[quote=JEEscondido]Employers that have a choice between a competent employee with a degree and a competent employee without a degree (not just in IT but any discipline) at a similar salary will most likely choose the former. At the very least a degree is indicative of the ability to successfully achieve objective goals. The last 15 or so years have been an anomaly in IT in that demand has exceeded supply. A rising tide lifts all ships per se so the college-drop-out DBA for example, has been overpaid relative to their intrinsic value. The problem is that many of these people know nothing else, not unlike someone that bought a house in 1996 and was convinced that housing always appreciated and only at 10+% rates.
Recessions suck and I hope that this one, deep as it may be, will end in the foreseeable future. But one advantage of a recession is that it tends to shake out inefficiencies in the marketplace and a good example is a college drop out DBA making $125,000 per year or a used car saleperson turned mortgage salesperson making even more than that. Like housing hyperinflation this isn’t sustainable in the long run.
Peace[/quote]
Wrong…With the exception of your first “entry level” job, most of experienced the top dollar jobs goes with the person who has the most experience and expertise for a position, regardless of what school they went to if they went to a school at all. Statistically, there are more people who have college degrees that have that experience than people who do not. BUT, i can say a PHD in MechE applying for a DBA position with no experience will be S.O.L. And a company that has a data center will not hire that person to man their infrastructure and commit suicide on their mission critical business operations, because running the business poorly affects the bottom line.
In most cases, a degree and school you went to only matters when you start out in your first tech jobs for the first 3-4 years. And the reason for that is because, with so little experience, there is nothing really else to distinguish a “good candidate” from “not so good” and you’re really green when you first start out. You’re looking at a few thousand dollars of salary difference between a good school or better school. But that’s it… (It disappears after taxes). Once you have your foot in the door, what you do beyond that point is what you learn yourself.
For the record, most MechEE and EE jobs are no different. You learn the same thing, you build the same type of hardware and control gates, then same rules of physics apps as it did 20-30 years ago. A college grad is basically learning what has already been done and already known. Nothing special there.
I know, because all college the communication systems courses and information theory courses all look and feel the same as they did when i took them (12 years aao)… Basics are basics. The only time you move into specialization is in upperdivision courses…But then you run the risk of specialization on something that is not in demand in the industry. The notable exception is if you are actively doing R&D in in a company’s R&D department. For instance, at the old QC, R&D dept requires a phd in the relevant field (almost). But this is really the exception than the rule. Most jobs that are readily available do not require rocket science brain to develop an expertise in.
I can say that most IT positions are priced in just about where outsourcing virtues is questionable. The cost of IT work in india for instance is not cheap anymore.
Why is this so hard to understand?
[quote]
Recessions suck and I hope that this one, deep as it may be, will end in the foreseeable future. But one advantage of a recession is that it tends to shake out inefficiencies in the marketplace and a good example is a college drop out DBA making $125,000 per year or a used car saleperson turned mortgage salesperson making even more than that. Like housing hyperinflation this isn’t sustainable in the long run.
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Actually, the what recessions do is level the unemployment for all technical work. If you are a MechE or EE, don’t be surprised in a few months if you’re posting here asking if there is an opportunity. Like i said before, when people aren’t spending, there’s no need for all engineers to build all those techie gismoes, planes, trains, and automobiles.
