Learning About Outsourcing in College? 75
nial-in-a-box asks: "I just started my software engineering course today at Loyola University Chicago and I found out that I will be learning hands-on about outsourcing. My classmates and I will be outsourcing parts of projects to students at another university, and then those students will be doing the same for us. This seems like it could be rather interesting. Has anyone out there been in a class like this before? Any other ideas on how to effectively teach about the implications of outsourcing (especially pointing out that outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean no jobs upon graduation)?"
Sounds like... (Score:3, Funny)
To get that real feeling of outsourcing.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:To get that real feeling of outsourcing.. (Score:2)
I don't really know what to say. This is amusing.
How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is highly counterintuitive. I suggest that if you want to teach this, you need to find a company that outsourced without losing jobs, without laying off even a single individual. If you find such a beast- let me know, because as near as I can tell, outsourcing ALWAYS means lost jobs.
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:2)
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:2)
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:1, Informative)
Second, most outsourcing (in my experience, anyway; as for life in your dorm, YMMV) has nothing to do with losing jobs -- it's companies contracting out work instead of hiring new people.
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:3, Informative)
Yep- as long as that elsewhere is anywhere other than America, or at least so it seems in IT.
econd, most outsourcing (in my experience, anyway; as for life in your dorm, YMMV) has nothing to do with losing jobs -- it's companies contracting out work instead of hiring new people.
In my experience, it's usually about asking the IT staff to train their replacements before being fired. This has caused at least one suicide (Kevin Fla
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:2)
Maybe capitalism will play itself out and lost jobs will be replaced in some other area. But that hasn't always happened before. US has many laws to regulate conduct of companies - anti-monopoly laws, anti-discrimination laws and so on. If unemployment skyrockets, one day there will be anti-outsourcing laws. If not, well then we don't have to wo
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:1)
Spoken as a true college student.
When (if) you get a job in the Real World, think about what you've written today...
Re:How to find jobs after outsourcing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy. My first employer. Of course, I can't point you at them because they went out of business, but for completely unrelated reasons.
Outsourcing, when done properly, is a money saver. The specific type of outsourcing I'm talking about was electronics assembly. We used to have someone whose job 8 hours/day, 5 days/week was assembling PC boards. As volumes grew, first we hired someone else, then engineers (like the newly hired me!) had to pitc
sure (Score:5, Funny)
Another person (Score:4, Insightful)
Then ask them what the differenc is, really. This might turn out into an econ/ethics class, so make sure you got your econ 160 stuff down pat.
Well ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because they're not trying to teach the lesson of what it's like to lose your job. They're not trying to teach you to be a smart-ass.
I would think there is a very practical lesson to be learned in telling someone at a remote site exactly what you expect to see, and exactly what it's interface will be, and how you plan on verifying it. This is a practical exercise in writing your spec in advance and handing it off to someone to implement. Which, oddly enough, is arguably applicable to software engineering.
An awful lot of projects never really know what they're looking for until they get a few iterations in. I'm willing to bet if you did that in an outsourcing project it would become extremely inefficient.
I'm betting the prof is counting on several bad specifications going out the door which are either completely useless or way too open-ended. In which case the people who implement it will deliver what they understood the requirements to be -- the coders will be judged by how well they implemented what was asked for, not what was wanted by management.
Cheers
Re:Well ... (Score:2)
So they are getting a computer science degree and learning how to do project management. I thought that's what BA in Management with Information Services (MIS) degree was for.
The key is that the current outsourcing providers are getting very good at interfacing with upper management for project management. So teaching CS students how to manage outsource projects when in fact it's only a matter of time befo
Re:Well ... (Score:2)
Unless code specifications come from engineering, they would be absolutely meaningless. Directions like "a bluish button should appear asking the user if they really meant it". You would need to write functional specifications and the like. In my experience, a PM would not perform that role.
Likewise, getting specs from another site and turning that into a working object, and veri
Re:Well ... (Score:1)
I completely agree. Where I work, we have functional specialists who gather and create functional requirements (use case flows, UI design, etc). This gets handed off to a senior engineer who translates the requirements into a technical design (class diagrams, etc). Sometimes the same engineer will implement it, but often the design goes to a less experienced engineer for act
nah, it *can* be done (Score:2)
the problem with this (and with outsourcing generally) is that if it's not written down and agreed (read "paid for"), you're not going to get it . all the good will you've
Re:Well ... (Score:2)
Actually, it's already being done for that reason. When I took a Systems Analysis class on the way to a degree in Software Engineering, our instructor told us that he usually did just that: after different teams presented their designs to the class (and had them verbally ripped to shreds with criticism), have the groups swap designs an
First thing is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway. The first thing that needs to be clarified is that outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean India! It simply refers to having some task done by people outside your company.
