<p>I was listening to a guy from the Havard School of Business today complaining how us Americans don’t have the skill set to suceed. That companies were looking for skills that we don’t have ane are hiring foreign employees becuase of our lack of skill set. This really annoys the heck out of me. So many young people are told to go into stem but so many of those jobs are now going overseas. The Havard guy did not sound too promising about our economy. Why can we not get the right skill set here in America? I know because big business is not willing to pay at our payscales. We need to start forcing companies to stay here and employee our citizens or get out.</p>
<p>My undergrad degree is in Computational Mathematics (basically a Math/CS hybrid degree) and it has been the BEST decision I have made on my life. I am now entering year 23 of software engineering BUT there ARE some things that I wanted to point out.</p>
<p>1) Most computer-related jobs are going to be related to the processing (programming), distribution (computer networking) and storage/retrieval (databases) of information. I know there are really “cool” CS electives in many schools but one has to look into reality of the workforce and the current economy and see which skill areas are being sought for the most. Add to that ALL three of the above-mentioned areas need to run over an OPERATING SYSTEM.</p>
<p>2) One needs to take an oath to be a “lifetime student”. This means learning what is “hot now” even if it means that you will end up tossing that technical book that you paid $70 for 2 years later.</p>
<p>3) To combat possible age-discrimination in your later years, sometimes one may have to take more “safe” routes/jobs to continue being employed. This is why I switched over to doing security clearance INTEL work. YES, it required moving to the DC area (after 15 years of private-sector work) and YES it invades my private life (to maintain a clearance) and YES the DC area is an expensive area BUT it is about as close to guaranteed employment as you can get since INTEL work will never be outsourced.</p>
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<p>That comment about a fast food job makes it very hard to take this seriously…</p>
<p>Ehh, what other options do Americans have nowadays? The economy is terrible and most college students were better off graduating from high school and working for minimum wage while rooming with a few friends. </p>
<p>After seeing the documentary Collapse, I can’t stop thinking about how frightening the future is going to be.</p>
<p>Your fear is stretching toward irrational. Honestly. This may be more of an anxiety issue than a reality of the present day economy. Even with debt you clearly have to see the huge differences in the salaries below:</p>
<p>Mcdonalds pays minimum wage. In NC that is $7.25/hr. Per year that is $14,500.</p>
<p>My first bachelors was a non technical degree (psychology). I obtained a job in a call center after graduating. Pay per year: $33,000 or ~$16.5/hr</p>
<p>Now I am in a second Bachelors for Engineering. Just secured an INTERNSHIP for January. Pay: $25/hr…</p>
<p>For every 40 hours I work at the internship… a McD’s employee would have to work 138!</p>
<p>If this still isn’t as clear as day, I don’t know if anything anyone else says will make a difference.</p>
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<p>It’s hard to take you seriously when you make such hyperbolic and exaggerated statements that are very clearly due to the fact that anything we say you refuse to believe.</p>
<p>It’s almost like you WANT to believe that your future is bleak.</p>
<p>The general economy is recovering (albeit with hiccups like the recent jobs report), and, in fact, the recent recession did not impact CS majors at all. </p>
<p>And…
- I personally do not think we’re in a tech bubble. You might think the proliferation of tons of startups is evidence of a bubble. But keep in mind that 90% of startups fail, so most are supposed to fail, whether or not we’re in a bubble. The only time you should be concerned we’re in a bubble is if you see tons of startups go IPO with valuations that are out of whack. (I don’t think Facebook necessarily qualified, because Facebook is actually profitable)
See this, which is a report saying that the mobile market has been barely tapped and is potentially worth several billions: <a href=“http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/30/mary-meeker-mobile-monetization-has-more-going-for-it-than-early-desktop-monetization-had/[/url]”>http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/30/mary-meeker-mobile-monetization-has-more-going-for-it-than-early-desktop-monetization-had/</a></p>
<p>2) Even IF we were in a tech bubble, and it pops in the next few years. So what? All that means is that instead of getting a job at the next hot web startup, you just get a <em>normal</em> job at Microsoft or Apple or Oracle or a defense contractor or a car manufacturer etc…, unless you’re going to say that iPad demand is a bubble, Windows OS demand is a bubble, business database demand is a bubble, missile guidance systems demand is a bubble, computer software inside cars demand is a bubble, etc…</p>
<p>People can always cherry-pick anecdotal evidence, the people on the tail end of the distribution, to make the case that even CS/engineering majors have trouble finding work, but the statistics don’t lie: CS and engineering majors have the best job prospects and average mid-career pay rates of any Bachelors-level degree. You can always find an unreliable Toyota somewhere, you can always find a straight male hairdresser somewhere, you can always find a sexy single girl in a computer science class <em>somewhere</em>, but generally speaking you can bet big money and win (most of the time) that a Toyota will run, a male hairdresser watches Glee, and the one girl in the CS class is a homely, and that CS and engineering graduates get good jobs and good pay.</p>
<p>Let me say that when it comes to people with poor people skills, engineering and CS majors include some of the worst on campus. CompE and CS are the worst. This isn’t to say that all or most of them have bad people skills, BUT AMONG THOSE WHO DO a large fraction is in the computer-side of STEM. I know of at least one guy who I cannot see ever doing well in a job interview and who has made entire lecture halls full of people turn against him. He’s the worst example but there are others. So most of the time when I hear about a guy with great engineering credentials who can’t find work I usually assume he’s one of the bad people skills guys.</p>
