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I don't see how anyone can be hired "straight after college" unless they come straight to Google or Goldman Sachs who can afford _extensive_ training programs.

I don't see how anyone can be hired "straight after college" unless they come straight to Google or Goldman Sachs who can afford _extensive_ training programs. College education these days looks more like a luxury good, not a job prerequisite. It is of more value if you want to do research or work on bleeding edge fields like advanced artificial intelligence or biotech, but if you just want to be a decent software engineer, it doesn't make economic sense anymore, in my opinion. (Disclosure: worked 10 years in the industry before finally getting my degree — because I wanted to move to R&D).

k-mcgrady 10y ago
Most people going into software jobs aren't doing a lot of actual development. I've seen people who aren't techy at all and know nothing about code do a 1 year masters and go into a well paid software dev job at very large companies on a decent salary. The only experience they have is maybe 6 months doing a bit of Java. But at the end of the day they're dealing more with bureaucracy than code and bug fixing of already established systems meaning they don't really need knowledge on good architecture and practices.
- nolite 10y ago
  That's very hard to believe. What companies have you seen that at?
  - watwut 10y ago
    Many guys I know had very little experience beyond few classes in school. Everyone in our year found a job eventually including weakest students. Plenty even studied physics or something similar instead of computer science and then got job in company desperate for people on the basis of "you are smart so we guess you will be able to learn". Actually turned out that if you have brain for physics or math, you can learn programming reasonably fast too. (And ended up being better then weak cs students.) They would not be suitable for all companies and positions obviously, but grasping enough of basics so you can be useful enough to create part of frontend pages/load data from db/whatever with a bit of supervision is not that hard.
  - k-mcgrady 10y ago
    Very common in large businesses like Citi, AllState etc. I know several people who have followed this path. They usually turn out to be people who code very little for a couple of years and then move on to product management roles and things like that.
- watwut 10y ago
  Having to maintain an older system for a while teaches you more about good architecture and practices then all the theory you can read. People who never had to maintain the thing tend to have very theoretical ideas about what is important and what not. You don't know whether your code is maintainable until you had to maintain it for a while.
sleepychu 10y ago
Most of the degree is waste if you want to be a software dev (IMHO). The industry could do really well out of recognizing that it's a vocational occupation and switching to an apprenticeship model.
- pizza 10y ago
  To zeroth degree approximation, colleges are cert-authorities
  - UK-AL 10y ago
    Vocational education normally is certification based.
    - DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
      Is a technically-focused university diploma fundamentally different than a trade-school certification, aside from the particulars of what material was learned?
      - UK-AL 10y ago
        Well the particulars of what taught is exactly the difference. In computer science you will learning about generic concepts like parsers, compilers or whatever. For vocational you would learn about something specific like asp.net mvc.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  In my experience, your point is valid regarding some software jobs, but not all. As I've worked my way into more technically demanding roles, it's been very useful to have a foundation of big-O analysis, the expressive power of different levels in the Chomsky hierarchy, (mathematical) optimization theory, graph theory, compilers, and/or computer architecture. Many of these topics could be learned by a bright person on-demand. However, some of the topics are important to be familiar with before taking on a project, because they let you avoid costly, time-consuming mistakes.
arethuza 10y ago
When I entered the world of work after graduating from a UK CS course in the late 1980s pretty much all employers expected that fresh graduate hires would need ~6 months before actually being a net gain in productivity. You also didn't need to have direct relevant experience as they were expecting to train you up in whatever it was they did. Now managers expect everyone to "hit the ground running" and as one consequence employees are much more careful about only acquiring skills that will be of use when they come to move to their next role. Hardly surprising.
splike 10y ago
The Goldman Sachs graduate training program is a joke. Having gone through it, I doubt that technical training is even the point of it. I think they just get everyone together to have a big holiday so that when the graduates start real work, they have that prebuilt network to help them out. Thats not at all a bad thing, but their technical training is rubbish.
- atemerev 10y ago
  But for the front office, networking _is_ the job :)
  - splike 10y ago
    Oh yeah absolutely, but I was just talking about the Technology division (where almost all CS grads go).
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
If you look at other degrees, it is quite possible to get hired right out of college. Unfortunately, the job might just be management at the local box store. They tend to not care so much about what your degree is in so long as you have one. Nurses generally have no trouble finding work either. "College education these days looks more like a luxury good, not a job prerequisite". This very much depends on the field. I've seen administrative assistant positions that require a college degree, especially if it is at a large company. Sometimes it is just a legal requirement: A school superintendent in indiana needs to have a teaching license. The school business manager doesn't need that - merely a 4 year degree in business, though a masters degree is more normal. You just have to expand the industry you are looking at to find it: obviously, there are lots of exceptions.
ra1n85 10y ago
Some companies love college hires. Big tech firms hold campus hiring events. Many companies aggressively go after college grads. Some even go after juniors for internships (which is great for the company - it's a several month opportunity to vet a candidate without commitment. If things work out, the candidate gets invited to come onboard when they graduate). College hires won't get very exciting work initially. At a fast moving company, they're going to be learning on the job (which means they need to be dynamic/adaptable and curious). Unfortunately, this can mean picking up operational work that more seasoned engineers don't enjoy (however, still a great opportunity to learn and grow for most).

