why Computer Science is a very bad field to go into

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.invisiblematrix.net/blog/archives/cat_thought.html

...why Computer Science is a very bad field to go into.

Back 4-6 years ago Computer Science was THE career to get. Everyone who graduated with a CS degree got a job out of school, sometimes even without a degree. Well paying jobs, fancy cars, houses...That was during the DotCom boom.

Now, it's January 2003 and the DotCom era is long gone. The job market is in a rut right now, not just for CS/IS majors but overall. What's really bad is that there are new CS majors every 6 months just being added to the job pool.

There are 3 major levels in the IT industry. There is the entry level which was proportional to the other two. Now, however there are way too many developers for every development position that is open at that level. What doesn't help is that these entry level jobs are being outsourced to other countries. This results in even less jobs for new fresh out of college people.

Then there is the middle level where people are specialized in few things have several years of experience and there are jobs but you need a few years experience.

Now, we can't leave out the upper level executives who make loads of money and must know people who know people in high places to get this job. But, once you get one of these jobs you're set for life because you really can't get fired, as long as the entry level and middle level people get their work done and make you look good.

So, if one is set to climb the corporate ladder to get to that upper management position you need to know enough people to get you jobs in the entry level place. Otherwise, you'll be stuck trying to find jobs on Monster.com and Dice. Alternatively, you could go get a different degree in something else but many people don't want to spend more money and time to get that other degree.

Now, the economy sucks, eventually this will be corrected but this will never solve the problem of too many people trying to get those few entry level jobs. The goal is to move from the entry level job to the middle level as fast as possible. Most skills are learned on the job and with this bad economy, too many CS/IS majors and outsourcing this is a little hard to do right now.

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ARGH! Too late!

[Mr. Analog]

When he says "computer science" does he mean doing lots of complex math on paper or application programming? Because there is a huge difference there.

When I chose to go to CST way back in '96 I chose it over the CompSci program at the UofA because it would give me hands on practical IT knowledge rather than the esoteric Computer Sciences. There's nothing wrong with CS, it's just I wanted to be a coder / analyst not the guy who is able to pencil an algorithm for managing thread priority on an imaginary kernel.