Students Opting Away from high-tech Degrees? 309
Toddius Maximus writes "A report, issued by the American Electronics Association, found that high-tech degrees -- including engineering, math, physics and computer
science -- declined 5 percent between 1990 and 1996. Preliminary findings from 1997 and 1998 indicate the trend is continuing, the AEA said.
Read more here "
Oh that's OK, we have a recipe for success... (Score:1)
Of course in a decade we'll wonder why we all went out of business because no one was buying our stuff, but at least it will have a positive impact on THIS year's bottom line.
Tech jobs aren't worth it. (Score:1)
Now, a salesman selling these same products--minimum 80K, after a few years, depending on your quotas, you could be in the 120+ range. Sales and Marketting are also the first to be promoted in larger companies. (None of this applies to startups, the engineers "Lotto" or companies in their first 10 years as far as I know).
Another point--in my lates job-search session a bunch of the programming jobs were for Database/VB work. I am quite pro-Vb, but most of the VB work out there requires little more than a tenth grade dropout with a desire to hack.
Finally I don't know what the trend is now, but I never finished college because I could make a pretty good living consulting--many people were going that route.
Why try?
Check the job market... especially in Physics/Eng. (Score:1)
the totals is somewhat misleading -
The Military/Aerospace industry has been doing
nothing but merging and slashing tech/engineering
positions for 8 years - Physics PhD's may well be
in oversupply, too - and Math has it's own problems - as in, even fairly bright people crack
their skulls on the really advanced stuff.
So you should at least look at these fields
separately - and take a close look at the job
market for people with these degrees. How many
physics PhDs are on their second PostDoc at
25K/yr or working in a non-tenure track
junior professorship?
Degrees (Score:2)
I've been working in various computer-related capacities for a decade now, both in the academic and the corporate worlds. I'm pretty good at what I do.
I'm a consultant. I don't make tons of money, but I make enough to get by, and I enjoy not having to go to work. I could certainly make more money with a day job, but then I wouldn't be able to blow off the afternoon to go biking, like I just did.
My lack of a relevant degree hasn't hurt me, and here's my take on why:
CS comes in a couple different flavors, depending on whether the university's CS department came out of math or EE. If it's a mathy CS, then you're not going to learn much about actually programming computers, although you will learn a lot about complexity analysis and, if you're hardcore, proofs of program correctness. These can on rare occasions be useful in the real world, but it's not too common for the day-to-day programming most of us do.
If it's an EE sorta CS, then you're likely to learn a lot of ground-up theory: this is a transistor. Here is how you put them together to make gates. Here is how you implement arbitrary logic with these gates. Here is how you can define a machine code to make use of that logic. Here is an assembler for it. Now, here's how you make a compiler to target that machine. That sort of thing. This is more useful to employers, but students are still not going to graduate with relevant experience--I'll explain what I mean a little later. Usually this sort of program also has professors teaching their pet theories and languages; this is not to say that Scheme isn't really elegant, just that it's not likely to directly be useful (although good programming practice is largely language-independent).
There's also primarily vocational CS. These are places teaching VBA and Excel. Nice, if you want a job *right now*. Isn't going to help in three years, and if theory has been neglected, generalizing your skills is going to be difficult.
There are very few curricula that include software engineering, which is what we really do. And that's for a good reason: there's no way to take a class of sophomores and turn them into maintenance programmers; there's no good way to teach someone how to read and extend someone else's code. It's something that you learn mostly by practice.
In short, Don Knuth is still right: computer programming is not a science, but an art. More precisely, I think it's a craft. At the moment, an apprentice system is really the only way to learn it, and it's the way most people do. It seems to work for both programming and system administration.
In short: you learn by doing, not by going to class. What smart employers look for are workers who are able to learn stuff fast. At some level, computer languages are pretty much isomorphic, and adminning an NT box isn't worlds different from adminning a Unix box. What this means from an employer's point of view: possession of a relevant degree doesn't guarantee you're any good, and absence of the degree doesn't mean you're necessarily incompetent.
And that's all I was saying.
Change the focus... (Score:5)
Many people seem scared to death of the technical fields. Why, I cannot say. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's fear of being labeled a "geek" (merely a form of modern racism, IMO), maybe it's just that they feel they ought to be able to buy the kind of comprehension and understanding a good engineer has without putting out the effort required to earn it (yes, I mean -earn.- Understanding is not a saleable commodity, thank God).
I do have a theory, though. I believe our own culture is to blame, and not in the way one might think.
The public schools -- heck, all schools I've attended -- tackle education in a rigid, linear fashion regardless of how slow or fast the students in a given class may be learning. One subject before another, period, regardless of how much one might be learning outside the classroom on their off-hours.
I think that whole thought model needs to be tweaked. For those students who show aptitudes and interests outside what a given classroom or school teaches, move them ahead and let them learn it! Don't have the facilities? Need a chem lab or electronics shop, but don't have the budget? Contract with a nearby university that does to allow use of their facilities!
I say this because I know darn well I don't learn in the 'conventional' way. I'm very much a hands-on type of person, and I've also found that I often 'learn backwards' better than I do if I were to start with the basics.
As an example: I started out in electronics by learning to solder and taking things apart (though I rarely got them back together). Only later on did I gain theory and design rules, and only now (after 20 years of hands-on experience in a multitude of electronic and mechanical sub-disciplines) am I starting to put it all together and go for my degree.
In short, I learned more going from the top down than I think I would have if I'd progressed in the conventional linear mode.
I would be shocked if I were the only person in the entire world who was like this. Had I been encouraged and supported in my efforts early on, rather than being teased, held back in grades, and beat up, God only knows where I'd be now. Heck, probably have my Ph.D...
Anyway... Change the focus, change the world. Recognize the fact that none of us would be sitting here jabbering about this if it were not for the very "geeks" and engineers that invented computers, and the electronics that make them run. Recognize that we wouldn't have the lifestyle we do today had it not been for the engineers and scientists who invented the materials and devices to make it possible.
Above all else, recognize that many people have a true gift for creativity, and the skill to learn the techniques to turn an idea into something that could easily benefit us all. Those that have this gift should be encouraged rather than spat on, no matter what their inclination towards sports or the senior prom.
As Bill Nye says: "Science Rules!" Perhaps a little extreme -- our science can only describe the world around us in human-based terms, and cannot define it in the least -- but a good starting point. The only way we're going to make it an attractive field to pursue is if we, as a race, stop knocking those members of it who show aptitude for such things (and this includes getting rid of the negative connotation that often comes with silly labels like "geek" and "nerd!")
Keep the peace(es).
whoa, who's acting threatened? (Score:1)
Interesting ramifications for commercial SW (Score:1)
I doubt though without a certain background you are going to be able to read and understand Knuth, to name the most famous one.
This is an interesting point. I bought TAOCP 1-3 and read them over senior year of high school. Now that I am finishing off my first year of college and have taken a class is discrete math for CS majors as well as lots of calculus and some programming language theory, I find that Knuth makes a lot more sense now, particularly the mathy parts. They are really great books, but they require a significant amount of background to really get what he's talking about. Every time I refer back to them I catch a little more detail and learn a little bit more. While it's possible that I could have done this on my own, if I didn't take classes on these subjects, it's unlikely that I would have really needed to study about permutations and such things...
