I haven't even finished my BMath (Honours CS) and I'm employed as a coop with a local company. The jobs have always been plentiful in the co-op program here (UWaterloo). The job is good, as is the pay; even without any previous work experience I started above twice the minimum wage.

That said, the computing industry seems prone to forming bubbles around certain technologies. In particular, you find that a lot of excitement and hype builds up around some new technology or idea and a LOT of money gets invested. Eventually, the technology turns out to be uninteresting, unusable, or not profitable. Depending on how cynical and manipulative you are, you can ride these bubbles to gather quite a bit of money - it's the investors and the rank-and-file employees who lose out.

The best way to get ahead at first is to be a team player. Learn how to work in a team and communicate with your team members / supervisor. Technical expertise gets the job done, but communication skills let you figure out what job needs to be done - both are vital, and while most people in the field have a fair bit of the former, the latter can be much less common.

Getting jobs related to CS is relay more about your experience and networking with people in the industry more then what school you went too.

I have always been of the opinion that you should try to do what you like and want to do and not what is in demand at a given time. The job market is always changing and you can't easily prodict how it will change so picking a degree that has alot of openings now may not pay off in 4 or 6 years.

If you like the humanities i would say stay in the humanities and try to find a way to make money from it. For example almost any university degree can get you a teaching job at a high school or elementry school if you take a year to get a batchlers in education (there is a big demand for teachers in the UK right now and some other countries).

However if you are genualy intrested in Computer Science then i say sign up for the program at your favorit university, just don't do it soely becues you think there will be a big demand for it.

Getting jobs related to CS is relay more about your experience and networking with people in the industry more then what school you went too.

I have always been of the opinion that you should try to do what you like and want to do and not what is in demand at a given time. The job market is always changing and you can't easily prodict how it will change so picking a degree that has alot of openings now may not pay off in 4 or 6 years.

If you like the humanities i would say stay in the humanities and try to find a way to make money from it. For example almost any university degree can get you a teaching job at a high school or elementry school if you take a year to get a batchlers in education (there is a big demand for teachers in the UK right now and some other countries).

However if you are genualy intrested in Computer Science then i say sign up for the program at your favorit university, just don't do it soely becues you think there will be a big demand for it.

There is a bonus to these rumours; If more people don't go into compsci because they think there's no jobs, there will be more demand for you!

I have to agree here with Dan as well, if you are not genuinely passionate about computers then it will be very difficult for you to succeed.

No, there is no demand for humanities teachers anywhere. Not, in Canada, not in the UK. In Ontario they don't even accept students for bachelor of education programs anymore because of the huge oversupply of teachers. Believe me I thought of all of the opportunities available.

The only thing one can do with a humanities degree is to go study something else, using your good marks as a ticket to get into a competitive program. Everyone does it, unless they don't ever need a well paying job. The smartest ones realise they've made a mistake earlier, the dummest (like me) linger around until the fourth year of their PhD program.

And, by the way, who said I even enjoyed humanities? Most people study "ologies" because they were too lazy during highschool and whatever they've selected to study isn't good for anything else, not because they want to work at a retail store with a bachelor of philosophy in their pockets. I made a mistake I am trying currect - what's wrong with that?

Define "genuinely passionate".

My gf is a English and education magor and this does not seem to be the case for her. She is graduating at the end of the year and has allready got an offer from the UK (tho it is unlikey she would go there) and alot of schools she talked to are hiring. Her teachables are in English and stoical sincences (bascily humanities).

I think it is to bad you droped it right at the end of your PhD (or did you get it?). With a PhD you could at least try to get a teaching position at a university.

That you get excited about making a new algorithm, solving a programming problem, trying to make an algorthim have a lower time complexity or looking over some new code/algortim some one has come up with. That you genualy want to get up and code somthing or do somthing realted to your field weather it is part of your job or not. That you program, think up algorthams and solve comptuer scinece ralted problems just for the fun of it.

Well, maybe things have changed for the UK or other places. However, I have absolutely no desire to leave Toronto. I am a family girl, have a house, my husband has his own career and my daughter attends a wonderful local daycare.
I don't want to sound pessimistic for your girlfriend - but wait till she actually gets hired full time, not as a supply teacher, and with benefits.

Ok, now I am confused. I was a humanities person throughout my entire adult life and have recently decided to quit my "PhD of unemployment" and invest into a computer related education. I am in my early thirties and absolutely cannot afford a mistake this time around. This is, so to speak, my second chance to get a profession that is in demand, for a change.
So, I have applied to several universities, have finished my highschool math courses and waiting for my offers.
Now, at least 5 people have recently informed me (two of them work as programmers) that I will be underemployed or unemployed if I choose Comp.Sci. major. At the same time, browsing through the web I see multiple indications that computing professions are indeed very much in demand and that computer industry keeps growing. Who should I believe? I am not going to a different field anyway, because I start enjoying programming immensely, and it suits my personality. SO, I need some reassurance, I guess.

