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Computers are my life, literally. For the past 5 years I've worked in the IT industry, and I sound like an old timer saying this,(where is my rocking chair and whittling stick?), but I sure have seen a lot of changes over the years.

When I first started my degree in 1998, the tech field was hot, fresh, the money was rolling in. Who can forget the Net startup parties, the expensive Aeron chairs as a status symbol, IPO's, young millionaires riding scooters in the office, things were good. If you were a techie, you were almost certain to get a high paying job, or at least a secure job, and the world was at your feet.....then it happened. The big dot com bust darkened the computer screens and futures of many. Not too long after that the events of September 11 occured, and the industry, our nation, the world, has not been the same since.

And so here we are now, 2004, IT jobs not that easy to find, and the ones you do find don't pay so great, not to mention the lack of job security. More and more jobs are going oversees, and I hear of more people getting laid off every week it seems. The golden hour is gone, technology is a vital part of our lives it seems, but if you are in that field, it's not as luxurious as at once was. And by luxury I mean, knowing that you still have a job tomorrow.

Anyway, don't take my word for it, apparently not that many are going for computer science degrees anymore, and I don't blame them.

Fewer college students choose computer majors
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY

Tech firms might be rebounding from the dot-com bust, but enrollment in college computer programs keeps falling.

Nationwide data aren't available. However, last year, the number of newly declared computer science and computer engineering majors in the USA and Canada fell 23% vs. the year before, says the Computing Research Association, a college trade group. The figures aren't expected to improve this year.

Blame the bleak tech job market. In the past, a computer degree meant "instant riches, or at least a well-paying, secure job," says San Jose computer science chair David Hayes. "Now, the perception is jobs are going overseas, and people are being laid off."

Students are now trying biology, nursing or other majors.

Still, many educators worry there won't be enough workers when the industry rebounds, crimping growth. Matthew Szulik, CEO of software firm Red Hat, says he's having trouble finding some highly skilled programmers. The USA grants only about 6% of the world's engineering degrees, behind China, the European Union, Japan, Russia and India, says the National Science Foundation and tech trade group AEA.

Graduate programs haven't seen the same decline yet. "One place you go when you can't get a job is back to school," says computer science professor Warren Hunt at the University of Texas.

But that might change. Many U.S. graduate programs rely on foreign students who come here to study. In the USA and Canada, 43% of computer science and engineering recipients are non-resident aliens, the CRA says.

New security regulations might be keeping these students from applying. In India, the number of students taking the Graduate Record Exam, the test required for most applicants to U.S. graduate schools, fell 56% this school year, vs. last, test administrators say. In China, test-taking fell 52%.

I just hope they don't start outsourcing newpaper jobs...then I'm in trouble.
Although I have read a few things on that already, but it's not like someone overseas can do a story about the local city hall meeting....right?

CJ at 8/10/2004

Comments:

By Daily Texican, at: 11:38 AM

I think I read the same article about outsourcing to news editors in India. Yup, they can't do local news. But, starting off, local news pay terrible.

By CJ, at: 2:14 PM

Yeah, you are right about the pay for local news, can't get rich off of that.

I think you are safe as far as Network Administration is concerned, some one physically needs to be there to install routers and switches, only thing is that if all the programming jobs go overseas, the market will become flooded with out-of-work programmers and such willing to take those jobs that can't be outsourced. Just have to wait and see what the future will bring us.