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Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

lazowska.cs.washington.edu

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Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#91

Post by hga »

null_ptr wrote: post #84
hga wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" First job " That's an outstanding point, especially in today's economy. It sucks that a conventional programming career generally ends at age 35-40, but for someone not wedded to a programming career, and who has a modicum of talent and interest in the field, yeah, that'll get them started. They will then have plenty of time to arrange their first transition into another career, and they will have learned a lot of…

What do you mean by transition into another career? Using your programming experience in a tangential field? Getting into management?

Anything, really (well, aside from areas requiring additional formal education and/or expensive in time and/or money credentials; this not a path to becoming a doctor, lawyer, scientist, etc.). There's very basic "work skills" that any job requires, e.g. showing up; the object here is to get a "real", career type of job before, say, a couple of years have passed unemployed, after which I've read its very very hard to get such a job.

I would also imagine it's easier to transition to something else desirable from a programming job compared to retail (which isn't doing well anyway), food service, etc., jobs which many of us are mentally/temperamentally unsuited.

When I read/skimmed it, What Color is Your Parachute?(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Color_is_Your_Parachute%3...) spent a lot of ink on this. And as has been noted by many, most Americans change careers several times, it's definitely not out of the ordinary.

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#92

Post by usaar333 »

bagels wrote: post #75
asdfologist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing all these high numbers getting thrown around a lot. Is $300K really the typical pay among, say, 5th year Google engineers who joined out of college? If so that's pretty amazing.

I really wonder that too. Places like salary.com indicate a much lower median.

Does it include equity?

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#93

Post by timr »

nlawalker wrote: post #69

The problem is that 'computational thinking' has become expected of a university education, regardless of major , but universities haven't shifted to meet the need. All the other basic requirements of a university education are filled through entry level classes - credit-fillers that students have to take in order to graduate. This structure works out well for everyone: the university ensures that students are gettin…

Look at the chart for non-major interest in upper-level CS classes at Harvard: operating systems has no interest; "data science" is surging. Andrew Ng's machine learning class has more than twice the enrollment of computer architecture or software engineering (which is a particularly pathological case, since by definition, nobody else can teach Andrew Ng's class).

This is not general-interest demand. Students are hopping on the bandwagon, and picking the classes that sound like they're the shortest path to a high-paying job. About the only thing colleges can do right now is offer more of the hot classes via lecturers, and wait for the crash. Universities don't hire (lifetime) tenured faculty based on short-term enrollment surges.

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#94

Post by usaar333 »

null_ptr wrote: post #80
hkmurakami wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gap is closing for the first few years of engineering vs finance (first 3 years of comp in finance is definitely a lot lower now vs 2007, whereas first 3 years of comp at GOOG post 2009 has exploded), but the gap grows as you approach your mid 30's. When you're getting to $300k at GOOG, your buddy is over $500k at GS as a VP (VP is middle managemnt in high finance and iirc the high fliers get there in 6 years). F…

What jobs make $300-500k at Google, I assume upper management positions?

Plenty of software engineers make this as well. (you must include equity which is often not reported in surveys)

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#95

Post by graycat »

asdfologist wrote: post #73
patio11 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There now exist options in engineering which are comparable with those in finance, and importantly, there is now a credible case that engineering is one of the best median outcome career paths for a bright student who is willing to push whatever lever and turn whatever knob required to get to professional success. Stanford undergrads with their degrees still wet are getting $1X0,000 offers from AmaGooFaceSoft. That's…

I keep hearing all these high numbers getting thrown around a lot. Is $300K really the typical pay among, say, 5th year Google engineers who joined out of college? If so that's pretty amazing.

Early in my career in software I was making six times what a high end, new Camaro cost. That might be $300 K now.

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#96

Post by usaar333 »

sp332 wrote: post #74
patio11 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There now exist options in engineering which are comparable with those in finance, and importantly, there is now a credible case that engineering is one of the best median outcome career paths for a bright student who is willing to push whatever lever and turn whatever knob required to get to professional success. Stanford undergrads with their degrees still wet are getting $1X0,000 offers from AmaGooFaceSoft. That's…

I don't think the "median outcome" for a CS grad is to work at AmaGooFaceSoft, though.

