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I have been an electronics hobbyist for some time.. I am a programming hack also. (programmable logic for my projects and a little VB) I was gearing up to attend college (hopefully next year) for EE.

You guy's are scaring the crap out of me with these threads.

What would say to an aspiring EE?

you're going to study electrical engineering??? First, be sure to read Professor matloff's big 200 page research paper. It's called 'Debunking the Myth Of Engineer/Software Labor Shortage' or something similar. Find it on the net.

In that paper Matloff sites an american born fellow of asian descent (I mention he's asian because many people feel people of american stock can't do this work) busted his but enough to get into Princeton. He got a degree in Electrical engineering. He was a 4.0 student. Then he got a graduate degree at yale also in EE, again straight A's. Then he spent 2 years trying to find a job, didn't get a single job offer. This was in mid-1990's.

matloff's whole point is that we've created a situation through market intervention so that americans are sent very strong market signals to not study engineering or programming because these jobs are for foreigners.

If you look carefully at h1b, then you'll see that the h1b visa holders are given advantages in the job market that americans don't by law qualify for. Americans can't sell their labor in 6 year time slots, Americans don't receive US citizenship in return for 6 years of labor, so from an employer's point of view there are strong reasons to believe that an american can't compete due to these legal disadvantages given to them by their own government.

If all h1b's could switch jobs at will just as an american can, then a large amount of their advantages in the job market would go away.

On the other hand, if you've got god-given talent and you want to use it, then are you going to let a government policy intimidate you? Only if you have sense. Some people don't have sense. People in this later category are sometimes the great achievers, this policy is meant to intimidate you? Are you going to let it?