<p>I love computer science and am thinking about majoring in comp sci, but a couple people warned me that I might be out of a job at age 40, since my knowledge will by that time be outdated. I don't want to pick a major just for job purposes (where's the fun in that?), but frankly I don't want to be unemployed either. </p>
<p>what are your thoughts?</p>
<p>My thoughts? People who tell you that don’t know what they’re talking about or are purposefully trying to deceive you for any number of reasons, perhaps a bet or a prank.</p>
<p>If you like CS, go for it. Most of what you learn in school will only loosely apply to your job, and what does will usually need to be constantly refreshed anyway. Software Engineering is a great field, one of the top fields according to CNN money a couple of years ago, and they make good money. Job opportunities are plentiful. Etc.</p>
<p>In any good job, you’ll need to stay competitive. If you work somewhere that knowledge of the newest programming languages is important, part of the job will be learning the languagesn as they come.</p>
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<p>I’m a software engineer.</p>
<p>I’m 50.</p>
<p>My boss is also a software engineer turned manager but he spends about 80% of his time doing engineering work.</p>
<p>He’s in his 60s.</p>
<p>I work with software engineers in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. We hired someone in his late-40s/early 50s several months ago.</p>
<p>Keep your skills up. If you love CS and are good at software engineering, it shouldn’t be too hard.</p>
<p>Are your friends generally good at predicting the future?</p>
<p>lol. what about outsourcing/importing programmers?</p>
<p>I can never understand why anybody would be scarred of outsourcing. If your job gets outsourced and you get fired, its your fault. Nobody else’s.</p>
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<p>I work with many immigrants that came to the US to study for their advanced degrees. Some of the functions in my company formerly done in the US have been moved to other countries. But it’s no panacea. If you’re a manager, do you want to have meetings at 1 AM in the morning? The US dollar has lost a third of its value in this decade and the fundamentals are in place for it to decline further. This drop in purchasing power should dull the glitter of outsourcing. There are other issues with outsourcing too.</p>
<p>If you are at the top of your game and at the top of your industry or you provide skills in high demand or have an unusual ability to get things done that are tough for most other people, then you’re probably going to be someone that your company doesn’t want to replace via outsourcing.</p>
<p>Two things to make in mind:</p>
<p>(1) As long as you’re profitable to the company, it doesn’t make long-term sense to get rid of you, even if they outsource work.</p>
<p>(2) You are better equipped than those in other countries to bring more to the American business table in terms of skills, knowledge, and business sense. If your job <em>can</em> be outsourced, it <em>should</em> be. Make yourself valuable.</p>
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<p>While its true that some “topics” of engineering, science, math related majors will become outdated, you need to understand that you probably aren’t going to use everything that you learned in college, so you will just have to refresh the information that relates to your work. Also, the fundamentals of a discipline dont change, so while new technology may come out and new information will be published, its usually just usually an extension of what you already know.</p>
<p>That is acually the weakest argument I’ve ever heard for not choosing a particular major. Most of the hype is about outsourcing, but this is a new one.</p>
<p>ps. I had a computer science professor in college who was well past 60. Guess what, she still has a job.</p>
<p>My son is a comp sci major entering junior year. Recently he was reading something online about careers for the future, and CS was one of the areas that is forecasted to grow. Sorry, I don’t remember the source.</p>
<p>However, I can tell you that the CS major has certainly been helpful to my son currently in terms of getting work currently. My son fell in love with CS at age 15 and devoted many hours during HS to learning computer languages and developing his skills. He also took AP CS AB. He’s found that he’s been able to get good summer jobs with these skills. Because his CS skills are strong, he was able to get a good job following freshman year working for a small firm. This summer, a year notorious for the number of kids either forced to sit at home or do an unpaid internship, he had four job offers to choose from, paying around $15/hr, two with a major national company, and two with small, independent businesses. </p>
<p>Outsourcing is an issue, but as previous posters have mentioned, there are problems with it too. Outsourced workers must be managed from the home company by people who know what they are doing. There are also CS jobs with the government and sensitive industries in defense that must be filled by US citizens. </p>
<p>If you love CS, go for it.</p>
<p>My son is a comp sci major entering junior year. Recently he was reading something online about careers for the future, and CS was one of the areas that is forecasted to grow. Sorry, I don’t remember the source.</p>
