this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Surprised to not see computer tech majors on here. I have a degree in IT and have to compete with people more experienced than me for jobs that pay a dollar or two an hour more than retail jobs. I'm going for a degree in computer engineering now but I'm starting to doubt if this is a good path.
IMO, it's a lack of diversity in the computer science field as a major.
Everyone I know who has gone to university for a computer related program has been taking development/programming.
Certainly programming is important in computer science, but there's substantially more disciplines in computer science than development. Any courses in computer science that are not development are few and far between. With the volume of CS programs being so small, can you really be surprised that it didn't make the list?
As related as they are, though, CS and IT are still separate disciplines so idk, as much as some CS people are struggling to find work too, I feel like CS people specializing in development isn't super relevant to the struggles of an IT person looking for IT work since only a minority of IT grads go on to become developers.
Although one way that CS grads can have an effect on IT people's employment chances I think—anecdotally, in a way that applies to my local area at least—is that fresh CS grads are preferred over fresh IT grads for IT roles, and often better paying ones. But more experience and/or having the right certifications can give anyone an edge on either side. The catch is there's usually far less people graduating with a CS degree than an IT diploma, and only a fraction of them are interested in an IT track career.
Where I'm from IT is usually a 2 year diploma at the local college, or at most an associate's degree and there wouldn't really be a path to further that academically by doing, like, a master's degree or whatever which limits the options of IT grads but also makes them less desirable I guess as the education isn't as rigorous. According to Google, other parts of the country offer a full on IT bachelor's but at that point I'd be asking why someone used that 4 years on a vocational degree that's pretty limiting instead of an academic or engineering degree. Anyone with a technical skillset can learn IT on the job, but a proper CS, CE, or SWE curriculum is difficult.
To be clear, I don't disagree with what you said it just felt disconnected from the context of IT employment.
I understand. And you're right, there are far fewer IT programs than CS programs. Especially for any form of degree. It's actually been a frustration of mine to see so many IT related job postings with a heavy preference towards anyone holding a degree. There's so few degrees level programs for IT that the only way to satisfy that requirement is to get a degree in CS, most of the time. CS isn't IT.
The sad truth of it is that most people can't differentiate between an IT specialist or someone in CS or development. Nevermind anything more specific than that, like an SQL/net/sys admin. I'm sure there's just as many of the same or similar roles that people lump together into "tech person" on the CS/dev side, but I don't know them nearly as well, since I'm firmly on the IT support side of things.
The point is that the entire field, for pretty much anyone who isn't in it, or anyone who works directly with IT teams, is just one conglomerate of every "tech" person out there, as if any of my skills are transferable to development, or any developers skills are transferable to systems administration. So since there's computer technology degrees, people with them must have more skills and somehow be better to hire than someone who doesn't have such a degree.... Which could not be further from the truth. People with more recent, real-world experience in IT, generally are better suited for jobs in IT than anyone fresh out of uni holding their bachelor's in something, looking for an IT support role.
Which also brings me to industry certifications. I don't love certifications because bluntly, most of them are certifying that you can use the certified device/system/software when it is working normally. I almost never encounter a ticket where someone is having a problem with a thing that's working as it should. I have yet to encounter any certification that says that thing A can break in X, Y, and, Z ways, here's how you fix each.... Because if the vendor knows about the problems for long enough that it ends up in training materials, they probably should have solved the problem already.
On top of that, most industry certifications are valid for 2, maybe 3 years at most, and even if they didn't expire, and even though most of the skills are transferable to any updated version of the same thing, generally the certification on that thing becomes irrelevant to have after a few years because the vendor releases a new thing. You were certified in VMware 7.5? Ha, get fucked, everyone is using VMware 8 now. Sucks to be you. Go do the cert all over again. Nothing of consequence changed, but you get to do it anyways. Sucker.
Because of this, even if you do industry certifications, you have to recertify every few years regardless just so you can put thing (version++) on your resume. It's stupid.
I hold my vcp5 and vcp6 because they don't expire anymore (VMware), and neither is useful because both VMware 5, and 6 are EOL. But I got those certs working for VMware as part of GSS. I know how things work very in-depth. The kind of knowledge that you can't get from a certification. How to read logs to determine specific problems, how to troubleshoot and solve those problems, how the inner workings of the program actually do what they do. I can't exactly express that on my resume beyond stating that I have an in-depth understanding of VMware and it's infrastructure subsystems, which, I don't know a hiring manager that will understand what that actually means, but they'll see VMware 5/6 and be like, we're using 8... And go hire a vcp8 instead though they have no deeper understanding of the product than what VMware discloses in their training; so when shit hits the fan, that vcp8 has no earthly idea where to even begin diagnosing the problem.
I don't have the time to keep up on VMware certifications because I work with too many different technologies; I can't dedicate months of my time to learning what VMware wants me to know about their product to recertify.
