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Education United States Technology

U.S. Students Have Achieved World Domination in Computer Science Skills -- For Now (ieee.org) 194

When it comes to computer science skills, U.S. students approaching graduation have a significant advantage over their peers in China, India, and Russia. Tekla Perry shares a report: That's the conclusion of a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The study was put together by a global team of researchers led by Prashant Loyalka, an assistant professor at Stanford University. The team constructed a careful sampling mechanism to select senior (typically fourth year) computer science or equivalent students in each of the four countries, making sure that both the educational institutions and students enrolled at those schools were statistically representative of schools and computer science students throughout the respective nations. The sampling also ensured that study participants represented both elite and non-elite universities.

The final selection included 6847 students from the U.S., 678 from China, 364 from India, and 551 from Russia. Once the students were selected, the researchers then administered the Major Field Test in Computer Science, an exam that was developed by the U.S. Educational Testing Service and is regularly updated. The exam was translated for the students in China and Russia. When the researchers tabulated the results, the U.S. students came out ahead in every category. U.S. seniors outperformed their peers overall; students from elite U.S. schools outclassed their counterparts at the other countries' elite institutions; and the same was true for students at non-elite universities. (The differences among the scores of students in China, India, and Russia were not statistically significant, the researchers indicated.)

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U.S. Students Have Achieved World Domination in Computer Science Skills -- For Now

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  • by lionchild ( 581331 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:31PM (#58294364) Journal

    If US students have achieved world domination, why are there such a high demand for H1-B Visa's?

    • by bob4u2c ( 73467 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:41PM (#58294432)

      why are there such a high demand for H1-B Visa's?

      They cost less and are dependent on good standing with the company to stay in the US, next question.

    • If US students have achieved world domination, why are there such a high demand for H1-B Visa's?

      Part of the reason is "combo matching". Look at a typical IT job ad: it will have a list of "required" skills, tools, and versions that a particular company happened to pick for themselves. The chance of any one individual matching that list as-is is statistically pretty small.

      But if HR can shop the world, the chance of a statistical fit goes up. Whether that's a rational way to pick a tech worker or not is moot,

      • by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:53PM (#58294534)

        "But if HR can shop the world, the chance of a statistical fit goes up. Whether that's a rational way to pick a tech worker or not is moot, it's the way HR/recruiters typically think."

        Not at all, those listings are in some cases designed to match exactly the person the manager wants to promote but they are required to post the position for "fair access" or more commonly to screen out U.S. Applicants. There is nothing saying the person they hire actually has to meet those requirements so they can screen out US applicants and then hire an H1B who doesn't meet them.

        H1Bs are about dillute the labor pool in order to stagnate wages. There are other advantages, salary is usually part of it but a small part. The h1b is required to keep working there for a period before they can get another job. The H1B usually has no issues with infiltrating the position and then training replacements, developing automations, or assisting the company in preparing to outsource.

        • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

          H1Bs are about dillute the labor pool in order to stagnate wages.

          Well they aren't doing a very good job. On the east coast, H1-B workers are a small fraction of tech workers. In my current cube farm of >100 people, I think we have 2. Compare that to Silicon Valley, which has some of the highest wages -- H1-B visas are 3/4 of the workers. So if they are here to stagnate wages, it isn't working. Not to mention the cost of sponsoring them is rather high.

          I suppose the one way in which they do stagnate wages is when some company that hires nothing but H1-B workers com

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:56PM (#58294554)

        After many years of experience I'm the tech industry, I'm of the sound theory that the "combo matching" you refer to is used more as a way to indirectly justify the other real reasons you mentioned: salary, culture, ageism, or politics.

        If I make a position nearly impossible to fill by never endingly increasing specificity of minimik requirements, I can explain away any candidate of my choosing. Now that I've established a way to exclude all candidates, I can look at the viable candidates who applied and discriminate however I choose: salary, age, sex, whatever. Should any sort of discrimination lawsuit arise itll be quite easy to justify why I hired the other person unless they match the specificity of the other candidate exactly (pretty impossible). I get to do all this while still advertising position openings through all the typical mediums without worry of legal discrimination liabilities.