(That said -- this guy's class does sound an awful lot like it really is "Outsourcing to India 101", doesn't it?)
Re:First thing is... (Score:2, Insightful)
This class may be beneficial, but maybe not in the way the prof intended.
I suspect that students on both sides of the project will learn that outsourcing isn't as easy (or as cheap) as they might have suspected. By the time you factor in the communications costs, delays, reworking, and sheer aggravation, these students may just learn that sending work outside the company isn't the quick fix many see it to be.
Re:First thing is... (Score:2)
If they are working down the road but relatively close, they may be referred to as onshore, if they are in an adjacent country with similar culture and timezones then this is near shore. A company in the US or Western Europe outsourcing to Asia, is off-shoring.
It's the new cruelty..er..curriculum (Score:5, Funny)
-Isaac
Not realistic. (Score:2, Funny)
BC
Is it worth opposing outsourcing in the longterm? (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, during the industrial revolution, countries like Britain, whom had large colonies overseas such as India, would export that colonies natural resources (in this case tea, silk, textiles, etc) back to Britain where the British public would buy these goods. Then people began realizing, you can hire the colony natives for far cheaper than your country men in Britain, so companies relocated their textile, silk, tea, etc factories in India where they would pay the native workers far less to work in often very poor conditions, and often polluting, etc the environment around the area. In Britain, many factory jobs were lost to the Indians, which naturally angered the workers, but economically made more sense. Figure: instead of carting some natural resource thousands of miles away, you dig/produce/farm/whatever said resource right there and then transport it 100 feet to the factory where it spits out goods, which you then ship to Britain, where people whom have the money can buy it (rarely can natives in these situations afford the products they produce). This generates more service jobs in the host country to sell said goods and more manufacturing jobs in the colony. Low-wage & menial jobs historically get divied out to the lowest bidder.
Now, all of this can be applied to the current 'information revolution' in which we are currently undergoing. Countries that have only recenty industrialized, (India, China) are now becoming computerized and are rapidly attracting foriegn investors who realize these places are the frontlines of this revolution, and the people who will be employed in it. Can we realistically expect to be paid the big bucks for now-menial jobs? Programmers arent such an exclusive job anymore, nor is a lot of things that used to be rare/lucrative skills only 5 - 8 years ago.
I am a computer animator, one of the jobs currently entering embattled grounds of outsourcing. They have these companies in Eastern Europe & Asia where they hire 100 guys who know Maya, 3D studio max, etc and these guys pump out huge blocks of finished animation in a matter of weeks for about $10 - $50/day (which is rich by sweat-shop standards), where the same project would take 8 - 12 months in America or Europe at easily 50 - 1000x the cost. Can I really fight this? Other than making sure that I can offer something none of those 3d-slaves can offer, theres not too much, so what can I really do?
I think this process is inevitable though I do not totally welcome, the best thing to do in the longterm is putting yourself in a position where some guy who codes for 16hrs a day for $10 does not have leg up on you; though this sounds hard, remember, chances are this guy can do nothing except that task even though he does it very well. Also, removing things like tax-cuts for companies that outsource is something I agree with, and I think will result in a healthier transition in the longrun.
Re:Is it worth opposing outsourcing in the longter (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is it worth opposing outsourcing in the longter (Score:1)
The example you gave regarding natural resource harvesting and production involves laborers performing a simple task (i.e. digging, harvesting, etc.) that requires little specialized training, little oversight, and arguably little collaboration (my apologies to any digger
Re:Is it worth opposing outsourcing in the longter (Score:2)
Can't learn a "lucrative skill" in five years. Sorry.
Nothing new (Score:2, Funny)
Even though I haven't been in college for many years, one of the young women in CS 101 with me was a master of outsourcing. Jodi Jackson would always outsource her programming assignments to others in the class. These chumps would happily work overtime for a chance to have her smile at them and perhaps even sit with them for lunch one day. When you think about those Indian schmucks happily working themselves to dust for crumbs from American companies, you can see the parallel. Jodi was ahead of her time
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
She passed in her boyfriend's old assignments. She had the Midas touch, B's magically became A's.
