Word of caution for aspiring CS majors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is a current CS major at a T10 with a minor in Entrepreneurship and considering a minor in finance. The market is cyclical and currently not great for any college graduate but I have no fear that his degree and education will serve him very well in the future and that he will be in the best position for a great career. He may have to “settle” for a starter job (like most of us did back in the day) but his brain and his ability to logically analyze problems and create solutions will serve as a very valuable asset. I have no fear that his CS major will only help, not hurt, him.

+1

[Anonymous]

CS majors are great. I just think we need more in society than CS majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CS majors are great. I just think we need more in society than CS majors.

Good thing we do. It is such a limited major, almost no one can get in. Everyone else in college is studying something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CS majors are great. I just think we need more in society than CS majors.

Only a small percentage of the population has the necessary ability to do well at this anyway so most of this gets sorted out in a couple years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need a CS degree to do cybersecurity, cloud or most of that stuff.

My degree is in theater and I am the program manager of a huge IT project on a government project. I started at one of those computer training places I’ve hired many who do not have a CS degree. They are not all technical positions.

My just hired a project manager and they have a degree in psychology and minor in English.

I also have another project manager who does IT training and has a degree in European History and German.

The job market has changed since you were in college. There are so many graduates now with a CS or Business background. Why would they be hiring theater majors for PM roles? Or, English or Psych majors? I guess government pays so little they are getting the bottom of the barrel or something. So, maybe that's why our government doesn't run as efficiently.

I would never hire someone from one of those IT training places unless it was for a helpdesk role (which are all offshored, btw). All of the PM jobs I see require either a background in IT, CS, business or finance. I never see a PM role where the "degree required" says "English or Psych"; certainly not theater.

I worked in SV including FAANGs, never worked for the government. Maybe that's the difference.

Nice dig on gov't employees, but the poster didn't say he/she was a fed. It was a "government project".

Could be why "government projects" cost are astronomical. They are hiring people with no experience, so of course it's going to take longer and not be done correctly the first time. Lots of re-work. Painful for those who see this. These contract companies hiring people with very little experience, charge like $400/ hour for them, and take twice as long to do the work. It's a cash cow for these contract companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need a CS degree to do cybersecurity, cloud or most of that stuff.

My degree is in theater and I am the program manager of a huge IT project on a government project. I started at one of those computer training places I’ve hired many who do not have a CS degree. They are not all technical positions.

My just hired a project manager and they have a degree in psychology and minor in English.

I also have another project manager who does IT training and has a degree in European History and German.

The job market has changed since you were in college. There are so many graduates now with a CS or Business background. Why would they be hiring theater majors for PM roles? Or, English or Psych majors? I guess government pays so little they are getting the bottom of the barrel or something. So, maybe that's why our government doesn't run as efficiently.

I would never hire someone from one of those IT training places unless it was for a helpdesk role (which are all offshored, btw). All of the PM jobs I see require either a background in IT, CS, business or finance. I never see a PM role where the "degree required" says "English or Psych"; certainly not theater.

I worked in SV including FAANGs, never worked for the government. Maybe that's the difference.

The tech world is more complicated now and very little of it is "CS". When CS majors go to FAANG they grumble that they aren't doing any CS.

CS majors are often a poor fit for PM roles because PMs are managing products for users to interact with, and users... Arent CS majors.
Firms have PMs for user facing products, and Technical PMs for internal technology products. Of course if you work in B2B tech like Cloud APIs, then your user "PM" also needs to be technical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do not need a degree in CS to work in IT.

That’s why the market is saturated. Get a degree in finance so you can have a background in financial applications. Get a degree in English and do technical writing.

Get a degree in math and be an analyst or SME.

Not really. Majority of the IT jobs will have simple education requirement. BS in CS or Information Systems. Sometimes in Math. I work in large IT firm and the only times we’ll even consider interviewing someone with non tech degree is if they have years and years of experience. A degree in English will not help you in any way to become a technical writer. You would need to have deep technical knowledge of systems architecture, software design, information security, etc etc.

That’s not true. A tech writer does not necessarily have to have deep technical knowledge of systems architecture, software design, information security. There are tech writers doing user documentation and online help, etc.

I’m a tech writer who didn’t take a single college course in English or technology. It’s a broad field.

This does explain why most technical documentation is quite poor. Even my company's product documentation is horrifying. No one uses it, they just open a support ticket for how to do X.

Ignorant comment.

[Anonymous]

My kid just graduated from William and Mary with a double major in CS and Math. He has a job lined up with the Federal Gov't paying about 80K. He feels very fortunate, as most of his CS friends are still looking for jobs. I agree with many of the above posters that the current problems are likely just cyclical, but its a problem right now for new CS grads. Also, the ability to show personality is a huge advantage, one which my son and his friends don't really have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need a CS degree to do cybersecurity, cloud or most of that stuff.

My degree is in theater and I am the program manager of a huge IT project on a government project. I started at one of those computer training places I’ve hired many who do not have a CS degree. They are not all technical positions.

My just hired a project manager and they have a degree in psychology and minor in English.

I also have another project manager who does IT training and has a degree in European History and German.

The job market has changed since you were in college. There are so many graduates now with a CS or Business background. Why would they be hiring theater majors for PM roles? Or, English or Psych majors? I guess government pays so little they are getting the bottom of the barrel or something. So, maybe that's why our government doesn't run as efficiently.

