<p>Hi,
My son has expressed a desire to work "with computers" for the first time this year (11th grade---took his first programing class this year and really likes it).</p>
<p>So we're starting to look at colleges that offer strong programs in computer science.</p>
<p>But---I've heard from a variety of parents that 1) web development is all "off shore" now and 2) programing is also outsourced to other countries. My gf was a big IT prj manager & says the "management" end of things is still in the US.</p>
<p>So wondering if I/we should bother structuring a whole college search/assessment process around a major that leads to a career that (in many respects) not going anywhere (in the US)? </p>
<p>I really want to support my son's natural interests, though. He's not had a ton of academic enthusiasm (despite ability) but has recently asked for a textbook to teach himself Java so he can build a few computer games.</p>
<p>
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But---I've heard from a variety of parents that 1) web development is all "off shore" now and 2) programing is also outsourced to other countries. My gf was a big IT prj manager & says the "management" end of things is still in the US.
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</p>
<p>At least a plurality of my friends (and me) work in software, and very few have had problems with their jobs being outsourced.</p>
<p>Not that software engineering is the only computer-related career out there. Every company in the US that uses computers needs a good sysadmin, sometimes many of them, depending on company size.</p>
<p>A couple of thoughts on software, though:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Based on my purely anecdotal and unscientific evidence, the West Coast seems to have more of an outsourcing problem than the East Coast.</p></li>
<li><p>Small video game development houses don't seem to outsource much (again, anecdotal), and they need software engineers, and it's a growing industry.</p></li>
<li><p>Defense contractors. Seriously. Defense contractors want employees who can get security clearances, so the jobs aren't in danger of being outsourced. They also tend to have good benefits.</p></li>
<li><p>Along similar lines, I hear that the aerospace industry is crying out for young software engineers, and has the same issue that defense contractors do...they tend to want people who are clearable, which kills outsourcing.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>My son and all his CS friends had several extremely well paid positions to chose from by the time they graduated with BSA in CS and all are happily employed from day one. (They all graduated with distinction from a top university, but still it was astonishing to see how painless their "job hunt" turned out to be...)</p>
<p>The IT industry is too big and diverse to have its job prospects summarized in just a few sentences.</p>
<p>More importantly, I've noticed a curious thing over the years (decades?), that searching for the "hot" career path via the "right" college degree is an invitation to disaster and frustration. A good part of the problem is that getting a college education obviously takes 4+ years. That's an eternity in the business world. Couple that with the fact that thousands of entering frosh are acting on the same information, so all these thousands graduate at the same time into a job market that may have moved on to something else. </p>
<p>This has happened in too many fields to count, and may be happening now in accounting. </p>
<p>Add to this the discovery component of a good college education, one that leads the majority of college grads ending up in something different from where they started as frosh, and I think it is a good time to chill out and let the kid dream. </p>
<p>If an 11th grader can't dream about an exciting future, what will happen to that kid as an adult? Your son will have a whole lifetime of reality and a good dose of it in college.</p>
<p>Teaching himself java? I'd go with that. He's obviously got the interest...I believe you gotta let them study what they want to, then the work opportunities will follow.</p>
<p>I'm not in the field but I have a son 2 yrs out of a top CS program. Sorry I can only relate concerning him and his fellow college grads, not industry-wide. His job---longish hours but challenging and interesting--at NYC i-bank. I can't imagine work of this calibre being shipped offshore. Excellent pay (year end bonus next week), travel to other countries (Tokyo, London, Hong Kong this past year).</p>
<p>My son is a senior in a computer science program. He happens to be planning to go to graduate school and therefore has not investigated the job market, but many of his classmates are looking for jobs, and some have already found them, even though they don't graduate until May. There seems to be no lack of jobs for well-qualified computer science majors.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman at Carnegie Mellon. Their job placement is amazing. Not everyone goes into the standard software type jobs. Many go into investment banking and the like. Both my brothers are programmers and have gone through ups and downs with the industry. Both are doing very well at the moment. One brother started his own firm shortly before DEC folded, the other is VP of his firm. Neither firm outsources any of their work overseas.</p>
<p>since earlier posters have given the "no problem, don't worry" side of things, let me post a link to a UC Davis professor who has been writing about problems with offshoring, H1B visas, and the myth of a software engineer shortage for several years. That is Prof. Norm Matloff and his web page is at Debunking</a> the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage:</p>
<p>From the above link:<br> Debunking</a> the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage
Page down to How The Job Market Works for New Graduates. I agree with what this author says. The better your school credentials, the more likely you are to get a decent programming job.</p>
<p>The people that do hiring for software jobs are looking for no-brainer hires, those with top GPA - even though GPA does not correlate with programming performance. They are also looking to minimize costs. Down stream from the top, the job market is less secure, and as you age it's even less secure.</p>