        I know this because at least two positions I've worked have used this very practice and explained to me this is quite normal procedure to guarentee my spot for the opening. Often if its political (like those cases) they'll even have you send a copy of your resume where they tailor the specificity off your resume.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Should any sort of discrimination lawsuit arise itll be quite easy to justify why I hired the other person unless they match the specificity of the other candidate exactly (pretty impossible).

          Are US courts really that dumb? I mean don't the plaintiff's layers just argue that the extremely specific requirements are part of the discrimination process and expose the fact that they can't really be justified? And even if they can be justified, that's often just evidence of institutional discrimination.

          Do you perhaps have any examples of this happening? Would be especially interesting if there was a lawsuit as well so that we could examine what arguments were used.

          • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

            It's a common practice to get around the compliance requirements. As a hiring manager, if I have an opening, and know someone who happens to be a great fit for that job, I'm still required to open a requisition for a week, and interview at least three candidates. Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way, but nobody has ever explained why I should have to jump through that hoop in order to select the obvious person for the job. Because, in the end, I'm still going to get the person I wanted. Most certainly,

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Companies don't want you to do that as a hiring manager, because it creates a monoculture that does the organization as a whole harm. Trying to force you to consider other candidates is a rather blunt instrument, but also an easy one to implement.

              • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

                "...because it creates a monoculture that does the organization as a whole harm"

                I can see where that could happen, but not on my watch. My company consistently brags about our diversity awards, and even though I'm an old white guy (nearly a minority in my workplace), my selections are based upon who's going to get the job done. I'm pretty confident that my peers do the same, because we often do committee interviews, and discuss them after.

      • You don't need a fit, often the decision comes down to being able to hire 2 or 4 people for the cost of one. Forget H1-B, this is about outsourcing and it's a bigger issue than H1-B.

        You don't want to be a cookie cutter clone of every other job candidate out there (especially in IT). The snag is that as an entry level job it is extremely hard to stand out our have experience in a desired specialty.

        For H1-B generally the hiring company still wants someone above average for the most part, because it's a pain

        • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          You don't need a fit

          I was mostly discussing the decision from HR's point of view and/or habit; I didn't claim it was the best approach. They are not IT experts, and often try to fit skills list verbatim to cover their butts in case something goes wrong. It's like a contract: if they can successfully fit the contract (job ad), they've done their job ... on paper.

          For H1-B generally the hiring company still wants someone above average for the most part

          The visa workers I've worked with are a wide variability in

          • by lurcher ( 88082 )

            "The one constant is that they'll often work long hours because they usually have no family,"

            And that is in the companies interest because?

    • If US students have achieved world domination, why are there such a high demand for H1-B Visa's?

      Because US companies are willing to accept less if they can pay less -- and pocket the difference or funnel it to executives and/or shareholders. Good enough is usually good enough.

      • "If they can pay less" also translates to a lerger head count. That's crucial for managers seeking more pay or a better resume for their next role, in ways unrelated to the success of the project.

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        That's a funny way to say "maximize profit", which is what virtually every successful business does...not only in the U.S. Don't get me wrong, I'm no H1-B visa fan. But as long as it's legal, you can expect business to take every opportunity to use it...we need to get government to fix that, and stop blaming business for doing what they're supposed to do. But before that will ever happen, we need to get the lobbying money out of Congress, or it will never happen. That, in my mind, is the biggest problem

    • by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:46PM (#58294478)
      In my experience, many of the H1B visa people are project managers and team leads that funnel work offshore where "professionals" are willing to work for a small fraction of what american professionals need to live.

