Technology

Great advice. Also pick an open issue in an open source project, make a PR, have some public discussion of trade offs you considered, and get it merged. That’s an awesome differentiator. I’ve seen thousands of developer resumes without this. It shows you can work effectively and productively on good code and with a team.

In the 90s everyone was getting "web certified"

The industry went to shit after non-nerdy people found out there could be a lot of money in tech.

I started my undergrad in the early 90’s, and ran into multiple students who had never even used a computer, but had heard from someone that there was a lot of money to be made in computers so they decided to make that their major.

Mind you, those students tended not to do terribly well and often changed major after the first two years — but this phenomenon certainly isn’t anything particularly new. Having been both a student and a University instructor (teaching primarily 3rd and 4th year Comp.Sci subjects) I’ve seen this over and over and over again.

By way of advice to any new or upcoming graduates who may be reading this from an old guy who has been around for a long time, used to be a University instructor, and is currently a development manager for a big software company — if you’re looking to get a leg-up on your competition while you look for work, start or contribute to an Open Source project that you are passionate about. Create software you love purely for the love of creating software.

It’s got my foot in the door for several jobs I’ve had — both directly (i.e.: “we want to use your software and are hiring you to help us integrate it as our expert”; IBM even once offered a re-badged version to their customers) and indirectly (one Director I worked under once told me the reason they hired me was because of my knowledge and passion talking about my OSS project). And now as a manager who has to do hiring myself it’s also something that I look for in candidates (mind you, I also look for people who use Linux at home — we use a LOT of Linux in our cloud environments, and one of my easiest filters is to take out candidates who show no curiosity or interest in software outside whatever came installed on their PC or what they had to work with at school).

...the San Francisco gold rush in 1949.

Classic CS major, making an off-by-one(hundred years) error ;)

I'd be happy to review your resume and code samples and provide feedback if you want.

What CS subfield? I think it really depends if you were able to specialize somewhat. At least systems programming and lower level coding seems to be somewhat in demand once you get into the field. Even given the current economy we aren't really getting much interest from students.

3000? That’s hyperbole right?

I was in a similar boat. Graduated right around the housing crash. If my wife didnt work at the time, we would have been in a terrible spot. It look a good 6 months to get my first job. After that, I haven't had any issues popping into jobs.

Sounds like you got a raw deal. Our industry has many highs and lows when it comes to jobs and work available.

be willing to move

you’re offering salt in the middle of the Pacific

And most of them are shit at their jobs because they just do it for money. No care for the skill.

This should be common knowledge. I recall in the 1990s there was a huge push for truck drivers. Everywhere you went "Be a truck driver! Own your own business! Make six figures!" And only a decade later, employed drivers struggle to make ends meet.

If you see a huge push for a particular job - you better plan your exit.

I was always shocked at the time why the university or the government does not project these things and adjust the available program sizes so that kids and their parents don't end up spending boatloads of money and lives in degrees under false promises of prosperity. I didn't have an answer then and people around me couldn't explain it either but many were asking the same question.

You are looking at Universities^0 all wrong. Predicting the markets are not their job or role in society.

The primary purpose of a University is research. That research output comes from three primary sources: the faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Naturally undergrads don’t tend to come into the University knowing how to do proper research, so there is a teaching component involved to bring them up to the necessary standards so they can contribute to research — but ultimately, that’s what they exist for.

What a University is not is a job training centre. That’s not its purpose, nor should it be. A University education is the gold standard in our society so many corporations and individuals will either prefer or require University training in exchange for employment — but that’s not the Universities that are enforcing that requirement. That’s all on private enterprise to decide what they want. All the University ultimately cares about is research output.

Hence, if there is valuable research output to be made (and inputs in the form of grants) in the field of “Philosophy of Digital Thanatology” (yes, I’m making that up!), and they have access to faculty to lead suitable research AND they have students that want to study it, they’ll run it as a programme. It makes no difference whether or not there is any industry demand for “ Philosophy of Digital Thanatology” — if it results in grants and attracts researchers and students, a University could decide to offer it as a degree programme.

