Economics Beating Out Computer Science
Brian Doherty | September 14, 2007, 10:15am
Nick Schulz at the American notes an educational trend of some interest, and possibly some alarm, especially with international movements in smart people restricted as they are today:
The number of new computer science majors today has fallen by half since 2000, according to the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Merrilea Mayo, director of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable at the National Academies, says the drop-off was particularly pronounced among women. Meanwhile, elite schools are reporting that the number of economics majors is exploding. For the 2003–2004 academic year, the number of economics degrees granted by U.S. colleges and universities increased 40 percent from five years previously.
Link via Marginal Revolution
Sam | September 14, 2007, 2:57pm | #
MikeP.
I work in a technical field and am apparently competent enough to still have a job.
American students can all major in Chemical Engineering. You seem to think that will solve the problem of low CS enrollment.
You assume that third world labor will be satisfied performing our entry level jobs and is incapable of performing higher value tasks. Wrong again. They are doing those jobs now and will do more in the future. Believe it or not, they can even become "Chemical Engineers".
Your right, it never occured to me that "the more software that gets developed, the more software there is to develop?" Why? And assuming that is a true statement, why would more software being developed in India/China mean more software being developed in US rather than more software being developed in India/China?
Don't worry about the low numbers of H1B visas. Corporate America wants more and they always get what they want. The limits will be raised right after the 2008 elections no matter which party wins.
I love programming and hopefully I can last 10 more years or so until I hit retirement age.
If you think outsourcing and H1Bs are good for America, that's fine, but you can't then complain and worry about low enrollments in those fields by Americans. It shoudn't matter anyway as long as there is a continuous supply from somewhere right?
Like many people who work for large corporationgs, I steered my own children toward more secure (more difficult to offshore) professions and wouldn't hesitate to advise any college student to do the same.
I don't know why MikeP and Mike Laursen are even participating in this. It's realy a non-issue and everything is fine, right?
Sam | September 14, 2007, 4:32pm | #
"there is a growing popular perception that technical jobs are in decline."
As someone who works in the industry, I can say without reservation that it is not just perception. The demand is down and the salaries are down. The H1Bs that I work with are not "high value", they are DBAs and .net programmers. I don't believe there is a shortage of these in the U.S. If you take the time to research it, you will find that the vast majority of H1Bs are reserved by Indian companies to facilitate outsourcing. They need onshore staff to drive the offshore staff. A very small number of the yearly allocated H1Bs are used by the Microsofts, Googles, and Oracles of the world.
"Parents are worried that their technically proficient children should find something else to major in because they hear that tech jobs will not be there when their kids graduate college. While this perception is founded in economic illiteracy and media hype, it is awfully hard to shake. And it therefore should be challenged whenever and wherever it appears."
You haven't convinced me, and I doubt if you convinced anyone else. I will continue to shout it from the rooftops. To keep quiet would be socially irresponsible. It's not just, "will the jobs be there when I graduate", It's will the jobs be there 10 or 20 years from now. It's hard to gamble with my children't future based on your flimsy arguments. Gamble with your own chidren if you want to (do you have any or are you only willing to gamble with other people's children?)
"Brute force coding where all that is required is one-time generation of code for purposes that can be easily spec'ed out is easy to send overseas."
It's been my experience that it takes more effort to create the specs and oversee this type of project than it does to just go ahead and write the code yourself.
And make up your mind anyway. Either these are brilliant computer scientists and we should import as many as we can or they are low level code monkeys that can only do "brute force" programming if we write detailed specs and tell them exactly what to do.
"Design, analysis, localization, technical implementation, administration, and anything else that can't be condensed to a simple spec will remain in the US"
No it won't and you are incredibly arrogant to think only we can do this. Somehow Indians are too stupid to do this stuff? They are doing it now and will move up the value chain to do more and more of it.
"The US also does have higher worker productivity due to a stronger education system and better supporting trades."
Doesn't matter if you can get 3 for for the price of one (I've actually been told that by a manager who told me that programmers are "just commodities now".
"Also, the labor pool abroad for programmers is much shallower than unskilled labor. A society that has the education infrastructure in place to create large number of programmers will be catching up in skilled labor wages overall from productivity gains. The workers in a mature software industry in India or China will probably be making just as much as comparable roles in the US do now once the industries mature."
When? 10 years, 50 years, 100 years? Again, I won't gamble my children's future just because you say that those workers will "probably" be making just as much "someday."
Don't trap yourself by using he usual lies to justify this stuff:
I'm not trying to stop any of this because I think it is too late to stop it. After the elections, the politicians will raise the limits to at least 200,000 while at the same time giving lip service to "training for Americans affectd by outsourcing" This will further depress the job market for IT workers and discourage even more kids from tech careers. There is just no compelling reason to choose CS as a major if there are more stable alternatives.