<p>I'd not discourage someone from pursuing computer science, but I'd also ask them to consider carefully other engineering majors that might satisfy just as much. It's a hard major. Be sure to understand the drop out rate, and to have a backup plan just in case.</p>
<p>A good GPA will help, but if you come from a top school, most places (in my experience and that of my friends), will not even ask about GPA. Internships of some sort are vital these days.</p>
<p>I don't see outsourcing around me, but I also don't see this glut and excessive pickiness that the article talks about. Maybe it's an East Coast vs. West Coast thing again, since I <em>have</em> heard about this from a couple of West Coast folks.</p>
<p>I agree strongly with Treetopleaf that one should have a backup plan. One should <em>always</em> have a backup plan.</p>
<p>BTW, my feeling is you encourage your kids current interests without worrying too much about future careers. Knowing how to program in Java is a useful skill for many professions. My dh for example, does cancer research, but regularly writes programs that model various theories he has. My son has written programs for Chemistry professors to help analyze data. The schools with top-notch computer programs aren't slouches in other fields. (MIT, Stanford, Berkeley etc.) Carnegie Mellon's Computer Science majors are all required to have a minor in another field, ensuring that they do have some other skills. (At least one hopes so.)</p>
<p>I'm in CS and both of my Ds are CS majors. I'm very confident they'll obtain good high-paying jobs upon graduation. In fact, the younger D just received an internship offer that pays more than most majors will earn after graduation. The older D has already received some great opportunities as well. I haven't heard (anecdotally) of any CS grads from their schools being unable to find good positions, including those not at the top on the GPA scale. </p>
<p>There is some outsourcing of some job positions but certainly not all of them. I'm sure that outsourcing will continue in this field as well as many others but that doesn't mean there are no more jobs and opportunities here as well. Companies aren't making high offers to CS grads to be philanthropic. There's an awful lot of hype surrounding the outsourcing question.</p>
<p>It's also true that a CS major can go in many directions either immediately upon graduation or as they progress in their career. Not all of them are sitting in a corner head-down coding (not that there's anything wrong with that). There are also some that pursue project management, group management, sales, education, start their own companies, and many other paths. </p>
<p>If your S wants to pursue a CS major I think he's making a fine choice that'll probably be financially rewarding as well. He should understand that this is a rigorous major and will require a lot of work though - more than most majors (picture spending 25-40 hours a week writing a program including determining the algorithms to use, etc. on top of all the other college work including higher level math and sciences along with humanities, etc.).</p>
<p>My son made $25/hour doing freelance programming while he was still in high school and the average starting salary at Carnegie Mellon last year was an astonishing $90,000/year. Not that money is everything. :)</p>
<p>My son is just now developing an interest in this---so he's not one of those kids who's been doing it since middle school or whatever! .</p>
<p>But...I'm going with his present interest and his abilities and seeing what we can do.</p>
<p>Not sure that Carnegie Mellon would be in the cards (9th/10th grade academic choices by son...which have since changed for the [much, much] better).</p>
<p>Probably looking at some mid-tier schools that would likely appreciate v. high SATs and...let's say a sharp upward trend in gpa in jr yr.... :-)</p>
<p>You don't have to be from Carnegie Mellon to be employable.</p>
<p>My son's classmates who have had no difficulty finding jobs are from the University of Maryland at College Park, which has a good CS department (the grad department is ranked in the top 20) but is not in Carnegie Mellon's league.</p>
<p>UMCP, by the way, seems to place more weight on SAT's than GPA in admitting freshmen. (We have a neighbor whose kid had a low SAT and high GPA. He was unable to get into UMCP even though he was in-state but got into several higher-ranked state flagship universities as an out-of-stater. Those other schools apparently value GPA over SATs.) To get into UMCP, a student's SAT had better be pretty good, though. Even in-staters may be rejected if their combined CR/Math score is below 1300.</p>
<p>Every Labor department study for at least the last 10 years, if not longer, that I have seen have projected the computer related jobs will be among the fastest growing jobs. For the past three years I have done a presentation at my Town's High School and have found that 7 out of the top 10 fastest growing jobs are computer related with the other three in health care for aging folks like myself. </p>
<p>Whether coding, designing, documenting, designing graphical interfaces or game design, network administration, database administration etc. etc there are plenty of computer related jobs out there. The key is gain experience with the maximum number of different programming language/environments and to remember that a computer job requires business skills....it is most definitely not an academic exercise...the goal is to make money with what we (I am a programmer) do.</p>
<p>Also, The bit about a shortage is simply not true. If salaries, which are usually quite competitive vs. most other careers especially at the entry level, went up then more American would become engineers....</p>
<p>Great additional info! The insights about colleges/career outlook are invaluable!</p>
<p>Good to hear about non-Carnegie-level schools offering good possibilities. So glad to hear that some schools still value the SAT too (son met UMCP standards when took SAT in 7th grade...but gpa is always a concern...). Just wish I could find those SAT-valuing schools in a list somewhere...lol! </p>