They don't teach generalized skills anymore (Score:1)
I agree with some of this... (Score:1)
>doesn't want a technical degree because he wants
>to broaden his horizons, discover himself,
>become an educated person, and so forth.
>Well, that's fine, and those are admirable goals;
>but the simple reality is that a CS degree
>doesn't prevent you from achieving them.
I agree with this! As a matter of fact, barring a well planned personal study regimen, college is just about the best way to get a well rounded education.
In college, I was exposed to the Arts, Classical Music, Physical Education, History, English Composition (I never would have done it on my own as I hated it!), Accounting, MacroEconomics and World Literature. Just thinking about it makes me want to go enroll for the Fall Semester! Though, I'm making too much money to give up my full-time programming job to finish my Bachelor's Degree *WHICH* I'll bet is one of the underlying causes of the conditions outlined in the report. CS jobs *can* be had with little college education if the demand is high enough. Good for the workers; bad for the employers. (I'd have to say that the employers brought much of this on themselves. Hiring overseas workers is just going to exacerbate the problem.)
>College isn't tech school, and a different major
>won't make it one.
This one I don't agree with. You said college is what you make it right? Well then, you can treat it as a tech school with trendy technical curricula -OR- you can get the education that you deserve. The choice is yours!
Times are too good! (Score:1)
Unfortunately, I agree completely. In the "high-tech" jobs I've had it is generally the sales droids who get the big bikkies, trips to exotic (non-customer) locations and other goodies. In general, their attitude towards the technical people who make their lifestyle possible is that we are the dirt beneath their feet.
It is clear to me that as long as technical people are prepared to work as much for the love of the job as for the rewards there is unlikely to be much change. In fact, it occurs to me that there are two types of low paid jobs -- ones that nearly anyone with a brain cell or two can do and ones where people work for the love of the job or out of some sense of duty. Think about it.
Teachers, love or duty - you wouldn't put up with the conditions otherwise.
Fire, Police, military -- duty (OK there are some who get off on the power trip - nobody's perfect)
Technical - love of the job -- the hours are too long and the pay too low (in many cases) for it to be otherwise.
So why do it? Why not take the easy option and become a manager or a sales type. OK, I agree that it does take skill to be a good manager -- but how many good managers have you known? Until the value system rewards technical people better it is unreasonable to expect people to make the irrational decision to go into a technical field in preference to something else where the rewards vs demands are a better ratio.
Why this is real! (Score:1)
Think about this:
You can pay one really knowledge person (college educated) to do one big job, or you can pay 3 people with 2 year degrees or less to do the same work. The other three people will not receive health care, or future training to climb the corporate ladder. Many companies rant and rave about wanted proper help but don't want to shell out the cash to train people with BS degrees.
I'm not surprised at all (Score:1)
Add this up to the hellhole that is the American education system. It's amazing that this is just now being reported, seeing as how I've read the exact same thing in a Michael Chrichton novel--Rising Sun--that was published in _1992_! I think we can put the media at the top of a very long list of things screwed up with this country.
what a good idea- lower the standards further! (Score:1)
If you're no good at math then you shouldn't major in cs. You should major in software engineering or something else, or better yet not go to college at all. CS _is_ math, and I know lots of people who are good at math, and can still program quite well. I hate it when people perpetually whine about things being to hard. You just make it so everyone's incompetant. It's ok to be stupid; just don't drag people down to your level.
And as far as proving "all unicorns are pink," you are sadly mistaken about the utility of math. If you don't understand all the math behind an algorithm, then you're nothing but an overglorified typist.
you haven't really thought about things, have you (Score:1)
the bell curve theory is just that. and anyway, it has absolutely _nothing_ to do with the distribution of taxation. PR is the one to thank for the trickle down theory, and the fact that proportionally more wealth is currently controlled by the top few percent of this nation than ever before.
Feminazi New World Order Rears Ugly Head----WTF? (Score:1)
Dude, the wrongness inherent in this post is just crazy! I hope you're just kidding or being sarcastic or laying some flame-bait out on the trout-line, because if not you are smoking the crack pipe for sure... My urge to say you're about as completely wrong as it is possible to be is fighting against my ingrained sense of relativism *urgh!**grrr!*(fighting noises coming from inside head)*snappy sound* damn it that's just wrong!
Very likely---Statistics & Twain (ne S. C.) (Score:1)
I've had quite a bit (i.e. too damn much, haha) of stat experience in various courses here at good old U. Texas. Statistics is an infinitely malleable field because most folks don't understand how to interpret the results and dishonest practictioners take advantage of this. Two people who both know stat can discuss something, indeed are forced to discuss something (something = anything being considered in a statistical light), at a far more rigourous level.
That being said, a quote from Mark Twain seems appropriate: (paraphrasing slightly due to poor memory on my part) "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
:^)
High Tech == computer related? (Score:1)
As said by another fellow: Wow.
I wonder if they take transfer credit from UT?
;^)
(At least all my "take something besides what your taking in Nat. Sci." req would be done... I've enough chem credit to choke a goat (Better living through chemistry my sphincter, try taking pchem and enjoying yourself (if you do, please seek help)! hehehe
Universities and high schools----TAMS (Score:1)
This sounds almost dead-on identical to a program at the Univ. of North Texas in Denton (tiny little town a little north of the metastasizing cancer that is Dallas-FortWorth) called TAMS (Texas Academy of Math and Science). I went there, graduated in 96. I've heard of other programs that are _similar_ in other states, but so far those I've read about didn't involve taking actual college courses, but instead courses lying somewhere between 'advanced' HS courses and collegiate courses....
I think TAMS is unique out of the 'come to college two years early' programs in that not only does it emphasize math/science it also tries to give it's graduates a good grounding in the humanities (which although it may not translate into $ does make you a broader thinker and deeper person IMHO). Most other programs seem to be either all Science/Math or all Humanities with very little of the other....
Oh, and the state pretty much pays for everything at TAMS, hehe... Too bad the food mainly sucked at the cafeterias!
You call that a drop... (Score:1)
No wonder the UK is going down the pan. On the plus side I'm an endangered species! Perhaps the WWF will give me a game reserve!
Re:Degree, especially advanced, not required. (Score:1)
came from a company stuck in that mindset. I was doing the SAME work as my coworkers, but did not recieve ANY benifits (vacation, dental, ect) and didn't get paid HALF of what they where! All that they would tell me was "get that degree, THEN we'll take care of you." >:^p
This was very much like what my old job was like. It was given to me originally as a "stepping stone" job by a family member, working in his small business. I did get benefits, eventually, but I left because (among other things) I kept getting the line about "oh, we're only paying you $8.50/hr on salary because you don't have a degree or MCSE or some other Magic Piece of Paper that says you're worth it", with the implication that I stay at that place for the next 4 years while I toil away at school. This when I know people that aren't even out of school yet (and at least two that never even went to college) that make at least double that as Unix sysadmins and DBAs. I've put my name in the online job databases, and I've had people from as far away as Dallas asking about me (not that I'd go there; I have no intention of moving away from DC for now).
