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<p>Realistically, most startups do not reach IPO or profitable acquisition. You might try five or ten times just to get one (and the $$$ might not be as big as the headlines), or may not get any.</p>
<p>Of course, the industry has its ups and downs. Students who went into CS when it was hot hot hot in 1998 got to graduate into the depths of the downturn in 2002. The smaller number of students who went into CS in 2002 graduated into improving job markets in 2006.</p>
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<p>Maybe that’s true of the older and less educated American population, but I think the millenial generation is evolving. The notion of prestige/social status is shifting more towards a scandinavian type of model, where money is generally not associated with prestige/power (and in fact many people have unfavorable opinions of the uber-wealthy). Instead, educational attainment seems to be cherished a lot more over there, and is a much larger driver of prestige/social status. We’re starting to see this mindset in the US now too.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, Right now, my company is consistently getting outbid on salary by startups and we’re starting to lose folks to startups in greater numbers. I’m even losing EEs to go write apps for startups. </p>
<p>Things are changing rapidly. </p>
<p>Back in the heyday of the late 90’s startups were paying more than established companies plus you were getting the options to boot. VCs did this because time to market was paramount in a company with expectations of rapid growth and startups were having trouble finding talent. It was good to be the talent back then. I made enough on my options as a regular employee in a startup to pay for my 2 kids to go to private college now. </p>
<p>Then when the stock market crash came ~2002 , the VCs felt that you if you were privileged enough to be in their startup, getting options was good enough, and the compensation was far less attractive. Getting talent wasn’t as difficult. Companies were shopping on price more than capability. I found that it was still good to be the talent, but you had to go to DoD to get reasonable compensation. Talented US Citizens were in short supply. </p>
<p>Then ~ 2008 the housing bubble burst. I was seeing resumes that I couldn’t believe were on the street - people at the very top of their game getting laid off from jobs with impressive salaries. </p>
<p>Now in 2014 it’s getting exciting again in general. Startup compensation is starting to exceed traditional companies again and talent is in short supply jacking up salaries. We are being forced to boost compensation. </p>
<p>Startups are not risky if you are not actually spending your own money (i.e. taking less salary in exchange for your options) to get the equity and are being paid more. </p>
<p>I think CS is where it’s at right now, though EE is excellent also. </p>
<p>Do what you love. </p>
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<p>@ClassicRockerDad
Why is this? I read all the time that the “engineering shortage” is a farce, but you still see people saying that talent is scarce. I know that many companies are hesitant to sponsor H1B’s currently, but you also see gov’t trying to push through reforms to keep them here (such as the current push to allow their spouse, who is normally also very educated, to pursue work). </p>
<p>Was the US talent pool there, just not talented enough?</p>
<p>In the EE PhD market, there was and still is a shortage of US Citizens. </p>
<p>Graduate school in EE seems to be out of favor among many American students. </p>
<p>I should point out that many of the US Citizens we now hire were yesterday’s H1B students. </p>
<p>He was referring specifically to the defense industry, and their talent pool is always smaller than the general supply! Part of the problem is talent, part of the problem is philosophy (a lot of people do not want to work in defense!), part of the problem is lifestyle, and when you put all that together you can easily be in the position of a general labor abundance but a defense labor shortage.</p>
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But where will it be 5 or 10 years from now? I’m questioning the versatility and reliability of CS. EE has stood the test of time, is CS similar in that regard?</p>
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<p>The H-1B visas are being hogged by contracting companies, so that those looking to direct-hire top foreign talent have trouble getting the visas.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2013-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx”>http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2013-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx</a></p>
