<p>Ummm, excuse me, but if your going to quote BLS, you can’t pick and choose which segments you want to quote and which you want to exclude:</p>
<p>“As with other information technology jobs, offshore outsourcing may temper employment growth of computer software engineers. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to foreign countries with lower prevailing wages and highly educated workers.”</p>
<p>Computer Network, Systems, and Database Administrators:</p>
<p>“Growth in this occupation may be tempered somewhat by offshore outsourcing, as firms transfer work to countries with lower-prevailing wages and highly skilled work forces. In addition, the consolidation of IT services may increase efficiency, reducing the demand for workers.”</p>
<p>Law is definitely not for everyone, but patent agents make good money and the specialty is generally considered to be more stable than the rest of law. I guess it’s a good job for someone who can’t decide between being a lawyer or an engineer…</p>
<p>Are we talking engineers or other positions in the Fab?</p>
<p>Intel carried their employees through the tech bubble and was trimming costs due to competition from AMD. In 2005, they came out with a new processor that basically turned the tables on AMD. They have held the leadership spot since then. The Infoworld article contains factual errors on the competitive landscape along with the reasons for the cuts. Look at the revenue reports for Intel in 2009. They were very, very good. 2009 was the year of the PC upgrade cycle as Microsoft finally came out with a decent operating system.</p>
<p>I’ve seen lots of Intel job postings. They usually want Phds and those with MS degrees.</p>
<p>Homer we are talking about Software engineering jobs ""Employment of computer software engineers is expected to increase by 32 percent from 2008-2018. "</p>
<p>“As with other information technology jobs, offshore outsourcing may temper employment growth of computer software engineers. Firms may look to cut costs by shifting operations to foreign countries with lower prevailing wages and highly educated workers.”</p>
<p>IT is not software engineering… Those jobs are easy to train for…</p>
<p>Homer, do you understand what IT is? or what Engineering is? or what Computer Science is? or what Software Engineering is?</p>
<p>They are not the same…</p>
<p>BCEagle91, I think there is no point in talking to Homer. He is a kid with a BS or BA in Accounting.</p>
<p>While I don’t agree with Homer28 on every opinion he has, I do agree that IT is relevant to the discussion for the simple reason that many (perhaps most) CS graduates do not actually obtain true software engineering jobs. Many of them instead float over to IT, which I agree is easy to train for, but offer many jobs. Let’s face it - there aren’t that many companies out there that need software engineers. But due to the proliferation of enterprise software and office Internet access, every company needs IT.</p>
<p>What I find shocking is that somebody with just a high school diploma and no more than 4 years of IT experience can often times make more than somebody fresh out of college with a CS degree. Heck, some IT staffers who never even graduated from high school at all can sometimes make more than fresh CS graduates of the same age. I’ve even heard some of those IT people laughing at the ‘fools’ with whom they went to high school together who then went to college to study CS and are now making less than they do. It often times makes me wonder why college CS programs don’t teach IT skills. For example, I suspect most new CS graduates don’t know what a Cisco router even looks like, forget about actually trying to configure one.</p>
<p>Homer just groups them all together then says the BLS lies and engineering employment (besides civil and chemical) is not growing. Silly people doing the statistics didn’t account for the drastic outsourcing that Homer announces everyday and nonchalantly post positive statistics for engineering and engineering constantly ranks among the top 10 in jobs that are hard to fill despite the recession. (Though I admit, they have fallen a few ranks in many standings) </p>
<p>Homer go get a job with them and talk some sense into them. They aren’t taking into account outsourcing to such a great degree as you are. Enlighten them!</p>
<p>Some schools have “Computer Network” majors. In all honesty, I think this is something that can be learned without inordinate difficulty by many people with (or even without) a college degree. There are certificate-type programs for this as well. Just go to your local ITT Tech or better yet community college.</p>
<p>These are useful skills that are in demand but which I don’t think are in the University’s scope of educational goals.</p>
<p>“and engineering constantly ranks among the top 10 in jobs that are hard to fill despite the recession.”</p>
