Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Job For This Recent CS Grad? 261
One year away from graduating with a CS degree, an anonymous reader wants some insights from the Slashdot community:
[My] curriculum is rather broad, ranging from systems programming on a Raspberry Pi to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C, Java, JPA, Python, Go, Node.js, software design patterns, basic network stuff (mostly Cisco) and various database technologies... I'm working already part-time as a system administrator for two small companies, but don't want to stay there forever because it's basically a dead-end position. Enjoying the job, though... With these skills under my belt, what career path should I pursue?
There's different positions as well as different fields, and the submission explains simply that "I'm looking for satisfying and rewarding work," adding that "pay is not that important." So leave your suggestions in the comments. What's the best job for this recent CS grad?
There's different positions as well as different fields, and the submission explains simply that "I'm looking for satisfying and rewarding work," adding that "pay is not that important." So leave your suggestions in the comments. What's the best job for this recent CS grad?
Security. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Security is a growth industry.
It will be, but only as long as the cost of mitigating is worth it to organizations. Once the cost exceeds that of insurance offerings, companies will simply mitigate with the latter.
The old mantra was "it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."
The new mantra is "it's not a matter of when, it's a matter of how often and how much."
Also, Security depends on your ability to manage frustration, since it's often a losing battle. A fruitful career due to the income potential (for now), but the shine wears
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Insurance (risk transference) is one method of risk mitigation. However, insurance companies are, by and large, extremely good at risk analysis (they have to be to stay in business). The likelihood of an insurer paying out on a breach where the insured party can't show that they performed any sort of other risk mitigation is going to be extremely low.
Otherwise, I agree with you and your comment fits my experience to a T.
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Insurance (risk transference) is one method of risk mitigation. However, insurance companies are, by and large, extremely good at risk analysis (they have to be to stay in business). The likelihood of an insurer paying out on a breach where the insured party can't show that they performed any sort of other risk mitigation is going to be extremely low.
Otherwise, I agree with you and your comment fits my experience to a T.
Of course there will be ways to reduce insurance premiums, such as firewalls, IDS/IPS, etc. in order to reduce risk to qualify/justify an insurance plan and develop acceptable situations for payouts that have demonstrated some level of mitigation.
That said, it is the expensive human that will likely ultimately be replace to justify the insurance plan to begin with. There is a reason Security was recommended in this particular discussion, and it isn't because Security professionals are paid poorly. The man
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Much like the transition to cloud, most of the "eyes on glas" type jobs will be in MSSPs, and they'll have staff reduction sue to AI and workflow automation just like almost everything else. I have a really good sub niche right now that has low
Competition and goes widely unnoticed but pays a whole lot. I plan on milking it as long as I can, which is a lot longer than I was going to live with the stress from security "operations," that's for sure.
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Also, Security depends on your ability to manage frustration, since it's often a losing battle.
The opposite end of the spectrum is boredom (i.e., watching paint dry). From my experience in IT support roles, the best jobs are the most boring jobs that no one else wants to do. When I did a PC refresh project for a local hospital, I relocated my desk into a storage closet that no one had seen the floor in eight years and spent six weeks in between tickets to sort, toss or recycle old IT equipment to reclaim 600-sqf of useable space. Boring as heck but someone had to do it.
Everybody is studying security. Insurance created (Score:2)
Insurance companies created the fire code, Underwriters Laboratories (UL listed), and many other organisations and standards to reduce their risk. As insurance companies become involved in information security, they may well insist that to be covered companies need to comply with various standards, they may offer a rate discount if all of your developers take continuing education on security, etc. So the involvement of security companies will likely mean that companies will spend less dealing with security
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A lot of things that are at risk are difficult to attach a price to. Things like IP, employee data, and disruption of business. Not to mention legal liability and bad publicity.
A lot of the metrics you have listed are intangible, and therefore are often mired in FUD sales tactics, making justification rather difficult, if not impossible for a Security representative today.
That's kind of like saying if auto insurance was cheap enough, everyone would drive recklessly.
Uh, wrong. I was implying that the cost of repairing automobiles is expensive enough that carrying insurance proves to be an alternative that is cost effective. That same analogy can be carried over to Security.
