Sure, we’re all plugged in and online 24/7. But fewer American kids are growing up to be bona fide computer geeks. And that poses a serious security risk for the country, according to the Defense Department.
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.
Darpa’s worried that America’s “ability to compete in the increasingly internationalized stage will be hindered without college graduates with the ability to understand and innovate cutting edge technologies in the decades to come…. Finding the right people with increasingly specialized talent is becoming more difficult and will continue to add risk to a wide range of DoD [Department of Defense] systems that include software development.”
Hey 12 stories in a row Mr. Cherman.
It’s officially CHERMAN UNCENSORED now.
You should just get your own blog instead of riding the coat tails of The Dvorak. Unless Cherman is actually The Dvorak, then it could be called D’chorvak Uncemin….which sounds more like a venerial disease than a blog so maybe don’t use that name.
Either way why not go for a bakers dozen and post one more.
Geeks are smart enough to know not to work in government lest they be driven out of their minds or become mindless drones. It’s especially bad if you are a geek who is used to the private sector before going into government work. *shudder* I like my dynamic private sector, creativity-inducing never-do-the-same-thing-two-days-in-a-row job.
Maybe if the US had a better educational system…
But you can make so much more money being a corrupt politician.
Seriously, the jobs and pay weren’t there.
Sounds like DOD wants to outsource along with everyone else. So where’s the incentive to get into tech anyway? I’ve seen too many techies laid off and RIF’d over the years. It’s not the safe haven it appeared to be a decade ago. You’ll spend a few years building systems and a reputation, then some “project manager” sends everything to India, and hands you the pink “Thanx now get out” slip. Besides, isn’t it the goal of computer research to obsolete whatever technology exists today? Sounds cannibalistic don’t it?
#5 Right on Commodore. I work in high tech, and many of the entry-level tech jobs are going overseas. They don’t want to hire Americans, they want to hire cheap Indians/Chinese/whatever. So kids aren’t going to go into high tech, there’s no jobs!
Let’s see … first we get rid of free education at any state universities, then pay the big money to money manipulators and encourage companies to send technical work offshore to other countries, and bring smart people from other countries here for a year or so to learn the for-now latest technology, then send them back home to use that knowledge to compete with Americans. Ridicule technical work and deify a few dozen sports heroes. Then sit there and scratch your head wondering why there is no technical skill up and coming. Sounds like a plan.
the amazing part of these photos with Mr. Bill Gates is that he is smiling in these mug photos
He sure does not look so joy-free today
The benefits of too much money I guess from what was a computer software monopoly
If you work in front of a computer you can be outsourced.
Salaries and working conditions are in a downward spiral in North America.
Blame the XBox. Kids don’t dink around with computers anymore. They are addicted to the closed architecture consoles that don’t allow for easy tinkering that made yesterdays geeks. The XBox was intended to eliminate the need and now we have a generation that doesn’t know a CPU chip from a RAM chip.
But they can sure put a Predator UAV through its paces.
The only thing that might save them is that their cars are all computer controlled. They have to get into the code and hardware to hotrod their rides.
Of course, it is easier to hack a $1000 computer than a $10,000 Toyota. I expect the dumbing down trend will continue.
I left engineering because the prospects of hiring in the US suck. We get laid off from every job we get.
Make the pay and job security in engineering like it is for Wall Street bankers and notice how the trends change!
It’s that simple.
…and furthermore…
I wouldn’t recommend that a kid entering college today enter’s STEM education. He’ll get shit upon if he does.
Because of the priority given to foreign workers (who are eager to come here, well educated, and highly motivated…but will work for less) the employment prospects for American techie kids are grim.
The problem is a direct result of labor and immigration policies our government has put in place to please the tech companies, allowing them to hire cheap foreign labor rather than have to pay more for American talent.
If you are smart enough to be a geek you know better than to trust the government with anything.
Real stats from local college, that I take interns from (computer programming 3 years).
Last two years has been worse, last semester, out of 30 students only 15 passed, and about six are actually good.
Yet, all 30 were “good” candidates, good grades in Math, etc.
Culprit? Online games World of Warcraft / Halo, etc.
Game junkies. Oh, this is Quebec, Canada.
English-only speaking colleges in N.A., figures are much higher.
Not because the French know two languages, rather the English barrier prevents them from getting too immersed in the alternate reality games.
Met a geek who ran the IT system for a regional FBI IT forensics lab…he had stuff you dream of and a great budget.
#15 – Mark Derail – Not because the French know two languages, rather the English barrier prevents them from getting too immersed in the alternate reality games.
This is pure bullshit. I’m fully bilingual and I have no problem immersing myself with something I like. The problem with the Quebecers is that they’re so fucking uptight in their “French” culture and “uniqueness”.
Maybe the US should stop making it so dam difficult for Canadian geeks to work south of the border
I worked for the DoD for many years as an engineer. They had a real love/hate relationship with us. The DoD would love to outsource every technical position they have to contractors here or overseas. The only problem is that no one in the Pentagon wants to take responsibility when missiles don’t hit their targets. That’s why they hire geeks. Someone to blame when things go wrong.
I think the real draw of foreign techs is that ignorant tech management can treat them however they want. If you include headhunter fees an Indian\Russian engineer can cost at least as much as an American. They can’t switch jobs often and keep the visa, though. That’s an awful lot of leverage.
If you have a job that you could do from home, it can be done from India. There are a multitude of reasons why companies are moving operations offshore but until hiring Americans is cost effective its going to keep happening.
I don’t understand why the DOD is attacking this from the education end. Manufacturing didn’t get shipped overseas due to a lack of qualified machinists. Most people seek education for jobs they think are going pay well and be widely available.
