://www.labourmarketinformation.ca/ [labourmark...rmation.ca]
for instance....
a Programmer in Toronto (Ontario)
http://www.labourmarketinformation.ca/standard.asp ?ppid=84&lcode=E&prov=35&gaid=9219&occ=2174&job=&s earch_key=1 [labourmark...rmation.ca]
Only the outsourcers win? (Score:2)
Too vague (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Keep Your Options Open (Score:2)
My advice would be to use caution when choosing a major and then decide what you want to do after you've sampled a bit of everything.
Highway Star/Stormbringer (Score:2)
What will enrich you? What will make you grow? What will form your mind in a manner that will be condusive to a lifetime's development?
What is your passion (other than human flesh and financial gain)?
Wherein lies your natural curiosity?
Are computers a means to an end or is there intrinsic beauty?
Are you naturally curious as to the workings of the universe, philosphy or merely in pursuit of a first-class ticket to a PHB's personal entourage?
Can you tell that I listen to too much BBC Radio 4 and watch t
Not Worth It (Score:2)
I was wrong. For every 1 job that opens there are like hundreds of potential candidates in any city. And that's just assuming you meet their requirements. So just to get a
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.
YES! Computer science is great. (Score:4, Interesting)
I teach introductory CS at the University of Washington. In our course we scan through the IMDB top 250 movies, examine historical popularity of babies' names, search for codons and amino acids in DNA sequences, parse maps and topological data, compute weather stats, analyze Myers-Briggs personality testing data, and solve other exciting problems.
Best of all, there are still a ton of great jobs waiting for graduates with computer science degrees at exciting companies. UW's students routinely end up at Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Nintendo, and other great places. CS jobs pay great salaries compared to most other fields! Most of the grads I keep in touch with are living very well at a young age.
Go check out UW's computer science videos on YouTube, which talk about what this field is, and follow several women in our department as they go through a day in their lives at work after graduating:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=UWCSE [youtube.com]
It's Great (Score:5, Interesting)
One other trick to being successful as a software engineer is to learn technologies in high demand. If you learn Ruby on Rails your chances of finding a hot job are pretty low. You might find work at a startup here and there, but that's about it. If you learn the J2EE platform, relational databases and all the associated stuff you are almost guaranteed to find a high paying job. Go look around on job sites, pretty much everyone is looking for Java Enterprise developers, but the supply is way low.
In short? Yes... (Score:3, Interesting)
... because once you master discrete mathematics, you're {s, e, t}. Careful though, because if you don't pay attention and concentrate on what you're learning, you'll end up with Ø.
Sorry... couldn't resist. On a more serious note, I started on the BSCS path at Virginia Tech over a decade ago and had to stop a few months into my sophomore year. Now I'm enrolled in ASU's [americansentinal.edu] BSCS program after not doing a lick of calculus for 10 years, and the math is kickin' my arse. It's true what they say: if you don't use it, you lose it. My advice for aspiring CS gurus is definitely "stick with it once you start." Picking up the pieces years later to continue your education can be a little mindblowing.
I'm actually quite comfortable w/ my IT career. I've been self-employed since 2002, and I've done everything from custom programming to network administration and project management. Picking up my CS degree is something I decided to do because I want to do it, not because I need to do it to get a better job. For me, CS is still worth it because I want to take my programming and software engineering skills to the next level. I've been programming since I was 8 years old, and I feel like I've hit a plateau in my programming skillset. The one thing I want to develop from my CS studies is how to put all of the little pieces I've learned over the years together so I can contribute to the development of larger, more complex software projects. Perhaps I'll even try to start cranking out some Linux Kernel modules or something.
No (Score:4, Interesting)
How come you never see people saying "Should I go into Painting", or "Maybe I'll try Music as a career". When it comes to careers that are art, including programming, If you don't KNOW that's what you are going to do, then you're just not going to do it well enough to make anyone happy.
When you wonder why virtually all software is buggy, full of delays, poorly designed and shoddily implemented--it's generally because someone is doing a job rather than creating art.
