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Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

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Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#201

Post by [deleted] »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #198
sbr464 wrote: post #156

I think traditional CS programs could take a page from what I believe is the most successful aspect of coding bootcamps; the inspiration/excitement/desire to learn etc. felt by a graduate in a very short period (weeks/months vs years+). It's not perfect, they are missing many fundamentals, but now the student can appreciate why those are needed and the drive to learn more grows naturally. I think other disciplines co…

Maybe degree programs should start with a bootcamp, then a "real" project using those skills, then start with in-depth CS fundamentals so that students can start to unwrap the things they've learned, why things are done a certain why, explore problems they had with their post-bootcamp project, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#202

Post by fuzzy2 »

chii wrote: post #116
lordnacho wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the way I'd phrase it is the knowledge you learn at university, to the extent that it's applicable, is actually just indexing. So for instance I figured out that numerical methods are a thing that you can use to approximately solve differential equations, which often don't have a nice analytical solution. Can I solve differential equations? Not anymore. Can I solve one by the end of this week? Definitely. What…

> numerical methods are a thing that you can use to approximately solve differential equations indexing of knowledge is useful for certain fields, but without in-depth understanding, you can never apply this knowledge in ways that hasn't been imagined before. I am reminded of the story of Feynman and the Connection Machine, where there was a need to figure out how much traffic CPUs would generate for the router they…

> without in-depth understanding, you can never apply this knowledge in ways that hasn't been imagined before.

Sure, sure. But the hard truth is that I’m not getting paid to do so.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#203

Post by fuzzy2 »

vkou wrote: post #102
fuzzy2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that university isn’t vocational training. However, the knowledge is relevant. If you don’t know that some data structure/algorithm/whatever exists, would you know to look for it or what to look for? Sure you can learn all this by yourself, but you can also learn it at the university.

If university isn't vocational training, why do employers prioritize hiring people with university degrees? They seem to think it is.

Because in most western(?) states, the entirety of education and (junior) hiring is just a load of bs.

I totally understand too, it’s super easy saying “oh for this position we require X, Y and a PhD in Z”. It’s guaranteed to filter out lots of candidates. Whether that filter is the one you need is another question altogether.

It’s still bs and it’s gatekeeping at its finest.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#204

Post by lordnacho »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #195
exdsq wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an FYI to the Brits on this post - I've found US startups are happy to hire remote engineers from the UK. Might take a little bit of effort but it's surprisingly possible to get a six figure job quickly.

How do they handle things like payroll taxes, benefits and such?

Make a UK company and they pay that as a contractor, you sort it out with HMRC yourself.

The Americans seem to be much higher paying, greater variety of roles, happy to let you remote.

Now is the time by the way, I was blown away by how hot the market is. Maybe jump in there before WFH starts to get retracted, you can do more interviews before you're back in the office.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#205

Post by robertlagrant »

jasonkester wrote: post #58
donatj wrote: post #49

I don’t hear much about it these days, but circa 2004 when I was going into computer science I had multiple teachers and a guidance counselor warn me that all the jobs would be going to India and tell me I should pursue something else. This seemed to be very much the prevailing wisdom of the time. I pursued it anyway as it was my passion. I was one of five students in my program that had been a huge multi-campus prog…

To be fair, 2002-2003 would have been a pretty rough time to graduate as a developer. The industry hadn’t yet recovered from the whole dot com thing and there were still a million “converted business major” developers on the market who hadn’t yet got the hint that they should go to law school. The advice you got might not have applied to you on the way in. But it certainly applied to all the students those professors…

I graduated in 2003; did volunteering for 9 months and then got a very low-paid job in a startup in the Midlands in the UK.

The assumption I was given was almost all the thinking and innovation had been done, and it was just a matter of working your way up the Java coder/senior/architect hierarchy over time.