You've got the intentions wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
Question 2; I hate to point out the obvious, but they are not teaching you about "outsourcing"; they are really just using that as a term to describe what you will be doing. They are attempting to teach you how to work with others effectively when face-to-face communication is not always possible. In programming, this means properly internally and externally documenting code, and defining clear interfaces. Since this is a situation will come across very often in the working world, it is important to learn. Also, in this class you are not only held accountable to your professor, but also to the students in the other school.
I believe it is an excellent way to teach important lessons to students. When you have an interview with a company, I would suggest pointing out this class to the interviewers and telling them what you learned from it; it'll probably impress them. Have fun!
Re:You've got the intentions wrong. (Score:2)
A very good lesson that real companies often only learn after spending millions and still getting crap back in return from India.
Re:You've got the intentions wrong. (Score:2)
More and more often, technical projects will be done on a geographically-distributed basis. Not only because of outsourcing and offshoring, but because the database group is in Houston and the Web developers are in Chicago. And the graphics people are in NY. And the people producing the video clips which must be integrated into the whole package are in LA. Students who are comfortable with such an arrangement will be more valuable when they get out and go to work.
Distributed worki
zerg (Score:4, Funny)
and they wonder why US education is getting worse. (Score:1)
Re:and they wonder why US education is getting wor (Score:2)
Even more realistic (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Even more realistic (Score:2)
it's a sham (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't worry (Score:2)
Re:Don't worry (Score:2)
Language Barrier (Score:1)
Why not India? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, if these jobs are going to Indians with CS degrees...why wouldn't they deserve the job? If they're qualified, why not give them work? I mean, if two workers are both qualified, and one will work cheaper, you hire the cheaper one.
And if you think they're not qualified, then one of two things would happen: either companies will see the difference in quality, decide it's not worth the cost savings, and start bringing the jobs back...or they'll decide the quality is good enough, that it offers a better value for their money, and there'll start to be a lot less high pay programming jobs in the US. Companies may just not need as highly skilled programmers as they thought. To them, it'd be like hiring an engineer to be a janitor, when he was still demanding an engineer's salary. Either he's gotta drop his price, or the job's going to someone else.
I guess people just need to realize that programming, as it's done by most large software companies, isn't really skilled work. It requires a lot of training, yes, but so does being an auto mechanic. Sure, there'll always be smaller companies that have a need for highly skilled programmers. Id isn't going to start outsourcing. But a young, technically-minded individual will just have to consider other career paths than programming. Low-level programming jobs aren't going to disappear in the US, but they'll prolly pay a lot less and just generally be a lot less glamorous.
Re:Why not India? (Score:2)
It really isn't about the degrees, two graduates are to a better or lesser extent very similar. It is about the capability of the organisation that they join. The critical point is domain specific knowledge? Who do you expect to know more about credit derivatives, JP Morg
Re:Why not India? (Score:1)
Really, if these jobs are going to Indians with CS degrees...why wouldn't they deserve the job? If they're qualified, why not give them work?
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Isn't it more the obligation of a country to supply native work for its own skilled labor pool than it is for a foreign country to be responsible for employing them via offshore contracts? America should not be seen as some kind of global employment service. Why doesn't India support its own programmers with its own industry? You know what, one day they will, b
You're in the wrong class (Score:3, Funny)
You're in the wrong class. This is actually one of the Management courses. The SE course is down the hall.
I just thought you'd like to know before you get too into it.
On second thought, if you couldn't figure out what room you're supposed to be in, you'd be a good manager. Nevermind.
Re:You're in the wrong class (Score:2)
Outsourcing in class (Score:2)
Yes, about 10 years ago, WPI [wpi.edu] used to do this in their Software Engineering class. However, they stopped doing this a year after I took the course, due to time constraints (we have 7 week terms).
Basically, what we had to do was generate a requirements document for the other development team to follow, and then they would develop the software per our requirements. We had to do the same thing with another group's set of requirements.
The aim of this
Re:Outsourcing in class (Score:2)
Immediately a lesson was learned! One a project has been outsourced beyond your building, the need for a formal methodology means that it will take more time.
Don't many students already ... (Score:2)
Re:Don't many students already ... (Score:2)
Re:Don't many students already ... (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
The real engineering work starts later.
CMU-W Management of Software Systems Development (Score:1)
Managing Outsourced Development (MOD) Certificate consists of three separate tasks:
Task 1 - Project Initiation and Planning:
Perform project initiation and planning by building a Project Charter, Project Plan, Procurement and Solicitation Plan, and a presentation to management that recommends the viability of the project, including the team's recommendation and rationale for