<p>This is difficult… I definitely want to stay in CS. I started programming when I was 13. It’s kind of something I am already used to and familiar with. I’ll switch to any better major, if I need to, but would rather take CS.</p>
<p>So what about all the “Indians taking our IT/CS jobs” complaining going on at Dice? </p>
<p>What’s a realistic salary a competent comp sci grad can expect with 6 months intern experience?</p>
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<p>Outsourcing software work to contracting companies in India was a huge business fad in the early 2000s, coinciding with the tech bubble collapse.</p>
<p>However, the fad has had some realism injected into it (as in, chasing the cheapest price gets you the lowest quality, whether here or in India, and long distance / time zone coordination is an issue and a cost (though 24-hour customer support benefits from having three locations about 8 time zones apart)), so outsourcing overseas still exists, but in a more considered way, rather than a rush to outsource everything, even what does not really make sense to outsource.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, CSU LA does not appear to have a career survey in any obvious publicly available place (see if there is one behind the student login at the career center).</p>
<p>Some other university career surveys:</p>
<p>[Cal</a> Poly San Luis Obispo](<a href=“https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php]Cal”>https://www.careers.calpoly.edu/search.php)
[San</a> Jose State](<a href=“http://www.careercenter.sjsu.edu/salary_info/salary_info.html]San”>http://www.careercenter.sjsu.edu/salary_info/salary_info.html)
[UC</a> Berkeley](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm]UC”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm)
[Georgia</a> Tech](<a href=“Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page”>http://www.adors.gatech.edu/assessment/adors/commencement/salary_report.cfm?surveyid=40)</p>
<p>However, note that all of the above have either reputational or location advantages (from employers’ viewpoints) over CSU LA. Other LA area CSUs (Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Northridge, Pomona) may be most comparable, but it does not appear from a cursory look that any of them have career survey data publicly available.</p>
<p>But you can also get an idea of how different majors fare in the job market after bachelor’s degree graduation from these career surveys. (Hint: at UC Berkeley, CS and EECS graduates do very well in comparison to other majors.)</p>
<p>Hey thanks for the info… that is good info. But what about the so-called H1-B’s that are mentioned on Dice forums? They claim the H1-Bs are the most of their problems, working for pennies on the dollar, and even at (repeatedly said, but I don’t know if it is true) minimum wage…</p>
<p>H1-B is a type of nonimmigrant work visa. The number is limited, and the available visas fill up quickly. Theoretically, an employer has to show that it is paying a pay rate comparable to what it would pay a similar employee who does not need an H1-B visa (e.g. citizen, permanent resident).</p>
<p>The usual complaint is that since employee skills and quality varies so much (and such variation matters a lot in many cases), whether a given pay rate is comparable to the general market is not transparently obvious. That H1-B visa holders cannot change jobs without the expensive revalidation of the visa also has implications with employee / employer relationship, once the visa has been issued.</p>
<p>Huh… are you saying that realistically, the situation isn’t that bad for non-H1-B grads in the US?</p>
<p>While there are no guarantees, it is likely that the gloomy picture painted by the long term unemployed on a job search forum is far gloomier than it really is for most people.</p>
<p>…far less gloomier or far gloomier? You just said “far gloomier”…</p>
<p>The long term unemployed people posting on a job search forum will likely describe a far gloomier outlook compared to what is likely the actual outlook for most people.</p>
<p>In other words, most people will likely find the actual outlook to be far less gloomy than what a long term unemployed person will describe.</p>
<p>Ohhh ok. Sorry about that, I guess I didn’t read your post correctly…</p>
<p>I am a CS major. </p>
<p>When I graduate, I don’t want a job at a big company like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. </p>
<p>I would just get stuck in the bureaucracy of those companies forever. </p>
<p>I want to create things. I want my ideas to work for me. I want creative control over what I do. Thus I’m going to create my own job market. I’m going to join or create startup companies in my 20s, when Im young and can still take risks. I will go into it expecting the startups to fail, because most do. But each failure will be a learning experience and I will build on it. </p>
<p>I am determined 100% to create something very significant in the tech industry. </p>
<p>Me and a group of other CS majors are already thinking of getting together and learning to program for android and iOS and make apps out of our apartment next year. This will just be the beginning.</p>
<p>You might want to consider my ambitions and see how you can learn from them. Remember, once you have the tools of CS, its like an art. Create what you want.</p>
<p>What is a good major to add to add to a CS? Business maybe?</p>
<p>I think something quantitative, like economics, physics, math, or statistics, would be the natural choice to pair with computer science. Of course do business if you have a very specific career industry in mind, such as accounting, banking, HR, or hospitality. Do hard sciences if you want to work in biotech or pharmaceuticals.</p>
<p>In practice, it may be hard to add a second major at this stage, unless you have been planning it for a while and taking the second major’s courses. However, a minor or just some courses in some other subject may be useful for your academic and professional interests.</p>
<p>For example, consider courses in a field which you might do software development for. E.g. chemistry and physics if you may want to develop software for scientific instruments. Or economics and finance if you may want to develop software for economic and financial applications. Or digital design and computer architecture if you may want to develop software for (computer hardware) CAD applications. Or other areas of engineering if you may want to develop software for engineering applications. Or statistics and political science if you may want to write software to assist analyzing political poll and election data. Or statistics and biology if you jobs associated with the buzzword “bioinformatics” are of interest to you.</p>
<p>Or consider courses which may complement certain areas of software development. If you may want to user interfaces and the like, perhaps some art courses may help.</p>
<p>You could also add courses in statistics, finance, economics, and math in order to give yourself a head start on a backup career in actuarial science or quantitative finance.</p>
<p>What does anybody think of CS + EE + ME?</p>
<p><em>bump</em> sorry, just curious… What does anybody think of CS + EE + ME? I guess I will be figuring out at some point in the future, since I have 1.25 years to finish my BS. </p>
<p>I’m thinking of doing CS + EE + ME or BS, MS & PhD in CompSci or some combination of math and CompSci (probably not PhD I guess)…</p>
<p>And does anyone know anything about BS/MS blended majors for CS? I’m thinking of trying applying for this later, at my university. It’s supposed to allow a 16 unit overlap between the two degrees, which allows for someone to complete their MS sooner.</p>