To Solve the Diversity Drought in Software Engineering, Look to Community Colleges (vice.com) 336
An anonymous reader shares a report: Community college is not flashy and does not make promises about your future employability. You will also likely not learn current way-cool web development technologies like React and GraphQL. In terms of projects, you're more likely to build software for organizing a professor's DVD or textbook collection than you are responsive web apps. I would tell you that all of this is OK because in community college computer science classes you're learning fundamentals, broad concepts like data structures, algorithmic complexity, and object-oriented programming. You won't learn any of those things as deeply as you would in a full-on university computer science program, but you'll get pretty far. And community college is cheap, though that varies depending on where you are. Here in Portland, OR, the local community college network charges $104 per credit. Which means it's possible to get a solid few semesters of computer science coursework down for a couple of grand. Which is actually amazing. In a new piece published in the Communications of the ACM, Silicon Valley researchers Louise Ann Lyon and Jill Denner make the argument that community colleges have the potential to play a key role in increasing equity and inclusion in computer science education. If you haven't heard, software engineering has a diversity problem. Access to education is a huge contributor to that, and Denner and Lyon see community college as something of a solution in plain sight.
alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't want Old guys who specialized on these old time sharing mainframe systems where you had a big system, and you had charged the customer for the computing needed then provided the data remotely back to them. To be working the state of the art cloud computing platforms, where we charge the customer for the computing needed then provide the data remotely back to them.
Or these guys who specialized in Witting desktop apps for Single use PC's with under 4 gigs of RAM and screen sizes under 12" to be making mobile apps on these mobile devices with under 4 Gigs of Ram and screen sizes under 12".
A lot of the new stuff, is just a rehash of older technology, the theory behind it is the same, just some of the details have been improved.
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Yeah, but we're old WHITE guys, which diversity experts say shouldn't have jobs anymore.
Diversity is just skin deep, you know.
Couldn't possibly, say, hire these old white guys to teach at community colleges, now could we?
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Because, of course, a 20-something H1b has a lot of life experience to offer to community college students while he's banging all the white chicks.
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Re:alternative (Score:5, Insightful)
Based upon that statement, you MUST work in HR and not in any kind of engineering.
Re:alternative (Score:4, Informative)
yeah, okay but the details are completely different and they matter a ton. when a 55 year old guy who specialized in programming Z80 chips for smart bombs is laid off his skill set is useless in today's market.
No, he is "useless" in today's market for maybe a month until he has picked up some new knowledge. I have been hired twice as a senior level developer in a language or platform I have never worked in, and it generally took a few weeks to get up to speed. It took closer to six months to a year to be what I consider a true senior resource in those technologies, but I was very useful to my computer in week 2.
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No, I was stating their experience in the older technologies, can directly apply to newer technologies, due to cyclical nature of technology. The problem is the industry thinks the old guys haven't been keeping up with the trends, while for the most part the newest and hottest trends are just old hat.
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I agree that this is part of the solution. Not everyone over 45 keeps their skills up to date, but painting _everyone_ over 45 with the same brush makes it less likely that they'll bother trying.
Part of the problem is the "worshipping of rockstars" culture. The flashy, self-promoting 25 year olds who crank out code 100+ hours a week because they have no other obligations are what gets the press. What gets the press gets the attention of the MBAs writing the checks. Standing out in an environment like that w
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Well, you do the standing out and resume experience gathering while you are young and can do it.....with the eye on the futu
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We are talking here about computer science.
There is no need to keep you skill 'up to date' (unless in windows administration perhaps)
Computers and 'stuff' workes the same since 80 years.
Why the fuck anyone thinks that programming in power shell versus bash is a 'big deal' is beyond me.
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In my field (biology) it's entirely the latter. People would be willing to hire a 50 year old for a ton of jobs. The 50 year old would need to be willing to get paid like an intern would though, and a 50 year old willing to work for that little might raise some red flags...
Re:alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, diversity applies to pretty much everyone....except old white guys....
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Yep, diversity applies to pretty much everyone....except old white guys....
