From cube farms, to narcissic personality disorder. From Outsourcing to psychopath managers, people who will never get it, budget issues where IT is always on the edge of the ax, finger pointing to downright hysteria over the latest to chase technology, somehow a free gourmet lunch just does not make up for the strangeness that is a job in IT.

If you have about four minutes you should watch this video with Mehran Sahami, associate chairman of undergraduate education at Stanford University. The information presented on how American Business is making the IT industry less attractive to new students is something you want to watch.

With students not wanting to come into the IT business, is it any news that the demand for H1B visa's and other work being farmed out. We have ended up in a circle of logic, not enough students to feed the needs of 21rst century business, but business is not making it any safer to be in IT. We face issues like H1B, some of the strangest people you will work with, temper tantrums, poor managers, and poor working hours. The sad part is that this is no different as a working condition than in any other field of work. The continuing stories of poor management and spiraling downward budgets are not making IT compelling to be in, which leads to a decrease in student enrollments, and we keep on going on this one.

This is basically what Mehran Sahami has figured out, and shows some very good graphs and statistics to prove his point.

But according to MSN Careers, the number 2 and number 3 jobs that need workers are IT.

2. Computer systems analysts
Major: Information sciences and systems
Median annual salary: $69,760
Projected job growth: 29 percent
Jobs created: 146,000

3. Computer systems software engineers
Major: Computer science
Median annual salary: $85,370
Projected job growth: 28 percent
Jobs created: 99,000

The number of computer science graduates at Ph.D granting institutions is down well below the numbers needed to fill these positions.

But this leveling is happening only after the number of bachelor's degree graduates has apparently hit a trough. In the 2006-'07 academic year, only 8,021 students graduated with computer science degrees from these schools -- the lowest number of graduates this decade. Source: Computer World

Job Openings in just 2 fields of computer science, 245 thousand, graduates with a bachelors, 8,021, the job market is going to have more pressure to fill these positions, which keeps the circle going. The reason for most of this is that the continual bad news, bad economy, bad housing markets, talk of recession, outsourcing, H1B visa's, companies downsizing, and the horror stories that we all love to talk about with management and hiring are all leading to people just not wanting to be in IT.

The Horrors of IT, bad managers who will never get it, running by numbers, personality issues, are going to be faced by anyone entering the work force, in any business. IT folks are better at publishing their issues because we blog and talk freely about the jerk in the cube next door. Congressional testimony from CEO's of large companies on how we need more talented workers, we keep on continually getting bad news.

A free gourmet lunch is just not enough to get people into getting more CS degrees. We need more graduates in the business, we need better managers who get it, we need IT to understand Business, and for Business to understand IT. Otherwise we are going to keep on repeating, washing and rinsing the same arguments over and over again.

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About the Author:
Dan Morrill runs Techwag, a site all about his views on social media, education, technology, and some of the more interesting things that happen on the internet. He works at CityU of Seattle as the Program Director for the Computer Science, Information Systems and Information Security educational programs.