My kids are veering away from taking CS. We had a family discussion and this is what transpired. While a starting job in IT pays a good salary, one has to keep updated with the latest technology, a lot of IT work is already being outsourced, there will be a lot of competition from India and Chinese visa holders. IT folks 40 or older are among the first to be let go in a downsizing as is happening at many companies today. One common theme with technology advancement is the ability to do more with less people. So, long term, we were thinking CS leading to a career in IT may not be the best choice. Thoughts?
CS as a major does not normally lead to IT work. CS majors often become software developers, among other things. IT is a completely different field.
Agreed with the above. Additionally, outsourcing has been cited as an issue since 2000 in CS, but salaries and career expectations have been going consistently up. No one can say for sure long term, but there is no reason to think CS will be a bad career choice any more than other fields in my view.
Regardless, I would note two things:
- No matter your major, CS is a good skill to have. Don't shy away regardless.
- You do have to enjoy CS work to have a truly successful career in CS (or IT). Going into it or many other fields just for the money is not going to end well.
Ageism does exist in software, but there are still places to go, and a successful career can often lead to retirement before that ageism really hits depending on salary and if you have a family / kids.
Long story short: Don’t choose it for the money, but if you’re interested and enjoy it, absolutely go into it.
OK. I wonder how many 17 year olds know what they’re really interested in. However, let’s say he is very interested and now fast forward to age 50. Let’s say he’s still enjoys the field, the odds are still against him if the company has a layoff. My point is that in the software industry, experience does not have the same value or does it? In software, all that is important is the latest skill, which is why in the all big tech companies, the average age is about 30.
Experience is still by far the most important thing. Even though the technologies change, the skills do not. The latest Javascript library is still using many of the same concepts from back in the days of COBOL, just evolved and with a new way of writing them. For a well-trained developer, learning a new tech stack (read as a skill) won’t take much time at all and will happen naturally over the course of your career. That is more than other careers, yes, and can cause fatigue for some, but not anywhere near impossible. Many companies have workers well into their 40’s and beyond. Working as a project manager often can abstract the daily development skills to conceptual help which can often be tech agnostic, so that’s another option as one ages.
Ageism is still a problem, but it’s not a “take the 40 and up’s behind the barn and shoot em” type scenario. One thing that also decreases the age is the ability to retire sooner due to high salaries. I would guess most retire by 55, if not sooner. I’ve worked with my share of 40 year olds though and know many companies who are made up of them more than the younger ones. Google, Amazon, Facebook etc are not reflective of the entire industry.
Good question - the point is still not to discourage or encourage them either way.
So tell me what careers do not have ageism ?
In most industries you need to move up or out.
I agree with the comment above, major in something you like, college is not trade school.
Many with CS degrees do not end up programming and many programmers do not have CS degrees.
Thanks for the different inputs.
Re #5
While some highly motivated people can self educate CS to work in computing, for most college students who want to work in computing, studying CS in college will give them a much more solid base to start from.