Actually it doesn't apply to white guys at all, regardless of age. Even suggesting diversity could ever positively involve a white male will get you fired.
Citations:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk] http://dailycaller.com/2017/11... [dailycaller.com]
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Furthermore, yes, if your ENTIRE JOB was to provide PR cover for a company, to shield them from accusations that they're only hiring white dudes, as her job was, then yeah, that's a dumb thing to say.
"THIS JUST IN: CRITICIZING THE PRESIDENT WILL GET YOU FIRED! (example: Rex Tillerson saying his boss Trump was a fucking moron)"
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Ho hum, seems like I replied to the wrong post.
Re:alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a female student who was asking me if she would have a problem getting a job since she is in her late 30s. I told her that anyone who is not white or an older man shouldn't have any trouble. Even though she is white, her gender will almost guarantee her a job.
Solve? (Score:5, Insightful)
There isn't a diversity problem. Diversity isn't related to any challenges in software engineering.
Re:Solve? (Score:4, Funny)
As a white man, given the choice to work with either another white guy or with a cute asian woman who's single, I'd pick the asian woman. Not because I'm a man, but because I'm a man AND a lonely nerd.
Re:Solve? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you'd pretty much better never TALK, email, IM or otherwise communicate with her.
Otherwise you'll likely see yourself losing your job due to "sexual" harassment. And even if you keep to yourself, if she doesn't like you, even the hint you were ever inappropriate to any woman since you were just DNA is enough to get you tossed out on your keister, so....be careful for what you wish for.
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I and may othres have worked with many women over the years and had no problems at all. If you're continually having trouble, the most likely explanation is that you are the problem not them.
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I talk to, email and go out for lunch with the women I work with. Never been accused of anything.
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Sounds like you've never worked with very many women or know how catty and overly sensitive they may be if they don't get special treatment that a woman "deserves".
And God help you if you are in a civil service job and said female is minority with any kind of attitude whatsoever.
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I've worked in a civil service job with mostly female colleagues for 14 years and have never had any of the problems to which you allude.
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http://www.tagged.com/ [tagged.com] ... and against popular believe, they love white nerdy men ...
They are easy to find there
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I'd pick the competent one. Whichever it is.
Re: Solve? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's funny I actually never hear it in that direction. I'm always hearing about how the brown people and women are complaining about the nice things white old men built and want in on that.
Re: Solve? (Score:4, Insightful)
The loudest SJW types who push for forced diversity are always white men and women themselves, from downtown cores, leaning to the left. I'm certainly not complaining about them, but pointing it out that the noise really comes from white SJWs.
Kinda similar to another thing: I know well over 1000 muslims in north american and have never heard of one single one wanting 'happy holidays' over 'merry christmas'. That whole thing was also started by SJWs and muslims end up paying the political price. (Christ is a holy figure for muslims, so even the most religious muslims are happy to celebrate his birthday).
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You could at least listen to them before getting upset and what you imagine they are saying.
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It might if it were historically factually accurate, but since it's just Hollywood wish-fulfillment fiction, it will be difficult to get any information on the real world from it.
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"Biggest problem in software engineering is the customer who doesn't know its own domain, nor does the customer know what it wants and even less what is the best for the customer. This is especially bad in public sector where software developers usually know the law better than the customer who's job it is to write that law and see that it is used correctly."
So diversity in skills could mean you can have engineers who understand these people better. It seems that you are being bitter at your customers for
credits may not transfer and few offer 4 year degr (Score:5, Insightful)
credits may not transfer and few offer 4 year degrees.
Even when credits do transfer some 4 year Colleges may force you to retake classes or say you may have X credits but only some of them counted to what you need to get the degree from us.
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credits may not transfer
In most states, credits from CCs are guaranteed to be transferable to the state's 4 year public universities. In California it is easier to transfer credits from a CC into the UC system that to transfer from the "Cal State" system. The CCs are explicitly set up as an affordable pipeline into the 4 year public universities.
and few offer 4 year degrees.