The problem isn't just VMware. It's everyone. I have my Cisco certification (CCNA) which is now expired, but Cisco hasn't really made any changes that would require me to. In the mean time I've worked on countless Cisco routers and switches (among others) where my knowledge has been critical. On top of that, I've transposed those skills onto Juniper, watchguard, sonicwall, mikrotik, HP/Aruba.... Many many others. Yet, my sonicwall certification is also expired by many years at this point, I have no certification in juniper, mikrotik, Aruba, or any others. So while I may know how to administrate those systems, without dedicating my life to continually obtaining and recertifing with them all the damned time, I'm not taken seriously. What a fucking joke.
Then some green beard with a CS degree walks in and my application is filed in the round bin with all the other rejects.
The stupid thing is, I have a 2-year diploma in computers/networking. I want a degree in IT, and I can't get one, because even though degree programs for IT now exist, they're only offered as in person, classroom courses, and at 40, with a mortgage, I can't afford to take 4 years off of work to do the degree, just to be taken seriously. I want to take it part time/remote, and I could care less if it takes me 8 years to complete. But I can't, because the option doesn't exist. Most universities won't even discuss making a plan with me because I'm not enrolled. I can't enroll because there's no course I could reasonably take without quitting my job to go to school full time. It's infuriating.
All I really want is to sit down with someone from a college or uni that offers a degree in IT, and talk about how I could possibly accomplish it doing the majority of the work remotely. I can't even get that. If I could get a quantum of help from these clowns, I could do it. I'm not lazy, I just don't have any idea where to even start with getting the degree. Sigh.
Sorry for the rant, but the whole thing boils my blood. I've worked so hard and I'm stuck at mediocre pay for jobs that I don't want to specialize in. I'm doing largely IT generalist work and I'm most interested in all avenues of networking. But I'm stuck here because nobody gives the generalist a chance to prove themselves as the network admin; meanwhile I've been the most skilled network person at several jobs; and when the NOC guys come to me for answers, I have to question my sanity.
IMO it comes down to CS being more theory-focused while IT is more practical application-focused. Practical application knowledge becomes dated very quickly in the tech field while the theories largely stay the same. New ones come along, but algorithms are still constructed largely the same, big O notation can still give a good idea at how an algorithm will scale (though IMO more attention should be paid to the constants because a 10n^2 algorithm will run much slower than a 2n^2 algorithm, even though big O notation treats them both as n^2), compilers, OSes, and CPUs still do essentially the same things.
My CS courses largely left it as individual study to learn languages or ways to use those theories for assignments. People who earned that degree had to learn to learn to get there.
My IT certification was a couple of mostly multiple choice tests that largely just involved regurgitating things we were told.
In my experience the places paying barely more than retail wages are not hiring people with extensive resumes but mostly hiring people straight out of college. Places paying ~$20+ are where you're probably competing with more experienced folks
Make sure you're on LinkedIn, and also don't discount uploading your resume to Indeed and marking yourself as looking for work on both. For as long as I've been working in the industry I've had recruiters contacting me on both platforms with various opportunities for contracts and employment.
Also work with your college/university and your instructors to be referred for openings. Often employers will reach out to colleges with IT programs when there's openings in IT
Yeah IT specifically is pretty rough. Part of the challenge is that for pretty much every company it's considered a cost center that they want to do everything in their power to minimize, rather than an important part of their business (obviously some exceptions apply, e.g, the company provides IT services to other companies as a service offering).
Assuming you want to go into software/hardware development of some kind, computer engineering should be a solid bet, I wouldn't worry.
It's either not considered a major or it's a part of the Liberal Arts degree path, like most math and science courses before specialization often are. Sometimes degrees for specific professions and technical training require a major, but they themselves are not majors in the USA.
A big part of this is lack of centralization. The federal government requires schools to have federally accredited coursework for tax purposes, and the accrediting process is done by several non-public entities, beyond that they can technically structure their courses, credits, and degree paths however they like.
For example, Physics and Aerospace Engineering require Liberal Arts majors like math and science as prerequisites, and the same is true for Commercial Art and Graphic Design's relationship to Fine Arts majors.
I am having a hard time believing someone would group Computer Science & Computer Engineering with Liberal Art.
It's also possible these computer tech majors are not as badly unemployed as the other ones. I noticed that while the chart includes the underemployment rate, it doesn't sort by it.
It sorts by unemployment on the left side of the line, it's just that the underemployment on the right is a much larger graph.
Yeah, well, what I'm trying to say is that the tech majors might have huge underemployment, but don't make the cut to this chart due to not that many who are completely unemployed.
I just explained to you that the chart is sorted by complete unemployment on the left side.
At my university you could major in Computer Science wither through the Institute of Technology or College of Liberal Arts. Slightly different requirements and you got a BA through CLA instead of BS.