<p>How can any logical person conclude that engineering is a hard to flill position? What about the 15,000 unemployed engineers in Pennsylvania? What about the tens of thousands of engineers laid off by Silicon Valley during the past 2 years? What about the 30% of civil engineers who are unemployed in Arizona? What about the highly qualified ex NASA engineer who applied for a job at Cisco but was rejected by their immigration law firm? What about the chemical engineer working as a taco waiter?</p>
<p>Working with Cisco routers/switch is real easy…I pasted the CCNA in HS…But software engineering/development pays more, and you have more room to grow.</p>
<p>Also IT(System Admin, router/switch, and so on) is not engineering or computer science…
You learn stuff like that in IT…In computer science you can learn how to design the routing protocols, in EE/CE you can learn how to design the router.</p>
<p>Homer,</p>
<p>What about the opening at Locheed, the opening at Intel, Google, Yahoo, NSA, CIA, engineer for the DOD and so on…?</p>
<p>“United Space Alliance, the main shuttle contractor, will lay off about 900 workers, including at least 155 engineers, 223 technicians and 87 inspectors – some 17 percent of its workforce at Kennedy Space Center.”</p>
<p>Do you have any idea how incredibly hard it is to get hired by the CIA? You think your just going to walk right into that job? Defense contractors are also hard to get hired by since they generally prefer ex govt. workers and military who already have a security clearance.</p>
<p>Homer, I know many people that work at the CIA/NSA…it only that about one year to get a top secret clearance…Also the video game company I work for is looking for people all the time.</p>
<p>I also know of a place that laid-off all of their LNP, so they could have all RN.</p>
<p>Let’s see, most of the defense contracts ask for folks with a college degree. Many ex-military folks do not have that. So the defense companies try to pry private-industry folks (like I was) and put them in for a clearance. Also, many military folks have just a secret clearance, which is not much more than a credit and criminal check. To go from a “secret” to “top secret + SCI + Polygraph” (which is needed for NSA/CIA/FBI) is almost the same time to go from nothing to TS/SCI+Polygraph.</p>
<p>Yes, military folks (with TS/SCI+Poly) are still placed on defense contracts, but mostly as “subject matter experts”. The contracts still need folks with the skills that were acquired from university and private-industry work. Remember, when it comes to using the lasted software (Oracle, Java, Linux/Unix, etc), the private-industry is ALWAYS ahead of the government.</p>
<p>This thread is getting quite dumb. I think by now, everybody even thinking of majoring n CS is aware of outsourcing but nonetheless does it because people are still passionate about it and there are still opportunities out there. Any thread about CS nonetheless inevitably drifts to a thread about outsourcing. </p>
<p>Homer, no offense, but we already know about programmers and IT managers in India; you aren’t teaching us anything new.</p>
<p>CE is not really EE + CS. There just aren’t enough credits to combine both degrees, but you’ll have more of a focus on computer hardware and some CS like courses (data structures, algorithms).</p>
<p>Btw: UIUC is an amazing school for CS, very well known.</p>
<p>As for the job thing, I applaud Homer28 on his research, I’m sure there’s a lot of truth in it, I don’t have any numbers. What I do have is my personal anecdote, I don’t work in the US, I studied and work in Canada - but virtually all my friends in CS/EE/CE all found jobs before graduation, some being recruited to go the the US (think Google/Microsoft/Apple) - and they are not getting paid any less than the locals… so clearly there is an interest in top talent in big American software companies, regardless of where you’re from. My advice is worry less about job statistics and more about your GPA and internship/research experience.</p>
<p>“but virtually all my friends in CS/EE/CE all found jobs before graduation,”</p>
<p>The problem with that is that CS/ CE fields discriminate against older workers. So while your friends had no problem getting jobs out of college, older software/ hardware engieners are not as lucky. Lots of them are forced to leave the field because of their age. And even though industry claims they have trouble recruing good talent, they continue to refuse to hire these older workers. Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett even once stated “The half-life of an engineer, software or hardware, is only a few years.”</p>
<p>Just a question - Homer you are very thoughtful, no doubt. But why are you preaching that to us? </p>
<p>
Hmmm, why not?
My high school math teacher used to work for CIA. There was CIA career fair too!
The recent CrossRoaD magazine from ACM spoke about NSA recruit!</p>
<p>I am in my 4th year in CS…Some of my professors worked at the CIA/NSA…and I work part-time at casual video game company…I have worked on some of the games on:</p>