U.S. Geek Shortage Is National Security Risk

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
The defense department seems to think that the shortage of computer geeks in the U.S. poses a serious security risk for the country. As goofy as it may seem, I think they have a valid point.

The Pentagon’s far-out research arm Darpa is soliciting proposals for initiatives that would attract teens to careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), with an emphasis on computing. According to the Computer Research Association, computer science enrollment dropped 43 percent between 2003 and 2006.
Click to expand...
 
Stop new H1B visas..

SC and Texas just shot down measures that would have allowed them to take more fed funding for edjucation, I'm sure if the voters in thoes states weren't whitewashed into believing that the fed funding was a bad idea, then there would have been more support.


Stupid decisions have bad effects.
 
Hrmm with unemployment rates being at an all time high, and people in the IT/CS field being let go left and right since late 2008 I really don't see how there is a shortage. I have been looking for a new job since March 2008 and almost every position I have interviewed for I have been going against 30+ qualified candidates. Most whom have more experience than me.

Instead of hoping for future candidates perhaps the government should reinvest in what they already have. Give jobs to all those who already qualify and have the proper the experience. Of course that would require paying them more than a fresh CS grad. They also need to stop private companies from outsourcing jobs. If you want to keep up with tech then keep jobs in the US.
 
RagingSamster said:
Lets see, maybe learn to H1B visa less?
Click to expand...

That might help. The competition in computer related fields is going up, while the pay is not, or even starting to go down in some sectors. The money is not there like it used to be. It's not a surprise that some are rethinking their career choices.
 
I wanted to go in to the field pretty badly until I researched it

Average to crappy pay
Must stay ahead of the curve or become obsolete (Constant education fight to stay ahead)
Less job security later in life

Screw that. I'm not going to school to be a public nerd bitch who makes little and is likely to be tossed aside at any time.
 
Hm. I don't know. If they could integrate web-surfing and gaming into the field, we'd have a whole generation of hardcore S.T.E.M. career-ee's. :D

Some people just don't like the field. My son was in engineering....was getting a broad range of options to try.....robotics, CNC, engineering design, structural, computer, etc. He just didn't like it. He ended up switching majors, and is much happier.
 
Jutsu said:
Instead of hoping for future candidates perhaps the government should reinvest in what they already have. Give jobs to all those who already qualify and have the proper the experience. Of course that would require paying them more than a fresh CS grad.
Click to expand...

This is a big problem with government jobs in particular. The IT specialist job series (where most CS would end up) has a minor pay bonus at the start of the career path (and I mean very minor) and that tapers off after a few years to being paid exactly the same as anyone else at the grade regardless of what their degree is.

IT jobs need to be put on special pay grades just like scientists, medical, legal, and other very specialized fields. The government isn't going to attract the best IT people when they get paid the same as the accountant or secretary down the hall.
 
I have heard good argument that the powers that be want to fake the demand for IT workers simply to reduce the cost of labor. If there are more of them, then it should be easier to pay them less.

I don't see a huge need for IT workers beyond what already exists. Growth will happen, but I'm more inclined they simply want to pay us less, like always.
 
Torgo434 said:
SC and Texas just shot down measures that would have allowed them to take more fed funding for edjucation, I'm sure if the voters in thoes states weren't whitewashed into believing that the fed funding was a bad idea, then there would have been more support.
Click to expand...

There's no such thing as "fed funding" as the fed doesn't generate funds at all, they just spend them. That money is just taken from the people and told that they can have it back... as long as they do what the fed wants. What a great deal!
 
Yeah, I've been seeing these sort of articles for a while. The gov and huge businesses are looking for ways to get more kids to be CS/IT majors. If pay, job availability, and job security weren't a big concern we'd get more CS/IT majors. But that would be too easy. I'm sure the gov is looking for other 'cheaper' alternatives to get more CS/IT majors.
 
Ya i would have loved to go into computer science and it was the plan until I did some research. I talked with hundreds of people in my local area that went to school for CS because everyone kept saying the demand was huge. Then when they graduated couldn't find a job anywhere.
 
