Computer jobs

Parents Forum
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<p>My junior son and I have been visiting colleges since late last summer. So far we have seen: Drexel, York College of PA, Juniata, Towson (MD), Millersville and Kutztown - the last two are state uni's. We also did a brief stop at Washington College in Maryland. Future visits will be to his sister's college in IL. (not mentioning the name because it's very, very small and I'd like to keep this one thing confidential), RIT and Champlain College in Vermont. He's generally interested in Computer Science but says his dream job would be computer game design. My husband and I are concerned that if he focuses just on that he might miss out on other opportunities and besides we're wondering just how competitive the field might be. Champlain actually has a game design major, plus a few other computer majors that sound appealing. And before you start recommending Carnegie Mellon and MIT, he's a B student and I project a 1200 (or whatever it's equivilant is on the the new SAT) SAT. And strangely enough for a guy that likes computers, he does NOT love math. Digipen in Seattle, the first college that I heard of that offers a great game design major, has a HUGE math component.</p>

<p>Here's my real question, and it's not for college recommendations, what are some of the very different jobs you know about for comp sci graduates? He's taken Basic and is now taking C++ and will take java next year, but says he doesn't want to just sit at a desk and write code. Besides identity theft, being the tech guy at a plant, what else do comp sci people do? I'm interested in recommendations but frankly would like to stay east of the Mississippi. We've got the majority of the colleges on this side anyway!</p>

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<p>Not sure of the college programs for computer gaming but if your S ends up at Towson University my S is a Lead test Engineer for a computer gaming company in the Towson area and is always looking for part time testers. Would be a good job while in college. Also, my S hated college, was not a math student and quit after 1 1/2 years. You don't necessarily need that comp sci degree to break into the gaming field. Experience is far more important than education to those folks.</p>

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<p>Phraxis! My step-son-in-law works there, loves it.</p>

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<p>kathiep- I know you said you weren't looking for college recommendations, but I have heard that East Stroudsburg is strong in Computer Science and related fields among the PA state colleges, although it may not be quite as selective to get into as the others which you visited already. Has your son looked into East Stroudsburg?</p>

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<p>I work in the CS field (not gaming, defense). Gamers need a fair computer art component to go with the CS. My one word of advice, no matter where he goes to school, get a co-op job in the field as soon as the school allows. We use a lot of co-ops. They all say the school work is easy after working for us. They also get paid well while co-oping, and they get first shot at jobs when they graduate. What you may not know, co-op experience counts in the real world. A co-op that has 6 summers with us hires in as an engineer with 2 years of experience, not as a new grad.</p>

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<p>While computer science does involve writing programs, that is ancillary to the theoretical aspects of the curriculum. At many colleges students are expected to learn necessary languages on their own or on the fly during a course. For instance, my son will be taking Intro AI next year and his advisor suggested that he begin learning Lisp this summer. He is currently taking Data Structures and Algorithms and so far he said the course is similar to solving puzzles. Here is a link to a set of lecture notes on algorithms Its a pdf file so you'll need Adobe Acrobat to open it. <a href="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/%7Emagdon/courses/csci2300_spring2005/notes/alg.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~magdon/courses/csci2300_spring2005/notes/alg.pdf&lt;/a>
If you were able to open it you will see that there is very little coding but lots of mathematical proof and this is considered an intro course by the department. It is the second CompSci course he has taken.</p>

<p>I would not want to discourage your son from pursuing CompSci but he should know what to expect. Perhaps the colleges that he is considering do not get as involved in the theory. He could check this out by going on line and looking at the curricula and course descriptions.</p>

<p>Good luck to your son.</p>

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<p>I wonder how much computer game design will be done by American-born people at American-style computer-industry salaries in a decade. Isn't this an industry that is highly subject to offshoring production?</p>

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<p>Thanks for replies. I have been gathering curriculum information with Son, which is one of the reasons we don't think Digipen will work. That will play a part in choosing the school. What I've told son to do is to figure out which school itself feel comfortable to him and then we'll see about the actual program by asking questions. Most colleges have a computer Science program and we do the first research before we go to make sure it's deep enough but talking to the students in the major seems key. </p>