That is not what CCs are for.
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If they only said "college" it might not transfer, but they said "Community College" so it usually does.
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problem (Score:5, Insightful)
If you haven't heard, software engineering has a diversity problem
There's unequal participation. That doesn't mean there's a problem.
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In the mind of those where fixing the statistic fixes reality (i.e. the most dumb SJWs with the absolute least understanding of reality), unequal participation must of course always be because of discrimination. That people of different genders and of different cultural backgrounds may just make different choices (if they are free to make these choices according to what they want) is an idea these SJWs cannot understand. Hence they basically follow a fascist approach where people have to be forced to be equ
Re:problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Basketball is pretty racist then.
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It is, however for sports which requires physical attributes that gives a noticeable advantage, such as being tall. But for a software engineer, just as long as you are able to interact with the computer and have average inelegance, with appropriate training, there isn't any real reason why people of different genders or races can do the job.
However, there is diversity problem in basket ball and in sports in general. Most minority kids who are at a disadvantage rely on sports to get them into college. So
Re:problem (Score:4, Informative)
But for a software engineer, just as long as you are able to interact with the computer and have average inelegance, with appropriate training, there isn't any real reason why people of different genders or races can do the job.
I agree, there is no real reason these positions cannot be filled by people of either gender or any race. What we do see is that people of certain races and genders will, on the average, tend to score higher than average. If the seat is filled competitively then people of these races and genders will tend to fill those positions over other races and genders. Companies that wish to ignore this tendency will hire based on race and gender over their intelligence will likely be able to fill that seat, and also be at a competitive disadvantage with other companies on their final products.
I saw an interview a while back where the people were discussing South Africa and the racial tensions there. That is a nation, due to its location on a major shipping route going way back, where Europeans immigrated in much larger numbers than other African nations. Even so the indigenous Blacks still make up 80% of the population with the rest being mostly European and mixed ancestry. That nation has never seen any major engineering project until the Europeans showed up, not even so much as a two story building. This ability for the immigrants to do so much better angered the locals.
Testing for intelligence among the population shows that those of European or mixed ancestry will have 50% score above 100 IQ. Those of pure indigenous ancestry will have 20% of the population score above 100 IQ. So, sure, you can find people in South Africa of any ancestry to fill a position that requires an average intelligence and appropriate training. What you will also find is that the qualified applicants will be made up of about 4 Whites to every 1 Black.
Imagine a company that needs people with average intelligence, or above, and appropriate training to fill thousands of jobs. In fact let's ignore the training part, and assume it's only about intelligence and the training is obtained on the job. Filling that first 5 seats with a proportion matching the general population will be easy, find 4 Blacks that score above 100 on an IQ test and 1 White, then hire them all. Now iterate this. This company is pulling from a pool where 50% of Whites can pass the test but only 20% of Blacks will. With each iteration the pool of Blacks that can pass the test gets far smaller on proportion than the Whites.
Assuming the highest scoring of the applicants are selected the quality of applicants of each iteration will be lower. Also, the quality of Black applicants will fall far faster than the White applicants. What happens after years of this and many many other companies hire people based on proportion of the race of the general population rather than the proportion of the population that can pass the IQ test with a score above 100? Something has to give.
To make this work the hiring practice has to start ignoring the racial makeup of the general population, and hire more Whites. I suppose the hiring criteria can change to have this racial proportion continue, but then you have people with below average intelligence tasked with work that may be beyond their abilities. What happens then? Is the company supposed to keep these people hired even though they cannot do the work they've been hired to do? Perhaps the work can be divided up, so more complex work is given to the more capable people and the less complex work given to the less capable people. Now you have "senior" engineers and "junior" engineers to differentiate between the more capable and less capable. In the larger group of "engineer" the racial composition is 80% Black and 20% White but the senior engineers is now flipped with 80% White and 20% Black. What happens then?
I know what happens. We'll have a bunch of people complain of racial discrimination and demand that senior engineers hav
Re:problem (Score:5, Insightful)
We should expect to see participation at around the same percentages as the population of the area.