I feel a bit cheated in retrospect - almost all other times the industry's felt amazingly exciting/fun. At that time it was a bit deflated. Luckily I just wanted to work with computers, so at the time I wasn't bothered.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#206

Post by ClumsyPilot »

happyhardcore wrote: post #154
rejectedandsad wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im especially glad I’m not British - in America my $150k TC out of undergrad was mediocre.

Bearing in mind that 30k a year goes a lot further given that there's no need for health insurance and student loans are effectively just a 6% tax on earnings above 27k until either your loan is repaid or it's been 30 years since graduating. While it's true that UK salaries are quite a bit lower than other countries if I'm honest if I earned £150k a year the only difference in how I live my life would be that I'd be…

Outside London, sure, but a London one-bed apartment 40 minutes away from city will run you ~1300/montn, that £18,000 a year with councill tax and bills.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#207

Post by neilo40 »

hughrr wrote: post #149
momento wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

If there’s anything I’ve learned it is that you should always make your own mistakes. Your parent’s mistakes don’t even make sense any more 30-40 years down the line. My father pushed me into EE. I burned 5 years in industry being paid crap and then discovered it was actually a fairly low paying profession in the UK. Ended up supporting a bunch of Sun machines for other EEs which was more fun. So i learned Perl one w…

I had almost exactly the same career arc. Perl became Python, Sun became Linux and I eventually moved beyond sysadmin work into automation, then API development and now I lead software development teams. Are you still doing sysadmin work?

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#208

Post by WoodenChair »

happyhardcore wrote: post #154
rejectedandsad wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im especially glad I’m not British - in America my $150k TC out of undergrad was mediocre.

Bearing in mind that 30k a year goes a lot further given that there's no need for health insurance and student loans are effectively just a 6% tax on earnings above 27k until either your loan is repaid or it's been 30 years since graduating. While it's true that UK salaries are quite a bit lower than other countries if I'm honest if I earned £150k a year the only difference in how I live my life would be that I'd be…

Health insurance is generally covered by your company as a benefit, and if it’s not when you’re in your early 20s it’s generally only a few hundred dollars a month. On a salary of $150k it’s pretty insignificant. Average student loan debt in the US for a bachelors degree is $30k (too high of course) but when paid out over decades is also insignificant against $150k.

I’m not making a value judgement about whether health insurance or student loans should exist but just pointing out that your comment seems like a false rationalization about why a much lower salary in a different country is okay.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#209

Post by mavhc »

Netcob wrote: post #179
jasonkester wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, 2002-2003 would have been a pretty rough time to graduate as a developer. The industry hadn’t yet recovered from the whole dot com thing and there were still a million “converted business major” developers on the market who hadn’t yet got the hint that they should go to law school. The advice you got might not have applied to you on the way in. But it certainly applied to all the students those professors…

My boss loves to play with the idea of outsourcing, but he seems to be aware of the issues to some degree. In our situation, the idea is pretty hilarious - we as developers have to make sure our products don't become unmaintainable, product management doesn't like to think things through when specifying new features, and we already don't get time for refactoring. I think outsourcing (especially when done to save mone…

Programming used to be getting a computer to do something.

Now it's refining the idea someone has until it's code. People think they know what they want, but have no clue about the masses of details required. If the person with the idea and the programmer are far apart (in space, time, or culturally), it's pointless.

Most ideas don't require 100s of programmers, so the cost saving is minimal

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#210

Post by Tycho »

hughrr wrote: post #149
momento wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

If there’s anything I’ve learned it is that you should always make your own mistakes. Your parent’s mistakes don’t even make sense any more 30-40 years down the line. My father pushed me into EE. I burned 5 years in industry being paid crap and then discovered it was actually a fairly low paying profession in the UK. Ended up supporting a bunch of Sun machines for other EEs which was more fun. So i learned Perl one w…

Why is EE so bad? On the surface it looks like a degree with a strong grounding in mathematics, exposure to programming, the discipline of engineering, and a diverse range of applications across industry. It kind of seems like the ideal degree if you want to hire someone. I'm always baffled when I hear stories like this.
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