k-mcgrady 10y ago

Most people going into software jobs aren't doing a lot of actual development. I've seen people who aren't techy at all and know nothing about code do a 1 year masters and go into a well paid software dev job at very large companies on a decent salary. The only experience they have is maybe 6 months doing a bit of Java. But at the end of the day they're dealing more with bureaucracy than code and bug fixing of already established systems meaning they don't really need knowledge on good architecture and practices.

nolite 10y ago
That's very hard to believe. What companies have you seen that at?
- watwut 10y ago
  Many guys I know had very little experience beyond few classes in school. Everyone in our year found a job eventually including weakest students. Plenty even studied physics or something similar instead of computer science and then got job in company desperate for people on the basis of "you are smart so we guess you will be able to learn". Actually turned out that if you have brain for physics or math, you can learn programming reasonably fast too. (And ended up being better then weak cs students.) They would not be suitable for all companies and positions obviously, but grasping enough of basics so you can be useful enough to create part of frontend pages/load data from db/whatever with a bit of supervision is not that hard.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  Very common in large businesses like Citi, AllState etc. I know several people who have followed this path. They usually turn out to be people who code very little for a couple of years and then move on to product management roles and things like that.
watwut 10y ago
Having to maintain an older system for a while teaches you more about good architecture and practices then all the theory you can read. People who never had to maintain the thing tend to have very theoretical ideas about what is important and what not. You don't know whether your code is maintainable until you had to maintain it for a while.

sleepychu 10y ago

Most of the degree is waste if you want to be a software dev (IMHO). The industry could do really well out of recognizing that it's a vocational occupation and switching to an apprenticeship model.

pizza 10y ago
To zeroth degree approximation, colleges are cert-authorities
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Vocational education normally is certification based.
  - DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
    Is a technically-focused university diploma fundamentally different than a trade-school certification, aside from the particulars of what material was learned?
    - UK-AL 10y ago
      Well the particulars of what taught is exactly the difference. In computer science you will learning about generic concepts like parsers, compilers or whatever. For vocational you would learn about something specific like asp.net mvc.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
In my experience, your point is valid regarding some software jobs, but not all. As I've worked my way into more technically demanding roles, it's been very useful to have a foundation of big-O analysis, the expressive power of different levels in the Chomsky hierarchy, (mathematical) optimization theory, graph theory, compilers, and/or computer architecture. Many of these topics could be learned by a bright person on-demand. However, some of the topics are important to be familiar with before taking on a project, because they let you avoid costly, time-consuming mistakes.

arethuza 10y ago

When I entered the world of work after graduating from a UK CS course in the late 1980s pretty much all employers expected that fresh graduate hires would need ~6 months before actually being a net gain in productivity. You also didn't need to have direct relevant experience as they were expecting to train you up in whatever it was they did. Now managers expect everyone to "hit the ground running" and as one consequence employees are much more careful about only acquiring skills that will be of use when they come to move to their next role. Hardly surprising.

splike 10y ago

The Goldman Sachs graduate training program is a joke. Having gone through it, I doubt that technical training is even the point of it. I think they just get everyone together to have a big holiday so that when the graduates start real work, they have that prebuilt network to help them out. Thats not at all a bad thing, but their technical training is rubbish.

atemerev 10y ago
But for the front office, networking _is_ the job :)
- splike 10y ago
  Oh yeah absolutely, but I was just talking about the Technology division (where almost all CS grads go).

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

If you look at other degrees, it is quite possible to get hired right out of college. Unfortunately, the job might just be management at the local box store. They tend to not care so much about what your degree is in so long as you have one. Nurses generally have no trouble finding work either. "College education these days looks more like a luxury good, not a job prerequisite". This very much depends on the field. I've seen administrative assistant positions that require a college degree, especially if it is at a large company. Sometimes it is just a legal requirement: A school superintendent in indiana needs to have a teaching license. The school business manager doesn't need that - merely a 4 year degree in business, though a masters degree is more normal. You just have to expand the industry you are looking at to find it: obviously, there are lots of exceptions.

ra1n85 10y ago

Some companies love college hires. Big tech firms hold campus hiring events. Many companies aggressively go after college grads. Some even go after juniors for internships (which is great for the company - it's a several month opportunity to vet a candidate without commitment. If things work out, the candidate gets invited to come onboard when they graduate). College hires won't get very exciting work initially. At a fast moving company, they're going to be learning on the job (which means they need to be dynamic/adaptable and curious). Unfortunately, this can mean picking up operational work that more seasoned engineers don't enjoy (however, still a great opportunity to learn and grow for most).