The equivalent at my school has about 3 or 4 programming courses. They get thrown in the deep end and don't learn fundamentals though. Inevitably I end up helping some of my friends with their code and it sort of makes you shake your head.
IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter fendi_mane
- Start date
I did CIS and the intro course was VB, and then I had an SQL course, and then a Web Design course (basic HTML) and then an adv Web course which tied the other classes together).
for the CS program they def focused on building developers, as they focused on Java for their intro course then had a plethora of other stuff.
I think nowadays most universities use Python for introducing programming to students.
I just checked our CIS curriculum and it's somewhat similar. Intro and intermediate Java classes, a web design class and a database class. Then people can choose to go more into development into the business side of things. All of my friends have gone the business route so I don't know how the other side stacks up against the upper division CS courses. Obviously not as technical, but I'm sure they learn some beneficial stuff that we don't get on the CS side.
Trump and Sessions plan to restrict highly skilled foreign workers.
Trump and Sessions plan to restrict highly skilled foreign workers. Hyderabad says to bring it on.
By Max Bearak January 8 at 2:14 PM
HYDERABAD, India — The ritual goes like this: If you’re approaching the god Balaji with an appeal, walk in a circle around the temple 11 times and leave an offering of tulsi leaves at his feet. Should your wish be granted, come back and do it 108 times.
“We call him Visa Balaji,” said Madhu Vadlamani, 25. “He is famous for granting visas.”
Madhu and her husband of just three days, Revanth Chilakamarri, 29, were but two of thousands of worshipers orbiting the “Visa Balaji” temple near here one recent morning. Years ago, the incarnation of Vishnu had blessed them both with student visas to the United States. Though they had grown up just seven lanes apart, they met in America and fell in love.
The two software developers had returned to the temple that morning to appeal to Balaji, in hopes of renewing their American sojourn with a new visa — the H-1B.
For the new political order taking shape in Washington, however, H-1Bs aren’t quite welcome. Amid promises of sweeping changes to immigration policy, President-elect Donald Trump and his choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), have tabbed the program for a major overhaul, and might even scrap it altogether. In the House, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is on the same wavelength.
The visas bring nearly 100,000 “highly skilled” contract workers, mostly in tech and mostly from India, to the United States every year. Most stay for multiple years, and some eventually get green cards. According to federal guidelines, H-1Bs are intended to fill positions for which American workers with the requisite skills can’t be found. Whether the program always does that is intensely debated by industry lobbyists and politicians, and companies are not legally required to ensure that result.
Trump has described H-1Bs as a “cheap labor program” subject to “widespread, rampant” abuse. Sessions co-sponsored legislation last year with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to effectively gut the program; Issa, a congressman with Trump’s ear, released a statement Wednesday saying he was reintroducing similar legislation called the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act.
Sessions probably will give at least a glimpse of his plans regarding the program at his confirmation hearing Tuesday.
Sessions and Issa’s legislation primarily targets large outsourcing companies, such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, that receive the vast majority of H-1B visas and use them to deploy workers to American companies seeking to cut costs. In 2015, the top 10 recipients of H-1B visas were outsourcing firms. As recently as 2013, the Justice Department, which Sessions stands to take over, settled with Infosys for $34 million in a visa fraud case.
“Logically speaking, I’m worried,” said Vadlamani, who until recently worked for Deloitte in Orlando. “But being Indian, I believe that if it is in my karma, then I will get the visa. If not, there are more and more jobs these days at good companies here.”
But if Vadlamani is circumspect about her prospects should the visa program be restricted, politicians and business executives in her home town are bullish. Not only is employment booming in Hyderabad, they say, but should the United States move against H-1Bs, their economy stands to gain.
The H-1B program provides American companies with cheap, temporary contractors who often work longer hours than Americans and take on the monotonous programming jobs Americans scorn. Proponents of the program argue that foreign workers increase innovation at American companies as well as contribute to local economies. A few Indians who came on work visas have even gone on to become heads of important American companies.
