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Because then it will be regarded a "softer" engineering domain and the market will implicitly price the alleged lack of rigor accordingly. Just take a look at t

by melony 5y ago

Because then it will be regarded a "softer" engineering domain and the market will implicitly price the alleged lack of rigor accordingly. Just take a look at the gender ratio for "human computer interaction (HCI)" students in CS academia, aka UI/UX designers. It is important that we don't funnel aspiring female engineers into a less rigorous domain just because it is more popular with their gender. The education system should not reinforce stereotypes at such an early stage. If they still want dedicate their career to fiddling with CSS variables after 4 years of education, great. They can do that after mastering foundational CS concepts so the system doesn't accidentally segregate and create a caste of second-class workers.

jahewson 5y ago
You’re really just saying that a CS degree should be used to gatekeep frontend work.
- melony 5y ago
  Sorry if my comment came off that way, I meant the opposite. I am a strong believer in making software engineering more accessible and as anti-accreditation as you can reasonably get. I even believe that the current medical accreditation system ought to be changed to be more in line like law where medical schools admissions are not allowed to solely control the production of doctors. What I meant regarding aspiring female engineers is that those going into the traditional CS route should not have their career choices be subtly influenced by existing industry trends and the tertiary education system should do everything it can to prevent that.
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    That sounds good, but I think their point was that it works in the other direction too and you're ignoring it just because it's status quo. Right now, instead of becoming an expert in HCI, everyone is funneled into classes about database indices because some department chair thinks that "real" computer science is bit-twiddling and cache invalidation. You must specialize in the C before you can learn about the H in HCI. Why not the other way around? I think by far most of the problems that make development difficult are human problems. Why shouldn't we push all the CS students to study psych and writing first?

by melony 5y ago

jahewson 5y ago

You’re really just saying that a CS degree should be used to gatekeep frontend work.

melony 5y ago
Sorry if my comment came off that way, I meant the opposite. I am a strong believer in making software engineering more accessible and as anti-accreditation as you can reasonably get. I even believe that the current medical accreditation system ought to be changed to be more in line like law where medical schools admissions are not allowed to solely control the production of doctors. What I meant regarding aspiring female engineers is that those going into the traditional CS route should not have their career choices be subtly influenced by existing industry trends and the tertiary education system should do everything it can to prevent that.
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  That sounds good, but I think their point was that it works in the other direction too and you're ignoring it just because it's status quo. Right now, instead of becoming an expert in HCI, everyone is funneled into classes about database indices because some department chair thinks that "real" computer science is bit-twiddling and cache invalidation. You must specialize in the C before you can learn about the H in HCI. Why not the other way around? I think by far most of the problems that make development difficult are human problems. Why shouldn't we push all the CS students to study psych and writing first?