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Tech Training Schools Going Bust
superflippy writes "The Associated Press reports that many tech training schools which opened during the last few years are now shutting their doors. During the dot-com boom, there was the perception that a few months of computer training could lead to a fabulous job. Now, it seems all these schools have produced are unemployed people with student loans and dubious certifications."
at least they are unemployed with only a few months worth of student loans.
seems downright enviable from my position with four years worth of loans.
lysergically yours
Funny, that doesn't seem to stop them from running ads that say "40,000 new IT jobs are opening up every year! Train now for a rewarding career!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
During the dot-com boom, there was the perception that a few months of computer training could lead to a fabulous job.
Perception? How soon we forget - that actually happened. It happened all over silicon valley.
We'll have another unsustainable tech boom as soon as everyone forgets those mistakes entirely.
And that is exactly why these schools are as successful as they are.
Or, is today opposite day?
Well if we thin out the population of tech schools some, the more reputable colleges (in my case Cal Poly Pomona) will look a little better, and that degree will mean more. Therefore maybe IT degrees will mean something again...well we can hope anyways...
...in bed
Well, no, I'm not really shocked :)
Disclaimer: several bachelor's and master's degrees work for me, as well as several no-degree people with strong skills, but as far as I know, no "certificates", which is the way I like it.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
CTO, Immunix Inc.
These schools churned out tons of useless "educated" people with little added value from their educational experience. The only purpose that these institutions had was to dilute the talent within the IT and computer engineering fields. I say good riddance!
I mean seriously - I was a director-level IT manager at two multi-national companies over the past 12 years, and neither I, nor any of my peers, would even think about hiring someone from one of these tech schools.
Even the smallest amount of real-world experience was far more useful than several months of training at these schools. Sure, they learned a few rote solutions, but I can teach those to a new recruit who shows a bit of intelligence in a short time.
In fact, for an entry-level position, give me a liberal arts grad with a bit of tech knowledge learned on their home computer, and I've got the makings of an excellent eomployee. People who can read, write and converse are better candiates than many of the "tech school" grads I ran into.
Frankly, I never felt these schools were worth anything, and if they are now closing, all the better.
Certifications aren't completely obsolete as long as one has realistic expectations. Tech is like any other industry -- certification/education gets you an entry-level job with an entry-level salary. To advance past that, it's based on your experience and accomplishments.
I would wager that the schools who are not doing well and forced to close their doors are the same ones running the ad's that state there are a ton of IT jobs,and then take $18,000 from you to learn test questions. But places like Globalnet and the likes who ACTUALLY teach real world use still thrive. If you don't believe me feel free to contact them and ask why they have to turn away students because their class is full. So this is a good thing in my mind. Let the schools who charge obscene amounts of money to learn the test questions go bankrupt, because the ones who teach real world experience will always be here.
**It runs through my veins like radioactive rubber pants! Do not deny my veins!**
This is from an Air-Force perspective, so think what you will:
The military is based around taking people who know very little and teaching via tech schools. We do quite well. We can take someone with virtually no computer knowledge and turn them into a basic sysadmin in about 6 months. Within 2 years, the cream will rise and those are quite impressive. Of the rest, some will transfer to administrative (paperwork) jobs and be promoted. Others will get out and become a burden to AT&T or WorldCom. But the system DOES work.
The main difference between the military and the commercial world is that we actually care about our people. Where your company provides very little in the way of mentorship, I will nurture my people till they find their sweet spot. Some will learn from books I reccomend, others from college I allow them to attend during working hours. More still will need me to hold their hands and walk them through tasks until they catch on.
Most civilians see coworkers (you call them cow-orkers) as competition. That's why a lot of good sysadmins will never develop after their civilian tech schools.
You and your company may see on-the-job training as a waste. Well, you are missing out on a lot of good people. Instead of a college grad demanding $50k+, you could look to the sub-$20k market of tech-school grads. Give them some training. Promote those who deserve it, fire those who screw up.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
In my experience the better tech people are the ones that grew up playing with the stuff as a hobby, not the ones who heard that there are money/jobs available in the field and then sign up at a tech school. I'm not going to cry for the tech schools. Go get a CS degree instead.