Meanwhile, India’s growth as a global tech hub has been hampered as tens of thousands of workers have left.
Over the past decade, though, cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore have slowly but surely gained prominence. At first, it was mostly a base for outsourcing companies servicing American clients, but now Hyderabad is home to the biggest offices of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook outside the United States. Amazon, Dell, Uber and others have major operations there. All have huge campuses in a part of the city officially known as Cyberabad.
Cyberabad’s existence is the result of investments in education and infrastructure made by N. Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, where Hyderabad was located until the state was bifurcated in 2014. A network of dozens of information-technology institutes trained a generation of engineers and software developers to work back-end jobs for American companies.
For that generation, getting an H-1B was the holy grail. Even though the work in America could be dull, being there provided a chance to engage with an invigorating culture of innovation that just wasn’t present in India yet. And of course, working abroad meant a huge increase in income and prestige.
But the H-1B cap meant that the bulk of Indian tech workers stayed back. The current cap — not just from India — is 65,000, plus another 20,000 who have graduated from American universities with advanced degrees, down from almost double that at the beginning of the 2000s.
Among those who do get the visas, most ultimately return to settle and work in India. In Hyderabad, many of those returnees are confident that their city can compete with Silicon Valley for India’s brightest young minds.
K.T. Rama Rao, the son of the current chief minister, was one of them. Now he’s the minister for information technology in his father’s government. He pointed to Apple as an example of how Hyderabad could absorb the thousands of workers in a potential future with far fewer H-1Bs — or without them altogether.
“Apple is already moving their maps division here, and they’re doing that because we’re producing more G.I.S. talent than anyone else in the world,” he claimed in an interview, referring to geographic information systems. “Ideally, a president of the United States would have a balanced perspective on business, but if he wants tech firms to stay, he should create better job readiness in the U.S.”
Rao said that legislation targeting big Indian outsourcing companies would wean them away from their dependency on servicing American companies. Without the visa program, they would have to engage in new lines of work that created value in Hyderabad and not abroad, he said.
Amit Jain, now the president of Uber India, is another returnee who used to be on an H-1B. He said that the influx of American companies, as well as a growing indigenous start-up culture, could offer what Indians used to seek in the United States closer to home.
“We definitely have a more robust ecosystem here now,” he said. “We’re seeing plenty of hiring in the future.”
Trump and Sessions plan to restrict highly skilled foreign workers. Hyderabad says to bring it on.
By Max Bearak January 8 at 2:14 PM
HYDERABAD, India — The ritual goes like this: If you’re approaching the god Balaji with an appeal, walk in a circle around the temple 11 times and leave an offering of tulsi leaves at his feet. Should your wish be granted, come back and do it 108 times.
“We call him Visa Balaji,” said Madhu Vadlamani, 25. “He is famous for granting visas.”
Madhu and her husband of just three days, Revanth Chilakamarri, 29, were but two of thousands of worshipers orbiting the “Visa Balaji” temple near here one recent morning. Years ago, the incarnation of Vishnu had blessed them both with student visas to the United States. Though they had grown up just seven lanes apart, they met in America and fell in love.
The two software developers had returned to the temple that morning to appeal to Balaji, in hopes of renewing their American sojourn with a new visa — the H-1B.
For the new political order taking shape in Washington, however, H-1Bs aren’t quite welcome. Amid promises of sweeping changes to immigration policy, President-elect Donald Trump and his choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), have tabbed the program for a major overhaul, and might even scrap it altogether. In the House, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is on the same wavelength.
The visas bring nearly 100,000 “highly skilled” contract workers, mostly in tech and mostly from India, to the United States every year. Most stay for multiple years, and some eventually get green cards. According to federal guidelines, H-1Bs are intended to fill positions for which American workers with the requisite skills can’t be found. Whether the program always does that is intensely debated by industry lobbyists and politicians, and companies are not legally required to ensure that result.
