Is Computer Science better than engineering these days

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Out of curiosity, did you turn down actual job offers (ie. they were willing to hire you, and indicated so in writing), or did you just decline to apply for these jobs? I’m curious, because in my experience (granted, not in defense work requiring clearances), recruiters will contact people, even people who have been unemployed for years, for all sorts of positions, but actually getting hired can be quite difficult if you don’t have up-to-date, market-competitive skills in those (sub)disciplines of software engineering.</p>

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<p>I would say that keeping up with a few (sub)disciplines of software engineering is not particularly hard, at the level of familiarizing oneself with the basic principles, tools, etc. Getting hired for an arbitrary open position (ie., the ones the recruiters contact people for) can be quite difficult, if the actual interviews are of the anti-loop type I described earlier. However, this may not be true of positions where a high security clearance is required, because the demand is so great that the people who interview for the positions would rather that the position not go unfilled than lose a candidate because of a mismatch between what the candidate is capable of doing on the job and what some interviewer might think is necessary to assess the candidate’s qualifications.</p>

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<p>H1-B abuse is pretty rampant in CS. Most of the top tech companies are rampant abusers of the program. That helps explain why companies don’t really want to pay for US citizens that aren’t handed to them on a silver platter (the best: young, willing to work extra and get paid less).</p>

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<p>Everyone talks about the cyclical nature of the economy but can anyone offer assumptions on how CS will be in the latter half of the decade going in to 2020?</p>

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No one really knows. And even if they do, that’s the kind of thing you keep to yourself.
Basically, you can’t predict the market. Did you predict the market would be like it is now back in 2006?</p>

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<p>CS is mature enough now that there will always be some base level of demand (similar to established engineering fields). I think there’s a startup bubble right now that will have to deflate somewhat; sometimes it feels like everyone and their mother can snag a Series A funding round. Maybe artificial intelligence and machine learning will start becoming more and more relevant to people’s daily lives (ETA on that Google self-driving car, anyone?).</p>

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<p>The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts exceptional opportunities and growth for software engineering. They’re probably at least as good as anybody when it comes to predicting the near future of labor in the US.</p>

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Yes they are. And they’re terrible at it, just like everyone else.
In my experience, the BLS is wrong just about as often as it is right about the general trend. That’s probably because this stuff is hard to predict.</p>

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<p>In engineering the half-life is probably 10 years. In both fields, there’s tremendous ageism.</p>

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<p>Hah! The Government can’t predict their way out of a paper bag.</p>

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<p>And Congress is about to let them abuse it more with the new immigration “reform.”</p>

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<p>Whenever someone asks whether x major is better than y major, the first response should be “for whom?”.</p>

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<p>My degree is Computer Science and I’ve been involved in software for years. I would not let my either my kids, one in college and one applying to college, do computer science. </p>

<p>It is just too easy to outsource those jobs and the insecurity is always an issue. All I know is the hundreds of friends in software that have been laid off and looking for work while jobs go over seas. That is much less likely with certain engineering degrees.</p>

<p>I don’t care which is more prestigious. Security and job opportunities wins hands down.</p>

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<p>^ Some engineering jobs suffer more from outsourcing that software related jobs. For example computer hardware engineering jobs can easily be in another country. You can tell if it works or not because it physical. However, a big software is harder to outsource because you have no idea if it works the way it is suppose to work, of if it has bugs or flaws that they led the system to crash. However, others can’t be engineering jobs can’t be outsourced at all. For example, civil engineering. Also check the number of jobs for some majors. </p>

<p>[Computer</a> Science Jobs, Employment | Indeed.com](<a href=“http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“computer+science”]Computer”>http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“computer+science”)
[Electrical</a> Engineering Jobs, Employment | Indeed.com](<a href=“http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“electrical+engineering”&l=]Electrical”>http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“electrical+engineering”&l=)
[Mechanical</a> Engineering Jobs, Employment | Indeed.com](<a href=“http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“mechanical+engineering”&l=]Mechanical”>http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“mechanical+engineering”&l=)
[Computer</a> Engineering Jobs, Employment | Indeed.com](<a href=“http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“computer+engineering”&l=]Computer”>http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“computer+engineering”&l=)
[Chemical</a> Engineering Jobs, Employment | Indeed.com](<a href=“http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“chemical+engineering”&l=]Chemical”>http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“chemical+engineering”&l=)
[Civil</a> Engineering Jobs, Employment | Indeed.com](<a href=“http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“civil+engineering”&l=]Civil”>http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=“civil+engineering”&l=)</p>

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<p>Megadittos.</p>

<p>The Mrs. and I have a combined 54 years of software development experience, are still active software developers in our 50’s, and I have done my best to discourage both my girls to NOT go into CS. Thankfully one is studying architecture and the other will go to either law or medicine…</p>

<p>It takes a tremendous amount of effort to avoid layoffs, to stay current, to keep developing, to resist the urge or call of the sirens to ‘go into management’, and so on. The Mrs. and I have survived countless waves of layoffs only by over-education (combined 27 years of college and 7 engineering or hard science degrees between us), being good in multiple disciplines, and picking the right employer or employers at the cost of location and income. I’ve had 28 years with the same company, she has changed 3 major jobs and a few consulting gigs in the same time.</p>