<p>bdboy2567 - I get your feelings, but I can still assure you that CS is perfectly fine. And I have to say that prestige and social status is actually important, maybe not to some people, but in general what you do and how prestigious the degree is, is really important. I for example am studying Mechanical Engineering, and I have to say, I dont like it, would much rather prefer EE, but the biggest problem is, that in society it is seen as a dirty degree, not much different from a normal car mechanic, where we only work with bolts and nuts etc… and I am kind of finding it hard to get a job in a different field other than Mechanical just because of the prestige and what people think about it. My friend who is a EE has way more opportunities, in banks, engineering, design, CS, biomedical. But I do agree that if you love what you are doing, you dont really care that much about the prestige. Just to say, here in Europe the prestige goes Doctor–>Lawyer–>CS engineer -->Financial Analyst–>EE, Nuclear, Chemical engineer --> Other bussiness degree holder --> Teacher --> Civil engineer --> Mechanical engineer.</p>
<p>You should also keep in attitudes change of over time. For example, doctors have a lot of prestige now, but a few centuries ago, they didn’t have any at all. Additionally, you shouldn’t be overly concerned with CS, it lacks the prestige of engineering because of its age. CS isn’t going anywhere and in time the prestige will go up. it has a bad rep now because the older generation doesn’t understand it. Similarly to how the older generation feels that anything with the word nuclear is a bomb. </p>
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<p>For real? </p>
<p>I’m just waiting to see the lawyers start telling engineer jokes. </p>
<p>Yeah. I mean the society does see them in this negative way of doing actually no good to society and only scraping of the money, but anyways lawyers are respected here and comparing a guy lawyer trying to hookup with a chick to a ME guy, definitely the lawyer 
But still I find engineering a good career way better than business, but you got to choose the right branch, I didn’t</p>
<p>Hey, the ladies love engineers, Frankie (as someone said earlier). You just need to get more confident and step up your game. :)</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m not buying this eeyore version of MechE’s. </p>
<p>The ladies also go crazy for musicians so if the ME stuff doesn’t pan out, try picking up a guitar.</p>
<p>bdboy, my husband has a Phd in EE, I have a BS in EE, a MS in CE/CS, so I am not lying to you. There is no prestige in EE, some specialty of EE can get you unemployed because nobody has any real need for it. This is why when somebody posted they want to major in EE, I cringe, because I know there is not that many high paying jobs anymore. Even in the defense industry, it has gone to be 70-80% software.
Right now CS major is in demand, look at the stock market, companies that receive multiple PEs, high momentum stocks are mostly software companies and not hardware. Check out the IBM CEO interview on CNBC recently and she said her company is 85% software. If you don’t believe anybody here, do some reading online to get the truth.</p>
<p>Also check out the career survey of your school, for example, here is one example UCSD
<a href=“http://career.ucsd.edu/alumni/alumni-survey/actual-jobs-by-field-technology.html”>http://career.ucsd.edu/alumni/alumni-survey/actual-jobs-by-field-technology.html</a>
Check the highest salary for Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.</p>
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Or check out the starting salary across a large number of colleges at Payscale – <a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/majors-that-pay-you-back”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/majors-that-pay-you-back</a> </p>
<p>Electrical Engineering: Median = $63,400
Computer Science: Median = $58,400</p>
<p>CS is obviously big near Silicon Valley, but if you look at salary reports for colleges a good distance away from California, the ones with a large sample size usually show little difference in salary between the majors.</p>
<p>Prestige among whom? Maybe in your own little self referential worlds. I assure you that none of us non-engineers could tell much difference between what-all you do, nor do we really care. Nor do we see “prestige differentials.” This is you guys talking to yourselves. </p>
<p>^My god who has the time to make 24 thousand posts??</p>
<p>@Data10, payscale base on 20 year history, things might have been changing till toward CS in the last 5 years. How many apps do you know that are running on smartphones? tons, things that we didn’t have 10 years ago, let alone 20 years.
And how many got EE degree but actually perform CS jobs, like in my own family, 2 EE graduate and went to CS like job in the beginning, there was no EE jobs. I myself graduated with an EE and got a job doing EE/CE in the first 10 years and the rest of the time I’ve been doing CS related jobs. My husband has an EE and he is been doing EE job for about 20 years, then patent job for 10 years and then system engineering. So I think payscale survey may not take into account of such change and still report the salary as EE.
So when I refer to EE, I mean the traditional EE, like power, control systems, digital signal processing, etc…</p>