College question: computer science really a 'top job'? What else to major in?

I live in northern Utah and I have been motivated to choose computer science as my major %26amp; top sites nominate it for the most rewarding career if one obtains a bachelor's degree. As I have searched Yahoo Answers, I've noticed that this is not the case at all. Indians and Chinese folks will take the jobs for less than minimum wage? CS majors end up unemployed?





What majors would you suggest where I don't have to compete with other graduates for jobs in? I want a good starting salary(@ least 45K), and I'm willing to get a Bachelor's degree.





I already have an associate's in pre-health of science... anything I can do with this.





Please help, I'm desperate %26amp; I've searched career %26amp; college sites all day long, but none of their statistics seem to be true with what real graduates say on Yahoo Answers.

College question: computer science really a 'top job'? What else to major in?
Computer science is an excellent and fast growing field. Friends of mine that chose that as a major got the kind of job you're describing just after leaving school. There is a degree of competition, but the market is so large and varied you can work almost anywhere you want.





With your science degree... look for a field that incorporates both of them. My friend had a computer science degree as well as a science, and he went into Biomedical Engineering (designing prosthetics).





It's true that a lot of tech jobs are being outsourced, but there is plenty of available, well paying jobs in the US for citizens. You also have your pick of fields- programming, IT management, consulting, software engineering, etc. Every major company in the world has an IT department.





Hope that helps- best of luck!
Reply:Just a personal tip, you have to find something you are passionate about or you will hate your job for the rest of your life and be miserable....





My uncle has a degree in computers and has struggled to find job security because businesses' success changes so fast...Job security is also an issue because every fifteen minutes, we learn how to do with computers something that people used to do....so we need people less and less.





Do you want to get into health care? Be a nurse. My next-door neighbors are both (husband and wife) nurses and they make HUGE money...he's a surgical nurse and she does home health care. Those are big money areas.





Good luck- I hope you find something rewarding that also brings in enough money.
Reply:I can understand your anxiety, as a college student, over what skills you may develop that will sell appreciably on the market. And the array of fruitful careers is there. You just can't expect someone to hand you some "wonderful" job, just like you like it, just because you have some piece of paper we call a college degree. You have to work at turning your degree into something financially rewarding, and I can tell you that with an associate's degree in anything, you've still got a LOT of work ahead. I have 3 university degrees, and, luckily, and with the right university, I got jobs before I finished either of my Masters Degrees. Competition is out there, in ANY field, whether you like it or not, so you have to come to the market with a good set of tools, and an associate of arts degree is, well, insufficient in my books. It is better than a highschool degree only, but, seriously lacking in today's employment competition.





Now that I've addressed the global issue, let me tell you that I have NUMEROUS TIMES regretted not pursuing my Computer Science class into a career, because when I was pursuing it, PC's didn't exist, and Windows was unheard of, and even though I may never have been a Bill Gates, the room for growth back then was astromomical, and, surprisingly, still is. I have a brother -in-law who began in Computer Science years ago, and then he began setting up computer systems for individuals and then businesses and then big businesses, and now he is financially very well off, and has beautiful home, and a well-appointed apartment, paid for by the Federal Government, in Washington, D.C., where he flies to and from his home back in another State, at the government's expense, while he helps develop our nation's Homeland Security System. Sound too good to be true? It's very true, and he's doing very well financially, as are his wife and kids, and he's soon to retire to a very nice life. And if you think that possibility is gone for you, you'd be dead wrong. Get a move-on, girl!! Whether it be Computer Science or medicine or whatever, you just have to work at getting a job and developing a career. It's not a gimme. And when you do, one day 45K will sound like "chicken feed" to you, so MOVE IT!!!! God Bless you.
Reply:It is a great field to go into.





And a place that lets people work for below minimum wage isn't a good place to work at.
Reply:It is true that some of the CS jobs are being outsourced and it is likely that this is going to continue. However, if you ever do a job search on hotjobs.com or moster.com, there are far more CS jobs than any other engineering and technical degrees. One of the reasons is because computers are omnipresent. A person with a CS degree can work in software engineering, IT, biomedical, and even financial companies.





If you want an edge over other CS graduates, consider computer engineering. It tends to be tougher than a CS because you also have to take engineering courses, mainly in electrical engineering. You will be more marketable since you may be eligible to apply for jobs that require electrical engineering on top of CS jobs.





Also it may be a good idea to take an introductory course in computer programming such as in Java, C#, or C++ and see if you like it because you will be doing a lot of programming, and I mean a lot.





I strongly recommend the U.S. Department of Labor’s website (See link below). According to their occupational outlook handbook, computer software engineers are “projected to be one of the fastest-growing occupations from 2004 to 2014.”
Reply:I would just like to point out that it is not always the case that you end up unemployed. Both my brothers are CS majors from the University of Washington. They just have a Bachelors degree. One is making 70k plus a 5k signing bonus working for Comcast and the other is making 76k working for Microsoft. They both found excellent jobs right out of college, with excellent salaries.
Reply:It really depends on the market in your area. Some places just aren't "tech friendly." Others are-- but are highly competitive. If, for instance, you want to work at large companies and believe you have what it takes, you can try to applying at several companies based in Silicon Valley, which often have offices in other cities as well.





There are a lot of tech jobs out there still. The problem is that they're not for entry-level applicants. If this is really something you want to do, just keep at it, and make yourself the strongest candidate you can possibly be (which will often require self-teaching yourself several different programming languages and platforms).