So then this is one of those cases where "if you have to ask, the answer is NO".
I work in IT now... (Score:4, Interesting)
HOWEVER, who seriously does a degree with the mindset, "This is what I'll do for the rest of my life"? Few I think, especially those looking for a career. I graduated two years ago and my life has taken me out to Amsterdam to work for a large IT company, back to my home (the UK) and I write this now in San José. I'm 23 and I spend most of my time travelling the world. What am I doing? Technical sales...
It's not math, it's not programming... it's not even software engineering. It's not anything I did at university. The Indian and Chinese guys have that covered here. They're also better at it than I'd be. What I've got was learned in the bars, at the sports clubs and on the phone begging for more money to continue my degree (and buy more beer). That's something you can't teach someone in India to do... How to work with people in the states. This means no disrespect, but someone born in India isn't likely to come to the US and wow with his people, presentation and linguistic skills. Someone born in the UK isn't going to move to the US and understand the local people.
It's a people-focussed world. Your degree is a ticket. Make it relevent to your overall goals, but focus on the other special experiences university has to offer.
Risk, Cyclical, endless Change, Agism (Score:3, Interesting)
* Risk - It changes, offshores, onshores, downshores, upshores etc. more often than most careers.
* Cyclical - Generally IT has had a 10-year cycle of boom and bust
* Change - Things change all time, and one has to spend time to keep up. Factor this into education costs (including time). If you don't like change, skip IT.
* Agism - Generally age is not rewarded in IT
Why you should study computer science (Score:3, Interesting)
In theory, every science is equally commended, because whatever
the topic if you study it hard enough you are sharpening your mind.
It is not so much the facts that are the asset worth acquiring, but
the methods and transferrable skills: exploration, fostering curiosity,
systematic learning, absorbing new ideas, exercising dilligence and
persistence, self-management to meet deadlines.
Whether you do that in philosophy, law, linguistics, biology or
computer science is up to what you think is fun and available to you.
Having said this there are also practical concerns, such as getting
a job, but in my view you should put your interest first, then success
will follow. People who go for subjects selected via their "career factor"
rather than their vocation have less fun and are often second class.
Computer science _does_ have an advantage over other fields: if you look
at its definition, it's the study of systematic problem solving. This
means that you can actually apply the methods you'd be learning in
your classes very well to real life (how to do efficient shopping,
how to pick the best insurance offering etc.). Complex problems are everywhere
nowadays, and who would be better equipped to tackle them than he or she
who has studied their systematic solution?
Sometimes I think politicians should be computer scientists or statisticians,
because most of them were never taught how to _systematically_ solve problems.
If you decide to go for it, make sure that you focus on data structures,
algorithm desig and other disciplines as opposed to gathering "IT knowledge"
because the latter will be outdated soon.
Re:the fact (Score:5, Funny)
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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 prev
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Your problem is that you are looking for an oxymoron. I guarantee anybody who has GOOD DBA skills will not have interpersonal skills, and
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.
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And that is indeed why solid education is of little value these days.
Don't take it personal, the company I work at is no better.
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Oh and by the way I work in the private sector and I own a house!
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Do YOU own the house, or does the bank own the house (for those west of the Missisippi, substitute "bank or government" for bank, as your deed is only a 99 year lease from the government in reality)? If the bank owns the house and your private industry job goes bankrupt, will you still be able to make mortgage payments? What about if you're thrown out of work for 5-6 years, unable to find work, will you still own that house?
That's what I
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What's this west of the Mississippi crap? I've never heard of that before. You have a reference. I'd be interested in learning some more about that.
If I was out of work for 5-6 years, assuming my wife wasn't, then yes we'd still own it. If both of us lost our jobs and we were out of work for more than about three months we'd be in trouble right now. The upside is that she's a nurse and so that's pretty unlikely...
I have to comment on your handle. The utopian fantas
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I'll never go back to private industry- the recession of 2001 proved to me that private industry is incompetant to provide me with the level of trust, benefits, and security I need to pay off a 30 year mortgage and raise a son with Cerebral Palsy.
Your mileage may vary