As for my degree, well, I did try to get my degree at one time, but I keep re-thinking it, and wondering what it is I want...do I want to drop everything for four years and "sacrifice myself" (and incur $1000s in debt, in addition to what I already have from the first try!) for a piece of paper, or do I want to go on the skills I have (I've run FreeBSD at home for over 3 years now, and I can also admin Solaris, Linux, and even NT *bleh*) and get a good job with them? In my case, I've already paid my dues. And I want to learn more; I already know C and some C++, and I want to get the Llama Book and learn Perl. I also want to get a SPARCstation in here and have a Solaris box to play with, I'll do that once I find another job.
As you can imagine, I was greatly pleased with this new, no paper needed attitude adopted by so many companies. They understand that EXPIERENCE and actual know-how is what is important.. not some certificate saying you wasted a LOT of money.. and not to mention time. Yes.... all those Art and History classes HAVE helped me do my job better!! (note the sarcasm.)
Agreed. College would be more attractive if, well, I could skip some of the core courses and learn about what I really wanted to know, stuff that reading through source code in FreeBSD and reading messages on the lists has taught me a little about, and some of those mysterious classes I saw in the curriculum list in 1995...things like "applied combinatorics and game theory" and "theory of computation" (Turing machines).
-lee...math and coding are fun. writing papers is not.
Interesting ramifications for commercial SW (Score:1)
Like Linus and Alan Cox? Or all the guys who improved Apache as part of their jobs keeping web servers going?
Meanwhile, exactly what *are* you going to do to earn a living? Most of us picked our employment based on what we liked doing and thought we could make a living doing.
Interesting ramifications for commercial SW (Score:1)
I write commercial software because I love to program. Why would I want to spend all day doing something that I don't like? That doesn't make sense.
TedC
Thank you Ronald Reagan (Score:1)
What's Ron got to do with students who are too damn lazy to study?
TedC
Re:And a whole lot more... (Score:1)
Re:UW-Madison (Score:1)
I don't think the IT program I'm going to be entering at RIT will be useless in five years. One of the concentrations is "Training and Human Performance" and is largely concerned with Human Factors. That's concerned with the important touchy-feely stuff CS people can't be bothered with while they're tweaking their algorithms for a few percentiles of performance
Re:And a whole lot more... (Score:1)
My point is that I think undergraduate work should be broad (including lots outside your major) and only somewhat deep. I fear that getting too deep into the discipline won't leave room for other skills that are needed as a base for life-long learning.
I dont buy it. (Score:1)
then again, given the new government funded AI lab (the volen center for complex systems) I think alot more serious perspecitve CS students are going to brandeis than before... perhaps this is off setting the drain for brandeis.
That's for them weirdo brainy folk (Score:1)
While I found I fit in much better at university, I was also very disappointed by the vast majority of students who still thought "inside the box".
I dropped out of uni after 2 years and I'm now doing very well in the private sector.
I'll probably go back some day, when I don't have anything better to do, and I am more financially stable. Paying off 2 years of student loans is killing me right now. Worth it? Barely.
But Police/Firemen are *not* heroes. (Score:2)
>Yep, because I'd definitely want police, fire, EMS, teachers and civil
>servants that were only in it for the money.
But real medical doctors do get six figure salaries. Does that mean you wonder if they are working to save your life or just for their paycheck. I really don't care, so long as they do their job.
Really an indicator? (Score:1)
That's all find and dandy, but at the end of the day, I still wish (desperately) that I had a CS degree.
Regularly shocked... (Score:1)
The times change but the underlying implementation is just 1's and 0's...
Wow... I just hope I don't end up educating my children in the US... especially given the price you pay for your University education.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Complete absence of a problem (Score:1)
Sheesh, I wish it were like that now. Sometimes I really hate being lumped in with all the other morons who stumbled through their CS degree, or who don't even have a degree, but call themselves "Software Engineers". What we really need is some nice discriminatory jargon, like I'd be an Architect and they'd be Construction Workers... That would make me happy... Unfortunately we seem to have gotten stuck with "Everyone's a Software Engineer..." - Yuck!
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
(mostly) useless knowledge (Score:1)
It's been my experience that you can have someone who is a really great programmer (the "programmer mindset": Laziness, Impatience and Hubris), who doesn't know the theory behind some of the stuff. That's great for 90% of projects (even for most of the stuff I'm working on). Maybe even 99% of projects. The difficulty comes when you have a really hard problem to solve, one that these people haven't come across before, like the "dining philosophers" problem. That's when the people who have both the CS background and the programmer's mindset really come into their own. Note that I say "both" though...
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
High Tech == computer related? (Score:1)
well documented and picked up in a book, right?
Well documented? Yep. Does that mean that any CS masters or above student can grasp the concept of writing a simple server using the TCP protocol (well documented!) and select? Nope. Lots of things are documented. It doesn't mean that people can just pick them up. Most grad students that I know can't really code. But they can do theory. My beef with that is, theory is all well and good (I know my fair share), but if you don't have the skills to implement the theory, what good does the theory get? I want to do (and do) useful things.
A lot of the arguments so far here seem to present the fact that programmers are a dime a dozen, and anyone can just pick up a book and begin to code. That's pretty funny. Clicking a few wizard boxes doesn't make you a programmer. Nor does mucking around a little bit with a 20 line perl cgi script. A real programmer uses the right tool for the job, and knows how to use said tool effectively. That's NOT something you get out of a book, and hence not something that everyone can learn.
RE:what a joke... (Score:1)
Do this and you run the risk of being an apprentice for the rest of your life. College helps to build skills beyond what the job requires. College is about learning how to learn, not how to master a skill.
College also gives you a great chance to learn what you want to do with the rest of your life. Four years ago I was set on being a finance/business major. It took me two years to decide that I loved computers and did not want to do anything else.
Finally, please do not forget that college is a hell of a lot of fun! When else can you take off for a rode trip at 11 PM in the middle of the week without telling anybody? When else is it acceptable to party until the sun comes up?
For more on this, checkitout... (Score:1)
http://www.tessier.com/Life/Theory/intro_ashpoo
An interesting bit on why we are dumbing down our society. This includes the aformentioned football team issue.
Locally for me, the Repubs have been telling our teachers to go screw themselves, that I601 was passed for a reason, and that they want to cut the budget even more. Meanwhile, the football team gets uniforms and paid transit to and from games, while our chess team has to pay for all their own equipment+transportation. Our football team places dead last every year, our Chess team has placed first in state several years in a row, and took 9th in the Nationals once.
dont mix yr 'learning' with yr 'earning' (Score:1)
the fact u have detailed knowledge in particular fields only equates to money where the laws of undersupply and overdemand apply
i bet somewhere their are ppl orders of magnitude smarter, more knowledeable and capable than every slashdotter at their current jobs, but in another country, state or field. it just so happens that at this particular point in time, in the first world high-tech knowledge is in demand, hence companies have to pay.who knows tomorrow, juggling balls and drinking beer at the same time may pay more
what a joke... I'm laughing (Score:1)
While it's true that one of them does no work at all, it's all the same to the consulting company. What they want are bodies that can pass an interview at a client site, either do decent work or fool the client, and be billed at $70-120/hr.. all the while being payed $20-$25/hr. I don't know about you, but if I were an employer that could get away with this, I'd want more grads at $40K making me $100K then people making $110K making me $30K. You?