When an organization spends a million dollars a year on manpower costs associated with a CISO, Secu
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One manager (who was in way over her head on the technical side but who could play the political games well) wanted us to block ALL ICMP traffic on the network. Her reason for this was "ping is a security risk". Yet, she didn't understand that ICMP is more than just ping. Someone sent her a link to the Wikipedia page on ICMP to explain this and she requested documentation from Cisco or another big name vendor because she didn't trust Wikipedia. This enterprising, and frustrated, individual sent her a link t
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It is not very professional for a high skilled and likely high payed professional to simply follow the managers orders without raising his concerns.
In plenty of countries the high skille professional would be hold responsible and liable for failing to advert the risks comming from such a decission.
So your advice is pretty idiotic.
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No, it's not. Maybe in the "plenty of countries" you refer to it is, but here in the US it's not. The only way a highly skilled professional here can be held liable for something is if it's actually criminally negligent, and we're not talking about that here, we're talking about blocking ICMP traffic on a corporate intranet. Finally, in this specific example, we're not even doing what you say (simply following the manager's orders without raising concerns): in this example, someone DID raise concerns (by
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I'll second this. Weaknesses I've observed in the current crop of SEs currently in the market place are:
1) Lack of security understanding and related defensive programming skills - If I have to tell you I found a XSS vulnerability in your code, you should be embarrassed, because you should have caught it way before I found it in QA.
2) A lack of understanding of the world outside your box. I don't expect that you'll be able to configure a cisco router, but I DO expect you to be able to tell me what ports y
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This. Security is about the only thing that is not only growing but also one of the few things companies don't want to outsource because ... well, it's one thing if they steal the IP but another if they keep the door open so they can do it at will.
I am in IT security and we're hiring. Actually, rather, we would be hiring if we could find people. We're at the point where juniors get salaries comparable with seniors in other areas and trainees with little to no security experience get junior level salaries. W
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If you're interested in security and want to do something useful, and profitable, code "preventative/predictive" software that does for the user what the IT department preaches to the users:
1.) Don't click on phishing links in emails. You and I know what that means; usually an executable (.exe, .com, .bat, .scr, .whatever) wrapped in a ,zip.
Start raising flags. Block forward progress until a systems analyst arrives.
2.) Use something like Web of Trust [mywot.com] to provide first-flag and even then (and this is importan
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Re:Figure out what you want to do (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you want to do?
What do you like?
Those are the questions you need to answer. Perhaps the best advice is go see a career counselor to determine your career. It may have nothing to do with CS.
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What do you want to do?
What do you like?
These are the right questions. Near the start of your career, rather than asking, "What job shall I do next," instead ask, "What job will best qualify me for the job after next?"
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Say What.....?!?!?
If pay is not important, that sounds like you are wealthy enough not to have to work (assuming you're keen on supporting yourself, and not living in mommy's basement forever having them support you)....in which case I'm asking...."Why are you asking about work if you don't care what you get paid?"
If you are independently wealthy, you don't NEED to work, and hence can spend you time doing whatever you wish.
You
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But, does one ever really attain that level of pay?
I never will, I always want more, UNTIL, the moment I make enough to put quickly away and NOT ever have to work again....likely enough that will require a powerball win.
I work for one and one reason only....to make money to support my lifestyle. I pretty much make more than I spend now, but that extra goes to retirement and you can never really put enough away for most normal working mor
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Yep, when you're single and celibate, that lifestyle is very inexpensive and attainable.
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Well, single and I have no kids that I know of....but certainly not celibate.
And yes, part of my lifestyle involves women...so that does cost a bit of money when you are bedding those that don't have their own income or jobs that pay as well as mine. It's best to date the ones that *do*, but that's limiting the pool you have to choose from....
This. What excites you, gets you pumped up? (Score:2)
Absolutely this. Do what you enjoy. Some people enjoy teaching, some people enjoy solving puzzles, etc. Figure out at least two or three things that get you pumped up. Then figure out which jobs combine at least two things that you enjoy and work toward doing that.
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and with an income based loan repayment plan the student loans will be wiped away over time.
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Computer Security is the Environmental Engineering of the field. It's a lot of paperwork and written reports. The pentest and hacking part actually plays a minor role. It's also very fragmented because there's no government standard. Once there's a standard, the career will boost.
Believe me, even when there's a government standard (which exist for several sectors of business), justification to spend can still be very difficult, even in the face of mandates.
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- Do not share passwords with anyone, including administrators. Including replying to this e-mail, or forwarding it.
