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Bubble babies lose interest

Computing's Lost Allure

To be sure, there are still many enthusiasts at the undergraduate level. Eugene Chung, a sophomore at Berkeley, is pursuing a double major in computer science and business. Although he worries about getting a job when he finishes, he is studying computer science because he enjoys it. "Personally I like it, whether there's a job or not," he said.
Finally, someone with a little more vision than the buck. One of the things that bugged me during the boom was that so much of it appeared to be bandwagon-jumping rather than interest in thr subject.

Comments

Regarding boom-time bandwagon-jumping, it's true that that was probably a factor, but don't disapprove of it too fast - given the choice of working at something that looks mildly interesting, has lots of associated "cool", can be described as "breaking edge" and will make you lots of money, or working as an unpaid, underappreciated health worker in a third world country may have different impacts on your karma, and you may even prefer the latter option in your deepest heart, but when reality kicks in and you start considering future desires (family, settle down, take care of parents, own a cat) one gives you options and the other doesn't.

Reducing that to a more real example - some early choices provide more options at later stages in life than others. When those choices are highly remunerated, that's because the economy as a whole benefits from good minds going into those fields, and the natural forces (invisible hand, etc) of economics are incentivising that.

Who *loves* accounting? Who *loves* garbage collecting? So if a job pays well, only those who are truly in love with that job should go into it, and the others should be denied that remunerative opportunity, or criticised for being "sellouts to their true desires" or "bandwagon jumpers"? It's a bit of a facile argument, and the whole point of the remunerative bandwagon (i.e. rising salaries) is to encourage the jumping in the first place.

Who *loves* accounting? Who *loves* garbage collecting? So if a job pays well, only those who are truly in love with that job should go into it, and the others should be denied that remunerative opportunity, or criticised for being "sellouts to their true desires" or "bandwagon jumpers"?

No, anyone who wants to enter the field and can do the job should of course give it a try. But on the other hand, so many people entering the field mainly for monetary reasons leads us to the situation the article describes: a sudden dearth of people in the field. And the hype and the eventual bursting harmed IT work overall, not just "internet professionals." I went into IT before the internet was a big deal; I was largely self-taught. I did it because I was interested in computers and I thought I could make better money than I was making in the various menial jobs I had been working up until that point. At that time, IT jobs paid well, but no one went into the field thinking they were going to become instant millionaires. The money was almost a side benefit to me; I was much happier about the fact that I was doing interesting work. I agree with you that people need to have choices, a career, feed their families; but there were a lot of people in the boom who were in it for the money alone; and as soon as the money was gone, so were they. I can already see people jockeying for baby mogul status in the blog "industry," and I just hope this "revolution" survives its hype. Sorry if this is unclear, it's early.