To add some perspective... (Score:1)
My tuition fee is around $100, dental plan included. I get $2 dinners at school. I'm paid approximately $400 each month (for housing and food) for the first 55 months of my studies.
I will graduate on black, but I pay around 25% taxes from my summer jobs and probably around 40% to 50% when I graduate.
--
Pirkka Jokela
It's a different world..
Complete absence of a problem (Score:3)
When I read this report my primary response was:
"So?"
The software development industry is young, but not that young. Ever read the date on most of RFCs? They are in computer terms ancient, thus from "archeaological" data we can infer that computer programmers did in fact exist before 1985 and thus the computer industry, having lasted this long, will probably last just a bit longer. (Like, perhaps for the rest of our lives) No news there.
Will there be a glut after 2000? Probably for a while. Then the COBOL programmers will either retrain, or change jobs, or join middle management. Not much news there.
"I want to claw my way up through middle management" , "I want to be expendable" , "I want a brown nose." I love that commercial.
Less people in school:
This is because of low unemployement. Everyone knows that when you can't find work you strudy, and when you have work you don't. This is not newsworthy.
More Indian/Russian/Where-ever-ian programmers:
WORLD WIDE web. I think it's great to hire and train more foreign programmers. You get multiple perspectives, and they're not going to bring down the salaries of American counter parts. That is a myth! If anything they'll get their visa and demand real money or they'll go home to start business on their own soil. Again, not really newsworthy.
CS is too hard/boring:
My degree is in Applied Math. I took that because I knew it would be more meaningful in the long term than a CS degree might have been. The vast majority of people are not suited to or interested in the kind of mental training that is required to do computer science. THAT is why programmers will eventually be regarded in the same way as architects, IT people will be seen as Construction Foremen and the 'grunt' laborers. (But did you ever wonder how much training the guy operating that big hydralic arm has had? I bet it is more than the name 'grunt' implies)
I don't have a problem with this future, and to me it seems fairly likely.
Any comments?
Thank you Ronald Reagan (Score:1)
My high school, suffering from shrinking budgets, eventually cut it's higher level classes (just after I left). The tax-cut fever finally swept even recession-proof Long Island (at least undil the cold war ended - oops) and frivolous programs like AP Math were gone!
But even in my class (1989) teachers were noting that less women were in tech courses, and male students weren't filling the gap.
It's a shame really since Dwight Eisenhower had advocated education to a large degree. Republicans didn't always stand for the lowest common denominator.
Thank you Ronald Reagan (Score:1)
Thank goodness for that: it keeps my salary high and my job prospects promising!
(only half a
Of course not... (Score:1)
Hrm... maybe it's just me (Score:1)
> school, you need to get a better school.
I think so too. However, _so far_ none of the CS programs that I've looked at in other schools look better enough to bother switching. This may just be a regional phenomena.
> In these parts, they teach classes on:
> Databases (including all sorts of theory, including some subsets of logic)
> Operating systems (which is to say, general principles underlying operating systems, not "How to configure NT")
> Computer languages (overview of different types of languages, including Prolog, Lisp, and others.)
> Assembly language
> Data structures
> Algorithms
> Circuit design
> And a whole lot more
> And, oh, they teach all of this using Unix systems
This is all refreshing to hear.
> and require that CS students take twice as many non-CS classes as CS ones.
Well, that much is a given, even if you're stuck in some crappy school like myself.
> And I don't think the U. of Wisconsin is particularly unusual in all these regards.
It'd be interesting to do a general survey of various colleges' curriculae and see exactly what is the most typical case. I suspect our individual perceptions are both pretty colored by regional variations.
Regardless, I think my comments about high school in particular are still applicable -- certainly, the majority of people from around the country I've talked to have indicated the same kind of deficiencies I've described. I haven't talked to as wide a variety of people about college in the same way -- at least not yet.
moderators: score up some of the replies (Score:1)
They don't teach generalized skills anymore (Score:4)
This is a generalization, of course, but a lot of schools nowadays (including my own, it seems) seem to be intent on producing a bunch of trained monkeys who know the motions for a specific set of software -- basically Microsoft Excel + Microsoft Visual Basic + Microsoft Access. There are some places were C/C++ isn't even a requirement anymore, whereas Excel w/ VBA is!
Too bad very nearly everything us students are learning now is going to have to be re-learnt in some manner with the next revision of the software...
The problem is that they're not teaching generalized skills and abstract thinking as part of the curriculum. I think this one section of the article is very telling in this regard:
> He won't choose a high-tech subject, he said,
> because he's interested in examining more
> abstract ideas.
> "I'm here at college mainly to learn to explore,
> because I love thinking about ideas," he said.
I know a lot of students (many of them ex-CS majors or soon-to-be-ex-CS majors) who feel the same way. The really brilliant people are either learning this stuff on their own, or are going into other fields altogether.
Something is fundamentally wrong with the current state of CS education in the U.S. -- shouldn't CS _by definition_ be about abstract ideas?
The point is that you need to teach the kids the _theory_ either first or in parallel with the specific skills. Once they have the theory down, they can pick up individual skills pretty easily.
If, however, the students train for a bunch of individual skills without first understanding how they relate, it makes it very difficult to learn new things. Sometimes (I have experienced this personally), it can even interfere with a student's ability to learn the theory later.
One thing that would help is if students were exposed to several vendors' software, instead of just one. You can't generalize very well when you only have one example to reason from.
Another thing would be if they actually started teaching _logic_ and _reason_ in schools again, instead of rote memorization. I see a lot of interest in rhetoric (vis a vis the popularity of debate teams), but next to none in logic or critical thinking. That's not a healthy balance.
If you don't get that preparation before college, you're pretty screwed if your college is going to have any kind of worthwhile curriculum itself.
The last thing that would help tremendously would be to return to teaching CS in a primarily Unix environment (note I said _primarily_, most certainly not exclusively).
It's not that Unix is the "magic OS of knowledge", it's that it does a better job of exposing the structure of things to the user. Yet, it still has a healthy amount of abstraction. There aren't really any other widely-used environments that are especially good at both.
That is, Unix is designed primarily to abstract the underlying system so that it can be manipulated and restructured effectively. It allows the student to play with and think a lot more about abstract ideas.
If you design a system so that the user is presented with a complete set of tools that require some intelligence to manipulate and use together, it becomes very effective for teaching a student generalized skills which can later be applied in specific situations.
If, on the other hand, you design something so that "a trained monkey could operate it", you'll find that it's hard to use it to teach people to do any more than what a trained monkey could do.
The problem is that students aren't being educated anymore. They're being trained.
Is this for real? (Score:1)
Enrollment may be up, but graduation is down according to the article. If this is true, this poses an even more interesting question: Why are more students failing or switching majors?
In my experience, the demand for tech workers is so great that businesses are hiring a lot of underclassmen. The companies throw money at anyone who seems to have the slightest bit of talent.
I've never gotten around to removing my resume from my outdated web page at my old college. I still get hits from people wanting to hire me for this and that.
Is this for real? (Score:1)
Other high tech fields not okay (Score:1)
Of yes, one lawyer friend defends the scum of our city. He once told me that getting paid by his clients can sometimes be problematic.
They shoot horses, don't they? (Score:1)
Finally, the old farts started to realize that, woops, sorry we were wrong. Then the discussion turned to academic birth control to reduce the number of PhD's. Birth control, my ass, you still gonna get f*cked.