That isn’t to say that our education system isn’t in tip top shape. Too many college programs only teach how to complete tasks and not how to problem solve or think outside of the box.
Globalization is great if you live in India or China where job growth is going gangbusters, but for the rest of us here in the west we’re feeling the heat. And as a libertarian it really pains me to say this but big corporations really are to blame for a lot of the mess. They’re running the show and only care about their bottom line. They should not get a seat at the table in Washington and they should not get VIP access to the welfare line. America should not care about the wants and needs of corporations. America should care about the wants and needs of its citizens.
Oh this pisses me off. The IT industry is laying off like crazy. Salaries are way down. I’m seeing pay scales back to 1989 level. Seriously.
I also see some outsourcing scams that our worthless Congress is allowing. A company outsources their IT department to a company in India. The Indian company then sends their engineers to the US to service their contract, for 6 month stints. They put 8 single Indian programmers into one tiny apartment in the US.
After 6 months, they go home and another batch replaces them.
They don’t even have to bother with H1B visas or anything.
Swear to god, I saw an ad for a highly specialized programming contact for HP. The wanted to pay $45k year, for a 3 month contract with no benefits, in San Mateo (hint… high cost of living). I see ads like that all time.
The “agency” that places these ad don’t want to hire an American do to do job. They want to be able to complain to ICE that they can’t find anyone so they need more H1B’s.
No shit they can’t find anyone with 20 years of experience who can live on $45k or less a year without benefits near San Mateo. Also, since it is only 3 months, there is no job security either.
Now about those DoD staff they need. Since we are at war, you have to have top secret security clearance for most of their work. Oh! You smoked pot once in your life? No clearance for you! Oh, you lived and worked overseas for a while? No clearance for you? Oh? You have a ding on your credit report? No clearance for you.
And they wonder why they can’t find anyone.
My sibling manages mainframes for a huge company. They keep closing down departments and transferring the workload to her dept. Then people quit because of the workload. The company is begging for more H1Bs.
I think there are two things to make tech a sought after career:
1) Respect – treat techies like human beings with decent working conditions, the salary they deserve, and job security
2) Broads – recruit more chicks into hi tech fields even if (expecially if) they aren’t too bright. A happy geek is one who got laid last night. Seriously! How many tech depts are all male or have one or two dumpy old gals?
It would be nice if tuition costs didn’t increase by 10% each semester. Couple that with the still outrageous costs associated with books for higher education and it’s not too hard to see why people are less interested, and have moved to just being technical consumers.
33% increase in the University Of California system. That is why my kids no longer attend school in California. And neither is looking at IT, thank god. One majoring in infomatics-biomed the other is molecular biology.
IT is a thank less job with little recognition.
Depends on the geeks that you want. It’s getting tougher for the infrastructure guys (networks, servers, desktop, etc) – they’re becoming commoditized with companies like Rackspace and Amazon on the market.
Specialized knowledge of particular packages (e.g. SAP or Oracle financials) have dropped some but are still doing OK. It’ll hold as long as the package you know it still being used and upgraded.
Custom software development is still in high demand if your skills are good, can work in several environments (e.g. .NET, Java, Python, and Javascript), and have good practices (test driven development, build skills, etc). You should also understand integration.
Yes, lots of jobs have gone overseas but demand is still very high in certain areas.
That is just a piece of the whole picture. Everything in the world has been dumbed down dramatically in the last 10 or 15 years. Compare the technical, social, political, technological and artistic mindset and production of the 80s with what’s going on now. The world is a much dumber and more decadent place now. I’d venture say that it’s been more pronounced or visible in America, but I’m not really sure of that. It’s probably worldwide.
#22 nailed it. H1Bs are getting all the good paying tech jobs because they work cheaper. That has led to people no longer wanting to work in computers.
ROFL…now it’s all too clear..
In the pic of bill gates above, if you follow the Illuminati/FreeMason numerology and “hide it plain site traditions, -he was a marked man.
add’em up and reduce’em to a single digit. 105 519 = 66 -and the date alone is significant: 12-13-77
these are all “big deal” numbers for the “illuminated ones” on their own..
when you reduce them:
1+2=3
1+3=4
7+7=14 1+4=5
you get 345 3+4+5 = 12 1+2=3
so the interum numbers [reduced] on tag around his neck reads:
66
3
reduce the 66, 6+6=3. so we have 33 (33rd degree mason tag) -reduce the 33, and end up finally with 6, another iluminati favorite.
-the dude had no choice but to become a control freak and stooge for the NWO.. lol
(Letters have numerical equivalents as well, but i’m too lazy to check them out atm. numbers are easy)
fwiw: if you see 3,6,9,11,22,33 in “public” someone is sending a clue in context. 12 is usually a tip for the council of twelve crew.. which could be good or bad, depends on *which* council of twelve you refer too.
Its pretty amusing stuff that the megalomaniacs running *everything* use to communicate and/or taunt with. Once you learn it, it’s easy to spot. -esp in government.
(that Bloomberg, JP Morgan/Foodstamp news article is *littered* with illuminati “tells” -esp the youtube vid.)
As for the DOD/DARPA..they sold us out decades ago. plus, they “erase” you if you become a problem. knowing your in the “collateral damage” pool from the start is um, not incentive. -nuff said.
Geeks? -you cant “make” or educate a Geek. Real Geeks are born Geeks. -it’s a soul thing.
Cant expect .edu or .mil to understand that.
-s
[sarcasm on]
Look what happened to the Spartans when they outsourced their security to the Persians. Oh wait …
[sarcasm off]