      Short sighted corporate strategy seeks the lowest cost without a concern for total life-cycle cost.
      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        True, because every project (program) manager tries to maximize profit or they're soon replaced with someone who will. It's a problem that won't be fixed by project managers, or any business. It needs federal regulation to make it not be an option for those managers...and I say this as a small government, conservative, capitalist.

    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      Someone else mentioned costing less and the period of indentured service companies get from H1B workers. But beyond that there is a bigger goal, dilluting the wage pool. There are enough people to fill the jobs, there aren't enough people to stagnate wages or even send them into decline which is what employers want.

      They simply don't want to pay this class of engineer as much as they pay the other.

    • Can hire someone who's really good and experienced and local, or two people in an eastern European country, or 4 people in India (in, not from). So when you can't find anyone competent locally you get the pressure to look overseas. Then you think, well I can get 4 instead of 1 and the position isn't for a senior role, and the summary sent to me is probably full of lies but with 4 of them maybe they can do something.

      And that's the rationale for a *skilled* job requiring experience. Most of these jobs are gru

      • by bob4u2c ( 73467 )

        And yes, it works out badly, you generally get your senior local people spending far too much of their time training or micro managing the remote workers.

        You just described the last year and a half of my life. With a remote team of 4 people I was spending half my time training only to see the same mistakes over and over again. Even after pointing out the problem with a solution and how to avoid it; I would get back a re-factored solution where they put the exact same problem in again. For the better part of a month I was pretty sure the person submitting the changes was a new person every time. That was the only way someone could have made the same mis

    • Simple.. Cost reasons.

      And its justifiable (to management) when you only want/need a code monkey rather than an artist. And they (H1B) are more willing to put up with crap hours and pay (vs. domestic counterparts will fight that).

      In short, its because, what its always been about.. Money..
      Not skills/ability.

    • by h4x0t ( 1245872 )
      Ha.
    • Because the US has low relative population density and a high number of tech companies. Ergo, there is demand for workers outside the US. This is a good thing for the US.

    • The CS dept of my local university is filled with folks on visas. They go to school while also working for a company that sponsored them. It lets the company do an end run around H1-B limits because they're not "work" visas they're "student" visas. The "students" already know the material (they were trained overseas) so they can keep up with a full time job + school.

      It kinda sucks. It displaces an American student and a job...
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Control, cost and not starting union.
      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        There's never been a real push for a C.S. union, nor a good reason for one. If you're a C.S. major, and not being paid what you think you deserve, or treated unfairly, you should have no trouble walking out the door, and doing better just down the street...unless you really suck at it, in which case I could see why you'd want a union.

    • If US students have achieved world domination, why are there such a high demand for H1-B Visa's?

      Just because the US might have the best, there are obvious answers to why we have h1-b visas. First, there probably are not enough devs in the us to cover all our needs. Second, we are probably not cheaper than foreign educated people, at least at first. Since there's a massive shortage of dev talent, but probably not a massive shortage of IT, that explains why there's a trend of bringing in cheaper external people for it jobs. There are people outside the us who can be talented devs, but I think because th

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        First, not true, but talking heads will say it is because they don't want to pay higher wages.

        Second, obviously we're not cheaper than people who come from places where the cost of living is 10% of what ours is...duh. But "educated" is frequently questionable, and often gamed by the companies pushing them.

        "massive shortage of dev talent"...many people who were coders left the field at the end of the internet bubble, or during the recession. Now that we're finally seeing some decent salary increases, you'l

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The study looked at quality, not quantity.

    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      The same reason there is a huge push for diversity in tech even though the geek crowd which runs tech was raised on fantasy and sci-fi with all sorts of scenarios that exposed them to diversity concepts outside their bias and thus has always been pretty welcoming to anyone who had the stuff.

      The more people they get into the labor pool the more they serve to stagnate or drive down wages.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:33PM (#58294386)

    Shouldn't they also test how everyone passes Russian, Indian and Chinese tests ?