My opinion is that geeks are smart enough to avoid the government, its not that the geeks don't exist. Walk in to any government run building and look at the quality of people that work there. Would you want to work in that environment? Who wants to contribute to that heaping pile of failure?
 
BloodyIron said:
I have heard good argument that the powers that be want to fake the demand for IT workers simply to reduce the cost of labor. If there are more of them, then it should be easier to pay them less.

I don't see a huge need for IT workers beyond what already exists. Growth will happen, but I'm more inclined they simply want to pay us less, like always.
Click to expand...

Nobody is entitled to more money. You want more? Work harder or work someplace else. I've interviewed kids straight out of college with 0 experience and they think they are entitled to $80 a year with their BA in computer science. Unless you are extremely lucky, that isn't going to happen. Like the kids who think they are entitled to more money than minimum wage for flipping burgers.... All businesses want to pay you less. The more they pay you the less profit they have. If you owned a business wouldn't you want to pay your employees as little as possible? Of course the market dictates the quality of employee you get vs what you pay for them. There is a balance there somewhere.
 
CS != IT

Stop talking about IT people--there's way too many IT people and it should be that way, since they're grunt-level labor.

Get real thinkers who can perform complex math and solve real-world problems by writing software in to the mix... THOSE people are needed right now. Critical thinking might be a trumped-up term, but many of the students I saw taking courses while I was a graduate fellow ended up as IT lackeys, not computer scientists and/or software developers. Those people knew the bare minimum to write some basic software, but were incapable of expanding their critical thinking skills to apply the basic skills in to real-world situations.

The world needs more computer scientists, not just the U.S. Since it was DARPA stating that this need exists of course they're going to limit their scope to just the U.S., but their logic is easy to apply elsewhere.

2.png
 
Ibanezfoo said:
Nobody is entitled to more money. You want more? Work harder or work someplace else. I've interviewed kids straight out of college with 0 experience and they think they are entitled to $80 a year with their BA in computer science. Unless you are extremely lucky, that isn't going to happen. Like the kids who think they are entitled to more money than minimum wage for flipping burgers.... All businesses want to pay you less. The more they pay you the less profit they have. If you owned a business wouldn't you want to pay your employees as little as possible? Of course the market dictates the quality of employee you get vs what you pay for them. There is a balance there somewhere.
Click to expand...
Of course, there is the whole issue of increasing work hours (including unpaid overtime), the heightening of requirements to get a job (a university education used to make you significantly more qualified than others), the steady increase in money made by businesses per employee since the 1970s, the general decline in job stability, decline in things like retirement benefits, etc. While I too think it's ridiculous to expect $80,000 a year right out of school unless you are in a very specialised field, it's impossible to ignore the fact that salaries and wages have generally not gone up in accordance with cost of living.
 
Torgo434 said:
Stop new H1B visas..

SC and Texas just shot down measures that would have allowed them to take more fed funding for edjucation, I'm sure if the voters in thoes states weren't whitewashed into believing that the fed funding was a bad idea, then there would have been more support.


Stupid decisions have bad effects.
Click to expand...

You might want to do a little more research into WHY those states declined the Federal funding. The Fed government no longer gives money to states and expects nothing back in return. It's become a we scratch our back, you stroke our d1ck. Some states are fine with it and just accept the money and don't give a damn about the long term consiquences of it. Other states actually look at the total cost of doing business with the Federal government nad feel (rightfully so) that it is not worth it to sell your states soul.
 
It is going to be harder and harder to get kids to join high tech engineering, CS, and other fields that are being outsourced and off-shored. When I chose engineering, it was because the there were plenty of jobs, pay was/is decent, and it looked like, if one wanted to, a person could be employed by the same company for 30 years. Very good job security. ~10 years later, that is all in the shitter.

/side rant
You have stupid ex-CEO's that are running for senate seats saying they will bring in new jobs, when they are directly responsible for the outsourcing of thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of jobs. Thank you Carly! I don't know how you can say that with a straight face, and how you think you can win, when even the most die hard republicans inside HP would actively campaign against you.
/end rant

Now that people see that these types of jobs have no security, they are heading into other fields. I don't blame them. I hate being isolationist, but the only way to get more Americans interested in these fields again is to cut the number visas available. Thus driving up demand and better prospects of job security. Now is a good time to do it as the economy sucks and there are talented people out there stting at home that want to work.
 