The problem isn't too many techs! The problem is too many BAD techs! Being a tech is more than a certificate. I know computer science majors who have never opened up a machine. I had someone with a Master's in Computer Informational Systems ask me if I could point out to her the "virtual memory" inside the computer. I know a system admin who keep disks running at 99% capacity and wonder why he get disk errors.
The idea that tech == money has contributed to many people going into tech that haven't any interest in it.
I am both self-taught and self-employed, and I have never once had a client ask me about my college degree (I don't have one, by choice), certifications, grades, diplomas, or anything else related.
When I managed a computer store and someone came in who was A+ certified, it was almost a strike against them. I found repeatedly that the technicians that were self-taught were far better at maintaining their skills in a rapidly changing environment.
I place zero value in any of these certifications.
The amazing thing is that you can start a small business for the price of a UoP diploma.
I really do believe that certain certifications have a little bit of value as I've known many incompetent people in the IT fields who would've not been able to pass even the A+ or Network+ tests.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Sorry to burst your bubble, but certs mean little nowadays. People on the NANOG list, SF lists, IPSlists they all argue this. Companies who hire strictly on certs should be ashamed of themselves. Now I'm not saying all cert holders are stupid, hell many know their stuff inside out, but studying for an exam is not equivalent to knowing your stuff.
How many people have come across someone on a mailing list asking for help for typical stuff all the while their attachment has their proudly pimped status written on it... CCNA, CCDP, CISSP. I've seen them all, and I've seen one too many times big corporations with clueless rejects administrating their networks:
I don't mean to pick on this one person, I know too many times I see the same stuff over and over, and wonder how the hell could companies hire clueless people. I remember I worked for a company who if you sent a resume in with your newly acquired MSCE cert staus you met Mr. Shredder. I also remember meeting three people who supposedly had CCNA's only to find out they were forgeries and the company I was working for never checked them. So again, from my perspective certs mean you have the capability to read and grasp something, but admining something at 4:00am is a different story altogether.MoFscker
I know someone who used to teach at University of Pheonix. First, he told me that even though he was teaching beginning C++, the school wanted him to teach it in a discussion based class. Second, must students expected a passing grade just for the fact that they paid a lot of money.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Honestly There needs to be Tech schools out there that have 90%+ Failure rates of students that Just don't have the aptitude to work with computers.. But the only problem then would be to get students into the school and fill up the classes so they can make money.... Thats the problem... Mostly tech schools fail to Properly teach students proper skills... instead they drown them in technical procedure and text books and think they will learn something... When ever i see a tech school grad I allways ask them for a difficult problem and their solution to it.. 99.99999+ of them are Stumped when I ask them how their solution relates to the theory of the actual problem. 90%+ Tech school grads don't have any idea at all on proper troubleshooting techniques the vast Majority use what I call the "Pin The Tail on the Donkey" approach to troubleshooting.. and I can't half blame them ... as the come out of a tech school armed with enough knowledge and confidence to be blind and dangerous in their abilities to admin anything but their home PC. That or they only use half of the Cause and Effect aproach.. The see The Cause and its effects but think nothing of the effects of their solution once its implemented Causing problems again that are usually worse..
Its usually a horrible situation with tech grads that do not have a firm background in computers... You usually have to break them and completely retrain them and show them how to utilize their knowledge they obtained in school...
But there are many many different shades of bad techs out there.. and as of late more of them are becoming fluent in linux and can get by alot of questions in that area and still be dangerous... But the "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" approach is allways a sure sign of a tech you shouldn't hire unless you have time and resources to retrain them if their personality isn't resistant to it.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Here is another wonderful example: A kid finishes a university, does not really learn anything except to kiss ass, starts working for a major company, works there as tech support, decides it's not enough money, goes to another company and after a couple of months of 'programming' moves into more senior position by presenting other people ideas as his own. The kid never stops to do that because it seems to work really great for him, the salary grows, so do the lies and brown-nosing. The kid with only 2 months of programming and 2 years of 'architecture' moves into management positions by playing golf with the 'right' people. The others who work their asses of watch the kid zoom by them even though literally everyone knows how he is doing that, only management does not care, they like flattery and lies and backstubbing. Well, the kid is still there.
