Peek Into A Data Modeler Career in the WSJ

website@infoadvisors.com — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:19:03 GMT

Greg IP has authored an article in the Wall Street Journal about the declining value of college degrees in the U.S. His case study is Bea Dewing, a Data Modeler who has worked at Sprint and Wal-Mart. The focus of his story is the fact that Ms. Dewing has a much lower salary at Wal-Mart than she did at Sprint.

There may be some more information that was left out of this article, but I'm having a tough time comparing salaries of data architects at a telecommunications company and a retailer, even if that retailer is the world's largest. I'm also wondering what the cost of living differences are between Kansas City and Bentonville, AR.

The Declining Value
Of Your College Degree

By GREG IP

A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.

Just ask Bea Dewing. After she earned a bachelor's degree -- her second -- in computer science from Maryland's Frostburg State University in 1986, she enjoyed almost unbroken advances in wages, eventually earning $89,000 a year as a data modeler for Sprint Corp. in Lawrence, Kan. Then, in 2002, Sprint laid her off.

"I thought I might be looking a few weeks or months at the most," says Ms. Dewing, now 56 years old. Instead she spent the next six years in a career wilderness, starting an Internet café that didn't succeed, working temporary jobs and low-end positions in data processing, and fruitlessly responding to hundreds of job postings.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121623686919059307-TeZnDXqiG9UB2fwzkNBfnucSMaA_20080816.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

BTW, the article mentions that Ms. Dewing was also instrumental in re-launching what appears to be the Kansas City DAMA chapter. The other interesting point made in the articles is about the fact that most schools don't even address data modeling in their curricula, something I've been talking about for the last two decades.

Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture

Peek Into A Data Modeler Career in the WSJ

The Declining Value
Of Your College Degree

Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture

Peek Into A Data Modeler Career in the WSJ

The Declining Value Of Your College Degree

The Declining Value
Of Your College Degree