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When the industry will cry for it, universities will magically start offering (and heavily incentivize) Computer Engineering degrees instead of Computer Science

When the industry will cry for it, universities will magically start offering (and heavily incentivize) Computer Engineering degrees instead of Computer Science ones

orev 3y ago
Most (good) computer people don’t learn about computers in university, they learn at home through tinkering. When everything comes in a container and recommends using AWS, there’s no need to bang your head on the wall trying to figure something out, which is what actually leads to learning and tinkering with hardware at home. A few bright spots, however, would be gaming (the constant need to pay attention to new GPUs), and smart home/arduino type stuff.
- spacecadet 3y ago
  Support for home labs! Keep learning everyone.
  - sgarland 3y ago
    Fully agree. I love my rack, and getting to practice things in the safety of an isolated environment. Also, anecdotally, the best SREs I’ve worked with have had homelabs. I maintain it’s a good signal.
lizknope 3y ago
I feel like most of the stuff the author is complaining about is taught in computer engineering and not computer science. Computer engineering curriculums usually focus on lower level subjects and computer science on higher level abstraction. If the author wants people with the lower level skills then they should filter resumes based on the degree. But then they will probably be missing higher level skills. In the end there is not enough time to learn everything in 4 years. If you add a new class then an old class has to be dropped or modified. I'm in integrated circuit / semiconductor design and we aren't going to even look at someone with only a computer science degree. We look at people with electrical and computer engineering degrees. Even a bachelors degree is not really enough anymore. 90% of the new grads we hire have a masters degree and there is still a ton for them to learn on the job.
- tdeck 3y ago
  The thing is, what the original article actually describes as "hardware knowledge" in their examples doesn't even touch on electrical engineering. At most it's stuff you'd expect to learn in an operating systems class, which many CS graduates will take. OP isn't close to asking "wtf is flip flop?" it's more like "wtf is select()?".
  - lizknope 3y ago
    All of which makes me wonder how the author is interviewing people. I've been working over 25 years and interviewed at least 100 people at all levels of experience. The hardest to interview are college students because they have so little real world experience. But that doesn't really matter. If the author thinks people should have 8-bit computer experience then ask the question during the interview. If the author wants to ask about operating system topics then ask those during the interview. I've worked with some interns and new grads that didn't have the skills I thought they should. So I added those things to my list of interview questions.

When the industry will cry for it, universities will magically start offering (and heavily incentivize) Computer Engineering degrees instead of Computer Science ones

orev 3y ago

Most (good) computer people don’t learn about computers in university, they learn at home through tinkering. When everything comes in a container and recommends using AWS, there’s no need to bang your head on the wall trying to figure something out, which is what actually leads to learning and tinkering with hardware at home. A few bright spots, however, would be gaming (the constant need to pay attention to new GPUs), and smart home/arduino type stuff.

spacecadet 3y ago
Support for home labs! Keep learning everyone.
- sgarland 3y ago
  Fully agree. I love my rack, and getting to practice things in the safety of an isolated environment. Also, anecdotally, the best SREs I’ve worked with have had homelabs. I maintain it’s a good signal.

lizknope 3y ago

I feel like most of the stuff the author is complaining about is taught in computer engineering and not computer science. Computer engineering curriculums usually focus on lower level subjects and computer science on higher level abstraction. If the author wants people with the lower level skills then they should filter resumes based on the degree. But then they will probably be missing higher level skills. In the end there is not enough time to learn everything in 4 years. If you add a new class then an old class has to be dropped or modified. I'm in integrated circuit / semiconductor design and we aren't going to even look at someone with only a computer science degree. We look at people with electrical and computer engineering degrees. Even a bachelors degree is not really enough anymore. 90% of the new grads we hire have a masters degree and there is still a ton for them to learn on the job.

tdeck 3y ago
The thing is, what the original article actually describes as "hardware knowledge" in their examples doesn't even touch on electrical engineering. At most it's stuff you'd expect to learn in an operating systems class, which many CS graduates will take. OP isn't close to asking "wtf is flip flop?" it's more like "wtf is select()?".
- lizknope 3y ago
  All of which makes me wonder how the author is interviewing people. I've been working over 25 years and interviewed at least 100 people at all levels of experience. The hardest to interview are college students because they have so little real world experience. But that doesn't really matter. If the author thinks people should have 8-bit computer experience then ask the question during the interview. If the author wants to ask about operating system topics then ask those during the interview. I've worked with some interns and new grads that didn't have the skills I thought they should. So I added those things to my list of interview questions.