<p>Originaloog- Yes, This particular major is like a new language to me. When I look at the curriculum some of the course names are just words to me but Son seems to know what they mean. Yesterday at Millersville these two Comp Sci majors were talking about how that school is big on logic classes. I had no idea what they meant but Son did. Here's the link to Millersville comp sci page. Perhaps you can tell me if this sounds like a good one. <a href="http://cs.millersv.edu/geninfo/choose.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://cs.millersv.edu/geninfo/choose.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Millersville is the only school in the 14 PA state university system that is nationally acredited by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). We've made sure to ask at every school about co-ops and internships. But, I didn't know that co-op experience would count differently then other new grads. Guess I just figured that everybody would be having a similar co-op experience.</p>

<p>Motheroftwo, We might look at E. Stroudsburg. Honestly, around here all the state schools have such a party school/slacker reputation that just getting the M'ville and Kutztown was something we thought about for awhile. However, none of the kids we know that attend those schools are into partying and all have said that drinking is there but there are plenty of kids that don't. I pointed out to Son that he knows there are kids that drink and do drugs in HS and he has managed to avoid them, it wouldn't be any different in college.</p>

<p>Maryland Mom - I left you a PM.</p>

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<p>"I wonder how much computer game design will be done by American-born people at American-style computer-industry salaries in a decade. Isn't this an industry that is highly subject to offshoring production?"</p>

<p>That's a good question. My S has probably turned away from considering this as a career because so many people are interested in doing it, 1) it's nearly impossible to break into the industry, 2) salaries appear to be substantially lower than other, comparable computer science jobs and 3) the industry has developed a reputation for working programmers up 80 hours a week on a regular basis. </p>

<p>That all does add up to the industry leaving the country one way or the other over time. I don't think it will outsource specifically, however. We import a lot of games already, have since the beginning. I think it'll be more like the textile industry where it moves overseas, lock, stock and barrel.</p>

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<p>It depends on what you want to do.. Think of it this way..</p>

<p>CONSOLE GAMES (ie, for gamecube, ps2, xbox, etc) are for the most part made in Japan.. They always have been. I remember playing nintendo games and some of the text made no sense, because it was poorly translated.</p>

<p>COMPUTER GAMES (ie, for the computer) are for the most part made in America.. always have been.. Many of the companies are located in Florida, Texas, etc.. Here's the thing with getting into the video game industry.. Many places don't care if you have one degree or ten degrees, they just want you to program program program. What i mean is, they want experience. It doesn't matter if you finished 1st in your CS course if you don't have any experience at hard-core programming. Most people in the industry get hired at an entry level job (non gaming industry) to gain the experience, and then they move into the gaming industry. Like the above mentioned poster mentioned, it's very hard to break into the industry, but if you have the experience, and the skills, it can definately be done. As for salaries, my one friend just got offered about 70k a year from EA, and he's 28. They do have a reputation for working programmings forever (especially EA).</p>

<p>When you apply for a game programming job, you have to take a programmers test. On this test are questions about all sorts of programming related fields, and if you don't pass that test, you don't get an interview or anything. That is why experience is important.. the stuff on those tests aren't what's learned in programming 101. </p>

<p>Hope that was of some assistance..</p>

<p>(oh and kathie.. i go to york college of pa, if you were interested in there at all i could answer any questions for you.. our CS program is new.. and tell your son logic design is fun!)</p>

<p>Millersvilles looks to be pretty nice. I toured that school back when i was looking at colleges, but ended up not applying there.</p>

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<p>Oops! I forgot York! We did visit York. Unfortunately, we did it in the fall with a friend of my son's and focused more on her since she's a senior and was interested in music industry. We both liked York but because our tour guide and the people we talked to didn't have a real good interest in the CS program, he didn't feel that there was much there. I would love to be able to tell him differently.</p>

<p>One of the reasons my son said that most game design people have the background (CS degree plus self taught stuff and internships) they do is because there were NO game design majors just a few years ago. Thinking about internships/co-ops is the reason we want to see Champlain. They have a partnership with Activision games in nearby Canada. At least I think it was Activision. It was the college admissions counselor that talked to us about it at a college fair.</p>

<p>Can you tell me, fendergirl, if you know someone at York that went into a game design career from York or what kinds of jobs CS majors get when they graduate from York?</p>

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<p>York just started it's CS program a few years ago, so i'm not entirely sure. It's kind of hard to tell how it's going, because it's so new. (That's one plus to going for the degree somewhere else.. they have been doing it much longer than us.. But that's probably why your tour guide didn't know much about it, it's only been around for three or four years.) I have a friend here that is a CS major, but he's only a sophomore. There are a few Junior CS majors in my web development class. I know my friend was really excited about doing his senior project when he's finally a senior.. I thought he mentioned something about doing video game design as the project, but I could be wrong about that..</p>