Thanks for the quick reply. Do you think UofT freshman will enjoy the same amount of attemtion from employers as a Waterloo one?

Besides, an academic career almost always entails living for short periods of time in different places all over the world, getting paid really low wages. It might sound exciting when you are 22, but later on this kind of lifestyle is less and less appealing. Conclusion - people work their butts off on writing an original master-peice of a thesis, spend years working as contract faculty, getting paid less then Tim Hortons coffee makers, and end up in the rear end of a very long line for a stable job for longer than one year.

Hopefuly, I will enjoy it too. But, you know, I think it is a bit different for boys and girls. I know at least two women who are IT professionals, and are nothing like you described. I mean, they do like their jobs, but I never knew them as "computer geeks". Even at highschool they were never noticed spending hours coding in C or going to programming contests and stuff. They simply did well in their math classes, graduated and naturally went on to study math related subjects.

I think that people are just negative in general. Some people will always find something to complain about. A lot of people don't know about the tech field and make comments based on hearsay. You should ask the two programmers who advised you against doing comp sci why are they saying that. Since you mentioned they are "programmers" so presumably they have a decent jobs so what is their basis of saying you'd be unemployed? They could be one of those people who decided to study computers during the tech boom of the 90's hoping to become filthy rich but they are not making $200k/year they expected, don't enjoy their job and are just bitter. Ontario universities post their employment statistics on their websites, since you are apparently going to UofT their statistics for 2005 graduates are http://www.utoronto.ca/about-uoft/measuring-our-performance/cudo/cudo_2008/other.htm. Computer Science employment statistics were

code:

Year       2 years      6 months 2005       100%         100% 2004       97.0%        77.1% 2003       91.0%        71.8%

Now, I don't put a lot of faith in these numbers as it probably includes grads who are working outside the cs field and universities skew their data to make themselves look good but it does give a more realistic idea about job prospects then anecdotes.

This does not seem to line up with the reality of what i have seen with most academics in teaching and reasearch posistions, however there could be a diffrence betwene the sciences and humanites that i don't know about.

It's not a diffrence between male/female or computer geek or not. It is the diffrence between thos that are doing work for the sake of work/money and thoes how have a life long commitment to learning and studying there field of choice.

Many people make little money, but are perfectly happy because they love their jobs. People who make lots of money but hate their jobs are not happy usually, and many will suffer depression. I personally love compsci, and know it will bring home the moniz, but even if it doesn't, I'll stick with it because I love it so much.

It is a bit different between sciences and humanities, but in general the career path is the same. Here are some figures:
You work through your PhD, teaching part-time and receiving a scholarship (if you are in the funded cohort) - about 5-7k for teaching, 12-13k fellowship. You pay 7k tuition, so you have about 12k to live on. For 5 years you recieve the fellowship, then they stop paying you. No one suceeds to finish their PhD in five years, so you keep doing it from your teaching money. Meaning, you don't get anything, because you still have to pay tuition. But wait, after five years they stop providing you with teaching contracts, because your guaranteed funding ends. And as soon as it happens, you suddenly discover that you are not getting hired, because apparently they only hired you so far so because this was part of the deal. As it is, without being obliged to hire you no one does. But, let's say you finished your thesis. There are more 150 candidates for each academic job posted anywhere in the world. How big are my chances to get hired, Dan? Will it not be that much better, if I decide to do something (anything) else with my life?

You sound very young, forgive my rudeness. But I will have to tell you that Santa Clause does not exist, because in the real world people feel very lucky if they can simply tolerate their jobs.

As to the material side - Would you do CS, if you were promissed to spend 4-5 years in a job search and then get paid 30-40k without any job security?

That sounds more like getting a job and empolyment well doing your PhD then after you have it. Most universities make it rather clear, or at least the ones i have applied to for masters that a graduate assitence ship is part of the deal and only ment to be funding your stuidies during your masters or PhD (witch most schools make prity clear is ment to be 2 or 3 years at most).

I don't know what degree you have in the humanies so it is hard to comment on how hard it would be to get a job wiht it but i do know once you do get a profsorship the pay is not that horiable and the travel is not nessarly that bad (at least for the scineciens). It's not that uncomen to have profesors with 100k a year sailories at least and only travel for confernces and meetings. Tho i do admit if you are limited to the toronto area it would be dificult to find a position.

If you are intrested in and enjoy programming and computer science topics then by all means go for it and i encorage you to do so but if it is only about the job then you are betting 4 years of your time and tution money (5 years if co-op) that the job market will be just as good for programers that it is now.