Why should we expect that ? Do you think everybody has the same interests ?
Try a simple experiment. Go to youtube, and look up videos on "Arduino". Check the ratio of men and women. Now do the same for "Scrapbooking".
Nobody is stopping women from ordering an Arduino and recording a video, and nobody's stopping men from ordering some scrapbook supplies. The barrier to entry is extremely low in both cases. How come we still see this division ?
Simple: different interests. The average woman thinks Arduino is stupid, and the average man thinks scrapbooking is stupid.
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Scroll down a bit and read the comments on YouTube. Men get harassed for doing traditionally girly things, and women get harassed for doing traditionally male things.
So why would people go to the effort of making videos when they get that kind of response?
For Arduino stuff a lot of the web sites are the same. It got so bad on Hack a Day they had to really clamp down on it with a series of articles and comment purges. But go over to Adafruit and you will find many more women, because those forums are much fr
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> go over to Adafruit and you will find many more women, because those forums are much friendlier to them.
Interesting idea that internet forums are too caustic for some, and that it might affect women more than men.
I thought I read a while back (google fu fails me) about how the C usenet group started out friendly and helpful and devolved until spinoff groups needed to be made to be helpful and friendly, and then those groups devolved. Seems like the way of the internet, unfortunately.
Re:problem (Score:4, Interesting)
"We should expect to see participation at around the same percentages as the population of the area."
This is factually and statistically false. There is no significant area of human endeavor where the percentages of the population naturally lines up neatly with the percentages of participation. If software engineering started to do so, it'd be a first.
Here's a fun random internet example:
The exact same people would have to discriminate against black kickers in the NFL as would be discriminating in favor of blacks in the rest of the NFL. That sort of proves the disparate statistics in either direction can't be the result of bias based on skin color, unless you can come up with a reason they'd be biased based on skin color only when the player's job involves kicking or not.
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Actually, if you look at countries with high levels of gender equality you do see fairly equal representation in many areas that are dominated by one gender in other countries.
Either those countries are authoritarian hell holes where women are forced to study maths until they are as good as men, or once you remove the gender related stereotyping and barriers it turns out that their interests are fairly similar.
Turns out a lot of guys want to do "girly" stuff once you remove the social stigma and peer pressu
couldn't agree more (Score:3)
I agree wholeheartedly. Authoritarian hell holes like Scandinavia, Western Europe have far more unequal participation of men vs women in software development than egalitarian utopias like India and China.
Men are identical to women, period. Genetics and chromosomes are two hoaxes on the flat earth made by God in 6 days 6000 years ago. Free will, my ass!
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Who says there isn't a diversity problem in elementary education and boiler making?
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What genetic trait will makes the White male superior to do Computer Engineering? It seems to be too new of a skill for evolution to deal with it. My experience actually working with diverse sets of people doesn't show any statistical trend in skill sets either.
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Abstract thinking does not exist in certain ethnicities.
That's not something I've ever heard before. Do you have any suitable references that would educate me?
Does diversity results in better code? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does diversity results in better code? (Score:5, Informative)
The best developer on my team is a girl from Vietnam. My experience has been that diversity is a good thing, but I'm not convinced that there is a "diversity problem". We're so desperate to find competent developers that we couldn't be discriminatory if we wanted to be.
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How do you prove this is diversity, and not just the result of a brilliant enough mind to free herself from the communists and come here?
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The best developer on my team is a girl from Vietnam.
Is the only reason she's the best because she's both a girl and from Vietnam ? Because if so, all programmers should now be Vietnamese Girls and thus diversity is bad.
Or is it because she's simply the best programmer, regardless of her sex and nationality ? Because if so, then diversity of skin color, nationhood, and sex don't matter.
So which is it, is diversity bad or does it simply not matter ?
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You hired her for her developer skills, not because she was Vietnamese or that she is able to give birth.
How do you know he didn't hire her because he has an Asian fetish, and it just so happened that she was actually good at coding?