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<p>Getting back to your original question, my son is graduating this spring with a CS degree. He'll be working for a large well-known bank in New York. I've been told the financial industry likes CS majors because of their training in logic.</p>

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<p>kathiep,</p>

<p>Your son may want to browse the college web sites for more information about the gaming programs that the schools offer; e.g., <a href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/%7Efrost/cosmos/game.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ics.uci.edu/~frost/cosmos/game.html&lt;/a>. You mentioned Champlain offering a game design major. I would recommend your son to start browsing Champlain web sites first.</p>

<p>There are a lot of different kinds of work a computer sience graduates can do. Besides writing computer games, the graduates can working in information technology (IT) field (e.g., supporting eBay web sites, maintain IRS software, etc.), system software programming (e.g., working on database engine, compilers, operating systems, etc.), simulation (e.g, space shuttle flight simulation), etc. They can also work in software product marketing, software project management, new software product planning, etc. They may even become software company managers, VP's, and/or CEO's.</p>

<p>Your son does not need to make up his mind right away. He still has 4 years in college to think about this. Whether he wants to concentrate in computer game field or other computer science fields, he still need to take many common classes; e.g., calculus, introduction to data structures, computer graphics, etc.</p>

<p>Many computer programming jobs have been off-shored to India, China, and other countries, and it might be hard for a computer science graduate to find a job right after school given the current economy (especially in Silicon Valley). It's to your son advantage if he can find internship and or co-op positions when he's still a junior or senior in college to get as much real world experience has he can.</p>

<p>Most computer programmers sit at their desking writing, debugging, and testing their and others' code all day long. If your son does not want to do that, he may want to check with computer game programmers to find out how they spend their day.</p>

<p>I think it's great that your son started his career exploration early. Good luck to him!</p>

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<p>I wanted to get a comp sci degree but seeing the recent trend of outsourcing I changed it to electrical engineering.</p>

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<p>The defense industry is one that will never be outsourced overseas. Our company is currently paying $5000 a head to anyone bringing in a new employee in engineering, and yes that includes CS. As for EE, many of our EEs program far more than they do chip or board design.</p>

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<p>Your son is me! This is a program at Worcester Polytech that I'm the most interested in now, show it to your son. I'll be visiting in April and hope to talk with the staff and get a real idea of the program and my futire in it.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Majors/IMGD/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Majors/IMGD/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Bandit, someone should put you guys together with all of the unemployed engineers in N. Cali. It's bad here. Last week a depressed unemployeed engineer ran down a family with his car. What are we doing wrong that there's actually demand elsewhere for people out of work for years here?</p>

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<p>Seven years ago my husband was an engineer with Lockheed-Martin. They were closing down his plant here in PA and took a whole bunch of us out to Silicon Valley to think about relocating. Weather was nice enough but the cost of living was very expensive, the houses were much less quality then we had at home for much more money, and the weather... Well, it doesn't really get warm and it doesn't get really cold. What kind of weather is that? While we were there a couple of houses fell off a hill in mudslides and there was a mild earthquake that the locals didn't even notice at first. We didn't move. My husband took another job. A year after that Lockheed Martin tried to get some California people to move to Pennsylvania. They didn't want to move here! oh, guess that didn't answer your question, but it reminded me of how funny we all are about changing/relocating. Moving to Bandit's state might help.</p>

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<p>I do not want to be the one to discourage anyone because there are always jobs in every industry for talented people but I would be interested in a poll of people who are currently (or have been) in the computer field. Would they encourage their children to follow in their footsteps? Myself, I been in computers since 1979, have never lost a job for any reason, but quite honestly I specifically told both my children to avoid this profession. They job prospects are limited at best and outsourcing has only just begun. According to projections hundreds of thousands of jobs within the next 10 years will be off-shored to companies paying 1/5 the salaries of US companies. The Bush administration is fully supporting this. I understand Bandits coments but quite frankly the defense industry is only a small segment of the data processing market. And I caution you about the "never happen" concept. After all, the government just denied the Amercian company - Sikorsky, the presidential helicopter contract they had for something like 40 years and awarded the contract to a company who will use foreign contractors.</p>