    Because maybe US program is aligned with US tests.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      The "US program" is not a top-down thing. Read the story, it's a compilation of elite and non-elite universities referenced against overall demographics for selection propriety. There is no "US program" - the test is US centric, maybe.

      I don't know without looking at it if there is any merit to (as yet unmade, that I'm aware of) complaints about the translation into the foreign languages, which would be a potential source of common bias/error obviously.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Everybody does their own propaganda lies. I am sure, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, etc. are all the world leaders in this field too.

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        Everybody does their own propaganda lies. I am sure, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, etc. are all the world leaders in this field too.

        Yeah, I'm sure that Standford and IEEE are the propaganda arms of the US government.

        The study was put together by a global team of researchers led by Prashant Loyalka, an assistant professor at Stanford University.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      For more detail, statistically speaking, your would expect US computer students, to do better on a US recognise test, that all US education establishments are fully aware of and in the majority agree with and align their education outlines with. Not to forget those Russian, Indian and Chinese students were doing the test in their second language not their primary language. So how did they do against poms and skips, a better comparison at least in language but then you could do their tests for a cross compar

      • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

        From the summary....The exam was translated for the students in China and Russia.

        The study was put together by a global team of researchers led by Prashant Loyalka, an assistant professor at Stanford University.

  • Practicality? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:33PM (#58294396) Journal

    Something tells me a study put together by academics may not match real-world effectiveness. Skills related to teamwork social dynamics, understanding the business domain, and communication often have at least as big an impact as raw academic prowess, especially early in one's career where one has to pretty much shuddup and do what the boss asks.

    • Re:Practicality? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:53PM (#58294538)

      Skills related to teamwork social dynamics, understanding the business domain, and communication often have at least as big an impact as raw academic prowess

      My experience working in several Asian countries has convinced me that America has a substantial lead in all of these areas.

      The level of office intrigue, backstabbing, favoritism, and information hoarding that goes on in a typical Asian office is far worse than anything you will see in America.

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        The level of office intrigue, backstabbing, favoritism, and information hoarding that goes on in a typical Asian office is far worse than anything you will see in America.

        That's hard to believe because it's pretty strong here. I'm convinced the Dilbert comic strip is a documentary with the names changed. In fact, the author admits he got many ideas from reader mail of actual events. Dilbert was invented in the Good Ol' USA.

        I do often hear the structure is much more hierarchical in many parts of Asia: you ne

        • I'm convinced the Dilbert comic strip is a documentary with the names changed.

          You are in the minority. Most Americans think Dilbert is funny.

          In Asia, you would be in the majority, and few would see the humor.

          I do often hear the structure is much more hierarchical in many parts of Asia: you never question the boss's judgement: the hierarchy is almost absolute.

          Only on the surface. No one openly questions "the boss", but there is plenty of undermining and scheming. Co-workers and even business units tend to see each other as competitors, rather than part of a cohesive organization working for a common purpose.

          In many Asian countries, there are big international or state-owned enterprises, tiny mom-and-pop-shops, and nothing in betwee

          • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

            Anecdote...I had a flight instructor who left our aero club at a base in Korea to go work as an instructor at KAL for a couple years. He came back to the club and told me that he'd never work for a Korean airline again because the junior co-pilots would never tell the senior pilots when they were fucking up. I'm a big fan of respecting your elders, which is important in that culture, but this kind of thinking is totally unacceptable in a life/death situation.

          • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

            You are in the minority. Most Americans think Dilbert is funny.

            It can be both: a sad reflection of reality and funny, in a twisted way.

            The Presidency is also like that.

        • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

          Having lived in Korea for six years, I'll second ShanghaiBill's opinion on this. You often don't know how good you have it until you actually see the other side.

