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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)

#241

Post by empthought »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #153
lordnacho wrote: post #64

My biggest issue with education is the whole "study this, get a job doing that" idea. It's plainly wrong, and it sucks in people who drink the koolaid and think there's an easy route to work. Very little is learned in college that is necessary for general employment. By general I mean just about everything that isn't licensed, like being a doctor. What college does is it throws a bunch of hard but irrelevant subjects…

> Very little is learned in college that is necessary for general employment. College used to have two value propositions: - enabling very smart people to do research and nothing else - identifying / finding reasonably smart people that are needed for important tasks in society, but which might have languished in some village otherwise Finding smart people has become a non-issue, and research has been corrupted by pu…

As if Oxford and Cambridge weren’t cementing stratification, enabling parasitic administrators, and establishing a caste of ideologues since the 13th century…

Nothing has changed; the elements of your second list have always been present. You just happen to have been told to disagree with the ideologues currently there by your own ideologues.

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

#242

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

dukeyukey wrote: post #176
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very little is learned in college that is necessary for general employment. College used to have two value propositions: - enabling very smart people to do research and nothing else - identifying / finding reasonably smart people that are needed for important tasks in society, but which might have languished in some village otherwise Finding smart people has become a non-issue, and research has been corrupted by pu…

Can't talk about academia, but why has finding smart people become a 'non-issue'? Without university I almost certainly would've gotten a job in my small rural town rather than moving to London with a lucrative and productive career.

> why has finding smart people become a 'non-issue'

The internet. Though somewhat complicated by misguided Civil Rights laws, admittedly.

> Without university I almost certainly would've gotten a job in my small rural town rather than moving to London with a lucrative and productive career.

If you leave aside the social conventions for a second, could there have been another road to that prestigious job in London other than university? I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes" for at least 80% of all jobs.

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

#243

Post by dralley »

jasonkester wrote: post #231
me_me_me wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thats the reason I would stop my yonger-self from doing software. When compared to other careers after, say, 15 years of experience you are not well established high paying position as a lawyer or an engineer (the actual kind :) ) After 15 years you are out-of-date dev that didn't find a time to do their job, manage family and friend and have a side projects to keep up to date with technology. This is a bit overd…

What about the half million total comp and the part where you can retire in your thirties? If anything, I bet younger me would do even better than I did if he were to start today.

This is a very FAANG centric comment. But in fairness "riding the wave" is not nearly so much of an requirement elsewhere.

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

#244

Post by thorin »

themdonuts wrote: post #160
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…

I went to uni in 2004 and always had a crush for civil engineering. A few days before signing up my dad told me: I feel construction is stalling, I think you should go for Electrical Engineering. Best advice ever. By the time I finished construction was indeed dead and there were too many programming jobs. Similarly to other users here from Europe, in 2010 the market was actually starting to take off. My dad was such…

I graduated Electronic Eng in the UK in 1998, my best friend did Civil. I went into computers, he could only find low paid jobs in the UK so went to Hong Kong where construction was booming and now owns a significant part of a multimillion dollar company with hundreds of employees. I haven't really followed the money at all, so I'm not too sad.

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

#245

Post by mombul »

momento wrote: post #124
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…

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 you pursue this career, you'll live under a bridge in 5 years, so I'm kicking you out and giving you no money, so you'll live under a bridge right now."

edit: kudos to you for sticking to it really! You should be proud of yourself!

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

#246

Post by me_me_me »

jasonkester wrote: post #231
me_me_me wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And thats the reason I would stop my yonger-self from doing software. When compared to other careers after, say, 15 years of experience you are not well established high paying position as a lawyer or an engineer (the actual kind :) ) After 15 years you are out-of-date dev that didn't find a time to do their job, manage family and friend and have a side projects to keep up to date with technology. This is a bit overd…

What about the half million total comp and the part where you can retire in your thirties? If anything, I bet younger me would do even better than I did if he were to start today.

Can I have one of those?

That seems to be available only in US for handful of VERY vocal people.

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

#248

Post by matwood »

anonu wrote: post #13

Was this the actual feeling at the time? Or just one reporters perspective, spun into a story. I feel like the ad for $7.95 prime rib is probably a more relevant data point from the past than this article. Edit: Gourmet House: https://www.bismarckcafe.com/blogs/260/remembering-gourmet-h...

> Was this the actual feeling at the time?

I graduated college the first time in 1999, right before the Dotcom bubble popped. Outsourcing was definitely the big scare. So much so that I initially designed my career around avoiding outsourcing the best I could.

My plan was (and still is) to not just be a tech person (it has worked out ok, but may not be the best way). For all my electives I took business courses, and I started keeping up with the business side and finance. I wanted to be in meetings and offer solutions (at one job I had the title 'Solution Architect') to problems that may or may not be programming related.

I do see this a lot more today. Where some of the best programmers are ones who ask questions, and figure out that the best solution to a given problem is no coding at all.

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

#249

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

empthought wrote: post #241
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very little is learned in college that is necessary for general employment. College used to have two value propositions: - enabling very smart people to do research and nothing else - identifying / finding reasonably smart people that are needed for important tasks in society, but which might have languished in some village otherwise Finding smart people has become a non-issue, and research has been corrupted by pu…

As if Oxford and Cambridge weren’t cementing stratification, enabling parasitic administrators, and establishing a caste of ideologues since the 13th century… Nothing has changed; the elements of your second list have always been present. You just happen to have been told to disagree with the ideologues currently there by your own ideologues.

We're in full agreement. What is your point? "This idea is bad therefore all ideas are bad"?

Some ideas are healthy pro-social enablers of a functioning society, others lead to the death of millions. Christianity is far from perfect, but compared to the competition it has a stellar track record.

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

#250

Post by matwood »

lelanthran wrote: post #237
quicklime wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you’re trying to say, but then how come frontend developers tend to get paid less than backend devs, who in turn get paid less than devops engineers?

Because front-end developers are the least visible to the CEO (the furthest away from the business data). Backend developers are a little bit closer to the business data than backend developers. Devops are even closer to the data that the CEO wants. The "visibility" is not "visibility relative to the product" but "visibility relative to the profit". If you draw the entire business as a series of concentric circles, w…

There's also supply/demand in play. There are a lot of front-end devs out there. Normally when I see someone advertise themselves as full stack, they are backend heavy and can create passable front end code. Not often I see it the other way around which adds even more supply.
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