A few CS questions

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>After visiting a few college campuses in the past month and seeing various CS departments, I have a few questions about the major and wonder if the knowledgeable folks on CC could answer them.</p>

<p>First, could a CS major get a job in the non-tech industry where they still use their computational and programming skills. For example, could a CS major program for:</p>

<p>A bank</p>

<p>A biotech / pharmaceutical company</p>

<p>Health care</p>

<p>Etc.</p>

<p>Secondly, what field do the majority of CS grads end up in? Software development, IT, Databases, web development, or something else.</p>

<p>Third, how hard is it to land a job with a "top" tech company. Like Google, Cisco, Oracle, etc. Can a person from a no-name school still get the job, or do they have to go to a GaTech/UIUC/Purdue to even be considered.</p>

<p>Also, I am very interested in information security. How hard is it to get into that field and does it pay well?</p>

<p>Lastly, what field(s) are considered to be "hot" fields right now that a lot of grads are getting jobs in? I know cloud computing is pretty hot, is there anything else?</p>

<p>Any answers are appreciated.</p>

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<p>Yes, CS majors could end up at non-computer companies that have software needs.</p>

<p>Yes, the big companies recruit widely. It is the smaller companies that have limited recruiting resources and tend to be more limited to local recruiting and a smaller selection of out-of-area schools.</p>

<p>What is “hot” now may not be “hot” four years from now.</p>

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<p>Banks recruit cs people from my school heavily. Probably more than anybody else.</p>

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<p>TomServo, if you don’t mind me asking, what school do you go to? I’m asking this because I think programming for a bank would be a pretty cool job.</p>

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<p>On that note, could someone elaborate on the type of programming work that one might do at a bank? I’ve always thought that a bank would be among the more boring places to work, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.</p>

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<p>^The OP isn’t asking because he thinks it’s interesting. He would be doing it for money.</p>

<p>Financial engineering is a field.</p>

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<p>Mrs. Turbo, a CS/Stat double major among her other degrees has worked for a bank software company, for a major pharmaceutical company, an electronics manufacturing firm, and has had offers to work in healthcare R&D. She currently works as an IT Consultant for the Mother of All IT Consulting Firms (MAICF) doing manufacturing IT.</p>

<p>I would not say those are non-tech firms. If the OP is expecting that only the big 3 out west are tech firms, well, I have news for him/her. It ain’t so. While coding the exact type of animation one sees on Foobook when they click on Like may sound like tech, try writing the software that, say, controls a
network of machines that make pharmaceuticals. </p>

<p>Information security - hmmm. A friend studied at Purdue this one under The Man.But, in each big company there’s usually very few such types. So…</p>

<p>What type of work they (we) do? I’m CS & Human Factors myself, and have done a decade of tool development (compilers, config management systems) to web page design (sigh, HTML by hand), and the last 15 years consumer electronics software (read, internet connected entertainment devices). </p>

<p>Can you get a job from Directional State U? back then, sure. Today it’s a factor of where these companies recruit. If you have friends in the industry, probably. If not, not so sure. UCBAlumnus called it right, a lot of hiring is local so act accordingly. </p>

<p>Programming for a bank could indeed be a cool job but a lot of it has been outsourced aeons ago. Mrs. Turbo did a bunch of software for the computer that talks to the ATM’s and reconciles them (boooooooooring, your basic message protocols) and also was in ground zero of the housing debacle when she worked on mortgage qualification analysis software (we still laugh about what criteria counted for what points). Definitely non-cool. </p>

<p>Financial Engineering is a different story. It’s lots of finance, high math, and algorithms galore. Nothing that your friendly bank does. Purdue has a good program for that.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Not to derail the topic, but while this is true, what do you think about the job market for EECS majors 5 years from today. I’m always seeing articles about increased pressure for automation replacing many jobs, and someone has to create these automatons. Do you think EECS jobs will continue to be very in demand in the near future.</p>

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<p>

Speaking only for software engineering, the Bureau of Labor Statistics seems to indicate very good prospects over at least the next 5 years. I don’t recall what the numbers were like for EE… let me go find them and report here.</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>For EE:
Number of Jobs, 2010: 294,000
Job Outlook, 2010-20: 6% (Slower than average)
Employment Change, 2010-20: 17,600</p>

<p>For ComputerE:
Number of Jobs, 2010: 70,000
Job Outlook, 2010-20: 9% (Slower than average)
Employment Change, 2010-20: 6,300</p>

<p>For Programmers:
Number of Jobs, 2010: 363,100
Job Outlook, 2010-20: 12% (About as fast as average)
Employment Change, 2010-20: 43,700</p>

<p>For SoftwareE:
Number of Jobs, 2010: 913,100
Job Outlook, 2010-20: 30% (Much faster than average)
Employment Change, 2010-20: 270,900</p>

<p>(For reference, one number I’ve seen that seems reasonable for US population growth projection from 2010 to 2020 is ~9%; if the labor force grows by the same amount, then EE will actually be “losing” jobs, CompE breaking about even, and programming and software engineering gaining ground)</p>

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<p>Why are “programmers” and “software engineers” separate categories? I thought the latter term was just a nicer way to refer to the former.</p>

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<p>Ask thyself, Grasshopper, how many of those 30% growth in software engineering jobs will be taken by imported workers of all denominations… especially in larger companies that have it figured out to a ‘T’…</p>

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<p>The BLS definitions of programmer and software engineer are as follows:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.bls.gov/soc/soc_2010_definitions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bls.gov/soc/soc_2010_definitions.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
[Computer</a> Programmers : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-programmers.htm]Computer”>Computer Programmers : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
[Software</a> Developers : Occupational Outlook Handbook : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](<a href=“http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information-Technology/Software-developers.htm]Software”>Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)</p>

<p>From the first link:</p>

<p>

</p>

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<p>@turbo93 I don’t know, but it’s a good question. Maybe you know of a reliable source that could shed light on the matter? Maybe even one that shows it’s more of a problem in programming and SoftwareE than in ElectricalE and ComputerE?</p>

<p>Then again, we might want to just take on faith that 80% of new Software Engineering jobs will be taken by immigrants, while new EE jobs will be completely immune to it. That does sound more likely… and better safe than sorry.</p>

<p>@sumzup The question of what distinguishes “software engineering” from “programming” is just as hotly debated as the question of whether CS and/or software engineering is “real” engineering or not. The bottom line is that the BLS counts these two groups separately, but we’re free to lump them together if we like.</p>

<p>If you lump them together, they look like this:
Number of Jobs, 2010: 1276200
Job Outlook, 2010-20: 25% (Much? faster than average)
Employment Change, 2010-20: 314600</p>

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<p>I would not remotely count that EE jobs are “safer” than coders when it comes to outsourcing, off shoring, and the like. </p>

<p>Funny thing, as hardware becomes more of a commodity, software and product design are differentiating factors… And you see more EE’s doing software especially board support, drivers, and so on.</p>

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<p>It seems that hardware is converging and diverging.</p>

<p>In the x86 space, AMD has been mostly killed off.</p>

<p>In the ARM space, there are commodity chip producers and custom chip builders. It still seems like there is diversity out there and maybe it’s even growing.</p>

<p>I read today that Intel and Apple are in bidding wars in Israel for the best chip people.</p>

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<p>Hyperion, let me reword my original post so it is clearer:</p>

<p>Of all the industries that recruit CS majors at my school, it seems like banks and financial companies recruit the hardest.</p>

<p>I didn’t mean to say that MY SCHOOL is where banks recruit the hardest, that would be HYPSM.</p>