Don't worry. He'll replace Computer Science with Computer Faith.
enjoying the job, why leave (Score:2, Insightful)
A job is what pays your bills, so you can go and do things you like. You've got this one in the bag; so what are your hobbies, interests? Go pursue those. In the end, we're all worm-food, so make every day count.
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Some people are able to find jobs where they're able do things they like. Win-win!
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I'm 71 years old.
I worked in electronics at 19, this man's Navy for 9 years. Got out, worked repairing instruments in the oil patch, got a TRS-80 in 1978.
Went to work as data entry clerk in another oil patch in 1982, doing Lotus 123 on DOS using an Arnold Schwarzenegger portable with two floppy disk drives.
My computer obsession, savvy and curiosity placed me in Reston, Va. in front of the financial CEO.
He said, "People love you no matter where you go in our organization, but I have a big problem: You have
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I also think a lot of people have gone into to programming, but weren't really interested in it - like a lot of engineers in the 60s and 70s, they were told this is where the money is going to be, so that's where the went. Then when they got there they discovered they didn't really like it, or couldn't find any specialty because they weren't really all that interested.
The person in question here seems the same way. Programming is not an island - you apply programming to something, and then you get good at
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This I agree with. My advice when my younger sister went to college: whatever you do for a living you'll eventually learn to hate, because nothing is fun when you HAVE to do it all day every day. All you do when you pick something you love for a career is make a perfectly good hobby not fun anymore.
In the end - pick something that you're good at and that pays well. That money will allow you to enjoy life outside of your job, which is where the better parts of your life happen anyways.
And lean towards gov
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I had this mindset for some time, around twenty years ago. I wanted to get a job at something *not* related to computers, because I didn't want to hate my hobby. I am not formally educated (I'm now a university professor, but because I formalized my "knowledge equivalence" after ~15 years of professional experience; I never went to college as a student). I am Mexican... So my outlook at age 18 was somewhat bleak. Maybe work as a store clerk? That'd be a sure way to have enough money for food and leave my mi
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A job is what pays your bills, so you can go and do things you like. [...] In the end, we're all worm-food, so make every day count.
It's interesting that you talk about making every day count but discount the impact he can make with what is likely going to be his most meaningful contribution to society outside of his potential future family. I'd say if you want to make every day count, don't waste 8-9 hours of each day doing something that doesn't count, or doesn't count as much as it could if you put more effort in.
Just working for the weekends seams like a waste of 70% of the week to me.
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It's sad, pathetic and a sign of criminal neglect on the part of your parents that you think his goal should be a "meaningful contribution to society".
It is unfortunate you feel that way. Thankfully many great members of our society disagree with you.
two jobs (Score:2)
gardener (Score:2, Funny)
Lots of growth potential there!
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They're better off picking up a trade. At least then in 5 years, they won't have to worry about their job being outsourced.
Here's the problem with this submission (Score:5, Insightful)
the submission explains simply that "I'm looking for satisfying and rewarding work,"
What people consider satisfying and rewarding is entirely subjective. What works for me, helping people without them realizing it was me, would leave most other people feeling unappreciated. The submitter is going to have to decide for him/her self what would they would find satisfying and rewarding.
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Pay is also important (Score:3)
I really don't know where the submitter is coming from but neglecting pay speaks to someone who doesn't quite understand how the world works. Of course, being a recent college grad they probably have certain idealistic visions of how the world should work. Let us debase them, gently, of some of them.
In terms of salary, by not going for at least industry average, you're setting yourself up for future financial troubles.
Don't be afraid of getting paid. Never be afraid of asking for more money. Money is not th
Big - Small (Score:5, Insightful)
Start at a big company. A big software company. After a while, start looking to leave there and go to a small company.
Why: If you start at a small company, you will confuse the freedom for chaos. You will not appreciate how easy it is to get things done. If you start at a big company, you will learn some big company processes. A few of them are good, most of them are bad, and you will probably have a very constrained job. Then move to a small company where you can actually do stuff.
A prof once put it this way: Work at a big company to learn stuff, then work at a small company to apply what you've learned.
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Build good relationships at the big company. Almost every job I've ever gotten was because someone I'd worked with before pinged me about an opening at their new company.
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The downside of this is that at a big company, you're likely to work the single role you were hired for and not much else. You're just the junior QA guy or the just the junior front end dev, etc. Unless you enrich your learning on your own time, you're can possibly get stuck siloing yourself off from a lot of career paths.