As for your comment about being a cheap labor force: let's just say that when I was in grad school, our favorite song was Tom Petty's "Refugee."
Fortunately, I finished just before the big crunch. And I got lucky as I "only" had to serve in two post-doc positions before finding a real job. But of a lot of my friends aren't doing so good right now. I'm sorry for the tone of this posting, but this issue really ticks me off.
BTW, I thought it was a NAS report not NSF (but really who cares). The project shortage was based on population estimates (supply) and not on jobs (demand). What we are seeing in the AES study is the decline in the number of college age ppl. The next increase will occur when the kids of the kids of the baby boom generation enter college.
Other high tech fields not okay (Score:2)
Part of this decline is simply due to the end of the Cold War. Defense spending on basic & applied research, and on engineering development has remained flat or gone down. Much of this decrease simply balances out the wild increases (i.e., deficit spending) during the Reagan presidency.
Students capable of entering high tech fields are not stupid. They abandon fields when they see a decline in available jobs. This produces a time lag between when the decline in jobs starts and when the decline in the number of graduates starts. Duh!
Back around 1990, the National Academy of Science published a report that there was to be a massive shortage of high tech graduates during the 90's. Congress swallowed this facade, hook, line, and sinker; this spawned H1-B. Unfortunately, the NAS results were simply based on population projections, they did not take into account the number of jobs that were to be available. Duh!
Like I said, ppl capable of entering high tech are not stupid. Some skip college and enter the work force writing code. Others migrate to other disciplines (bio, business, law) where the pickings are better.
Some CS degrees are worthless (Score:1)
US investment overseas.... (Score:1)
Over here, you will *NOT* get a high tech job without a degree, the higher the better. You go to your average bookstore and all you see are computer design and programming books (and people standing around reading them!).
BTW, if you think they're doing it because the workers here are lower paid, think again. The pay is considerably higher than in the US.
Computer Science (Score:1)
ASCS == 0 (Score:1)
I have an ASCS and I can't find a decent job... with no experience and no BSCS it seems even the recruiters won't touch you.
I was taught algorithms and data structures, I know what Big O = logx means... but I had to learn a lot on my own. Linking, makefiles, etc. All the things you really need to know to start a large-scale project were not taught in the "tech" school I attended. We did learn a little UNIX but the system was so bad that we couldn't really learn much... and most the class consisted of learning what telnet and (OMFG) Archie and Gopher are! I didn't really learn squat about UNIX until I installed Debian Linux at home.
Maybe your experience will be different, I hope so... cause even with a 4.0 GPA the ASCS on my resume doesn't seem to be getting me very far.
Try being an engineer! (Score:1)
Easy Street (Score:1)
~Sentry21~
2005 developer glut -- NOT! (Score:1)
Plus, many (not all, but many, many) of these folks doing design work out there without the fundimentals are generating junk that will need to be reworked about 2005.
Just my opinion,
Joe
On the other hand.... (Score:1)
Is this so bad? (Score:3)
I can think about a lot of things that I couldn't have if I had if I had been hardcore into CS. I can deal with my customers a lot better because I have taught undergraduates. I am never going to make fundamental contributions to the field, but what would the odds of that been anyway? More likely I would have been a C drone, too lazy figure out the sources of my discontent.
You are what you eat (Score:1)
I think at most universities you are going to get a healthy dose of the underlying theory, math, logic, linguistics that make up the 'science' part of it, where the 'computer' part of it is more of a medium in which to implement, explore computing concepts.
The program I went through, (U of TX), didn't 'teach you C/C++', 'teach you Lisp', or 'teach you Unix', etc., you were pretty much left on your own to learn stuff like that, unless you -chose- to specifically take an optional 1 hr course in C, C++, Lisp, whatever. Otherwise you learn how and why operating systems are designed the way they are, say using Unix as an example, and using C to implement experiments and so on. You learn how and why languages and compilers are designed the way they are. Good software design practices are drilled into your little newbie brain. (eg. the y2k 'bug' was completely preventable in most cases). You get into stuff like automata theory that can warp your head. You learn about formal verification of algorithms. You learn about static and dynamic efficiencies, sorting algorithms, data structures, numerical methods, and so on.
Basically, I think a lot of people didn't know what they were getting into, me included. But I'm glad I made it out! Just don't ask how long it took
Is this for real? (Score:1)
Difficulty, pay, job quality (benefits), public image of techonology? I find my high technology job rewarding and enjoyable. Perhaps it is becuase of the quality of the graduates. But supposedly unemployment is very low.
Makes you wonder
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Thank you Ronald Reagan (Score:1)
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
High Tech == computer related? (Score:1)
Are there any CS degrees that do more than just learn:
How about the University of Cambridge (UK) [cam.ac.uk]:
Ok, perhaps this sounds like an advert. I do believe it's a good course, though (after all, I did it...) and the variety really does help people to understand how everything fits together.
Re:Wow (Score:1)
This is an undergrad degree?
Yes, it's the undergraduate Computer Science course at Cambridge. It's generally taken by people who have just done A-levels and left school, i.e. most people are 18 when they start the course.
There is a reduced version of the course for people who have already done a first degree; the Diploma in Computer Science [cam.ac.uk] takes just one year. There's a similar one-year course for people already at Cambridge who have spent two years on another course (part of the Natural Sciences tripos, for example, or mathematics) and want to switch.
This goes ties in with the Colorado Shootings (Score:1)
Hmm. I wonder why kids aren't flocking to the sciences.
However, this is not true of other cultures. Take a look at the Chinese (which I am) or East Indian cultures (both of which are not very cool in the US). Their cultures heavily emphasise academic achievement, especially in the sciences. Math, Physics, Computer Science, Medicine, are all fields that are held in high esteem in these societies and cultures. You have more status not less if you choose one of these fields, and less status not more if you are focused on sports. Actually focusing on sports is discouraged. They also encourage going all the way in school, not just high school or a bachelors.
Interesting on how this shows up in the numbers. 45% of all doctoral graduates are foreign. Hmm. Wonder why.
Cheers,
GeekBoy.
********************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
Universities and high schools (Score:1)
"Botanik" ? At least that was the name of those strange looking creatures who sailed thru the first year of the Moscow State Physics with flying colors - they have learned all the material in school, when normal people very busy trying to get laid... They somehow dissolved out of the view by the third year...
Real geeks bench press twice their body weight
Universities and high schools - other comment.. (Score:1)
IMO early specialization is wrong. (For all you Americans - by "early" I mean when 14 years old guys take nothing but math/physics classes - graduate at 16 and go through university mandatory classes with very strict specialization. - 20 years old farts taking junky public policy and "save the fags" classes instead of physics and math for their profession is sure stupid)
Peace.
:)
Some very generalizing and false statements... (Score:1)
the preceding one being an example...
master degrees holders are people who couldn't (or wouldn't) get a job right out of college
maybe this is your warped view of why people go to get their master's degree in college..
even tho enrollment is down for CS fields, the many jobs that are available in CS are filling up == competition in the CS field == BS/MS degrees are useful for getting your foot in the door and/or getting the better job/pay...