Trump has described H-1Bs as a “cheap labor program” subject to “widespread, rampant” abuse. Sessions co-sponsored legislation last year with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to effectively gut the program; Issa, a congressman with Trump’s ear, released a statement Wednesday saying he was reintroducing similar legislation called the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act.
Sessions probably will give at least a glimpse of his plans regarding the program at his confirmation hearing Tuesday.
Sessions and Issa’s legislation primarily targets large outsourcing companies, such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, that receive the vast majority of H-1B visas and use them to deploy workers to American companies seeking to cut costs. In 2015, the top 10 recipients of H-1B visas were outsourcing firms. As recently as 2013, the Justice Department, which Sessions stands to take over, settled with Infosys for $34 million in a visa fraud case.
“Logically speaking, I’m worried,” said Vadlamani, who until recently worked for Deloitte in Orlando. “But being Indian, I believe that if it is in my karma, then I will get the visa. If not, there are more and more jobs these days at good companies here.”
But if Vadlamani is circumspect about her prospects should the visa program be restricted, politicians and business executives in her home town are bullish. Not only is employment booming in Hyderabad, they say, but should the United States move against H-1Bs, their economy stands to gain.
The H-1B program provides American companies with cheap, temporary contractors who often work longer hours than Americans and take on the monotonous programming jobs Americans scorn. Proponents of the program argue that foreign workers increase innovation at American companies as well as contribute to local economies. A few Indians who came on work visas have even gone on to become heads of important American companies.
Meanwhile, India’s growth as a global tech hub has been hampered as tens of thousands of workers have left.
Over the past decade, though, cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore have slowly but surely gained prominence. At first, it was mostly a base for outsourcing companies servicing American clients, but now Hyderabad is home to the biggest offices of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook outside the United States. Amazon, Dell, Uber and others have major operations there. All have huge campuses in a part of the city officially known as Cyberabad.
Cyberabad’s existence is the result of investments in education and infrastructure made by N. Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, where Hyderabad was located until the state was bifurcated in 2014. A network of dozens of information-technology institutes trained a generation of engineers and software developers to work back-end jobs for American companies.
For that generation, getting an H-1B was the holy grail. Even though the work in America could be dull, being there provided a chance to engage with an invigorating culture of innovation that just wasn’t present in India yet. And of course, working abroad meant a huge increase in income and prestige.
But the H-1B cap meant that the bulk of Indian tech workers stayed back. The current cap — not just from India — is 65,000, plus another 20,000 who have graduated from American universities with advanced degrees, down from almost double that at the beginning of the 2000s.
Among those who do get the visas, most ultimately return to settle and work in India. In Hyderabad, many of those returnees are confident that their city can compete with Silicon Valley for India’s brightest young minds.
K.T. Rama Rao, the son of the current chief minister, was one of them. Now he’s the minister for information technology in his father’s government. He pointed to Apple as an example of how Hyderabad could absorb the thousands of workers in a potential future with far fewer H-1Bs — or without them altogether.
“Apple is already moving their maps division here, and they’re doing that because we’re producing more G.I.S. talent than anyone else in the world,” he claimed in an interview, referring to geographic information systems. “Ideally, a president of the United States would have a balanced perspective on business, but if he wants tech firms to stay, he should create better job readiness in the U.S.”
Rao said that legislation targeting big Indian outsourcing companies would wean them away from their dependency on servicing American companies. Without the visa program, they would have to engage in new lines of work that created value in Hyderabad and not abroad, he said.
Amit Jain, now the president of Uber India, is another returnee who used to be on an H-1B. He said that the influx of American companies, as well as a growing indigenous start-up culture, could offer what Indians used to seek in the United States closer to home.
“We definitely have a more robust ecosystem here now,” he said. “We’re seeing plenty of hiring in the future.”
The only way not to do 25 apps per day is if you in a field where after day 5, everything dries up.
lol dude was really giving all the excuses int he world. Some folks aren't built for this life.
I was the king of this. Even if you are fired. Just getting the exposure is worth more than money. Another man's trash is another man's treasure and soon, the world's treasure.