At a small company, you WILL out of sheer lack of numbers to fill every job responsibility have to fill a ton of different roles - application support, development, infrustructure, QA, d
Embedded software? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the best way to answer the question would be to select some areas where you'd like to live and then spend some time searching for jobs in those areas.
I was searching for employment ~18 months ago, mostly in the Northeast USA. It definitely seemed like I was seeing a lot of jobs for embedded software developers. So many that I was toying with the idea of going back to school and acquiring some of the requisite skills.
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It definitely seemed like I was seeing a lot of jobs for embedded software developers.
- Must have dark skin and speak with a Punjabi accent?
No seriously embedded development is something that is easily outsourced and the development easily copied into low cost products. Also the vast majority of end users don't care about slickness, speed or security.
Embedded device security on the other hand would be a great field to start specialising in very soon.
Have some fun! Do something "crazy" while you can (Score:4, Interesting)
Later on, with spouse, children mortgage repayments you won't necessarily want / be able to:
- Do some IT support for expeditions going to exotic locations
- Do some contracting someplace like the South Pole
- The oil exploration or production rigs pay well (although not as much as before)
- Cruise ships are pretty much nonstop partying; bring plenty of aspirins and condoms
- Holiday villages, ski resorts: see above
- Voluntary work, either at home or abroad. Can be very depressing but also rewarding
- Joing the military on a fixed-term deal
I've done a few of the above; provided amazing experiences (many good, some bad) and it'll make your CV stand out from the crowd too.
Is that all? (Score:3)
We don't know either (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't know what you find interesting or challenging. you may not know either until you bounce through some place.
go find a company where you like the people; you've got the skill set that most companies are looking for. And figure out what you like. While happiness does in part come from not having a soul sucking job, having a not sucking job that pays enough to not have worries and be able to do the other things in life is just as important.
Despite what they tell you, a job is still just a means to make money to be able to afford to live. You can be paid to do that which you enjoy (shh, don't tell them) - and it is still a job. And before someone says "but but but" I am not saying take a job that sucks your soul out through your eye balls; I am saying I accept the fact that while I love cooking, and I also recognize that when I am done I have to clean the kitchen and if I don't clean the kitchen I suck as a person who shares that kitchen with others. Cleaning the kitchen is fun (and meaning it) said no one ever. (So as much as I do enjoy my job, it comes with some responsibilities that I have to suck it up, realize this is what I accept money for, and go do them. Much like everything in life. No parent ever said they love emptying the diaper pail either, but the end result has been worth it)
back to the first paragraph - a lot of us have bounced through companies and jobs. Our interests have changed. Our skill sets have changed. The job market has changed. When I started, the Web didn't exist. FORTRAN and C were king. I bounced through CAD/CAM, through two small startups (one still exists, and the other long since swallowed by another startup), to contracting, to a large financial company (where we're playing with Angular and such - you'd be surprised what Fortune 100 companies actually do - but also the job stability is through the roof and I have a kid about to start college, which ties back to I have a job to make the rest of life better)
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to tie an onion to my belt and go yell at clouds. That last paragraph made me feel very old.
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Give some serious thought to what it is you really enjoy doing and find a job that best matches that.
I wanted to get into game design and development, it's what I spent a majority of my undergrad and masters taking classes for. I then realized that the game industry is insanely competitive and can be feast-or-famine with the bringing in of temp labor for the 3-6 months of crunch time before a release. Add in the "death march" of 60+ hour w
Something that wont' get outsourced.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Look at what is happening with the university IT jobs in California getting outsourced and understand the lesson: If someone can do your job cheaper, you will eventually lose it.
Several options to consider that guard against that:
1) IT Security - a very in demand skill and one that is less likely (right now) to be outsourced
2) Big Data - data is the new black gold - learn how to mine it and you'll do fine.
3) Defense Contracting - if you can get a security clearance, there is abundant work where defense cont
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3) Defense Contracting - if you can get a security clearance, there is abundant work where defense contracts are strong (around DC and military installations.)
This is a really fun option. Generally in the defense industry there's a sliding scale between stable/boring production projects and unstable/exciting R&D projects. Get on the R&D (like real "make something new" R&D, not "we're going to make a minor improvement on an existing product" R&D) side in a big company and you'll never be bored.
Defense contractor (Score:2)
Can't be outsourced to H-1B's.
Re:Defense contractor (Score:5, Informative)
Can't be outsourced to H-1B's.
