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Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

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Re: Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

#11

Post by ramesh31 »

cs_throwaway wrote: post #3

CS professor with 15 years experience. The massive boom in computer science enrollment over the last 20 years has been driven mostly by people chasing tech salaries, not by any real interest in computing itself. These students often show up completely unprepared for how difficult CS actually is, and universities have responded by dumbing down their programs to keep everyone happy and enrolled. If this weeds out the p…

Thank you for saying this because it feels like these people entering the industry in such numbers over the 2010s completely killed what made this job fun in the first place. I call them "ticket completers". Sure they can mechanically perform the minimum requirements of the job, but there is zero interest at all in what is actually being done; just following PM directions to the letter with no further thought. The whole spirit of innovation and curiosity and discovery has been lost, replaced by lifestyle seekers who look at you like an insane person when trying to talk about software in the abstract (ha!).

The hackers and nerds will be just fine. They are like gold when we find them now. But if this makes CS "uncool" again, I am all for it.

Re: Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

#12

Post by Spooky23 »

It’s a boom/bust profession that has been in a long boom.

Many of the big companies that have been on hiring orgies are advertising dependent. Ads are the thing that gets slashed heading into a bad economy, and we’re in an economic mess that is going to get alot worse.

Re: Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

#13

Post by dpflan »

cs_throwaway wrote: post #3

CS professor with 15 years experience. The massive boom in computer science enrollment over the last 20 years has been driven mostly by people chasing tech salaries, not by any real interest in computing itself. These students often show up completely unprepared for how difficult CS actually is, and universities have responded by dumbing down their programs to keep everyone happy and enrolled. If this weeds out the p…

Thanks for sharing. Is this similar to what was attracting students to medicine/doctor (guaranteed position with high salary)? But the med-school-to-full-time-physician pipeline is long and can weed out. CS is a difficult subject, certain ways of thinking are difficult but certainly can be learned, like recursive thinking.

Did colleges expand their computer science departments or even just create them to meet the demand for the degree? The pipeline to possible employment with a CS degree is quite short, doesn't require residency and board-certification so it's a quicker route to employment, but then you are competing with peers with stronger backgrounds and educations and seasoned professionals for the same positions.

Re: Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

#14

Post by ghaff »

felixarba wrote: post #8

> Every kid with a laptop thinks they're the next Zuckerberg, but most can't debug their way out of a paper bag I feel like I've seen this quote many times over the years. Also, how do they calculate employment rate? If you get a job at McDonald's while having a civil engineering degree or nutrition science, that counts as employed as well, no? Would be good to see how many are actually employed in their field of stu…

These numbers are all hard to measure. I only more or less worked in my engineering field of study (not CS) for 3 years but, other than going back to grad school for 2, was never underemployed by any serious definition of the term.

Re: Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

#19

Post by msgodel »

cs_throwaway wrote: post #3

CS professor with 15 years experience. The massive boom in computer science enrollment over the last 20 years has been driven mostly by people chasing tech salaries, not by any real interest in computing itself. These students often show up completely unprepared for how difficult CS actually is, and universities have responded by dumbing down their programs to keep everyone happy and enrolled. If this weeds out the p…

This is how I've been feeling through the whole situation. I got my current job at the bottom of the last slump the other year so it doesn't seem to be affecting me.

Still I've been careful to set my life up so I could go many years without employment if I had to. It's hard to trust the rest of the economy in general.

Re: Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates

#20

Post by dpflan »

ramesh31 wrote: post #11
cs_throwaway wrote: post #3

CS professor with 15 years experience. The massive boom in computer science enrollment over the last 20 years has been driven mostly by people chasing tech salaries, not by any real interest in computing itself. These students often show up completely unprepared for how difficult CS actually is, and universities have responded by dumbing down their programs to keep everyone happy and enrolled. If this weeds out the p…

Thank you for saying this because it feels like these people entering the industry in such numbers over the 2010s completely killed what made this job fun in the first place. I call them "ticket completers". Sure they can mechanically perform the minimum requirements of the job, but there is zero interest at all in what is actually being done; just following PM directions to the letter with no further thought. The wh…

> The hackers and nerds will be just fine. They are like gold when we find them now. But if this makes CS "uncool" again, I am all for it.

Think about how AI can help students cheat nowadays. You could still cheat previously, but now a CS-degree seeker can have an AI do the entirety of school work for them (with exception of say pen-and-paper tests). Imagine how the quality of new graduates drops with regard to the understanding and abilities you highlight as crucial to being effective in software, and how those that do understand are even more valuable relatively, but perhaps harder to find in the noise.

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