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Even in europe there is no workers union for IT. Atleast not that i know of. IG metal and Verdi didnt answer my email about that
Computer science is not IT. IT is about knowing how to use, deploy, and administer existing software solutions, along with a bit of light development to get things to work together when they aren't necessarily directly compatible.
CS is about creating software solutions and understanding how the pieces fit together (at a low level), as well as how to evaluate algorithms and approach problem solving.
It's not even coding, though coding is obviously involved. For a coding class, they'll teach you the language and give problems to help learn that language. For CS classes, they might not care what language you use, or they might tell you to use specific ones and expect you to learn it on your own time. The languages are just tools through which you learn the CS concepts.
An IT professional might know about kernel features and how they relate to overall performance. A coder might be aware that there is a kernel doing OS stuff under the hood. A computer scientist might know the specifics of various parts of what a kernel does and how one is implemented, perhaps they've even implemented one themselves for a class (I have, though I was personally interested in that kind of thing and it was for a class notorious for being difficult, so most grads didn't).
Computer science is not IT.
ooof got some bad news for you there.
Guessing you mean in a similar vein to the connection between various degrees and food service jobs?
Personally, I've been able to avoid IT jobs so far.
IT as in information technology is a stupid broad category, and the only people who say otherwise are just trying to not be painted as in IT.
Network engineer, IT. Software Dev, IT. Program manager for that big roll out, still IT. Call center meat in a seat, IT.
My employer considers developers, infra, SRE, PC Support, even QA all to be part of the "IT department". I've always used the term "IT" to just cover any specifically "tech" sort of function. As opposed to, say, finance, sales, HR, operations, etc.
There’s a couple in Norway for engineering / technology, NITO and Tekna
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just learn to code
Computer Science is not learning to code.
In fact, most high end University Computer Science departments do not at any point teach a coding language. Coding languages are taught, in Canada, at Community Colleges and such.
Computer Science is all about developing, perfecting, and discovering the algorithms that are then transcribed to computer code by the junior IT technicians (code junkies). Coders are a dime a dozen. It is the Computer Systems Designers, project architects, and project developers that make the big money.
A coder can only make good money if they have mastered a computer language that is not very common, like Kubernetes, [Kubernetes,] (https://kubernetes.io/) And you will not learn that from a 'Kubernetes-for-Dummies book borrowed from the library,
Kubernetes is not a programming language. It's a program written in a programming language called Go. Working with Kubernetes involves writing in a data serialisation language called YAML but YAML is not a programming language (IIRC) because it's not Turing complete.
(I'm just a "code junky" btw)
Kubernetes is definitely not a programming language. It is not a program. it is a complete system. It is an approach, a method, a tool, a way to organize, a way to think about tasks,
Thank you for pointing out that CS <> programming.
CS is mostly math, cryptography, signal processing, image processing, information theory, data analysis/storage/transformation, etc.
CS education is notoriously prone to boom-bust cycles.
As a Computer science graduate, I have to say:
No shit! The industry is terrible and has no standards (I don't mean level of quality but there is no agreed accreditation or methodology). If you do end up in a job you will most likely not use even 5% of what whatever school you went to taught you. You will likely work for peanuts as there will always be someone to do it cheaper (not always right, or good, or even usable). You will work with people doing your job that just lied about having any post secondary education. There is almost no ability to move up in any position in the industry, and like everyone I know that stuck with it you will have the same job until you stop working (you will have to take a side move into another department most likely). This is also the industry most likely to get touched by the "good idea fairy" so you will also be exposed to the highest levels of stupid, like 3 layers of outsourcing the NOC to an active warzone sort of stupid.
I should have known it was a bad idea in college when most of my classmates where ACTIVELY WORKING IN THE INDUSTRY TO PAY FOR SCHOOL so they could get a piece of paper that said they could do the thing they where already doing. But I did my 15 plus years and got out, I have my own business now selling drugs and it is way less sketchy.
You know its bad when dude casually drops that he's a drug dealer and we all collectively shrug, like yeah sounds about right.
There are only two industries that call their customers 'users'...
We have all been conditioned by the media to think of drug dealers as bad people, but if you aren't violent and only selling to consenting adults there is nothing inherently wrong or evil about it, other than braking the law. You are providing a valuable service to your community, like every other job.
A lot of drugs are very addictive and ruin people's lives. I'm well aware a lot of lives were ruined by the stigma attached to to drugs, but to swing from they are evil criminal people to just equating drug dealing with every other job is insane to me.
If someone breaks their arm doing a skateboard trick, do you blame the seller of the skateboard?
Consenting adults know the risk of taking drugs, if someone gets addicted the blame doesn't fall on the dealer.
Not to mention that the vast majority of drug users dont become addicted or have their lives ruined. Rather they have their lives significantly improved
Also have to point out in my case it is very much legal. I am no different then someone with a liquor store (well maybe my stuff is potentially less harmful).
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It does depend on the drugs though. If you’re shotting crack and heroin to your community then you’re just a predator preying on your own people.