I would never hire someone from one of those IT training places unless it was for a helpdesk role (which are all offshored, btw). All of the PM jobs I see require either a background in IT, CS, business or finance. I never see a PM role where the "degree required" says "English or Psych"; certainly not theater.

I worked in SV including FAANGs, never worked for the government. Maybe that's the difference.

The tech world is more complicated now and very little of it is "CS". When CS majors go to FAANG they grumble that they aren't doing any CS.

CS majors are often a poor fit for PM roles because PMs are managing products for users to interact with, and users... Arent CS majors.
Firms have PMs for user facing products, and Technical PMs for internal technology products. Of course if you work in B2B tech like Cloud APIs, then your user "PM" also needs to be technical.

CS majors may be a poor fit for PM roles on tech projects, but I would not say a theater or English major would be a good fit. You want someone who has some understanding about systems and development lifecycles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need a CS degree to do cybersecurity, cloud or most of that stuff.

My degree is in theater and I am the program manager of a huge IT project on a government project. I started at one of those computer training places I’ve hired many who do not have a CS degree. They are not all technical positions.

My just hired a project manager and they have a degree in psychology and minor in English.

I also have another project manager who does IT training and has a degree in European History and German.

The job market has changed since you were in college. There are so many graduates now with a CS or Business background. Why would they be hiring theater majors for PM roles? Or, English or Psych majors? I guess government pays so little they are getting the bottom of the barrel or something. So, maybe that's why our government doesn't run as efficiently.

I would never hire someone from one of those IT training places unless it was for a helpdesk role (which are all offshored, btw). All of the PM jobs I see require either a background in IT, CS, business or finance. I never see a PM role where the "degree required" says "English or Psych"; certainly not theater.

I worked in SV including FAANGs, never worked for the government. Maybe that's the difference.

The tech world is more complicated now and very little of it is "CS". When CS majors go to FAANG they grumble that they aren't doing any CS.

CS majors are often a poor fit for PM roles because PMs are managing products for users to interact with, and users... Arent CS majors.
Firms have PMs for user facing products, and Technical PMs for internal technology products. Of course if you work in B2B tech like Cloud APIs, then your user "PM" also needs to be technical.

CS majors from top SLACs make good PMs. Has technical knowledge and has a well rounded education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CS majors are great. I just think we need more in society than CS majors.

Only a small percentage of the population has the necessary ability to do well at this anyway so most of this gets sorted out in a couple years.

+1 BINGO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need a CS degree to do cybersecurity, cloud or most of that stuff.

My degree is in theater and I am the program manager of a huge IT project on a government project. I started at one of those computer training places I’ve hired many who do not have a CS degree. They are not all technical positions.

My just hired a project manager and they have a degree in psychology and minor in English.

I also have another project manager who does IT training and has a degree in European History and German.

We need to stop hiring people without computer or technical degrees, hard stop on these posers. Make it a rule for govt contracts

Seriously! No wonder there are constant cost overruns and delays on everything
Eliminate nepotism and “referrals”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need a CS degree to do cybersecurity, cloud or most of that stuff.

My degree is in theater and I am the program manager of a huge IT project on a government project. I started at one of those computer training places I’ve hired many who do not have a CS degree. They are not all technical positions.

My just hired a project manager and they have a degree in psychology and minor in English.

I also have another project manager who does IT training and has a degree in European History and German.

The job market has changed since you were in college. There are so many graduates now with a CS or Business background. Why would they be hiring theater majors for PM roles? Or, English or Psych majors? I guess government pays so little they are getting the bottom of the barrel or something. So, maybe that's why our government doesn't run as efficiently.

I would never hire someone from one of those IT training places unless it was for a helpdesk role (which are all offshored, btw). All of the PM jobs I see require either a background in IT, CS, business or finance. I never see a PM role where the "degree required" says "English or Psych"; certainly not theater.

I worked in SV including FAANGs, never worked for the government. Maybe that's the difference.

The tech world is more complicated now and very little of it is "CS". When CS majors go to FAANG they grumble that they aren't doing any CS.

CS majors are often a poor fit for PM roles because PMs are managing products for users to interact with, and users... Arent CS majors.
Firms have PMs for user facing products, and Technical PMs for internal technology products. Of course if you work in B2B tech like Cloud APIs, then your user "PM" also needs to be technical.

CS majors from top SLACs make good PMs. Has technical knowledge and has a well rounded education.

Well rounded isn't limited to SLACs.
UMD CS majors have Gen Ed that include Academic writing, professional writing, communication, 2 natural science, 2 humanities courses, 2 history/social sciences with required coursework to include addressing "Big Questions" and diversity. Must also take at least 4 UPPER LEVEL courses in an area outside of CS. These commonly result in minors or a double major in subjects like linguistics or philosophy.

[Anonymous]

It's just a dip. Happened in 2000/2001 and of course in 2008. Tech companies hired too many people during COVID and now the job market is crap as they overcorrect. It will come back. AI is just the hot new thing, like cloud was a few years ago.

[Anonymous]

Also, there are lots of things you can do with a CS degree that aren't specifically programming. Just having that knowledge helps in a variety of related roles that do not involve programming.