To the original point of this thread, "People tell me Comp.Sci. is a path to unemployment"

One of the cool, and scary, things about CS is that it's always changing, even the job market. In 2001 there were loads of people going into CS because it was "easy money" then we saw a dot-com meltdown and the perception became "there are no more jobs in CS" or "all the jobs have gone to India and China." The cold-hard facts are that in the period from 2001 to 2008 the university enrollment in CS has decreased 50% over the same period the jobs in IT have increased about 38% If your friends are telling you that there are no jobs in CS they are either working with old information or just not looking hard enough. There's lots of jobs. I have heard companies have a hard time finding "qualified" people to fill positions.

Is it possible to start your own business with a degree in Comp Sci ? Say if I can round up 4 or 5 good programmers, can we start a software company or do we need additional degrees?

As to the material side - Would you do CS, if you were promissed to spend 4-5 years in a job search and then get paid 30-40k without any job security?

You sound very young, forgive my rudeness. But I will have to tell you that Santa Clause does not exist, because in the real world people feel very lucky if they can simply tolerate their jobs.

If you need a contact, I do have the personal email of a Senior VP at Black Box Studios, owned by EA.

hmmm I wonder if he managed to keep his job:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/12/19/ea-blackbox.html?ref=rss

The fear in industry is quite the opposite. There are a number of big players who are concerned that because the current CS enrollment is so low there is going to be a crisis in about 5 years where companies will have a hard time finding good grads and will be forced to offer signing bonuses and other incentives.

"Failure's hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever." - Po Bronson, Author of "What Should I Do With My Life"

a few of those points really click with one of "The way I see it" quotes on Starbucks' cups (which I consume excessively).

Perhaps Humanities PhD was not necessary "successful", and yet even moderate amount of opportunity and some money was enough to suck you in for some time. Props for recognizing that you should be looking for something more interesting.

I don't get it. If you didn't like humanities, why did you continue with the major? And then why did you further go on for masters?

Take a first year computer programming course. If you enjoy it, then continue, otherwise you aren't wasting your time again. That or find something else. There are very suitable and effective aptitude tests, usually used by job seeker crown corporations.

Like I said, Humanities doesn't mean crappy "real world" jobs. You have a lot of knowledge and skills, which if you enjoyed the area, would trade off well in a lot of careers, most of which you'd have to invent yourself. But since you don't enjoy humanities, that changes the game.

Take a first year computer programming course. If you enjoy it, then continue, otherwise you aren't wasting your time again. That or find something else. There are very suitable and effective aptitude tests, usually used by job seeker crown corporations.

in the real world people feel very lucky if they can simply tolerate their jobs.

That's exactly what I am doing.
And by the way, I am primarily worried about jobs and money because I rely in financing my studies on PEY or Co-op placement. If there no jobs I am stuck with half of the degree.

Well, this will encourage you: nearly every company of a decent size has a software division. That means, and I know it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but internal software development. This is for customizing the CMS, internal applications for finance, shipping, HR, etc. No matter what happens to the economy, these companies need developers. No matter what happens, they need people to keep the money flowing.

You're living at home that's huge savings.

UofT is $7,789/year for tuition. Even if you work for around minimum wage in the summer you'd make $5760, that leaves $2029. If you work part time during the term 8 hrs or 1 shift a week you'd make $2304. I don't know if you qualify for student loans or not but if you do then that's an added cushion. And in the end I'm pretty sure UofT is one of those unis which has an educational guarantee and promises to pay the remainder you need to complete your studies. I know this is an oversimplification and does not include books cost/transportation but those things can be cheap if you play your cards right and all of this is not counting any scholarships/bursaries you might be eligible for. Again, this is the absolute worst case scenario, you'd probably find a PEY job, but even in this worst case scenario I don't see a scenario in which you'd have to abandon your degree due to financial problems.

So, is it a good thing then that I have applied to the software engineering stream of CS?

By the way, I remembered another of my reasons for not wanting to continue in Humanities - I am not a native English speaker. On the level where it is required from you to be able to endlessly and with your eyes closed produce oratories on any subject imaginable, it is extremely hard to compete with an army of anglo-saxon "rhetoricians" brought up to be modern Ciceros.

congrats

So where did you get in? Toronto?

Honours Bachelor of Science" is just the name of the degree you'll be getting. For most universities CS falls under this category, unless they want to be different for some reason or another (York gives a CS Bachelor of Arts and Waterloo has both CS Bachelor of Math and Bachelor in Computer Science). I'd take this to be an encouraging thing, meaning rather that you're not doing a general first year or something similar. However, you'd be better off talking to the registrars office or an advisor to make sure.

I have no idea how things work for transfer students, but usually only your first year marks are considered when applying to a program. You have to first fulfill the first year cut offs before being "officially" accepted into your major, specialist, minor, whatever. I don't think it matters how many extra credits you've taken at that point (since you have a bunch of transfer credits), only that you've completed the necessary courses and gotten high enough marks. You can even add a minor or completely different program half way, the main reason to "officially" be in the program is for enrollment in some courses and graduation.

All of this information should be somewhere on U of T's website, if you're curious about specifics and without any mistakes I might have made.