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No, it results in more diverse code. The mostly-white, mostly-male, mostly-young, mostly-upper-middleclass, mostly-Apple-using coders of Silicon Valley produce products that serve their own needs (and the needs of people like them) very well, but that doesn't represent the needs of the country (or world) as a whole.
And what is preventing non-white, non-male, non-young, non-upper-middleclass, non-Apple coders from picking up a book on programming and solving their own needs ? Sounds like a problem Capitalism can solve.
What skin color specific software do you need made ? And how much are you paying ?
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'Coders' don't define what people 'need'.
Product managers, product owners, comapies do.
I'm fed up with the Apple hater bullshit.
I write the code my customer wants me to write. And my customer does not care that I use a Mac for it. ... deal with it.
And: I stick it into your mouth! I write it in Java
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Any kind of craft suffers if people are pushed into it not on merit but on secondary characteristics. That is simple statistics.
Software engineering is beyond hope at this time though, because of far to many mediocre and bad people in it that nowhere near deserve to be called "engineer".
Solutions require problems (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to solve something, there must be a problem first. As long as no one consciously attempts to exclude a group, there is no issue. If women or Blacks or whoever feels uncomfortable, that's their problem to solve. It's not anyone's job to make someone else comfortable. If more women join, the atmosphere will change of its own. No one needs to force "diversity training" (unfortunately, it's a thing) on anyone.https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/12/04/1915224/to-solve-the-diversity-drought-in-software-engineering-look-to-community-colleges#
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If women or Blacks or whoever feels uncomfortable, that's their problem to solve. It's not anyone's job to make someone else comfortable.
Actually it is, and there are plenty of laws about it.
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As long as no one consciously attempts to exclude a group, there is no issue. If women or Blacks or whoever feels uncomfortable, that's their problem to solve.
So you think it's ok to be sexist and/or racist as long as you're not consciously doing it?
No that's bullshit. To go be a problem you must not actually be excluding groups. Whether or not you are being conscious about it or not is irrelevant to the group you're excluding. In other words, your precious feelings don't matter, only your actions.
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To go be a problem you must not actually be excluding groups
What if I exclude groups of people who are stupid or boring ? Is that allowed ?
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What if I exclude groups of people who are stupid or boring ? Is that allowed ?
No, it's only allowed if you exclude people who quote out of context.
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In the UK you can break the law by imposing policy that substantively disadvantages one protected group.
See the second bullet point on https://www.gov.uk/discriminat... [www.gov.uk]
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As long as no one consciously attempts to exclude a group, there is no issue.
I assume you apply the same logic to everything else, not just this, right? If you forget about gravity, you can fly! Right?
Or does it not actually make any fucking difference at all if you did it consciously or unconsciously, if you actually did it? Your argument seems to be that since you refused to admit why you did it, you think people will refrain from even being able to see the problem. But that is some pretty weak Theory of Mind! Expect to always lose that argument, and if you have it at work, to be
Quality Beats Diversity (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in the minds of everyone but the Social Justice Warrior set.
Being a different skin color or sex doesn't improve coding ability. The year is 2017, not 1959; there are no legal structures keeping black people from studying programming or being hired by any company who choses to do so. Jim Crow is dead.
Stop pretending that the United States of America is the most racist nation in the world, when in actually it is probably the least racist country.
Just stop shoving this SJW bullshit down our throat, Slashdot. It isn't helping, and it isn't working.
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Stop pretending that the United States of America is the most racist nation in the world, when in actually it is probably the least racist country.
Stop with this bullshit binary thinking. No, just because the U.S. might not be the most racist nation in the world does not make it the least racist nation.
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It's far less racist than Norway, Sweden and Denmark....who are all about hating other white people with blue eyes and blond hair.
It's far less racist than South Korea, North Korea, and Japan- who are all about hating other Asian people.
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Institutional racism was eliminated from the United States many years ago.
Personal/individual racism is still an issue, but it's foolish to think you can totally eliminate it from a heterogenous and free society. People are racist for lots of reasons, sometimes they are socialized to be racist and sometimes they develop racist thoughts and beliefs through interactions with other groups. There's nothing you can do about either one.
