4 ms·

I see this a lot from small- and medium-sized business owners I interact with from time to time. They want CS graduates who can walk in the door and design and

by glesica 12y ago

I see this a lot from small- and medium-sized business owners I interact with from time to time. They want CS graduates who can walk in the door and design and implement an entire system using a very specific set of (often closed-source, vendor-specific) tools with zero training. And they'd ideally like to pay no more than $40k/yr because, ya know, this person just got out of college! CS knowledge is, I think, valued highly (or at least valued) in the tech sector itself, but once you leave the sphere of companies that make tech products for tech people, or if you happen to be outside one of the major software hubs, the atmosphere can become rather absurd. And who gets blamed by these business owners and managers? The CS programs, because they are clearly just a bunch of ivory tower jackasses who don't want people to have any useful knowledge. Ever. Ugh.

Balgair 12y ago
"but once you leave the sphere of companies ... the atmosphere can become rather absurd" Total agreement here. A lot of the issue is ignorance. Most small to medium business owners and managers do nto code and do not know how to. They see a CS grad as a white, male, 135 lbs., pasty, skinny genius. Just like Bill Gates, Zuck, and countless movie 'hackers'. They expect your skills to be just as good to, ie. able to 'code' a website in minutes and hack NORAD as well. Why? They just plain do not know anything about the discipline. They have to go on what little they do know, and that stuff oversells the CS degree by a lot. I had a boss once that thought I should be able to program a microcontroller in an afternoon. Mind you, the spec sheet is ~650 pages. But he really really did think that it was that easy. Like it was speaking Spanish, it just took a long time to get up to speed, but when you are there, it's super simple. Its the same disconnect as with dentists, accountants, lawyers, and mechanics. Most people can't begin to think in the way required, and they are helpless without you. That breeds resentment and suspicion. To help with these issues, a level of trust needs to be established. You have to trust them, and they you. Many employers think that the trust comes from the degree granting agency. University vetted you, so I can at least trust that you know how to do hacker stuff. Unfortunately, the gulf is so wide between the layman and the professional that trust is ALL you have to go on and a degree is not enough. Possibly a better testing agency, like the Bar, AMA, or ASE is needed as 'hackers' are more and more needed.
incision 12y ago
>'CS knowledge is, I think, valued highly (or at least valued) in the tech sector itself, but once you leave the sphere of companies that make tech products for tech people, or if you happen to be outside one of the major software hubs, the atmosphere can become rather absurd.' Spot on. By my estimation, the most common sort of work in IT has little resemblance to computer science. It's something more along the lines of very environment, industry and proprietary platform specific operations. There's a very wacky disconnect between what's taught in schools, desired by students and expected by employers. I'd liken the situation to one in which mechanical engineers, ASE mechanics and truck drivers were all lumped together as simply 'TI' (Truck Industry). All those roles are needed and all have ready and willing candidates available, but most employers have no clue how to compensate, hire or task each appropriately.
angersock 12y ago
A good part of this is that almost all software engineering is vocational, right? But it isn't always taught that way, and somehow in the public mind CS has become equated with "able to program computers". This sucks two ways: first, it means that people with solid theoretical foundations in CS are derided if they can't--for example--get an iPhone to print to a wireless printer, and second (and worse!) it means that people who want to do something with computers think they can't because they don't have a CS degree. It's a sad state of affairs.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  I may have misinterpreted what you meant by vocational, but no it's not. In my CS program we had maybe 3 programming classes. I learned pretty much all my programming on the job, but my CS program taught me to think about problems differently and it was definitely useful.
- rhizome 12y ago
  Another way of looking at it is that CS graduates are overqualified for 90% of current internet jobs. They are also underqualified, judging from the number of CS grads and upperclassmen asking for help with a Rails tutorial, since CS programs do not actually teach web development. They are also likely to have a fair bit of debt from college loans. This is a great way for companies to prejudice themselves down the salary ladder while overestimating the potential of any one recruit, since the underpaid-and-overqualified are going to want a raise as they become more proficient in the vocational side of programming, and as everybody knows: the best way to get a raise is to change jobs. Rinse and repeat.
  - orware 12y ago
    > CS graduates are overqualified for 90% of current internet jobs. They are also underqualified... This is 100% true for new CS grads I think. It's even true for people like myself (who have been working in industry for over 5 years, but then don't know a particular tool that a new tech job is asking for...if I don't have to use it at my current job, and I can only program small things on the side using a particular language/tool, how does one get the needed experience that the startups want you to know if they won't hire you so you can learn it, firsthand?). I just finished a 3-4 month stint having a past student volunteer with me so I could give him the additional direction and practical experience I knew he needed to actually get a job locally (and web developer positions are few and far between where I live). This is a few years AFTER he had already graduated from San Diego State's CS program. Now with that additional training he was able to get a part-time position at a local web development firm (a foot in the door) and is also on his way to a 2nd interview for a web developer position at our local county office. It hurts when you can see the potential in someone and know that it's not being developed properly because no one else (a.k.a. potential employers) can see it and make the jump to hire the person based on their potential and then give a bit of their time to train that person properly. It's also awesome to know that my past student is going in the right direction now through my guidance (partially) but also through his hard work these past few months to acquire the needed skills :-). P.S. I forgot to mention in our area, most of the graduates of our CS program can't find actual software development jobs (because there are hardly any available) so many of them end up in regular IT work, which makes them even more overqualified (and underqualified) since their schooling really didn't teach them about the IT stuff, per se, so they have to learn a whole lot on the job (once they are even able to get one).
army 12y ago
I think there's also another point, which is that the endpoint isn't to churn out CS students to be good workers that plug immediate needs in industry: it's to produce graduates are going to have the tools to do things better and maybe even put the existing people out of business.
- collyw 12y ago
  I am curious who sets these end points? I studied IT, because I wanted to get a job in it.