I would never want to work anywhere around such people but there seems to be an abundance of those.
You can't handle the truth.
These firms are run by people that have already made thier money, at significant taxpayer expense, and are now looking for another path to mooch of the corporate welfare system. The actual closing of the schools is insignificant, as the damage is already done.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Opening up a machine is not part of Computer Science. You might as well criticize Political Science majors for not holding public office.
Amen.
> >Outsourcing to India
You had to say that didn't you? Can't be just out- sourcing in general. Do you know how many "tech" centrers and "universities" and "institutes" were started in India? probably more that it was started here in the US. and after the dot-com bubble burst probably 60 to 70 % of them went belly up. US in not alone in this situation.
Honest answer?
Probably not. If you are going into academia or scientific research or some similar field, then MAYBE a CS degree will teach you what you need to know.
But where do most techies end up? Programmer or network admin at a BUSINESS. Precisely where they are most destined to fail. Why does this happen, well, if you listen to the posts on slashdot, then you might infer that CS grads are unusually predispositioned to develop:
1. Arrogance about their chosen fields that causes them to think that the 'suits' running the business are somehow idiots, despite the fact that these same 'suits' make 10 times more money than they and are effectively running a real live business in most cases (of course exceptions apply, idiots do exist, but in nowhere near the numbers most slashdotters think).
2. A general disdain for their non-computer literate co-workers.
3. A complete inability to interact with other humans in person.
4. A singular lack of understanding about the most basic principles of business and economics.
5. A myopic focus on the mechanics of software, hardware, and the like, rather than focusing on delivering solutions that enable real people to work faster or smarter.
The modern CS degree program could use a major face-lift, including significant coursework in:
- Human psychology
- Principles of business and economics
- Public speaking
Until that happens, my hiring preference is humanities graduates with several years experience and proof of delivering real solutions to real user-bases.
"That naive cube! How long must I suffer this!" --Sheldon J. Plankton
Frontpage or other tools (Dreamweaver) are very helpful to the professionals because they don't have to type up all the code. I read that in "Professional JavaScript" and that they are called Rapid Developement Tools or something. But I agree with you, you should have at least some idea what you are doing.
As a professional, I'll afraid I hafta respectfully disagree with you, or at least disagree with "Professional JavaScript". All of those autogenerating HTML Word Processors produce bloated, difficult to maintain, HTML.
They are helpful early on when you are unfamiliar with all the HTML tags and their attributes, but you learn over time that nothing beats a great text editor (yay vim) and blind memorizing of the HTML tags.
Additionally, at least with Dreamweaver 4 (which was the last WYSIWYG HTML editor I ever used), it totally obliterated any decent intentation system.
They might be useful for whipping up a nonfunctional prototype, but when developing a fully functional complex Web application, raw text is the only way to go.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
Not only that, to the truly outstanding techies a "certification" is a badge of downright dishonor.
Look at the some of therequirements. it says things like "Create and Manage user accounts."
It doesn't say "be super-duper geek computer god with 133t slashdot powers"
A friend of a friend asked me to help him with a final project for one of his classes at ITT Tech. This was a project in ASP for an online bookstore. He was nearing completion of his associates degree in Web Design, and when I got there to show him things, he knew nothing at all. Not even HTML...
Amen. I work at a consulting company that does web hosting for some clients on the side. Every 2 months I get someone calling me up asking me to move their site over to the frontpage server at the request of their new web designer.
The "web designer" always has a go at making things work on the unix server, but they get stuck trying to do something trivial like a no-frills form mailer. On the phone I mention to them that they could do this with Javascript or a simple CGI program on the server end that I'd even set up for them. They then go on and describe to me in a very roundabout manner (so as to avoid embarrasing themselves at all costs) that they've never even heard of these things before, and they don't understand anything but frontpage. So I move their site over, at greater monthly expense to the client.
I thought the dot-com bust would have shaken these people out of the IT industry and into mcdonald's and walmart where they belong. I really hoped it would, but it hasn't. It seems that the people who are good at lying, bullshit and buzzwords and wear a nice suit are lasting longer than the people who can tell a div tag from their ass hole.
