Is a degree in computer science marketable in Zimbabwe

Question

What positions would I hold with a computer science degree? What are the job opportunities

Answer 1

Degree is general, it means you are employable in any IT field then get adapted for business requirements.

Bt you can choose what interest you and pursue relevant specialist courses to boost your profile and employment chances.

Here in Zim companies and people tend to prefer those with degrees than specialist knowledge in IT, its something l observed.

Comments

Considering that Zimbabwe has about 85% unemployment rate it is very difficult for us to say one will get an IT Manager post with a degree because 85% of those degreed guys are jobless

So yes, u can be an IT Manager, IT Admin or Technician or jobless!

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well said.
tinm@n

Answer 2

the job opportunities are the same if you had the degree or not, your chances of getting some jobs if you had a particular degree are what differs here.

the reality is that it will vary company to company - i wouldnt be surprised if you could get a fairly decent job in a company with a CS degree and not much else (particularly if they dont have much knowledge in ICT other than knowing they need it)

however most of the switched on companies (cant say i have seen that many in zim to be honest) will generally look for relavant experience as that will always outweigh a degree as often degrees become very irrelevant very quickly particularly in the technology industry

to give a bit of a funny story - i only graduated in 2012 with a BSc in Computer Science, in 2011 i was doing a networking and Operating systems module for the degree, they dedicated approx 2-3 weeks of 2 hour lectures to networking and IPv4 in particular and only 1 minute in a passing point to IPv6 about it coming in the future... anyone with reasonable networking knowledge will know that IPv4 is basically on the cusp of being obsolete and IPv6 is very much coming upon us (this was the same case 2 years ago when i took the module!) 40% of that module i was taught will be very much all but irrelevant in the very near future...

with unemployment being so high and liquidity not being that great, be prepared to fight for any position and look to set yourself apart from others by gaining experience and more appropriate qualifications - for example MCSE's if you want to work with windows/windows server or Cisco CCNA if you want to work on network level stuff

Answer 3

Its a valuable degree. If you are starting now, by the time you're done  perhaps Zim economy will have stabilised to grow you or utilise your skills.

The greatest benefit is that you are globally marketable. If you like the idea of application/software development, that degree gets you a ticket to the industry. If you add more skill to yourself, you will also be able to develop software, web or other applications from Zimbabwe, since you seem to insist on the Zim market. The beauty of software development is that the main artifact you produce(software) can be developed and delivered from a remote location.

Speaking for myself, during the difficult Zim economy (2008), I relied on freelance work to survive. Depending on how hard you work or how fast you learn mainstream development languages( e.g. PHP,C#,Ruby, Python or Java) you can even start making money whilst doing your degree, without leaving Zimbabwe.

Otherwise for now,in Zimbabwe, you are limited in terms of the types of positions you can occupy with your CS degree. If you are happy with the more generic IT Manager/Administrator position, you can get that in Zim. But too much competition because many people opt for that easier way out

tinm@n

Comments

Hie, i am looking for a software developer. i prefer poople from Zim.