Schools dropping CS minors and part-time work

Talic

Have you guys noticed schools dropping minors in computer science due to the recession? I recently noticed a school I was planning on going to receive a bachelors in IT dropped it. Big name schools such as Berkeley have CS degrees with minors in IT and Networking, I assume these CS minors would be capable with IT classes from a community college, such as certification classes?

As for you guys that get jobs when going to college, where did you look for work at? Did you apply at a college then after being accepted you looked for a company to give you a part time job in that area? Or would a college offer you a part time job as one of their IT staff?

jryantech

Any State University in a decent area has internships for anything and everything.

Working at the College is probably the easiest, but the pay normally isn't that great and the experience isn't fantastic.

Best thing you can do is hand your resume to the internship/placement office and have them run it.

Also do your own research... careerbuilder, craigslist, monster, dice etc.
Sometimes companies don't go through the school system for there internships (probably because they don't want to do the paper work for credits, lol) but you can find them on the job websites or just going to there website directly.

A interesting idea is to look for your "dream job", like the job you want after you graduate... pretend you have your degree. And find a company around the area that has a position open for that and see if they have any lower positions or internships available.

Also about your Computer Science observation... I have not noticed the removal of the Computer Science major just the amount of people who switch or drop out from them. IMO it is an art major because you really have to love what your doing to do good. Right now MIS, IT and CIS degrees are the craze in the technology department because they are easier to achieve(IMO).

Kasor

You are on your own because working P/T and studying CS/IS are not easy at all. Depending how good you are. Just don't let the bad GPA get you.

Also, you are fighting with many other colleges that major in CS/IS that looking at the same situation. Try to get Govn't internship or anything. Non-paid internship get you the experience and recommendation letters. So, don't overlook those opportunity and need to setup the long term goal.

bellhead

Try to at all costs to graduate with a 3.0. If you decide to move onto graduate school it opens alot of doors for you. If you have to take an extra quarter of bowling to achieve this then do it.

shednik

I haven't seen a drop in any programs really, aside from the courses in my grad program being less for the summer. From what I've read a lot of people head back to school in these times, if I got laid off and could afford it for awhile I'd probably up my course load for a semester or two. But I worked from the second half of my sophomore year until I graduated. My school had a very active career center it's how I landed my current job and how I was offered an internship at CMU. Check it out they can help you more then you think, as for on-campus jobs look for a Resident Network position. It would probably suck to do helping people set up their PCs in their dorms, but it counts as experience when you have nothing else.

skrpune

I'd have to agree with shednik, more people seem to be going back to school in hard economic times (I know I did) and I haven't seen any drop in programs being offered. Schools do however seem to be trying to do more with less - funding is hard to come by, and I've heard of certain state uni's forcing their staff (everyone from dean to the janitorial staff) to take unpaid "vacations" so they could afford to keep everything going.

As for work...part time IT work is hard to come by, or at least that's been my experience. In my area, there seem to be a lot more full time opportunities than part time. You can try to apply to computing services at your university, but there are LOTS of folks applying for those positions. Competition is high and the pay is low. But the environment is pretty laid back too. I did apply to my university's computing services department, but with there being multiple work study positions and only one non-financial-aid-funded position, I got beat out by other folks and didn't even get a call back.

I searched for a job on my own, and I found one working for another university, working for IT services specifically for their business school division. The pay isn't half bad ($14/hr) and I don't really do that much. I'm only working ~24 hour a week, and so far I am managing okay with my part time school load...it's only been a week since I started there, but I don't anticipate a big problem with balancing out school & work & life. I'll just have to get better with my time management and do less putzing around.

Your best bet is to try applying to places on your own - craigslist, monster, careerbuilder, dice, etc. You will get tons of calls from recruiters & staffing companies offering you crappy full time positions, and they don't have many part time positions (there isn't as much money in it for them, so it's not really worth it for them to put in the effort) so expect to have greater success doing a hunt for a part time position on your own. If you stick to it and don't let yourself get discouraged, you'll eventually find the right position. Just try to not get down about not getting something right away - I was searching for quite some time before I finally got this job, and it was worth the wait.