I think emotions run high over the issue of certifications because it's perceived as an unfair screening process. People who are good test-takers can pass these exams easily. But qualified techs are not always good test takers, and those who are not resent the upstarts who get ahead because they are. Certs may not be the best indicator of technical ability, but they are still a credential in the eyes of HR.
Tassach (137772) wrote : "There are some good tech schools and some bad ones. I went through AF programmer tech school in '89, and it was, IMHO, pretty much a waste of time. IIRC the 12 week course consisted of: 2 weeks intro to basic computing concepts (basically the OSI network model), 3 weeks of pseudocode, 4 weeks of Cobol, 2 weeks of assembly, and 1 week of ADA. As far as I can tell, the purpose of this "training" was to weed out the people who couldn't understand the basics like looping and control structures. My real training happened once I got to my permanent duty station, where I was fortunate enough to work with some *brilliant* people who taught me how to develop good software. (Thanks Capt. Block!) "
So, where are the bad and where are the good schools? anyone?
Passion for work doesn't come out of ANY college of ANY type.
Yeah, but it stands to reason that someone who was willing to go through four years of college and get a degree in something technology-related had some passion for what they're studying.
Many if not most of the people going through these MCSE mills are only interested in making a lot of money, and don't care how.
~Philly
Interesting points.
My career isn't over yet, so who knows, but I may be a corrolary argument. I think having your eyes opened from a good diverse university experience can prepare you for business, even if your path was CS.
I've got a CS degree.
I've been in the field for approximately 8 years. I've worked up to management level, but am still in a technical role - primarily acting as a generalist, helping develop corporate IT strategies and providing coordination and communication both to director-level management above me and technologists below me.
Until a few years ago I looked at things much the way you describe - focused on the mechanics of software creation. Don't get me wrong - there's a huge share of business-focused people whose idea of work is 5 hours of talking about their kids, 30 minutes of coffee breaks, an hour of lunch, and 90 minutes of focused work. However, if you find some good development or corporate leaders, they demonstrate quite quickly how naive it is to be focused on the mechanics of software creation.
There's a heck of a lot more to focus on and weight appropriately if you want to successfully run a business. Managing to a P&L or the amount of dynamics an organization can cope with is significantly harder than choosing among several technical alternatives to find the one with the most merit - in a lot of cases that choice with the most merit may be impossible for the business to take on.
A part of me will always crave the "look back and see how much grass you've cut" qualitative nature of software creation, but there are significantly more challenging problems in leading IT, and they often require more in the way of personal devotion to achieve a solution.
Generally, people with the aptitude and attitude to be successful in IT don't choose tech schools -- they choose a university with a genuine 4-year technical degree, or they get a computer and teach themselves real programming (not HTML creation with Frontpage). The tech schools then get left mostly with people who could do neither.
Of course, the weak curricula doesn't help them either. But it's the quality of the people they attract that is the deciding factor.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
I propose a new Shashdot rule:
You can't bash any Cert. or Degree until you've earned it. Otherwise it's just sour grapes. Let those who've taken the time and effort to improve themselves decide its value.
I know that we're about to be overwhelmed with claims that:
1.) Certs are useless.
2.) Tech schools are useless
3.) BS degrees are useless
4.) Experience is GOD (and you can't get any)
and we'll hear stories like:
1.) I knew an MCSE who couldn't find the power switch on my server.
2.) My friend graduated from a Tech school and earned his CCIE and he can't even read.
3.) I never graduated from elementary school and I'm the most productive employee in my company's IT department.
Well isn't that special (and meaningless)
There are good and bad everything. Schools and certs are no different (except that they are harder to outsource).
I do contend that now IS the time to get into IT. If schools are closing, and no one wants to go into Tech then we're on our way to an eventual shortage. Shortage equals Opportunity.
I have an interesting view on things since I do computer support for a research university (University of Arizona). I'm full-time staff, but also have been taking classes and am about to get an undergrad degree not at all related to computers. My technical skills are all self and on the job learning. And I do have a couple certs.