-------------------------------------
Ok, now that comment might just be flamebait (Score:1)
It's always nice to meet someone who does their work because they love their work.
Of course not... (Score:1)
I went to school in a county which (at least at the time) had some of the highest paid teachers. My education didn't seem any better.
I would argue that forced attendance in it's current form is more of a problem than teacher's salaries.
Really an indicator? (Score:1)
ratio of non-Americans in US research (Score:1)
I do not have explanations for this fact, except the fact that US companies are ready to pay a foreign student thousands of dollars a month (whereas European companies tend to underpay young workers just because they are young and looking for jobs), and thus are attracting people like me...
Degrees (Score:1)
oh, there's at least one more approach - for the lack of a better term, i'd call it programming not as math or electronics, but as communication.
starts off by asking the students - given that you want to express something, what's the best way of expressing it? for example, what's the best way of expressing a factorial? iteration? recursion? why? and what about a fibonacci? why is recursion bad for a fibonacci? so now you have two of those expressions - what's the best way of keeping them together? what if both of them have some common functionality? and so on and so forth.
this way advanced concepts are introduced right off the bat without worrying about quirks of low-level languages or mathematical correctness, and students will cover many data structures, abstraction issues, complexity, and in many cases will write a simple compiler or a symbolic reasoning system by the end of the second quarter of their freshman year.
this is certainly the way advocated in the wizard book (structure and interpretation of computer programs, by abelson & sussman), and methinks it works much better than the alternatives.
what's ph.d. got to do with it? (Score:1)
people who get ph.d. don't care about earning less money - matter of fact, when you count in all the raises, promotions, etc. they'd get during that time, they lose many hundred thousand. people get ph.d. for the knowledge, and to work on problems that have never been attempted before.
grad students don't want to be like gates or jobs or torvalds. they want to be ritchie and knuth and minsky. and there's a world of difference.
Until the job market correction (Score:1)
I suspect that, shortly after Y2K, employers will realize that skilled/educated labor and self-taught labor are not the same. The demand for 'just anyone' will drop and software engineers and professional developers will be in higher demand than a self-taught hacker. Also, product knowledge will be replaced by concept knowledge - so all the Java hackers, MS-VC++ hackers, VB hackers and everyone who is dependent on a language, top heavy API or a version number, will be hurting.
I expect that a professional license will be as important for a job as it is for engineers, and maybe lawyers and doctors. Cheap less-skilled labor will always be available overseas, and in our industry that's as close as the next cubicle.
I believe that we will see software development houses structured and prestigious as architectural firms, where software systems will be designed, defined and documented in therms of interface, algorithm and data structure, and then the work will be farmed out to cheap labor - assembly line style. "Here's your data structures, algorithm and functionality document, Gunga Din - I want the program, in this new language, in three months. Oh, here's the BNF for the language. Have fun!"
Now, I don't know if this is good, bad or indifferent, but it will be a change. That highschool dropout making $60k/yr for web designs will awaken up to his eyeballs in a lifestyle he can't afford, and lots of skilled and brilliant - but un-pedigreed - developers will have to scramble to make ends meet. But, just like the clothing and electronics industries, the job of building the bulk of the product will get shipped to the Orient, Mexico and elsewhere, where people are still willing to work hard for relatively low pay.
Exactly -- and smaller class sizes! (Score:1)
TECH CAREER = JOB SECURITY (Score:1)
The real reason there is a shortage of technical people is that the preppie/jock crowd (the same one that's more responsible for those shootings than any computer game) are too lazy to suck it up and choose a difficult college major like CIS--so they opt for business instead. Or their parents steer them into law school.
The result is that we have a glut of professionals involved in "BS Generation" jobs like Law, Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, etc. while the real work (the work that in the end will define this as the Information Age) is starving for qualified workers and subsequently bloating our salaries.
People are scared of math and the stereotypes of computer geeks. But I'm loving the hell out of my career choice, and unlike lawyers or salespersons I don't have to lie to do my job.
CS,MIS,engineering->EXECUTIVE positions (Score:1)
That's a pretty sweeping statement. And no, I can't agree with it. I've worked at several companies around the bay area and some of the executives have had engineering (CS or otherwise) degrees and some haven't. Just because you have a engineering/tech degree doesn't seem to exclude you in anyway. It is your abilities and whether you can you be an executive that matters, not what label(s) you have on your sheepskin. MIS degrees, never having met one, I don't know about
At the companies I've worked at, most of the real work seems to get done by non-executives. Maybe it is different in your company. I do think that, in today's business environment, business people without technical knowledge who look on tech people as just assets seem destined to become failed business people.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
They don't even teach CS anymore (Score:3)
I could go on and on, but it seems to me that MenTaLguY has it right. We are turning out a bunch of C++,VBA,ACCESS,MS trained monkeys, not real programmers who understand computer architecture, programming, languages, and data structures.
This, of course, does not apply to all computer science schools. There still are a few schools that understand that CPU's, languages, and tools may change, but the underlying foundations won't. Unfortunately in many other schools, in order to created people trained with the "latest" tools, they are educating people who won't be able to produce when tools/os/languages change.
Because to me, a B.S. in M.I.S. doesn't mean diddly to me if you don't know the theoretical issues of concurrency and collision. A B.S. in Computer Science doesn't mean a bucket of spit if you don't understand recursion. And a B.S. in programming doesn't mean anything if you don't know what a regular expression is.
All too often today, it does.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
2005 developer glut -- NOT! (Score:1)
If you're fixing 20 yr old COBOL, chances are you aren't building Java Servlets.
Ka-Ching!
UW-Madison (Score:2)
My alma mater (RPI), has done the smart thing, IMHO. It has created an IT department in parallel with its CS department. This separates the geeks who want to understand the theory (CS) from the people who don't care about the why and just want to get a job as a sys admin or low-level programmer.
Of course, that IT degree will be useless in 5 years, but if people want to be educated narrowly, you shouldn't deny them the opportunity to waste their money.
-jon
And a whole lot more... (Score:2)
There's even more to CS, such as information theory and math, than assembly, data structures, algorithms, circuit design, etc. Those are all fairly concrete when compared to such concepts as:
Program correctness, being able to reason effectively about program's complexity, being able to prove that an algorithm or program is correct, that it terminates, and that it is efficient.
Information encoding, how much data and processing is required to convey information, and alongside with such issues as data compression, data encryption, data error recovery, and efficient data usage.
Computability theory, or can a problem be represented, can it be solved, can it be reasoned about, can it be abstracted into a class of problems, what order and complexity a problem or program is, etc.
This kind of information separates the technically skilled laborers from the creative engineers, in which information and data is the stuff you are working with, and the computers, the hardware, the OSes, and the network is all ancillary stuff. Not to say they aren't important, but that data theory and such is largely independent of the transport mechanisms and protocals that they exist on, and as such are important if we want to be able to switch to optical computing, analogue computing, asychronous computing, quantum computing, or even things such as neural networks and adaptive computing.
AS
Compromise? (Score:2)
From the article, and many comments on this thread, it seems most think all a CS degree is coding, and while very useful, in of itself knowing languages and data structures and analysis of algorithms isn't enough, I think, especially since the computing and digital information age changes so fast and is 24/7.