We have a LOT of degree programmes with more graduates than jobs available. Personally, I’m glad for that. If I have some great interest in a subject, why shouldn’t I be allowed to study it? Why should I be forced to take it if and only if there is industry demand for that field? If that were the case, we’d have nearly no English language or Philosophy students — and likely a lot fewer Math and Theoretical Physics students as well. But that’s not the point of a University. It never has been, and it never should be.

I’ve been an undergraduate, a graduate, and a University instructor in Computer Science. I’ve seen some argue in the past that the faculty should teach XYZ because it’s what industry needs at a given moment — but that’s not its purpose or its role. If industry needs a specific skill, it either needs to teach it itself, or rely on more practical community colleges and apprenticeship programmes which are designed around training for work.

[0] — I’m going to use the Canadian terminology here, which differentiates between “Universities” and “Colleges”, with the former being centres of research education that grant degrees and the latter referring to schools that are often primarily trade and skill focussed that offer more diploma programmes. American common parlance tends to throw all of the above into the bucket of “College” in one way or another which makes differentiating between them more complicated.

the university or the government does not project these things and adjust the available program sizes

They kinda do, but only the part where they increase program sizes after demand exists and only wind down when the market is saturated. They can't really work too far ahead if they don't know ow something will be in demand and they don't want to tell students to not do something they offer just because there are too many graduates. Add the four or five years to graduation and you get a system that lags behind reality even if the planning was better.

But a well designed post secondary education means graduates can go into similar or related fields, they aren't limited to what is on their diploma except in their own minds.

they are using the right wing blaming strategy: blames the student for choosing a "useless" degree, and not having 'CONNECTIONS'/networking, these basically are a form of Nepotism to be honest, not many people can get connections like that, and its based on "knowing a person of a person with said company that is friendly with a HR manager" i guessed correctly in another forum(indeed) that its around half when they decide if they want to hire you.

Companies used to provide workers a pay related sense of justice, a career for life.

.... There was a period from the 1940s to the 1970s when this was more common-place. But historically this kind of cut-throat wage squeeze was very normal, particularly in the industrialized American north.

One of the driving forces behind improvements in the American capitalist model, wrt pensions and professional job security and a regulated relationship between business and labor, was European Communism. The allure of the revolutionary communist reconstructions (and less revolutionary socialist rebuilds) drove some significant number of Western professionals into the waiting arms of Papa Stalin and a fair number more into large labor unions and socialist political ideologies.

Without the USSR as foil to the capitalist system, there is less urgency among the capitalist class to negotiate with labor and less optimism among American workers to achieve some kind of superior economic position.

That, combined with an absolute tsunami of corporate propaganda to brainwash civilian workers, a swelling pustule of a police state to cow the lumpen proletariat, and a Global War on Whatever to galvanize young liberals and conservatives alike against the phantom menace of foreign invasion, has supplanted any kind of negotiating between capital owners and their wage cuck workers.

The only thing you have to hope for in the modern day is a big enough 401k such that you can live like a parasite rather than the host.

HERE AS well, nursing is popular because you can make bank as a travelling NURSE, over being staffed a hospital. im guessing thats what a guy i met as aco-worker in retail once mentioned, i thought he was kidding at first.

only if you have the personality, and tolerates belligerent patients, or work with human waste products from time to time. i suspect the nursing shortages you hear, and the abuse is mostly from rural areas and red states that have a massive shortage of health professionals including MDs.

I lookd into CLS which is in line with my cmb degree, but its a very competitive for not being a grad degree program, its a grad certification require grad level clinical/lab classes, apparently universities in the usa that have the cls program is quite few, so they all try to come to the west coast, only 9 schools teach this program so you can see the competiveness of the program in the west coast. when indeed forum was around they had whole sections dedicated to cls.

Nursing is huuuuge. My nurse friend with a doctorate just landed a $250k base job with 10 weeks paid vacation and a slew of other benefits. Wild.

Plumbing is huge too. If I ever need one, they're booked out like 3+ months unless you want to pay an emergency fee which is like double or triple.

I, too, am raising some livestock. We'll see where it goes. But at least to me it feels more connected and real.

I don't think this is even the big effect we'll be seeing from AI. think that'll occur over the next 12-24 months, as LLM operationalization occurs and matures the implementations.