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If you want to be against social justice that is fine, but just don't whine about it being "unfair" when you get fired. Remember, you're against social justice, so don't complain.
Big fan (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a big fan of Community Colleges for one reason, they're inexpensive. I think we can all agree that you don't need a degree to be a good software engineer, although a degree can increase the salary you can demand and the return on investment is worth it.
Given that, it makes sense to start in a Community College and then finish up at a local in-state university. If I look at Salt Lake Community College and Weber State University in Utah you could do this for under $20k with room to spare.
In the end, it's how well you can program, not what school you went to.
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I'm a big fan of Community Colleges for one reason, they're inexpensive.
Me too! (And I'm a graduate of Weber State University, since you mention that, and I do campus outreach/recruiting to WSU on behalf of my employer, Google. Weber isn't a CC, but it's one step up, and many WSU students start at SLCC or similar).
I think we can all agree that you don't need a degree to be a good software engineer
I'm less certain of that. Oh, the piece of paper is meaningless, but the education in CS and SWE fundamentals is important. While it's possible to acquire it auto-didactically, relatively few people can do that effectively.
In the end, it's how well you can program, not what school you went to.
I'm not sure I agree with that, either, thoug
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For the doubters, I only have an Associate's degree and have been in the industry for close to 20 years. It's never been an issue
I have a good honours degree from a Russell Group university and it definitely helps open doors when looking for new jobs.
I agree though that it counts for shit when it comes to programming. I've worked with many programmers and I've known excellent and shit ones from all educational backgrounds.
I hire based on experience, skill, attitude and whether I think the person will provide the value we're seeking. Education, skin colour and physical appendages just don't come into it.
Not $104 per credit. For most in Oregon, it's free (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks entirely to the Democratic ownership of the state legislature and the governorship, Oregon promises free community college for any legal state resident starting out college from highschool (or GED), who isn't a trust fund baby, and has at least a 2.5 GPA, via the Oregon Promise Grant [oregonstudentaid.gov]. You do have to file out some forms, but then you're golden.
You must meet all of the following criteria:
There are plenty of web development classes as well.
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Oregon promises free community college for any legal state resident starting out college from highschool (or GED), who isn't a trust fund baby, and has at least a 2.5 GPA, via the Oregon Promise Grant [oregonstudentaid.gov]
"For full-time students, awards range from $1,000 to $3,540 per year (in 2017-18)"
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Which would be an issue if the cost for community college in Oregon didn't hover around $100/credit. 12 credits a semester and you're looking at $2,400 for the year. If you click the link at the end of that sentence, you get this:
Oregon Promise will cover up to the average tuition charged by an Oregon community college ($3,540 in 2017-18). Some community colleges have a higher or lower tuition cost than this average. If the tuition cost is above the average, the student is responsible for the difference. If the tuition cost is below this average, Oregon Promise pays up to that college’s actual tuition cost.
So it does appear to be free community college tuition, despite the amounts looking shockingly low. But if your local branch is more expensive, you might have to commute to another one to get your education closer to free.
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Also you need to add books and other fees to that $2,400
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Thanks entirely to the Democratic ownership of the state legislature and the governorship, Oregon promises free community college for any legal state resident starting out college from highschool (or GED)....
And the Republican legislature of Tennessee says "Welcome to the club, Oregon! [tnpromise.gov] What took you so long?".
The fact is, a lot of states are doing it. California offers one year of college. Rhode Island offers 2. New York even includes 4 year institutions. Last month the city of Dallas got in on the action [dallasnews.com]..
Sadly, it's not quite as good as it sounds. They aren't simply dropping the cost of community college to zero. What these things are is a "last dollar" scholarship where they ensure you first get all th
Even that is not needed (Score:2)
I totally agree that community college can be a good base for studying computer science and software development, for much cheaper than a "real" university.
But honestly even that is not required at this point. There are so, so many online resources for learning software development now, I can't help but think that you really do not need a college at all.