Probably has already been posted several times before, but Professor Messer on YouTube is a good resource for brehs trying to get CompTIA certs.
How the University of California exploited a visa loophole to move tech jobs to India
Using a visa loophole to fire well-paid U.S. information technology workers and replace them with low-paid immigrants from India is despicable enough when it’s done by profit-making companies such as Southern California Edison and Walt Disney Co.
But the latest employer to try this stunt sets a new mark in what might be termed “job laundering.” It’s the University of California. Experts in the abuse of so-called H-1B visas say UC is the first public university to send the jobs of American IT staff offshore. That’s not a distinction UC should wear proudly.
UC San Francisco, the system’s biggest medical center, announced in July that it would lay off 49 career IT staffers and eliminate 48 other IT jobs that were vacant or filled by contract employees. The workers are to be gone as of Feb. 28. In the meantime they’ve been ordered to train their own replacements, who are employees of the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies.
The training process was described by UCSF managers by the Orwellian term “knowledge transfer,” according to Audrey Hatten-Milholin, 53, an IT architect with 17 years of experience at UCSF who will be laid off next month.
“The argument for Disney or Edison is that its executives are driven to maximize profits,” says Ron Hira of Howard University, a expert in H-1B visas. “But UC is a public institution, not driven by profit. It’s qualitatively different from other employers.”
By sending IT jobs abroad, UC is undermining its own mission, which includes preparing California students to serve the high-tech industry.
“UC is training software engineers at the same time they’re outsourcing their own software engineers,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), whose district includes much of Silicon Valley. “What message are they sending their own students?”
As we’ve reported before, H-1B visas were created to allow American technology companies to import uniquely talented individuals from abroad; visa holders can work in the U.S. for three years, with the goal of obtaining permanent residency and ultimately citizenship.
But the program has been co-opted by outsourcing firms that use the visas to import workers, mostly from India, to replace Americans in middle-level IT jobs. Those firms, including HCL, corral about half of all H-1B visas every year. The workers they import often live here barracks-style and are at the beck and call of supervisors who can revoke their residency at will. Eventually they return home to continue their assignments, without workplace benefits and at wages a fraction of what their American counterparts were paid.
UCSF officials say the decision to outsource 97 IT jobs, about 20% to the total IT headcount, was forced on it by daunting economic challenges. The state requires UCSF Health, which encompasses the university’s hospitals, to be fiscally self-sustaining, collecting its revenue entirely from patient fees, Chief Executive Mark R. Laret says.
The hospitals recorded a $42-million deficit in the last fiscal year on $3.4 billion in revenue, he told me. The red ink was partially the result of an increased caseload from Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, which was expanded under the Affordable Care Act. Medi-Cal reimbursements are so low that UCSF loses 40 cents on every dollar it spends on those patients’ treatment, he says.
In searching for costs to cut, USCF concluded that the most expendable IT employees were systems maintenance staff, whose jobs could be done for so much less by foreign workers going without high salaries and fringe benefits.
UCSF officials have convinced themselves that most of the laid-off workers will have little trouble finding new jobs in the vibrant Bay Area technology industry; they say three of the workers already have accepted other positions at UCSF and some have been offered work by HCL. “These individuals are not unemployable,” Laret says.
The university says outsourcing their work to HCL will save $30 million over the five-year term of the HCL contract, which will cost $50 million.
UC is training software engineers at the same time they’re outsourcing their own software engineers. What message are they sending their own students?— Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose)
UC San Francisco, the system’s biggest medical center, announced in July that it would lay off 49 career IT staffers and eliminate 48 other IT jobs that were vacant or filled by contract employees. The workers are to be gone as of Feb. 28. In the meantime they’ve been ordered to train their own replacements, who are employees of the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies.
The training process was described by UCSF managers by the Orwellian term “knowledge transfer,” according to Audrey Hatten-Milholin, 53, an IT architect with 17 years of experience at UCSF who will be laid off next month.
Using a visa loophole to fire well-paid U.S. information technology workers and replace them with low-paid immigrants from India is despicable enough when it’s done by profit-making companies such as Southern California Edison and Walt Disney Co.