<p>It’s a fun job, and pays relatively well, but job security just ain’t there. The cost of ‘staying current’ in terms of human capital and family life is pretty high as well.</p>

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<p>^A lot of the points you said are true, what I said is that outsourcing is not a big deal, and that most jobs won’t be outsourced but technology changing so fast is a big problem. It is extremely easy to find a job in CS but hard to keep it after 15 years(probably why they are so many jobs) unless you go to Google or other big company. Do you live in the US or Elbonia?</p>

<p>I want to work for google myself or other big company</p>

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<p>I have to disagree.</p>

<p>I have been in software engineering going on 23 years and never came close to being laid off. Granted, I made sure I stayed on top of the latest technical trends. I was more like the “pop music artist”…whatever was hot, I got in it…</p>

<p>Powerbuilder was hot…I jumped into it
Oracle DBA was hot…I jumped into it
Data Warehousing, Ralph Kimball, Bill Inmon was hot…I jumped into data warehousing</p>

<p>Luckily, I lived in the Washington DC area and when NSA called, I took that too. Federal “intel” work will not be outsourced.</p>

<p>The last year and a half, I have been prepping myself for “big data”, by taking training in Hadoop and now Data Science.</p>

<p>Oh yeah, I helped made a lot of book publishers rich…and quite a few weekends had me “holed” up in my home office trying to learn the latest but it sure beat worrying about job security.</p>

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<p>True that, but I don’t think that every CS grad will end up working for a highly interesting acronym soup federal agency. </p>

<p>Defense and space jobs were cut like you would not believe at various time periods. Some still are cut (making me wonder who’s getting into AeroE these days). Non-classified IT work for the Feds has a good potential of being outsourced. We are home to a defense contractor that builds LOTS of high tech stuff and, as a friend who works there says, everything has been outsourced and the highest tech piece of equipment left is the soft drink vending machine…</p>

<p>Mrs. Turbo worked in a couple of companies that pretty much had a tradition of ‘no layoffs’, ‘employment for life’, and so on. One, once owned by a spunky Texan, was swallowed up by a hardware company and is now largely history; she bailed ahead of the cuts. The second, a big pharma renowed for their employee-friendly policies, tossed the policies aside and had canon-fodder level layoffs. Once again, she bailed ahead of the cuts, to the mother of all IT consulting firms (if you can’t beat’em, join’em). She also had a few fun years working for dot coms and startups, where there was more instability than seemed possible (during the dot com meltdown). No fun.</p>

<p>All her job hopping was made possible by my steady employment, but at a cost. After 28 years I’ve survived several rounds of downsizings, buy-outs, reorgs, spin-offs, and other maladies. We’re doing OK but still laying off people trickling… Not a good place to be in a couple years, most likely I’ll join the Mrs. at her company the way things are going. </p>

<p>For every happy ending “and he worked there ever after” job there’s tons of layoff horror stories. Those days they don’t even tell us who, and I’ve resorted to writing a little program that queries the corporate LDAP server to get accurate info :).</p>

<p>Learning the latest is no guarantee, incidentally, if your organization won’t give you a chance. I’ve seen that happen as well, and had it happen to me as well 15 years ago. Simply knowing the stuff is not as useful as having experience outside, and for everyone that home studied Informatica or Business Objects there’s a dozen off-shore types with ‘experience’ all too eager to byte.</p>

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<p>I dont understand Turbo, why you would consider architecture, medicine, or law to be better career choices than computer science. They all require considerable education beyond the undergraduate level, and don’t guarantee a stable or well paying career, except maybe for medicine, aftrr accruing an enormous debt load. A motivated computer science student can finish undergrad with little or no debt and head straight into a high paying job in industry</p>

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<p>No type of job is completely secure through economic and industry downturns.</p>

<p>Architecture (and civil engineering) jobs suffered a lot in the most recent downturn that was driven by a real estate and construction crash. Law is suffering from a glut of lawyers to the point that one has to be a top student at a top 14 law school to have decent job prospects that can pay off the mountain of law school debt. Medicine is pretty much a guaranteed job, but the gigantic amounts of medical school debt can restrict the new physician’s choice of specialty and other opportunities.</p>

<p>Computer science does have the phenomenon that the more productive people are an order of magnitude more productive than the less productive people. Because of the nature of the labor markets in the US (including imperfect information before hiring), the pay levels do not vary by an order or magnitude based on productivity. Less productive people, particularly senior ones who tend to be paid more than junior people, are seen as being “too expensive” and vulnerable to substitution by cheaper people (junior people, or offshore cheap contractors for employers willing to use the very low end (they are not getting IIT grads at the cheap shops)). On the other hand, the high productivity people are likely to be seen as a bargain.</p>

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<p>Medicine people make much more money than CS people(they make twice as much on average) but they have to do so many years studying + huge loans + boring job. Architecture/Civil Engineering job prospect, security, and salary are way below those of CS lol. For me CS is the best major because I find almost all fields interesting and even if my classes are a lot of work. I always end up learning a lot plus working with technology can be fun</p>

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<p>The security and money depend so much on the company your work for. </p>

<p>I know the company I work for the engineers (mechanical, industrial, manufacturing) have a higher salary than the computer guys. And they don’t sit at a desk all day like most software developers.</p>

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<p>what if one doesn’t want to be a heads-down software developer their entire career? for example, i hope to move into technical sales</p>