Err a little on the side of caution, because I think learning code and stuff is easier to pick up than say information theory or predicate calculus, since you can practice coding and programming and debugging, but it's very difficult to 'figure out' how to generalize a problem, to figure out if it's NP complete or not, etc.
AS
Wow (Score:2)
Maybe I should go to Cambridge for my grad studies then =)
AS
High Tech == computer related? (Score:2)
That being the case, it has forced those interested in CS at Caltech to borrow courses from Math(statistics, information theory, representations of data and information digitally, etc), EE(encryption/encoding/compression, error recovery, sampling theory, more information theory), CNS(vision, artificial intelligence, artificial life), APh(optics, optical computing, semiconductor physics, semiconductor devices, fabrication/synthesis), as well as the core CS stuff(predicate calculus, program correctness/reasoning, distributed computation, parallel computation, computer graphics, and the normal C/C++/Java OOP/OOD lab classes).
Luckily, they plan to add an ECE major next year, though I don't know that they plan to add any more CS profs... stuff like operating systems, compilers, I guess, but not having these courses, I wouldn't know I think.
AS
Re:And a whole lot more... (Score:2)
AS
Re:And a whole lot more... (Score:2)
Yeah, but if given the choice, wouldn't everyone want to be an information engineer over a grunt coder? Leave the grunt coders for technical institutes who want to teach VBA, Excel macros, Access database language, SQL, C, C++, Java, as technical and rudimentary skills, and leave the CS degree fairly high level; The same way EE is taught in colleges, with electrical and technical skills available in technical institutes and such.
It's not that grunt coders aren't necessary or useful, but it does muddy up the CS degree when one cannot differentiate a grunt coder from a software engineer from a information engineer with just the letters CS.
AS
High Tech == computer related? (Score:3)
Computer Science(note the term, Science) is much more than being able to do Verilog, C++, OOP, Un*x, or TCP/IP. At least here, at Caltech(Woohoo! I graduate this year, finally), there is much more Science and much less Computer, since all that Computer crap can be essentially learned by picking up a book at Amazon or your local bookstore. Once you've figured out the underlying principles, the major abstractions, then one language is as useful to learn as another, a set of grammars and production rules that is used to describe a computer and how it works.
Are there any CS degrees that do more than just learn:
C/C++/Java
Object oriented programming/design
Data structures
Algorithms
Operating systems
Compilers
Caltech is actually deficient in not offering a real operating systems course, or compilers, or a bunch of other things, but instead offer much more abstract and science/math things that are of much more use to a computer scientist, rather than to just a programmer.
For example, the nature of computation and computability:
How to represent problems and systems in a computer? Is it computable? Can it be solved? What order and complexity is it? How much 'data' is sufficient, and necessary?
Can you reason about a program or algorithm's correctness? Can you prove that it terminates, or that it is correct, or that it occurs in finite time? Can you prove that it doesn't fail, or break? Or that if it does, that it only does so in specified ways?
Or information theory: Data encoding and representations, and how it can be applied to data encryption, error recovery, data compression, and transformation into other representations without loss or in an efficient manner.
Or other things, such as grammers and production rules, Turing machines and how to describe the entire set of computable problems with a language and a grammer, and how to reason about the language and what kind of issues there are with non-deterministic programs or algorithms, or with distributed parallel multi-process algorithms and dealing with data integrety, locks, exclusion, sharing, write protection, non-deadlocking algorithms, efficient, fair, or priority based schedulers?
A lot of this stuff may be mentioned in passing when dealing with OSes, threads, OOP/OOD, languages, compilers, and such, but I would imagine that for a Computer Scientist, in which the stuff that you work in is data and information, math and theory is much more vital than the languages you know, the hardware you can work in, the network protocols you can code in, etc. While these are important, they are also fairly well documented and picked up in a book, right?
AS
We really don't need more unemployed scientists... (Score:5)
Well... no. It was basically a fabrication at best, and perpetuated what is generally called "The Myth" (capitalized as such) by members of the YSN (Young Scientists Network). The Myth was used to justify increased graduate student spending, e.g. more graduate students into Ph.D. programs. It was used to generate more research dollars, so that more work could be done.
In physics, we were pumping out 1400+ Ph.D's per year. Sounds like too few... right?
Well, it turns out that there were only about 150 tenure track jobs opening up each year, and about the same number of industrial jobs. This is what the House report failed to mention, that the reason the supply was dwindling was that demand for the Ph.D scientists was actually quite low. It was simple economics.
The problem at the time was that few of the undergraduate students at the time really knew where to find this information. Few knew that the report put out by the NSF was not worth the paper it was printed on. Few could verify the research in the report, as most didn't have ready access to the sources.
The end result was a glut of scientists and engineers in the market. Too many. Not enough jobs. There is a general belief these days that there were many apochraphal stories floating about how Ph.D.s were driving cabs and what not else. The entrenched establishment of research professors strongly disbelieved that there were problems getting jobs. They pointed to the back of Physics Today and shouted "look at all of those...". This reminded me of when Ronald Reagan called ketchup a vegatable. Most of those jobs in Physics Today were temporary employment. Very few were for tenure tracks. Few were for permanent positions.
You go to college for 14 years and it would be nice if there was some possibility that you could make more than $20k/year starting.
Today the situation is governed by simple economics. There are not that many people going for Ph.D's, not that many people going after post-docs, etc. Now, you need incentives to keep the students in the program, as there are real attractive alternatives to years of mind-expanding indenture.
Face it. In graduate school, as a hard science type, you are an indentured servant. Have no illusions about this. Your purpose in life is to further a professor's career and publication list. Your purpose is not to get a degree, that is an accident if it happens, and largely the professors want you to take your sweet old time about this. You see, you are cheap labor. You are not in a union (this is changing), you are not a professional, and they can pay you under $10k per year to do their work (60-80 hours/week).
You see, I believed the House report. I believed that there would be a shortage of scientists. I believed that the salaries would be high.
Welcome to reality.
I chose to finish my Ph.D part time. That was gruelling and added 2 years onto my time. However, I was paid reasonable wages by my employer. I worked 1/2 as hard at my employer, and got recognition, rewards, raises.
I learned in time. Many of my friends did not. The system chews you up and spits you out.
There is a lesson here, a nice juicy object lesson for anyone wanting to believe these reports of shortages. Assume that they are written by those with a vested interest in keeping a large supply of cheap talent available. Assume they are written by people who are unaware or wish you to be unaware of the real circumstances. And make sure you look at the department of labors job outlook guides.
Epilogue: Several physics departments that I am aware of have lost their supply of new graduate fodder. Moreover, as they have been declining enrollmentwise in the Ph.D. programs, the number of postdocs have decreased as well. Now there are vacancies. In short order, the other part of the law of supply and demand will kick in... they will be forced to raise wages to attract new blood.
And a final note: I note with more than a little bit of black humor that I have been asked to submit a writeup and bio as I appear to be one of the successful graduates of my Alma Mater. They are learning (and in large part due to a change in leadership, to one with a good clue) that they need to market themselves in order to attract new blood.
They don't teach generalized skills anymore (Score:2)
I had the exact same impression of computer science before I started here, and someone actually told me, "Whatever you learn will be outdated in 5 years." Now, though, I look back at the two main textbooks I've used over 2 semesters: Algorithms in C, and Kernighan and Ritchie's white book, and I realize that they're been around for about 10 and 20 years respectively. Hmm... Older than my German book, whaddaya know?
