Computer Career Advise?

What would you advise your (hypothetical) 22-year old computer science graduate to do with their life?

• This is a follow-up to the question : . What specific things do you suggest for a computer science graduate to make the best of his time and have a successful and enriching career/life?

• Answer:

  You seem optimistic about the future, so you are looking to maximize "success" and an "enriching career/life." I believe this is a bad basis for planning a life as a 22-year old college graduate in 2012. You'd be far better of being pessimistic about the future and preparing appropriately. The "computer science" qualifier is the only positive here, and it isn't a big one. You are in serious danger of becoming a victim of a false sense of security. So let me try to reframe this question as a pessimistic one, and encourage you to plan on the basis of pessimism. What is your situation really like? You are like one of the passengers on the Titanic, and you've been offered a seat on one of the first lifeboats to be lowered. Behind you is a frightening, crushing mass of people who you know won't be offered a seat. The Carpathia is still several hours away. Your challenge? Survive several hours of bitter cold in an overcrowded boat, while fighting off desperate people who have jumped into the water and are willing to kill to take your spot. In case the metaphor isn't obvious, the Titanic is the old economy, the Carpathia is the new economy, the 5-6 hour interlude is the unpleasant 5-6 years we still have ahead of us (at the very least) and your computer science degree is your one slim advantage: getting a seat on the lifeboat instead of having to jump in the ice-cold water and wrestle someone out of their seat. It isn't much of an advantage. There are plenty of people in the water who can and will be able to drag you in and take your place. In fact, that's almost more likely than not. So make sure you learn swimming too. Why is this framing apt? Because, as said, software is eating everything. Everybody is either going to be eating or get eaten. You aren't competing with other fresh-grad computer science majors. You are competing with everybody. From everywhere in the world. Including art history majors who are scrambling to learn iOS development and laid-off mid-career HR managers fighting for their lives, mortgages and kids. It's a bloody war out there. Your CS degree isn't much, because surviving in the world of software eating everything is such an unprecedented challenge that no university can teach you more than 10% of the necessary skills. Not much of a head start. You want success and an enriching life? First make sure you're going to survive. Get a little paranoid. Push hard on your software skills and if they break in the first year in your job, scramble to develop a skill set that you can live off instead, like product management, marketing etc. The world isn't your oyster, which you with your CS degree shall open. At least not yet.