I am wary of university degrees as well as certs because I see two big thing that happen with alarming frequency:
1) Assembly-line grads. These are people that go to school to get a job. Period. They generally do quite well in class and they totally devote themselves to school. But notice I say school, not their education. They learn what they need to learn to graduate. They do not learn how to think on their own, and do not learn what they are doing MEANS.
Like CS grads that don't undersand how microprocessors or operating systems work. So you can write code, great, but do you know what your code DOES? How does it get translated? What is it ACTUALLY causing the system to do?
These people I find become the stereotypical "code monkey". They can write code well, but lack the ability to solve unique or complex problems, or solve them with a hack if at all. They also tend to be bound to only languages they've learned, and can't pick up new ones quickly since they understand only the language, not the language as a means to program an imperitive device.
2) Ivory-tower, out-of-touch, academics. These are the people I support. It amazes me how clueless and out of touch some of these professors are. They know lots of theory but little application, and often are stumped because the tech world changes so fast. They also tend to get walled in and can think only about their narrow field, and can't apply their knowledge to anything, even if it is very similar and they should be able to understand it.
Now this certianly isn't ALL grads and professors, there are a great many quality ones, but this is MANY of them. There are plenty of people who's BS is just a bunch of BS. They have minimal real abilities.
So what does this have to do with certs? Well, they, like degrees, can be representitive or not representitive of someone's skills and knowledge. Ya, if someone has no practical experience and just crams a book to get a cert, you're going to get a person with a head full of useless facts that they can't apply to anything. However if someone who works doing something gets a cert, it is a confirmation of their knowledge, and also in the process probably helps them round it out.
My CCNA was quite valuable to me because it forced me to learn about IPX and some WAN technologies. I had plenty of experience with routing and switching on quite a large LAN, plenty with IOS and so on. However all I knew about WANs was the basic link types. I could tell you the bandwidth about a given link but little more. Of IPX, I knew even less. The CCNA forced me to learn how frame relay worked, how IPX was routed, and take the time to go and set some up in the process of learning. All in all, it made me round out network knowledge in ways I otherwise wouldn't have. CCNP study is now doing the same thing to a much greater degree.
So certs, like degrees, are what you make of them. If you take them as a confirmation of skills and a leaning experience, they will help you. You'll learn thing and you might not otherwise in your chosen field. If you just take them as a series of tests to be passed, you'll come out with little in the way of real knowledge or skills.
I think both certs and degrees are things to look for. They give you indications of areas that a person ought to be knowledgable and skilled in. For example if you are looking for a network guy, the Cisco certs are a good thing to watch for. Do the necessiarly mean they are good? No, but that is something you then test for both by looking at job experience and with questions.
My favourite way is to pick something they ought to REALLY understand, based on their alleged skill set and question
I agree with you. I have interviewed numerous ppl for jobs that have come up where I work. These jobs are tech related, some whom i've interviewed had those so-called elite certs e.g. CISSP, MCSE, and god of all knowing certs, and some who that do not. But ask one of those elite dudes/gals to describe what a top level domain is? his honest answer was, "I don't know" I asked one fellow, who I recommended we hire, because he was smart with other things that were asked, had common sense, and on the way out asked my boss if he could talk to me again, and on the way out, he asked me, what is a top level domain? I explained. Try it in your next interview. :)
Or maybe something like... "Looking at the entire internet, what network topology would you describe best fits?"
Common sense.
I don't think the point was about simply opening a PC and LOOKING at it. Rather, it was about knowing what is inside the PC. What's the point of opening up a PC and not knowing what's inside it? So a better analogy is: how many mechanical engineers can fix cars or know what is inside of it? Not many. However, a mechanic, as opposed to a mechanical engineer, will know aobut the inside of a car.
With comp sci/engineering, it's the same thing. You don't need to know what's inside the computer because most people don't fix computers. Fixing computers is generally left to technicians. However, what you DO need to know is how the components work and how to design something.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
THe example taken is a legitimate question of sombody that is clearly getting to grips with the vagueries of Solaris in particular and UNIX in general.
This person is not claimin he is a guru or that he is a super duper certified Batman.
If that is the best example you could come with, it clearly show things are not as you make them appear to be.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.