<p>Hey guys, </p>
<p>I was looking into computer/software engineering. How is this field as a whole? Is this major hard from your perceptive?
I have some programming experience and am taking AP Computer Science this year.</p>
<p>Not in college quite yet, but from what I hear electrical engineering/computer science is one of the hardest majors at most colleges.</p>
<p>Software engineers also have a LOT of folks working in the industry who were neither a computer science, computer engineering nor a software engineering major. Having said that, my personal opinion would be to NOT major in “software engineering”. Computer science, computer engineering or EE as a major would be just as good.</p>
<p>By the way, not to say my credentials are the best, but I have worked in the software engineering/development industry for 20 years…math major undergrad…engineering grad school.</p>
<p>Computer engineering =/= software engineering
Computer science =/= software engineering</p>
<p>If you want more computer science background (which I guess the general industry prefers), then take computer science. If you want to be more secure with jobs (I meant knowing more!!!) then you can do computer engineering which basically takes almost all 1000+ to 3000+ with EE and CS (with some courses omitted, especially in EE). But you don’t claim yourself an EE as a computer engineering major. </p>
<p>The latter track, computer engineering is the most difficult one, being that you have both computer science and electrical engineering. But then again, difficulty is personal, and very often brutal professors make the course unnecessarily harder than needed. Next semester I will have one, and most CpE and EE students that took his class got C out of it, if not, 1/2 class dropped. <em>FACE PALM</em></p>
<p>Is this career being outsourced?</p>
<p>Yes, there is substantial competititon from outsourcing and H1B visa imports.</p>
<p>Another dirty secret about the profession is that there is substantial age discrtimination. Only 19% of computer science majors are employed as programmers 20 years after graduation. </p>
<p>But don’t take it from me. Visit this web page run by Norm Matloff, a computer science professor at UC Davis:</p>
<p>[Norm</a> Matloff’s H-1B Web Page: cheap labor, age discrimation, offshoring](<a href=“http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html]Norm”>Norm Matloff's H-1B Web Page: cheap labor, age discrimation, offshoring)</p>
<p>Really? I thought this career was kinda secure.</p>
<p>Why would it be secure? There are millions of people in India that can easily do the same job for half the pay. The job does not have to be done on sight. </p>
<p>You should also read this article from the NY Times:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07jobs.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07jobs.html</a></p>
<p>It’s a great field with tons of opportunity.</p>
<p>Ignore the outsourcing nonsense, yes, it’s there, and yes, there a ton of well paying jobs in the field currently.</p>
<p>Many of the jobs are not suitable for outsourcing, especially government/defense. </p>
<p>And by the way, the top Indian engineers (and likely whatever other nationality) demand top salaries. The average ones are no better than North American graduates, and the cheapest ones are likely worse.</p>
<p>How hard the major is depends on the school and your course selection. It’s analytical, but doesn’t have huge prerequisites for the most part at the undergrad level. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I’m 51 with CIS and CS degrees working in software engineering. It’s a good career with good wages and benefits. My manager is in his 60s and looking to retire in a few years. The rest of the folks on my team range are in their 40s and 50s except for one employee in his 20s.</p>
<p>Computer Science and Electrical Engineering are considered difficult majors. My guess is that a majority that start out in CS/EE don’t finish the degree (they transfer to another major). Intern opportunities are pretty good for CS majors from our experience as the NSF provides a lot of STEM grants for students that wish to do research during the summer. They also provide grants for other major science and engineering areas.</p>
<p>Stop asking whether it’s being outsource or not. You are not living in 1980. This is 2010. Normal thing.</p>
<p>Study it if you are interested in it. Otherwise, don’t. :)</p>
<p>The OP has every right to ask whether the job is being outsourced. If you want to keep your head in the sand, go ahead.</p>
<p>“the top Indian engineers (and likely whatever other nationality) demand top salaries.”</p>
<p>H1B visa engineers are not paid top salaries. They are brought ino since they work for less. The words “Indian” and “top salary” generally are not used in the same sentence.</p>
<p>True Homer. I am also telling him what is missing behind your persistent attitude toward outsourcing. If you want to keep your head in the depression, go ahead.</p>
<p>We heard about outsourcing everyday, but only a few ever discuss outsourcing within the appropriate context. Seriously, Homer, whatever you bring up is true, but don’t just think in one direction.</p>