Well it seems like lots of people expect to get everything for nothing these days, I recently went back to school for IT because I got tired of working on airplanes and dealing with the way the shady companies want to dodge their responsibilities and save money.
I certainly do not expect an outrages amount of money upon graduating but I do expect to be paid on par with the industry standard for low experience people just out of school. But then again I also am planning on doing everything I can to get experience in my chosen field, not to mention doing everything I can that would make a prospective employer look twice at my resume, such as getting other certs like Linux+, Security+ etc instead of doing the bare minimum.
 
I'm going to be one more person that says IT *IS NOT* CS.

What DARPA is saying is that there are not enough true technical people coming out of schools. This is Electrical Engineers, Chemical Engineers, <insert discipline here> Engineers, as well as TRUE Computer Science majors. Lot of schools have CS degree programs that have no place offering CS programs. This is about your latest MS or Cisco certs, this is about an ability to write software to solve problems, understanding algorithms, and being able to write code in whatever the flavor of the year language is popular, without having to go back to school.

Kids coming out of true technical schools for CS aren't having a problem finding jobs, nor have they ever. Your standard east coast schools of RPI, RIT, WPI, and MIT have almost a 100% placement rate for CS and other engineering disciplines after graduation. Even that state schools with true engineering/CS schools have extremely high placement rates.

Putting computers together, networking computers, installing your favorite OS, etc does NOT constitute what DARPA is speaking of. This is a lot of the problem of how people view H1Bs. The Indians, Russians, Eastern Block Citizens, and South East Asian people coming over to work here are writing code, not playing computer lab monkey.

I'm not poo-poo'ing on IT workers, they're definitely needed, but that's not what we're talking about here.
 
h3llphyre said:
Putting computers together, networking computers, installing your favorite OS, etc does NOT constitute what DARPA is speaking of. This is a lot of the problem of how people view H1Bs. The Indians, Russians, Eastern Block Citizens, and South East Asian people coming over to work here are writing code, not playing computer lab monkey.
Click to expand...

Maybe the employers get the same impression I do about American students in general. I will only go to foreign born doctors, not American doctors. Why? Because almost every American medical student I've ever met is all about partying and drinking. The foreign kids are grateful and study and don't squander their time at school. My wife is in school right now and notices the same thing. I might be wrong but this has been my experience.
 
Ibanezfoo said:
Nobody is entitled to more money. You want more? Work harder or work someplace else. I've interviewed kids straight out of college with 0 experience and they think they are entitled to $80 a year with their BA in computer science. Unless you are extremely lucky, that isn't going to happen. Like the kids who think they are entitled to more money than minimum wage for flipping burgers.... All businesses want to pay you less. The more they pay you the less profit they have. If you owned a business wouldn't you want to pay your employees as little as possible? Of course the market dictates the quality of employee you get vs what you pay for them. There is a balance there somewhere.
Click to expand...

Round here the starting pay for that field is about 25-35k. You make much more doing manual labor or, for the amount of time you were in school, you could be a burger king manager by now making the same amount and with extra money in the bank from the years of working instead of paying tuition.

I went to school and got a BS, but I wish I had become an apprentice electrician instead. I would be making 20 an hour with room for improvement instead of what I make now.
 
Ibanezfoo said:
Maybe the employers get the same impression I do about American students in general. I will only go to foreign born doctors, not American doctors. Why? Because almost every American medical student I've ever met is all about partying and drinking. The foreign kids are grateful and study and don't squander their time at school. My wife is in school right now and notices the same thing. I might be wrong but this has been my experience.
Click to expand...

Way to stereotype American students. I have worked my way through college working 3 jobs for the last year. Doing everything from stocking shelf's to writing SQL code for a non profit to deploying servers. I have no desire to party in fact I hate. So I love the reverse racism just because I'm American.


We do need more STEM student and we also need the lackeys to run the infrastructure. We can have the best coders in the world but if the infrastructure isn't there it won't do any good. Its a giant problem in this country right now. Everyone wants to skip the building steps and go right to the money but it doesn't work that way. We need all tiers of people in this country.
 
