Computer science isn’t the miracle job cure

Andy Vander Velde

Tulane Hullabaloo

Tulane University

Cisco’s doing it. Motorola, Ericsson & all are big name companies who are laying off thousands of qualified technology workers. Motorola closed its only cell phone manufacturing plant in the U.S. in January and laid off 2,500 workers.

Pets.com and other “dot-com” companies have totally disbanded and as a result laid off many more technology workers. Trimming the fat off the technology field. Ending the hype of the Internet boom. Billions of venture capital money thrown into horrible business-plan Internet start-ups in the past year.

The world finally awoke and decided to remove the get-rich-quick schemers. Those of us with a computer science degree are no longer “guaranteed” a job.

Many of us were dreading school during the dot-com boom, as impatient as an expectant father waiting for his wife to give birth. Now we’re thankful that school protected us from the fall-out of the past few months. A year ago, we were riding high and could almost call the shots with any company we wanted. Companies threw us free stuff just to view newly erected buildings on their home turf.

They wanted us.

Now, they still want us, but not in the same capacity. Reuters did not respond after their appearance at the Tulane job fair because they imposed a hiring freeze. Although many companies will hire an applicant if the company extended a job offer before their freeze, the large companies are being very cautious. And you should be, too. Even though they offer you a job, in a few months you might be part of the newly laid off. ‘This might suck,’ you say. However, you must consider an informal poll taken by my father.

My father has talked to many people over the years, and he always asks them this very important question: “Are you doing now what you thought you would do when you graduated college?” Over half of them, he says, say no.

So, even those who are laid off are probably going to switch jobs at a later date, anyway. A programmer might think programming is not fun after a few years of pouring over thousands of lines of scary C-statements. So the programmer moves into firefighting. It’s exciting, and a once-flabby computer dork will get a good workout and use skills different from the programming job.

Many people form the philosophy that they are at a company to acquire new skills and once the skill level is met, they will move on. With the market falling further every day, technology workers might be more inclined to stay with a company and see where it goes rather than leave after the skills are acquired.

But, unless a company can keep the workers happy, an employee has the right to look around and move to where their skills are needed.

Because I am a graduating senior, what’s my situation? After two companies paid for my flight, hotel and expenses to see their operations in Memphis and Chicago (liberal arts majors would love to be flown anywhere), I accepted a position with a corporation in December but was given leeway to look at other offers.

I thought a few offers would come after the huge job fair in February, but I think the cold weather has affected those companies, and they have imposed hiring freezes.

So, I’m left to scour the job Web sites searching for something that’s either related to computing or design, and I have to decide in a hurry. The April deadline imposed by the first company is fast approaching; in fact it’s in a few days. So I have to get myself in gear.

I’ll find a job soon. And if not & hey, there’s always firefighting.

Andy Vander Velde is the outgoing Editor in Chief of the Tulane Hullabaloo. He is a graduating senior majoring in computer science. He can be reached at [email protected].