The one area a real course helps with is defined goals and feedback. But there are places online like Udacity that can offer even that.
I am personally con
CS != Web App Development (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that looking to other sources for hiring programmers is a good thing. Not everyone is rich or brilliant enough to go to Stanford and get a CS degree, nor does every developer in your company need to be a Stanford grad. I'm in systems engineering with no formal university training...I got a degree in chemistry way back when. Since most of what I do is integration work getting developers' "masterpieces" working in production, it's very clear that a large percentage of developers have very little idea about how the machines their code runs on work.
Real computer science education starts pretty close to first principles and builds up. It doesn't start at a web framework or query language 478 levels of abstraction up the stack and work down. The big problem with "software engineering" is that people actually do need some of this first-principles understanding to be useful outside of the abstracted environments. Both community college and university education is often derided as being too theoretical because unlike coder bootcamps they don't start you off at a point where most problems are solved. But if inexperienced developers had some clue about how the magic box works beyond gluing together more magic libraries and frameworks on top, software quality might improve.
Community colleges are a good place to start (Score:2)
Oh NO Mr Bill!!! (Score:2)
We might not get the best of the best of the best of the best!!!
Not that college/University grads are that either, but it not "best practices"
What the US needs... (Score:2)
is a good integrated, CHEAP university system in more cities and states. Take the NYC university system -- it has schools ranging from community colleges to 4 year universities to graduate schools. Pricing is either free or at most 6 to $8000 per year for in-state tuition. And credit tends to transfer easily between schools, so someone who does well at a community college can move into a 4 year school to finish a bachelor's degree.
But no, a lot of states and cities have a public university system that co
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Community College, Diversity and California (Score:2)
Just please don't let them teach PHP! (Score:2)
See subject.
Nonsense (Score:3)
Software engineering is a field that is still more art than craft. It will remain that for the foreseeable future. That has been known for a long, long time now. And for an art, you need an aptitude or you will never be any good. While we definitely should get anybody with that aptitude into it, we must get rid of all those without it, because their lack of skill is costing society extremely. Mediocre software engineers have negative productivity, sometimes massively so. "Diversity" will be a side-result of that. Not that "diversity" actually has any value when the individuals are all highly skilled. Highly skilled individuals in any STEM field are rare enough that all that can be found will have very good opportunities. Diversity only has a place in jobs most people can do because only there can you realistically discriminate.
More bullshit on diversity (Score:2)
Let's assume we have known populations A, B, C, D, and E. Each population is roughly equally divided between populations X and Y. We've done testing on intelligence and psychological tendencies on all these groups. We can say that A has the highest intelligence, B the lowest, C about average, D slightly above average, and E slightly below average. When grouped by X and Y we can see that, on average, Y scores higher in intelligence but X is lower. This is not generally disputed. People may argue if thi
How to find good workers (Score:2)
People that have listed that they have the skills for the job.
Hire a large company that can do background checking to look over the list of names who say they have the needed skills.
Did all the information in the resume match an actual educational history?
Get good grades at a good university that still gradates on merit, has tests and exams?
Did they get social advancement considerations to get into an average university?
Did they get soc
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Did you even read the summary? That's what the article is all about.
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Indeed, and white men in particular have higher barriers in education and employment performance metrics than many minorities for whom lower standards are applied. It's disgusting, "equal opportunity" should not mean lower performance acceptable.
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I am amazed that this was written by a woman! Props to Marlene, and if I ever have an app I want an iOS version of, Polyglot will be asked to provide a bid.
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You've got some derp in your neckbeard.
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That idea is foreign to "management". Creating code has to be as cheap as possible. Coders are basically just glorified plumbers, right? So you can hire cheap and get the same outcome and get a better bonus! (Incidentally, try hiring the cheapest plumber and see how well _that_ works out...)
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Your statement is not backed up by applicant demographics, irrespective of actual hires.
If you don't even apply for a job, you're not a candidate. Although I guess that's very fucking diverse.