While this is true, you have to be careful that you don't let yourself get pigeon holed into old and obsolete technology. I was doing defense work when they shut down the shuttle program at Cape Canaveral and I tell you, I have never see so many resumes from brilliant people who had almost zero chance of finding a new job without brushing up their skills. A lot of them had been at NASA and the Cape for 20+ years and we interviewed them out of professional courtesy, and to help them brush up on their interview skills and point them in the right direction on skills that were useful. But even my company was a solid 10 years behind modern industry in so many different ways.
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Even though they usually are the same companies doing the work and there is a bit of overlap (say when NASA launches a DOD satellite), NASA and DOD work are totally different animals.
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Even though they usually are the same companies doing the work and there is a bit of overlap (say when NASA launches a DOD satellite), NASA and DOD work are totally different animals.
This is entirely true that the work is different, but the problem is that both industries tend to stay behind the technology curve by a significant margin. If you get stuck working with an old technology on a project that gets canned then you'll quickly find yourself without a job and will have difficulty finding a new one. I personally loved the defense work I was doing. It was challenging, interesting, and I got to "blow shit up" when I was testing my work. It's just not always dependable. I had the
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I had the good fortune of being able to work on the most interesting parts of our projects and to participate in business development. That gave me the advantage of knowing what contracts we were hoping to win and what technology I needed to know to keep myself employed.
That part is key. I've been doing defense contracting for a while now and as much as I hate all of the business and management stuff (I just want to build things and then blow them up) I've always had an ear out for the business development side and it's served me well. Knowing what's coming up next not only allows me to build skills in that direction, but it also allows me to look for places where work I'm doing on one project can also be used on an upcoming project with minimal modification.
Don't go to (Score:2)
Easy answer (Score:5, Informative)
Do whatever you want. (Score:2)
We IT experts are, compared to the rest of the ordinary crowd, in the extremely fortunate position that we can basically do whatever we like to do in our field and earn either decent or obscene amounts of cash while doing so. There is just about no other industry today where that is possible.
Do whatever you want. If you don't know what you want, try things out. Keep looking. ... Steve Jobs was right on this one.
Think you have the great new app / service up your sleeve? Build that.
Want to learn Oracle/SAP/Wh
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just because you scratced-the-surface on all those languages, network and sys-admin tech in college, doesn't mean you're even CLOSE to an expert and haven't done it in a professional setting at all where you need to give a shit about 10,000 other things besides 'getting it done and working'.
This. If you think that the biggest challenges in your career will be technical rather than political/organizational, you're gonna have a bad time.
Dubious opinion (Score:2)
Most answers here are right to some degree, yet highly context-dependent, such as better or worse regions for IT professionals or a high personal bias on whats's better or worse for them, and what their connections say about company X or Y.
My own personal bias favors big data and the finance/security/energy consulting sectors as the most prolific, salary-wise, but I am inclined to say the place where you will get he most satisfaction is one where you do what you like making what you need. For instance, star
If pay is no object... (Score:2)
First, (Score:2)
Advice from a veteran (Score:2)
Embedded Systems (Score:2)
Mainframe programmer (Score:2)
Hello new CS Grad! (Score:2)
The answer is...
Call Center Level 1 Tech Support.
Restaurant Server / Realtor (Score:2)
The tips will be great. Ok, they'll be ok. Well, you'll get tipped every now and then.
Also you can work on your real estate license. One day you'll be a broker.
Did you get that CS degree framed? If so you'll have trouble digging glass shards out of your ass when you wipe.
E
driving (Score:2)
That's the wrong question. (Score:2)
You've got a lot of opportunity. I can't really tell you what a "good job" is, without knowing you. The question I would ask you, if we were sitting face to face, is "what do you like to do?" And then we would go from there.
I would probably tell you that fields like machine learning and information security are good, but competitive. I would tell you to avoid the gaming industry, unless you know someone who can get you into one of the big studios. This is more likely if you live in a city where there is a b
Stay where you are and spiff up the resume. (Score:2)
System admin for *two* small companies? (Score:2)
Transfer or buy their hardware and setup your own cloud company.
Clueless (Score:2)
That fact that you even think it's relevant to mention any of that after completing a CS degree tells us you went to a school where you degree is worth less than it's weight in toilet paper.