    • It is funny you mention those skills because those are areas that I personally find the US counterparts to excel at. I know lots of smart coders from abroad, but few have strong business accumen or even an interest in that area. When outsourcing work, on of the toughest barriers is communicating business needs. Often times the offshore workers are capable developers but don't seem to have an interest or knowledge in the business needs. Although much of that may be language barriers or the desire to do t

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        interns and grads to India to look at the way they ran the businesses. In one memorable example, a clothing company had only a single piece of some major equipment. When it went down the company had everyone do the work by hand. But the cost of only a short amount of down tome would have easily paid for a second backup piece of equipment. But no one was actually doing the cost-benefit analysis. They found people running businesses who just didn't know how to manage money.

        There's plenty of similar here also

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @03:40PM (#58294426)

    The team constructed a careful sampling mechanism to select senior (typically fourth year) computer science or equivalent students in each of the four countries, ... The final selection included 6847 students from the U.S., 678 from China, 364 from India, and 551 from Russia.

    By the typical fourth year (or equivalent) the US students were still in school while the Chinese students were hacking US companies, the Indian students were answering US help-desk calls and the Russian students were hacking US elections... Be sure to statistically adjust for that.

  • Superficially, this would appear to have a significant degree of bias and I'm left wondering what's the point. For starters it used a test developed in the US as its starting point. It would be expected that students from the US would already be somewhat familiar with the test and associated methodology whereas the other students wouldn't. Also teaching tends to become skewed towards common testing regimes, so it is likely that the material being covered in the US is more relevant to the tests than other co

  • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Monday March 18, 2019 @04:51PM (#58294882)
    Then why do we need all those highly skilled H-1Bs?? If US students are the most skilled in the world, then other countries should be begging for them. America should not be wanting for highly trained computer specialists.

    In fact doesn't this undermine the whole H-1B concept?
    • France has the most chefs with Michelin stars, so why do new Chinese and kebab restaurants keep opening up?

      • You can't compare different facets of computer science to different forms of cuisine. People spend their entire lives just learning one form.
        • You can't compare different facets of computer science to different forms of cuisine. People spend their entire lives just learning one form.

          ...of which?

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      Not really. China and India have much higher population density, whereas the US has more tech companies. The tech people in the US are at 100% employment. Since the US standard of living is so high, US workers rarely want to work for tech companies overseas. Hence, the US either imports labor or outsources. It's supply and demand.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The study only looked at skill levels, not quantity available. Maybe there are just not enough of these highly skilled US students.

      There does seem to be some evidence of that, given that a number of big tech companies are investing in getting more students to take up CS. If all they wanted was H1B then why waste millions on education?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Most of the gifted real world engineers seem to be doing programming contests than get into theoretical computer science, which is what this test is.

    This looks like a biased sample to me - and one not leading to a practical consequence.

  • Yea, I know nobody actually reads the linked article. But if you do happen to read it you'll see this tidbit:

    Loyalka and his colleagues also looked at the difference in scores between the men and women in the sample. In every country, the men came out ahead...

  • For instance Google Code Jam" [wikipedia.org]. A contest in English, from the US. Between 2003 and 2018, 45 persons won the 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. Among the 45, only 3 are Americans...
  • Could be a simple case of designing a test to reflect the local curriculum in the USA, or a case of problematic translation.
    The test would have a lot more validity if it would have been designed by a joint committee of the universities involved, and then written in their respective native languages (not translated)

  • US says US is best!
    Russia, China, India is probably saying the same about themselves.

  • American universities attract a lot of foreign students. Are we looking at a comparison of CS skills or educational institutions?
  • I've hired Indians and Americans for some jobs. I always found that the quality of the Indian code was better.
  • Seems very odd that the only statistically significant difference was between the native speakers of the test designer's native language and the non-native speakers - China/Russia/India had no significant difference from each other.

    Leads me to believe that maybe whoever was translating the test wasn't using the same idioms and figurative language that native speakers of Mandarin/Russian/Hindi would use.

The unfacts, did we have them, are too imprecisely few to warrant our certitude.

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