They don't teach generalized skills anymore (Score:3)
- Databases (including all sorts of theory, including some subsets of logic)
- Operating systems (which is to say, general principles underlying operating systems, not "How to configure NT")
- Computer languages (overview of different types of languages, including Prolog, Lisp, and others.)
- Assembly language
- Data structures
- Algorithms
- Circuit design
- And a whole lot more
And, oh, they teach all of this using Unix systems and require that CS students take twice as many non-CS classes as CS ones. And I don't think the U. of Wisconsin is particularly unusual in all these regards.If there are CS majors out there who are getting one-dimensional educations, they're doing it in spite of the system, not because of it.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. (Score:2)
And I think you're wrong
Seriously though, just because one thing follows another does not imply causation. We certainly did have a Republican President between 1980 and 1992, but as you will remeber we had a DEMOCRAT RULED HOUSE. Which according to my own argument means nothing. And I agree (with myself?
And say you're correct about your high school having shrinking budgets (as you most probably are!):
>My high school, suffering from shrinking
>budgets, eventually cut it's higher level
>classes (just after I left). The tax-cut fever
>finally swept even recession-proof Long Island
>(at least undil the cold war ended - oops) and
>frivolous programs like AP Math were gone!
Well I'm sure they stopped buying your football team their steak dinners and cut back the amount of equipment they bought for them and made them provide their own transportation to games, right?
See where I'm headed?
And if I may, I would like to point out a final fallacy in your argument: Even though your school DID face budget cuts, it was not the conservative president who decided the budget. Tax cuts may or may not have been responsible in small or large part, but it sounds to me like you have some jerk ass moron school district administrators deciding that AP Math is not important.
Or was it ole Ronnie Regan that decided that?
touche'
James
It's really quite simple. (Score:2)
There are thousands of geeks out there like me. 19 years old, freshman in college. Already know more than most CS degree graduates do at graduation. What's the point in taking four years of stuff you already know?
Instead, I am getting a double major in Banking & Finance (finance is an amazing subject believe it or not, and it has lots of yummy math in volved
With the resume' i created for myself in High School in the computer field, I don't need a CS degree. With a Banking and Finance degree I can get a job in a financial institution. With a management degree I can perhaps run the IT department with HALF A CLUE UNLIKE MOST FREAKING MORON IT MANAGERS OUT THERE IN LARGE CORPORATIONS (oops sorry spontaneous rant against moron IT managers with no real computer experience). With a minor in math there will be no doubt as to my possesion of an analytical mind, and with a minor in psychology I will make myself, purely for my own personal satisfaction, a very well rounded person.
I imagine I am not the only computer geek in a situation like this; that is, one where I already KNOW computer science and want to learn something new (and before you blast me about me not knowing all the theoretical stuff you learn in college, I've read every college text book I could get my hands on that the university in my hometown used in the CS department so I *do* know the not-quite-as-practical-as-wed-wish things like big o and obscure sort techniques).
I look forward to being able to pursue a career in both business and technology, and hopefully with my skill set and creativity I will be able to combine the two beautifully
Respectfully
James
Well, what counts as "CS" anymore? (Score:4)
The shame of it is, this implies that making money is all that it's about. If that's your sole motivation, well then I wish you well. I'd rather i didn't have to compete with you for a job, but that's just par for the course.
Think about it for a second - you quit school, and get a job in a field where anybody can get a job. What exactly does that prove? Does that tell me anything about the quality of your work? Nope. The bar is set incredibly low right now, so of course most people aren't going to exert any extra effort going over it. I spend a good part of my week turning down recruiters who don't even know (or care) what I can do - they see buzzwords and they smell blood. The sad part is it doesn't even matter to them. They're not searching on buzzwords so that they can interview me later, they're searching on buzzwords because that's all they need.
High school transition (Score:2)
I dropped out. As with every other purchase I make, I analyzed the product and how much money it costs. The conclusion; The education I was getting wasn't worth the money.
You go to school to learn, correct? If you learn better from books than you do from clueless teachers, wouldn't you be a fool to go to school? I didn't care that I wasn't getting a degree. I knew that nobody else would care either, at least nobody else that had a smidgen of intelligence. A degree is piece of paper, not a measure of your education or intelligence. It's more of a measure of how well you are at institutionalized learning and taking tests.
Don't get me wrong. Some universities can teach you a lot more than you could teach yourself by opening you to different view points, new thought processes, etc. But it's not really the university that helps you learn more than you could on your own; it's peer review, and you can get that anywhere.
Amen! (Score:2)
My (technical subject, in class) university experience consisted of incomprehensible lectures, poorly chosen reading materials, and tests that had no relation to one's ability to do real-world work (prime example, calculus: solving many trivial problems in a restricted period of time, rather than eventually solving non-trivial problems).
Worst of all is the cookie-cutter approach to education. This subject will take you X months to learn, then you will either pass it and regardless of how much of it you forget the credit will not be taken away, or you will fail it and no matter how close you were to passing you have to take the whole thing over again. How ridiculous!
I've never met an engineer who could pass a second-year calculus exam if it was dropped in front of him one random afternoon.
Universities are an archaic institution from the days when illiteracy was the norm, books were hideously expensive, and travel was something you did a few times in your life, if you were lucky. Knowledge was rare and people had to gathered around the educated few (professors) if they wanted to learn. Things have changed. Information can be easily and cheaply transported. Travel is inexpensive and common. The factors that made universities necessary are gone.
what a joke... (Score:5)
umm, no. the computer industry is desperate to find people that they can underpay (recent graduates) to do the same job as other people that might want a realistic amount of money for the job.
let's face it, most B.S. degrees will dance a jig when offered 40k straight out of school. what they dont know is that they are being seriously low-balled.
a recruiter (who was quite impressed with my skill set) once brought negotiation prices down by $30k per year when he found out that half of my experience was done while going to school. now, we all know that this company is still going to charge the client the same amount for my services, but its just another way to increase their cut of MY paycheck.
and people wonder why attendance might be down. heh! spend those four years as an apprentice and make twice the money of any grads!!!
Thank you Ronald Reagan (Score:2)
And let me guess, the Football team was still there? I think your school district might not have it's priorities straight.
It's a shame really since Dwight Eisenhower had advocated education to a large degree. Republicans didn't always stand for the lowest common denominator.
What does the "Lowest Common Denominator" mean? Are you talking about people like Al Gore who claim to have created the Internet? Yeah, a few boneheads in both political parties try to think they know about technology but they just make fools of themselves. Republicans locally have been trying to get more for education for the past 20 years but the democrats in the statehouse spend the money for welfare. Methinks if we spent it on education, we wouldn't need welfare so much.
RB
Biased Study (Score:4)
A recent Mindcraft survey, commissioned by MS, concluded that NT runs faster than Linux. A survery commissioned by Oracle concluded that Oracle runs faster on Linux than NT. (There was a posting a week or so back on
Now, the AEA, which represents companies that want to convince politicians to loosen imigration restrictions to keep their costs low. I think it's obvious that this is simply another study that was purchased to serve somebody's interests.
My opinions are my own, and not those my anybody else, including my employer