Tho
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Leaf on the Wind (Score:2)
Pay will be important (Score:2)
Being young with no responsibilities is a great time to do something fulfilling regardless of pay, but you WILL find pay to be important later. If you make good money now, you won't have to worry so much about it later. And fulfilling work and work that pays well are not things that are mutually exclusive.
Don't get complacent with pay, and make sure that you are well aware of what someone at your experience level can expect to make. As someone in IT--especially with software engineering skills--you shoul
Consider a Law Degree (Score:2)
Any job. (Score:2)
I have found the best way to find a job in a particular city is to go to Wikipedia and find the page of something like "Top 500 employers in Des Moines".
Then read through all of the employers, go to each of their web sites, find the "careers", "jobs" or "employment" links on those web sites.
Apply DIRECTLY to the employer for the job that is the best fit for you. This method has always been bett
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irrational hatred
I can tell you have nothing but love for your fellow man.
Re: Bloody SJWs (Score:5, Insightful)
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
- SOCRATES by Plato
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perhaps... this is why great wealthy civilizations eventually collapse? Due to the children getting used to that 'level of luxury' that they no longer strive and do the hardest things to push their civilization to the next level?
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In this case it would be because of the rise of the Roman empire; You got a point though that it would be interesting if there was a means of quantifying whether complacency in later generations of ancient Greeks had a significant impact on their inability to compete.
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Well it does seem that most powerful societies in history have fallen not due to outsiders, but instead to internal problems. Rome fell mainly due to internal corruption and incompetent leadership. But perhaps complacency in the later generations of Romans had something to do with this rise in corruption.
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Odd. I never met a single one in RL. On YouTube, yes, lots and lots. But as far as I can tell, all of them are on YouTube, what's out here in the real world is generally sane.
Can't say that I mind that distribution.
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You've probably never met one in RL because you've never talked to them directly about these issues.
I live near the DC area, and a huge number of 20- and 30-something women on the dating sites list "social justice" as a huge passion for them. Some of them go into more detail about some of their beliefs. But hanging out with singles in that age group in group events, I never hear this kind of stuff. Nor do I hear people voicing extreme opinions while I'm out and about in the metro area. Now perhaps the S
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Maybe the main reason is that the insanity didn't make it across the pond in full force yet. People here are quite bullshit resistant.
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Re:If a US citizen, go look at a clearance (Score:4, Insightful)
CDL isn't a bad thing to have with a technical degree.
When I worked doing experimental on highway trucks companies almost always preferred to send an engineer with a CDL over a CDL driver AND an engineer. If something goes wrong it's easier to diagnose something you helped work.
In the next ~5 years these trucks are going to need a lot of validation hours and tests. A CS major with a CDL would be a prime candidate to run validation tests.
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That probably depends on his 'type' of CS degree. If it was more CE focused and he had some experience in it, maybe, but good luck trying to find a job if he had a true CS degree without any VHDL/synthesis classes. Not only will they probably not bother looking at him for that job, but he will be going up against many other grads with cmpE degrees that do have experience from the classroom doing this
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What are you talking about? FPGAs are more popular than ever these days. Now they've got tons of chips that combine FPGA fabrics with ARM core CPUs. You don't need to have ASICs as your final goal; these chips are cheap enough to use in more specialized applications as-is, giving you ASIC performance and reconfigurability. No, you're not going to see these chips in mass-market consumer products, but in higher-end smaller-volume stuff (like industrial equipment) you will. For instance, take a look insid
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CS basically dead, in the US, thanks to the H1-B.
Whatever you do, don't listen to crap like this. CS related fields are among the fastest growing fields in the US. But it is not a career where you can be passive in your career development, since you can easily find yourself unemployable if you stagnate for too long.
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"Stagnate" in this context means "reached 30 years of age."
Another comment to ignore, as your average skilled IT worker sees his largest salary increases during his 30's. That is when you go from making around $75-80k per year to $125-150k(even more if you live in a major city or Silicon Valley). Eventually the yearly 10-20% raises stop as you are promoted and/or moving to new opportunities, but your thirties are generally when you start to really see the upper middle class lifestyle nearly all quality IT workers enjoy.
Arguably things get harder in your 50's. But a
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Or explain to other CS graduates that no one is standing in a cubicle farm to turn on their computer like they do at a university lab. You're be surprised by how little CS graduates know about PCs.
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You shouldn't expect CS graduates to have any IT skills because CS training is distinct to IT training - you can have one without the other.
You have to be in IT in order to turn on a PC?