RANT

I started out as CS when I went to college.. then switched to Software Engineering when I transferred.

You have no idea how hard it is to try and find a Government CS job.. or a big company CS job. they all want 5-10 years experience in a very specific field. And they wonder why they can't find anybody to hire.

And a lot of code from the people they already have is total CRAP.. I have seen it firsthand.

Same for a large majority of "open source" stuff I find online.... TOTAL CRAP. Just glancing at some of it for 5-10 minutes I usually can find massive amounts of code that is highly inneficient.

And to top it off... most of the code is either poorly documented or not documented at all.

/RANT
 
h3llphyre said:
I'm going to be one more person that says IT *IS NOT* CS.
Then why does every IT job listed on usajobs.gov, dice.com, etc require a BS in CS?

Its something I have never understood in the last 6 years I have been looking at different jobs. Why do I need a degree that focuses on Mathematics and Programming to be a IT Security Architect, Network Administrator, or a Systems Manager. The whole field needs to be properly redefined.

I have seen the confusion first hand, my friend got his BS in CS. When he first started there were over 80 people enrolled in the same degree program. After the first year the University started offering Computer Engineering and a MIS degree. Out of 80 People he was 1 of 4 the didn't switch.

A lot of people enrolling CS degree programs do so because they see the demand and requirements for it posted on every job description in US related to the IT field.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Start paying them more. Quite simple, really. If I had wanted to make money, I would have gone into finance, or politics, or sports. I have a computer science career that pays above average for starting in the field and it still can't touch the other 3 fields previously mentioned.
 
I have a CS degree and I am also an IT "lackey" of sorts and I totally agree with the statement IT != CS. Computer science is about developing software programs/protocols/etc while IT is about simply implementing them. DARPA is saying they need more people coming along to create the next gen of those things.
 
Torgo434 said:
Stop new H1B visas..
Click to expand...

A few of you have said something to this effect. I totally disagree.

We need the ability to bring the best and brightest from around the world here.

This idea, of course, is based in a fantasy. The fantasy that there are true meritocracies in the world.
 
Great topic... I'm enjoying reading the various comments and opinions here. Bottom line though, is that if we (as a country) don't invest more in educating american kids and giving them apprenticeships to transition from school to the workforce...."then we're doomed". We keep importing everything including skilled but cheaper labor, because it appears upfront to save a little money. The damage on the flip side, is irreversible. Most imported high tech workers are not here out of a sense of loyalty. They're here because it affords them a better living than their country of origin. While you can't fault them for wanting a better life...it's simply rediculous to keep asking american parents to continuously pay more and more taxes, in addition to the huge sums of their income for colleges, when their children keep getting locked out of the high tech sector...(through lack of job experience compared to the imported workers). The situation will only get worst as time goes on...not better. Isn't that what the taxation is for in the first place? To pay for schools and educators to ensure the nation has the brightest going foward? If we don't get this sorted out, and soon...we will become a nation of un-skilled, low paid assemblers.
 
Decibel said:
A few of you have said something to this effect. I totally disagree.

We need the ability to bring the best and brightest from around the world here.

This idea, of course, is based in a fantasy. The fantasy that there are true meritocracies in the world.
Click to expand...

For National Security issues, we wont be using H1B visa people...they need to be American citizens. (Yes I know we have used foreigners in past, but we don't like to and the risks are huge.)
 
DeChache said:
Way to stereotype American students. I have worked my way through college working 3 jobs for the last year. Doing everything from stocking shelf's to writing SQL code for a non profit to deploying servers. I have no desire to party in fact I hate. So I love the reverse racism just because I'm American.


We do need more STEM student and we also need the lackeys to run the infrastructure. We can have the best coders in the world but if the infrastructure isn't there it won't do any good. Its a giant problem in this country right now. Everyone wants to skip the building steps and go right to the money but it doesn't work that way. We need all tiers of people in this country.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to say but stereotypes or not, what he is saying is statistically accurate.

Both you and me may find partying to not be entertaining at all, but that doesn't stop 99% of kids from disagreeing with us.

And we face the consequences of their choices as a result.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top