Yeah, also. if it's the illegal kind there's a huge price payed in blood in the countries that manufacture and transport them.
The war on drugs sucks but it's a fact that buying illegal drugs fuels an industry of violence.
I work in pharmacy and casually joke about being a legal drug dealer all of the time.
Not all drugs are street drugs!
Oh you guys have the HARD shit, I don't even compare.
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There is almost no ability to move up in any position in the industry
Change jobs every three years until you find a place that doesn't suck.
The insanity of the industry is that employers will hire some schmuck with "10 years experience" on their resume for twice what they're paying the guy who has worked at the firm for ten years.
Eventually, you can get yourself into a position where you're unfireable, because you are the only one who knows about the secret button that keeps the whole business from falling over.
That's when you can really squeeze'm
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I'm halfway through my bachelor's CE, but really thinking about dropping and doing a trade instead.
I'm probably going to cop a few downvotes for this, but in my whole career the only software engineers I ever met who were worth a damn were people who loved it for its own sake, and would be doing it regardless. So, if your feelings about the field are such that you're thinking you might be better off doing a trade, you'd definitely be better off doing a trade.
Good luck either way.
If there's no hope for getting a job, it doesn't mean they're not passionate.
The most important aspect is motivation to improve and do cool shit. That can, also, be said about a lot of professions. The best thing you can do is to find what is most interesting to you and spend at least a few hours a week learning about it or engaging with it. It could be new features of a language you know, a programming methodology that is new to you, learning about/contributing to a FOSS project you like, or anything else.
School and work will almost definitely force you to engage with the parts of development you don't like, as well will give you an opportunity to engage with the parts of development you do like. It's on you to keep yourself engaged and improving in your skills.
CE is neat because most companies will treat you as if you had a CS or EE degree. Can always pivot to HW or FPGA
Even if you don't get a CS job you should still get your degree anyway, it will make getting other jobs easier. A degree is better than no degree.
Might not be the best use of that time and tuition money though
I've never met anyone who regretted getting their degree.
I have met people who regretted not getting one because it closed doors for them (including talented people who were otherwise doing well at their jobs) so if someone is really going to forgo their degree, they should acknowledge it's a risk.
I don't necessarily regret getting a degree, but I would have perhaps focused on a more in-demand degree if I knew how the economy was going to change.
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Kinda glad I took the community college IT/infra route when I went back to school a little bit ago, but still scared for the future lol.
In case anyone is not aware:
Are you currently employed?
Have you actively sought a job in the last 4 weeks?
If the answer to both of those questions is 'no', then congrats, according to the BLS, you are not unemployed!
You just aren't in the labor force, therefore you do not count as an unemployed worker.
So yeah, if you finally get fed up with applying to 100+ jobs a week or month, getting strung along and then ghosted by all of them...
( because they are fake job openings that are largely posted by companies so that they look like they look like they are expanding and doing well as a business )
... and you just give up?
You are not 'unemployed'.
https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm#unemployed
You are likely a 'discouraged worker', who is also 'not in the labor force'.
https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm#discouraged
.........
Also, if you are 5 or 6 or 7 figures in student loan debt, and... you can only find a job as a cashier? waiter/waitress? door dash driver?
Congrats, you too are not unemployed, you are merely 'underemployed'.
But also, if you have too many simultaneous low paying jobs... you may also be 'overemployed'.
.........
But anyway, none of that really matters if you do not make enough money to actually live.
In 2024, 44% of employed, full time US workers... did not make a living wage.
https://www.dayforce.com/Ceridian/media/documents/2024-Living-Wage-Index-FINAL-1.pdf
(These guys work with MIT to calculate/report this because the BLS doesn't.)
You've also got measures like LISEP...
Which concludes that 24.3% of Americans are 'functionally unemployed', by this metric which attempts to account for all the shortcomings of the BLS measures of the employment situation.
Using data compiled by the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the True Rate of Unemployment tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job (35+ hours a week) but wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.
So basically this is a way to try to measure 'doesnt have a job + has a poverty wage job'.
.........
A more useful measure of the actual situation for college grads, in terms of 'did it make any economic/financial sense to get my degree?' would be 'are you currently employed in a job that substantially utilizes your specific college education, such that you likely could not perform that job without your specific college education?'
Something like that.
It sure would be neat if higher education in the US did not come with the shackles of student loan debt, then maybe people could get educated simply for the sake of getting educated, but, because it does, this has to be a cost benefit style question.
- sincerely, a not unemployed but technically 'out of the the labor force' econometrician.
So, i've been told that all these people need to do is pick up a trade. /s
I'm glad if trade-work was good for you but like all major careers, it's not meant for everyone. Similar can be said of telling miners (not minors) to learn to code.
Also trades have boom and busts too
Plus the ones making really good money take a good amount of time to get there and really good money means starting your own business but either way, you won't escape long hard hours and weekends until probably at least your 40s, that's if you manage to scale up the business enough with numerous staffed work vehicles. Like a 22 year old software developer can be making what a master plumber does in their first year out of college. Not super common but the $130k+ a year plumber is the top small percent of the field too
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
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