by glesica 12y ago

Balgair 12y ago

"but once you leave the sphere of companies ... the atmosphere can become rather absurd" Total agreement here. A lot of the issue is ignorance. Most small to medium business owners and managers do nto code and do not know how to. They see a CS grad as a white, male, 135 lbs., pasty, skinny genius. Just like Bill Gates, Zuck, and countless movie 'hackers'. They expect your skills to be just as good to, ie. able to 'code' a website in minutes and hack NORAD as well. Why? They just plain do not know anything about the discipline. They have to go on what little they do know, and that stuff oversells the CS degree by a lot. I had a boss once that thought I should be able to program a microcontroller in an afternoon. Mind you, the spec sheet is ~650 pages. But he really really did think that it was that easy. Like it was speaking Spanish, it just took a long time to get up to speed, but when you are there, it's super simple. Its the same disconnect as with dentists, accountants, lawyers, and mechanics. Most people can't begin to think in the way required, and they are helpless without you. That breeds resentment and suspicion. To help with these issues, a level of trust needs to be established. You have to trust them, and they you. Many employers think that the trust comes from the degree granting agency. University vetted you, so I can at least trust that you know how to do hacker stuff. Unfortunately, the gulf is so wide between the layman and the professional that trust is ALL you have to go on and a degree is not enough. Possibly a better testing agency, like the Bar, AMA, or ASE is needed as 'hackers' are more and more needed.

incision 12y ago

>'CS knowledge is, I think, valued highly (or at least valued) in the tech sector itself, but once you leave the sphere of companies that make tech products for tech people, or if you happen to be outside one of the major software hubs, the atmosphere can become rather absurd.' Spot on. By my estimation, the most common sort of work in IT has little resemblance to computer science. It's something more along the lines of very environment, industry and proprietary platform specific operations. There's a very wacky disconnect between what's taught in schools, desired by students and expected by employers. I'd liken the situation to one in which mechanical engineers, ASE mechanics and truck drivers were all lumped together as simply 'TI' (Truck Industry). All those roles are needed and all have ready and willing candidates available, but most employers have no clue how to compensate, hire or task each appropriately.

angersock 12y ago

A good part of this is that almost all software engineering is vocational, right? But it isn't always taught that way, and somehow in the public mind CS has become equated with "able to program computers". This sucks two ways: first, it means that people with solid theoretical foundations in CS are derided if they can't--for example--get an iPhone to print to a wireless printer, and second (and worse!) it means that people who want to do something with computers think they can't because they don't have a CS degree. It's a sad state of affairs.

Igglyboo 12y ago
I may have misinterpreted what you meant by vocational, but no it's not. In my CS program we had maybe 3 programming classes. I learned pretty much all my programming on the job, but my CS program taught me to think about problems differently and it was definitely useful.
rhizome 12y ago
Another way of looking at it is that CS graduates are overqualified for 90% of current internet jobs. They are also underqualified, judging from the number of CS grads and upperclassmen asking for help with a Rails tutorial, since CS programs do not actually teach web development. They are also likely to have a fair bit of debt from college loans. This is a great way for companies to prejudice themselves down the salary ladder while overestimating the potential of any one recruit, since the underpaid-and-overqualified are going to want a raise as they become more proficient in the vocational side of programming, and as everybody knows: the best way to get a raise is to change jobs. Rinse and repeat.
- orware 12y ago
  > CS graduates are overqualified for 90% of current internet jobs. They are also underqualified... This is 100% true for new CS grads I think. It's even true for people like myself (who have been working in industry for over 5 years, but then don't know a particular tool that a new tech job is asking for...if I don't have to use it at my current job, and I can only program small things on the side using a particular language/tool, how does one get the needed experience that the startups want you to know if they won't hire you so you can learn it, firsthand?). I just finished a 3-4 month stint having a past student volunteer with me so I could give him the additional direction and practical experience I knew he needed to actually get a job locally (and web developer positions are few and far between where I live). This is a few years AFTER he had already graduated from San Diego State's CS program. Now with that additional training he was able to get a part-time position at a local web development firm (a foot in the door) and is also on his way to a 2nd interview for a web developer position at our local county office. It hurts when you can see the potential in someone and know that it's not being developed properly because no one else (a.k.a. potential employers) can see it and make the jump to hire the person based on their potential and then give a bit of their time to train that person properly. It's also awesome to know that my past student is going in the right direction now through my guidance (partially) but also through his hard work these past few months to acquire the needed skills :-). P.S. I forgot to mention in our area, most of the graduates of our CS program can't find actual software development jobs (because there are hardly any available) so many of them end up in regular IT work, which makes them even more overqualified (and underqualified) since their schooling really didn't teach them about the IT stuff, per se, so they have to learn a whole lot on the job (once they are even able to get one).

army 12y ago

I think there's also another point, which is that the endpoint isn't to churn out CS students to be good workers that plug immediate needs in industry: it's to produce graduates are going to have the tools to do things better and maybe even put the existing people out of business.

collyw 12y ago
I am curious who sets these end points? I studied IT, because I wanted to get a job in it.