<p>To me, asking the status of outsourcing is like asking when the wold will come to an end. It will come to an end, and it is happening. So too outsourcing. It is happening, and will continue to happen as long as there is still a “developing country”. </p>
<p>Moreover, there are always be poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>Realistically, if you can’t find a job in your field, move on and seek jobs in other areas. However, we must also take residency into consideration. There are certainly more opportunities open in the city than in rural area. As you can see, analyzing an issue throughly is essential. I am not a researcher, so my investigation ends here.</p>
<p>Well, I think people need to hear the “other side” of the argument. Nobody benefits if this is merely a pro-engineering echo chamber. If you want to call me the Prophet of Doom, that is fine with me. </p>
<p>I personally think that outsouring will continue to be a problem since newer technology makes it easier to do. For many years, people have always said to become a lawyer since they would NEVER be outsourced. NEVER. Well, in 2008, the ABA stabbed every single lawyer in America in the back and allowed firms to outsource jobs.</p>
<p>Some of us actually work in an outsourcing environment where we have engineers in India and other countries and engineers in the US. We hire engineers in the US and in India. Hiring in India is not a panacea. If you want to go into engineering because you want to do engineering and you’re good at it, then go into it by all means. You do need to be good at it because you are competing globally. But if you’re good, why should you be afraid?</p>
<p>Homer is uninformed and doesn’t work in the industry nor does he have any experience in how hiring, promotion, etc. work. He doesn’t have to manage workers in the US and in India and he isn’t intimately familiar with the problems with outsourcing.</p>
<p>“You do need to be good at it because you are competing globally. But if you’re good, why should you be afraid?”</p>
<p>Because there is somone in India who will do your job for $20k a year.</p>
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<p>And why should you be afraid of that? Can’t you do your job three to six times as efficiently as someone in India?</p>
<p>Here’s a question for you: suppose your company screens a candidate for you and you have to phone interview the candidate in India. What do you ask the candidate? What do you want to use to determine if the candidate can do the job? Your staff is in the United States so there is a huge time zone difference.</p>
<p>BTW, today I was in the men’s room and saw another engineer there and asked him about how specs were going. There’s a huge advantage to being co-located with other engineers and another one for being of the same gender.</p>
<p>I would listen to BCEagle91 since he seems to actually know what he is talking about. Outsourcing will always happen and why shouldn’t it? Why would a company pay more if an Indian engineer can do the same job at 20k/year? Is the quality of the work somehow bad because a person in a developing country can do the same work? Only problem I see is American engineers whining because they are in America they somehow deserve more for doing the same job. If you are a good engineer a company WILL hire you and pay you well. </p>
<p>It makes me sad when an engineer can’t think logically and put facts before emotions. Corporations have been designing products in America, manufacturing them in China and importing them to rest of the world for YEARS. Why is it that it only matters when your profession gets outsourced? </p>
<p>Stop posting useless things like this
</p>
<p>Last time I checked there were considerable number of people of Indian origins working at Microsoft, Google, and NASA. They get paid as much as anybody else who works there and some even more so.</p>
<p>Suck it up and become a better engineer. If you can’t there is always business major for you.</p>
<p>I actually studied global project networks (network of a few teams from around the world involved in the same project) as part of my masters degree research in construction management. Specifically, we studied the interactions between American and Indian teams. For the bulk of a semester, everybody worked together virtually (through the internet). For one week, at the end of the semester, we all traveled to India and the American teams worked with the Indian teams together in the same room to finish the presentation and report. </p>
<p>The main problem we found was communication between the two teams. Different terminology, different writing styles, different grammar, different body language, and different accents all made things difficult. Confusion and frustration resulted.</p>
<p>The second main problem we had was the time zone different when teams were working virtually. They were almost never able to work together simultaneously, which decreased productivity.</p>
<p>There were other problems too, but they were specific to civil engineering and construction.</p>
<p>(FYI, this was not the main point of the research; it actually went a step further, but it’s irrelevant so I won’t mention it here).</p>