But the latest employer to try this stunt sets a new mark in what might be termed “job laundering.” It’s the University of California. Experts in the abuse of so-called H-1B visas say UC is the first public university to send the jobs of American IT staff offshore. That’s not a distinction UC should wear proudly.
UC San Francisco, the system’s biggest medical center, announced in July that it would lay off 49 career IT staffers and eliminate 48 other IT jobs that were vacant or filled by contract employees. The workers are to be gone as of Feb. 28. In the meantime they’ve been ordered to train their own replacements, who are employees of the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies.
The training process was described by UCSF managers by the Orwellian term “knowledge transfer,” according to Audrey Hatten-Milholin, 53, an IT architect with 17 years of experience at UCSF who will be laid off next month.
“The argument for Disney or Edison is that its executives are driven to maximize profits,” says Ron Hira of Howard University, a expert in H-1B visas. “But UC is a public institution, not driven by profit. It’s qualitatively different from other employers.”
By sending IT jobs abroad, UC is undermining its own mission, which includes preparing California students to serve the high-tech industry.
“UC is training software engineers at the same time they’re outsourcing their own software engineers,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), whose district includes much of Silicon Valley. “What message are they sending their own students?”
As we’ve reported before, H-1B visas were created to allow American technology companies to import uniquely talented individuals from abroad; visa holders can work in the U.S. for three years, with the goal of obtaining permanent residency and ultimately citizenship.
But the program has been co-opted by outsourcing firms that use the visas to import workers, mostly from India, to replace Americans in middle-level IT jobs. Those firms, including HCL, corral about half of all H-1B visas every year. The workers they import often live here barracks-style and are at the beck and call of supervisors who can revoke their residency at will. Eventually they return home to continue their assignments, without workplace benefits and at wages a fraction of what their American counterparts were paid.
UCSF officials say the decision to outsource 97 IT jobs, about 20% to the total IT headcount, was forced on it by daunting economic challenges. The state requires UCSF Health, which encompasses the university’s hospitals, to be fiscally self-sustaining, collecting its revenue entirely from patient fees, Chief Executive Mark R. Laret says.
The hospitals recorded a $42-million deficit in the last fiscal year on $3.4 billion in revenue, he told me. The red ink was partially the result of an increased caseload from Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, which was expanded under the Affordable Care Act. Medi-Cal reimbursements are so low that UCSF loses 40 cents on every dollar it spends on those patients’ treatment, he says.
In searching for costs to cut, USCF concluded that the most expendable IT employees were systems maintenance staff, whose jobs could be done for so much less by foreign workers going without high salaries and fringe benefits.
UCSF officials have convinced themselves that most of the laid-off workers will have little trouble finding new jobs in the vibrant Bay Area technology industry; they say three of the workers already have accepted other positions at UCSF and some have been offered work by HCL. “These individuals are not unemployable,” Laret says.
The university says outsourcing their work to HCL will save $30 million over the five-year term of the HCL contract, which will cost $50 million.
UC is training software engineers at the same time they’re outsourcing their own software engineers. What message are they sending their own students?— Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose)
UC San Francisco, the system’s biggest medical center, announced in July that it would lay off 49 career IT staffers and eliminate 48 other IT jobs that were vacant or filled by contract employees. The workers are to be gone as of Feb. 28. In the meantime they’ve been ordered to train their own replacements, who are employees of the Indian outsourcing firm HCL Technologies.
The training process was described by UCSF managers by the Orwellian term “knowledge transfer,” according to Audrey Hatten-Milholin, 53, an IT architect with 17 years of experience at UCSF who will be laid off next month.
My job gives $2500\year for professional development. I'm in NYC.
I have no idea what course, class, or whatever to take.
I have no idea what course, class, or whatever to take.
DAT NICCA KELSO
Superstar
What certs you have? What IT path do you wanna go?
All I have is A+. My path is systems admin, I guess. It's what I'm doing at my job now.