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ROTC-Like Program for Nerds
ThatGuyAZ writes "President Clinton announced this morning that he's proposing to put $91 Million into supporting the college educations of computer science students.
I'm wondering how much this might be in response to criticism that too many foreigners were in sensitive positions during the Y2K bug-fix stage. But that's just my guess..."
The problem is in education, and education starts early.
These same funds would be better spent on the younger grades. If this spending was maintained for 20 years, The entire nation would be more educated on CS (and also well stocked with secutiry experts) and how use and apply what they've learned.
_________________________
Hey, what a marvellous career path for a computer science major - the US. Army!
It has all the qualities that suit a hackor best:
*rigid command hierarchy
*formalized attire
*shitty pay
*no respect from the public
*9-5 workday
*guns! (thrown in for ESR, I'm guessing - that clever clinton!)
And on top of all this, you get to work against your ideals by squashing online insurgency! Wonderful! Where can I sign up?
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
the first thing that sprung to my mind before i read the article was an image of a shaved headed teenager in a uniform sitting in trembling attention at a terminal while being yelled at by a smokey the bear hat wearing mean guy about how he 'just kill -9'd his buddy' by not recompiling a kernel correctly.
// literacy
:) )
More funding to computer literacy can do potential good.
// "paranoia"
I remember when the Feds were really obsessed with the "crackers" (literally pirate groups that crack copy protection of software and warez them out) and did these huge and invasive crackdowns that led to the Steve Jackson raiding controversy.
And that small children (I was one of them) were offered cash per person that they would squeal on who is such a cracker. (FYI, I didn't turn anyone in.
Not that this is (or is it?) Clinton's idea.
I don't want to see a "Big Brother" state of teenage computer coders being financially encouraged to turn in and monitor their fellow coders (most of them innocent).
Much of coding is learning from each other and sharing information and understanding. This involves a lot of trust and friendship.
I would hate to see government actions accidentally harming this trust, or the programming community.
P.S. It is not if you are legal what are you afraid of? Government officials/FBI sometimes appear to be ignorant of technology issues, and paranoid of things they don't understand, and many innocent (but suspicious appearing) young children can be harmed by this.
Corrinne Yu
3D Game Engine Programmer
I am thinking back to my first-year computer science classes. There were 180 first-years, bright-eyed and anxious to tackle programming and design and all that associated stuff.
60% dropped out after the first semester.
There were 15 people graduated from the department (including me).
This was not a particularly hard program (there wasn't a lot of math, which frightens some people off). It's just that most people can't hack the program (pun intended).
Computer science was one of the smallest departments too. Why? Well, we may be revered by business, who pay us good salaries to do relatively little work (compared to, say, a bricklayer) because we are in such demand. But do you know what the average high school student's impression (especially a girl) of a computer programmer/engineer/etc. is? Nerd. Dweeb. Egghead. They don't want to be perceived as such, so they pursue other fields that don't have that stigma attached to them. They can take their philosophy, psychology, etc. courses and earn the degrees that will allow them to flip my burgers for the rest of their lives.
Enrollment is on the rise, but people are just beginning to overlook the usual social stigma of being a computer programmer and see that it is not like that and that they can make a lot of money doing it. It's sad--there are student in the program not for the love of doing it, but for the eventual cash.
And that, my friends, is why we will always have a job, even in the toughest recession. Watch the psychology students starve, 600 fighting for one sales position at J.C. Penney's, while we will have our pick of the jobs.
In short, is Clinton wittingly or unwittingly loading people into a channel that Microsoft has surreptitiously bought outright? Maybe it would be better if computer education got _less_ money so people would be forced to think about theory and write their own stuff instead of taking how-to courses on commercial products. The world doesn't start and end with programmers- huge percentages of the computer courses of the world are really "Using Microsoft Works" and the like. Do we want that to become federally subsidized?
See the following link from the President's web site containing the full executive summary of the plan. Page 28 specifically deals with the scholarship plans.
There is also mention of setting up "meaningful" internship programs for college and promising high school students (I noticed a comment somewhere about the need to start the process earlier in a childs academic career). Please remember that this is a proposal, no details have been made public (i.e. eligible schools, amounts of scholarship, years of service required, etc.). I think this is an admiriable idea, and we should support efforts like these. If you have strong feelings regarding the implementation of this plan, WRITE YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES!!!!!
For those of you outside the United States, if you think this plan would help out technology in your country, WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES. For those of you living where your views will not be heard by the powers that be, MOVE/SEEK ASYLUM!!!!
-la
This is an annoying policy which is designed to make Clinton LOOK like he's doing something, but which will a) not actually fix the problems and b) have bad side effects.
Firstly, you can bet that the majority of that 91 million is NOT going into scholarships. The 91 million pays for the entire set of programs being set up, the scholarships are just being trotted out as the poster boy.
Secondly, how exactly is it good to be doling out money for scholarships? Yes, it's nice to be giving bright-eyed young students money for college, but remember that the money that's being given away was collected from the other bright-eyed young students who are having to work their way through school. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Thirdly, the new Clinton program includes the establishment of a new federal beaurocracy that, as usual, will be accountable to NOONE. Like, say, OSHA, or the EPA, agencies who are not directly accountable to the voting public but whose decisions carry the force of law. This is a Bad Thing.
Lastly, it doesn't even address the major problem of technical education in the US, which is that the majority of students that enroll in technical majors get weeded out DELIBERATELY by the universities and colleges that are getting paid to teach them. If only 80% of the people who went into those program graduated from them, we'd double the supply of high-tech workers and researchers immediately! It infuriates me that the attitude (at Penn State, at least) is that "oh, well, 60% will drop out or become business majors, nothing we can do." That should be a mark of failure for the university! An airline which only delivered 40% of its passengers to the destination they desired would be out of business damn fast, let me tell you.
What would I do make the situation better? I'd make the funding given out to colleges and universities dependent on the percentage of people who graduate from the majors of their choice (ignoring voluntary changes of major, and maybe not even then if the voluntary changes aren't really voluntary). Make the institutions of learning have to KEEP their students to earn their suppers!
Polemically yours,
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
You really have to LIKE CS to be good at it, and be good whne you graduate. Those who are just in it for the money are easy to spot, both by us, and hopefully, by companies.
I was talking about this with one of my undergraduate professors. He said that CS class sizes have grown a lot over the past decade. With a larger population of CS students, you would expect more good students, but he saw that the number of really good CS students was constant.
cpeterso