Comment by lawtguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lawtguy | Hacker News Reader

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I think there's three reasons that there's a shortage of U.S. CS graduates:

1) Dot-com bust: Lots of people jumped into CS when it looked like being a programmer was a easy way to become a millionaire. When it became obvious that wasn't going to happen for most CS graduates and there was a glut of talent in the market, people switched to something else.

2) Outsourcing: Right on top of the dot-com bust was the trend towards outsourcing. There was lots of scary noise about how programmers were the next factory workers: gone overseas and never coming back.

3) H1-Bs: They hurt the supply of U.S. CS students by making wages lower which makes CS a less attractive major. (For the record, I'm pro immigration, but anti-H1-B. H1-B workers have very little ability to negotiate salary and companies like Tata abuse the H1-B system).

Issues #1 and #2 have more or less worked themselves out, so you'd expect that the current shortage will end as people start seeing CS as a good option again.

H1-Bs: They hurt the supply of U.S. CS students by making wages lower which makes CS a less attractive major. (For the record, I'm pro immigration, but anti-H1-B. H1-B workers have very little ability to negotiate salary and companies like Tata abuse the H1-B system).

I won't take any government blather about the lack of native-born engineers seriously until this is addressed. What kid in his right mind is going to go into a field in which the government undermines his ability to get a raise?

Issue 4) CS Curriculum is bland at the introductory level. Having worked with students in the 100/200 level courses recently, very few actually intended to pursue it as a major. They cited the intro teachers as one of the main reasons why. Boring CS teacher vs. dynamic and engaging liberal arts professor? Yes, I realize this isn't always true, but it was certainly a reinforced stereotype at my uni.

Issue 5) Interesting work is hard to come by. When I was interviewing, I saw several companies whose work I found interesting and made sure I got to know people who influenced hiring. Nothing came of those applications and I ended up going into what you might call one of those mega software houses. That is to say, even with a shortage of CS majors, finding a job doing work you--as a computer scientist--find interesting is difficult.

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