Question about computer science degree

[KultarVazaelle]

I was thinking about going back to college and getting a BA in something and computers is what really intrest me the most so I figured I would get a computer science degree at University of Washington. Unfortunatly, there doesn't seem to be a great job market for people with a computer science degree and all jobs I have come across so far (when seeing what kind of job I could get if I obtained a BA in CS) require 2-5 years JOB experience. How is someone straight out of college supposed to get a job if every company requires previous experience in the field? How does one get their foot off the ground. Do you think their is even a demand for computer science techs in this day and age or would I be wasting my time? Thanks for replies.

[KultarVazaelle]

Here is a link to the discription of the degree.

http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/tec...g/explore.html

[sleepypost]

I talk business with my dad a lot. He is an exec at a Biotech company. Anyway, I am only 18 and just entering college myself and was thinking about a CS degree. My dad brought up the good point that many companies look for a small team of computer experts to set up and maintain networks as well as innovate and improve upon the technology at a company. For example when Pfizer merged with Warner Lambert, they had to unite networks (thousands of computers!) and monitor them as well. Just as there is downsizing in employees, there is downsizing in computer hardware. Meaning, every company wants to be as efficient as possible in computers as well as man labor.

So don't be discouraged, you can find a job at an upstart or you can create your own firm or even company! AMD or Intel would also probably be willing to hire anyone who is more qualified than their current staff.

Good luck!

[rsen70]

Read this article I got from Yahoo before you continue your CS study.
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Technology - AP

Job Exports May Imperil U.S. Programmers
Sun Jul 13, 2:16 PM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!


By RACHEL KONRAD, AP Business Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Peter Kerrigan encouraged friends to move to Silicon Valley throughout the 1980s and '90s, wooing them with tales of lucrative jobs in a burgeoning industry.

But he lost his network engineering job at a major telecommunications company in August 2001 and remains unemployed. Now 43, the veteran programmer is urging his 18-year-old nephew to stay in suburban Chicago and is discouraging him from pursuing degrees in computer science or engineering.


"I told him, 'Unless you're planning to do this as a path to technical sales, don't do it,'" said Kerrigan, who lives in Oakland. "He won't be able to have a career designing and building stuff because all those jobs have moved to India."


Like many unemployed programmers, Kerrigan blames the sour labor market on offshore outsourcing — the migration of tech jobs to relatively low-paid contractors or locally hired employees in India, China, Russia and other developing countries.


The hemorrhaging of tens of thousands of technology jobs in recent years to cheaper workers abroad is already a fact of life — as inevitable, U.S. executives say, as the 1980s migration of Rust Belt manufacturing jobs to Southeast Asia and Latin America.


But a new wave of technology outsourcing — involving tasks that involve greater skills — could be cutting to the industry's bone, threatening to prolong the three-year U.S. economic downturn.


Some who oppose the trend, which such industry stalwarts as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and Microsoft are embracing, believe it could even usher in the end of American domination in technology.


"We're giving countries like China and India the support they need to build up their technology industries, and the result could disadvantage us in the long run," said Phil Friedman, an electrical engineer and chief executive of New York-based Computer Generated Solutions, a 1,200-employee software company that targets the apparel industry.


"We outsourced electronics manufacturing. We're closing steel mills. Every week, 400,000 people file for new unemployment claims," said Friedman, a 54-year-old Ukrainian native who immigrated in 1976. "At the same time, we're shipping tech jobs offshore — it's a shortsighted approach and cheats the American work force."


Cost-conscious executives have been shifting lower-level tech jobs in data entry and systems support abroad to cheaper labor markets for more than a decade. But now they are exporting highly paid, highly skilled positions in software development — jobs that have been considered intrinsic to Silicon Valley and tech hubs such as Seattle; Boston; and Austin, Texas.


Critics say it's the equivalent of exporting not just the automobile industry's assembly line jobs — but the core engineering and car design jobs, too.


Roughly 27,000 technology jobs moved overseas in 2000, according to a November study by Forrester Research. It predicts that number will mushroom to 472,000 by 2015 if companies continue to farm out computer work at today's frenzied pace.


According to Forrester, companies in the United States and Europe will spend 28 percent of their information technology budgets on overseas work in the next two years.


Boeing, Dell and Motorola have opened software development centers in Russia. Intel employs 400 full-time Russian software research engineers and nearly 200 others in marketing and sales, wireless Internet access and modem projects.


Santa Clara-based Intel entered the Russian market with a small contract project three years ago. But within months, the world's largest chip maker hired all the programmers who write compiler software to optimize the microprocessors' performance, and opened the Russia Software Development Center in Nizhny Novgorod.


"We intend to invest in the fastest-growing markets, and those are India, Russia and China — that's the long-term plan," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.


Microsoft is adding software development jobs at its India Development Center in Hyderabad, opened in 1999 to create versions of Windows for giant corporate computers. Bill Gates (news - web sites) said late last year that the expansion was part of an estimated $400 million in corporate investments in the subcontinent.





On its corporate Web site, Microsoft lists dozens of Hyderabad openings, many requiring five years of experience, fluency in multiple computer languages, and college degrees in computer science — far from the hourly telemarketer jobs that financial services and insurance companies exported to the Philippines and elsewhere in the early '90s.

Some say sending those jobs abroad may cause American tech workers' wages to stagnate.

According to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, non-inflation-adjusted wages for tech workers grew 1.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2001 and the fourth quarter of 2002 — not enough to keep up with the period's inflation rate of 2.2 percent.

