<p>How much can you expect to be paid after graduating from CS? How much will the pay be if I graduate from a good school? How about a mid-range school?</p>
<p>Also, what is the demand for CS grads? I heard its increasing and will continue to do so, for the next five years at least.</p>
<p>There are WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many CS grads...GOOD LUCK :)</p>
<p>Uhh no, they are being outsourced :)</p>
<p>jeeshan gets the point...lol</p>
<p>damn this sux :(</p>
<p>CS sux PERIOD!</p>
<p>insecure are you even in college? cuz if not...jus shut the hell up lol</p>
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How much can you expect to be paid after graduating from CS?
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<p>According to the NACE, CS students earned about 51k to start.</p>
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How much will the pay be if I graduate from a good school? How about a mid-range school?
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<p>CS grads from Stanford made 71k to start. EECS grads from MIT made 66k.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/CDC/surveys/0405/engineering.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/dept/CDC/surveys/0405/engineering.html</a>
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation05.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation05.pdf</a></p>
<p>Keep in mind that much (probably all) of the pay difference is due to geography. Stanford grads tend to work in Silicon Valley, MIT grads tend to work in the Northeast. Silicon Valley is a more expensive place to live than is the Northeast, and therefore people there tend to get paid more. </p>
<p>Also, outsourcing is greatly overblown. Yes, there will be outsourcing. But outsourcing only destroys a fraction of jobs, while creating others by lowering operational costs, thereby giving companies more money to spend. Yet the fact is, tech jobs will still be plentiful. The nature of these jobs will change, but there will be plenty of tech jobs. A recent study indicated that the US has about 14% more tech jobs today than it had during the dotcom boom, despite outsourcing.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Take the Ipod. Much of the low-level component engineering work of the Ipod is putsourced to cheap countries in Asia, especially China. You take apart an Ipod and you will note that practically every single piece of it came from Asia. However, all of the high-level development and design of the Ipod was done in Cupertino, California. Apple has been hiring US design engineers like mad to staff the Ipod design lab. The truth is, if Apple did not outsource the component work to Asia, and instead did it all in the US, then the Ipod would have easily cost triple or quadruple its current price and it probably would have failed in the market because it would be so expensive that few people would buy it. If the Ipod had not been successful, then all of those Apple Ipod design engineers in Cupertino would not have jobs. So all of these US engineers have jobs BECAUSE of outsourcing. Selective outsourcing allows Apple to build a product at a price point at which customers are willing to pay. </p>
<p>The greater issue is not really outsourcing per se, but general economic anxiety caused by job insecurity. Yet the truth is, outsourcing is responsible for only a small fraction of job loss. Far far more jobs are 'lost' due to simple technological advancement. For example, as old computer technologies like DEC VAX and HP-UX continue to decline, replaced by Windows and Linux, those VAX and HP-UX jobs disappear, replaced by Windows and Linux jobs. The Internet itself has destroyed vast numbers of jobs, while creating many others. For example, thousands of travel agents have lost their jobs becaues of online travel sites like Expedia and Travelocity. Boatloads of specialty collector stores and flea markets have gone out of business because of Ebay. Encyclopedia salesmen have lost their jobs because of Wikipedia. Thousands of bookstore cashiers and store cherks have lost their jobs because of Amazon. Yet nobody is seriously advocating shutting down the Internet because those people need to keep their jobs.</p>
<p>Salaries are dependent upon two major factors: experience and location.</p>
<p>First, experience. You'll eventually be a college graduate, but you'll (generally) have zero years of experience in the "real world," so expect an "entry level" position. The school from which you graduate doesn't <em>directly</em> impact your salary for the most part; if you're hired, you're hired at the pay scale for your position and experience. What it <em>will</em> affect, to some degree, are your job offers. The prestige of a "name" university may give you some extra leeway and offset any less-than-stellar points on your resume, which might give you more offers from better companies, which might offer better pay. But, other than that, once you're hired, your school doesn't matter.</p>
<p>Second, salaries are very dependent upon the area of the country in which you work. My friends who work for software companies in the Pacific Northwest make a larger figure than I do, in Houston, but my <em>cost of living</em> (housing rent, taxes, etc.) is much lower here than there. Are they getting a bigger paycheck? Yes. Do they get to "keep" as large of a percentage as I do? It's hard to say; this topic requires a lot of research to answer.</p>
<p>If you want a better answer, search Google (or your favorite search engine) for salary reports. You can find national averages (which I'd stay away from in this case) and you can narrow the results down by region, state, or even city. Look for entry-level positions for "software developer" or "programmer." Sometimes they'll break it down into three levels (i.e. I, II, and III) and you should pick "I" for a just-out-of-school estimate. You get to level "II" around 5 years of experience.</p>
<p>If you're curious, check out Computerworld Magazine's 2005 salary survey: <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/salarysurvey2005/home/%5B/url%5D">http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/salarysurvey2005/home/</a></p>
<p>It covers a lot of the IT industry, including programming, and provides insight regarding why salaries are the way they are, where they've been in the past, and how they're changing. The good news: they're going up. Be aware, however, that this is a <em>survey</em> and thus the data may not be accurate in some combinations (e.g. low number of respondents). But it's a good read, regardless.</p>
<p>And, Insecure, you and your nay-saying doomsday friends keep it up! The more people that you discourage from going into CS, the more demand you create for the rest of us... or is that your real plan? :-)</p>
<p>Thanx guys</p>
<p>I sure hope I don't get outsourced in two years... :rolleyes:</p>
<p>insecure101 why does CS suck?
and why are there too many CS majors?
and do you know what the hell your talking about?</p>