Nor is the median outcome of someone entering finance to be a VP at Goldman. But bottom 50% programmers can still take well-paying jobs with good hours.

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#97

Post by rch »

jqm wrote: post #27
rch wrote: post #14

If I was going into college this fall, instead of 15+ years ago, I'd focus on EE, ME, or Physics and just cherry pick advanced CS courses on the side.

If I was going to college this fall instead of 20 years ago I would get a tattoo on my arm reminding me that extra classes and networking pay off better long term than drinking beer and getting laid. But... I'd probably do the same thing all over again anyway.

Conferences are better for that than college, all things considered, and the networking is better too.

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#98

Post by [deleted] »

kimdouglasmason wrote: post #68
gohrt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A society of part-time coders would do nothing but produce a lot of badly-written toy programs. What's the point? Maybe you are embarassed by the content of github, but many of us feel it is changing the word for the better. An Excel jockey writing macros -> better spreadsheets. A writer who can analyze and restructure their story, wihout laboriously poring and cutting and pasting -> better stories. There was a tim…

I didn't mention github, and don't see it as especially relevant. If you are an 'excel jockey', then your job involves coding. Of course knowing how to code to some degree will make you better. I don't see that as a good example. You should have used one of the many professions that currently involve no coding at all as an example. There was also a time when civil engineering was a specialist activity best left to pr…

[deleted]

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#99

Post by kimdouglasmason »

enraged_camel wrote: post #88
kimdouglasmason wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mention github, and don't see it as especially relevant. If you are an 'excel jockey', then your job involves coding. Of course knowing how to code to some degree will make you better. I don't see that as a good example. You should have used one of the many professions that currently involve no coding at all as an example. There was also a time when civil engineering was a specialist activity best left to pr…

>>You should have used one of the many professions that currently involve no coding at all as an example. Okay, I'll bite. My dad is an ophthalmologist in Turkey. He runs his own private practice. When he opened the clinic in the early 90s, he quickly realized that keeping track of patient records in paper format was not efficient. So he taught himself Microsoft Access (which came out in 1992!) and wrote his own pati…

I'm still not convinced by those examples. My reasoning is opportunity cost.

If you have to learn to code to write some software, and then write it yourself, you will generally be less efficient at it than contracting someone else to do so. Furthermore, the contractor has a chance of potentially reselling the software to other clients (thus increasing efficiency even more), which you do not.

If it was cheaper for your father to write his own software in this case, then to me this indicates one of several things: 1. That he had already learned to code for some other reason (possibly a hobby). 2. That there was no opportunity cost because his business was operating way below capacity. If this is the case, his time is best spent fixing that problem first. 3. That there is an under-developed market for software services.

Your fathers' example also ignores some potential problems. A novice rolling their own DB code is likely to make novice mistakes, increasing the chance of (expensive) data loss or corruption.

I remain unconvinced that for a busy non-software specialist (such as a physical therapist, a welder, and many other professions) writing any software more complicated than a spreadsheet formula or macro is worth the opportunity cost. That doesn't mean that these people will never configure existing software, or write small scripts in DSLs, but I don't consider that 'knowing how to code' any more than I consider being able to remove one of my own teeth 'knowing how to dentist'.

Re: Responding to the Explosion of Student Interest in Computer Science [pdf]

#100

Post by dlp211 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #88
kimdouglasmason wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mention github, and don't see it as especially relevant. If you are an 'excel jockey', then your job involves coding. Of course knowing how to code to some degree will make you better. I don't see that as a good example. You should have used one of the many professions that currently involve no coding at all as an example. There was also a time when civil engineering was a specialist activity best left to pr…

>>You should have used one of the many professions that currently involve no coding at all as an example. Okay, I'll bite. My dad is an ophthalmologist in Turkey. He runs his own private practice. When he opened the clinic in the early 90s, he quickly realized that keeping track of patient records in paper format was not efficient. So he taught himself Microsoft Access (which came out in 1992!) and wrote his own pati…

You do realize what you did in Ruby that took you a couple of hours to learn could have been done with grep in one line?
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