The average computer programmer in India costs $20 per hour in wages and benefits, compared to $65 per hour for an American with a comparable degree and experience, according to consulting firm Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

But executives say outsourcing offers advantages beyond wage differences.

Jean-Marc Hauducoeur, a senior vice president at Cincinnati-based human resources consulting firm Convergys, said his 47,000-employee company will employ 6,000 customer service representatives and network engineers in India by year's end.

Convergys' average technical employee in India stays on the job for nearly three years — more than double the U.S. average, saving tens of thousands of dollars in recruitment and training per employee per year, he said.

"People in India are very ambitious and very well-educated, but they're also ready to invest in a company, and they have less of a tendency to move out of the company," Hauducoeur said.

Many U.S. corporate executives say they simply can't afford to overlook foreign computer workers — especially in India, which produces roughly 350,000 college engineering graduates annually.

Others say the genius of American enterprise (news - web sites) is its leaders' knack for envisioning the next big thing — and workers' ability to redefine job roles and retrain. Americans pioneering developments in nanotechnology and biotech will have far more job security than simple programmers, they argue.

Bob Pryor, who heads the outsourcing practice of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, said it's "naive" to think outsourcing software jobs could ruin America's tech dominance.

"The reality is that we live in a global economy and we compete against global players. We need to look at where we have strategic advantage — whether it's resources or skills," Pryor said. "It frees up people and dollars to do much more value-added strategic things for clients."

Marcus Courtney, a former contract worker for Microsoft and Adobe Systems and president of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, said many tech workers understand and even endorse free trade and globalization.

They even enjoy living on the cutting edge — taking courses in advanced computer languages, getting experience in a variety of business disciplines, and endorsing a philosophy of continuous improvement, he said.

But many find it tough to reconcile their macro-economic outlook with their own unemployment.

"We need to move beyond the idea that individuals can simply cope and retrain," said Courtney, whose 275-member union is asking Congress to study and possibly regulate offshore outsourcing. "Workers need a voice over their economic future and a voice against the executives making these unilateral economic decisions."

___

Rachel Konrad can be reached at rkonrad(at)ap.org

[estevek]

I have a masters in computer science. I worked for a big company. I made pretty good money. I was laid off in November of 2001. It took me 10 months to get a job, and that was only after I plunked down $400 and took a 6 hr test to get a information security specialist certificate.

I don't encourage my son to be an engineer. I encourage him to be a lawyer. They've got the rest of the world by the balls.

My wife works as a legal assisstant to an intellectual property lawyer. He makes 1/2 a mil a year. He never has to show up in court. He never has to work long hours. All he has to do is make decisions about trademarks for big companies based on knowledge that barely fills a slim text book.

[sleepypost]

He makes half a mill a year because he is a rarity. Most lawyers don't make near that much as I'm sure you know. It is a grave mistake to base your career choice on how much money you're expecting to make. Times change year by year.

My dad rolled the dice in the mid eighties and got a PHD in Molecular Biology. No one expected Biotechs to make it big. But in a way, Biotechs were the "silent" microsofts of the early ninties. He now has a company worth a quarter billion+ .

It all comes down to how much you love your job. It sounds like this guy really likes computers...

[rsen70]

Dear Sleepypost:

I agree with you that you should do the job you love. The job that he or she loves will eventually reward he or she. I happen to know someone who has an MD and an MBA in Finance. She is looking for a job in a biotech company where she can use her MD and MBA training. Since your father has a biotech company, I hope you can help her to find a position in your father's company. Thus, she can do the job she loves in your father's biotech company. If you don't mind may I have your e-mail address? Thank you very much for your help.

[sleepypost]

sleepypost@yahoo.com

Well, it is exciting times at my dad's company. They have been in Time Magazine and the New York Times because of the recent mergers and fundraising going on. Actually the biggest hype surrounds their new drug, which kills cancerous cells but does not harm healthy cells or decrease white blood cells.

However, ironically, it is in these best times that everyone close to the company has to suddenly keep quiet. With the new deals reached by the company with private investors, it is VERY important that I keep quiet about anything related to the company concerning jobs and money. I cannot even mention the name of his company publically right now. My dad would have a heart attack! Almost every night he asks me if I said anything dangerous. He doesn't want to be a another Sam Waksal...

The best way for your friend to find a job in the Biotech industry according to my dad is to move to the Bay Area (That's the San Francisco, Oakland, Berkely, San Jose mecaa if you didn't know). Here there are new companies sprouting everyday! Many of our family friends have started or joined new companies right here in the Bay Area! All moved from the same company in Ann Arbor, MI (Warner Lambert).

[piasabird]

Computer Science Degrees Vary. Depends what you want to do. If you are bright you can handle it. Usually the good schools have Computer Science classified as an Electrical Engineering Degree. If you plan on any kind of Scientific Study like Advanced applications for computers, this is the best route. You get a wider background for the students of this type with many different ideas for things like nano-technology or human machine interface, and better areas for research. Usually this requires Calculus III and physics to graduate.

The other route focuses on Databases and/or programming with less emphasis on math and science. What you choose is up to you. This degree may be called computer Science in Information Management or not commputer science at all. You may also just see Computer Information Systems.

[UncaDanno]

Many U.S. corporate executives say they simply can't afford to overlook foreign computer workers — especially in India, which produces roughly 350,000 college engineering graduates annually.

What the article does not mention is that beginning in 2001, US industry has produced over 500,000 laid-off IT workers annually. They have been replaced by foreign workers on "temporary" visas or have seen their jobs shipped overseas.