<p>Don’t listen to the optimists. Listen to the realists. The economy is bad out there, very bad. A CS/Engineering degree is not going to help you to the extent that many people on CC claim. However, a CS/Engineering degree will help you <em>more</em> (and in some cases not a lot more) than any other degree in <em>most</em> cases. The odds are bad for everyone, but the odds are a little better for CS and Engineering grads. Take a look at a couple of links over at Dice:
[WSJ</a> Propaganda: Revenge of the Nerds: Tech Firms S… - tech talk](<a href=“http://techtalk.dice.com/t5/Tech-Nation-Discussion/WSJ-Propaganda-Revenge-of-the-Nerds-Tech-Firms-Scour-College/m-p/301650]WSJ”>http://techtalk.dice.com/t5/Tech-Nation-Discussion/WSJ-Propaganda-Revenge-of-the-Nerds-Tech-Firms-Scour-College/m-p/301650)</p>
<p>[Re:</a> WHY you SHOULD NOT go into Information Technol… - tech talk](<a href=“http://techtalk.dice.com/t5/IT-CS-Students/WHY-you-SHOULD-NOT-go-into-Information-Technology/m-p/198751/highlight/true#M2730]Re:”>http://techtalk.dice.com/t5/IT-CS-Students/WHY-you-SHOULD-NOT-go-into-Information-Technology/m-p/198751/highlight/true#M2730)</p>
<p>Among many others…</p>
<p>Edit:
I should specifically point out that the state of the IT and Engineering job markets in America are declining in large part due to H1-B visas, not just the economy alone. The data, evidence, and personal recounts are all over Dice’s forums. However, as I stated in another post in CC’s law school forum, it appears NO field is thriving. Every field has its own problems that are leading to its decline, in <em>addition</em> to the economy.</p>
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<p>Perhaps it is more that the rate of change in what the in-demand skill sets are is now faster than the change in skill sets that people can acquire through education (including self-education and continuing education). In the four years that a student attending a university toward a bachelor’s degree, the job market may look significantly different at the beginning and end points.</p>
<p>I don’t want the economy to bust, I want it to thrive. I keep having panic attacks over my education and my future and my family’s future.</p>
<p>I would definitely consider myself to be a realist than an optimist. I’m not purposely trying to be pessimistic about the future, but after reading the amount of stuff I have on the internet, most of it has influenced me to believe that the future doesn’t look good.</p>
<p>rks102 - you were considering changing from biology to CS because you thought there was no employable future for you in biology. Now you are worried about CS and having panic attacks. I think the issues with your family business are affecting your outlook. Life isn’t that bleak. You may be suffering from depression - - I don’t know anything about it but I think it might be worthwhile for you to visit a school counselor before you make decisions.</p>
<p>Obviously you’re not a optimist and you are being pessimistic about all of this. You can’t control the world you can’t control the economy so shut up and stop complaining. It’s called life, you’ll never get hired if you come to an interview acting crazy</p>
<p>Your combination of bio with cs is a very marketable right now. Talk to your profs about job prospects, and finish on time with the bio major/ cs minor.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
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Well, it’s certainly hard to prove a bubble, or else it would be too late. But I would certainly say that we’re in a bubble that is sure to pop in a few years.
One good example of overpriced startups could be seen in the sale of Instagram (one of the founders walked away with $400m). $1 billion for a gimmick is definitely not quite right at all.
I’d have to dig deeper to find more examples (because I don’t know them off the top of my head), but I think we’re in the middle of a tech bubble for sure. But as we all know, economics is a science that is only well-supported in hindsight.</p>
<p>I love how people always use Instagram as an example of a tech bubble, ignoring, of course, that this is ONE company (and this is the only example you can probably cite), and ignoring the fact that they are assuming it is overpriced.</p>
<p>When someone dismisses something as just a “gimmick,” they may be right. They may also be the kind of people who dismissed Facebook as “just a gimmick” when Microsoft invested $250 million in Facebook in 2007, valuing it at a super-duper-omg-overvalued $15 billion. (Facebook is now worth $50 billion).</p>
<p>Look, at this point, rks, we can give you all the information you want, but it appears that your mind is already made and that you really don’t want to believe us.</p>
<p>Just drop out and work in fast food</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>Malikwal “Just drop out and work in fast food”</p>
<p>That was very helpful.</p>
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Because there’s something wrong with using the best example out there. There are others of course, but many of them are arguable (I’d say phone apps are another source of net worth > value) and few people actually keep track of every tech startup to consider whether or not a bubble exists. Not to mention it’s hard to speculate that far into the future.</p>
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Facebook is overpriced, and its IPO partially attests to that. It may or may not have been more gimmicky than it is now, but it’s still alive for a reason.
Instagram, however, is very much a gimmick. It’s simply a part of Facebook’s assets now, so it won’t be changing very much on its own.</p>
<p>^(cue sarcasm). Yes, because a company that had $1 billion in profit off $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, which was a 65% increase in profit from 2010, is a total gimmick and is surely overpriced when it is valued at $57 billion (as it is right now).</p>
<p>Things are not as black and white as you say. There are arguments that Facebook is overpriced. There are strong arguments that it is not overpriced (especially with the recent stock price correction). Companies are not valued on present potential, they are valued on future potential (which is why that 65% figure matters)</p>