Plan on going to college and majoring in computers, got a couple of questions???

[sublime1sw]

Well, i really love computers. And my sister who is a computer Engeneer says i know more about computers than her ( im sure thats not true). She gave me advice. She told me that i should enroll in Vt in computer Hardware and usally IBM pretty much drafts (if thats the word) kids out of that school, and usally u get a starting sallery of 50,000 a year. I was interested in what other majors are there. And some good colleges

Thanks

 

[Justin]

You'll be hard pressed to find any job for $50,000/year starting, especially in the tech industry, unless you have at least 6 years of college behind you. Even an entry-level programming job isn't going to be pulling that much. Bet on more like $25k/year.

Also remember, punctuation, grammar and spelling are important.

 

[Mikael]

The job market in the IT industry is a tricky one. I will first start off by mentioning that you have to do your own personal research and see what you come up with. I will now list some ideas and advice that should hopefully help you.

Think about where you want to work once you graduate college. Job location is a very important factor with the computer industry. I live in the Bay Area, and there are obviously quite a few computer-related jobs in the area. Then again, other major cities are having job droughts where qualified IT people can't get a decent job.

It is isn't impossible to get a new job where starting salary is $50K a year, but certainly don't expect it to be the norm. I would simply recommend either speaking with some more students or e-mail a few technology companies and ask what exactly they are looking for.

It also depends where you will be attending school. It is best for you to research the different programs at different universities. I have a lot of friends and associates who enroll at one university and realize that the engineering program there isn't what they expected it to be.

If you are thinking about computer programming, hopefully you are good with math? You'll probably be looking at not only calculus but courses such as diff equations. Hopefully you'll be ready to take a few physics courses during university, as well. Be prepared to obviously take quite a few different programming classes. While we are talking about some of the classes that you may have to take, let me mention that you will be able to look forward to many ECE courses.


Good luck!

 

[SNGX1275]

I sort of disagree with Soul on this, but I'm not in the industry so to speak (not computer industry that is). I went to a really good university for undergrads, and it was really common for someone to come out with a BS in engineering and make over 50k/year. But UMR is one of the best Undergrad Engineering schools in the US.
So I think it really depends on what your degree is. Computer Engineering is different from Computer Science. I think that difference is a big factor in the pay and job avaiability. A Computer Engineering degree is a bit harder to come by.

 

[Justin]

I sort of disagree with Soul on this, but I'm not in the industry so to speak (not computer industry that is). I went to a really good university for undergrads, and it was really common for someone to come out with a BS in engineering and make over 50k/year. But UMR is one of the best Undergrad Engineering schools in the US.
So I think it really depends on what your degree is. Computer Engineering is different from Computer Science. I think that difference is a big factor in the pay and job avaiability. A Computer Engineering degree is a bit harder to come by.

You are very correct, an engineering degree is going to command a much higher salary than BS in Computer Science. However, the reason I think the way I do and the reason you think the way you do is also probably related a lot to locale.

Out here in the west, especially the far west of Washington, Oregon, and Southern California, people with a CS degree or CIT degree are a dime a dozen. There's too many of them and the difficulty isn't finding a job that pays well, it's finding a job at all. You live in Missouri, right? I don't know how the tech job market is out there, but here it is very aggressive - There are far more technicians than there are jobs.

Although, most of them are incompetent hacks.

 

[Tedster]

The biggest problem I've seen in the IT industry is rapid turnover and no job security whatsoever. All of my friends who went into IT command average to high salaries but they can never seem to keep employment for more than 18 months. Even though all of them are highly educated with one or more degrees, their education has not gotten them peace of mind.

I took another route and joined the military where I have had a decent salary with excellent benefits for 15 years. So there's a big trade off from what I've observed. I really wouldn't recommend any young person to get into IT if they value steady employment. Trying to look for a job every six months or so is a royal nightmare and very stressful.

I know- I had many jobs before I entered the military.

 

[sublime1sw]

Well, I dont belive im going to go into computer Engerneer. I really building computers. My sister said where she works in DC. They have some IBM contractors come in and mess around with the server like every week are so. I think she called that field computer Hardware not sure. But if thats what im intersted in. Thats definetly what i want to get into