And Training for what? Truck Driving School? Barber College? It is ludicrous to think that if I lose my job to globalization, all I need is 6 weeks at a community college to prepare me for one of the "new" higher value jobs that outsourcing is going to create. Name one.
The computer revolution that has just really started is comparable to the industrial revolution. The jobs we are shipping offshore ARE the jobs of the future.
I'm sure everything will be ok in the long run. Someday, wages will be equalized around the world and where work is peformed will really be based on comparitive advantage, not just cheaper costs, or less regulation, or more lax environmental and labor laws.
Of course, the U.S. won't be number one at anything anymore, but does it really matter?
Sam | September 14, 2007, 6:44pm | #
Wow, this is really bothering you guys isn't it?
"The same Indian-born software engineer working for a US company is much more productive, while of course costing much more, in the US than in India."
Dumbest thing I ever heard. Exactly how much more productive is an Indian programmer working in the U.S. than the same Indian programmer working in India? If he does the same amount of work for half the cost, then he is twice as productive when he is in india. He can do half as much work when he is in India and he is still just as productive as he would be in the U.S. Productivity is the amount of work produced for each dollar spent. If they were more productive here than they are in India, they would be here and there would not be any offshore outsourcers. American corporations outsource to lower their costs and therefore increase productivity.
When we are truly globalized, it won't matter where developers are will it? We won't be talking about the "U.S. software industry". It will be the global software industry and the best and the brightest will jump at the chance to be a part of it because it won't matter how much housing or health care costs in your particular country. (It also won't matter if the Fed adjusts interest rates up or down a fraction of a percentage because we can't control a global economy).
Programmers in the U.S. are on much more level footing with Europe. They have to compete based on quality work. They don't win automatically because they cost half as much unless you're talking about Romania or something.
I have no problem competing with programmers in California or any other state. They don't automaticaly get the job because they are cheaper.
I don't have to lower my standard of living to compete with programmers in western Europe or California.
"In order to provide a good product, you need a high degree of interaction with the client."
You took the words right out of my mouth Matt. Any good developer will tell you exactly the same thing, but not all management types agree and there are enough of those sending everything offshore that it causes the current "crises" in CS enrollment.
I don't know if all this is really bad or really good and don't care. I don't really know how all this is going to work out and neither do you (although you both seem awfully sure of yourselves). Outsource it all. Eliminate all the limits on H1B visas. Bring in millions of programmers from India, China, Eastern Europe, the Phillipines or wherever. You might as well because I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle anyway.
The issue here (and the whole point of the article) is, will you encourage your children to gamble with their future and major in Computer Science as opposed to finance or medicine or law or marketing or any other field that is more likely to require a presence in the U.S. and a U.S. level of compensation.
I have been asked about this issue by other parents snd students and I tell them the same thing I'm telling you. You can sacrifice your children at the alter of globalism, but I won't and I won't try to talk anyone else into it either. (Just curious, are your kids CS majors or planning to be? )
Obviously, my point of view is winning because all the smart kids are majoring in Finance (they are smart after all).
Sam | September 17, 2007, 10:49am | #
MikeP
"Some software plainly cannot be outsourced because the communication of requirements dominates the actual development"
B.S. It all can be outsourced and it all is being outsourced.
Every single job that a computer science degree qualifies you for - and I mean every single one can and is being outsourced by American companies to cheaper labor (communication of requirements issues be damned). Programmer, Architect, Admin, game programming, you name it. It is being outsourced as we speak. You cling to this stupid belief that some programming can only be done here. You're nuts and lots of American CIOs will tell you so.
"That is one definition (of productivity). It is clearly not the definition I was using, as evidenced by my mentioning how much more the greater productivity cost in the US.
It's the only definition that matters to short term, bottom line obsessed American management.
The fundamental problem with your point of view is that is mistakenly assumes that some work just can't be outsourced. You are dead wrong, and American companies and the foreign companies they send the work to are proving it everyday.
"What do you say when they hand you that Money magazine article?"
I say, "Advise your kid to be a college professor or a financial adviser. They are ranked 2 and 3 and aren't being oursourced."
"I have no problem competing with programmers in California or any other state. They don't automaticaly get the job because they are cheaper.
Nor do programmers in India or anywhere else."
Yes they do.
I suspect that neither of you are actually heads down programmers. Your arguments sound to much like the canned propoganda of the ITTA, the American Chamber of Commerce and other corporate mouthpieces, i.e you say there is a shortage (there's not), that it's a breakdown in the American educational system (it's not). Why are all the H1Bs going to foreign companies, instead of American companies? Like the ITTA, you don't want to talk about that. How many H1Bs did American hi-tech companies actually apply for? How many did they get. Where did the rest of the 65,000 go? The truth is inconvenient, isn't it?