<p>However, I can tell you that the CS major has certainly been helpful to my son currently in terms of getting work currently. My son fell in love with CS at age 15 and devoted many hours during HS to learning computer languages and developing his skills. He also took AP CS AB. He’s found that he’s been able to get good summer jobs with these skills. Because his CS skills are strong, he was able to get a good job following freshman year working for a small firm. This summer, a year notorious for the number of kids either forced to sit at home or do an unpaid internship, he had four job offers to choose from, paying around $15/hr, two with a major national company, and two with small, independent businesses. </p>
<p>Outsourcing is an issue, but as previous posters have mentioned, there are problems with it too. Outsourced workers must be managed from the home company by people who know what they are doing. There are also CS jobs with the government and sensitive industries in defense that must be filled by US citizens. </p>
<p>If you love CS, go for it.</p>
<p>The BLS OOH has only good things to say about the future of CS.</p>
<p>gosh i can’t really decide between a comp sci major and a math major with a track in actuarial science!</p>
<p>I think either way will pay off handsomely.</p>
<h2>Actuaries</h2>
<p>18,000 jobs in 2006
22,000 jobs in 2016, projected
$53,754 average starting salary
$82,800 median salary
10% < $46,470 … 50% in [$58,710, $114,570] … 10% > $145,600</p>
<h2>Software Engineers</h2>
<p>857,000 jobs in 2006
1,181,000 jobs in 2016, projected
$53,396 average starting salary (lowest… several others given)
$79,780 median salary (lowest… one other given)
10% < $49,350 … 50% in [$62,830, $98,470] … 10% > $119,770
(lowest… one other set given)</p>
<p>These facts are all from the relevant sections of the BLS OOH.</p>
<p>Draw your own conclusions. The pay is similar, and the coursework will probably be of comparable rigor and difficulty. Both degrees will allow entry into other fields and prepare students for graduate study.</p>
<p>If you really can’t choose between the two, I’d go with whichever I liked better. In terms of jobs you can get later… well, I don’t think it will make much of a difference.</p>
<p>thank you for the replies, so basically if I constantly keep myself updated while on the job, I won’t be outsourced. But by the time I am 50 it might be hard to constantly do this just like its kinda hard for my parents to learn how to use an iphone. </p>
<p>a side question: How are computer science engineers choosen to be a manager of a comp sci company?</p>
<p>Experience mostly, but it wouldn’t hurt if you had an advanced degree (Master’s, MBA, PhD, etc.)</p>
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No, it shouldn’t be. The ball’s in your court. There are plenty of CS people in their 50s and 60s who are designing and developing software and are doing outstanding work. There’s not a top-end age limit for the field. A key is to stay on top of the technology, stay innovative, and keep productive. Not everyone does this and could find themselves un-competetive if they fail to do so but on the other hand, it doesn’t take 30 years for this to happen - it could happen to someone still in their 20s/30s since the technology moves so fast.</p>
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Lots of ways with the most important being experience and a proven track record, ability to deal well with people and upper management, ability to lead, ability to make good business decisions, being willing and able to play some of the political games that come with the territory, and the ability to take advantage of opportunities. Once one is working at a company the company may have internal courses and internal paths to management so one would seek these out to get on the management track if that’s what they want. Personality plays a part of it. People don’t learn most of this by getting some degree from college.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that I’ve known a number of software engineers/developers who ended up in management, didn’t like it, and then switched back to being a developer rather than a manager.</p>
<p>Age discrimination is everywhere. The real issue is not that you can’t do the job, but some punk HR gatekeeper will prevent you from being considered. You’ll probably be told you’re ‘overqualified’ or something which really means they’d rather pay someone a fraction of what you’re worth even though they’ve got only a fraction of your experience.</p>
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But there are entry-level positions, mid-level positions, senior-level positions and even positions higher than that. If an individual with 20 or 30 years experience is trying to compete for an entry-level position with a college grad who is willing to work for less than half the price, then yes - hiring the college grad makes more sense. But a new college grad won’t even be considered for a mid or senior level position so that ‘50 y/o’ isn’t really directly competing against them unless that 50 y/o has been ‘stuck’ at entry-level work and not really progressing despite having worked a long time (and some people do fit this category). These positions aren’t static and people need to always consider thir competetiveness and position themselves appropriately.</p>
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<p>Learn as much as you can about your job and then the jobs of those around you. Keep an eye on what the company is doing strategically and tactically. Mentor others that need help. Be a good co-worker. At some point, let your manager know that you’re interested in becoming a manager. One job of a manager is to train a successor. It may be that nobody else is interested in being a manager and you get picked as the successor by default.</p>