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Overspecialization in the Computer Field?

Posted by Cliff on from the has-anyone-else-noticed-this dept.

The Mainframe asks: "I visited a nameless college campus recently and was shocked at the degree of specialization within the student body. Of the many CS and other IT-related majors that I talked to, not a single one had any real breadth of experience. Web developers knew Perl, but couldn't tell Apache from MySQL. C++ coders knew their language, as long as it was presented in Microsoft Visual C++. I suspect if I'd asked them to use G++ they would have said 'bless you'. Essentially, I'm worried. I plan to do some very interesting things in the next few years, but I'm not going to be able to pull it off if I have to wade through 100 narrow-minded people for every 1 useful human being. Is this something that other employers and co-workers have been having a lot of problems with? Is the whole world having to show its database developers how to use a copying machine?"

2 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. In Australia by droyad · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm a student at an Australian University. I believe that we get a well rounded education. In my Software Engineering/Data Communications course we learn about:

    - Java, c, c++
    - Software engineering process
    - Perl and web development
    - Internet, TCP/IP stack
    - OSI
    - Linux/Unix commands
    - GCC, grep, etc
    - Databases, SQL

    There's an emphisis on theory not actual programs used. They do not tie us to any specific program. They recomend that we use a basic text editor for coding, none of this IDE stuff. And specific products are only mentioned if it makes sense (ie cisco stuff)

  2. Then Hire Someone with a Non-CS Degree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    My degree is in the humanities (won't say what field). I work as a programmer. I can do anything from QBasic to COBOL to PERL to Pascal. Why? 'cause I learned it on my own.

    Universities are not the place for technical training. Universities are the place to learn how to learn. Those universities who think that training in the latest & greatest products, training vocationally, is the way to serve their students are going to see their endowments drop when the percentage of grads with jobs collapses in four or five years (when those latest and greatest technologies are extinct).